Falmouth Garden Tour - May

Bike the Path

My favorite bit of the Shining Sea Bike Path is the part connecting Falmouth to Woods Hole.  Getting to the path is an incredible ride: Falmouth Heights and a crystal clear view of the Vineyard, Falmouth Harbor, Surf Drive and it's signature simple, stilted beach houses.  Overhead hawks scout the shore for something to bring back to the nest.

A water break on one of the path's benches allows time to absorb the surrounding nature: sun baked boulders, rounded pebble beach, black glistening rocks beaten by the crash of the waves, then off in the distance the ferry loaded and headed back from Vineyard Haven.  If you pick your bench right, warm air will either swirl around you, warming chilled bones, or a refreshing breeze will blow the cool of the ocean right past.

Once in Woods Hole, WHOI surrounds.  The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute for those who aren't as familiar with the area.  This is a place of science and beauty. 

One of my favorite stopping points is through a WHOI parking lot.  It's a patch of grass and picnic tables overlooking Eel Pond. The panaramic view is unbelieveable.  Here, a feeling of calm and peace overwhelms regardless of the time of day. 

By far, this is not all of Woods Hole, but it was enough for me, for one day.

For a more sheltered ride home, the bike path stretches the other direction flanked by ponds, wildlife, and plantlife.  My son will be thrilled to learn that - though still in it's VERY early stages of growth - the honeysuckle has begun to bloom. 

How he loves to carefully snap one off to get a taste of its sweet nectar.  Unfortunately, poison ivy is everywhere and ticks are clinging to everything.  So, enjoy the ride and check yourself for ticks when you arrive home.  Just a quick brush off before you step inside should do.

You Are My Dog!!!

This dog is even better than the singing dog at the zoo who never seems to be singing but rather sleeping.  If you sing to Rudy he sings right back to you.  If you are loud, he is loud, if you sing softly, he does the same.  And my favorite - if I howl, he howls.  What a racket.  Or my mother would say, oh what a hoot.  (Meaning it is a ton of fun.)

I wish this photo was a better shot but I LOVE the light.  Rudy looks like an angel.  My sweet, sweet 70-pound pound puppy.

Phusion Illusion

Here's a sign in Woods Hole.  It stands on the roof of the restaurant - or at least that's what the sign would have you believe.  But is it saying Phusion?  Or is it saying Illusion?  Ah ha.  A Phusion Illusion just like I said.

Script Frenzy

My brain needs something to do. Communication with a five year old (or with 150+ teenagers) just doesn't cut it. So while surfing the internet late one night, I got an email from the folks at NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - leading me to this decision: I will write a screenplay. About what? No clue. I guess you could say I am in the "organizing my thoughts" stage. I have plotlines, characters, themes all twirling around my head.

gotta go help Chaz clean up his room - if he is ready - I gotta GO!

So Far From Epic

My disappointment in this new trend of describing the great as epic mounts. My fear? That epic will become the new awesome. And how sad is that? The once awe inspired word whittled down to slang. From inspiring awe, to expressing awe, to remarkable; outstanding. Slang - just everyday vernacular.

Awesome.

Dude.

Speaking of awesome - feel like following me and my ADHD down the tangent trail? Really more like, speaking of dude... big Lebowski's picking up the axe and strumming a tune in modern day Hollywood. It seems the song originated from a down and out fellow spending blocks of time just sitting in his ride.

Can't wait to see it; this morning on Sunday Morning Bridges was refreshingly unHollywood, sharing the private moment of meeting his wife, proudly showing her off, then again - up close, obviously still in love after 33 years - there's a man.

He looks at her with love in his eyes not giving a damn if anyone's looking. How lucky is he? To have met his girl, fallen in love, stayed there, and lived to tell. Maybe that could be awesome - that is - awesome before awesome could be interchanged with rad, or stellar, or epic - I really hope not.

Have You Seen Charlie's Blog?

