Challenged but Loved

I believe we have challenges for reasons. I believe that the most difficult relationships/people in our lives are our greatest teachers. I believe sometimes little things make a big difference. Like certain crows, I enjoy finding treasure in the parking lot. Or bracelets in parks. My grandson found a stretchy green bracelet (green, his favorite color) and proceeded to fling it across the aisle (in ShopRite), losing it somewhere in the potato chips/Tostitos area. He never did find it. He’s since gotten a new one but I think he’s still mourning the old one! In fact, when the stain was recently painted over on the living room ceiling, he says he misses it! I told him some things, like bracelets and stains are meant to be memories and believe it or not those things and many others will be forgotten…

The other morning, my grandson and I were listening to Maclemore’s old “Thrift Shop” song. Despite some of the language, we both really enjoy the song. It’s fun. I’ve had one of THOSE weeks. But have you heard the song “Same Love” by Macklemore and Mary Lambert? Link follows….It makes me cry every time. My grandson laughed at my tears. So I had to laugh. Kids make my day.

Here’s a kid after my heart: Gabi Mann. This little girl developed a two-way communication with crows. Consistently, the crows reciprocate her routine gifts of food (like peanuts in the shell or dog food) for objects which they bring to her in return, some of which are shown here.

I’m sure you’ve read the story (the link follows this blog) which pops up in my feed from time to time. It’s one of my favorites. It never gets old to me, I love enlarging the screen and getting a closer look at some of the items brought to Gabi Mann.

Sand.

Magnified.

Another thing that fascinates me is magnified beach sand, seen here:

Photo Yanping Wang

“While I’ll be a son of a sea cook!” (This from a 92 year old lady I know.) It is the little things that interest me.

Sand, upon magnification reveals:

An opalescent spiral and a

bit of coral.

Volcanic material and-

a type of protozoa.

Garnets.

Agates.

Magnetites too.

Some of the little things the crows delivered to Gabi?

A yellow bead.

Blue paper clip;

and a rotten crab claw (mom Lisa threw that one out).

Oh and a tiny silver ball

and a pearl colored heart…

 

Sounds like poems!

Miniscule tidbits. Tiny deeds. The little things fill in the cracks between hard places and rocks. I was watching Chopped Junior with my 9 year old grandson. The cooking competition was in the dessert round and it came down to two young ladies: one was African American. One was blonde and caucasian. My grandson said to me, “I hope she wins!”

“Which girl are you talking about” I asked.

I’d been playing Bejeweled Blitz on my phone and hadn’t seen which kid he was referring to. He told me her name. *Myra.

“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t paying attention. Which one is Myra?”

“The one with the black hair,” he said.

For some reason, especially with so much racist crap going on, I kept thinking, a child just doesn’t see the color of his peers’ skin. He distinguished who he meant in an entirely different way.  I myself might have replied the ‘black girl’ or the ‘white girl.’

So it’s the little things lately. There’s an entire collection of tiny art at the site “enormous tiny art.” Here are a few of my favorites:

From Christine Brennan (https://www.enormoustinyart.com/collections/christine-brennan/products/untitled-pa861):

From Katie Todaro (https://www.enormoustinyart.com/collections/katie-todaro):

Friday morning I started a load of wash before leaving for the day. Little did I know what I set into motion. When I got home, (around 7pm) I started down the cellar stairs to throw the clothes in the dryer and froze halfway down. Due to the house not being level, exactly half the cellar floor was ponded with water four inches deep in some areas. Tiptoeing around the standing water, I checked the windows because it was pouring outside. The rain did not appear to be coming in through them. So I ran a test load of laundry. Sure enough, water started gushing and burbling out a pipe above the washing machine so I had to stop the load and call the landlord.

I said that it could wait until after the holiday weekend. I just agreed not to do laundry. The next morning someone flushed the toilet and my upper hall flooded. Water cascaded into the hallway and found its merry way under the closet doors. It dripped through the floor and into the cellar lake; pitter-pattering onto the furnace. After another call to the landlord, RotoRooter was dispatched! Apparently, running the kitchen sink faucet was a big mistake too- that also caused water to back up into the cellar.

McDonalds it was. For a bathroom trip. Coffee. And breakfast. I met a very nice young lady there who prepared my order. She said she was planning on buying my book. That made me happy. She said my son was a pleasure to work with; truly one of the most compassionate people she’d ever known. It’s the little things, you know…

 After Roto Rooter left, I spent five hours filling the wet-dry vac and dumping water out the back cellar hatch onto the grass. I ran a fan down there nonstop, and a dehumidifier which had to be emptied every few hours for days. There were soggy boxes, clothes and floating dryer sheets and lint to deal with but the problem is resolved and it could’ve been much worse! I rather like my little silver coal bucket that I keep by the dryer. I throw dryer lint (which smells so nice, is often pastel in color and fluffy like cotton candy) and dryer sheets in it, but sometimes I miss. Wet floating lint is not so pretty. It sticks to your fingers in a not so pleasant way.

Using my wet vac was no picnic. After it would fill, I had to turn off the vac, unhinge the top, and carry the sloshy bucket outside to dump. This was not my first flood rodeo. I’ve used this vac many times. Unfortunately, whenever I restarted the vac to begin pulling up water again, I would forget where the ON button was located. I must remember to paint the button a bright color. It is black and blends into the vac. My brain works in such a way that this happens to me. A lot. My Gray Matter is sometimes annoying. Finding that button or I should say, repeatedly not being able to see it, was the worst part of my day.

At last with the clean-up behind me, I could finish that load of clothes I had to stop mid-cycle. But wait, the washer would not turn on. I feared it was damaged from being in standing water. My mind reeled with ways I could squeeze a washer into my budget…But it was on a wooden pallet… I can’t tell you how long it took me to realize that the repair guy had shut off the water. So my washer is not damaged at all as it turns out.

Perhaps the worse part of the flood fiasco is that my beloved scarred Maple tree, home to black squirrels and grey ones, blue jays and creeping ivy, (and a giver of much needed shade) is the root of the problem. Pun intended. Its roots dared grow into the pipes and I fear my tree may be murdered soon. I am NOT happy about this.

This picture of my tree was taken last summer.

 

The flood was but one slipped gear in the cog of my life this past week, a life it seems that decidedly is not running like a well oiled machine. Still, I am blessed. I know this. Here’s a little thing that happened to me I must share… I was playing Words With Friends, and for anyone who has played you know that instead of reaching into a real tile bag to draw new letter tiles, the game gives you random letters that fill in after you play a word. Just look at the totally random letters that filled in on my board! I’m challenged but loved!

How’s that for an enormously little random wonderful coincidence?

bye for now—K

p.s. My family was called weird this week. It is. It’s a proud weird. It’s a weird not fed by alcohol, pills or drugs. I think the hater spewing vitriol at me meant to insult me. She did not.

Tiny art: https://www.enormoustinyart.com/

BBC article girl who gets gifts from crows:   http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026

beach sand: https://www.niftyhomestead.com/blog/sand-magnified/?jn12a5a3ef=7

Macklemore same love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0