Would you believe Pen,

On Sunday I was attacked by a seagall.

Let me explain. The day started innocently enough. Wendy agreed to be a champ and come with me up the coast. We get breakfast. She is ever generous with gas money and wildflower seeds. We stop and taste honey. The one I bought of course mom explained is the one everyone buys. Orange. I have already in the first slip fallen into mediocrity. But we venture on. We witness a bmw bike being knocked over at a gas station, (As another man who had been having a dialogue with himself rushes over in loose fitting leather pants to help....) and the man not being able to pick it back up. I feel that should be a requirement of purchase, but nevermind. Up the coast we go. I am already having second thoughts, not having thought this through and already so far along. We pull up and I can't bring myself to pay $10. I haven't packed a lunch. It is already near to 12. I ask the kids at the gate about seaweed. She's like, um, we like, totally have seaweed. I say, can i go look at it. She's like, um... yes? She says, Just park in the 20minute spot. So we do and I'm already a little down at the sight of hightide and already drying out clumps and twists. But there is some- it is out there. Though not in mass quantity and cleverly hidden like black uninteresting blobs. I am sad now i didn't collect more- of course- that i didn't keep going down the stretch of beach but nevermind.

We head back down to ventura. We get gas. I pull up on the wrong side. I have to enter the transaction at least 3x. It cuts me off at $50 but i leave it at that. There's no bathroom. But there's an in/out close and delicious fries await. We make it to the beach, find parking close and bring our bounty to sit on the rocky shore. We are distracted by the seal, distracted as it comes out of the water and seems to be having a dialogue with the 2 young girls. Too distracted to see that one by one large LARGE white gulls are beginning to perch by us. One by one. Talking to one another. We immediately bring up Birds. Wendy confesses a fear of them since but she recovers quickly as one dive bombs her head. We think that was close. I think odd. Bold behavior. I take a 3rd, maybe fourth bite of my double double and thats when it happens. Swoosh. And the bastard takes my burger. But the meat insultingly tumbles out into deep sand as they rip apart the packaging. Never in my life have I had to take revenge on mutinous mineminemine birds. But there are enough pebbles and rocks close by as one by one i take aim.

Wendy even lets me have half of her burger as I still angrily eye the birds who dare to flap back. Toss.Toss.Toss. Thud.Thud.Thud. The packs of dolphins feeding nearby eventually turn me from my hurling rock enterprise. We read poetry. We grow cold in the wind and decide to go but not before I get a few more shots in. Never in my life. I shake my head. We drive back down inland. We get cherries which are sadly not that sweet. I get fizzy water. And wendy gets purple licorice. We make it back into town and she drives off homeward. And then i think, what a curious day.

m-
ps.
My kitty cat Marley is holding steady. I think we decided to spoil him rotten with tuna and forgo dental surgery for now since the infection is gone, as we think he got into something which made him sick and just happened to uncover bad teeth. We'll see. Pampering may just continue into his future.

Also, I finished Hunger Games. It is a catchy read. I did find for all that the end dreadfully rushed and you know what I'm talking about. So SO rushed! COme ON. Kudos for plot twists though despite the somewhat  flimsy philisophical treatise on why war is bad and why peace is good-*duh*- BUT page-turner. I think it would make a good tv episodic on the sci-fi channel. I would totally watch.

ttyl.

The Progress of Shingles...

More Shingles,

dear one,

i'm going to write about the redemptive gift eventually. i wanted to write it today but i don't know if i have the headspace. so onward to more babbling stuff. like the awesomeness of bridesmaids. i started laughing at this one part when sookie is on top of the blonde girl and slapping her and asking her about her spark* and saying you're the problem, you're the solution. remember that part- i gawfawed? no one laughed. a teenager was overheard saying, why is that funny? i was like only the depth of more years will explain why that's funny. but maybenot. maybe i need sookie to jump on me and demand if i have some fight in me left after all.. so,

i've done yoga. which at the end there were too many forward bends and i had to stop as i still have intermittent- i dont know- discomfort? but then i picked grapefruit, put dishes away, fed some of the birds. perhaps my energy is truly rebounding? yesterday i even painted the base coat on a series of canvases. of course my engineering fgrade got the better of me as the clamps were ineffective- one crashed to the ground, another onto me. and oil paint is toxic and i can tell my skin starts reacting against it- its called gloves, i know. but i dont have any. not painting ones-- i just need some light fabric gloves maybe? eh. well anyway there it is. surely i warned myself against painting inside but i did it anyway and now the sheets on my chair have blue spots and theres a light blue haze on the floor/chair matt. alas. i dont have a plan b yet.

