Author Archives: daeja's view

From a Bench on Main Street

I am distracted today as I prepare for the weekend ahead, so I don’t have much to say today, but there is an image that keeps popping up in my head. A few weeks ago I had been walking down … Continue reading

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Screw

You know that story about the Princess and the Pea…….well, I have my own version now.  I just spent the weekend at a sweet first birthday celebration for a sweet grandbaby, which included spending two nights in a clean but somewhat worn beach motel of significant cost (about … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

The Summer Solstice Garden

Because I have been out and about on an adventure of sorts (to share down the road), I am just going to update my blog today with what is going on in my garden on this, the Summer Solstice. Primrose … Continue reading

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Sixty-one Things

Much in the same way I compiled a list of those things my mother had taught us, as Father’s Day comes around, the thoughts and reflections of Dad are strong. Those quirks and qualities, the small observances, have now become … Continue reading

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Things Left Behind

The horse barn behind the house, long unused, contained six stalls and a hay loft. The floor of the barn was covered about two and a half feet deep in old horse manure, some of it probably one-hundred years old. … Continue reading

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Petal

One of our exceptionally sweet coworkers has been out for the better part of the last two months on a serious medical leave. She is finally returning tomorrow, and everyone is anticipating her return.  While she was gone, she asked staff to … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, kids, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Eye Candy

The irises are pretty much blown by and gone here.  Last week, my friend and I managed to make a long trek to Montclair, New Jersey to visit the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens, which sits at the bottom of Mountainside Park.   The day … Continue reading

Posted in Friends, Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bottle People

No sooner do we put the trash and recyclables out, and there they are – The Bottle People, picking through the bins. I can put the garbage at the curb, go in the house and walk out ten minutes later, only … Continue reading

Posted in Rant, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Reminds Me Of…..

OK, I know, I know,……I realize I have been putting up a number of botanical type posts lately, but I just can’t help it.  After being inundated by relentless, ongoing days of rain, we have just been hit with a couple that would … Continue reading

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What’s That Smell?

It was June, the very end of the school year.  I was taking the kids to the bus stop that morning and upon opening the front door, a waft of perfumed air drifted by me.  It was such a beautiful scent that for a … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Shards of Our Lives

The Significant Other is like a bull in a china shop. That is the image that usually goes through my mind when I take a dish out of the kitchen cabinet and see the condition of it. My dishes, which … Continue reading

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To Market

Today was the opening day of the season for our local Farmer’s Market, which is one of the nicer perks of living in a small city.  Even though it is early for some of the produce, we grabbed our little eco-friendly shopping bags and walked … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Suicide Squirrel

Driving down the shade-dappled road with the sun sparkling through the leaves on a brilliant morning, singing with the radio, and out of the corner of my eye I saw it coming.  It ran in front of the car and suddenly froze in … Continue reading

Posted in Animal Stories, Uncategorized, Wildlife | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Rain Garden

Looks like it’s going to be yet another week of rain, or at the very least, “percent-chance-of-rain”.  Thirty percent chance of or forty percent chance of is still pretty good odds, at least around these parts.  Everything is lush and verdant.  … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Thoughts on a Chicken

Traffic was moderate and moving steadily yesterday on the two lane road that is the middle leg of my commute home from work, when I spied a chicken on the edge of the northbound lane, waiting to cross the road.  I looked again to make … Continue reading

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Would You Like Some Mice With That?

