Atop the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve

ATOP (The Daily Post)

My husband and I were looking for new trails to walk and found this great place.  There were several different trails to try all varying in degree of difficulty.  I took the easier trail since hills are still a problem for me while my husband went for the one of the more difficult trails hoping to see how many flights of stairs it would equal by the end.  We agreed to meet back at the car in 45 minutes.  Of course, minutes after I took this picture, the clouds began to clear, and it went from a nice cool day to walk to a seriously hot day.  I don’t do well in the heat, but I made it around the trail stopping once at a bench to catch my breath, have some water, and get a little shade.  When we met up again, my husband was happy to report that he’d climbed enough hills to equal 27 flights of stairs.

Sunday Trees – 277

Sunday Trees – 277 (Becca Givens)

I took a walk at night the other day and took this picture.  It originally had a yellowish tone that I hadn’t intended to change, but I was playing around with the editing tools to crop the photo and then I started playing around with the filters and saw the pic in B&W and actually liked it better.  I like the almost x-ray look of it.  Turning the trees a vivid white, you can see every branch sprouting off in every which way.  Hopefully soon those branches will be full of leaves.

Grief (a short story)

via Daily Prompt: Expectation

The young girl stood at the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge staring out into the thick gray fog.  She secured her long curly black hair  up into a bun at the back of her neck as tears rolled down her cheeks.  She had come to get a last look at the city she had loved, a city that no longer felt safe, but the fog was so thick this morning, she could barely see 2 feet in front of her.  She closed her eyes and thought of the last time she had seen the city from this view point.  Tina came here often.  Her family lived close by and she liked to run everyday.  Running across the bridge provided such a beautiful view, plus she loved seeing all the tourists taking pictures and how happy they were to finally be on the famous bridge.  Yes, it was annoying sometimes to run around them as they randomly stopped with their selfie sticks, but she made a game out of it, ducking and dodging them like she was in a video game silently keeping score every time she was successful.  Her Mom always had a large glass of cold water and a plate of nuts, apples and cheese waiting on the kitchen table when she got back from her run.  She had loved her Mom and all the little things she used to do.  Tina began to sob now as she thought about it.  Her Mom had been killed 6 months ago.  She had been walking to her car in a parking garage downtown when a man had grabbed her hijab from behind, pulled her close, and shot her in the head.  The man had been caught a week later because he had gotten drunk and started bragging about what he had done to a friend he thought shared his same hatred.  The fact that the man had been caught was a relief at first, but all the media attention, the stares, the insults to her Mom, her family, and to her, were too much.  Many people had come to support their family.  They had received an outpouring from the community of money, food, and some people even came to walk with her to protect her from the haters, but Tina didn’t feel supported.  All she could think about was that her mother was gone.  She couldn’t get the images of what she’d seen on TV of the people who supported the man who’d killed her mother out of her head. There had been a spray painted message on their garage that had read “You don’t belong here!”  And the worst of it, a group of girls had surrounded the outside of her toilet stall at school and had whispered things like “your mother deserved it”, “your mom was a terrorist”, “muslims are scum”, “I hope it hurt when that man shot her”, “I hope the President deports you and bans you from coming back” and so much more.  It seemed like they had kept her trapped in there for hours whispering horrible things, things that kept popping into to her head when she least expected it.  She can’t forget them no matter what she does.  Her father keeps trying to talk to her, but she doesn’t want him to know about it all.  He is already so hurt and so angry.  She sees how he struggles to keep going for her sake.  She hears him crying all night, but every morning he’s in the kitchen making breakfast and trying to appear like nothing is wrong.  Tina had stopped running, stopped laughing, stopped caring.  She just wanted it all to end.  Everyone kept telling her it would get better in time, just think about the good times, remember who your mother was not the way she died, take one day at a time, but that was all bullshit.  Her mother was gone and never coming back.  Her life had changed forever and she couldn’t handle it.  Her Mom had been her rock.  The expectation that she be just as strong as her mother, pick up the pieces, and carry on were unfair.  Her mother was exceptional.  That man had extinguished her life in seconds knowing nothing about her other than she wore a hijab.  Tina pulled one of her mother’s hijabs from of her pocket now and put it on.  It felt warm like her mother had put her arms around her.  As she straightened the material around her neck and head, she caught a whiff of her mother’s scent.  She smiled. It was the scent of lavender.  She thought of the time her mother had put a little drop of lavender on her wrist and how grown up she had felt.  Tina took a deep breath.  And another.  She knew she had to be fast.  She didn’t want anyone to stop her.  Someone may be on their way now with all the crying she had been doing.  She was angry with herself.  She had told herself that she wouldn’t give off any signs of wanting to jump. That anger helped her stop crying now.  She wiped her tears away.  She took another deep breath, quickly climbed over the railing, and jumped before she could change her mind.

