Jillian All Dressed Up

What a character! Here's Jillian wearing one of the hats my sister made for her. How festive!

Four Years of the Dog

Purpose:

be there when they wake up

be there with a wagging tail

be there to warm the bed

be there to snuggle

be there to blend in with the furniture

be there to make them stop and smile

be there to make them laugh out loud

be there to bring the ball

catch the ball

bring the ball, catch the ball, bring the ball, catch the ball, bring the ball
be there when there's cheese within sniffing distance

be there to bark at shadows, squirrels, opossums, dogs on TV

be there to beg pretty

sit pretty

roll over pretty

break-dance

be there always

be there the same

be there when they come home

be there constant as the constellations -   
be their Bebe

Happy 4th Birthday, Bebe!

Felix Sweet Sixteen

old green eyes still wise

silky soft fur ripples, purrs -

blessed cat's nine lives

Earthly Sweetness

Today, I unearthed the last of the summer garden. I smell like oregano, basil, rosemary and tomatoes, all I need is a little cheese and I'd be scrumptious pizza! All the herbs but the ever-growing rosemary have been pulled, and when I removed the thick of the tomato vines I discovered four volunteer corn plants. It won't be long before the squirrels discover them, too! Aside from Bebe, a garden snake, two extraordinarily large lizards, several bees and a few doves kept me company as I uprooted long red earth worms while I tugged, grunted and finally released the last of the summer vegetables. A quarter of the garden is lush with green sweet potato vines which occasionally bloom with morning glory like purple flowers. Today, I mustered up enough courage to dig beneath the roots to see if there were any fruits of my labor. Low and behold, two sweet potatoes! I know there are plenty more, but from the looks of the ones I pulled, I think I'll wait a few more weeks to unearth the remaining 80 or so lurking below the surface.

Gifts from the Left

Our summer vacations went in the same direction but to two different places this year. Jayne headed out to Santa Rosa for job training and I headed out to Phoenix to visit my sister. When we got home, we presented each other with gifts along the same theme!

While in Cave Creek, AZ, I went to the Town Dump and bought Jayne a new sunburst for our backyard fence. We have a small collection started and seem to have a fondness for sunbursts like the ones seen on Sunday Morning.

   While in Sonoma, CA, Jayne bought me  a print by Thomas Patrick from Red Wolf Gallery. Its theme combines two of my favorite things perfectly: coffee and sunflowers. This print is called "Coffee Sunrise".  

So while my gift game from a gallery and her gift came from the town dump, the sentiment was the same:

...you are my sunshine, my only sunshine....

Sistering the Same

It started when I opened the refrigerator at my sister Lynn's  house in Arizona. Had it not been for the double doors, I would have thought it was my own. First, the real butter (and she uses it just like I do, thickly smeared and more so like Paula Dean does). Next, there was the same half and half, and caramel creamer (for her home-brewed coffee every morning, just like I do),  and the thinly sliced bagels. Then, there was a container of feta cheese because it makes everything taste better (even though we both love goat cheese), and the naked glass pitcher of freshly brewed iced-tea just like I make at home. The fridge was organized exactly like mine, and there were lemons, lots of lemons, because she loves lemons, just like her sister!  Was I in Tampa, still? The cheeses were all in one drawer, just like I like, along with deli meats, and paper towels lined the bottom of the drawers.  I know what you're thinking, that you do the same things, but there were many "same things" that brought comfort to my heart that my sister is my sister. Just to name a few, we both eat standing up, we coordinate our clothing similarly, we'd play all day long watering with the hose outside given the chance, we grow herbs, love watching Castle  and Alex Guarmaschelli's cooking show Alex's Day Off,  and reading mysteries. We're both claustrophobic, we both can cook on a dime and clean the kitchen as we go and there's never a dirty spoon or dish in the sink,  and we can clean a house like Bewitched, run 3 loads of laundry and grocery shop all before the sun rises or anyone else for that matter. Just to name a few.

Having spent very little quality time with my sister in decades, except for special occasions like weddings, this was the first time we "hung out" since probably our childhood, where she, seven years my senior, raised me.  Now, here we are adult siblings who live 1300 miles apart and chat via Facebook and Skype. This is what sibling-hood has come to, the Internet. For four glorious days, I basked in the comfort of sisterhood and the discovery of our similarities like long lost twins.

