Kate McKinnon

I would TOTALLY be all over Paula Best’s Dog Collar sale!

Rob Brezsny featured a great Noam Chomsky quote in his horoscope email this morning.

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope.”

It’s our responsibility to imagine for ourselves a better tomorrow, full of beauty. 

My beloved father-in-law is on the operating table right now. He’s having a surgery on his back to correct pain in his leg; he’s 85 but very active, and judged that the benefits outweighed the risk and inconvenience. I’m thinking of you, sir, with love. Update: he came through just fine. Whew!

Well, I have some lovely news for us. I have booked another two weeks next summer at Gwen Gibson’s lovely retreat in the South of France, La Cascade. I can tell you, with all assurance, that this is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The dates at La Cascade will be:  August 27- Sept 13, 2010.

Won’t you come and join me? The time will be a mix of travel, exploration, poking around lovely village yard sales, medieval cathedrals, ancient abbeys, and the many affordable (yes, really) cafes, shops, and village markets of the Languedoc region. 

Click here to see the page about the class, and to reserve your space. Thinking about this trip, and how wonderful it will be, is the best thing I can imagine this cool, clear, sunny morning. I want to put all thoughts of difficulty out of my mind, and focus just a bit ahead in the road, to a time of sunflowers, and lavender, and the easy pace of two summer weeks wandering the ancient roads of the south of France.

La Cascade sleeps 8 people, two to a huge room, with three shared bathrooms in the hallways. Additional accomodations, both private and shared, are available at Bernard and Vero’s place just down the road.

Also planned surrounding this trip are a week in Paris (before) and a week in Barcelona (after.) More information will follow on these options.

I’m going to try to ignore distractions, and spend the whole day productively. Good luck to me.

Well, today sucked, and it was also a beautiful day.  Both things were swirled together into a kind of Bundt cake of good and bad.

I finally heard from the IRS regarding my mother’s estate, and apparently what they think is a fair penalty to charge a missing person who was later found dead, and didn’t file her tax returns for four years on account of, well, being missing and dead, is… $8,000.  Yep. That’s what they decided was fair.

I can’t fathom it, and of course I’ll write again, asking how exactly my law-abiding mother, who never filed a form late, never left a bill unpaid, could have filed her returns, considering, but I’m not expecting much, and I’m really not in the position, legally or practically, to be able to hire yet another attorney to negotiate with them. The Attorney handling Mom’s estate is less than no help; he says that I should be grateful they didn’t charge more. I want to kick him, really hard, but that’s nothing new.

The great thing about this, however, is that it’s the last turn of the screw, the final item that I’ve been waiting for. Maybe I’ll get it reduced, maybe not, but when this bill is paid, however it happens, the whole thing will be over, and I can begin recovering from the nightmare.

Illustration by HB Lewis, used with permission.

Today I put the orange roof on the back arbor. It’s that old-school wavy plastic that lasts for 100 years, but now it comes in mod colours like burnt orange.

It looks great with the sun shining on it, and it’s a nice bit of shade at midday. Can you believe that this stuff is making a come-back? Ha!

Karen Elmquist sent me a great book- it’s the Better Homes And Gardens Decorating Book from 1961. I’m in love.

The Zombie Mommy below kind of freaks me out.

One quote I found hilarious was this:

You mean like this? Lona HAS this couch, in blue and green.

Our male Anna’s hummingbird died yesterday afternoon, after becoming ill or injured in the morning. I am broken-hearted; to put his glittering little body in the ground and cover it with dirt was to remember him diving and swooping in the yard every day. I buried him at the base of a just-planted carolina jessamine, with some whorly quartzy agates for a marker. I miss him more than I can say.

Photo by Janine Russell.

Liam and Evan joined me for a beautiful breakfast in the newly pimped B40. We had pancakes, toasted banana bread that Evan and I baked last night, and sliced Fuji apples, Irish cheese, and andouille sausage. Orange juice and Peet’s coffee.

Liam’s hair is like pure spun copper in the sun, copper laced with every color of gold I could dream of. He should totally grow it rockstar. After breakfast was mostly over Evan was battling a fly and we remembered the blue mosquito net we bought last year at Ikea’s end of summer sale. We felt like sultans inside.

And the swing has been much enjoyed already. 

It seems that simplicity is the goal; and not a bad one. I’m happy with it.  The studio house is for sale, so keep an ear out if anyone wants to buy the most excellent house possible in Tucson. It’s easy to rent half, and use half, it’s safe and private, and one of the most peaceful spots I’ve ever been in. It’s been lovely to have it… I admit that as attractive as a simple, sustainable life is, it’s hard to let go sometimes… and isn’t that the truth.

I’m expecting Bill for a visit this weekend, he’s been gone for two weeks and that’s sort of a long time. He hasn’t seen the new Nirvana that is the B40- I’m looking forward to showing it to him, kissing on the swing.

The three eaglets are doing well, although the oldest one (left) does pick on the runt, (middle and back) pecking him on the head and always trying to get every piece of food. I’m not down with that, and although I know it’s how nature works, I can’t help thinking, “what a jerk.”

Evolution doesn’t always bring our best traits to the fore, just those that lend themselves to success and survival.

Speaking of the birdies, the Saturday Dawn Chorus Birdblog is in full swing at the Daily Kos, and it’s almost time for a nice listen to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

I’m moving my scene entirely to cloudspace, it’s kind of a trip. Well not entirely, I’ll still cling to actual backups on actual hard drives, but my webspace is now in the cloud. I’m about to change my hosting pointer so that my domain points to WordPress and it feels like leaving some sort of husk behind on the ground. Everything is here now, have you checked out the links at upper right? I’ll keep adding, it’s easy now that I can do it from anywhere.

Cute photo of what I think is a female Anna’s hummer with a feather for her nest by DesertGuy.

All of my muscles are complaining; it’s been a lot of work Clearing Brush; not as much work as being President, though, and I continue to be so impressed with our fabulous new President. I love him, I’m on his team. Today’s goal for me is to build a bridge from the flagstone-paved Pool yard to the B40, over the irrigation trench I’m digging for the pool backwash (and rain) to run in.

Do you know Lyrebirds?

I got all of the trees trimmed, and most of the weeds pulled. Doesn’t it look nice? 

I’ve been lugging these metal fence pieces around for about ten years now. How excellent to finally put them to use supporting the Lady Banks. She’s already wrapping herself around them. And I hung the porch swing, facing the breakfast table, which is about 25 feet away.

Mr. ChipChip has been supervising all of the activity. He loves it. Still no sign of the Mrs.- I’m thinking she’s sitting on eggs, but I haven’t spotted their nest.

Below, a small reminder of the eventual purpose of this arbor; an outdoor bathroom.  I need to take my extra window bars down to Gerson’s Salvage; Ron Gerson said he’d be happy to trade me a nice old clawfoot tub for them.

You’ll be pleased to see this pot:  basil and cilantro. Finally! I’ve sown opal and holy basil, and two kinds of chives from seed, and the lettuce is already ready to start eating. Now we’re looking for a good watermelon vine and a few more heirloom tomatoes.