IT'S TIME TO GET OUT OF DODGE

I am not really a horoscope person but I read them for a laugh on my coffee break at work and sometimes I take thier advice.  Last week  ( I am an Aquarius)    it said it was time to "Get out of Dodge".        It made me laugh because that is just what the doctor ordered.    I am leaving this morning to go to Las Vegas with my girlfriends from work.   Haven't been there in 20 years and I am ready to go with camera in hand.      

On top of it all,  it's raining like crazy this morning and I am already dressed for sunshine.     Yeahhh.           This morning I took my son out for breakfast and then drove him to work.    Thought I was organized,  suitcase is at the door,  and took the garbage out so it won't go rank while I'm away......     stopped to pick him up and slipped on the wood stairs that were soaking wet and seriously went crashing down.    Watch flew off,  glasses landed in the garden,   the whole bit.

Good thing I'm built like an oxen because I slammed my left hip, and shoulder onto the deck.   Scraped up my elbow, and have a major tissue bruise on my left wrist.    Really,  I am still hurting.    Couldn't even cut my eggs benedict with the fork and knife sore....     Had trouble picking up my teacup sore.      Reach for the Ibuprofen sore.    That kind of sore.        Will this day dampen my spirit.    Spoil my enthusiasm?       Not going to let it.              Funny thing is - my ex-husband called me at 3 in the morning last night when he was driving home to tell me he hit a deer on the road.     Are you kidding me?      You'd think we live in the mountains or something.     He was very upset because the poor thing was suffering and he had to call the police to come and shoot it,   and the whole front of his Jetta is smashed.    Bent the hood even.    He said he had hair coming out of the grill.      Sorry - but I started laughing because it's so rediculous.   You know that someone is trying to tell you something when bizaare stuff occurrs that just doesn't make any sense at all.     But what are they trying to tell us?        So -   what next?      

Stay tuned because it just keeps getting better and better and more rediculous every day.

So ----   I'm leaving town.     I think it's safer.        Going to Las Vegas.     Gonna take pictures in the fountain for my gallery of "girlfriends in fountains all over town series"......       and just gonna go have a little more fun.

I hope you're good when I'm gone.   (5 days)     and that you don't slip on any wet stairs or catch any Bambi's in your headlights.           

Ciao.  I'll call you when I get back.   ( or blog ya,  or something like that)

Julie            

THEY'RE COMING IN FROM THE COLD..........

......  and I don't like it!     It's those long legged spiders - usually dark browny black - huge things with beady eyes - and they just show up out of no-where.   It's that time of year.   Not a Halloween thing - but a fall thing.    They are cold, and want to come inside apparently but I have not invited them.....      They  scurry along the floor like giant A T Walkers  ( you know those big lanky machines from Star Wars that set out to invade the countryside).   I think they were in those Japanese "B" movies too kind of like Planet of the Apes.  They always play intimidating music and zoom in on their faces in those movies.     Anyways,   I want to know where they come from?    I live in an apartment on the 2nd floor!      and I've looked around and I have baseboard moulding around the walls!   Do they come up the bathtub hole?     If so,    how do they climb up the slippery sides?   Under doorways,   I mean this is a retro building so I guess it's possible.   Climb up the outside walls like ninja's and wait for me to open the sliding door on the balcony?   Surely they are not that smart.      As soon as you see them,  they take off under the couch you are sitting on or in my case the big ottoman that my feet are resting on.   I am afraid to put my feet on the floor so I slide the ottoman aside  because it's on rollers and the hardwood floors make that pretty easy.    The spider is nowhere to be found.      Now this bothers me even more that I don't know where its gone.   He was a big guy and he just disappears?  How can I go to bed and sleep peacefully when he ( and I'm sure it's a he)    could just roam in there and decide he is going to make his way up to higher ground?

It's unsettling.    I know there are people who carefully slip spiders onto a piece of paper and let them out the door.   Well thank you very much because like I said earlier,   they come right back in uninvited - and likely after they have increased their family 10 fold.    All they did was go out and tell the rest of the gang that they found an easy way in  I'm sure of it.   They hop on crates and come into your grocery store on fruits from other places even.   Like gypsy's travelling around the globe for free and making a home whereever they feel like it.      Now I get the circle of life thing and all but I'm sorry,    I am keeping a big old army boot close by so I can get him before he gets me.       And don't go getting all mad at me over this because if I had a cat and the cat got him before me,  no-one would be all over the cat I'm sure.    Disney could make a movie about this whole thing and I liked Charlotte's Web when I was a kid by the way.   But it's just not the same.   These beady eye, hairy legged A T Walkers would do well to stay in the barn and spin a big old web.    There they would live happily ever after.    That would be a good Disney ending.   The spider and me both live happily ever after.

So that's it.   That's today.      

Julie.     

What a great Discovery!