and marley is doing better. more irrascible but still costly dental work awaits him? maybe? mom has to decide. i would hope if we do it, it'll give him a couple more years he wouldn't have had otherwise. poor kitty. stemming the decay of the curse is expensive and mostly expected. the question is, will it resolve the issue or is it a shot in the dark? or 50/50? either way soft foods and pampering await him for the rest of his life. my pastor when i went to prayer walk with him on thursday wondered in a polite way if we were just going to go ahead and put him to sleep then? if he's that-old? i gave a sigh and thought certainly when my peer here gets to heaven he will not be allowed anywhere near the animals. he's never had cats. i dont even know if they own dogs. it makes me suspicious. there is something non-pet people just dont understand. i mean hello- SIXTEEN years. he's been around 1/2 my life yo. doesnt he deserve our best? anyWAY.

i've got to find some snacks to take with me before the prayer council meeting. perhaps a practice in futility but surely not? just raking the ground, picking up rocks. we don't have to be savetheworld productive. we do we do! you know i want us to be. but upside of coming early maybe i'll get to play xbox. so thats going to motivate me to cut this letter short and go take a shower- i woke up early again- itchy and hot? and uncomfortable. totally unpleasant. and another cloudy june gloom day- boohoo. poor california. lauds is just not my thing. but there must be something to it.

love you.
m.

le lavender

good bad ugly

We’re talking about newhouse here. There are things. You know my environment affects me deeply. Here are my recent notes.

GOOD – lavender. It’s everywhere. There are 3 sizable plants out front, another smaller one that I successfully transplanted outside my bedroom window, and so many tiny volunteers that I’ve had to weed them. I’ve kept a few, or more than a few, because letsbehonest, I wouldn’t mind a whole entire field of lavender in place of a yard. But I do have to be practical and let the other plants live. P.S. Most of these pictures totally aren’t mine.

GOOD – mint. I’ve liked mint, always wanted to have some in my yard. It smells good, and the children like to pick leaves and put it in their lemonade as was suggested on a favorite TV show of theirs.

BAD – mint. Because it really is a weed. I wouldn’t mind if I hadn’t ripped a bunch to make room for oregano and tomatoes, but they’re trying to overtake them. So I have to rip them out, too.

UGLY – ticks. I live in constant paranoia of them, both attached and unattached.

GOOD – mimosa tree. Or in my world, Fraggle Trees. Because their flowers look like Fraggles. I remember taking a walk around the neighborhood last year and noticing these trees and thinking a) I have to find out what they are and b) I want one for my yard. And lo and behold, here at new house, there one is. God listens.

UGLY – ticks. I check the dogs every day and yank them off with tweezers. I’ve lost count how many sycophantic, brainless creatures I’ve extracted from their bodies, in various stages of feeding. Read: tiny to full. K.Lo desperately wanted me to look at something under Bailey’s chin and I begged off, completely in denial, and said, no, it’s just her cyst. It’s fine. I’ve seen it. But then she’s like, but Mommy, it has legs. And I saw the legs move. *EFF*

UGLY – ticks. I feel them crawling on me, even when they aren’t. And when they are, I practically jump out of my skin. Today, I felt something all of a sudden crawling on my face, near my eye, like an inch away from my eye, and I grabbed at it, and it was a tick. Which I flushed. But not before it knicked me. Fugging thing nearly latched on my face! by my eye! the nerve!

UGLY UGLY UGLY – ticks. As I’ve mentioned, I’m in a state of constant vigilance regarding this blood-sucking enemy. Especially the inevitable little trolls that I’ve missed on the dogs that feed for like, a week and fall off and there they are on the floor, all bloated with their legs wriggling. I’ve documented this before. We’re familiar with the saga. But one of my very, very worst nightmares is missing one of the fugging things and stepping on it. In my bare feet. And having it explode all over the bottom of my foot, leaving a deflated puddle of blood and squish. This happened this morning. It did. I’m traumatized for life.

GOOD – the rosemary. Which I’m sure I’ve talked about before, but I have to talk about something, anything else and it’s the first thing that popped into my brain. It’s evergreen. There’s a lizard living in it. We leave each other alone. Occasionally I thieve some rosemary to season chicken. I don’t think the lizard minds.

