seeking shade

tashi really wants a playhouse. as we ponder the possibilities of home buying, she insists that a shed in the back yard is top priority. in the mean time, we remain in our rental, and the wish for a playhouse pervades.

a few sheets draped upon a narrow part of our deck did the trick yesterday. it sparked other ideas, like acquiring some sort of bamboo shade, that could be rolled out as a ceiling, and back in when tall people want to inhabit that part of the deck.

unfortunately a rather pesky xenox tigrinus was dive bombing us. i read that they neither bite nor sting, but this one really wanted the deck to himself. tashi has quite the aversion to bugs, so the peaceful time in her makeshift playhouse soon ended.

it was nice while it lasted, a tranquil moment in summerland light, a dappled pause in humid insistence.

august approaches

perhaps august is my favorite month.

you rub summer notes from your eyes in thickest heat while anticipation of autumn builds.

august is ripe.

trees are thick, tired, blowing motes and swinging dances.

by august you might feel comfortable in your own skin, having shed layers in the undulating meadows of summer.



you are no longer critical of the fact that you are sometimes not out of bed before 8am.

the vine is thickest in august, or beginning to build. fruits in abundance bring every color to your table. august is juicy. open. dramatic.



as you look to webbed summer skies and question galaxies, black night sits on bright day like expensive dark chocolate. wind is a coveted tapestry on a most luxurious of weaves. august is a subtle shade that is lowered.



in august the earth vibrates through our flesh and we find our breath.



tashi said to me tonight as we lay limbs akimbo on hammock slowly gliding, "we don't spend enough time together."

in august i face change.

my posts may be spare or infrequent. what ever the interval, i hope to capture a bit of august's mystery, the journey tashi and i have of it.

listening to dan and tashi discuss galaxies makes me happy

(saw this on the making peace blog and thought i'd play along)

1. Where is your cell phone? on my nightstand, upstairs
2. Your significant other? just awoke and came downstairs
3. Your hair? auburn, tangled and needs to be washed
4. Your daughter? sleeping in our bed
5. Your son? maybe someday tashi will have a partner
6. Your favorite thing? that we are going camping today
7. Your dream last night? forgot already
8. Your favorite drink? lemonade
9. Your goal? inner peace
10. The room you’re in? living room
11. Your church? the earth; the goddess
12. Your fear? the destruction of the earth & its inhabitants
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? in our own home
14. Where were you last night? shenandoah national park, reserving a campsite
15. What you’re not? extroverted
16. Muffins? moosewood banana chocolate chip muffins
17. One of your wish list items? toyota prius
18. Where you grew up? northern pennsylvania
19. The last thing you did? watered the garden
20. What are you wearing? boxer shorts & a sweatshirt
21. Your TV? off & covered with a tv cozy
22. Your pets? loki is staring at us purring from the coffee table, luna is eating
23. Your computer? addicted to it
24. Your life? fortunate
25. Your mood? mellow
26. Missing someone? far off friends & family
27. Your car? subaru and toyota, both broken. borrowing mom's ford focus.
28. Something you’re not wearing? bra
29. Favorite store? an independent bookstore cafe that has cutting edge poetry readings that doesn't exist in charlottesville
30. Your summer? mixed up
31. Like(love) someone? of course
32. Your favorite color? today it's aquamarine
33. Last time you laughed? last night
34. Last time you cried? can't remember, though today i'm on the verge. . .
35. Who will repost this? anyone that feels like it

high hopes

the first sunflower has blossomed. i can't remember the name of the variety, but they produce flowers in autumnal colors. such a happy greeting at the front edge of our yard.

today i've got to gather up the camping items as we're going to head to the blue ridge for the weekend. we're hoping to find a peaceful copse in which to pitch a tent at a first come first serve campsite. we'll just bump along from campsite to campsite until we find an available spot. is that crazy?

i am soooo looking forward to quietude, altitude and deep forest.

wishing you a restful weekend!


luna in the dollhouse. photo by tashi.

mulling over mullien and other tuesday morning pastimes

this morning molly & i took a nice walk on the stretch of rivanna trail near her house. we were first greeted by this sweet turtle.


we were next greeted by tall mullien.


we also found feathers, st. john's wort and a cicada. the poison ivy, i hope, kept to itself.

