Wordless Wednesday

Chet Helms Day

Golden Gate Park

October 30, 2005

Jefferson Airplane~"Won't You Try"

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bV_4g-SEL_0&sns=em&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DbV_4g-SEL_0%26sns%3Dem

Baker Beach

May 19, 2013

Sunday Snooze

Fish On

In keeping with the topic of former hippies-turned-right wing-kooks...

Yesterday morning, we drove north about 17 miles to procure propane and groceries.

We always get our propane at the same little place, and are friends with the woman who manages the business.  They sell lots of solar power necessities too.  There is even a little kiosk onthe property where ONO smoked ahi is sold. The man has lately been selling small bags of this tasty treat at the farmers market.  He doesn't make much on it, but it is a great locally made product.

Anyway, the dude that owns this little fish company isn't a friend, but we've seen him at a couple of get togethers and he seems like an alright person.  Low key, older, has fished all of his life.  I think he may be a former Californian. We picked up more of his fish for the market and chatted with fish man briefly.  He almost immediately began ranting about Washington scandals and all of Obama's "Chicago friends."  He even brought up Waco.  We stifled, but that batshit crazy right wing talk radio message came through loud and clear.

The ride home was one of quiet disgust.  

It's truly so sad,  watching some of our peers let fear take over their thought process. Echoing the crazies on Fox News.  No original thoughts or ideas, tossing out those adorable code words.  Truly cringe worthy. We still like the fish.

(Photo of my hand-painted wine goblet, given to me by the youngest child about 13 years ago.  The letters on it's base say "Queen Annie, Love Quinn and inside, she painted "Peek-A-Boo" at  the bottom of the goblet's bowl.)

Primus doing "Fish On"...

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=aCYs_6u8GdA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DaCYs_6u8GdA

I'm Way Deep Into Nothing Special

This is one of those rare times when the world and life in general have rendered me semi-mute. (Don't laugh!)

No specific reason for it.  All is "fine."  I'm in an excellent place, physically and mentally.  Transform or die, right?

Time is creeping up on the one year anniversary of my father's demise.  Grief has taken me on quite a ride these last 12 months.  I'm adapting to the emotional sinkhole that exists in his absence.  Oh sure, he stepped on my heart many times in the 54 years I knew him. No pedestal required.  Still, I miss that keen insight and wicked wit.  He was SO smart.  About most things.  I look forward to having some sort of ritual for my father when a daughter arrives next month.  Maybe we will paddle a kayak out into Hilo Bay and toss some of his ashes and lots of fragrant Hawaiian flowers.  Or plant a new fruit tree here and scatter them around it.  The surprising thing about his death is that I felt like I was prepared for it.  He was sick for 4 years.  I guess you can't prepare for what you haven't experienced before.  

Over the course of the last decade, I've noticed a trend I could not possibly have predicted and yet it now feels eerily inevitable.

The trend involves friends-- or more accurately friends from another time.  Folks I saw lots of music with.  Mostly one particular band, which strikes me as frighteningly myopic at this point.  Good old hindsight.  Don't get me wrong;  I wouldn't change it and I don't have buyer's remorse. (Well, maybe a little.)

The majority of us former deadheads have parted ways, or communicate very little.  I still have a handful of longtime friends that I met that way, and we have seen each other through the decades.  One of them arrives for a visit in a few weeks, but she is a rarity.  All of them began as friendships based on the unswerving love of that particular music.  When the music stopped, I began to find I had little or nothing in common with people I always figured I would know for a long time.  

Some who resisted any type of lifestyle change are either dead or invisible now. Then there are those who swung to the right in ways that scare the shit out of me.  Especially when one considers where their heads were 30-plus years ago. Or where I assumed their heads were.  Every once in a while, one of those folks from the old days pops up somewhere and I am often floored by their tightly-closed minds.

Maybe we got different things from our days of youthful abandon.  I don't know, but I have been wondering what the hell happened to almost everyone.  

Wordless Wednesday

Blooms

Happy Mother's Day, you muthas!

This holiday has meant different things to me in the last half-century or so. It's my 31st Mother's Day without a mother. I honor her anyway, and not just today. In strange synchronicity, this is also my 31st year as a mama.

Nowadays, it's just another opportunity to remember what being a mother has meant to me. IT is what continues to inspire me on this wacky planet They were and will always be my greatest teachers.