Heat Wave

Boise had a heat wave, record high temperatures last Sunday and Monday over 90 degrees. Spit will tell you about it when she wakes up,

The weather cooled a bit, so I planted 4 of my pea seedlings in the ammo box, next to the fence. By Wednesday we were having balmy summer storm weather and by Thursday it was cooler and raining and Thursday night we had lightning and thundering down giant hail. My peas! Don't worry, they are fine, although the hail knocked down some of the blueberry flowers and put a dent in my potential crop.

I did not go on that drive, the sky was too clear and I wanted those puffy cloud shadows on hills. So, I stayed home and finished the last Katheryn Albertson Park in Fall painting,

It came out too labored, I liked the study better. One of the problems with working on something over too long a period of time. I also had a drawing for something on the paper right next to this painting and got an orange dot right in the middle of it that I did not notice until it was too late. Time to stretch some more paper.

The Idaho Watercolor Society accepted "Hawthorn Berries" for their annual show in June. I also entered "Glenn's Ferry", which I guess they didn't like as much. Unfortunately, "Hawthorn Berries" is not framed, so now I have to find a framer.

The State of Idaho finally posted that promotion announcement so I could at least apply. Last Monday I asked the administrator if the class that goes with the promotion was still going to start on April 30th. She said it is delayed 3 to 4 weeks. I thought I was going to cry.

Years ago I was in a difficult situation and I found out it would not end for a few more weeks. My friend said, "I guess God thinks it will take a few more weeks." I can guess what needed a few more weeks then, but what needs a few more weeks now? I figure there has to be a reason for this, what am I supposed to learn? I started some inner work on it months ago and got that jittery, nervous feeling again around my birthday. That always feels like a something bad is going to happen feeling, but maybe it is more like the verge of a personal breakthrough. This time I'm trying to just sit with it, like a good Zen Buddhist.

Too, too much sitting in Zen Buddhism. I've learned to do the same thing walking around in my life. It just means attention. Attention to reactions, tension in the body, what is the feeling? Name it and let it go. Eckhart Tolle talks about it in "The Power of Now" and it is a bit more accessible than Zen, but it is the same thing.

Turns out Alyssa thought I was a hippie when I first started working with her, that was before she found out how conservative I am. When did Communism hijack the Earth Mother and create the hippie? I don't like to wear shoes, I like my feet touching earth, I eat healthy and I don't eat junk food or soda, I bake bread, I grow my vegetables and I am a watercolor painter, and I am regularly amazed by the Idaho weather and landscape. I suppose those are the things that Alyssa thought were hippie-like. When did those become incompatible with personal responsibility, less government, recognition based on merit and work, and belief in the United States Constitution, including my right to bear arms and freedom from illegal search and seizure (also known as an airport patdown)? I know when it happened, I am just amazed at how many people bought it.

Despite my inner work and verging breakthrough, I seem to be all over the place today.

At least I did not miss the dogwood, I was downtown this week and they are in full bloom. These are in the Hyde Park historic district,

Pea Rehab

You can read all about how to do something, but you need to actually do it, and let yourself make some mistakes, before you learn it.

The windowsill started to smell, so I investigated the pea seeds. I salvaged four sprouting seeds, including the one seedling that was two inches high already. The others I planted too deep and they were rotting. Poor things, no chance at all of reaching that sunlight. You would think someone with a graphic design background would know what half an inch was. I took a toothpick and measured off half an inch and then used it to plant four more seeds , half an inch deep this time. Here are the peas after a few days in rehab,

Those are the herbs on the right.

Then I decided to try some oven drying. I had cranberries in the freezer from last Christmas. All berries freeze well, although you have to freeze soft berries on trays first, so they don’t touch and freeze together in a glob. As I was getting the boiling water ready, Mr. Spider came out to take a look,

That is a Bold Jumping Spider. They are harmless, but like kitchen counters. He was too big to squish, so scooped him up with a dustpan and let him outside. That was before I knew about the jumping part.

In Idaho you have to consider spiders. Do not open the leftover bag of dirt from last year and just stick your hand in it. Same goes for your gardening gloves.

Before drying, you have to boil the cranberries for 15 to 30 seconds to crack their skins, then you dump them in cold water, then you put them on trays in the oven at 170 degrees. I love the popping noises the cranberries make as their skins crack, but mine took almost a minute to all get cracked, maybe they were still a bit frozen. Nice color red,

This is the cranberries after 6 hours of drying,

They were not all quite done, but I had enough fun and put them in a jar with the less done ones on top, so I could eat them sooner. With dried cranberries on my granola every morning I may finish all of them within a few weeks anyway.

I am still waiting for them to post this promotion, so I can apply. Someone asked me this morning how I did on my interview, they did not know the circumstances, and I went off. I had to go back later and apologize.

