Of turtles and popes

One day while browsing through a garden catalog, I saw a cement a cement turtle about a foot long that cost thirty dollars. Immediately I wanted that turtle. Because it was very heavy, it had a hefty shipping charge in addition to the thirty dollars. I didn't think my husband would want the turtle the way that I did, and I was right. "Couldn't we make something like that?", he said. A typical response. A few months later I had an opportunity to attend the Chicago Garden Show at Navy Pier. Was that ever the place for me! I was in heaven to begin with, and then, right in front of me was that exact turtle--thirty dollars, but no shipping charge. Boldly I bought it. I had to haul that thing from way at the far end of Navy Pier back to my son's apartment. By the time I could finally put it down, the shipping charge seemed like it would have been a reasonable expense. Since then I have acquired several other garden turtles. I was given an even bigger flat, black stepping stone turtle. I have one little turtle who hangs on to the rim of a flower pot by one foot as if he's trying to crawl over and in. Cement and resin, metal and plastic and plaster; I guess I'm starting a turtle collection. One day last summer my husband came home in the car and said, "I think I've got something here you're really going to like." He opened the trunk and there was a large real live turtle. It had been trying to cross Highway 11. We put it on the sand at the edge of our pond and went in the house. We never saw it again....Yesterday morning I was lying in bed listening to the radio. Christopher Hitchens came on all in a huff over the fuss the media is making over popes. I had to agree. Pope, pope, pope every day. Although I, myself, had gotten up in the middle of the night to watch Princess Diana's funeral, I couldn't see why my husband did the same for the Pope. As Christopher Hitchens said, "The whole world isn't Catholic." So, I was slightly annoyed when I came downstairs and found another session beginning on the T.V. Was the smoke white? No, it's getting darker. Everyone's jumping and clapping. It's getting white again. But no bells. Where are the bells? At the exact moment that the bells finally began to ring, I looked out the window and saw, at the edge of our pond, our real live turtle, basking in the sun.

Big sister Bear

There is an ad in our paper this week for border collie puppies. The ad was put in by the people who had Bear last year. I can't believe I seriously thought of buying another one. Bear almost drove me crazy when she was a baby. It was terrible. We still have bad fights now that she's always muddy again. I came home from shopping last week in a light blue and white outfit that I'd worn a couple of hours. After Bear's joyous greeting, the whole thing had to go in the wash basket. It's just lucky we have my husband to mediate for us. But wouldn't it be great--out walking with two border collies? Wouldn't Bear love it? She adores other dogs. But wouldn't it be so expensive at the Vet's office and the Boarding Kennel? There is a web site for viewing the puppies. My computer skills aren't good enough to get there and my husband couldn't find them either. If you would like to take a peek at Bear's siblings the address is: www.geocities/dwhollrah.

Springtime

It came fast this year. Three weeks ago a foot and a half of snow covered everything. It's all gone now and has been for a week or so. The red polls and pine grosbeaks are gone. Juncos and purple finches are back. One day two robins were on the lawn, today a sparrow. The rabbits are neither white nor brown, but a blotchy tan. In winter I see them mostly in the middle of the night, just a flicker of shadow, white movement on white snow. Now they chase each other on the edges of the woods until Bear notices them. Our one last hen is venturing into the woods edge also and I fear for her. Our nearest neighbor has turkeys and chickens. Bear has been finding turkey feet and other unrecognizeable turkey parts on our walks through the woods. We have also seen pecked open brown eggs on our road and the woods trail. I think the ravens we've seen circling so often are after those eggs, not the goat corpse in our woods. We hear our neighbor shooting at them sometimes. Brown, the goat, is getting more and more friendly and companionable since the snow is gone and he can get around the yard better. I used to talk to my golden retriever, Molly, all day long. She was a wonderful listener. I can't talk to Bear that way. She's much too busy. If someone keeps running off when you start to speak, it seems like you're boring them. But luckily I've found that Brown is a good confidant. He ambles along behind me and even bleats in agreement occasionally. Break-up, also known as mud season, was relatively brief this year. (Unless it's back. We've had a good rain.) We had one very bad mud wallow on our road. Now that we have a reliable four-wheel drive vehicle, we don't have as much trouble as we once did. Three of our neighbors cars were parked out beyond the wallow. They had to walk back and forth to their houses. During break-up, the UPS man keeps in touch with his cell phone. If your road is bad he leaves your package at the grocery store in town. If your road is good, but your driveway is bad he leaves it on the hood of your car. Your car is parked at the far end of your driveway because you can't drive on it either. Our nights have been in the forties this week. I have four long south facing windows with deep sills upstairs in our house. They are full of geraniums: red, pink, and scented. It's tempting to carry them all down into my little greenhouse now. I could use the window sills for all the little plants I'm starting inside. But surely we'll have nights in the twenties again. I don't want to spend too much money heating the greenhouse. I usually only start using it in May. And if our nights don't dip below freezing again? Uh oh. Early mosquitoes.