Replacement (A Short Story)

I wake up each morning thinking about you.  I still expect to see you there next to me in bed when I wake up.  Every now and then I think I hear you in the kitchen whipping up something good to eat like you always used to do.  I catch a whiff of your perfume and I turn around looking for you.  It’s torture.  I miss you so much.  You were my wife for 32 years and now you’re gone.  Cancer took you away 3 years ago and I still haven’t let you go. There is no replacement for you.  I gave you all my love.  There’s nothing left to give.  Everyone keeps telling me to move on.  To try dating or to at least just go out to dinner with another woman.  They tell me to sign up for one of those online dating things for people over 60.  I’m sure there are some very interesting women, but none of them will be my Regina.  None of them will be you.  You were one of a kind.  You stole my heart the minute I met you.  We both attended that dinner party with different dates, but we kept finding ourselves talking all throughout the night much to our dates dismay.  We spent 32 years talking, laughing, and loving.  How do I just let that go?  Why do people think I should?  It’s not like I don’t get out and see people.  I just don’t want to date.  I don’t want to find someone else.  You were my one and only.  You’re not here, but I still feel better when I talk to you like this.  You could always make me feel better with just a kiss to my forehead or by just holding my hand.  No one else will have that magic.  I don’t care what people say.  Maybe some other people do have more than one love in a lifetime, but I am not one of those people.  How do I tell people that?  How do I make them understand that I am okay without all of that?  I just want to be me now.  I just want to be there for our kids and grandkids.  I don’t want to start over.  I don’t want to start new traditions.  I don’t want to meet a new family and have to go through all that again.  I’m happy with what I have left.  I will be with you again someday, but for now I have this life to live.  Yes, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s downright torture being without you, but I am the man I am today because of you and I don’t want to change that.  So I will continue to to live day by day.  I will have good days and bad.  I will miss you so much I will cry, but I will keep living.  I will keep going until we’re together again.

Growing Up

(A Story Cube Short Story)

As Kayla sat at her desk trying to figure out how her bank account got overdrawn, she began to feel overwhelmed.  Christmas is in a month.  How was she going to pay for her ticket home?  It had to be an oversight on her part somewhere, but where?  She scoured her account again looking for a charge she didn’t recognize or didn’t remember.  How could she have done this to herself?  What is she going to tell her parents when she tells them what happened?  It wasn’t her fault though.  At least she didn’t think so.  She’d been busy for weeks working on her paper for her Emerging Global Culture Class.  Sure she had spent a lot of time at the Coffee Genie working on her notes, brainstorming, and writing, but she hadn’t spent $400 on coffee and snacks had she?  No, she had to figure this out.  She was going to have to learn how to download her transactions from her bank.  She hadn’t signed up for it yet because she was afraid that someone would be able to steal her information from her computer, but maybe someone had already gotten ahold of her banking info.  Ugh!  She dreaded finding out.  She still had finals to get through.  The last thing she needed right now was to deal with money issues.

“Hey Kayla!”

Kayla jumped.

“Oh, sorry…your door was open.  I just wanted to drop off your speech for your Psych class.  I went over it.  It looks good though I did make a few corrections here and there.  I think you should…hey, are you okay?”  Liam asked as he got a good look at Kayla.

“Thanks Liam.  Sorry, I just found out that I overdrew my account and I don’t know how.  I thought I’d been doing a good job balancing my account, but somehow I spent $400 that I don’t remember spending.” Kayla stopped because she felt the tears coming and she tried to hold them back.  She didn’t want to cry in front of Liam.

