Is this not enough?
This blessed sip of life
Is it not enough?
Staring down at the ground
Then complain and pray for more from above
Greedy little pig
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Pig) ♫
blessed sip of life
virus two
After more than a week of concentrated and intense work on our family history and my garden, I sat down yesterday to catch up on this neglected blog and to visit the blogs of my friends. First I took my turns on Scrabble on Facebook, though, and while playing had my laptop attacked by another virus – apparently the same one (or similar to the one) that infected it when I was playing Scrabble back in March. In spite of my faithfully installing every virus protection update sent to me.
Tech Support (Tim) worked on the situation yesterday and more this morning and then decided to take my laptop to work with him. I’m using his computer for now, again with no access to my word or picture files! But I do have some quote/painting posts scheduled ahead of time that will appear now and then. Feeling a little lost and disconnected…
Typhoid fever! A school child in Connecticut has come down with typhoid fever. Wonder how he or she got it? Hope he or she will be all right…
Decorated for Midsummer this morning…
painting the stars
When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
~ Vincent van Gogh
(An Examined Faith: Social Context & Religious Commitment)
hidden questions
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions, which have been hidden by the answers.
~ James Baldwin
(A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought)
house centipede
There may be people who like centipedes…
~ William S. Burroughs
(The Western Lands)
Bugs!! Shudder!!! Yesterday I was sitting on the couch for a few minutes taking a break when one of these creatures, which I think must be a house centipede, ran across the living room, lickety-split, and disappeared under the couch. Needless to say I have not sat in the living room since! And reading up on them has not made me feel any better. Much as I avoid chemicals, I think I’m in the mood to buy some “bug” spray!
I had never seen one of these things until the 1990s when I was coming out of the laundry room in the basement and one confronted me in the hallway. It was a good two inches long and an inch wide! I grabbed what was handy, a can of hair spray (good a getting ink stains out of clothing), and started doing battle with the alien. It actually charged at me after I zapped it once. It finally died after tons of spray and I left the scene, shaken. When the family came home and I told my tale and went to show them the remains of the bug, it had dried and shriveled up to almost nothing, and they seemed a little skeptical of my accounting of the enemy’s size and speed and aggressiveness.
Am I losing my mind?
Sometime during the 2000s I was walking on the treadmill, also in the basement, when one of these monsters raced out from under the treadmill and made a beeline for a big pile of storage boxes. I tried to pretend I had not seen what I had just seen, and to get on with my life.
And now yesterday, my third sighting. Why me??? Why do they not come out to terrorize the rest of the family? First two times in the basement, then this time of the first floor. I’ll be hysterical if I ever see one up here on the second floor!
I have learned that house centipedes are not native here, but have arrived somehow from the Mediterranean region. That would be why I had never encountered one before. The only positive spin I can put on this situation is that apparently they eat spiders and ants and can eat a few of them at a time. Still I don’t like the idea of something so big and so fast lurking around my home. I startle way too easily… I had a LOT of trouble falling asleep last night.
Has anyone else ever dealt with house centipedes???
connected to our ancestors
It’s one of nature’s ways that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us.
~ Igor Stravinsky
(Father Knows Best: Words That Celebrate the World’s Most Wonderful Dads)
When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we draw strength and nourishment from this.
~ Philip Carr-Gomm
(Druid Mysteries: Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century)
my spirit’s shaken flame
My forefathers gave me
My spirit’s shaken flame,
The shape of hands, the beat of heart,
The letters of my name.
~ Sara Teasdale
(Driftwood)
on the move
It’s hard to keep up with our kids these days, who have always lived within 50 miles of us since they flew off from our nest over a decade ago! Big changes are afoot!
Larisa passed a licensure exam, granting her permission to practice social work in New York City, where she is planning to move to in July, fulfilling a childhood dream. Her boyfriend Dima already has an apartment lined up for them in the city. At the moment, however, the world adventurers are in Curaçao scuba diving. I wonder if Larisa & Dima will see creatures like the one pictured above as they dive into the sea.
Nate & Shea have worked from home for a while, which means their home could be anywhere. And the adventure bug has now bitten them, too – they’re planning to move to St. Marys, Georgia this summer. This news really came out of the blue and I’m still trying to absorb it! Before they go, however, they will be taking a Disney cruise in June and I get to feed their fish and their cat, Sassy, while they are sailing around the Caribbean.
So happy for all of them, even if we will miss having them so close. St. Marys is next to Cumberland Island National Seashore so once they get settled I’ll be chafing at the bit to visit them in their new home by the sea.
a meaning for me
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
~ W. Somerset Maugham
(Of Human Bondage)
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Walden)