Little sister's kiss

Here are two more sisters. See the orange binky?? Oh, I do love these girls.

A dark night??

We went to see The Dark Knight this evening. I hated it. I can only say evil is no laughing matter. And anyone can see that we can do make-up that's just as scary as any other joker.

When we came home the night was actually dark. And the stars are gorgeous. It's nice to live away from the city lights and under the starlight. And with that, I'll say: Good night!

Muzzie

First things first, I had an ice cream cone with my McDonald's salad yesterday. And lo and behold, for the first time since starting this salad mania, this morning the scales showed a 2 and1/2 pound drop! What's with that? I think ice cream may very well be a weight loss catalyst. I will have to put this theory to the test. It makes the whole idea of lunch just that much better!

Night before last I could not sleep. I tossed, I turned; I turned, I tossed. I got up and cleaned up the kitchen about 1:00 AM. That is an indication of true sleep desperation. I read; I lay still with my eyes shut breathing slowly. Nothing. At three in the morning I wrote the wild ramblings of my brain. And then I fell asleep.

Today I pulled out a little pile of scrap papers to see what was going on in my head. Not what you might expect:

Muzzize Birda waits,
Holds firmly to her perch.
Head tilts to one side
She hears the sound below.

Muzzie preens,
Each soft feather arranged
just so.
She lifts her wings
Calms her steady heart.

This is the day.
She lifts her head in song--
Simple notes
High and sharp

Now in flies Flika Tui,
Home at last
Ruffles her feathers
Iridescent, bright
Long and filled with color.

Sisters from the same nest
Flika Tui has broken free.

Can't she see that
Muzzie Birda is mine?
And I am all hers?

Forever tied together.

Come in Flika.
Come home at last
to roost.

Muzzie Birda is my softa.
Flika is her sister.

When Muzzie Birda leaves
the perch and flies
into the heavens
Everyone calls and waves:

Goodbye Muzzie
Goodbye Birda
Goodbye Softa
We love you.

Now Flika Tui,
Sometimes we call you
Muzzie.

Tui Bird coos and warbles
When we stop in.
Don't tell me, don't tell me.
Let me guess. . . .

Then one day Tui is gone.
No on sees her go.
No one calls goodbye.
No "We love yous"

Fill the sky.

Did she find Muzzie?

Sometimes

I hear them singing

Together

Far away in my dreams.

Day 4 of the McDonalds challenge.

Well, I bought a Mickey Dee's salad yesterday and ate it in Taco Bell, while everyone but Megan had beans. Megan stayed out in the car and threw up. . . again and again and again. I think she was cheating--being sick wasn't part of the weight loss agreement. But, she did give a very convincing performance.

Megan, Charlie, Leslie and Cierra arrived at 2:00 AM Sunday morning. After church we went out into the fields in search of the mighty amythion--jewel of the dung beetles available in our area. We dug through several hundred fresh plops and found a grand total of one (1) female. The males are much more spectacular than the females. The males have a big curved horn and a sturdier body, but the female is still quite nice.

We found little green dung beetles and black medium sized dungers rolling their sun across the ground only to bury it in the dark earth (thus the sacred scarab of the Egyptians.) But only one amythion. Oh well. Finally, having worked up an appetite, we drove down to Nogales for food.

Except for Megan. She threw up all the way back to Tempe. I am so sorry for her. I told her I think that we could include egg McMuffins for breakfast. They are very healthy sandwiches. She wasn't interested in salads or sandwiches.

Today Megan had a McDonalds salad for lunch. I went up to Tucson to cosign Graham's rental lease for the coming year. We looked at apartment after apartment before we ended up back at the same place he had lived all year.

And we ate at Panda Express. At 4:30. I figure that was lunch and dinner. No use adding a salad on top of that.

Coming home Elephant's Head (an outcropping below Mt. Hopkins) was in just the right light for picture taking. However, driving and snapping with the little Sony did not afford as nice a picture as stopping with the Nikon might have done.

Still, the day was beautiful, Graham has an apartment and a job and the week is young. Who knows what adventures lurk???!!!

Salad Daze

So, Day 2 of the McDonalds challenge. Yesterday I ate my delcious McDonald's salad for lunch and felt very satisfied!! Of course The 240 calorie salad is not the only food of the day. I had shredded wheat for breakfast--my usual--with berries, and I planned to have a small dinner. Oh no, I forgot it was the Pioneer Day potluck down at the church, and I had already agreed to bring my 12 loaves of bread. So off I went, and off course I had to fill my plate. There were so many choices. And so many desserts. But still, I felt like I overate in moderation considering.

Today I had my shredded wheat with bananas and then I made a salad for lunch. I modeled it on the McDonalds salad, but I just couldn't drive 15 miles each way just to buy a salad when I really have the fixings here at home. We'll see how dinner goes. Thirty five days to go.

Then I worked in the yard, pulling weeds until I had a big enough space to plant 4 tomato plants and 2 pepper plants that my friend Raquel gave me last night. By the time I was finished I was literally dripping with sweat. Lovely image. I came in and showered and washed my hair, drank cool water, felt good. Then I went back out to turn off the sprinklers that I had turned on to give the new transplants a boost.