The large new left wing conspiracy

Last night I watched another hour long TV program on the blogging phenomenom. Brian Lamb interviewed the founder of the Daily Kos ont the new CSpan program, Q&A. The 'Kos' from his blog title comes from his name, Markos. He told his friends not to call him Mark. They started calling him 'Kos' instead, and it stuck. He is thirty-three years old. His parents were immigrants. His father was Greek. His mother was from El Salvador. When he found himself supporting hawkish positions in the eighties, he enlisted in the Army. He felt he should be willing to support his beliefs with his actions. He said that he went to law school to "kill three years of his life." He didn't feel ready to launch a career after graduating from college. Law school seemed like a dignified alternative. The one hundred thousand dollar debt he incurred was the main drawback. (Does any of this sound familiar? To whom it may concern: I think he said he has gotten out of debt through his very popular blog. What we poverty stricken bloggers need to do is get ourselves some advertisers. We can also offer ad-free subscriptions to our readers who don't like ads.) The passion of this young man for things liberal and Democratic makes me ashamed. Perhaps the mild chastisement I received recently on the Midlothian Campaign for skipping over things political was well deserved. Four and a half years ago, I was one of those who questioned the outcome of the election and crossed the Supreme Court off my list of people to admire. I thought then that all we could do was grit our teeth and bear it, hoping that things could be patched up again after the 2004 election. I was stunned when things turned out as they did. And then I gave up. I don't really enjoy the rough and tumble. Like Shakespeare, I think I'll just sit back and watch the antics of my fellow citizens and smile. It's a very difficult thing to respect the intelligence of those with whom you strongly disagree. Common folk have common sense and one vote each. There really is a vast right wing conspiracy that was thirty years in the making according to the Daily Kos. Now it's time to form the large new left wing conspiracy. It seems exciting and promising that it could come grass roots, through the blogs. That news could be shaped by the people and only served by editors and reporters. I'll be watching.

Marriage quote

I have read and enjoyed several books by Kathleen Norris, but when her last one came out it got a terrible review in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I decided not to put it on my library list. Then, a few months ago, I was looking through a sales brochure of Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller and there it was--The Virgin of Bennington by Kathleen Norris, only $2.95. Edward R. Hamilton only charges $3.50 for shipping and handling per order, so I figured I might as well add The Virgin of Bennington in with the other titles that I wanted. Sometimes the critics are wrong. Well, not this time. The book bogs down in the middle and just doesn't work. But there was one quote that I kind of like. Elizabeth Kray, who was Kathleen Norris's mentor, "believed that people needed relationships that forced them to look outside themselves and connect with others, and thought that one of the best vehicles for this was to settle into what she termed 'the rock-bottom stability of marriage.' Shortly before my wedding, she wrote me: 'If we were trees we'd have rings of more intense color to show for the effects of marriage.'"

More quotes

Have you had it happen to you? You buy a bright red Hummer thinking they're really unique and suddenly the highways are full of bright red Hummers. I'm thinking off and on all day long about aging and lately whatever I read echoes my thoughts. Here are two quotes that I've copied out of something I was reading. I have no idea what book or books I found them in. "It was as if, like old lovers, they had both realized they were short of time." and "...they had been softened by the weakness of age, its fearful need of company."