Visiting Our Mother

I recently visited my 91-year-old mother.   For who knows how long she has been on Haldol, and who knows what else, which left her practically immobile, on the edge of life, and in a great deal of pain.  When she was taken off this nasty drug she came back to life, and I was able to visit with her for the first time in about a year and a half.  This video clip is for anyone whose missed being able to visit with Trulah the last couple of years.

Bear in mind that she is not wearing hearing aids and is doing her best to follow the conversation.  For her it sounds like broken English.   I knew that if I had more time I could have learned how to better  communicate so we could get beyond one liners.  I wished we had the time and comfort of sitting in our home together because it is so awkward literally shouting out personal conversations in a public setting.  So you keep it simple because everyone within 200 feet can hear you, except her and she's right in front of you.


<a href="Trulah%20May%202013.mov" rel="qtposter">
<img src="Trulah%20May%202013.jpg" width="480" height="376" alt="Trulah May 2013"/>

</a>

SURVIVING A THUNDEROUS NIGHT

Last night we had one of those rare thunderstorms.  In the wine country we don't get the big lightening, thunder, roaring, pounding rain very often.  But last night won, if you're the type that loves storms.

It was also the big night, December 21, 2012.  The end of the Mayan calendar.  Every year we get the end of the world story.  But this night was special.  We had a specific date, carved in stone by highly intelligent people thousands of years ago.  Not just another Nostradamus prophecy re-worked to fit today's events.  We also had a celestial event, as we moved across the milky way, and aligned with the greatest planets in our solar system.

In this prophetic moment, back here in my little domain, safe for the moment, I awoke from a dream.  The roof of my vineyard cottage is made of european ceramic tiles.  The cottage built of blocks and covered in stucco.  Surrounded by old redwood and pine trees.  The typically dry creek behind my house roared with water.  Then it happened again, the thunder roared, the house shook.  The sky clapped, several times, so loudly I had to wonder, was this it?  Was something big about to happen?  My room lit up.  It was so bright I could see the flash through my closed eye lids.  Was the axis of the planet about to shift?  Was a solar flare causing a thunderstorm that would flood the planet?  Would this clap pop a hole in the ozone layer?

The clap and boom of thunder permeated the quiet night with a sound so loud my ceramic tiles played back an echo to each clap from the storm that rolled through the walls of my home.  The big old trees thrashing their long limbs, reaching 100ft. into the night sky, made for a spooky sky.

I dug deeper into my bed.  My ears on high alert.  Then a deep sleep as the rain fell thickly, dense but translucent like a vail, dampening the growing distant sounds of thunder.

Just after dawn, I awoke to the rushing sound of a full creek.  As I sipped a cup of thick black Jo I  watched deer head for dry ground just outside my kitchen window.  Check it out in the video attached.  Listen to the sounds of the creek, bone dry the night before.  I really appreciate these moments.  I live for them.  My creek is one of those things that only brings me happiness.  So I'll share it with you.

I'm really excited about 2013, I love the number.  Happy Holidays.

WATER FLOWS

When I woke up this morning the irrigation ditch was swollen the size of a stream and racing past my house. I realized that without intention I have always lived near seasonal waterways. I love my little creek and look forward to it each year. Today it was the biggest I have ever seen it. I remembered that when my kids were little and we lived in New York we lived in a house built by an Italian family in the 1800's. It was a three level home built on a massive boulder jetting out over a rolling hill. The builder had blasted out rock and created this wonderful home that rested upon this massive boulder. We lived on the second level when it was converted to an apartment. In the rainy season of New York, that lasted for months raining hard like it is now, the rock turned into a raging waterfall. He had captured that rain so it flowed down either side of a wide double stairway that lead from the street at the top of this hill, to the street at the bottom. It was magnificent.

So as I sipped coffee watching the stream rage on this morning, I wished someone had video taped me the other day.  I could of sent the tape into Funny Home Videos and won some much needed funds.  

I needed to do some laundry.  I was wearing a long sweater coat and rolled my pant legs up to my knees and ran out into the rain.  I had a pile of towels in my arm and threw open the garage door.  I hoard of fruit flies swarmed me and I stumbled back, dropping towels.  I reached down to grab the towels and realized a river of water was flooding the garage since I had opened the door.  I ran into the back and threw the towels on the machines, then ran back inside the house to retrieve a broom.  I couldn't sweep the water out fast enough, so I amped up and starting sweeping wildly trying to get enough water out that I could close the door again.  My pant legs fell down and my sweater coat began to stretch until it too was in the water.  I had to sweep away the debris in front of the doors so the water would flow past and finally got the door closed.  I was completely soaked.  It couldn't have been more than a two minute rush, and my first really good laugh of the day :).

Happy Sunday.

THE VINEYARD COTTAGE

I live on a beautiful vineyard in the wine country.

The last couple of years the weather just hasn't been as supportive as it should given the pleasure wine brings to so many of us.  Too cold, too wet, too sunny too late.  Because wine grapes like to struggle.  That's what gives them their depth.  The vines love the heat and require very little moisture.  If it's a cold summer, they don't grow.  If it's too wet, the grape swells up and it dilutes the dense crystalized flavors you've been waiting all year to harvest.

This year (2012) was the perfect year.  The harvest spectacular.  I was watching the harvest through the beveled glass of my front door.  Why you say?  Because the beveled glass refracts light and it sprays the colors outside all over my space, I can't help it.  Ton after ton of grape bins arrived.  I had never seen the vintner so happy.  As each week passed his smile lasted longer as he wheeled about on his forklift carrying full bins of grapes and later barrels full of freshly fermenting wine.  The weather held, and the grapes ripened perfectly.   This harvest lasted a couple of months, and the vintner never stopped smiling even though he and his team were working 18 hour days.

The wine is fermenting now in large tanks sitting under the olive trees that line the lane.  The fruit flies have arrived thrilled by the scent of freshly pressed grapes and thick yeast spicing the morning air.  So smart they are.  Did you know scientists actually trained fruit flies to play computer games.  They love the repetition and play tirelessly.  Well now they are in my kitchen.  They perch nearby looking at me, all over the walls, the rims of my glasses, the handle to my refrigerator just waiting for me to open it.  They come every year toward the end of harvest.  When the stems and vines lay off on the vineyard slopes, resting and melting back into the soil.  The fruit flies thrilled to find such a pile claim it as their rightful treasure.

I've seen fruit flies at harvest cover entire walls of people's homes and cellars.  The walls black, crawling with these little buggers.  Not in my home, not anymore.  What do you do when you just can't take it anymore?  Vacuuum!  Trap in a little hand vacuum and release back into the wild...if you are so inclined :)  Cuz you cannot catch them otherwise.

Can't wait to taste the new wine.  I'll tell ya about it as soon as I get my first taste.