You should! It rocks!! http://ponyboy-charliebean.blogspot.com/

The latest add is a kookie little song he heard on Fineas and Ferb. A love song - Happy Valentines Day!

All Aboard! (uh - so what if I'm mixing up Hollywood - happens all the time - right?) Charlie with his Golden Ticket - Polar Express. (Or Chocolate Factory...whatever.)

Respond to a prompt

When I hear a sad song or learn of a sad movie – something in me shuts off. No longer open to the cadence of the words intended to be read, but dead. Dead to feeling that feeling of loss – the one that inspired the words. I was the girl who held funerals for snakes squshed flat by radial tires wrecklessly steered by unmindful drivers. Words such as malaise nearly pass me by, and would if words did not speak to me so. Picked out of the pile, unearthed from the wreckage, dusted off, shaken out – relieved of their too sad ties to the past. Not wanting to think – what brute would kick a sweet little pup?

The alterative seems far better: amble and chomping. Jade-colored teeth grinding lazily in large bovine heads. Human-like eyes tracking boxcars that pass, ears flick with the sound of 50 Hells Angels.

Where have you been?

"Where have you been?" she demanded. He dropped his eyes and did what he does best - he shut her out, observing everything except the tears brimming in her eyes - ready to spill out and run down her red hot cheeks.

"'Where have you been? Tuh-hA!" he sneered only slightly beneath his breath, not noticing he mockingly was quoting her.

Snapped back from his daze by the first of those tears splatting a line of her list. She was forever making lists - to do, to do now, to do at work, to do at home, for others to do. They infuriated him, infuriated. His resentment toward her had grown enormously over the past few months. Thinly veiled insults nonchalantly disguised behind a joke.

He knew what he said was hurtful - he also knew that he said it with the intention to hurt. But hadn't he just a few months prior revealed to her his heart? He had - and that's why. He came to her - heart in his hand hoping to learn that his heart was exactly what she wanted. But that hadn't happened. It's as if she handed him the yellow rose of friendship.

"Thanks, Sammy. You're so sweet." That was all she said. Thanks! That is not a response to someone - your soulmate - revealing their heart. It's an insult really. So since then she went on pretending what was said, never was - he would continue to toss his jokes her way.

Not that it made him feel better - it didn't - but because it made him think that to Iris it looked like - he too had forgotten all that was revealed. Not a good way to communicate but that's because since the day he attemped to hand her his heart and she shoved it back at him they didn't have a relationship. They simply coexisted. Shared the same space. And felt nothing but apathy - or so he thought as he watched the tear blur the quickly scrawled "vaccum" into a pool of blue.

Still Alice - Author interview on FOX25 in Boston

Link:

Yes, you heard right. I was on FOX25 news earlier this week talking about STILL ALICE and early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. Here's the link if you'd like to see it:

http://www.myfoxboston.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=6007090

Thanks,

Lisa Genova

http://www.StillAlice.com

Russian Christmas Wishes

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I have a friend in Russia - her name is Nina Mikalina. I got this ecard scripted in Russian. But when you click, Toby Keith (oh so country) sings Silver Bells.

Loving the culture clash I just had to print and scan and post!!!


C Hobbim rogom!


(hope that is good)


:)

Prompt: Travel

The prompt was - farthest you had to travel as a child, alone.

I didn't have one of those abandoned childhoods where children spent hours upon hours entertaining themselves, bored of freedom , yearning for structure. Nope quite the opposite here. I traveled in a pack - a small nuclear pack. To be alone I would crawl beneath my bed - but this was an imposition on my cat who scratched a hole in the mattress' white underlining - - and climbed IN. No joke. Alone was a commodity in my house.

I'm cheating on my book club

A few months ago I got a facebook mail inviting me to join the Endless Summer Girlfriends Book Club - seeing that is was from someone I actually know (in the flesh) I jumped on board.

I am already a member of a book club (Tampa Bay Bookies) but figured - I love books! So I gave it a shot. Now granted I started in true LP style - skipped the first book...BUT have since read the second book (finished it last night) and already purchased the third and fourth books.

