Isabella Bird Miscellany

do you see a weed or a wish? Let’s just say, I’m not an early morning girl.  Those who know me appreciate this and quietly leave me alone until I’ve had a chance to emerge from my pre-coffee zombie state.  However, there is a bird glee club that begins at about 3:30, yes in the morning.  It’s lovely and melodic; leaving me no choice but to listen.  Translated, this means I’ve been up before my norm.  The youthful hours are warm, but fresh; they beg for a walk, and so does Isabella. Yesterday was a little cooler so our pace was speedy, at least for my little legs.  We passed cars and bushes and bugs zipping around … and the rejected weed. pulled up by its roots discarded wishing flower tossed aside left at the edge of the sidewalk the sun beat down life ebbing from the slender stalk, leaves drying, privately curling desperate to hold onto being funny , how I noticed the thrown-away on a morning walk my thought to stop and ...

is it really? Have you noticed how many advertisements, Facebook posts and magazine articles start out with all of the “musts” that we need to be happier, well fed and read, dressed or up-to-date?  As I was reading through some headlines last week, I noticed all of the imperatives; things that if I didn’t know about and implement into my ordinary life, well I’d be missing the proverbial boat. Imperatives are known as bossy verbs, which is appropriate since they give us commands.  Commands and to-do’s are not bad in and of themselves.  In fact they are important and even necessary.  The ones I’m speaking to are the ones that purport themselves as urgent and unavoidable for our ultimate well-being as designed by someone else – the “they say” factor. Do these sound familiar? this is a must read!   gotta have this… not to be missed! Well what happens if I don’t read, get or...oops, miss?  I’m not blaming anyone.  I’ve used these phra...

my day filled with gray Not all will share my opinion, but I find rainy days to be peaceful.  It makes me want to roast everything in sight, fix an extra cup of coffee and curl up in front of the fire with one of my latest magazine fixes.  Maybe this comes from living in clean, green Oregon.  Mind you, this only applies to the west side of the mountains. I now find myself on the opposite side of the Cascade range…it is much drier here; bragging a whopping 300 plus days of sunshine a year.  I do like sunshine.  I don’t like to be cold and I do love to spend as much time as possible outside.  Those disclaimers put out there, I get all misty for gray, cloud-infused days. I remember living in southern Nevada where the color of the sky seemed to be continually blue, and saying “won’t there ever be even a small puffy cloud floating by?”  Say that to a Portlander in the middle of February and they just might knock you down into a mud puddle....

i'm going to strawberry fields, nothing is real Part of what I do is writing food articles.  While I can throw in a little humor and storytelling, they need to be not about me and to the point.  Earlier this week I started a piece about strawberries, with the song “Strawberry Fields Forever” stuck in my head.  My brain functioning as it does, wandered back to being a kid and picking berries.  That was back in the day when such “child labor practices” were allowed. After school was out and the haze of the warming valley arrived, so would the school bus … again.  Not many kids would be excited about this since school was out for the summer (another great song, by the way).  However, the early morning arrival meant that it was berry picking season.  Once again the buses would wind their way through our neighborhoods, gathering all of us already-bored-with-nothing-to-do kids and plopping us in a berry patch or bean field to harvest the pr...

bare branches visible only in a reflection By the pool a girl in wine colored pants and a gray t-shirt sat in the dirt, staring at the pool, clutching her rosary … trying to pray while tourists chatted, casually walking by.  Momentary silence allowed contemplation of the ripples in the pool. a reflection is a mirror image,  except for the quivered distortion the breeze , the tumbling water above disturbs the placid water below the surface lies the quiet bed;  a settled place, rooted and solid ripples cause us to break,   notice changes in the surroundings the reflection isn’t clear, but is anything? Ok, trying to write at Palate, I felt a bit like the girl at the pool; slightly disturbed,  but persistent.  The café is usually busy, but unobtrusive.  However, for a bit the place was filled with one loud conspicuous conversation.  But I noticed that as other conversations started joining the clamor, it ...

fishing for smiles - facebook Serendipity happens when least expected – what a keen grasp of the obvious. Some of my best findings have been on accident.  Wandering a back street in Mexico only to stumble on a reenactment of Passover; going for a walk and seeing a red fox running down our street … in the city; or finding three baby raccoons tucked safely under the cover of our barbecue.   ser-en-dip-i-ty:  accidental discovery Today was a serendipity day.  A drive to Eugene t o take care of stuff on a rental house, with plans to have dinner with family later in the day.  In the meantime, there was present hunger and time to kill.  Instead of quick, drive-thru fast food, a stop at the local market provided an impromptu picnic, textbook for one of the parks by the river.  The day was marvelous; cerulean sky, warm sun freshened by just the perfect amount of wind.  One of those hurray, I’m-almost-a-kid kind of days in the valley. ...

stepping ... not a stoop, though ... sigh I was sitting out on the front porch of our rented duplex, late afternoon sun drenching the area.  The space is referred to as our stoop – a drinking stoop; having heard the reference on a house-hunting TV show.  I made a note in my phone to use the phrase; probably because the girls who used it were hilarious, partly because I’m slightly warped and just because I like the idea of being connected to what’s out front – not cloistered off behind fences and gates. stoops are flat landing spots at the top of a set of outside steps No big deal there, we all have a landing on our stairways.  The cool thing about a stoop is the intended purpose, rather than the literal.  Being a sort of East Coast, city-dwellers, phenomena, the steps gave people a place to sit and talk with their neighbors as they walked by … hmmm … So, where was I going with this post?  Oh yeah, when Bella (chocolate puppy) and I went to pick ...