Truly Whimsy

My Mind Wandering blog has been out of action for a while as the Texas sun and the drought has frizzled my brain somewhat during this long summer. Now the other day, towards the end of September early in the morning. I was walking through my garden and at the back of my brain a small whimsical thought stirred. True we had had a heavy dew that night and some places were saying be careful as it's foggy but there was weak sun out and I had slept pretty well. I felt really good  so what could it be...

I glanced up to the stairs that lead up to my studio and there strung right across the staircase was an enormous spider web centered around an enormous spider.( Well, it looked big to me) It was so ugly and scary but also a thing of beauty with the morning light glistening through the web.

Now what to do? I really didn't want to break the web down as obviously the Spider had spent all night working on this beautiful gateway to my stairs.

True Whimsey appeared by my side and said “No problem,we can handle this in next to no time”and so he did.

Just in case you are wondering who True Whimsey is ( or TW) for short... he is this little figment of my imagination that helps write blogs, paint,  think creatively and figure out all kinds of  stuff. I bet you have a similar creature living in your head too.

To continue the tale.

Whimsey first needed to see the spider CLOSE UP.

”Yes it is truly large( I've noticed , he likes using his name a lot) but NO problem”.

“Do be careful .I said, “don't hurt the little fellow. Spiders eat all the other nasty things out here like mosquitoes and flies that settle on sandwiches and glasses of beer. We need them.”

“NO PROBLEM” said Whimsey. “You'll be up these stairs in a flash.”

And with that he climbed on the stair rail, and huffed and puffed and the spider flew gently through the air with his web intact and caught on the side rail where he could continue his good work.

As True Whimsey says ( quotes) If you wish to live and thrive .let the spiders run alive.

The spider continues his good works,

To Blog or to Paint? That is the Question....

I haven't written a blog for a couple of weeks and that was because I was using all my spare time painting. Not painting walls and rooms. Painting pictures of cats. I have always painted intermittently, usually when the creative urge struck. I go through different themes and for a while it was paintings of landscapes and especially places I had visited. So I have pictures of Yellowstone Park, New Mexico, Burlington, Oregon and Canada piling up in the room I call loosely my studio.

My paintings are done purely for my own enjoyment. I like the feel of putting down paint and getting a certain effect. My drawing skills are limited but I have developed a specific style of easy painting and it has become a form of relaxation.

I started a blog at the beginning of this year and found that too was for my own enjoyment and also a form of relaxation. I planned to write a blog about once a week but life tends to get in the way of plans, don't you think. I also found a lot of people liked to read my random thoughts as well so I kept going. I looked at other peoples blogs and saw that a lot of blogs were not written at all but were photos, paintings, recipes , music, videos etc. etc. so clearly the blog as a format is in a state of transformation. I guess it started from a daily log and progressed from there. Blog isn't a very nice word. Too much like slog or clog and I don't think I much like being called a Blogger.

So to get back to my original question. To blog or to paint? Just as my blog was really for me and my paintings are for me, I then got a challenge from a friend. Would I please paint pictures of her cats? She has seen the paintings I had done of my son's cats and wanted the same thing done. I was a bit nervous about doing that. My son would be gracious enough to say ,”Great job Mum “when I painted his cats however the paintings came out but could I do this just as well for someone else. I thought about it and decided I would give it a try. Well strangely enough. once I got into the swing of things and started painting away, I really enjoyed doing it and even with my style coming out in the paintings , the cats look almost like they should. I shall just have to wait to see if their owner recognizes them from the paintings to see if I got the likeness right. I think I did.

So now I am torn between blogging or painting. Hey, maybe I can combine the two and do a plog or a blainting. Better check first and see if anyone else is doing that. So I've added the paintings to this blog so is this a plog or a blainting or even a paint blog. Now I'm confusing myself.

Mrs Crazybird

Tree & high window

So one day in early March I'm sitting at my computer in the living room, when I hear this noise “Bonk, bonk, bonk.”

I yell at poor Mocha , the chocolate lab, who I can't see but guess its her tail wagging as she dreams her life away. The noise continues and gets very irritating so I get up to see just what the dog is doing. Well, she isn't doing anything but the noise has stopped.