Alyssa is thinking she should go to school and get a bachelors degree, but doesn't know in what. I am generally discouraging about college today, but I sent her a link to the Myers Briggs Personality test to help her figure out what she might be suited to be when she grows up. I did the test myself last night to see if I was the same, which I am. I am an INTJ, a Rational Mastermind. These are fairly rare, but turns out Alyssa is the exact same. One department should not be able to hold both of us and I think we only get along because of the big difference in age.

INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judgemental) & INFJ Personality Types

"Without Introverted Intuitive personality types, it is said that Israel would have had no prophets. Under deceptively conventional appearances lie perceptive minds that travel the breadth and depth of universal mysteries, contemplating its multilayered complexity, seeking the trends that will define the future. With time, clarity of vision comes. When it comes, they are propelled towards the vision and all their actions lead to it. They are perseverant behind a quiet exterior and will often come back with their vision long after everyone believes they have let it go.

What they see is so clear and obvious to them they are often surprised to find that others cannot see it as well. They may find it difficult to articulate the necessary steps towards implementation or to explain how each goal fits into the larger picture.

Their mind usually travels from the past to the future, seeking to fit a particular situation in a large context. It picks up patterns, symbols and images from different seemingly unrelated fields, identifies similarities and provides meaning. This can help solve problems by juxtaposing ideas, finding analogies or simply by rooting out the quintessential reality, discovering the origin in universal stories and human experiences, culling wisdom from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. Their mind naturally travels from the microcosm to the macrocosm.

They regularly have to face the difficulties of bringing dreams into reality. The time and effort it takes is always more than what their intuition initially suggested. They are determined, perseverant, inspired and often see things just around the corner, into the near or far future."

As frustrated and bored as we are, this personality test thing was pretty entertaining.

Myers Briggs Personality test:
http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

Keirsey Temperament Sorter:
http://jobsearch.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=jobsearch&cdn=careers&tm=5&gps=96_28_1003_601&f=20&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&st=37&zu=http%3A//www.keirsey.com/

If being grateful is the answer to something, which I think that it is, it is easier in Idaho. I have those "wake up and smell the coffee (or the roses) moments or hours every day. We are about to have another warm weekend, that is three in a row, and I think this is what Spring is supposed to be like in Idaho, much better than the cold, dreary Spring last year. Last night I slept with the window open. I missed the dogwood and I enjoyed the magnolias, but I did not get pictures of them and now they are done. The tulips and daffodils are still going strong, although a hot weekend will probably finish them. Here are some pictures of flowers along my graveyard walk,

This weekend I think I will go for a drive and look for horses. Maybe I will stop in Emmett at Roe Ann's Drive-In for a burger. I heard it was the best burger in Idaho.

Income Redistribution Day

The promotion people are talking like I already have seems like it is taking forever. Suddenly someone decided that the announcement had to be an internal promotion first, if there were no candidates, then they would open it to everyone. I am still on probation, since I was just hired as permanent, so I am not eligible to apply for the internal promotion. The administrator warned me that we have to go through this exercise, and she was pretty annoyed herself, but I am still waiting for the open announcement so I can apply and trying to care about the job I still have.

Alyssa accused me of already being checked out, because she is catching mistakes and I do not usually make mistakes. Alyssa asked me if the potential job is something I really want to do. I told her that my life has changed so much over the last ten years and there have been so many things I wanted that did not work out and so much that I lost that I have a hard time planning a future very far ahead. I told her that promotion is just the best thing for me to do today.

We also have the added problem of being super bored. The two of us, with our new great boss, have streamlined processes and become so much more efficient, that we do not have that much to do. So, Alyssa started Couch to 5K and showed me the site and I've been playing with the route map,

Couch to 5K http://www.c25k.com/
http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/

Funny, she thinks sometime in the future she might need to run fast and I've been thinking that, too. With the route map I can finally know how far I am walking. I can guess based on the time it takes, but I wasn't sure how accurate I was. My regular walk is 2.2 miles around the cemetery.

Sunday was a glorious sunny day, 14 degrees above normal, and Sunday morning I decided to walk down to the greenbelt. Turns out the greenbelt is one mile from my house.

My house is right above the yellow 1 mile mark, where Garden Street hits the edge of the map. Sunday I walked 6 miles to the Willow Lane Park Complex. From my house, I walk over this bridge to get to the greenbelt,



On the way, I walk by Joe's Crab Shack, which has a patio that looked like a super place to spend a Sunday afternoon (although these pics were taken Tuesday evening),



I walked a 4 mile version on the same walk on Tuesday and passed Riverside Park, which includes some rapids on the river. One guy was practicing his kayaking and several were boogie-boarding,





Being from So Cal and having seen boogie-boarders in the ocean, the boogie-boarders in the river just cracked me up, but they looked like they were having a great time.

On Sunday, I meant to walk over to the Veteran's Memorial, but I passed it. Ed Freeman is buried at the Veteran's Memorial in Boise and Dad just sent me the email that goes around on a regular basis about him,

"You're a 19 year old kid.

