Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Hidden Chiquita Lake And, just like that, summer feels like the stirrings of Fall.  Most of the smoke from the wildfires has blown past us.  The sky is blue again.  Cloudless again.  Yes, the nights are cooling, and the fan is no longer needed in the bedroom at night.  The days are mostly lovely, though an occasional slightly-too-warm day arrives now and then. I'm fairly certain that just as I get comfortable with this trend, September will drop a heat wave on us once again.  I will accept it gladly, if I can make it to the houseboat for some swimming.  I have not had enough swimming in the lake this summer. I'm not sure why swimming in the lake is so much more meaningful than swimming in my own pool at my own home, but it decidedly is.  I love the moment the water closes over my head as I plunge into that very clear, deep green, lake water.  I think often as I swim around the boat about how far below me the bottom is.  Well over 80 feet where we are moored.  There i

Here we go again.... The old 1987 Whitesnake song resonates in my brain.  I loved that song, back when.  It made me think of letting go; of walking away from all that wasn't working in life; of freedom.  Have you heard it?  It's really a kinda powerful feeling. Now, Jeff and I are moving on.  Together.  Not leaving our long-loved home because of discontent per se, but just really because it's stopped fitting us.  I'm sad about that.  It is a special home, and we have been fortunate to enjoy it for a few years. Off to a project we hope will be the one that we set deep roots upon, and remain in for many years.  We will move to half as many square feet, and only two bedrooms to in which to fit the functions of sleeping and housing guests, execution of ever-shrinking hard office functions, and all our other living in general. What we gain is outdoor space.  While we have an admirable back yard now, it's still less than a half acre, and we only have room for

My mom, with my sister and me.  I'm the older sister.  Circa 1968. My mom and Jeff are sitting on the patio, working a crossword together.  It's nearly 8 pm, and finally, the incredibly still day is cooling.  We ordinarily get a breeze over the back fence, even on days when everybody else is roasting, but not tonight.  Even so, it's comfortable. I absent-mindedly follow along with their puzzle-solving.  I am a right-brain thinker, but also am a slight dyslexic, and learned at the age of 31, in college, that I have a visual processing deficiency that hindered my furthering my stellar GPA in my Junior year at UC Davis.  Not that that has really any bearing on my life now, other than, I really suck at crossword puzzles. As they joke and make silly guesses, these closet crossword experts work the New York Times puzzle in pen.  My mom is my language and etymology guru.  She studied Latin in college, and as we grew up, she would use our own questions to help us learn.

Another thing that all Americans seem to envision in conjunction with thoughts of Cuba is the time capsule of old cars that we hear about.  Yes, they are old.  We saw very few recent model cars.  The truly vintage--1950's--cars are mostly all rebuilt, and have been painted very bright colors.  I think Cuban taxi owners have realized how iconic those cars are, almost the entire world over, and so they keep them looking beautiful, and are paid handsomely for a taxi ride in one.  If you jump in any other taxi, it will be a tiny, boxy, also brightly colored car of Russian manufacture.  They look a bit like the 1970's Fiat 4-door cars.  I enjoyed capturing pictures of these cars in the settings that looked also right out of a by-gone era.  One of my favorite is the photo of a vintage American sedan in front of several brightly colored 1940's Art Deco apartment buildings. Vintage American car in front of 1940's era architecture. Here are a few of my favorite finds:

Before I went to Cuba, one thing I worried about was that I would see suffering.  Particularly animals suffering.  In fact, I never saw even one instance of mistreatment or neglect in the entire time we were there.  The first day, walking through Old Havana as a group, I saw a loose dog.  It was friendly with everyone, and yet looked as though it was by itself.  I asked our guide, who had studied in the U.S. and so was fluent in English.  He claimed, "Cuba's dogs belong to everyone, and everyone looks out for them."  I could  not  get my brain around that.  I feared that he was just trying to paint a rosy picture.  So, I began noting how all the dogs looked, everywhere we went.  Then I began noticing all the horses, and chickens.  Everybody--the creatures--were healthy, albeit certainly not fat.  Well, perhaps there were even some fat dogs. This little lady was hanging out at a Santeria House that we visited.  She was one of many hairless dogs we spotted! A place w

