It really is peaceful

We've been dividing our time this summer in an almost bipolar fashion.
On one hand is the frenetic, almost-panicked efforts to get Beaux reconnected with his tribe so he can access the anti-rejection medications that a change in our insurance put out of reach.
I've learned to write legal petitions and whimper and take nothing at face value. For instance, two days ago we were told Beaux is not Yaqui, according to their records. I asked a simple question and now no one's so sure. We need more information to figure it out. Next up for us is a quest to get the original, before-the-adoption-created-a-rewrite version of his birth certificate.
We're also frantically trying to keep up at work, an extension of the adoption/tribe/medical stuff.
The really good stuff is happening on the side, when we move slowly, more wandering than anything. At least a couple of times a week, we go looking for a spectacular sunset or a photo or flowers or a piece of nature.
This past week, we discovered what may turn out to be my favorite place ever. And it is, oddly and ironically enough, a cemetery.
Mt. Olivet, up by the University of Utah campus, is one of the loveliest places I've ever been. And I'm not the only one that thinks so.
A small herd of deer have moved in. So have a few rabbits, some ducklings and I can't begin to count how many birds.
Twice this weekend, we wandered over there to meander in the shade and read the headstones and -- the main event -- take photos of fawns who are wandering around.
Their ears are so big they look like kangaroos and their legs are so skinny and wobbly they seem like stilts. And I'm enamored with all of them.
I don't believe I'm going to care where my corporeal remains wind up after I'm gone. I'm not going to need them or hang around them. But if I believed that my body was going to roam near where it was buried, I'd vote for Mount Olivet. My body's pretty happy there while I'm alive, too.

God's foot and other wonders

I've been watching the skies a lot lately because they've become really colorful and funky, no doubt because of the wild little thunderstorms we've had every day or so.
Two days ago, I saw a cloud formation I'm calling "God's Foot."
Unfortunately, I was on my way to pick up Beaux at the time and didn't have a camera with me, so I called Alyson and asked her to run outside and look south. "You'll see what looks like a gigantic foot coming out of the clouds," I told her. "Take a picture. No one's going to believe me without proof."
She called me back a few minutes later with sad news. By the time she grabbed the camera and ran outdoors, then searched the sky (trying to remember which way is south), "the toes have separated from the foot, Mama. Now it's mostly just a mess, though I can see how it might have been."
This morning, when Beaux and I left for work before 6 a.m., we were stunned by a rainbow perfectly framed down the end of our street, a ribbon of color that hung suspended in the sky, unattached to anything. It was just a piece of joy, hanging there. I ran into the house and grabbed the camera and did catch that one.
What a lovely way to start the day. And it stayed in front of us all the way to work.
Beaux's getting sicker now, but rather than dwell on that, we're finding joy in odd places. Like a piece of eye candy in the sky.
If you click the second picture, you'll find there's a bird flying across it, as well.

See you in a few days

Hello, blog. Sorry I've been neglecting you.
I've been hellaciously busy and all the lovely rain, which otherwise delights me, has kicked up my allergies to the point of insanity. Seriously. This morning I got a Z-pack for the resulting sinus infection.
Work has also been insanely busy. Between 12 hour days and my sinus issues, my house looks like kindling in search of a blow torch. If I don't get ahead of it soon, I can't even predict what will happen.
Today, I had a million things to do, but between dropping Beaux off at 6 a.m. and visiting the doc, I managed to finish some shopping so we'd have crucial items like mosquito repellent wipes and red licorice — not necessarily in that order. Got the girls new sneakers and held an impromptu deli picnic lunch in a small park, then we drove them to Pleasant Grove for an overnight space-simulation camp they've been hyped about since Feburary. Today's the day.
Found out Beaux needs an MRI to see what a "shadow" on his liver is. Could be good or bad -- good because it can move him up the transplant list although we haven't lined all our ducks up for the antirejection meds. We'll deal with that one when we get back.
Tomorrow's my last chance to get ahead of things and get ready, but I've got to go back to Pleasant Grove 45 minutes south and pick up the girls, then deliver my great-niece to Paradise, 90 minutes north. I can feel my day trickling through my fingers. We're leaving tomorrow right after Bx gets off work.
And, yet, I am just busy counting blessings. And ignoring you, dear blog. Sorry.