Yesterday my friend discovered a stunned little mouse lying out in the parking lot of the condominium where she lives.  What had happened to it is a mystery, but I speculate that perhaps a cat had been playing with it, as … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Passion

A few years ago I discovered this seriously cool looking plant growing at the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.  It was a vine-like plant growing on a fence with fringed flowers that I can only describe as psychedelic space eyes.  … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Morning Smoothie

I have a Sears Countercraft blender, probably circa late 1970’s, color Harvest Gold.  I hadn’t seen it for a while though, as it got lost in the bottom cabinet that contains the large rotating lazy susan that is overstuffed with items, wobbles and doesn’t go around … Continue reading

Posted in Diet, Uncategorized, Wow! | 3 Comments

Skinny Girl

I was always the skinny girl.  Not the long, lithe, willowy model skinny girl, but the gawkishly thin, angular, hollow-eyed skinny girl.  A skinny girl in school who looked like an X-ray…….with knobby knees, tiny bones, all feet and nose and elbows and spine.  The … Continue reading

Posted in Aging, Diet, Perspective, Uncategorized, Weight | 4 Comments

What’s Up With the Strawberries?

What’s up with the strawberries lately?  Has anyone else noticed these mega-giant, shiny uber-red  strawberries that have been appearing for sale in the supermarket?  The last few containers I bought seem to be filled with behemoths.  I have been marveling over the … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized, Wow! | 2 Comments

Intoxication

Feeling intoxicated by the scent of Lilac, Allysum and Lily of the Valley that  perfume the garden.  Sweet spring……

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Fences

It has been an adjustment getting used to living in a small city, with neighbors dwelling very close by.  Most of the homes on our street, built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s,  have weathered, stockade fences between them.  However, this house came equipped … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Perspective, Rant, Regrets, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

100 Things

Even though I am a mother, and even now the mother of a mother, each year when the Mother’s Day holiday comes around, instead of celebrating my mother status, I find myself mostly reflecting on memories of my own mom. There are those … Continue reading

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Just Married

My car sat parked out in the driveway beneath the crabapple tree overnight.  When I went out to it the following morning, the blue car was totally covered in bright pink petals.  Actually plastered in pink. It was enough to cause me … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, Spring, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Free

Ok, it looks like I am actually going to recant something I said earlier about hardly ever winning anything, because I actually just won something of significant value.  Almost every year for the past fifteen years I have attended a work … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Unfolding

  During this time of renewal, it is as if we, too,  are uncurling from the winter darkness and reaching towards the light.  It is exciting and joyful to be amidst the awakening garden.   

Posted in Spring, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Dang!

Bad news today for all you connoisseurs of that little armored road possum of the south, the armadillo.   According to the latest findings, something like fifteen percent of armadillos carry leprosy, and one-third of the cases of the disease in this country appear to be caused … Continue reading

Posted in Are you kidding me?, Humor, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Never Mind – I’ll Tell You Later

The group is bantering witticisms back and forth and raucous laughter ensues.  I am standing among them, nodding and smiling, and my brain is working hard and at double time.  I am trying to string together the words I missed with … Continue reading

Posted in Coping, Deafness, Friends, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Spinner

This Earth Day marks the 12th anniversary of my mother’s death.  A day filled with golden daffodils, warm soil, the haze of soft greening and points of pastel color just emerging – much like an Impressionist painting – essentially the same as it was on the day she left us years … Continue reading

Posted in Perspective, Regrets, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Betty-Anne?

In the misty pre-dawn haze of a Saturday morning I awoke to an urgent voice that appeared to be vocalizing right near my head.  “Betty-Anne!”  In that surreal aura that surrounds you when someone shouts you out of a dead sleep, I shot … Continue reading

Posted in Birds, Humor, Spring, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Door Number Three

After spending the day exploring the Spice Market and touring around in the Sultanahmet district, it finally got to the point where I seriously had to pee, and very soon, so the search for a bathroom began in earnest.  In the middle … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, Perspective, Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Medusa Scary

It is with a great, disheartening sigh that I have just seen a number of recent photos of myself.  After such rude and irrefutable proof, there followed the panicked realization that I have let my hair go for waaaaay too long without a hair cut … Continue reading

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Awakening

Yesterday was an overly warm spring day, one of those flukes where it got up to eighty degrees when temps are normally in the fifties.  Things are just starting to blossom and bud around here; it’s been a slow start.   A few … Continue reading

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Resisting the Social Network (is that you in that photo?)