Have to check when the online chat is but am looking forward to it as the author is a part of the discussion. How great is that?!

Time to fly.

The Prompt - Manual

If you were to write a manual what would be the product?

Well, I did. And it was a manual for a heart rate monitor. The audience was an older crowd - and I was told my main goal was to get across the point of the large red button on top of the small plastic casing.

I tested them too. Hooked each machine up to a device that would determine if each monitor was calibrated within a ceratin range. I do well with repetitive tasks - something about the rhythm of them lulls me into a catatonic, rainman-like state. At this particular task, my ears detected the rejects. Like a freak of nature, I set aside the abnormal machines without needing the confirmation of an ink-scratched beat. But that's me.

Take Two - POLICE

An attempt to follow directions - sort of...

Police

Well, shit. An error occured on the timer so now I'm off topic and not following the directions again. Grr...

F-it. I'm changing the rules. (Ha.)

Policing the halls you never know what you are going to see. Most teachers follow the unwritten rule of proceed with caution. Stopping every cell phone violation on the way to the bathroom would make an unsuccessful trip. Plus, telling people no and pointing out what they are doing wrong also bums out the policer.
...

Shit that sucked more than the first. More like a one minute bitch. (and no I am not calling myself a bitch :P)

Response to prompt on One Minute Writer Blog

So I just came across a new blog - new to me that is - called the One Minute Writer. A daily prompt is posted and then you commit one minute to respond.

Cool.

But today's prompt is something six word...blah, blah, blah. Did that last year - or the year before and I think you can tell from the tone of my voice - don't really want to do it again. Though I have been known to be wrong - it doesn't strike me to write today.

The six-word memoir I wrote was: Live life outside the lines sometimes. (Okay, I cheated - that wasn't it exactly. Really I think mine was only five words - hence the outside the lines thing - Life lived outside the lines. Though it reads more like an epitaph...)

So yesterday's prompt is: Fiction - Accident Here goes...

You say accident - I think pee, though trip is the most common type of accident I tend to encounter. Yup, tripped over a speed bump holding hands with my son. Actually made him faceplant into it. We were at the mall. When we both got up, Charlie with a fat bloody lip he looked at me with tears in his eyes and wailed, "Why?"
...

Well I have to say I pretty much bombed that one. I guess it was about a minute but that is hard to calculate and write. Once you get started you then have to stop. Hmm. Before I do my thing and change something I think doesn't work I will give this an honest shot. I do have a timer tomorrow I will use it. (As usual I missed something - and I have the gall to call my friend Skip- a-Step - The timer is right there on the page...maybe I will do a take two.)

But the major failure is that I failed to follow the prompt - a sophomoric mistake (though I knew as I was doing it I was committing it).

Here's the challenge - can I get myself back here tomorrow?

Time will tell

A Prologue - WriMoNiMo Part 1

NiMoWriMo Novel

Life is never enough for Jez. Dissatisfaction is the predominant influence on her state of being. I guess one could say, it’s what keeps her going. It hasn’t always been this way, but it seems she’s stuck in a rut, and this one’s one hell of a rut. Like every classic Freudian, she blames it on her mother, and why not? It seems she’s the perfectly logical scapegoat.

The difference between a boy and a girl: A girl can get pregnant, whereas a boy cannot. A girl is sensitive, where a boy is not. A girl is soft and sweet and sensitive, a boy is not. Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, whereas boys are made of and and puppy dog tails.

A Prologue

A young girl growing restless of life as it is, the predictability of daily life tirelessly drones on mocking her boredom, her dissatisfaction, her curiosity with its routine sounds and familiar practices. Accustomed to life as it is, Amelia spent her prayers wistfully masking desires as true needs and wants. And before long, with enough thinking upon it, desires become reality. As it is said – be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. So as you may have guessed – this girl asked for change and change is what she received a change so dramatic that it would alter her life forever. Eternally alter the footprint of her life and the lives of those surrounding her – or as she put it - stifling her.

