the busy heart

The other day I went out for my morning walk as usual, and at the end of the driveway I passed a giant swarm of black flying insects. It must have been ten feet high. "Whoa," I said out loud. The swarm frightened me, is the truth. I was grateful Henrietta had made it clear she needed additional sleep more than she needed to join me on my walk and was back at home with her comfort-lamb, doing her baby snore. I walked a little further and passed another swarm, and another, and another. They were as tall as houses, as tall as the giant Saguaro Cactuses that lined the road. There were half a dozen of them before I'd even left the cul-de-sac. There had been a big storm the night before, a monsoon, and I wondered if that had somehow signaled all of these colonies to hatch. It was if they had alarms that rang promptly at six a.m., and now they were getting on with it, with the next stage of their life cycles. But what were they? I pretty much assume everything that flies ...

As it turns out, jumping off a cliff together is terrifying, especially when a few of your parachutes don't open. We've had, since we've moved, a string of bad luck. Our house still hasn't sold, and the opportunity to make a good bit of income has dried up. That income was meant to carry us through the next few months and give us a bit of cushion and allow us to move into a place of our own. Stress? What stress? Luck is a funny thing. I've been thinking of it that way--as a string of bad luck. A month or so before we left, on a picnic at the park, Sam found a five-leaf clover. He wasn't trying to find it. We were in the middle of a stressy conversation about money, and he looked down, and there it was. Our Clover, pressed and preserved in a book about Paris gargoyles. I did a quick Google search to see if five leaf clovers are good luck, or if it must be four, and Google said they were even rarer, and therefore luckier. We're not people partic...

Merry Christmas, all. Sam and I are in Tucson with the sunshine (!) and his sweet family. Last year I was suspicious of cacti with christmas lights on them. This year, I love them. And this little girl loves you. I'm the cute, small, flirting one. Merry day! (sorry for small image. no idea why that's so. click on it?)

Tonight, to break my fast, I made avocado/apple/turkey enchiladas. I know that sounds weird, but boy oh boy they were yummy. As were the Black Bean Brownies I made this week, off a recipe on 101 Cookbooks . (Note on brownies: You can't taste the black beans. Really, honest, you can't. Also, I substituted 1/2 cup of applesauce for 1/2 the butter, as a cup seemed like a lot. And I mixed agave nectar with honey and maple syrup 'cause agave nectar costs 4 million dollars and didn't want to use it all.) My kitty, Meatsock , is curled up beside me. Occasionally I can hear him make a small kitty squeak. Sam is asleep on the couch, snoring much louder than a kitty squeak, and listening to Bach on Pandora Radio . (Note on Pandora Radio: If you haven't discovered the joy that is Pandora, get yerself over to that website. Such a happy place/thing. Sam and I are obsessed.) Anyway, I'm thinking about Christmas. We had such an exquisite one. Maybe my favorite yet. Here...