The next day the same thing happens , “Bonk, bonk, bonk”. Crazy dog , I think. It's not until this event happens a few times, I realize it isn't the dog as she is sitting right beside me and it isn't her tail making the noise.

The next time I hear the bonk, bonk, I get up and think its coming from the chimney. We have a large brick chimney that goes from ceiling to floor. I get a flashlight and peer up the chimney, getting rather dirty as I do so. Nothing up there. Maybe it's something outside on the roof. So I go outside and peer at the roof. I can't see any tree branch or anything falling on the roof but I also can't hear the noise from outside either.

I go inside, glance up at the high window at the side of the chimney and just in time see a crazy bird flinging itself at the window. Puzzle solved.

Mrs Crazybird.

I watch carefully. The crazy bird continues to do this for 30 minutes or so at a time. “Bonk, bash, bonk ,bash”. It didn't make a mistake by flying into the window. It is actually meaning to bang into the window. I think it must be trying to commit bird suicide. It's a brown and red female cardinal, so it's a midsized bird and the noise and the thud are quite pronounced. I remembered when we lived at our other house we had a male cardinal that did the same thing on the side mirror of one our cars. It would sit and peck and chat away to the mysterious bird that kept appearing. That got to be quite a pain with all the white bird droppings on the side door of the car.

So I thought about it and realized that my female cardinal, Mrs Crazybird was obviously seeing her reflection in the northerly facing window and must be thinking this is a rival bird out to steal her admirers so she was determined to get rid of it. She obviously hadn't made much progress because each time she flew up to that tree there in the window was the rival bird. Throwing her whole body at it made a lot of noise and it scared the bird  away for a moment but was back as quick as a wink.

So a solution had to be found before Mrs Crazybird broke her beak or wing or something worse and before I went insane with the bonking sound. I remembered with the car bird. I mostly solved that by just putting a cloth over the side mirror of the car and also putting another mirror on a tree in the side bushes so then Mr Cardinal could chat away to his heart' s content. However in his case he seemed to be enjoying the experience whereas Mrs Crazybird was definitely peeved.

Covering up the window was not a practical solution as the window is mighty high up, right by the roof line and you need an extension ladder to reach it .Besides which we need all the light coming into our room as we can get. Neither was cutting down the tree the bird perches on before making her swoops at the window as it takes a long while to grow trees in Texas and anyhow I like that crepe myrtle.

I did go and find an old mirror and managed to suspend it in the cleft of a side tree right by the side of the house where I know the bird sits but Mrs Crazybird wasn't interested in that mirror or in that other bird. She totally ignored it and continued to attack her rival.

Maybe if I get rid of the reflection I thought. That should work. So first I found the “hidden” flash light. The one we can never find especially when we need it. That didn't work as the beam of light hardly reached the window ledge. It might have worked in the evening but by then Mrs Crazybird has gone home and all is quiet.

So we found an old long standard lamp, the kind which shines directly up. Then we had to balance that on a side table and then put both table and lamp on the side of the brick fireplace surround. Very surrealistic interior design. The bird stopped for all of one afternoon only to resume bright and early the following morning so that didn't work.

A distraction had to be found. I set too and made this cute little mobile out of used shiny CDs. Lots of reflections to confuse the bird and with it swinging in the wind, that should do it. It was quite a game getting it to hook up outside on the ledge above the window using a long long stick and lots of “Winnie the Pooh's Oh Bothers!!”. It was quite an attraction for a few days. Lots of the other birds came to look at it and even peck at the shiny disks. But Mrs Crazybird saw through the ploy and continued to attack her rival who had cunningly hidden behind the swinging disks.

Well , I have almost given up on it and the bird hasn't killed or hurt itself. I have now become so used to the bonking noise that it hardly registers. I'm hoping that soon the Mrs Crazybird will realize that Spring is here and she should be sitting on her nest and looking after the babies... However if anyone has a solution please let me know.

The Missing Sock Dilemma

Yesterday when I was outside gardening I realized I was on my last pair of socks. I always wear socks inside my wellington boots , even if it is 100 degrees. Which made me start to think about socks.