I stood and surveyed my garden and decided that while I was at it I should transplant my hanging garden before the bucket tomato plants all died. There were only 4 out of the original 6 still struggling to survivie, and my cilantro had all gone to seed. So, clean and fresh I started in again with the shovel. Now all the tomatos, the basil, the cilantro, the oregano, etc etc are in the ground and rain is approaching. I hope they get a good soak. I had to come in and take another cool soak myself. But, the yard is lush!! I love it.

Lightning!!!

Lightning. Yesterday Ari called me up to ask me if Steven had ever been struck by lightning. She had to call and ask because she obviously didn't believe Steven's story. But, the first month that we moved into this house--Five years ago in just 3 more weeks--Steven was sitting in his bedroom talking on the phone when lightning hit the corner of the house his bedroom occupies. The electricity went right through the phone and gave him a jolt. It also knocked 4 tiles off the corner of the roof on our brand new house. So. There you have it.

I guess telling the story jinxed me. I was in the bedroom this afternoon minding my own business when the kitchen windows glowed with a bright white light and thunder crashed over my head behind me. Lightning hit right on the front of the house.

One of the unexpected benefits of living on a ridge. Free light shows followed by rain. I nearly jumped out of my skin!

Pioneer Day

Happy Pioneer Day. The 24th of July is NOT a national holiday, for anyone who may be wondering. It is a State Holiday in Utah and also my sister-in-law Charlene's birthday. When I called her and woke her up this morning to wish her a happy birthday she said the governor gives her her birthday off every year.

There must have been a parade down State Street today. There were fireworks this evening. But, if you aren't in Utah you will have to cause your own celebration. Tomorrow is Uncle Raym's birthday. He just missed having the governor give him his birthday off every year. Too bad Raymie.

My great grandmother was the last living Mormon pioneer to cross the plains to Utah in a covered wagon. The next season the train tracks ran through from St. Louis into Utah. (Remember that Golden Spike?) The summer that she was 100 years old and I was 4 she dressed up and rode in a covered wagon in the parade. I was too little to remember it, but I was still impressed.

My mother's cousin spoke in the Tabernacle on Pioneer Day in 1947--the Centennial Year for the settlement of Utah. His talk was called "To Them of the Last Wagon". (listen to original broadcast: http://www.mormontimes.com/ME_index.php?id=1545

I wasn't born yet of course, but the talk was printed up into a little book and I read it many times.

So you can see that for me the Pioneers and Pioneer Day were/are very real. Tonight I baked 12 loaves of bread. If I don't eat them all tonight I will take them down to the church tomorrow evening to go with the Pioneer Day dinner in Nogales, Arizona. You don't need to be in Utah to be a Pioneer.

When I was little, growing up in Martinez, California, we always spent Pioneer Day at a park in Pacheco. We had three legged races and played horseshoes. The boys pulled handcarts around the park and we--the girls--wore bonnets made out of wallpaper samples. But best of all, under the bridge in the creek that ran through the park you could catch the biggest bullfrogs I have ever seen.

I am sure that the park, the bridge, and the bullfrogs are all long gone. But boy, were they big!!

Busy-Work Day

Look what a difference a hyphen makes. . . this was not a busy, work day. it was a busy-work day. The sky is gray and cloudy. Rain threatens, but so far has failed to make an appearance. Mike isn't feeling too great today. His broken ribs are reacting to the weather most likely. So, I filled the day ordering satellite tv, talking to our real estate appraiser, researching the beginnings of the Rio Rico land scam--very interesting--fraud, murder, politics. Everything one could ever hope for in a soap opera. But it seems to be for real. I did some mending, visited with a friend, made lunch, talked to the phone company. I downloaded three movies, upgraded my Mexico Maps in the GPS, and corrected a glaring error in our family history. Now I have the evening ahead of me. I hope I can find a good book! Either that or computer movies. Ho hum, the day is done.

Another Sunday . . .

Well, another week is over, or is it just beginning? Graham came down on Friday to go to the orthodontist across the line--that is the international border between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. There is really something screwy going on with the crossing. As we were entering Mexico a crew was removing one of the 2 turnstiles that provide access to Mexico. When we came back the turnstile was gone, replaced by heavy steel bars. So, one turnstile to enter the country. Then the line to return to the USA wound around the block twice. We waited in line two and a half hours. Of course the pedestrian crossing was still closed due to the collapsed sewer tunnels accounting for some of the additional traffic; but the main, downtown crossing was being operated manually. That means that instead of scanning our passports or identity cards through their high tech, super-duper smuggler proof machines, two customs agents were looking into our eyes trying to determine if we were reliable or not, and also whether we were actually USA citizens with valid id's. As Graham said, a drug runner's paradise (except for that long line) Oh well. I did finally finally find a shoe repair. They will mend the strap on a purse, restitch a pair of clogs and add straps to a pair of sloppy shoes all for the huge amount of 50 pesos. Oh my. Not quite $5.00. And next door was an all you can eat Chinese food buffet for 30 pesos. I say go for the shoe repair. Bien, Hasta luego.

