Perfect

Our weather is simply perfect today: high projected at only about 83, humidity only around 25 percent, sunshine. Breezes, not wind.

Unusual for June. Last evening on our way to our final Steel Magnolias performance we ran into a deluge: water poured over the car and the Interstate. We ran out of it fortunately, but this June has been wetter than many, and also cooler. Next week we head upwards into the 100s -- far more typical summer pattern.

The garden likes it, though, and I cut a bunch of lettuces yesterday, including the arugula that is my current favorite. Soon as the temps head up, it'll all bolt, so we're enjoying fresh greens. The RB Farmers Market yesterday has cukes, zucchini, mounds of green beans, and melons -- I have blossoms but no fruit yet, although the tomatoes have clusters of little green orbs that will ripen nicely in the heat. If it gets too hot, however, the blossoms won't set...so I'm hoping for reasonable temps.

We're being very lazy today, this Father's Day. I'm thinking a nap might be good, maybe some steak on the barbecue later, a big salad, then watching our favorite Sunday night shows and even catching up on some of those we've DVR-ed and saved.

It's back to life as usual tomorrow. No rehearsals, no performances, no lines. It will seem odd, I know. And I've got a couple of deadlines, plus many areas that need sorting and cleaning out since I've put stuff off over this last three months.

But I will enjoy today -- the summer solstice, with the longest day of the year and the shortest night. I remember being in Sweden for the solstice many years ago, seeing Maypoles everywhere, sprigs of green adorning cars and boats and homes and even people, to celebrate the return of the sun.

Hope yours is good, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

He's back....

in blogland.

Tony, that is, my dearly beloved, is writing a multi-part story on his blog Cat-E-Whompus about his attitude adjustment over the last several months, and what has contributed to it.

Believe me when I say that it has definitely been a sea-change. You'll want to scroll down to part 1. He posted part 2 last night.

Whose life is more valuable?

I seldom wax political on these pages, although if you browse a bit through past posts you'll find a few. There are others who relish the flapping of the red cape at the bull far more than I.

But the recent murder of George Tiller as he was ushering during a church service got to me. He was cold-bloodedly murdered because he performed late-term abortions in his Kansas clinic. Despite other attempts to shut the clinic down and intimidate both the doctor and his staff, Tiller kept it open to help the desperate women from around the world who seek the procedure.

Reasons for late-term abortions are usually because of some horrible genetic problem in the fetus, and they are rare. More than 90 percent of the abortions performed in the US are first trimester. The decision to have an abortion after that is not easy, nor is it simple to find a facility.

There are many well-known columnists who have opined about the killing, including Ellen Goodman, Deborah King on the Huffington Post, even Time Magazine. As always in abortion-related violence and acts of terrorism against providers and even clients, the pro-life folks are claiming shock at the act, saying that there are other ways to bring providers to justice. But one must wonder if there isn't also some jumping up and down with glee.

I'm not expressing anything new here. Simply put, I am completely baffled by how such an act of violence and murder can be justified by anyone, most especially by groups who claim that ending a pregnancy for any reason, including to save the life of the mother, is wrong. Period.

I do not understand how to justify putting an unborn fetus first in the life of a family -- a mother, certainly, a father, perhaps other children, an extended family -- over the health of either the mother or the fetus, over economic hardship caused to all as a result of a gravely impaired fetus, over certain extensive medical expenses, and over the grief and pain and suffering of all, including what would be a drastically handicapped infant.

Do the other lives then count for nothing? Once born, are we then disposable? Are our lives useful only to the extent that we become incubators for fetuses, no matter how handicapped or how grave a prognosis there might be for it if carried to term? What of the existing lives of the mother, the other children? Are they inconsequential when measured against the life of one yet unborn?

If life is sacred, how does one equivocate the existence of a fetus with the life of a person? Which is the more valuable? And who makes that call?