When both my boys were living at home I would be forever finding socks all around the house. They usually were rolled up in a ball as I think most teenage boys throw their socks at something automatically when they take them off. Some socks ( very few) would land in the laundry basket but some of the other places they were found in were quite a mystery; under the seat of the car, always at the farthest point under the bed , behind the couch and quite often out in the yard. Not always the boys fault with this last place as we always had dogs and old ( and new) socks were and are, a favorite play toy for dogs. Something about the smell I think.

Mike has a plethora of socks and even now always seems to be buying new socks. I, on the other hand, have just a few pairs which get worn out, holey or just lost. Which leads me on to my thought 'Where do lost/missing socks go?

When I do laundry I just hate washing socks. I sort them into lights and darks. That is okay. I get them out from the dryer and I have this mountainous pile of socks to sort but do they ever match up into pairs again. NO!

Have you noticed even when you buy socks in a set , say 4 pairs all the same color or pattern, after they have been washed they never seem to match up again. I spread them all out over the bed and perform the matching game. The ones that have a different knit, the short ones from the long ones but always there are some that never quite seem to match be it a variation in color shade, a different feel to the material, wrong size and of course , at the end of the game ,there is always the inevitable lone sock.

So I look in the dryer and its not there. I look on the floor by the washing machine and the bedroom , under the bed but no matching sock. This happens time and time again. Occasionally at a later laundry time, I might find the missing sock returning from its vacation and be able to match it but I still have a forever growing pile of odd socks waiting for its partner to turn up.

I noticed when I mentioned this to a friend she said the same thing happened to her . Just where do all these missing socks go? So if you want an answer to a question the easiest way is to 'Google “ it. Right ,so that's what I did. Would you believe there is a”Bureau of Missing Socks”. I thought it might be rock group or a infamous painting but no. It's supposedly an organization set up by the USA government at the time of the civil war to deal with issuing socks to its soldiers and continues to this day going through all kinds of strange and interesting changes. As I read all about it, it sounded like it would be the plot of a zany movie. Read about it here ( with your tongue in your cheek) http://www.funbureau.com/History/history.html

and decide for yourself if it is our tax dollars at work or just a wonderful fabrication. I still think it would make a great movie! And as an added bonus you'll find out how the catch phrase “Sock it to me “ originated. I bet , like me you thought it came from the TV series “Laugh In”

So I continued researching .

Well then I found out about sock gnomes and sock goblins. I bet you didn't know about these mysterious creatures either. It seems they are arch enemies . The sock gnomes have 4 feet and they are the ones that pilfer the socks but along come the sock goblins,the good guys, probably they wear white hats, and they are the ones that bring the missing socks back. I don't think they are winning this game so far at least in my house.

Rambling Through My Dreams

The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary. 

~Ashleigh Brilliant

Its already hot and humid in North Texas making it easier to fall asleep in the afternoon.

I usually sit down after lunch and read and quite often I drift off for a little nap. I do notice though that on these catnaps I never seem to dream.

Mind you, I have noticed even at night, I don't seem to dream much either or maybe I should say I don't remember dreaming very often. Now Mike, on the other hand, seems to remember in great detail all the convoluted twist and turns of his dreams. His dreams seem to be concentrated on mostly the ordinary things in life; work , projects, traveling etc. He has reoccurring dreams too of running through the airport trying to get to the airplane on time. This must be a relic of his working days that has stayed with him after all these years. He often wakes up with a person on his mind who he saw in the dream , someone he knew ages ago but can't remember the name. And then comes the invariable question, “ Remember that guy we went out with in London, the one with the piercing eyes and funny shirt? What was his name?"

When I wake up, immediately any dream I might have had, has disappeared. Just gone. I do remember once waking up because I was giggling and laughing so hard that it actually woke me up .And what was the dream about? I was in a dentist chair and had been having my teeth pulled out!! Dreams are very strange. Maybe it was my brain reminding me that I needed to go for a check up !!

The only other dream I can remember in detail was a dream I had when I was a very small child. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. I was on a high wall of some kind in the middle of a big battle; there were soldiers wearing red and black uniforms and the noise and smoke and fire was everywhere, It was very real. Movie picture quality. Suddenly I felt a pain in my body and saw myself falling over a high wall,. I screamed , everything went dark and I woke up. Young as I was I can still feel how scared I felt. It might have been a night mare but it has lasted with me all these years. Where did that dream originate? I have thought about it and the dream could have been a reflection on the war and all the talk about World War 2 I would overhear but at my young age would not understand . This was in the days before television and I'm pretty sure I was too young to read so where did this dream come from. I often wonder about that.