Fine linen folds crystallize remote edges of the pond in the late days of January, months after the last of the waterfowl headed south. Rough yellowed stalks rustle slightly from the movement of air. A back door slams – in part from the breeze but mostly in anger – and a high school freshman is granted access her rite of passage by a boy twice her age.

With God in her heart and Jesus nowhere near her mind, she goes to him, allows him to undress her; she succumbs to what many later decide as her greatest weakness. Long before she realizes the implications of the act she committed and had been a willing and eager participant Thom returned to his wife, leaving Jezebel. Alone, she cried. For the loss of her innocence, for her youth - forever altered but the magnitude of the decision before her.

Instilled with her grandmother's love for God - a God whose teachings still ring in her ears, whose touch is a cool dip on the tips of her fingers and padded, creaky plastic pressure beneath her knees both Wednesdays and Sundays. Made to feel she had committed a sin and not knowing what else to do, she agrees - though it was not enough to keep her from the furor.

A child is born in Bethlehem – not of an innocent, all-encompassing love but of childish want, curiosity, discovery, and desire; a departure from what is good and right.

The truth is, this mass of cells exists and Rowe vs. Wade has not yet come to be - though would not present a viable option if it had - seeing as though this was a sin, the greater sin would be to dissolve the mass without thought or talk of sin. So out of fear of creating a sin of God, she allowed herself to commit a sin of man and without a ceremony she bore a child who she unceremoniously then shoved off from the reeds by the edge of a cooling pond in the days leading up to Halloween.

But that’s not were the story begins – at least that’s not where I think it begins. Though for as long as I have been conscience of a story, that is where it has always begun – in my head – then again I have never been able to get it outside of my head. So let’s wind it back a bit and take a microscope to uncover the facts, to discover the nuances of the character that led to the pushing off of the baby in the reeds.

Growing up in Pennsylvania allows a girl a certain freedom that growing up in say New York City doesn’t. Suburban living prophesizes small town living – a town with only one stoplight is something to be coveted as it implies the need for only one stoplight, which as we all know that reality and necessity are not often the same. But all the same, she proffered change; here is how that change came about.

Developing a Thought

My mind has been on hold for quite a while and I am not sure what's to blame but figure finger pointing isn't useful anyhow, so I'll drop it, and stew.

She's a character forming in my mind - she's been there before but this time I feel compassion - where before there was only distaste or maybe apathy. So compassion is good - at least it is a feeling, it can grow. Apathy must be the worst emotion - can it even be called an emotion? Isn't it more of a non-emotion?

Either way I am moving toward something, slowly. It's growing and that's good.

Fiction is funny - it gives you the freedom to let go - it's like a psychological release, permission to lie, but somehow I no longer feel the fictional freedom I did when I first discovered this truth. Maybe I've dissected the worm too many times and can no longer see it for it's expanding and contracting.

I'm hoping the thing that is stiffling me is stage fright...so I'm going off line. What I need to write is too close to home to put it all out there. I worry too much about the intended audience and how my work will be perceived, so I don't write. I do in journals - on scraps - on saved bits on this computer, that flashdrive, but somehow can't complete a thought.

A regrouping is necessary, because the story I have to tell is mine, and it's fiction. It scares me and it delights me - it makes me want to cry. And finally I have gotten to the place of compassion. So now I've got to write.

Hub pages

So, I'd really like to earn an income as a writer so I am trying my hand at some online writing suggestions, one of which was Hub pages - though I think I more like stumbled onto this one. You will notice a NEW box on the side of my blog. It contains the articles - well, singular - article I have written.

Pump my 2-D ego and click, read, and rate.

Aw, cummon it'll be fun.

This one's a gem.

Three am, what - I ask myself - am I doing up?

Coughing. Blowing my nose.. Surfing the web... Thinking of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Babu Bob, the orphans, my story, and a trip.

Needing a change of pace.

Blogging to myself is so unsatisfactory. HBO you're on.