Sidewalk Planets

On our way home from our afternoon walk we noticed this wonderful bit of sidewalk art on our street. 

What a lovely surprise it was. All of the planets in the right order from the sun and in the right colors. I wish I could have gotten a better photo, but it's pretty stretched out and hard to contain it in one shot. The sun at the top of the photo and then MercuryVenus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune. The lovely artist even added Pluto. A nice man was bike riding by and stopped to take a look as well. He said, "Can you name them all?" We said, "No, can you?" He said, "No." We had a good laugh and then we had a chat trying to name all of the planets. None of us remembered Neptune, but we all remembered Pluto. 

It was a nice way to end our walk on our little planet earth, third planet from that beautiful sun that was shining down on us as we made our way home.

A Raccoon Morning

I opened the shade in the kitchen before sunrise, getting ready to make our morning tea and toast. I startled this little cutie on our derelict neighbor's roof. It looked at me like it couldn't believe its eyes. I wondered if it was the first time it had ever come out from the attic, or the first time it had ever seen a light turned on and a human staring at it.

It stayed around long enough for me to go find the camera and click a few pics. Then I went to get Roger and have him come into the kitchen and look out the window at our new little furry friend

We waved and said hello. It stared and stared. I moved on with my morning routine, and the next time I looked it was gone. 

I was hoping to see it again Tuesday morning, but it wasn't there. I hope the furry family of raccoons are fine in our neighbor's attic. I told my brother the other day they really do make good neighbors. They don't bark, play loud music, or party late into the night. So we don't mind the little poops they leave on the fence as they make their way on their nightly journeys. 

So, meet our good morning neighbor!

Before and After

It's been a long two-weeks of house painting, and it's almost done. The painter worked alone, and that made for a longer time, and he was detailed and meticulous, which also added to the hours and hours of it. We so love the work he has done and are utterly grateful to have found him.

This is what the house looked like when we bought it.

This is what it looked like just a few weeks ago on a beautiful blue-sky day.  

I'm not even sure what the name of the color that house paint is, but we wanted to change it to something lighter and brighter. So we picked Lion Yellow. 

It does have a hint of yellow in the warm cream color. So I've renamed it Lyin' Yellow. The trim is Raspberry Red. 

We are so happy about how it looks. Our neighbors are too. Maybe when the sun comes out and the sky is blue I'll try for another photo to capture the warmth of it. 

Not much else going on these days. Our county is recommending masking up when in indoor public places. We've been doing that since the outbreak, so it's not a change for us. There has been a significant uptick of cases in our county, state, and country. It was predictable after the 4th of July celebrations and the summer gatherings. We're hoping things calm down and more people get vaccinated. 

And, because I am easily amused I am sharing what I saw when I was doing the dishes. It always surprises me what a bit of light on a bottle of dish soap can do. It's the prettiest rainbow I've seen in quite a while. I take my joys wherever I can find them.

I Deleted A Phone Message

 

Now it says only 1 message

I had saved two messages on our landline answering machine for the past 3 1/2 years. They were from my mom when she was living in the assisted living facility and had Alzheimer's. I used to talk with my mother everyday, but when the Alzheimer's overwhelmed  her that just wasn't possible anymore. She never called me. I always called her. So it was a crazy surprise to come home one day to find a message from my mom. The first message began, "Hi Robin this is a call from your... cousin... Bea..."  A few days later we came home to find another message from her. The second one began, "Hi Robin this is a call from your... Aunt...Bea...." Both messages went on to say vague things about why she was calling. It broke my heart that I missed those calls, but I had saved both messages for all this time until Tuesday night. Then I did something stupid and I blame it utterly on the spam and robocalls we get a few times a day. The phone rang and we looked at who was calling. It was just a number, no name, from an area code we did not recognize. So we let it go to the answering machine. Mostly those robocalls just hang up, but sometimes some idiot leaves a recorded message about wanting to help us with something blah blah blah. Roger wondered what the message was, so I went in and listened. It was just robocall crap. So, I noticed we had several other messages on the machine, and I thought I would just delete them and leave my two cherished messages from my mom. Well, I made a mistake and hit delete instead of save when I got to the first message. I know you know how much that broke my heart. Now I have only one saved message. But....

...I had a feeling a while ago that I would do something stupid like this so I made a recording of the recording. I have an MP3 on my computer of my mom's messages. Now I want to call our landline from our cell phone and let it go to the answering machine. Then I want to hit play on my MP3 and record my mom's first message again. I know this is utterly crazy, and that's why I'm writing about it here. I'm asking for your thoughtful heartfelt advice. Would you do something like this? (Part of me is laughing as I type this, but part of me is utterly serious.)

We have always hated robocalls and now my contempt for their pathetic outrageous stupidity has reached a new high. It's so high it's higher than Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos could ever fly.

We Saw The Sun and Moon

 It had been a month since we had even a glimpse of the sky, the sun or moon. Nothing but gray in every direction for as far as the eyes could see. It's been bleak, dark gray bleak. I spoke with some of the neighbors who had gathered in the street in front of our house (delighting in the new color), and we agreed that it's been a month-long bummer. They told me that this spell of foggy cloudy gray has gone on longer than any other time, and they have all lived here longer than we have. That gave me some relief. The bleakness was definitely unusual. Then later in the evening we looked out the window and saw the moon. WE SAW THE MOON. Not only that, there was a bit of cloudiness around it and there was a halo of faint colors. 

I ran for the camera. It's a lousy photo, but it's the MOON. And really the moon is never lousy. The moon never disappoints. We saw it. We pointed to the sky. We shouted out our joy to the universe. We suddenly had hope for sunlight the next day. 

And we were not disappointed. Clear skies for a nice long warm afternoon walk.

The future looks bright here, unless you read the political and environmental news. Don't read the news. Go for a walk. Look at the sky. Wave hello to the cows and butterflies. Breathe in the beautiful clear air. Enjoy the moment while you can. Sometimes that's all we've got.

Hope you are all doing well. Thank you for stopping by, friends.