on my way home i decided to make a quick stop at the salvation army, 'cuz you never know what treasures might await you. for me there were some embroidered pillow cases. the fabric is a bit yellowed with age. any suggestions on how to whiten up the fabric whilst preserving the embroidery?


and an oh so sweet little vintage tea cup.


and a very cute skirt for tashi.


when i arrived home i said hello to a sunflower just waiting to show its colors.


and a bright little bunch of nasturtium planted in a broken tea pot.


the garden is wee, but happy.



as if i need to waste more time on the internet, i've been trying to beat my high score on

go go plant

cruising

we've had a rather social run of days.

on thursday some friends from richmond came for the day. we had a lovely time splashing around at the pool and enjoying a picnic under the shady trees.

that evening, tashi, dan and i headed out to nelson county to make some new friends. we've been tracking one another virtually, and they kindly invited us out to their lovely self-renovated home. the house, and the land on which it sits, were even better live. we walked to a pretty creek, tasted wine berries, viewed an awesome mountain from under an awesome walnut tree, breathed in the silence, and appreciated the hard work this couple has put into making their home inhabitable and beautiful. we feel fortunate to have met with some very cool like-minded folks. and they can cook up a mean beet burger!



i do so love it when blogland goes live.

on friday after number-crunching sort of day at work, we had another dinner at a friends' abode. they served up some grilled salmon, and we made a group effort at a fine batch of fried okra. the full moon was dessert, as it rose bright and well cooked over our evening.

last night, after a too-hot-grouchy-day-barely-cooled-by-the-pool, surfzilla played at a friend's 40th birthday party. more good food and lively conversation, backed by some vintage tunes.

admit it

every once in a while you do a google search on your own name. don't you? well i did.

i had a good laugh when i found this article, which quotes me. do a control f for zoe , if you don't feel like reading the whole thing.

they could have at least told me. eight months later, i've stumbled upon my own snarky comment. but that is the way of the web, i suppose.

another old new thing is that, prompted by a friend's invite, i finally made a facebook profile. amazing the people one runs into on facebook!

and for something new that is not old, tashi's transformation!







i had a haircut too. but you can't tell one single bit.

blog lazy

tashi and i are puttering around before some long overdue haircutting appointments. feeling a bit of summer lethargy weighing me down, i'm finding it hard to get motivated. one big step i made today was calling a real estate agent (a friend's father) who seems incredibly helpful and is willing to meet with us to give us some tips. wow. we might actually pursue home buying!

what else has been happing on the range? appointments, swimming, chores, and a few fun plans. i'm hoping that soon we can launch ourselves into the wilderness for another camping weekend. we were hoping to make it to the coast in august. we had visions of a cosy cottage on some outer banks island. but i think it might be more like a tent pitched in a state park near virginia beach.

in the mean time, i've been blog lazy. i'm not posting much, and am even falling behind on my favorite blogs.

if you are experiencing similar summer lethargy, do occupy your time with this game! you will at least feel like you had an adventure of sorts.

summer thursday

that's a photo i took in a car wash.

it's been a tired week. dan and i have been time traveling a bit which has lead me to pulling a lot of old journals out of storage. this usually sends me into a strange vortex.

tonight tashi and i went to see kit kittredge. i felt wary of it, but was ultimately moved. it did a fine job of capturing a time and a place. pleasing in the way i found because of winn-dixie, the story line had good heart and the roles were well executed. garment makers & vintage junkies will love swimming through the sets. there was exquisite detail and rich colors in costumes and scenes. everyone else in the cinema might have been grooving on wal*e, but this story of a spunky girl in difficult times was just the right thing for tashi and i this evening.

times being the way they are, and all.

tuesdate

wow, it's been a while.

after a week in ann arbor, i would say my mom is on the good road to recovery. we left midday thursday, after i rearranged a large portion of her apartment. her vision seems to be improving daily, and her spirits seem lifted by our company and assistance.

it was tough being in ann arbor with extreme limits to time spent with old friends and old haunts. but we managed a few outings as documented. pickerel lake will have to wait until next time. . .

on thursday july 3 i drove my mother's ford focus -- which i will be borrowing for a while -- to the music festival at nelson ledges quarry park. the timing was perfect; tashi and i arrived just moments before dan. unfortunately dan had a muffler problem while on the road; he crawled under the car somewhere in canton, and used old guitar strings to reattach the muffler.