Our travels were not limited to the Havana region.  Our group set off for Las Terrazzas, a nature reserve in the Artemiso Province that was declared a designated bioreserve by UNESCO in 1984.  Prior to that, Cuba had, on its own, begun a reforestation effort there in 1968.  The region contains some of Cuba's earliest coffee plantations, now home only to the undergrowth that reclaims it.  One mountaintop plantation and processing center is kept neat and tidy for tourists to visit and learn about the early coffee growing industry and the people who worked the site. Las Terrazzas is a place out of another time.  Of course, it is intended to be, yet, I felt entirely transported.  I was in a world when Cuba was a cross-roads for many European countries trading with the west indies, attracting people from all corners of the world.  Moving from the quiet, rare air of the plantation that bears the same name, we arrived in the greenest, lushest, valley community of Las Terrazzas.  Before

Today, a California Highway Patrol officer died as the result of an accident in the line of duty.  It was not his accident.  He was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  He was on a traffic stop.  The driver of the stopped vehicle was also killed. I am a highway patrol wife.  I have not been to as many funerals as some, certainly, but I have been to my share.  I think the families and the wives carry the pain of the loss long after the officers have put the loss in its proper place.  They keep it in the place of honor; of the status of the fallen; the place where one keeps the memories of soldiers and heroes. Every time an officer is lost, I see his face and I know that I knew him (or her) even if I never met the officer.  I know the family; the wife or partner of the officer.  It is losing a family member, even when we weren't acquainted. I know the young wives are even more affected by these tragedies.  They are freshly married.  Freshly in love.  Their children

Thank you, National Geographic of my childhood, for my crystal-clear memories of engaging, intriguing, "differentness" delivered to me as a young girl in the mid-1960's.  Delivered, I note, by way of the rich beauty and stark reality contained in the photo-essays of your journalists of that era as they scouted out the vast wonders around the globe. Thank you, for planting in my little-girl recollection the story of Cuba in the 1960's.  Cuba, when all of its pain and its Socialist ideals were new.  When neither the US, nor Cuba, had any idea that the rift between us would span five decades.  Five decades, and counting. In those times, the magazines showed gritty black and white photos of old men sitting on the front terraces of small stone houses, wearing broad-brimmed hats and clenching fat cigars between their teeth.  Little girls peered from back seats of passing Chevy Bel Aires.  Dogs lounged in dirt roads. I reflect on my having been intrigued by these store

Anybody here can scroll just a few posts down and see (embarrassingly to me) that I began this blog in 2005.  WHAT??  Yup.  I have always been a frustrated writer and even a bit of an artist, but I couldn't be disciplined.  Well, I could at some things, but writing juices come and go. So, my long-time pal, Sid is doing an amazing job at first creating and then posting to a new blog and she is holding herself accountable for once a day.  Again I say, "WHAT???"! I like the idea, I've tried this before, and so, I am going to give it a run.  Please don't keep count for me, I can do that. Today's post is just a gathering of the kindling; a sparking of the pilot light.  I promise to do better.  And, more.  Exercising your accountability muscles are scary, and necessary.  One fantasizes about growing in ways unimagined.  Forgive me for also pulling old blog posts of my on other pages into this one.  I think I will do this.  I just want a record; all in one p

In one light, he’s a man; a solid citizen and server of his community; In the next glance he’s a comic; a clown; a joker and I laugh and hope he can be serious when he must. Some days, he’s my knight; armor shining and steed steady and stout, Though I know it’s not what I want–to be ‘rescued’... Every day that I see him, I know he’s my lover; that amazing, perceptive, gentle, man–all MAN, And each and every day that I know him; I discover another part I’d not known of him. Rather than ask why I never found him in the past; I look at the future as a newly changed landscape. Rather than look for my flaws that I might point them out to him; I bask in the appreciation with which he showers me, For he is one of the last true gentlemen; And I am the benefactor of such pleasant graces. I am the benefactor of this love. February 1, 2006 N. Holmes