Pro-choice does not mean proabortion. I have actively been prochoice for years, marching in picket lines, testifying before a state legislature, even lobbying on Capital Hill. Long ago in Missouri, I represented the prochoice viewpoints of various Christian denominations to legislators, voters, and the public. Does that mean I favor abortion? No. Nor did anyone with whom I worked or met during that time.

Tiller provided a compassionate, legal service to desperate women and their families, one which he knew was risky at the least. That he would be gunned down during his own time of worship is -- indeed, MUST be -- intolerable to anyone who believes in love, who believes in a compassionate, caring God, and who values all life.

Crocs on sale again

If you missed it the first time around, the Mary Jane Crocs are on sale again, with 50 percent off if you buy two pair. Use the code MALINDI09 to get free shipping.

I bought two pair, one in silver, the other in cotton candy, and already had one in black. I love them -- you can get them wet, they're cool, they're comfy like slippers.

The sale is good for both women's and girls shoes.

I got this alert from Brad's Deals, a daily shopping e-mail. Most of the time there's nothing I'm looking for, but you just hit delete if that's the case. On the other hand, you can save a bunch if you find a deal.

I'm just sayin'...

Time flies, whether you're having fun or not

As if it wasn't enough to perform "Steel Magnolias" five times a week, I watched the movie yesterday. I have always loved that movie. Even though I knew what was coming, I sobbed anyway.

But since we're well into production, I wanted to see how the six women stars played their characters. It'd been a long time since I watched it. And it holds up well.

One of the things that touched me greatly, though, was in the features section of the DVD, seeing playwright Robert Harling speak about why he wrote the play in the first place. I knew it was a form of grief therapy for him when his beloved sister Susan died, much the same way that Shelby does. But he elaborates some, and I could feel the anguish of the brother at losing her at such a young age. He wanted his nephew to know a little more about his mother, to understand what she did in choosing to have him.

That, and seeing all those actresses 20 years younger, made me think of my own age, my own stage in life now, and all the things I missed out on as a younger person -- all the wasted time, the ill-thought choices.

Not that there weren't some great times and some good choices, mind you. And I wouldn't go back and do it again, not really.

But for some reason seeing the movie made me aware -- again -- of how brief our life here really is, and how unaware we are of that when we are young(er).

In our 20s and 30s, and yes, even the 40s, the awareness of our own mortality is usually non-existent, barring life-threatening illness, accident, or the early deaths of those we love. I, at least, plowed through any number of days without appreciating what I had, even squandering them by not taking care of myself physically (or mentally), just sort of meandering through years without a lot of focus on who I am and what I wanted.

I was a "good" girl, pretty much doing what others expected me to do and be, with a few stubborn streaks thrown in and a couple of fairly bad habits, including smoking and drinking to excess. It wasn't until I was into my 30s that I began to cut those out of my life and to think about what I really wanted and to discover who I really was. And it took another 13-14 or so years to be able to decide what I wanted to do about it.

And while I don't spend time mulling over my past mistakes, I am aware now of how unaware I was -- how unaware my friends and acquaintances were -- of how precious time is. How you can not get back one single day, no matter how much money or love or wishing.

The conundrum, of course, is that you have to get older to really understand this. And then it's too late.

Not that life is over, mind you! No, as Shelby tells Clairee in the play, "There are still good times to be had!" And I do believe that. Life is what you choose to make of it, every day, one day at a time.

But my prime time is over. The 40-something generation is in the power years now -- this is their time now, their time to make the world different, to change their lives, to realize their potential. And the 30s are right on their heels.

I remember those years so clearly that it feels very odd to realize they are over and that part of my life is finished. It still startles me sometimes to catch a glimpse of myself in a window or a mirror and see the mantel of age draped over my hair and my skin and my posture. It's not unattractive, just not always in sync with how I think of myself.

But what really resonates is time: how quickly it goes, what I do with it. There is not a day that I don't say gratitude prayers -- many times a day -- for my husband, our home and friends, for my life as it is and the opportunities that I have and that present themselves so frequently. I didn't do that when I was younger, at least not often. I didn't cherish each day. I wasn't aware that I didn't have all the time I needed to effect whatever change I wanted to make.

