Gah, why did I ever grow up?

These pictures were taken by my brother-in-law. I have the cutest niece and nephews in the whole wide world.

Who knew that water coming out of plastic thingie could hold such fascination...



She looks so intent, serious, unfathomable...like she came from the sea-spray.



Of course that kind of concentration couldn't last for long. Let's eat the camera instead....


Play is a serious thing dudes...


Pure joy, at being wet. When did I forget that...

The Tree that Fell on My Porch

Yeah. A tree fell on my porch. A tree. On my porch. It was literally inches away from my front door. One slight shift in the physics and my front door or window or roof would have been demolished. Have I mentioned recently that the house I live in was built in the 1890's? I am sure the trees were planted also in that previous century. They are humongous, old and slightly rickety. So it is no wonder that the one in our front yard snapped like a toothpick in the storm last night. Here are some pictures. This first picture shows the tree in it's shorter state this morning. I took it looking through my front window. Even broken like it is, it is huge. The tree is now half the size it used to be....






Here you can see the wreckage (note: all of these pictures are after the tree was towed off of the porch onto the lawn by our fabulous neighbors). Now comes the very interesting and cool part. So the tree falls on our porch, smashes the railing, missing our house by inches, and leaves my porch plants and the bike on which it fell unscathed. Completely unscathed. About four hours earlier my housemates and I had been discussing the end of the world. When the shit will hit the fan. Most people believe some sort of shit is going to hit some sort of fan. And we were discussing how just because shit hits the fan doesn't mean that you have to be covered in shit. You can be in a hurricane with all of it's chaos and at the same time be in the eye....peaceful, calm. We have all heard that if you are prepared than you don't fear. I believe it. I believe that is a very literal physical preparedness, and I believe that possibly more importantly it is an emotional, mental and spiritual preparedness.

Einstein said that Imagination is more powerful than Knowledge. I would add that the only thing you can't do is that which you can't imagine. For the past few months, for various reasons I have been imagining my house as being almost in this bubble of safety. A Space where only light and love is attracted there, where yuckiness doesn't want to come. Where angels walk about, where people learn about how to have more love and more light in their lives. Where if there are earthquakes, somehow I am not effected. And when I saw the tree falling all over in my front yard (the crash shaking the earth) and not touching me, a very strong thought came to my head saying...Yes, what you have been imagining can totally be and in fact is reality. I believe when it is your time to go, you will die. But I also believe that when the end comes, however that will be, that...well you don't have to be covered in shit if you don't want it to be. What is that saying..seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given, knock and it will be opened. If that is true, then if we ask to know how to be in the eye of the hurricane I guess we will be given. Miraculously and literally.

I should never sugar and drive...

I have been drunk twice in my life. Somehow I didn't learn the first time that I really no likey. First of all I don't hold my alcohol well at all, so after one glass I am feeling loopy. Soon the depth perception gets weird. Thing don't go where I put them and the like. I start to not be able to think clearly, and not to care. I laugh a lot, and then get really tired. Somewhere in the middle of all of that the headache begins and my body says, "Why? I mean really, why? Now I am working overtime to get this stuff out, because we don't like it. Liver doesn't like it. Kidneys over there in the back don't like it. Glands over there in the neck get all puffed and break out. Yup, the vote is a no go on the alcohol." And I haven't been drunk since.

Well today I got accidentally intoxicated. Not from drinking, but eating a slushy thing. You know one of those icey, summery slushies with names like Orange Oasis, you get from the roadside shacks. Who knew that those little shacks served alcoholic slushies. No, it is not true. There was no alcohol in it at all. I think it was a combination of the sugar, neon orange, glow-in-the-dark, darth vader food coloring and the ice-cream at the bottom. Oh yeah and on the rocks. So why did I eat it in the first place??? I don't usually eat sugar because it ain't so healthy for you and it doesn't make me feel so good. But today was a holiday and I was feeling rash. So I did. I ate the whole gynormous, super-size the hell out of me thing. Within the hour I was feeling nauseated, slightly headachy and very loopy. I couldn't think straight. Couldn't type real words worth beans. I could type, quite fast I noticed, but the words just weren't real. And everything seemed really funny. (My new words made me laugh and laugh. I am pretty sure that if anyone was around they thought I had lost it.)