It was through my then fourteen year old that I first became aware of online social networks and blogs like Live Journal and MySpace, where it seemed kids were regurgitating the minutiae of their lives ad nauseum and flaunting their bootie for the … Continue reading

Posted in Friends, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Fernweh

A friend of mine who has travelled the world and has made her life in a foreign country once shared a word in the German language which describes the yearning for travel which we both share. She told me I have “fernweh”, which roughly translates … Continue reading

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Just In Case

Travel afar is imminent and suddenly I have become totally dysfunctional.   Once upon a time I threw a few scant items in a backpack a few hours before leaving and travelled to the other side of the world with open-ended plans.  Why can’t I do that now? … Continue reading

Posted in Humor, Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Aftershock and Perspective

In the wake of such disaster as has occurred and continues to occur in Japan, most other issues suddenly become less significant and actually trite by comparison.  The physical shock that has radiated out from Sendai and beyond also translates into … Continue reading

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Hairbrush Diva

There is a woman in a Subaru at the traffic light. Bill Wyman’s bass from the RollingStones “Gimme Shelter” is booming through the speakers and she is singing Merry Clayton’s legendary screaming harmony to Mick Jagger at the top of her lungs, oblivious of anyone who might … Continue reading

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Speechless

I ventured out to the mall the other night in search of a purse with lots of compartments and zippers so you can find all your stuff easily.  Of course, I got side-tracked and ended up on a fruitless quest for some of those … Continue reading

Posted in Aging, Humor, Shopping, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The Color of Angels

The interior of funeral homes generally look tacky to me.  I have yet to experience one that is totally tasteful (in my opinion), although I will say one of the wakes I attended last week was in a lovely old … Continue reading

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Caller Number Three

On my commute to and from work I sometimes call into radio contests trying to win tickets to concerts and events.  I have my Blue Tooth on and if there is something that interests me, I make a call. “Trying” is the … Continue reading

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Two Wakes and a Birthday Party

Two wakes and a birthday party in one week.  It’s enough to really give you pause for thought.  One woman was the mother of a co-worker.  The other one was a neighbor, not much older than I am now.  A … Continue reading

Posted in Aging, Friends, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Hit and Run

Finding out someone has hit your car and taken off is an upsetting and enraging experience.  A couple of weeks ago, my daughter called to tell me that she came out of work to find that someone had hit the … Continue reading

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Egocentrasana

She came walking into the Yoga I class tonight leading with her chest, the small of her back slightly arched, wearing a teeny tiny yoga tank top and perfectly fitting yoga pants clinging to her tight little yoga butt.  Even though there was plenty … Continue reading

Posted in Aging, Humor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Dinner Club for the Anti-Socialites

Adjusting from a rural/exurb environment to a small city has been a very big head realignment for me.  There are many things I have had trouble embracing about relocating into the House of the Significant Other, but the one thing this urban scene has going for it … Continue reading

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Radical Reversal

The parallel lines between my eyebrows appear to have deepened into a permanent number eleven, giving me a perpetual look of worry, concern or anger that I do not necessarily feel inside.  I scrutinize these changes in the mirror with surprise and … Continue reading

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Where Did the Weekend Go?

I’m writing this post while eating lilac-colored chocolate covered sunflower seeds and waiting for the next episode of a series I watch once a week on television.  I should probably turn on the set and try to figure out which station it is … Continue reading

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Black Thumb

There are two different cactus plants, two spider plants and an Air Fern “growing” in my office.  The cacti are crammed into pots that are pathetically undersized. They are also missing most of their soil because they have been knocked … Continue reading

Posted in Gardening, House plants, Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Late

I decided I was going to go to a yoga class after work tonight. It was only the second time I was going to this particular venue.   Of course, fifteen minutes before it was time to leave work,  I got held up … Continue reading

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O Neti Neti

During the course of a nasty sinus headache a few winters ago, a nurse that I worked with suggested I try using a Neti Pot. I had never heard of one, so she launched into an extremely animated explanation, mimicking … Continue reading

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