“Wow, are you sure you spent the money?  Did you go through your transactions?” Liam inquired.

Kayla nodded still trying to fight the tears.

Liam crossed the room and sat next to Kayla on her bed.  “How about your wallet?  Do you have all your cards?  My Mom dropped her card once on her way out of the grocery store and didn’t notice for days till she tried to use it when she went to the gas station.  When she reported it lost, she found out someone had been using it and the charges were reversed.”

Kayla grabbed her purse and took out her wallet.  Her fingers fumbled trying to unzip it as she hoped that maybe her problems would be solved if she didn’t find her debit card in there.  Liam saw her struggling and took the wallet from her and opened it up.  Kayla saw the empty slot immediately.  Her card was missing.  When had she used it last?

Liam told her to call the bank and report it lost and they would go through her transactions with her to see which charges were hers and which were someone else.  Kayla was anxious about calling the bank to admit that she had lost her card despite all of her parents warnings before she left for college to always keep track of it.  She had promised that she would and now she was going to have to tell them that she’d lost it and not only that, but that someone had used it.  She started crying this time.  She couldn’t hold back the tears.  She felt like she had let her parents down.  She had wanted to show them how much of a grown up she was and yet here only a few months into her first semester she felt like she was barely making it.  Liam put his arm around her and told her not to worry.  The problem was fixable as long as she dealt with it as soon as possible.  Kayla took some deep breaths and got herself under control.  She thanked Liam for his help and support, but asked if she could be alone to make the phone calls.  Liam said he understood and wished her luck before leaving her dorm room closing the door after him.

Kayla got out her cell phone, took a deep breath, and called the bank.  The phone call seemed to take forever, but she felt better once it was over.  The person who had helped Kayla had been really nice and like Liam had said, they went through each of the transactions on her account until she got to ones she didn’t recognize.  Whoever had taken her card had gone to Barnes & Noble and bought almost $75 in books, $40 in yarn from an organic sheep farmer, and had signed up for a sky diving class.  Not what Kayla would’ve done if she’d had free access to someone’s card for sure especially not the sky diving class.  She was terrified of heights and hated to fly let alone jump out of a plane.  The bank told her to file a police report and let them know about the skydiving class since it hadn’t happened yet.  Maybe the person would show up and the police could catch them.  Kayla wasn’t sure what would happen, but she was glad that the problem on her end was solved.  Well, at least most of it.  She still had to tell her parents.  Maybe she would go tell Liam what happened and get dinner at the commons before she called her them.  Talking to the bank had taken a lot out of her.  Talking to her parents was going to be even more taxing.  She needed a break.  Kayla found her hoodie and put it on, grabbed her school ID and her keys, and walked down to Liam’s room.  It felt good to move.  She’d been so anxious all afternoon.  Maybe she needed to go for a run before she talked to her parents.  She wondered if Liam liked to run.   She hoped he did.

Mind the Gap

I love trying new recipes all the time and with the creation of Pinterest the ease of finding new recipes has become way too easy and all the tantalizing pictures…oh my goodness!  I now look forward to family parties, potluck get togethers, and the day at home with nothing to do so I can scan my Pinterest boards for the perfect thing to try.  This past Thanksgiving I decided to try Peekaboo Pumpkin Pound Cake.  I bought all the things I needed except the pumpkin cookie cutter because I thought I had one.  Once I figured out that I didn’t have one, I was too tired to go back out and get one so I went with the only other Fall shape I had, a leaf.  This recipe seemed so easy just reading it, but executing it was much hard than I thought.  I baked the pumpkin breads. Boom step one done.  I cooled them in the fridge.  Woohoo!  Step 2 down.  Then comes the part where you must Mind the Gap.  First the leaf shape I picked just barely fit the pumpkin bread slices and all the orange food coloring (over half a bottle) barely seemed to change the color at all.  I should have gone with a smaller shape.  Then because I picked such a curvy shape, I had trouble getting the pound cake batter into all the crevices no matter how hard I shook and pounded the pan to get it down in there. After the pound cakes were done and out of the pan, I ended up cutting off the end pieces because the pound cake hadn’t gotten in there right.  I mixed up the Brown Butter Pecan Icing.  Now the icing made trying this recipe so worth all the trouble I caused myself.  Seriously, I could have eaten the whole bowl.  I spread it on the pound cake and sprinkled on the pecans.  Then still rejoicing in the high of making the perfect most delicious icing, I started slicing the cake to see the Peekaboo Leaf.  I made the mistake of using a serrated knife and the slices came out all crumbly distorting the leaf image.  It finally occurred to me to change knives (I was a little frustrated by this point) and it was amazing the difference a knife made.  Since all of my slices weren’t pretty, I almost didn’t take them to Thanksgiving dinner, but that icing was so good I wanted everyone to try it.  The pound cake was a hit and I have to say it was because of the icing.  I think I might try it again for Christmas minus all my previous mistakes.  I really want more of that icing.

