nerds, fashion and men friends

My man friend is a very cool guy. Deep inside. Very deep inside. On the outside he is a teensy weensy bit nerdy. But then, some of the best people I know are nerdy.

So, my friend broke his beloved glasses. They are kind of a signature statement, like his stand up hair. He sat talking to me with one arm missing and the glasses sitting askance ... pretty bad. Today he did one worse, and duct-taped them together. It made another kind of statement ...

Now I am thinking about an intervention. Save a man from himself. He tells me has chosen some new ones. We will reserve judgement. I can imagine this particular man friend not being too happy with the new and resorting back to the old friend.

Ahhhh. The challenges of being a fashion sensitive friend.

the healing touch of nature

This morning I held a little Zebra finch in my hands (see picture of my finch). It was warm and soft like the smoothest new born skin, gentle and still and all alive. Somehow the physical connection with that little creature has calmed my day.

I was cleaning the cage of our two little squacking Zebra finches who cuddle up together like an old married pair (I hear that they are fast and furious breeders so I am waiting to see if anything happens) and chat back and forth like a Gregorian chant. Last time I cleaned their cage I did so outside ... and alas, one of the pair escaped. I was a little chagrined but have to be honest and say that my real self was cheering it on - well done little fellow! Go fly the skies - no bird should be caged all its life. Even by me.

That small debacle resulted in a short chastisement from my other half and the purchase of a replacement finch. Ah if all of life could be resolved so easily.

Today I cleaned their mess in our enclosed back porch. Again one escaped. (Honestly, I don't even know how.) But you see my brilliance here, don't you? I let it have its wing for a while and then calmly caught it in both hands and surrendered it back into the small white square universe ... which I did fill with twigs and and leaves of butterfly bushes and strawberries from my dwindling patch - just to give them something interesting to do.

But in all that, I had the moment of touch - a gentle little creature that had to trust my big clumsy hands and simply by its aliveness I was made to smile and feel very good.

I think I might let them out for little flights every so often on a cool evening. In the back porch of course. When my other half is out. No bird should be kept in a cage all its life - even by me.

p.s. This is, sadly, how I killed several of my kid's hamsters. Taking them for walks because of course, no hamster should be kept in a cage all its life, even by my kid.

today is Tuesday...

... you know what that means! We're going to have a special special guest, so get out the broom! Sweep the place clean! And dust off the matt so a welcome can be seen ... tra la la la ... do you hear music?

Roll out the carpet - strike up the band, and give a hip hooray! hooray!

now comes the big ending
So wiggle your ears ... like good mouskateers ... we're gonna have a special special day!

Cause Tuesday is guest star day!

All I can say is HOW THE HECK can I remember all the words to the Tuesday theme song on the Mickey Mouse Club and NOT remember the name of a person I work with?

just have to blog this

Some things are too good to just leave alone. A woman (admittedly younger than me) just came in my office - she was a widow and recently married. When the shadows of life were darker I spent some time with her ... and we re-connected today. Clearly she is happy. Radiant even. Beautiful, tanned, slim, fit, in love and above all, full of the joy of life.

So remarkable is her transformation I couldn't help but burst out, "You look fabulous!" She blushed, looked at me (obviously casting about for something to return) and said, "And you look like you!!!"

Okay - I am still laughing inside. That is how it is friends. No holiday yet - tired, Monday, a level 4 headache, and I look like me. Could be worse. But you KNOW it could be better!

sheesh

All is calm on the home front - and I see from the kitchen window my friend Cheryl and her girl Sarah coming up the walk carrying McDonald's cokes. Smiling to myself I leave the sink and open the door, stepping onto the porch and into the still hot but cooling evening air.

We sit for a half hour, and enjoy stories and banter. They leave with waves.

I return to the kitchen to realize I LEFT THE TAP ON. So ... a micro disaster of my own making which drove me into:

• throwing all the clean towels in the house onto wet soggy floors
• pulling out the fridge and stove - finding a mess, cleaning old fuzz and new water
  
• removing dishes from shelves and mopping up water
• finding the right screwdriver to remove the round twirly shelf that had water under it
• mopping, wiping, hauling, pushing, sopping, sweating, grunting, sopping, pushing

You get the picture.

My day was still better than Big Brown's. You gotta find the bright side of life.

if I don't see you again

nancy is my age, exactly. she was my first married friend - her and Joe and Steve and I would go for a drink and a movie and no one made me feel like laughing like Nancy did. she is pretty and has a voice the flows like a river. her five kids are all in good relation to her, she is a matriarch of a kind, graceful and laughing, able to believe the best in every member of her family.

nancy has lived through her share of loss and disappointment. they came to her like they do to all of us, without a reserve plan and with the worst timing. she has made it through them all and kept a soaking rain of life falling on her family. sometimes that life came through hidden tears, sometimes through acres of laughter.

i just hung up the phone. her toxicology report is back. the spots on her pancreas are malignant. she can choose chemo to extend her life months, the doctor says. i didn't keep her long. she was exhausted. and brave. and beautiful.

Joe is beside her. he is her Steve. it hasn't been 33 years of endless romance, but it has been love that is the web around them.

nancy is a few thousand miles away. if i don't see you again, will you know that i love you?

the real issue between Hillary and Obama

Okay friends. I have been alert - heard it all. Hillary is a victim of women's issues - yah, I think that is probably true. Obama had to overcome racial issues - hmmm yes, little doubt. But no one has touched on the real inequity - the damning foul division of men and women on the political trail.

Put a lovely strong woman into a blue pantsuit ... thankfully crafted in stretchy material ... and crush her under unbending stress. Over the months the material has more and more demanded of it ... as her body spreads to embrace and hold all that stress.

Similarly take a middle aged man and dress him in suit pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up ... placed under a steamroller of relentless stress - and what happens? He gets lean and lanky. Hollow even.

This my friends is the crux of the issue. Say no more. Life does not happen on a level playing field.