Did I mention?

We've been spectacularly busy the last couple of weeks, but are seriously loving the wet, April-like days in what's usually a water-hogging month in the garden. But I am way behind in updating anything and I don't actually have much to say. So on the theory that a picture's worth a thousand words, here are a few things we've seen in the last couple of weeks.
Sunday we went to the air show. Never go the sunny day. Much more fun to go when it might drizzle a little.


This is what our "drizzle" looked like at one point! Whoohoo!


This lovely fellow is Tiger, our super-sized creature. He has a super-high falsetto voice, a foot fetish and the softest fur I've encountered in 50 years of cat lovin'. But he's dumber than dirt. Seriously.




And it wouldn't be us, taking pictures, if we didn't see birds somewhere.
Have a great Monday and beyond!

I'm glad you're here...

The sixth grade class at the girls' school always closes out its multicultural night by having the students march in with the flag of their homeland.
This year, there are 13 countries represented in their class, from the single member of the Navajo Nation to the trio from Bosnia, the 20-some from Mexico, the smaller groups from Somalia and Guatemala and — I can't even remember all of them. The "Americans" marched in last, my Jen among them, amid raucous applause from the entire group because they're all here, all proud, all American.
It's my favorite part of the entire program, a strangely emotional display of solidarity from people who come from vastly different backgrounds.
In grade school, they're not arguing about immigration or whose country it is or who's to blame for this or that. They just play together and accept one another.
In my grade school, there was one little black girl in a sea of white. My brother and I were also "diverse," because we were a different religion than the majority. It was uncomfortable at times, painful at others. My husband and I picked a diverse neighborhood so our children would grow up with all kind of people and ideas and experiences.
So today, as the children marched under their flags, I cried. The beauty of that moment rivaled the most spectacular sunset.
The debate about immigration will rage on, fueled in large part by misinformation and the very human tendency to want to blame someone when times are tough. And the truth is, who did or didn't do what is no reflection on these innocent kids. Looking at the multicolored young faces, so full of hope and promise and joy, I had only one thought.
I wish you well -- for all our sakes.

A half-century later

There's a "Barbie at 50" ad campaign circulating that resonates with me. It was created for an anti-obesity message by Latinworks, Austin, USA.

Barbie and I are contemporaries, born in 1959 and starting to expand a half-century later. I'm like an optical-illusion statue. Turn me one way, I have jowls, another and my butt looks bigger than my car. If the angle's just right, it doesn't look like I have changed that much.

But amid the list of things that have grown (in some cases, significantly), it's easy to forget a couple that aren't so bad: My self-confidence and my sense of humor.

There are a lot of things that the "old" me can do that would never have occurred to a sleeker, younger version. When I lose a bet with the girls these days, the penalty is apt to be a starkly different color hair. It's kind of fun and neither defines nor explains me. I could do robin's egg blue without blinking, I think. Red and dark, dark brown are particular favorites.

I can laugh at myself, too.  And given the perspective of the cancer I had years ago and Beaux's placement on a liver transplant list, I honestly don't sweat the small stuff much.

And at the end of the day, looking back with the perspective of lots of years and a lot of experiences, it's all pretty much small stuff.

Maybe next time...

This morning, I took Beaux to work at 6 a.m. and came home and crawled back in bed, where Aly found me a couple of hours later.
Get up, she said. Weren't we going to the park for breakfast?
For the past two weeks, we've repeatedly passed a sign announcing the Lions are cooking breakfast in Riverside Park Saturday, from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. And repeatedy, I've said, we should go.
So I jostled Jeni into getting dressed and we headed out, only to discover we didn't know where Riverside Park is. We called Beaux to find out, but we circled around toward the sign to see if it said, too. And there we discovered that we'd been looking at the right park, but the wrong day.
They're cooking breakfast next Saturday.
No sweat, I told the girls. McDonalds, here we come.
As I was pulling in, my cell phone rang. It was my friend Maggie, who is 102 years old and was next up on our to-do list.
"Can you come next week, instead?" she asked. I have workmen coming and going all day and it's so distracting."
No problem.
When I told the girls, Jen cocked her head to one side and said, "I get it. We are going to do today next week."