I dunno. Last year, I was neck deep in the momentous law suit with Craig. I was bearing the burden of coming up with all the receipts and all the proff of money down the drain, and so I really hadn't thought--for real--about life once that was all behind me. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd fantasized , but the fantasies were so far away, and unrealized, that I couldn't use them as any more than a weak visualization tool. But, as the final two months of 2005 wore on, I began doing the projects I'd promised myself I'd do "when things were past," and I began giving myself permission to spend money again, and have a lifestyle again, even if a modest one. It's not that I had good luck in court. I didn't. I bet on a bad horse, lawyer-wise, and it was a painful effort, and a lesson in the machismo and old-boy-ism of the court system. But still, I found a place I love, and I have my dog, Joy, and so, I set sail from there. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, m

Ok, this is NOT a flattering picture of me, but it's such a sweet one of Joy. I was sitting on the floor, and she jumped on the bed so she could get an easy shot at kissing me.

This more recent photo of me with Joy is from the office Christmas photo this past Christmas (2004). We had three dogs total in the picture. I cropped everybody else out so I could get a close up, but this picture was awesome! We were all caroling in front of the court house in Auburn.

Mary S. (aka "Army Sonoma") asked me to post some pictures of Joy. I don't think she's seen her since Joy was a puppy. Mary--along with Julie M.-- was my college roommate. Joy was the little puppy I adopted my last year at UC Davis. In this photo, Joy is just completely unwilling to let me get far enough away to get a picture of her that is in the correct perspective. I snapped this in 2003, at the ranch.

A photo with the Bidwell; a special type of paver which pours concrete bridge decks. I inspected all that green steel. Note my four or five layers of sweatshirts. This was in Truckee, in August and September. We'd start at 6 a.m, and it would be about 40 degrees and windy, and by noon, it would be up to 85 or 90 and still, then it would drop back to a cool 70 by 5 p.m. when we were done .

We have our own raft here at our place (the whole gang of us--the Wild Bunch) and we went down the river recently. That's me getting launched into the rapids unexpectedly.

On the job as a bridge construction engineer. I hadn't realized this photo was snapped. I am still not sure if I snapped it unaware, or if somebody else snuck it in. It's not so "flattering" but it's sort of interesting.

(the title line above is a link that will open a window to my Father's book site on Amazon) My Dad! My Dad! I want to tell the world about my amazing father! The link given here is a long one, yes, but bear with me. My father, Alan Holmes , is a published author. His writing is wonderful, colorful, and heart-felt in a way that is seldom seen. His memoirs of growing up in the northern provinces of France--just as World War II is approaching on quiet feet-- are whimsical, and amazingly rich with detail. If historical novels are of any interest to you, his book "In the Moon" [subtitled "Dans La Lune" ] will touch your heart and leave you hoping for the speedy delivery of my father's further memoirs. He promises to keep working. Alan's book is published through Xlibris Books, and can be found on Amazon and other book sites.

Ok, I'm starting off with light, silly stuff. Or, I did. My first post on this blog was a poem I wrote in 1989, when I'd just met the man who would become my husband. Hah! I've not seen him since 1992, and I had not looked at that poem in years, either, but I do like the poem. Life changed for me recently, for the better. I closed the book on a long, drawn-out struggle with "the ex" as I refer to him, which makes people think we were married, though we never were. We were together for nearly eight years, however. Parting was not a sweet sorrow. It was, in fact, neither sweet, nor a sorrow. I left behind a lot of relationships with both people and animals I loved. Not because I wanted to, but because those were the limitations set forth. All in a day, things were.. over . Believe me, I'd like to rant and rave here about the victimizations he perpetrated. But, I am not going to slouch into that same state in which he exists. I won't. I will say