I wasn't aware.

I don't know how to help my children understand that, if indeed it is even possible to make them understand it. Perhaps it takes age and perspective.

I can only hope that they will live long enough to see and to understand. I'm grateful that I have and do now.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. ~Carl Sandburg

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires. ~Charles Caleb Colton

Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst. ~William Penn

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ~Denis Waitely

All will be well, and all will be well....

The Steel Magnolias opening was spectacular. We had a great audience, helped, no doubt, by the wonderful food that Riverfront volunteers had prepared for them, and free champagne. They laughed at everything. They cried. One person said she'd been coming to openings for 30 years, and ours was the BEST (of course she could say that to every cast and we wouldn't know).

Nonetheless, we were pleased. Tonight starts the round of buy-out performances. We'll be doing the play five times a week -- three for the public, two for groups who have paid for private performances. Until June 20. I expect we'll all be sick of the characters by that time. I can't imagine doing a play for years on end.

But I do like Miss Clairee. I rather think there is more of her in me than I'd once thought.

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My brother and sister-in-law celebrate their third anniversary today. I wrote about it here, although not nearly as indepth as it might have been, but I was still reeling from both my mother's and my uncle's deaths and hadn't written much of anything since the previous October.

But it was a lovely day, a blessing in the midst of all that pain. And they've gone through some hard times since, with health issues and concerns over work that are the result of the recession -- just like so many people.

It's not the good times that make us strong, it's the tough ones and how we handle stress, pressure, uncertainty, fear. The good times may give us the knowledge that this, too, shall pass, however, and that there are still good things to come. But it's in the fire that we are shaped and tempered and glazed.

Today's Daily Om has a wonderful meditation on marriage. Among other bits of wisdom and observation are these:

"If your relationship is not secure, marriage will not make it so. Likewise, if your partner is not as attentive, loving, or kind as you would like, your becoming spouses will not change that. Marriage has no power to permanently fill any emotional or spiritual gaps in your life. Before you choose to marry, ask yourself whether you and your partner are adept at resolving conflict, can speak openly to one another, and fully respect one another."

In this day and age, it is common to live together before marriage -- indeed, my mother surprised the heck outta me in her later years when she proclaimed that she thought living together was a good idea! Even a committed relationship is not marriage -- although people stay in them for years and years. It changes things somehow, in addition to the legal matters -- or at least it did for us. It brought the sacred into our commitment, I think, and expanded our relationship.

(Maybe I haven't had enough coffee to wax eloquently this morning! I seem to be struggling for adequate words....)

At any rate, I wish them a happy anniversary and hope that "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. " -- Julian of Norwich

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Summer is here, no matter the calendar. Triple digits forecast for today; swamp cooler is in full blast mode; north wind is keeping the humidity well below 20 percent. The garden grows measurably each day (as do the grasses in it, blast and damn). Memorial Day always marks summer's grand entrance, and the groceries were full of hot dogs and hamburgers and watermelon. Next is Independence Day. Time goes so quickly.

Playing catch-up

Damage to the garden was not disastrous as I'd first thought. Most of the plants are coming back, and the deer nicely thinned the seedlings. I should have lettuce by the end of the week, although with the hot weather we're having now it may bolt before I ever get it to the table.

So we planted tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and are experimenting with cantaloupe, watermelon and pumpkins. I've replaced soaker hoses and hung prayer flags which flutter nicely in the breezes. We'll hope for a generous bounty.

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Mother's Day came and went without a post from me, although I'd started a draft. I'd put a photo of mother, my brother and me on my Facebook page that was taken just three weeks before she died in 2005. It is hard to believe she's been gone for going on four years now, and that this winter, my dad will have been dead for 10 years.

But I see them in my own reflection: in my fine, greying hair, in my hands that show a delicate network of aging skin and a few arthritic lumps, in my smile. I hear them in my head -- how mother always said she liked listening to the silence rather than music or television (as do I these days), how they preferred ice water to sodas or lemonade, for instance.

