Life

Salad Called My Name

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Salad and I haven’t really been talking much of late. In fact, we’ve been on the outs.

Although it’s been a warm winter out this way, soup, veggie pizza and many other vegetable concoctions have really been hogging the conversation. Salad just didn’t seem to have much to say.

It’s not like Salad and I don’t get along. We go way back. But as of late? Salad’s mind seemed somewhere else and so did mine. I started to wonder if it was really over. You know … OVER.

But then while food shopping this past weekend, Salad caught my eye in some half-pleading, half-come-hither kind of way. Next thing you know, some veggies I hadn’t entertained in my cart in a while were along for the ride. And on their way home with me.

And then, fellow blogger D. LaSauce, featured this beautifully plated salad yesterday. It felt like a conspiracy, but Salad was somehow working the magic behind the scenes.

Lunch today? Salad totally had me. Called my name and I waltzed to the kitchen helplessly in thrall and put together the tasty organic dish you see above. That’s Spring baby greens, red onion, cucumber, orange bell pepper, and feta cheese tossed with light salt and pepper, extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice.

That Salad’s a pretty clever one, eh?
Being back together is always sweet and Salad knows it.

Friendship

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

For my wonderful friends … those blessing my present and those who have blessed my past … 

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.  ~Arnold Glasow

A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.  ~Donna Roberts

You can always tell a real friend:  when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.  ~Laurence J. Peter

We are the captains of our own ships sailing the sea of life, but in times of a stormy weather, you will discover true friends when they don’t hesitate to be a lighthouse.  ~Dodinsky

If you’re alone, I’ll be your shadow.  If you want to cry, I’ll be your shoulder.  If you want a hug, I’ll be your pillow.  If you need to be happy, I’ll be your smile.  But anytime you need a friend, I’ll just be me.  ~Author Unknown

Friendship is Love with jewels on, but without either flowers or veil.  ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.  That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.  ~Emily Kimbrough

And perhaps my favorite …

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.  “Pooh!” he whispered.  “Yes, Piglet?”  “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw.  “I just wanted to be sure of you.”  ~A.A. Milne

Catching the Light

/ still a dreamer

How often have you been in the presence of a small magical moment and wished you had your camera? It doesn’t have to be anything groundbreaking … sometimes just a brief few seconds in which the light was brilliant and soon would pass?

As I enjoyed the luxury of journaling this morning, the sun had risen and was angling its light on the small pool of light blue marbles in the plate on my coffee table. As Spring approaches, I put away fall and winter candles and decor, and had just recently encircled a vanilla pillar candle with a small pool of blue in which this little bluebird could wade. The sharp sunlight was just dancing off these simple blue gems, and both they and the textured glass plate beneath were sparkling.

There was only a small window of time to catch this light before the sun rose further. I couldn’t help but smile broadly at this scintillating vignette … photographing it was just a reminder of how happy we can be when we are truly in the moment. It still never fails to amaze me.

Check back soon and I’ll show you who I captured in this warm, morning light.

Loving Is Easy, Loving Is Hard

/ still a dreamer / 6 Comments

Falling in love is always the easy part. Then it gets complicated. Why? Because “the other” has their own ways, their own ideas, their own habits, their own fears.

It doesn’t matter if “the other” is human or animal; no matter how hard we try, we cannot help but bring our own hopes, expectations, ideas, habits and fears to the table. Case in point – an animal one – elsewhere on this blog, I have mentioned that I feed a small feral cat with tuxedo markings whom I’ve named Little Fee. He’s been coming around since he was 9 months old or so, and that was the summer of 2009. He comes like clockwork for breakfast and dinner, and snacks in between from the bowl on my back porch when not chased away by one of the cats next door.

If not waiting for me on the back porch, he comes to his name when called. Yet he is extremely fearful and will not be touched or approached. He has never been missing for more than 2 days, and that was only after severe snowstorms. But now he is missing 2-1/2 days. What has happened to him?

The scenarios for a feral cat are … 1) Hit by a car  2) attacked by another animal  3) injured and laying low somewhere while healing  4) accidentally trapped in a shed, garage, etc.  5) poisoned  6) trapped by a human and removed with any number of intentions – to be neutered and returned, taken to the local shelter and/or to be killed. None but one of them are good. And there is nothing I can really do about any of them.

One of the things about loving another – be it human or animal – is that it is always fraught with risk.  Perhaps the greatest risk is giving up control, for it is the one thing we cannot have when another being is involved, or at least not without potential harm to ourselves or them. And one of the things about loving and caring for a feral cat, I see, is that I have no control at all.

And still we, in all our yearning humanity, risk loving again and again, knowing that we cannot control much … only our own thoughts, really. We can offer the best of ourselves to another being, offer our love, and then it’s out of our hands.

As for me, I keep intermittent vigil at my back door … watching and hoping … hoping my voice, my love, can bring this small being back and help heal him, if needed; hoping he’s not gone forever.

UPDATE, MARCH 1 –

The Fee has returned! In one of my porch checks late last night there he was, looking none the worse for wear, a bit hungry, and happy to be fed. Breathing easier at last.

A Teensy Sign

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

You know how when you’re really busy and/or distracted and/or not feeling 100%, (or whatever), something can happen and you shrug it off, chalk it up to “it couldn’t be helped?” But then the next day you’re kind of bummed about it?

Well, after running around on Saturday, I was pretty tired at night, so decided to leave my front earrings in, no big deal. Didn’t bother even checking them. Small studs rarely come out overnight. Except … I woke up Sunday morning, and one of them, indeed, was missing. I did a search of the likely places it could have gone, and then, just chalked it up to “whatever.”

But as the day wore on, I was bummed about it. They are these cool little Celtic knots, and had become my “go-to” earrings when I couldn’t decide what to put in my ears, or needed something simple to complement a busy shirt or scarf … my back-up earrings. Damn. Now I was really bummed at the prospect of never having them to wear again. Who knows when or where I got them? OK, so be it. Life goes on; this is the small stuff.

So now it’s Monday morning, a boatload of stuff to do, and I lean over to see how the stain on my “Berber” living room carpet is coming along – the cat vomit one I had Nature-Miracled to death – and there’s the earring, hiding in plain sight. I still find it bizarre how such a tiny thing – quite literally, too – can so brighten a day; I was grinning from ear to ear, and felt like I ought to be thanking somebody. Was I just plain lucky? (Since I don’t believe in coincidences, I tend to doubt that.) I could go on with my own personal conjectures, but I won’t. What it seemed like to me – as these seemingly insignificant instances in all our lives can be – was that it was a sign – a teensy one – that all was well.

And you know what? I’ll take it.