On a side note, but a connected note (:)) I was reading the other day about symptoms of poisonous spider bites (see previous post). They were ironically very similar. Headache. Nausea. Fuzziness. Vomiting (did I mention that in the end I threw up?). How is it that there are no warning labels on this sugar shit?????? Sorry it was just such good alliteration. From seeing the effect sugary stuff has on my niece and nephews it is a wonder that it isn't illegal to feed it to kids. I guess we have spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder, er I mean sugar.

All I can say is that it is a good thing I wasn't driving at the time. I might have been pulled over for a DUI.

Polygamous Chickens, Swifty George...again and Hobo Spiders. Holy Hell should I be a Buddhist or a terrorist?!

As you might have imagine from the title of this post, it was an eventful day yesterday. First things first, Swifty George finally emerged! Who knows where he has been these past couple of days. I came home last night and had a tickly feeling that I should look under my bed. Lo and behold there he was hiding out like I wasn't going to know. He is kind of funny like those big creatures that think they can hide behind little things. When I was first trying to catch him he would speed over to a tea-light holder or something else small like that and try to hide. You could totally see half of him poking out, bits of legs and feelers, but he was just sure that I was going to pass him by. Anyway, I finally stealth moded my way over and caught the little fellow. I took pictures. It is hard to see but he really is in the vase.




















And just in case you are wondering I relocated him outside so he can hide under blades of grass or behind small pebbles. My face is exultant from actually catching the bugger. A shout out for Swifty!

Well about two minutes after the successful capture my roomate points out this crazy spider web on one of little lights on my cute garden-partyesque string of lights.



Here is a visual, though the spider is being shy for the camera. Soon after she points out the web, the spider comes crawling out of his new treehouse and she gets this look in her eye. It is that look of ...I know something that I really should tell you, but I really don't want to. She said, "I think that is a Hobo Spider". What?! Holy Hell. Hobo Spider. In My Bedroom. Are you kidding me? Can I have a break from the bugs please? Needless to say I spend the next hour scrambling around trying to figure out if I should kill it, or if it is my greatgrandmother. Not to mention that killing it would require that it get out of my fairy light. I didn't really want to smash the light as well as the spider.

So what do you do when you are scrambling avoiding necrosis-causing spiders? Google, of course. I now feel like an expert on Hobos. Did you know that they aren't very good climbers and will most likely be around baseboards etc. instead of on your ceiling. Bet you didn't.

And the end of the story? I have to get my leg amputated, but other than that the lights are fine. Just kidding..... It turns out it wasn't a Hobo!! (I would understand if you need to jump up and dance for joy). Apparently Hobos have a cousin spider that look verrrrry similar except on their legs there are these rings of color. Hobos legs are all uniform in color, but these barn funneling spiders have these rings. And my spider had ringed legs. A barn funnel weaving spider. Great name. Praise all of the spider gods because these cousins are not dangerous. As soon as I found that out, I let the spider be and went to bed as it was an ungodly hour at that point. Today barn funnel guy got relocated. I now petition the bug gods for no more crazy bugs, especially in my bedroom. I was so nice and took them outside...so please, please? Shoot maybe I was supposed to do a sacrifice instead.

And the chickens/roosters? To clarify, since there was a bit of confusion, the gaggle is composed of both chickens and roosters. Many roosters. Many chickens. Many husbands. Many wives. It is not surprising that on George Q. Cannon's old property the wild chicken posse (I think I call all chickens and roosters, chickens.) is polygamous or communal or something. I wonder which one is the second wife, and if they rotate with their sister chicken wives sleeping with the roosters. Alright, alright I am done.

Chicken Posse

I live in Salt Lake City. Just a hop skip and a jump away from Downtown. And I live on 3 acres of land. You are probably wondering how I managed that. I am still wondering how I managed that. But if anyone could, it would be me. It is this random block of properties that are all about 3 acres right in the middle of a regular subdivision. You look across the street and you think you are in a neighborhood. You look out our backyard and it is the sticks. I love it.