You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam.

It's November 11, 1967.
LZ (landing zone) X-ray.

Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 yards away, that your CO (commanding officer) has ordered the helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out.

Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then - over the machine gun noise - you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter.
You look up to see a Huey coming in. But… It doesn't seem real because no MedEvac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.

He's not MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.

Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you at a time on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.

And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!! Until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.
He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise, Idaho

May God Bless and Rest His Soul."

The email makes it sound like he just died and is anti-media, but the truth is that Ed Freeman died on August 20, 2008 due to complications from Parkinson's disease and was buried with full military honors at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise.

One of my pea seeds sprouted and is about 2 inches tall, one is just about to sprout, and the other 7 are not doing anything. Some of the herb seeds sprouted, so I could tell that I planted about a dozen seeds of some of them and had to pull out some of the sprouts. I hate doing this, it feels like I am killing something. Sarah gave me some heirloom carrot seeds, so I started another tray with carrots and lettuce. I look at those tiny sprouts, which make my 4' by 4' planter look huge, but I know it will fill up fast.

Last Sunday was a beautiful sunny day and when I returned from my walk, the neighborhood burst into noise. The construction is still going on next door, the Harley-rider's music is blaring and his grandchildren screaming, dogs barking, another neighbor having a party on their patio, and the leaf-blowing neighbor traded his leaf blower for a roto-tiller. (Hey, pal, I'm a girl and I still did that with a shovel!) What a racket! I wished for the quiet of winter for about 30 seconds, then I went to the grocery store and it was quiet when I got back.

Sarah and Joe's backyard tree burst into flower this week and I know it is really spring. For at least a week that tree will make my backyard smell like Jasmine.

Planters, Back Pain, and Avoidance

Last Saturday I put in the vegetable planter. A few days earlier I moved one ammo box to the other side of the yard,


The ground is at a downward angle on that side of the yard, so I had to dig into the grass to make it level. This box faces west, so I think I will use it as the herb planter.

Saturday I started with moving the other ammo box over to make room for the vegetable planter. I moved the strawberries left from last year into a pot, dug up some grass to move the ammo box, set up the vegetable planter, dug up a four foot by four foot section of grass, and set in the planter nice and level,


Th grass was really heavy from all the rain we had during the week, but I took some big pieces that I dug up and moved them over to fill in Cruiser's favorite digging spot in the back corner of the yard.

Then I threw my back out.

I can be a bit driven on a project. I once broke up a concrete sidewalk in my backyard in Simi and used the pieces to build steps up my back hill. I hauled big pieces of concrete across my yard and up the hill, gradually digging into the hill and setting the pieces to make level steps. I think that was 2002 and I was only 40. I'm sure I was using the project to avoid some emotional issue. I knew halfway through digging up that grass for the planter that I should stop and save the rest for the next day, but no, I was driven on to finish and am now reminded that I am not 40 anymore.

At least by Sunday I knew not to mess around with back pain and took enough Bayer aspirin and used a heating pad and I was much better by Monday afternoon. I used one of those heating pads that you unwrap and it heats up and stays hot for eight hours. How does it do that? Those are one modern invention I really appreciate.

Then I spent two days trying to resist doing more yard work and forced to sit unable to deny whatever emotional issue I really wanted to avoid.

Mars has been in retrograde. This is one of the first times I could feel it, checked to see if it really was, and then checked to see when it would be over. Things that won't resolve, missed calls, delayed messages, forgetting things, and it wasn't just me, Alyssa was feeling it worse that I was. Mars went out of retrograde April 4, and for me it went out with a vengeance. Maybe Mars in retrograde also goes with avoidance, Mars comes out of retrograde and reality hits you in the face.

My seeds are not doing anything yet, are planted seeds like a watched pot not boiling? The blueberries and raspberries are doing super, though,




The blueberries are supposed to have berries in June and they really look like they might have berries this year, although they still seem like pretty small bushes. The raspberries are later, last year Sarah had raspberries July through September. She cuts hers down to a few inches high in the Fall and mine are looking just as good as hers this year, so I am pretty excited about having a good crop of my own.

On my walk this week the Chinese section of the cemetery was full of flowers and offerings of food, oranges, apples, boiled eggs. I thought it was too late for Chinese New Year and it was, it was Qingming. Qingming is the Pure Brightness Festival or Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day, a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice usually occurring around April 5. Qingming is when people go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and tend to the graves of their ancestors.

Alyssa thinks it is weird that I walk through the cemetery. I told her I prefer to walk on dirt over concrete and that I like to quack at the geese. The cemetery is full of geese and they honk at me, so I honk back. Alyssa thought that was even weirder. I love seeing those geese on my walks, it reminds me how much I like being in Idaho and how easy it is for me here to be somewhere where I feel peaceful. I might as well share that feeling with the geese.