The other thing I have noticed about dreams is that for years after we had moved from England to Canada and then to Texas , the dreams always seemed to reflect England. Even if I knew the house or the person in the dream was in Texas or Canada it always seemed to be in an English countryside. Now is that because I grew up in England and those are the oldest thoughts in my mind or because subconsciously I have never left England.

Some people reckon that if you take note of your dreams you can solve many problems. Seems logical to me. After all if you think and think about a problem during the day, maybe at night your mind can work on it at night and then the answer is solved in a dream. Maybe that where the expression came from “ I'll sleep on it”.

I know at one time they ( remember the department of they) said that if you wanted to learn anything you should tape it and put in under your pillow at night so the information would go into your brain and you would learn and remember your new subject. I have never tried it but not sure I could go to sleep with a voice coming from under my pillow.

Dream catcher 

photo wikipedia

Then there is the other kind of dream that maybe originates at night but becomes during the daylight an aspiring thought; something you plan or dream to do at some time. Maybe we should ask kids,"What do you dream you would like to do when you are grown up?" rather than "What do you want to be when you are grown up?" I think the answers would be very different. Dreams give you the idea of infinite possibilities. Maybe that is why we dream at night because then all our dreams become possibilities.

So as the song goes Dream on, dream on, dream until your dreams become true.

Or you could invest in a dream-catcher. That way only good thoughts and dreams will filter through the web and bad thoughts will fade with the light.

And do listen to Gary Wright singing . “Dream weaver” at youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N1wnJoFAl4 and continue to believe in your dreams.

Sweet dreams you'all.

The Eyes Have It.

Elizabeth Taylor died recently. She was one of the most beautiful ladies of all times, a classic beauty and a great actress and truly a star. As I was watching the reports on TV, I heard of her beautiful violet blue eyes, a color very special and rare but I didn't know she was also born with a double set of eyelashes which added to her allure and beauty.

Eyes do make a lot of difference to a person. If you are like me , it's the person's eyes that can make all the difference to my understanding of them. It is the part of the face that I can't help but notice and also the part I am drawn to. The eyes are supposed to be”the window to the soul” and I quite believe that. What is it that makes one person so special to us and another one, we can't abide. Could it be a glance in the eyes gives you a glance into the soul or being of that other person?

I think the color has something to do with our fascination with eyes. Think of some of the famous people you know, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and immediately you think “blue, blue eyes”. I read somewhere that the blue eyes gene does not mutate like the brown eyes gene does . There have been people over the last 6000 to 10000 years that have had blue eyes and so in fact because of this blue eye gene, they are all related to each other. I am sure both my daughter in law and granddaughter will be very pleased to hear that they might be related to Paul Newman , Frank Sinatra and even Elizabeth Taylor.

And thinking about Paul Newman and his car racing career , I think there is something very special about racing car drivers and their eyes. They all have very penetrating eyes, no matter what the color. Is this something they are born with or does it develop with their skill? In the high speed sport in which they are engaged and where a lack of concentration can mean life or death, is this a trait they must have?

Now good actors , on the other hand, have the ability to show within their eyes different emotions and different characters .Even so, some are very much typecast by their eyes and how they appear. I can't imagine Robert Redford playing a nasty or cruel person not with his friendly eyes . Likewise Antony Hopkins just makes you shudder. Just think of him in “Silence of the Lambs” his eyes are just scary. Now we have such great technical make up and effects that can change a person's eyes and features so even Brad Pitt could become a monster.

 Bette Davis must have had outstanding memorable eyes because she even had a song named after her eyes. Remember “she had Bette Davis eyes,” kind of soft,sultry and sexy at the same time.

It's the same with cats' eyes . I don't mean the great device for helping us see along roads in the dark although I can quite see why those are called cats' eyes. Catch a real cat out in a dark yard and cat eyes really glow. 

Cats ,unlike dogs, do not show affection within their eyes but seem , at least to me, to be analyzing the situation and deciding on what their next move will be. That is not to say their eyes aren't beautiful because it is also a thing much noted in a cat. A cat's eyes are actually blue for the first 9 weeks and only gradually change color and sometimes what wonderful colors they end up with as well. Colors you would never see on a dog. Marmalade orange and emerald green and even yes , sometimes blue .