I think of them at my age: mother retired at 60 from teaching because daddy had retired at 65, and they spent the next 10 or so years traveling and playing. More than that, too, but those were probably the prime years, although even those saw some health issues for both of them.

That's not quite in the cards for us yet. Tony is in full hammer-down mode as he goes in early and stays late working on a new product release. I've finished up a few stories, but so much of what I was doing has dried up, at least for now, for various reasons -- the main publication I was working on has ended, and I'm just not sure what I want to do next. This last week or so the play has begun to take most of my energy, although that will ease some with opening on Saturday night.

But I'm trying to stay open to opportunity and possibility. I need to make some money doing something, whether it's selling on eBay or pursuing more writing. Doesn't have to be a lot of money -- although I certainly have no objection to money, mind you!

I've asked the universe yet again to provide and to help me be open. We shall see where this next step takes us.
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Summer is upon us, early this year. We've already had triple digit temps, much to my disgust. I just didn't get enough rain this year, and the early heat had me scrambling in my closet for something that wasn't long-sleeved and cozy. I'm still organizing everything, but at least the linen and cotton things are readily available now.

The last few nights have been wonderful, though, with cool breezes making for sound sleeping conditions. I do love our location, but the early heat is a little frightening: it will be with us well into October in all likelihood. We're all fearful of another summer of fires and unhealthy air because it is so dry.

**********************
We celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary yesterday by going out to breakfast, since I had rehearsal last night and he worked late again. We'll go to the ocean for a little R&R later this summer.

But we always remember that day in the Bay Area -- which was unseasonably warm for San Francisco, but gorgeous. We laughed, we cried through parts of the ceremony (which we wrote) and at which my Uncle Tom officiated, aboard a yacht on the Bay. We ate. We played and talked and enjoyed the boat ride all around our favorite landmarks, and there were Oracle and Kensington colleagues as well as family with us to mark the day.

We both feel incredibly blessed to have found each other, and to continue to be so much in love at this age. It's not that we don't have trials and some hard stuff to deal with -- but it's never with each other -- it's issues with the girls or with work or health or property or something like that. How rare that is to have such a relationship! I am so grateful.

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In the midst of all the busy-ness it is sometimes hard to remember that THIS is our life, each day. Time doesn't stop because we are too busy to notice what is happening every day, every moment. When the product is released and the play is over, our lives will change again -- not really back to what they were a few months ago, but to where they are going every day with every moment and every experience.

It is essential to find even a few moments to appreciate what we have THIS DAY, to ask for what we need, to reflect on and remember how precious time really is. One thing that becomes increasingly evident as we age is that everything can change in a moment, with a heartbeat. it is up to us to choose how we spend our time, who we touch, what we do and say, how we express our gratitude. We have that choice every day.

Steel Magnolias is in preview tonight and we open Saturday. The play is about the fragility of life, I believe, and the relationships with others that can help us deal with the uncertainty and the choices we all have. I'm grateful to be in it once again, for the third time, to be forging a bond with the five other actresses who are in the cast. I hope our audiences take home with them the blessing of friendship and the appreciation for each day we are given.

Garden gone

The bad news: either the wind of the last few days blew open the garden gate (which has a sometimes tenuous latch) or I didn't close it properly -- or a combination of the two. The deer enjoyed a lovely salad luncheon, including the almost-ready-to-be-harvested leaf lettuce and swiss chard, radish sprouts, cucumber plants, a sweet pepper plant, delicately tendriled sugar snap pea plants, and even the new mesclun and onion sprouts.

Most of the yet-unpotted flowers -- although they're not fond of marigolds nor lantana, I discovered. And a good helping of rhubarb leaves, although they left the stalks, mostly.

I hope they got sick. Not fatally, just uncomfortably. They've been spending their days under the carport, in little beds they scrape out from the gravel there. Watching the garden grow, probably, and waiting for their chance.

