Liralen's Adventures Through Life

I'd missed my lesson by Mayee Futterman last week, while we were at Vera's house.  I thought about missing it again this week, but decided not to, so I did get up a little earlier than usual and John and I got on the trolley to go into town.  The electric trolleys run about every fifteen minutes or so, and there's an RTA app that not only shows you where you are, but where all the trolleys are along their lines and exactly where they are at all times. You can see when it's approaching your stop and when it's just left as well.  It went all the way to Canal Street, which is the main street downtown, and there's a Cafe Beignet just a couple of blocks down Canal. After the plantation, my right hip, knee, and calf weren't particularly happy with me, so I just went slow and it was okay. The line coming out of the Cafe Beignet was so long, that I could be as slow as I wanted. It gave us plenty of time to look around. A few of the things I saw were these bags of c...

I keep trying to write up the Puerto Rico trip and I keep tripping over the feeling that doing it linearly doesn't do it justice.  At all.  But it's what I'm so used to writing, so I keep trying and then deleting it again. It actually started when Jet was six, and John went off to Biloxi with people from our United Church of Christ church (UCC Longmont) to help with reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina and I joined him in following years.  But that was a long long time ago, and you all already know about our crazy left-wing denomination that does what that radical Jesus of Nazareth said despite Roman rule. Those crazy things about taking care of the poor and the hungry, about defending the powerless, and loving other people like oneself; and what Micah said, before Jesus, about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. But that's thousands of years ago. Maybe it really started when Carol said, "What are we going to do about Puerto Rico?...

The Puerto Rico Mission Trip in a Nutshell. *laughs*  Or, really, a YouTube Video that Karina, one of the people who went, made from all the photographs everyone took.  It's lovely, and the lyrics go so well with the pictures.  I love that she put John in every time they sang "sweat", his sticking his landing, and Kaleia being the little girl who can do anything. I'll do more details soon, I promise. But I loved turning my face up to the rain when it was just pouring while we were replacing the plumbing at the camp.

"I thought we were in Seattle.  What is that huge bright thing up in the sky?" It's been cool here, but sunny.  Ordinarily, it is sunny here through September and into October, the long Indian summer is almost always a part of Seattle weather, but it's fun to talk about, especially since all the weather reports had been predicting rain for most of the days we were to be here.  60's as a high and clouds all the way down the ten day forecast.  But it's been remarkably clear and sunny here while we've been here, and I've been enjoying it a great deal. I really enjoyed sitting on Isabel's back porch.  I read, I sketched the geraniums, and I waited for these guys to come to the hummingbird feeder.  There were hummingbirds who had staked out the feeder and it was always something of a thrill to hear the thrumming of their wings. Our time with Isabel is something I think I'll just hold private.  It was good and helped me heal from some things I...

Sometimes I think he's at school... or at work... or off to band practice... or at a game.  And it feels all right that he's gone, and then I remember, and it still feels all right. He's happy, he's safe, he's with a family he finds fantastic in a situation and culture he's learning about at a massive rate, and it was like he was just in the room with us, showing us around his new house and showing us the compact city just outside his window in a video call with us.  And then he's gone again when the call is done, but we know he's doing well and learning hand over fist and loving the situation he's landed in and it's all good. And, just like when he's away at school, at work, or even when he went off to Europe, Chicago, or other places on his down, I get back to doing all the things that I want to do with my life.  There will be more of that.  He will be back in four months, but then he'll be off to college and the rest of his life, s...

It's raining tonight. The soft hiss of water on the pavement, the spatter on the windows, and the coolness through the house. The sky was a riot of fluffy clouds, shadows, and curtains of water being blown in from over the mountains. There's been a good amount of rain for the last week, and it's been a blessing, since the winter was really dry; but with the rain came a late snow that was surprising after Mother's Day. My tomato plants survived all of that, thankfully, and are doing really well, in part due to John making some heroic fixes to a cheap greenhouse that buckled under the snow. Poor thing. He had to reinforce nearly the whole structure to keep it up.

When we were in Banff, we'd found out that the next two days were going to be cloudy and rainy, so we decided not to be that ambitious on the 25th. Besides, it had be cold enough during the night, that I actually put my stocking cap on for sleeping so that I'd be warm enough. John let me sleep in while he built a fire and made coffee and had his breakfast. So I didn't get up until nearly 10 am, to a beautifully overcast day. *grins*

The next morning, the bus didn't leave New Jersey. Instead, Luke took us through Jersey City to the waterfront, and ended up in the huge, mostly empty parking lot, by the State Cruises pier. It was really early Sunday morning, when most normal people sleep in, but the tourists were out and out early. Including, of course, us. This used to be one of the biggest railway stations in the nation, back when everyone came in through Ellis Island, many people left for the rest of the country through this station. These days most people immigrate by plane, not by boat, and not through Ellis Island. So while these tracks are still used, the old station areas, the terminal, is no longer used or particularly maintained or repaired. Just a relic from the past. It was also our first glimpse of Lady Liberty. She'd been there all along, but I don't think we'd looked for her the way we did this morning. It was an overcast morning, we had sprinkles as we came out of the hotel, a...