Dogs on the other hand have open, readable  eyes and you can see what they are thinking. Their emotions come through. See that sparkle when a dog gets a treat or you pick up a leash to go for a walk. No escaping the happiness gleam coming through. Likewise check out the dogs in a cage in a shelter .Nothing so pathetic and heart breaking as a sad dog's eyes waiting for someone to take him home.

Then of course there are the people and pets with odd color eyes. Most disconcerting in both I find. With animals, it can be a mark of deafness or some kind of eye problem but in people it has long been a note of high superstition . It led to accusations of being a witch or of possessing the evil eye , not a good quality to have in ancient times. I only remember Margaret, a lovely lady, who had odd eyes, a brown eye and also a green eye and she was the kindness and most loving and considerate person you could ever wish to meet, Certainly no witch but she did have outstanding but disquieting eyes.

NB. I do know my title should be 'The Ayes have it” not “The Eyes have it”but who wants to think about politics these days!!

Rambling along the Green Path

Saint Patrick’s Day came and green was everywhere You could even see it in the pool and fountain at the White House in Washington. The Irish green beer was being drunk in plenty in Chicago and New York and probably in lots of other places as well. I bet there were lots of green ties ,shirts and blouses , funny green hats and funny green shoes to be seen  in offices, shops, pubs and parties.

I'm not sure why green is associated with Saint Pat or why it comes at this time of the year but we know Ireland is a very green place. Fly over it at any time. There is no doubt green is the color of Ireland.

Green is also the color of a Texas spring. It is just wonderful to see all the bright leaf greens appearing after most of the blossom fades. One thing that surprises me is the many shades of green of the leaves and how quickly the pale green turns darker as the days progress.

As a painter the color green is the one I have most problems in mixing to get the shade I need. I know to get a basic green you mix blue and yellow but I can never quite get the tone I like. My color green is always too intense or primitive.

I suppose it's this variation and the link of the color green and growing plants that has come to symbolize the Green movement. I am happy that it is still moving along and progressing, be it very slow at times but there are still signs of life .

Finally we have curbside recycling in my part of Texas even though we do have to pay for it extra to our garbage pick up fee. I can remember if you wanted to recycle you had to collect all your cans and papers and haul them away to collection bins. That's if you could even find one. I understand there is big money in all these recyclables so I never can understand why we have to pay to have ours collected. Still we would recycle anyhow to do our bit to keep the earth green.

I shudder every time I think of that huge swath of plastic bags and junk that is said to be floating around somewhere in the Pacific ocean that is about the size of Texas just because people are downright lazy and will not clean up after themselves and recycle.

At least a a few countries have started the ball rolling and outlawed the useful but everlasting plastic bag. Finally shopping bags are becoming fashionable again. Maybe there is hope for the oceans yet.

Any plastic bags we do get, I collect to give to a friend who has taken on a self imposed volunteer job to go around clearing up the lanes and roadsides around where she lives as she wants her part of the world to stay green. She uses the bags to collect the bottles and cans that are thrown there by definitely NON green people.Cheers to her. She sets a great example.

I did wonder if these plastic bags and plastic items are made from oil could there not be a process found that could turn them back to oil?That could solvea lot of problems.

I am always amazed at the huge piles of garbage that is still being collected and not recycled. Travel all over the place and new mountains and hills are being made from all the junk we throw away. We have a couple of these mountains close to us. They will make good ski slopes if it ever snows long enough.

The problem is we have too much these days and are very wasteful of our resources. When I was growing up everything was saved. It was during the war and so everything was in short supply and used as much as possible. String was saved to be used over and over again. Paper bags were used as wrapping paper especially at Christmas and for mailing packages. Newspaper was one of the most useful items to be reused. Some of you will remember the time when 'fish & chips” was always wrapped in yesterdays newspaper. Glass jars were very usable and I can remember collecting a halfpenny each for each one I found when I sold them back to the store. Old habits die hard I suppose so recycling is not such a strange idea to older folk.

Just think how quickly nature takes back an area that man has discarded and believe that in the end, green will prevail

Please try to recycle and reuse as much as you can.