So Monday I will be back out there, replanting lettuce and chard and cukes and peppers. Planting the rhubarb and hoping that it will survive. Salvaging the flowers. And making sure the damned gate latches tightly.

I also have new prayer flags to top the fence. Let's hope the rising prayers will protect the new plants from the deer, but also from moles, bugs, and other things that like new veggies.

Hunting for bargains

What a week. Articles and deadlines and research and rehearsals and more rehearsals.

And I've also done a little online shopping this week, and thought I might point out a few of my favorite bargain places and alerts. With stores closing, I think I, along with many others, may need to look online in order to get our size or styles.

One blog that is fun and interesting if you like shoes is Barking Dog Shoes. I recently ordered a pair -- the Keen Madrid Mary Jane -- that I first read about on this blog -- I'll let you know if I like them when I get them. But it's a good way to see and learn about new styles.

An invaluable resource to find online not only what you're looking for, but also to see some of the deals those sites may have is The Find. You just type in your search term and it pops a window with all sorts of options, including one to find it locally if possible. I like that you can narrow the price with a sliding bar, or that you can see results by store too. I've used this to find everything from prayer flags to Crocs.

If you really like bargains and want to know when good deals come up, check out Deal News. You can specify exact search terms and get e-mails when good deals are found for, say, cookware, or cameras, or sheets, or shoes (my current fav). This site alerted me to a wonderful percentage off last weekend at Shoe Mall and I finally ordered the Keen Madrid MJ from them for significantly less than I could find them elsewhere, including Amazon.

I also get a newsletter from the same folks with daily deals called stylenotes. You can sign up for different newsletters here.

That's where I got my REAL bargain of the week: Mary Jane Crocs for $12.48 each with a promotion directly from Crocs. It was a buy two, get 50% off for various styles, and I learned about it it through stylenotes.

And then....

I did a Google search on "Crocs.com discount coupon" -- or you can use similar terms -- and found a code for FREE SHIPPING. So I have two pairs of these comfy sandals coming for a grand total of $24.98. Pretty good, hm? (That deal is only available for a limited time.)

By the way, any time you're ordering something online you should search for discount coupons. Many times you can find free shipping codes, sometimes with a percentage off as well. I don't have a favorite site for these: there are many, and they don't always have the same codes.

Both Endless and 6pm have regular deals and those alerts come through in Deal News alerts. I always check them first when I'm looking for a shoe, though. 6 pm is the outlet for Zappos, probably the premier online shoe store, and Endless is Amazon's store for shoes and handbags, although I always check Amazon too.

And one more "deal" newsletter or site is Fat Wallet. I get alerts from this site on specific products, but there are more deals to be had from it just by browsing through the site.

And then there are books! A while back I joined Goodreads, a site where you can review books you've read and learn about new ones your friends or others have enjoyed. They have a section where you can sign up to get new books free -- review copies or other giveaways, and I was notified this week that one is on its way to me! How cool is THAT!

I always prefer to shop locally when I can, especially the locally-owned stores downtown and elsewhere. We've had some lovely new additions this last year, and I hope they stick around for a long time.

Be careful what you sow

Every once in a while a story circulates on e-mail that bears forwarding or repeating. This is one of them that struck a chord with me this morning, especially since an encounter a couple of days ago with a particularly unpleasant, angry, abrasive, hypcritical person who was determined to firmly establish his vastly superior intelligence and training both to me and to a colleague.

I did not and will not respond in kind, because I know that when you wrestle with pigs, you get dirty and smelly and the pigs love it. And it is a no-win situation.

But this e-mail reminded me of my core beliefs: what you put into life is what you get out of it. (Incidentally, this blog gets many referrals because of people searching on that phrase: it is a recurring theme in these many posts.)

May you find what you seek today!


The Seed

A successful businessman was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you. I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, like the others received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however. He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - he so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot.

But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach: it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right.

He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

When the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot, he ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed, so Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!"

Jim couldn't believe it -- he couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds;
they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success

* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

* If you plant faith in God, you will reap a harvest

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later. Whatever you give to life, life gives you back.