This Warm Weather

Sixty seven degrees today,
at 1 o'clock when I climbed into the car
hair wet from sweating and even hotter still as I felt the stale car air.
Sixty seven degrees and sky so blue the mountains stood out sharp--
the rocks jagged and broken alongside the blackened remnants of trees holding tight to the horizon.
What is this weather?
The bees gone now for over two weeks may start buzzing around again looking for nectar.
A lone purple aster jetting out from the morphing patch of thyme that is slowly consuming my strawberry patch.
And the sky!
No clouds there, only the vast emptiness that causes a blue so deep it pierces my soul.
My soul that has begun its annual longing for the sky's gift of snow.
A longing that can be soothed only with the darkest gray of snow-filled clouds that continue to provide for hours on end.
A longing that rears up once the skies begin to clear--even if only for a moment.
Where is that snow?
Those clouds?
I am yearning to trod through trails laden deep with cover...to feel my heart rate climb while walking at altitude.
To stand at the top of an open run, the trees splayed apart as if beckoning me to fall free.
And yet, I am ever hopeful. Hoping that soon this will not simply be a longing in my mind, but reality.

Happy 91st! Grandma!!

My Grandma is truly awesome. There really is no other way around it.

Today she celebrates her 91st year on this planet, and I think that's just fine.

Of all the people who have influenced me in a positive manner, I'd have to say she was top of the list. A numero-uno.

I'm so fortunate to have grown up with my wonderful grandparents. My grandma took us under her wing many a summer, winter, spring, and fall day. And she sure did haul us around with her. Back then, there were no seat belt laws, car seats, or any of that safety stuff. But we did have Grandma!

The best memories?

Hot dog pita bread sandwiches, with home-made tomato relish while reading Mad magazines and Sunsets, out in the hammock. Tomatoes, corn, and apples. Apricots, peaches, and cucumbers.

Trying to keep up with Jim and Denise riding horses in the pond, coming in to eat, going back out to the pond, and then spending the rest of the day riding horses in the river. Did Grandma ever complain about sand on the floor?

(I think I better recuse myself from that answer, or else I better learn from example.)

Knowing she was making jewelery while I was lounging in the hammock.

Wandering around getting stickers in my socks, nearly falling into the wells I didn't even know were wells until I was on top of them, slinking back into the house to pretend I hadn't been climbing over the wells, and then begging for a snack--usually peanut butter crackers, so that I could cool off and chill out. Until the next time, that is...

Riding in the back of the Ranchero to Santa Fe.

Riding to the dump in the back of the Ranchero.

Ghost stories under the stars.

Sleeping on the roof.

Walking back home after ghost stories on the roof!! SCARY!!!

Listening to stories about driving to Mexico in the Ambulance.

Ghost stories in the Ambulance. SCARY!!!

Going to lunch with your friends.

Rancho de Chimayo.

Going to lunch with my friends. (Remember Julia?)

Yesterday.

Today.

Tomorrow.

You rock, Grandma!!!

(Too bad we never got a picture of my head all wrapped up in those bandages the day my ear got ripped open on the playground...I just remember you coming in to the nurse's office to get me, and by some stroke of karmatic luck there had to have been about 22 other kids all bandaged up and broken apart and hoping that the next grown-up to walk in the door was their own...and there you were, which made my heart open wide, and you took one look at the sorry lot of us, shook your head, and said, "what have we here, a war zone?" I couldn't help but beam with joy walking out of there with you. Thanks for picking me up that day!)