Sunday, April 22, 2012

Tumbleweed Season

Do you know what this is?  This represents about 45 seconds of combing my dog. And I could comb her again 5 minutes from now and get another pile at least this big because we have a Husky, and she sheds like it's her job. At my house we call this time of year Tumbleweed Season, because the floor must be swept SEVERAL times a day in order to keep up with all the hairy tumbleweeds that magically appear.  On the plus side, she looks like she's lost about 30 pounds in the last couple of weeks just from losing all the fluffiness!
You can't see her big fat tail (always the last part to shed), because she's wagging it so hard!  She loves to have her picture taken for some reason, probably because it means I'm looking at her. 

Not much else going on at the Compound this weekend, Sparky bought a flat of pansies yesterday and now it's pouring out so there'll be no playing in the dirt today.  Figures, it didn't rain for weeks and now it's my day off.  We so needed the rain though.  I'm really looking forward to having time this year to plant some vegetables!  Haven't had time for a garden in a couple of years.  OH speaking of growing things, I really dropped the ball on the Zombie Amaryllis!  Here's how it turned out...really pretty.  But there was no grandson-of-the-zombie-amaryllis, so the fun ended when these big-ass flowers died.  Now the remains of the stalk are sitting on the deck, dead.  Or are they....

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Surreality. For Real.

For someone who writes quite a few blog posts, it really occurs to me that I'm not very good with words. Oh I can go on and on about what I'm making that week, or complain about crap that irritates me, all the unimportant stuff. But when it comes to the real stuff, that's a different story. Which is a shame, because it makes me seem like kind of a jerk sometimes. I guess that's a common thing, to hide behind humor or sarcasm, but it leaves a people not knowing how you really feel. And then sometimes stuff happens for which a person just plain doesn't have any words. If you have one of these,

then you'll understand at least some of what I'm going to prattle on about today. Isn't he cute? My boy. He was just a joy to raise. Sweet, funny kid, always singing and always moving, unbelievable imagination. He fell in love with music when he was barely old enough to walk; I have a picture of him in diapers at the Rocky Hill Fair, boogying down to Ronnie Profitt in concert.
Well the years go by and life goes on, and then this happens:How can he be old enough to get married? It's scary. But our daughter-in-law Kaela is a wonderful girl, and they adore each other. I've never seen two people happier to get married. Coming up on a year now, already. I grumbled and joked about doing the mother/son dance at the wedding, mostly because I hadn't danced in over 20 years, partly because I was nervous about the wedding day. I wished I'd kept my comments to myself, but then it wasn't about me so nobody paid attention anyway, least of all the groom. Good thing. I wonder what my dad went through when he had to give me away, what went through my mother's mind. I never gave it a thought. Even when things are GREAT and you know you're not really losing him and you are more than OK with the person he's chosen, it's a surreal thing to have your kid get married.

So then a year goes by and then THIS happens:

Ok, so that doesn't happen to everybody's kid. But it's happening to mine!! That was the whole reason for them moving to L.A. in the first place, and now it's really happening. I can hardly believe it but only because it's just so surreal. I always knew he had the potential to be a star, and that's not just the mother talking, it's the musician. He has talent that WELL exceeds mine. The really, really cool part is that he was fearless enough, with the wholehearted support of his lady (who has talents and dreams of her own which also needed to be transplanted to the west coast), to pick up his life and haul it 3,000 miles away from everything and everyone he's ever known just to make his dreams happen. And then to get there, and do it. There are just no words to describe how proud and inspired I am.