One of the things I seem to be doing is misplacing things.   It's temporary usually -  a kind of "my brain is so full - I just lost some thoughts down that dark hole"  kind of misplacing.    But I have found that occasionally there is delight in such a discovery.       Delight not in the fact that I no longer have to worry about the misplaced item, and not a delight that it means I have an excuse to go shopping for another one,   but I mean a delight when it actually turns up and I just don't expect it.    Moreover,    I hadn't even known I'd left it there.

This has happened a few times but the greatest one of all is when you put on that jacket you haven't worn for a while and what do you find in the pocket?      That favorite lipstick that you thought you ran out of,  or that hair clip with the pretty crown on it that was crying out to be worn again.     

Well,   this week I have been playing this little game called " how little money can you spend until Friday because it's payday".......       Try it -  it's not easy because that's when you stumble on all the goodies that you'd like to buy but they don't fit into the game.        Remember that little purse I met on the weekend?   I'm still thinking about it 2 days later.           So,  the delight in the middle of this little game is that I found something that I didn't even know I had put somewhere.      And it was something  I could totally use.     Almost go mad with!      Okay,   I'll tell you.    I put on my green (it's a nice green)    cardigan.     The kind that covers your backside and has a pocket on each side at the bottom.     I reached in the pocket and felt some paper.  I pulled it out and it was a 20 dollar bill!     Horray.....       I was so excited.    I couldn't even spend it for a day.  I thought I should save it for when I really  really need it.    I should be frugal after all.         I just double checked and its even still in my wallet.  Like  a lucky lottery ticket or something.       Then I sat down at my computer and was looking through some old notes, considering another entry to post.   I have a list printed called "natural highs"   and you know what number 6 is on the list (right behind going to the beach)   I forgot about it too......  and it said   "Finding a 20 dollar bill in your coat from last winter."       

       I just couldn't believe it.       Sometimes I think things in this world swirl around out there,  and come right on back and just make us go .....    HUH?

That's it.      That's today.

L  Julie

THE WIND IN MY FACE

I have always thought the wind was not my friend.   I am generally a fair weather girl.  Love the sunshine,  the beach,  sunny patio's with little bistro tables and leaving my jacket at home because it's too nice to need one.          But of late.......    I have gained a new perspective about the wind.      I now see it as the messenger of change.         It's like a gentle signal that brushes your cheek and let's you know that change is in the air.      It not only blows clouds in but more importantly it blows clouds away.  

Isn't the sun always the brightest after the rain or at least there is an amazing calm for just a moment as the world regains its pace.

  

My friend sent me a photo of a sunflower that was a late bloom in her garden.  Like someone just dropped in and stood there smiling.    In the background of the photo, the sky looked grey and gloomy off in the distance and I thought - "isn't life like that sometimes.    A sunny moment that can be stolen away by grey clouds that are waiting to descend.     It's the wind that helps keep things moving.    The thing that keeps those grey clouds from hanging around forever.    

We had been considering how our summer is coming to and end.   Putting away the patio furniture is always a signal that summer is to be at rest.     Today I looked out the window to see the leaves moving in the trees,  changing colors,  the wind suggesting that a change is on the way.  I dug out my cozy grey cashmere sweater that was a deal from one of my favorite "new to you" shoppes -  and my leather gloves.    I decided to get out of my apartment and go for a walk.     I still needed sunglasses which was encouraging but now I also needed my coat.      It turned out to be one of those personal  saturday afternoons,  where really I had no plans and  no-where I absolutely had to be.  I call them "Julie Days".

   I  made a conscious effort to cross and "walk on the sunny side of the street" .   (That's in a song these days, I know I heard it -  and I figure it's good advice too).      I took an environmental bag  for my shopping so I wouldn't have to bring anymore plastic bags home.  They   live under my sink and although I haven't thought much about it before - I realize I hate them there.     

We'll talk about that another time.......

Back to the wind.    What it has done is change my attitude.    Now I like it as long as I am warm.   When the wind is out there upsetting things - there are also good things going on that we could miss.    While the wind was gently doing its thing,  I met some nice people along the way -  even  caught a few smiles.    One of the fella's in the line-up at the produce store  told me he had long-johns on yesterday which made me laugh,  mostly  -  because I wondered why he thought I needed to know that - but I guess it's nice that he felt comfortable enough to say so.  Aren't stranger conversations interesting.   I love them.     There was a great purse that caught my eye in a shoppe window too which I never would have met if I hadn't headed out in the wind today either.  Decided NOT to get a chocolate covered caramel at Purdy's fine chocolates - but  totally could have.     I made my way back home with some goodies for my fridge, feeling refreshed and anticipating great change coming my way.         

So I guess it's about perspective again today.     Some days I see the world one way and then something happens in me and it looks totally different.      Change could mean adventure and adventures are usually fun.  So bring on the wind I say.     I've got a sweater and some gloves so I'm ready.      

That's it.          That's today.