Gratitude Day 8

Day 8: What book are you most grateful for?

I was good at reading in school.  I excelled in every grade, but I was never what you would call a “reader” because I often got tired or headaches when I read.  It turned out that I needed glasses.  After I finally got a good pair of glasses that I didn’t mind wearing (I had picked a pair of hideous pink ones, but had second thoughts about them when we picked them up and found myself stuck with them), I tried finding what genre interested me most.  I don’t know how many books I started and put down out of disinterest.  When my sister and I moved back to the US, the room we took over used to be my Dad’s office.  All of his stuff was moved out except his book shelves.  Whenever I lay in my bed, I would often just stare at his books and wonder what they were about, but never felt like I could touch them because they weren’t mine.  There were lots of Harlen Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Tom Clancy, and of course, Stephen King.  I really wanted to read the Stephen King books, but not being a reader, the thickness of “It” was a little intimidating though that was the one that I really wanted to know about because I had heard it was terrifying.   I kept staring at it and imagining what was written on it’s pages.  Finally when my Dad took us to the bookstore to pick some books of our own, I read all the backs of the Stephen King books and picked The Dead Zone.  Unfortunately it took me years to get through it.  I kept picking it up and putting it down.  Life was stressful with my Dad being sick, being in charge of my little sister, cooking and cleaning, homework, swim team, etc.  Reading for pleasure just wasn’t a priority.  After my Dad died, my priorities changed.  I had a hard time sleeping and turned to reading to fill the time.  The Dead Zone was the first book I picked up and finally finished.  It pulled me into the world of reading and made me a huge fan of Stephen King.  Reading has kept me sane ever since.

Questions of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is coming up so I thought I would post something I am grateful for each day this month.  Last week was a crazy week, so I didn’t get to start on the first therefore I have a little catching up to do.  Here goes… (prompts are from textmyjournal.com)

Day 1: What smell are you grateful for today?

I am forever indebted to the smell of peppermint.  I used to get migraines daily in my mid-20’s to early 30’s.  I saw a specialist that helped me figure out triggers from food to stress to smells.  He also had me see a biofeedback therapist to help me learn to relax my muscles and my mind.  We found a medication that worked, but also things to do when I felt a migraine coming on.  One of those things was smelling or eating strong peppermints.  Just doing that one little thing has helped me so many times.  So I am truly thankful for the smell of peppermint.  It has become a smell that can instantly bring a smile to my face and a feeling of ease.

Day 2: What technology are you grateful for?

There are so many to choose from nowadays, but I think the thing that is a lifesaver for me right now is my phone.  As I have mentioned before, I am constantly tired and that tiredness often leads to forgetfulness.  I have recently started programming reminders with alarms so that I don’t forget the important things like paying bills, moving the car every 3rd Monday so I don’t get a ticket, doctor appts, etc.  I get so frustrated when I forget things.  It has truly been a blessing to be able to use the Reminders App even though sometimes the alarms are a little irksome because there are days I feel like the alarms are sounding off way to much, but ultimately they are worth it for the stress relief they provide in not forgetting.

Day 3: What color are you grateful for?