Arizona Trip:  Day 1 - My flight from Tampa to Phoenix was almost three hours delayed. Remind me to never schedule a flight from Florida to anywhere during the rainy season around 5:00 in the afternoon. We sat waiting for the lightning to cease crisscrossing the sky while inching our way onto the tarmac 10 minutes at a time. The woman sitting next to me was making a Japanese Temari ball  which made me want to start cross-stitching again.  Beautiful and intricate, she stitched and cut for hours. I wondered how security let her on the plane with needles and scissors, though.  Once we finally took off, everyone switched to their electronic worlds and even the Temari ball was discarded for an ipod.

By the time I arrived in Phoenix, it was midnight EST and I still had a 45 minute drive to my sister's house via my brother-in-law Ron's 19-year old Lexus (complete with the 12-pound car phone permanently installed in the arm-rest).  As I stepped out of the airport the heat hit me like pizza oven heat when you open the door and hot air reddens your face; very different from Florida heat.  When we finally arrived at my sister's house, I remember my first thought was that my sister is shorter than I remembered. She's a good two inches shorter than I am, and her height immediately reminded me of our Nana who was about 4'10".  While pondering that, five look-alike Pugs pondered my arrival with their big brown/black eyes. Bentley, Sydney (the king and queen), Cassie, Penny, and Pugsley (the rescue and my favorite of all). You'd think five dogs in one house would have been overwhelming, but the only thing overwhelming was their peaceful, loving natures. Bedtime awaited, but not before my sister fed me her delicious coffee cake and tempted me with her tuna salad. When I got to my room, I noticed a basket of fresh towels and soap - Lever 2000, my favorite.

Day 2: My sister's day starts at 4:30 in the morning with hungry pets pestering; funny, so do mine! Once we had coffee, Greek yogurt (which I love, too!) and homemade blueberry jam, we spent the day "big-boxing" down Carefree Highway by starting out at Barnes & Noble (of course), for a little shopping spree and some more coffee. Then, off to World Market for a stroll,  Joanne's Fabrics to find some non-existent book-patterned material for an apron my sister was going to make me,  In and Out Burger for lunch and lastly,  Best Buy for new phones (both Lynn and Ron's phones were the flip type with antennas and were way overdue for an upgrade). We had company for dinner. I grilled chicken and my sister made corn on the cob the way our mother used to, cooked in milk and a little sugar, just wonderful.  Later, we all played a fun game called Kwirkle and retired to our respective computers. At one point, my sister was IMing me about something my brother-in-law did and we were right across the table from each other!

Day 3: Our goal was to see Sedona, and on the way, we took an old dirt road to a place called Arcosanti  http://www.arcosanti.org/  You have to see it to appreciate the utter beauty and uniqueness of this place, and you really need an 18-wheeler to get down the dirt road, not a 19-year old car, but we made it and I'm glad we did. We were too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, but all the food is organically grown on property and served on the honor system. We didn't take the tour, but will next time in cooler weather, but we did go through the chimes gallery and I bought the smallest, most inexpensive one there just for a souvenir. The ride to Sedona was beautiful and my tour guides detailed the changing terrain along the way. We stopped and took pictures of the magnificent mountain formations, walked through the tourist town, lunched, snacked on chocolate (where I discovered my sister loves dark chocolate honey combs just like me!) and browsed the shops.

At an overlook, we spotted a family traveling with dogs and a granny in a nice-sized RV.  Both my sister and I remarked at the same time how we would love to travel the states in an RV and how we've always wanted to buy one. I never knew. I thought I shared that fantasy all to myself.

Somehow, we got talking about the day I was born and my sister always tells my birth story from her 7-year old perspective. I could listen to it again and again. I love when she tells about the day I was born. Here it is in a nutshell. My mother went into labor early in the morning. On the way to the hospital, she asked my dad to stop at Pennsylvania Dutch Donuts on Atlantic Avenue in Atlantic City, because she was craving donuts. They dropped my sister off at my Nana's house and then my mother at the hospital. She gave birth to me sometime between 7am and lunchtime (there's no time on my birth certificate). My sister remembers my father picking her up from Nana's house and taking her street-side outside of the hospital, looking up into the noon sun and waving to my mother in her hospital room. Now I know why I have a passion for donuts!

Dinnertime, and I made one of my signature symmetrical salads loaded with different lettuces, peppers, cheeses and fruit and cashews. Yummy. Friends brought over Maine lobster and we feasted until the snap popped open on my shorts! My sister made tons of great appetizers and mini-desserts. Heaven.