BAD – wasps. Hate them. K.Lo asked today, “Mommy, why did God put bugs like wasps here?” Exactly, my dear. They like to build nests under the deck and in the eaves and are generally everywhere.

GOOD – daisies. There’s a bunch under the deck stairs. I’ve left them alone while mowing and now there’s a big group of them blooming at the base of the stairs, in between the first and second step. They stay. (This picture is mine.)

BAD – ticks. Just one last, neutral observation. I had wanted to camp in the woods at some point. But I’ll pass, thankyouverymuch. Indoors next-door to the woods is bad enough.

GOOD – porchulaca. I planted these. Isn’t it the best flower name ever? Porchulaca! It’s like a song. What I love about them most is that a single plant will produce several different colored flowers. White, yellow, orange, pink, fuchsia. Every day’s a surprise. These spread as well, but they’re like the lavender and the daisies, not the mint, imho. I will keep them.

funny you should say -

“let us both be comfortable wading in the tide for now. the sea is warm and calm and not too deep. maybe we'll float. and watch the clouds and see faces in them.”

Because in church this past Sunday – the non-boring class part, not the abnormally boring service part – we discussed a bit what motivates us every day, to get up and get going, which segued into a mention of our gifts. The two other people in class (summer and pre-summer Sundays do not apparently draw much of a crowd) were lucky enough to have not only recognized their gifts in their lives but channeled them into a practical occupation. And I, of course, have not. But said the idea of my gifts motivates me in life and in prayer; I just haven’t hit on that sure path, haven’t encountered the intersection of where gifts and practical purpose meet.

I thought of you too while I was saying and thinking all of this, because of course we’re sailing along in that boat together. Or paddling along in tandem on surfboards, as the case may be: the pastor brought up the metaphor of water and waiting for that perfect wave. How every now and then you might catch a wave, ride it for awhile, then it fizzles out. And repeat. And repeat. Until that perfect wave comes along and that’s the one you ride for a long while, sure and steady and soaring.

We’ve ridden some waves. They’ve fizzled. We’re waiting for the perfect one. And our faith says someday it’s going to come along.

In the meantime, friend – I’m with you; let’s wade.

dear friend,

my mom found the head of a kitten on her property and its detached paws... i asked her where jesus was in this image and i can only hope the kitten is now romping around in heaven waiting for us to get there and its going to tell us how jesus brought it back to life and gave it a name. we have no idea what beast brought to bear on the tiny thing or why nature must be so cruel but there it is. i wouldn't mention it but it's one of those dark horrifying things that people don't talk about and yet there it is lingering in the mind. Like the young starling I 'saved' who was so panicked to be captive died in a stretched out mode of panic and fright looking frozen ever outward and crawling with ants... Whatever targeted the young weak innocent thing is probably at the root of that creepy guy in those posters- with that look and those eyes... we all know about. And if my life weren't currently grinding and tragical/comical i would definitely think my mom was in some sort of dark suspense thriller. and then in light of that the strange dreams, the wind- the large branch in the yard, the ominous background music, where else do you go from there. a curious footnote. you think, are those shingles a sign of something? a portent. some insidious thing.

and then go on talking about banal things like wii tennis and some xbox game called the hunter something. and a dvd compilation on contemplation you bought on amazon (i hope it doesn't suck) or being in love with the word codswallop. all of those trappings and fittings until the sinister twinge of the violin. but we go on. we read books on chaos theory. we think- pattern. we think jurassic park is a good example. we believe there's something stirring. we grow watchful. we worry about our own cat with nervous glances at his well being. we remember the word fractal but can't define it. we think- snap-out of it. we draw the blinds and think about the book we read about praying the hours. knowing we're nowhere near vigil but we grow tired. we grow exposed.

but we keep putting on ointment (the shingles which quietly annoy and grow hot) and burts honey lipbalm, distractedly as our foot arches and turns in place. checking our messages and finding the only thing to watch is antiques road show. but we don't hear a word. we glance up and some picture of the brooklyn bridge is worth 30,000. we wish whatever it was, wherever it is was worth a goldmine. we look for something to do now that the nails are done (pink sparkle) and the cuticles trimmed, 3 cut in, probably from that one day when i was dehydrated and drank nothing but tea and cranberry juice. 

but nevermind. and then you remember the neighbor. the one with the jesus sign and the fake flower story from a friend and you think unstable. you think unhinged and ungodly- are there bodies under there? it was in a story i read. but wait they weren't fake it was maryhigginsclark. nevermind. maybe it was really about the goatshead and the probably satanic rituals happening where you might have lived. and you hope for light to break and to sleep through the witching hour so you can sit in your garden full of flowers and think- no, no, everything is going to be just fine.

m

observations

Hello, m! I miss you. I’m currently immersed in the world of bitter hormones and magazine-deadline-meeting. No worries, I’ll get through. And I’m glad to hear you’re on the mend. We hope.