This was a hard one because I love colors each for so many different reasons, but as I cycled through those reasons the one color that came up the most was Yellow.  Yellow makes me think of the sunflowers my Grandma and I saw all summer long driving all over Oklahoma and Kansas.  I remember watching that little Yellow Pacman as my Dad raced him around on the screen gobbling up pellets and ghosts beating level after level.  As a kid, I always drew sunshines everywhere, but I remember the really big one I once drew because I drew it on the wall.  My sister and I drew all over the wall one day when no one was paying attention to us.  We covered an entire wall with a doodles and scribbles.  Our brothers were supposed to be watching us and ended up having to wash and eventually repaint the wall for their negligence.  Sunshines also make me think of the last present I made for my Granny before she passed away last year.  I painted her a sunshine and sang “You are my sunshine” in the recording button attached to the back.  When we were homeless, we lived in a little Yellow hatchback.  I’ll never forget that car.  I saw one the other day and couldn’t believe there were any still in existence.  Lastly, one of my favorite desserts is lemon meringue pie.  Mmmmm…
Day 4: What food are you most grateful for?

I love food.  One look at me and you’ll know that.  I have more than my share of weight around the middle.  I love trying new foods not only in new restaurants, bakeries, etc, but also in my own kitchen.  Cooking and baking is a stress reliever except when I don’t feel good or am too tired.  The one food that has always been there for me is saimin.  I know.  It’s not the best thing to eat, but when I was a starving college student it was there.  And now when I am just completely exhausted, I know I always have enough energy to throw some water in a pot and make some saimin.  I sometimes even feel up to adding scrambled egg, mushrooms, green onions, and spam or rotisserie chicken. Those little packages of noodles have kept me going for many years now.

Day 5: What sound are you grateful for today?

I am grateful for the sound of my husband singing.  He has such a beautiful singing voice.  Hearing him sing whether it be in the car singing along to the radio or at karaoke where he is a rock star, always brings a smile to my face and sometimes even tears to my eyes.  His voice is beautiful.  He’s not the only one in the family either.  His sister has a beautiful voice too.  She sings in Gladys Knights choir, Saints Unified Voices.  We went to see them perform once when they traveled to California.  It was an amazing evening.

Day 6: What in nature are you grateful for?

I wrote about this one in yesterday’s post Sunday Trees – 260.  I am grateful for trees.  Click on the link to see why 🙂

Day 7: What memory are you grateful for?

Ugh, talk about a difficult question.  There are so many memories floating around in my brain, but since I am currently writing, the one that stands out the most is the first story I wrote with my Dad.  It was about animals.  He helped me keep the story going by throwing ideas at me and I would expand on them until I would get stuck.  He was the first one to encourage me to write.  I’ll be forever grateful.

And now I am caught up and will continue with the challenge daily.  This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but also a good reminder about everything I have and/or have experienced to get me where I am today.  I can’t wait to see what else these questions bring to mind.

Transmogrify

The Daily Post Photo Challenge: Transmogrify

I seem to be going back to my pictures of NYC a lot lately, but when this week’s theme came up, this is the picture that immediately popped in my head.  After 9/11, I flew to NYC to see that my sister was really okay with my own eyes.  My sister had moved to NYC one month before the attack.  It was the first time we had ever lived in different states from each other.  It was weird to not have her so close.  We had spent so much of our lives together, depending on each other because of our parents divorce and international custody.  We had started trying to be a little more independent of each other when we ended up in two different high schools.  It was good for us to make our own friends, find our own likes and dislikes, to have experiences all our own.  It made going away to college easier.  We still visited each other a lot.  After college, we probably saw each other at least every other weekend.  Then she moved to NYC.  It was hard, but exciting because NYC was always a city we wanted to visit.  I had planned to visit her there and finally see the city we had talked about numerous times.  9/11 accelerated my plans.  Once I arrived and was satisfied that she was indeed ok, she took me around the city to all the little places she had discovered.  She lived in SOHO.  There was so much to see in just her neighborhood alone.  So many sights, sounds, and smells.  I felt like I was in the middle of a movie set.  It was so surreal.  This Walk/Don’t Walk sign wasn’t far from her apartment.  We passed it often and every time we saw it, it made me smile, so I eventually took a picture of it to remember those little smiles in a time where our world seemed so unpredictable and crazy.

When Prince died earlier this year, my sister came across the photo below on Instagram and sent it to me.  Again I smiled.  I wonder if it was the same artist who did both.