THE BIGGER PICTURE

I’m hitting my “replay” button today. My blog, my button!

This is from an email exchange, earlier this morning, with a friend who was asking how things are on my side of the world…

I wrote…

Yes, when we (ie, everyone) step back from our troubles and look at them on the broader scale…

But right now, that’s pretty hard for me. We had a torrential downpour at tea time last night. The Man was just out of the shower and we were about to have a small glass of Chardonnay and a nibble of cheese before dinner. Man! It rained. I went to the back door and saw a mini-Niagara pouring under the back fence and rooster-tailing over the patio. I think I exhausted all my multi-tongue expletives!

The Man  grabbed a rake and hung over the fence clearing the back neighbour’s drain and I did my best clearing the 3 rain traps along the back and shouting rude words at the other back neighbour (who would not have heard above the noise). Did what we could, slowed it down to a mild deluge and had dinner.

I slept fitfully, constantly alert in case we had to go again.

This morning…water everywhere, of course. This is normal. But The Man had  Mustang parts all over the floor of the basement workshop. 2″ of dirty water are not the best treatment, so we’ve been picking up, mopping up and drying up.

To add to this, we disturbed our

resident possum, who scrambled out from his sleeping alcove (behind the  wall) and sat, watching, unsure whether to make a run for it or sit tight. And then Geiger paddled in, spotted Poss and decided she’d like to make his acquaintance. I’m up to my oxters in dirty, swirling water and about to become the meat in that sandwich.Hoo-boy!

Yes, when we step back from the immediate short-range focus…

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This morning’s the first time Geiger has seen Poss up close. Sometimes, the cats watch through the window as Poss heads out on his nightly jaunts. It’s also the first close look I’ve had of this fellow. A young male, he’ll be making his own way in the world, having to fight for, and hold onto, territory and females. Mind you, the mating fights are just that; these guys do their thing and shoot through. No happy-families bonding in possum land!

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I really must put the New York Times back in my reading list.(the list was muddled after the last trip to the computer hospital.)

You see, not being a reader of the local daily papers, whose appalling journalistic cock-ups do nothing good for my temperament, I miss a lot of stuff that is “newsworthy” from my viewpoint, if not seen that way by local editors.

So I didn’t know til I read m’s blog this morning that Blossom Dearie had died.

I met her during one of her London trips, back in the 60s. We’d usually have a chat and a coffee whenever she was in town, but then I changed jobs, went abroad, lost touch, in the way so many of us do.

Still, I have fond memories of her. If you’ve never heard her “Bruce” go out now and get it!                                                                                                                         “See you after the show, Blossom!”

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Now…the basement puddle has re-puddled so I’d better use my broom for its non-transport purpose…

Have a look at these lighthouses. Couldn’t you just see yourself in one of these? Of course, the romantic in me thinks it’d be fun to live there, but it wouldn’t be long before I got tree-twitchy and had to go ashore!Still, they do have a charm…

http://weburbanist.com/2009/02/11/abandoned-lighthouses/