Sir Ducken

I'm currently reading Five Days in London, May 1940. This is a continuation of my interest in Winston Churchill and history in general. Of course, I've been listening to all these books or I would still be reading the first one.

One of the many problems with listening to books is that you don't have proper nouns in writing. There is one name that has confused me through every book. Sir Duggan? Terdugan? Turducken? Aargh. Wikipedia doesn't help you if you can't spell the name. This guy was important. He was in the War Cabinet. He wrote a diary or a book about what went on during this period. But who was he?

Alexander Cadogan, of course. Two countries separated by one language. According to Wiki, this is pronounced Caduggan, although the first syllable is emphasized and probably sounds more like Cur. I'd have pronounced this like cardigan without the "r". I love mysteries, especially ones that have a solution.

It's Done!

The cat is done. Adrian is going to show it to his friend to find out if she would like to hang it on one of her walls. If so, I will frame it. If not, it goes into a closet with the other two needlepoints that I completed years ago. I promised Karen that when I move up North I will frame all of them and hang them in my bedroom there. Or the bathroom. Or... It is a lot of work, but I like the stitching part. I'm not sure that I want to have dozens (as if) lining my walls.

Did I mention that my tax issues have been resolved? I have someone else doing my taxes after a horrible debacle while I was in India. Somehow Adrian got tax bills to me that I paid without really thinking. That after preparing returns without really thinking. Now I have a good woman who actually knows what she's doing. Hurray! I can't imagine how much I would have saved over the past years if I had trusted my tax forms to others. Oh well. All this means is that I can now afford to buy another needlepoint kit. Pshew.

Poppy Fields

Every rainy year brings millions of flowers to the California deserts. I figured that this year I'd have a chance to see them. There are many websites that tell you where to go and even have a nice bar that shows you the advancing state of the flowers. Once the bar rose above 4 (out of 10), I figured I should see what's up.

This is a 4.5 at the Lancaster Poppy Reserve. OK, not a great picture, but maybe you can see a hill smudged with golden yellow. I'll go back in a few weeks to see how this has changed. And I will take Adrian's advice and leave very early. Even in this lovely Spring weather we're having, it got hot as I walked up the hill. It was a well-cared for path, but the signs at the bottom of the hill that warned about rattlesnakes were a little daunting.

We used to hike in the Sierra Foothills a lot when I was a kid. My brothers used to catch and skin rattlesnakes and Mom even fried some for everyone to sample. Yes, it does taste like chicken, chicken necks due to all those bones. My sister even stepped on one once. Family legend? In any case, I'm not 8 anymore, not able to leap as high or as fast as my sister did. I watched every little hole and flat place along the trail. I did see two very fast lizards. Let the snakes eat them.

And please let the lizards eat all the gnats that swarmed around my face. They were thick. I held a Kleenex over my nose at some points in the walk. Sure, it was beautiful, inspiring nature. And next time I'm dousing myself with all that bug spray that I didn't use up in Virginia. And I wonder why I don't go hiking more often.

The prettiest poppies were next to the path by the information center. On those long hikes in my youth we used to try to identify all the flowers. There were Belly Flowers, Kneeling Flowers, Bend-Overs and more. I'm sure some park ranger knows all the real names. On this day I saw blue bellies and yellow bend-overs. Very pretty. And the day and the views were worth watching every step and inhaling every gnat. Really

Laundry Day

Adrian knows he has a crazy mother. It was confirmed today in the laundromat. For some strange reason, I love to go there. I love to watch the clothes chase after each other in the dryer. So today I took a picture for the blog. It isn't here because it was hard to get a feeling of the chase. Adrian saw a flash go off on the other side of the room and knew exactly where I was.

I first fell in love with watching a dryer with Karen in Hawaii. We sat there for some time, giggling about how funny it looked. This was not the high point of the trip and we were not high. But it is the memory that comes back to me every time I wait for my clothes to be dry.

Aloooooo-ha