Day 4: We spent this day more local and traveled to Cave Creek www.cavecreek.org which is an eclectic blend of cowboy country living and quaint hometown galleries. We had delicious coffee and visited a place called The Town Dump which I could have spent days rummaging through had it not been close to 100 degrees. We traveled on to see huge boulder formations in Carefree and visited the resort where Ron works and shopped in a fabulous grocery in Scottsdale called AJ's.  We called it an early day and spent the rest of the night at home eating leftovers, and watching television. I love watching my sister dual task. She knits while watching old Bette Davis movies on her DVD player; never taking her eyes off of the screen, fingering the stitches like reading braille all the while. She has a house full of knitted and hand-sewn creations she's whipped up over the years to pass the time: afghans, baby sweaters, Halloween pumpkins, Christmas trees, aprons, hats, slippers, more than I can name. She's a one-woman craft show!

Last Day:  Goodbyes are always hard when you know visits are few and far between.  Every visit with my sister adds to my knowledge of my past. She's always telling me stories I never knew such as the fact that my father had a twin lost in childbirth, or that there was a child miscarried between me and my sister. I guess seven years does make a difference; she has a complete set of different memories from mine that I never experienced.  Of course there are differences between us: she is uniquely gifted with my Nana's genes when it comes to yarn crafts. Our grandmother came right from Italy and knitted her days away. My sister is so talented with needles and hooks, I am amazed. I have none of that talent. She can sew anything and make it beautiful and she can cook anything and make it wildly scrumptious. She is also a history buff. I missed that boat big time, but listening to her zeal for history is impressive. She likes spicy food, I don't.

Our similarities from across the miles amuse me: we're both uniquely sensitive to temperature change, we both drive with the sun visors down on both sides (when allowed), we both set our clocks ahead a few minutes, we both sleep with ice-packs, we both have asthma and allergies (thanks to our mother's genes), we both love our coffee and put cinnamon in it, and both despise the smell and taste of hazelnut,  neither one of us can drive well at night, and we both have sun-sensitive eyes; her eyes are caramel colored, too, only lighter than mine.

So here we are, me in Tampa, Lynn in Phoenix. She's sixty years old and still seems in her 30's to me. I picture ourselves in a big RV one day, both in our 80's traveling down Carefree Highway with our coffee cups and dogs just taking in the scenery on our way to Route 66 for that long awaited trip. She'll be knitting and watching old Bette Davis movies and I'll be tapping away on my blog about me and my sister. Oh..and who will be driving? Ron and Jayne will have to figure that one out!

A June Strawberry Moon

coal sky -

june's moon rides high

behind a cloak of smoke

birds sigh, lakes still, trees breathe under

moon's eye

Sunday Morning

When I awake from peaceful dreams,

and shuffle from my slumber,

I wander through the garden greens,

and praise all nature's wonder.

Do sunflowers sleep at night,

or bow their heads in prayer?

Do dragonflies enhance their flight,

or use petals as their lair?

When I lay down to peaceful dreams,

I never need to wonder.

My garden is as stunning as it seems

in morning as in my slumber.

What Evening Brings in Our Garden

Reflections on a June Morning Walk

Summer -

blue bay's lighthouse;

a Cooper's Hawk watching

wading White Ibis reflections.

Morning.

May's-End Bounty

blush earth's ripened gifts
hidden deep 'neath dewy leaves -
a still-life whence picked

Bee's Breakfast

Happy are the carpenter bees

who swarm around the sun.

They buzz with every breath they breathe,

a summer morning's hum.

Leap Frog

When darkness holds an empty moon,
chirping crickets polka dot the night.
When lovebugs fly to mate and swoon,
a tree frog leaps and takes flight.

Alphabet Bean Soup

ALPHABET BEAN SOUP

green beans

in a snap

shimmy

out

of their white blossom

umbrellas

and

dangle

like earrings

from their stems.

Some beans -

long,

slender

shapely

like a woman's

leg

in

silk stockings

with a seam

running

up the back.

Others -

inpatient for pickers

drop

silently

from their strap-hangers

spelling

S O S

in the sandy soil.

grammar police gather

errant

commas

question marks

lower-case e’s

half-fast c’s

and toss them into

boiling chicken stock

with potatoes -

homegrown alphabet soup.