Anyway – I’ve been meaning to record a few in-town observations. Unfortunately, none of these have been – ever can be? – photographed. Okay, I’m sure we’ll make it happen someday, now that I’ve said that. But for now imagine through words -

Billboards for Creepy Churches. I’m a firm believer that churches should never look like store fronts and should never, ever feature the pastor/preacher/reverend/head snake-handler’s face in ads, no matter how important they think they are. But whatever – I understand different things speak to different people, even if an 8x10-foot glossy ain’t for me. Except there’s this one sign. It’s a newer one. Reverend Creepy McCreeperson wears a green shirt, black suit jacket and bolo tie – which let’s be honest is the first red flag. His smile is slight and most definitely sinister. His chin is tucked, his eyes look up toward the camera. Kind of like my back-from-the-7th-circle-of-hell-aka-the-DMV picture? Except this guy’s still in the 7th circle of hell. He lives there. You can just tell. Not the DMV but the actual, flame-enveloped home of the devil. And he wants you to go to his church. No! I won’t do it! Now quit looking at me every time I drive by, Reverend Creepy.

*shivers*

Not much further down the road – I’d conjecture it was Reverend Creepy’s house, but let’s be honest, we all know he lives in a ginormous mansion somewhere, likely with a harem – is an average-sized brick home landscaped with some flowers on the side of the house. White flowers. Low to the ground. Uniform. Very, very uniform. Do you see where this is going yet? No? Okay – in the cooler months, they had red flowers out front, same variety. But only for a day or two, and then they were gone. Fleeting beauty. Except not really beautiful at all, because the flowers are fake. And they are outside. In the ground. Outdoor fake flowers. “Planted” in the dirt. They’re the plastic carnations people use to decorate gravestones. I am so not kidding. That is their landscaping. It’s what they do. Sometimes I think it must be an inside joke or a prank or irony, but we all know that’s my own optimism in its most sweetly naïve form. They mean those flowers, every last tacky fabric petal.

Third and last (for now – I have a feeling observations such as these will crop up regularly in my letters to you), we head back to my neighborhood. Remember the house we almost rented? The one with the finished basement that I still sort of love, with the yellow walls and the black-and-white tiled floor? The one where the owners decided at the last second to be giant dick-faces about the fact that we own dogs and proposed we put down roughly $10K in deposits before moving in? I’ve thought about taking the dogs for a walk and encouraging them to do their business in said homeowners’ yard, but I never did get around to it. I guess I’m not really that mean in practice. The daydream is better anyway. But we’ve walked by on occasion, noted that the homeowners have left and new people – renters, apparently, since a sale was never noted online – have moved in. (Please. You know I’m nosy and can’t help the follow-up spy work.) And I hope those renters are everything the homeowners dreamed them to be. I hope they don’t have dogs, and if they do, I hope they lock them in the unfinished portion of the basement as was proposed to us in deal-making. And I certainly hope they aren’t super-sketcho. The kind of people who, say, don’t appear to have children, but have made some use of the swing set out back. Not by swinging on the bench swing – obviously that would be normal, expected, desired. But by affixing a dried-out goat skull to the platform hideout at the top. The kind you’d see on a creepfest altar worshipping who-knows-what entity. The aforementioned Reverend Creepy, maybe. Yes. Hope they aren’t that kind of people at all.

And I hope your journeys lately have been just as magical as mine. Love to you –

penelope

May Review Enclosed dear, pen-

having reviewed the footage of may the one strong force that kept me aloft was friends. they're not pictured. i am not sure why not. maybe this month i will have to make an effort of photo'ing you all. and i do see there were some good food things throughout. i can only wonder what the somewhat arbitrary designation of "june" is going to bring... we-shall-see. pen. weshallsee. oh and did i mention books and lifetime movies? those too.