Life without POWER

Here we were enjoying the morning, sitting in the air conditioning under the spinning fans when without warning the POWER went off. What is that about? We lost the power. I tried to call the neighbors and then realized that our cordless phones go dead with the loss of electricity. So I was down to cell phones which I could not recharge if the power happened to stay off for days and days. Well, you have to think of all the worst possibilities in case of emergency. . . .

The neighbor's power was out up the road, and we agreed to go to the movies in Nogales so that we could get out of our soon to be sweltering houses and sit in an air conditioned theater. (What wooses we are.)

Unfortunately the power was out not only in Rio Rico, but in Nogales and Tubac--basically all of Santa Cruz county. Then the next door neighbor called and asked me if I knew how to open a garage in the case of loss of power. So I walked up and showed her the manual garage door opening method, allowing her to escape from her house and go to work. We are just lost without POWER.

With no other alternatives I took a warm afternoon nap and woke up just as the fan began turning again about 4:00. What a relief. The world hadn't ended, the sky wasn't falling. Life can continue for another day!! And the house is cooooool.

Rio Rico in the Rain

Don't go wading in Wio Wico!

The weather in Rio Rico this weekend was wonderful. There was rain-- of course--we're in the middle of the Arizona monsoons. There were wonderful clouds, rainbows, and water--but not too much water.
Unfortunately the same could not be said for Nogales, Arizona/Nogales, Sonora just 10 short miles to the south. The rain in Nogales came down a little harder than it did here on our hilltop. It came down so hard that the Calle Elias just south of the fence ( a road that was once upon a time an extension of Morley Street, main business district for downtown Nogales) collapsed into the sewer tunnel. That tunnel runs right into the USA where all that sewage is processed before it ends up in the Rio Rico River. I happened to cross the line today. The first sign of trouble was the gate and lock blocking the local pedestrian crossing. To reach the main port of entry/exit? I had to take an elevator up to the second floor and walk acrosss an elevated walkway where I looked right down into Mexico. It looked like the street had exploded. Bulldozers were busy removing the asphalt so that the sewer line could be accessed completely. To quote the Nogales International newspaper:
"Near the close of business and in the wake of Saturday’s rains, shopkeepers along the first two blocks of Morley Avenue were barraged by runoff. The water gushed from across the line through the pedestrian port of entry where border walls acted as a dam.According to Mexican media reports and local store owners, the border walls held back storm runoff that burst through the concrete and asphalt ceiling of the wash tunnel on Calle Elias, just 60 feet south of the pedestrian port of entry.Up to five feet of water pooled on the Mexican side of the border where several vehicles that were parked in the area floated and converged at the base of a nearby hill. “It looked like a bomb fell,” said one observer."

Several vehicles were actually 35 cars! And they are still there since the street is impassable and was filled with --you know what! My favorite jewelry store is on Calle Elias. JC Penney's, Arizona was flooded as were several local stores.

I really wish I had taken my camera with me. But you'll have to be satisfied with pictures of beautiful Rio Rico. Chao for now.

Beetlemania

Charlie, Leslie, and Cierra met us in Madera Canyon last night. It was pouring rain in Rio Rico, but Megan and I drove up to the high spot behind our house where we could get a good look at Elephant's Head and it was cloud free. So off we went. I was surprised by how many black lights and mercury vapor lights were shining on all sides as we drove up the canyon. We went up nearly to the top and set up in the picnic grounds next to a couple looking for a solitary spot--I guess we ruined that for them. As soon as we started up the generator and plugged in our bright llights they were gone! Moths flew in immediately, followed by our famous "popcorns", clicks, and then Chrsysina! I had forgotten how gorgeous the gloriosa and the beyeri are. I had forgotten about the clicks with firefly eyes. I had almost forgotten about sitting around in the dark, misty night, laughing and joking--relaxation punctuated by sudden jumps to catch the imcoming fliers. It was really fun. Leslie and Cierra were a little tentative about handling bugs, but I think they are on the way to becoming collectors!

I love the rain.

I woke up early today. A friend called to tell us that our neighbor who was diagnosed with cancer of the esophogus last week died this morning. The doctors told him it was terminal and that he had 6 months to a year at the most. Nobody told him 6 days. It's too bad. He retired last year and was waiting for his wife to retire so they could move to Texas nearer to their kids. On my fridge is a sign that says: Happily we do have today.
Maybe that's all we have. So we better make the most of it!
I finally downloaded the Mexico maps I got in May onto myGPS, then I went outside and moved two bales of hay into the turtle house, hung butterfly hooks in the living room, changed the socket cover in the bedroom, put clothes in to wash, and now I am sitting here eating a big piece of banana bread and typing in my small corner. So much for the healthy breakfast. But, it is a delicious breakfast.

Hello world, or why am I here???!!

Ok, I know that karne's korner is korny, and it has too many k's but it simply occurred to me before any other names. I am at Megan's computer with the doors and windows open enjoying the cool air and the smell of pine trees. We'll see if I can figure out how to actually put together a blog, but just as I am ready to begin Megan is ready to go out. So, hasta luego.