Feline's Fool Moon

full moon
fools felines' eyes -
why is the black velvet
midnight sky serving a saucer
of milk?

Thank You, Earth

beneath earth day eve
roses bleed atop green stems
bending sunset's way

Cardinal Red

sunset's red roses
reflect cardinals' flight
blooming feather light

Arm Chair Psychology

FELIX: Bebe, stare at the black line. You are feeling very sleepy. Ticktock gray squirrels, ticktock tennis balls, ticktock red birds, ticktock kitty-cat.

BEBE: Does he really think I'm going to fall for the black line trick again?
:: zzzzzzzz:: squirrels, balls, birds, warm furry cat ::zzzzzzzzz::

FELIX: You are very sleepy. Ticktock kitty-cat, ticktock purring cat, ticktock snuggle cat.

BEBE: ::zzzzzzz:: purr purr.

FELIX: ::zzzzzzz:: Gotcha, dog breath!

Sun Catcher

origami rose
unfolding white buttercups
holding springtime sun

Another Couch, Another Conversation

Bebe: Hey, blanket hog! Do you have to take up so much room? I'm squished into this corner as tight as I can get!

Felix: Not my problem.

Bebe: You know this is my couch. You don't even come close to matching it. Look how well I blend in! You can hardly see me.

Felix: In your dreams.

Bebe: Fine. Be that way. Just keep your hairy butt away from mine.

Conversation on a Couch

Felix: Bebe! You're in my spot.
Bebe: Tough! I'm comfy and I'm not moving. Go find a sunny spot some place else.
Felix: Fine, then don't blame me when you have to shake a ton of cat hair off your coat.
Bebe: Yuck.
Felix: Look at the dent you're putting in the cushion.
Bebe: What is it you're really trying to say?
Felix: You're fat, not fluffy.
Bebe: Scat, cat!
Felix: ::purr::
Bebe: ::grrr::

Spring Weekend

Finally, Florida's winter has broken. Saturday and Sunday were stellar spring days and we took advantage of Mother Nature's grace.

Saturday took us to the northern tip of Clearwater to an estate sale where we purchased a sweet little credenza and a stool needle pointed by some one's grandmother. We ate grouper sandwiches at Frenchy's Original Cafe and shopped around. The day was cool, breezy and Florida's sun, set in a pool of blue, gave us some much needed vitamin D.

Sunday we walked up the road to Sweetwater Organic Community Farm (Sweetwater Organic Community Farm | An urban, organic farm providing healthy food, educational programs and community-building opportunities since 1995) for some hot-out-of-the-brick-oven pizza, but the pizza guy wasn't there, so we picked up some sweet potatoes for me to plant next weekend when it will be time to plant our Spring veggie garden.

Bebe enjoyed herself too. She had a great little walk and was able to sniff and play with some vegan doggies.

Later, we went to the Buddha Center where the Jade Buddha of Universal Peace was on display at a huge festival.

"The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace is the largest Buddha carved from gemstone quality jade in the world. The Jade Buddha is 2.7 metres high and sits on an alabaster throne of 1.4 high. The Jade Buddha itself weighs around 4 tons and has been valued at $5 million. Its size and beauty make it a wonder of the world. The Buddha inside the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodh Gaya (India) is the model for the Great Jade Buddha. This Buddha was chosen because it is universally recognized by all Buddhists.

The purpose of exhibiting the Jade Buddha around the world is for everyone, irrespective of their religion, to take a moment to reflect upon peace; peace for the world; peace in their relationships; peace for their families and friends; peace at work; peace in their mind."

We were two of but a handful of non-Asian attendees and mostly everything was written in characters we didn't understand. When Jayne asked one of the Asian-looking vendors what something meant, the gal said.."I don't know, I'm not Chinese."

Welcome Spring! Welcome peace!

Winter Roses Rise

march winter persists

winds bend the thorny thin stems

roses' heads held high

February Remembers

Not one
February,
but two Februaries.
First one, then another passes;

parents.

Some months
go unnoticed

until February's
heavy heart sinks soft behind mine;

pounding.

Valentine Robin

robins polka-dot

wintery ice cold blue skies

one breast rests alone

Frozen Lemonade

Not one

bitter, bitting

Florida frost - but three deep

freezing nights took lemon after

lemon

Produce Shopping Before the Frost (in my own backyard)

Lemons,

'maters green-red,

dill, parsley, sage, peppers

plucked before plunging temperatures

bite hard.