the music festival had many high points, and several low points. the low points hit every night between 2am and 8am, when people were either setting off their 4th of july explosives, or cranking extremely loud music from their individual campsites. drowned was the call of the strange exotic birds tashi and i heard when we first pulled in. gone was ** one, two, three ** blissful nights of sleep in the forest. dan and tashi managed to sleep through the thick of it, but not me. for this reason, i will never return to that festival, unless they decide to designate a couple of the camp loops exclusively for families with children.




one of the main reasons we like this festival is because it is family friendly. but is has turned to, was.

the high points: swimming in the silky clean quarry, lounging in the thick white sand, fireworks-flamedancers-hoolahoopers-skydivers, delicious vegetarian food, and great live music, most notably, the ragbirds, mickey hart and friends, wookiefoot and the highlight of it all, p-funk. george clinton and friends really unleashed something wild. i'll never forget it.



the drive home on sunday was tough, after so much sleep depro. we had to stop several times so i could take cat naps. tashi and i were following dan, since the unplanned ann arbor trip had brought us to the festival in two different cars from two different states. at some point dan was swerving all over the highway in a plume of dust. he'd had a blowout. he could have easily died.

but instead he managed to pull it off the road. for whatever reason the tire wouldn't come off the rim, so we had to call a tow truck. the guy used a huge crowbar pipe to pop the tire off. then we were good to go. we pulled into charlottesville sometime between 2am and 3am.

i think next time, i'll just pitch a tent in the blue ridge.

monday update

tashi and i venture out for brief spells in between eye drops and meals. yesterday we checked out the artisan market, where i purchased a pair of dangling earrings for tashi. she can't wait to put them on. afterwards we stopped at people's food co-op, my old workplace, and enjoyed a beverage at cafe verde.



i have driven by the old homeplace a couple of times, kind of like a stalker. above is the house we lived in from 2001 to 2005. the house sits at the edge of two magical acres and faces woodlands full of trails. tashi started preschool while living in that house. i trained to be a doula. tashi started grade school while living in that house, and lost her first teeth. dan landed a managerial position at a dot com while living in that house, after driving a cab for too long. i had four miscarriages in that house but also acquired our two cats. we had several notable parties in that house. in the yard is a pond that, every spring, became an orchestra of frogs. tashi built fairy huts in the woods, we took walks down to the huron river, loki got stuck in tall trees, and i planted herbs & flowers that continue to flourish.



i was happy to see my nettles and mugwort growing tall in the middle of the yard. it's not a great photo, but you can see them in the middle, in front of the wooden bench swing. i'm dying to take a walk around the place for a closer look.



tashi started off our week in ann arbor with a visit to dan's brother's family. her cousin will and her hit it off as if they'd never been apart. they baked a carrot cake from scratch, precariously perched on the table in the photo. it was half covered with coconut and half covered with walnuts and was incredibly delicious.

we've also been watching some movies. i watched the other boleyn girl, which was fascinating, and a visual feast. now i want to read the book. tashi and i watched mr. magorium's wonder emporium, which seemed kind of awkward and poorly executed, yet fun enough.

today my mother has an eye check up, so we'll see if progress is being made. perhaps tashi and i will sneak off for a dip in the lake later. tomorrow we are looking forward to seeing like water drum and dance at the top of the park summer festival. one of the dancers was a preschool teacher of tashi's.

and then on thursday we meet dan at a crazy family friendly music festival in ohio where there will be camping, swimming, and dancing to many bands, including george clinton and parliament/funkadelic!

stationary

i am in rainy ann arbor in my mother's wee flat, having a lesson in samsara.

tashi and i had a fun time in our roomette on the amtrak. there was some magnificent scenery between dc and pittsburgh. rivers and rolling countryside and barns and abandoned vw buses and horses and woods.



after coloring and music and silliness in our roomette, a decent dinner in the dining car and some time gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge, the attendant folded out our beds.




it was very cozy and the sway of the train was rather mesmerizing, unlike its horn which was blasted the entire way once night fell. i really did not sleep well because of it. we exited at toledo where the one hour wait for the ann arbor bus turned into four-and-a-half-hour wait. that was a real drag.

once we arrived in ann arbor and spent some time acquainting ourselves to the recovery situation of my mom, tashi and i, starving after our long morning, went out to have kibbehs for lunch. the greatest of coincidences wss that my dear friend laura called me from just around the corner. so she and her amazing little daughter -- sylvia -- joined us.