Besides the horses, goats, sheep and the lone duck there is a gaggle (flock? herd?) of chickens that is pretty much a wild cock renegade posse. No one feeds them. No one gets their eggs. They just wander the neighborhood pecking and cock-a-doodle-dooing. And if anyone has ever wondered, the cock-a-doodly-doo happens waaay before the sun comes up, around um 4:30. I'm surprised there hasn't been a drive-by-rooster shooting. Yeah there is no happy, cheerful cockeling to wake up the sun, which in turns wakes us up with a smile sending yellow beams of sunlight all over the world. It ends up being this croaking sound that makes you wonder if the rooster is on it's deathbed. Luckily I have managed to stop waking up in the early hours of the morning, unless they happen to be right under my window.

Here is a picture from my side window.

I have taken to calling them the Chicken Posse because there is this funny air about them like they are some old military group that never disbanded and totally own the place, and the street for that matter. It is many a day that I will come home and have to stop in the middle of the road and wait till the chickens get out of the way with indignant looks on their faces. Usually when I walk out to my car a number of them will look up in surprise and shake their red thingies at me as if they just couldn't believe I was doing such a thing. I have also seen them perch themselves on various fences, trees etc. around the block. They then croak messages to each other as if they are on watch duty. The Rooster Sentinel. "Sqwack! Frank, here's one coming. Get to the fence. Get to the fence." Or something like that I'm sure.

Did I mention the Duck? There is also one lone duck that seems to be apart of this Posse. If it were a person it would be some cute, old, senile lady that wanders the streets looking for who knows what. The Wandering Duck. The Rooster Sentinel. Welcome to the Funny Farm.

One last picture. Here is a chicken standing guard at our gate.

Eye Sex (I'm really not trying to be sensational)

I was reading the other day an article written on Chris Carrabba. He is the lead singer in the band Dashboard Confessional (see My new love affair post). It talked about his almost unnerving way of staring at a particular audience member during a concert. He said that when he finds someone that is really connecting to the music that he will connect with them and have "eye sex".
Yes, there is a picture...dreamy. Mmm very dreamy. Alright alright I will stop drooling. But back to eye sex. So the phrase has made me think. Usually there is such a connotation of meaning connected to the word sex, that many people might be turned off by that phrase, eye sex. Yet, I really like it. I really like the idea of being very intimate and connected to someone through your eyes. And have it not only be beautiful but perfectly appropriate.

On a side note, but a connected note, The other day my roomate was eating an avocado. She stopped right in the middle, and got the most delighted expression on her face. She then proceeded to make satisfactory noises about how beautiful the avocado was. The color. The curve of it's shape. The smell. And I told her she was making love to her avo. She heartily agreed. We then made jokes about french-kissing your food of course. And the conversation has stuck with me for a couple of days. I like the idea of me making love to my food, of really, completely being swallowed up in the entire experience of eating. Taste, smell, curves etc. and acknowledging how much I love it. I feel like I am really in the moment. Really experiencing all of that moment.

Here is one more picture if anyone wants to drool.

Bugs and Buddhism

I live in a house that was built in 1890...polygamist house, George Q. Cannon lived in it at one point. And I am pretty sure those are all reasons as to why I have these amazingly big leggy bugs in my house. Here is a picture so you can be squeemish with me. The longest one I have seen so far has been 4-5 inches!!!!

I really try to be kind to all of the creatures. I tell them nicely that I really don't want them in my house, especially the bedroom. Then if they didn't take the hint and walk themselves out I will usually catch them and take them outside. But these little buggers are fast. I read somewhere that they have the nickname of Swifty. Heh heh that is kind of cute. They are even a little cute . And they are supposed to eat such nasties as cockroaches, spiders, bedbugs, termites etc. I just can't find it in my heart to kill them. So I am in a predicament. You see they are too swift for me just to catch them without maiming them...unless I am in Stealth Mode and catch them off guard. But I really don't like them in my bedroom. I mean what if they crawl on my bed. On my face. Crawly legs on my leggies. Ugh.

The whole reason I am writing this post is because right now this minute there is a House Centipede named Swifty George in my room and I can't catch it. I figured I would distract myself for a bit, blog and then try again.

Like I said, I tried talking to it. (That is how I know his name is Swifty George). But alas to no avail. Alright, alright I will quit procrastinating. I'm off to try again, riding into the windmill.