When I was in the Santa Cruz mountains last weekend, I wandered with the camera during breaks taking shots meaningful to me—but not necessarily to anyone else. These tangled hoses really appealed to me for their colors and for the metaphors behind them. Sir Walter Scott’s stanza from Marmion, Canto vi, Stanza 17, first came to mind:
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
But these hoses didn't remotely feel negative to me; instead, they brought out the child in me. The child who loved blowing bubbles, turning somersaults, walking on her hands, singing at the top of her lungs while running down Day St., which was dirt then. And it reminded me of many happy summer hours in Sunland, California when momma let my girlfriends and me run shirtless on the coarse St. Augustine grass squirting each other with the hose.
My eldest grandson was injured during a high school game last night although he seems OK today, but this injury is the kind that has to be diagnosed and decided upon. He’s had a sore neck all week and twice last night during tackles, his right arm went numb. The team doctors sent him to the sports clinic this a.m., but they couldn’t diagnose without an MRI which will happen early in the week. Redondo did beat beat Serra 28-14, but playing football always comes with risks.
The marine layer is laying heavy over Los Angeles today which is good for the fires that are burning, but a Santa Ana wind is due on Monday. This was a day I spent a few hours with my baby grandsons; Fritz turned one this week. It was a day of washing every layer of bedding as poor Cookie got sick during the night. Cookie also got her monthly bath, and I cleaned house for hours. I actually love cleaning house when I have the time, but with all the workmen still going up and down the stairs to the roof deck during its reconstruction, it’s a no-win battle. I grocery shopped and cooked today as well. Now that I work three days a week instead of full-time, I'm doing my own housework--and it makes me even more grateful for this wonderful roof over our heads. This was one of those pretty laid-back, sacred ordinary days.
Now, Saturday night, it's going to be a reading night. I just finished Isabel Allende’s "Zorro," and I've started Louise Erdrich's "The Painted Drum."