do you not want to gobble this child up?



lunch lead to an ice cream cone at washtenaw dairy and then errand running, which kept us away from my mom a little too long for her taste. and so i am now settling into her little flat and trying my best to be a good nurse.

tashi is running around with dan's brother's family, which is surely some good fun. i am preparing meals, applying eye drops, running errands and trying to keep my mom stationary as much as possible. aside from the fact that lying on your side 90% of the time really sucks, she's doing well. and i am grateful for the trees outside the window.

leaving on a jet train

yesterday my mother called me with the news that she has a detached retina. that meant surgery this morning, followed by a week of having to remain stationary on her side as much as possible so that the retina will re-attach. needless to say, one cannot cook meals for oneself while lying on one's side. one cannot check their mail, water their garden, run off to the grocery store or clean their toilet. apparently it is ok to get up and use the toilet once in a while though.

so i am taking a sudden trip to ann arbor to help out my mom. tashi is coming along since she has no camp scheduled next week, and because i sure do like to hang out with my girl (as does yia yia). tomorrow we'll be climbing onto a train where we reserved the very last remaining seats. the seats just so happen to be in a private sleeper car. we're pretty stoked about having our own picture window, beds that fold out, and table on which to play boggle and kings-in-a-corner.

of course the circumstances are not good. my mother has to suffer. i have to miss a week of work and break some very important commitments. tashi has to miss her last-day-of-art-camp performance. but once she gets throught he recovery, i'm confident that my mother will be fine. and we will get to drop into some hip ann arbor haunts & happenings and see some favorite ann arbor friends.

all aboard!

hangin' with ganesh

it's another self portrait at the twisted branch tea bazaar. i met dan here for lunch, and am now trying to stay awake until i have to pick up tashi. so i thought blogging might do it for me, though i haven't much to say. no, not much at all. for lunch i had the delicious pmt: pesto, mozzarella, tomato on foccacia. to drink: lemon licorice ice tea.

omg, someone is leaving and they have a whole salad left on their plate.

i purchased this book ages ago and almost immediately shelved it out of intimidation. for some reason this morning while walking to work it popped into my mind. i've got to sew a skirt. i must. this afternoon i'll pull it off the shelf before running off to the pool with tashi. i will leaf through it and make a decision. i will.

and that's all for now.

sun in cancer

remember my little sheet mulch project? well I did actually plant a few babies. all seem to be taking remarkably well. i didn't do a single thing to the soil, aside from break it up a little and try to pull out as many grass roots as possible. keeping the grass at bay will be a constant battle.



i purchased some very sad plants at 75% off at lowes. i consider buying plants from lowes an act of mercy, even though i know the plants are far from organic. the poor things need to be rescued. so i purchased two foxgloves and three black eyed susans. all were very unhappy but they perked right up once planted and watered. they got a little fried in the humidity wave we had a couple weeks back, but they are holding on mostly. i also planted peppermint, lemon balm, fennel, comfrey, butterfly bush, borage, echinacea, lavender, nettle, nasturtium -- all organic baby plants from the farmer's market. i scattered sunflower seeds and echinacea seeds. the sunflowers are popping right up, but i'm not sure if the other is echinacea popping up, or a weed of some sort.



i've always loved borage flowers. they are edible and strong and magical. i once was served cold mint yogurt soup with borage flowers floating in it. yummerz. i want to plant other things in my little cottage garden, a mixture of tall flowers and a variety of herbs. things that will spread and reseed and return. shasta daisies. cosmos. snap dragons. rosemary. milkweed. it makes me so happy, even if i may have to say goodbye.



yesterday we drove around seeking for sale signs and scoping out addresses we found on real estate sites. most of the houses on our list got scratched off. too close to road. rotten yard. too prefab. neighboring house looks like a meth lab. etc.



we got caught in an amazing thunderstorm in batesville. we had to pull over because there was no visibility. there were some jolting flashes, jarring rumbles and then it started to hail. we decided to have our picnic in the car.



on saturday surfzilla played an acoustic appalachian surf set at beer run. i had a great catfish dinner and drank bourbon barrel stout. i saw john and molly and other friends and a couple of families that i was doula for. good fun indeed.



happy summer!