She always makes me smile...

My pet bird's name is Yoda. She is a Goffins Cockatoo and about eleven years old. I've had her two years now. She belonged to a dear friend's ex-husband. My friend brought me to his house to see her kids, and while I was there I saw Yoda in a cage in the corner of the family room.

Being a lifelong bird lover, I went over and started talking with Yoda, she sat perched close to me, listening intently, then put her head against the bars, inviting me to pet her. My heart melted on the spot and I was smitten. My friend said, "Don't look at her, she's ugly." And I suppose Yoda WAS ugly, for she'd bit off almost all her feathers and her grey skin revealed her boney little body, quite the pathetic sight. But I didn't care. I saw her sweet, bright little spirit which was anything but ugly to me.

It turned out that my friend's ex really didn't have as much time for Yoda anymore, with work , a new house, and a new girlfriend and children to raise. I told my friend... "If he ever considers parting with her, I'd love to take her." She mentioned it to him, he thought about it and wanted to meet me to see if Yoda liked me OUT of the cage. The rest is history.

Yoda came to live with me and has been a source of constant delight ever since. She slowly stopped biting at her chest feathers. In this photo you can see the feathers starting to grow in again!

She is full of personality, flirts with any men who come around like a little hussy, says "hello" when the phone rings and "good bye" when she sees us go for our car keys. She loves to dance and listen to music and charms everyone who comes over. She is almost always out of the cage, since I work from home.

She still bites off her long feathers, but is allowing most of the short ones to grow. She usually looks a little bit ratty, but hey, when I'm around the house, braless and hair up in a knot, I don't exactly look put together myself! When Yoda sees me go for my belly dancing scarf, with the dangling beads and coins that jingle, she gets excited. She always dances along. She loves nothing more than to sit on my arm or shoulder as I putter around the kitchen, or on my knee as I sit at the computer. She's quite willing to be handled and "preened". I surely don't do the job as good as another parrot would, but she seems to like it.


Clearly, to me, Yoda was well loved by her other family and gently handled, because she loves people so much. I really appreciate how hard it had to be to give her up, but am so glad she's part of my daily life.

My friend really did Yoda AND me a huge favor when she brought us together... with Yoda I play, laugh, sing, dance, giggle, squawk and get to be like a child again, every day. It's great.

Now you've met my little Yoyo...

Holiday magic, in the least expected places....

Somehow, the holidays have become so chaotic. It's so nice to pause awhile and just enjoy TIME spent with loved ones...

Becki and Hope stopped by Christmas Eve. It's over a year since they've lived here. For the first four years of her life, ours was the only home Hope knew. She still remembers much of her time here, things she did here and how things were.

She ran into the bedroom and squealed "Remember I used to love to jump on the bed?" Of course I DO!!! Oh yes, she was quite the jumper... and she still is!

Here she's coming down for a landing....

Then a backward summersault....

Finally after a lot of jumping, we posed together....

Two silly girls... lots of giggles. This picture of her is so cute, that great big mouth! We were having the best time!

In my opinion, everyone in the world should know a child... and experience the world through that child's perspective for awhile, with complete abandon. It makes me think that the hours in the kitchen, and all the other holiday preparations, don't truly give us what we need most... those moments of magic and free-flowing love when we pause and enjoy all they hold in our hearts.
We open many pretty packages, but the best gifts are not found in boxes tied with ribbons. Look around... then feast on all the rich, deeply satifying moments we've been given to feed our hungry souls. The best presents of all are as those we love, and those who love us.

More to come... it's late and I'm very sleepy....

While I drive... masked bandits and treasures...

At a client's house this evening, she mentioned how she'd come to enjoy the time with her son, picking him up from school each day. She touched upon something I've considered several times in the past....

I'm in the car a lot. It's part of the job. I do the running around for clients and go to see them in their homes. Sometimes I travel with the client, or partner up with another designer to do a Mart excursion.

What is it about being in a car with someone, that makes such amazing conversations occur? Is it the small, confessional size of the interior? Is it that we are held hostage for a span of time, forced to listen to each other? Is it because we don't really look at each other, but face forward and enjoy the safe, illusionary mask of anonymity we both wear as we gaze out the window? Is it the view that makes our minds drift outside of ourselves, to places unvisited of late?

All I can tell you is that my time in the car, whether I am alone with my music, or in the company of friends or family, is time well spent.

The best part of it all is that the most special of moments come when you least expect them.

They sneak up on you like bandits, wearing Robin Hood garb, and steal riches from the moment and give them to you in large, bulky, soul-filled parcels to tuck safely away and enjoy again and again.

Sometimes our treasures grow while we're not looking, filling holes inside us, broken places, empty spaces...

Amazing, life-changing realizations can occur inside a car.
Meatloaf has a song "Objects In The Rear View Mirror" with a verse that goes...

"... Those were the rights of spring and we did everything. There was salvation every night. We got our dreams reborn and our upholstery torn, but everything we tried was right. She used her body just like a bandage. She used my body just like a wound. I'll probably never know where she disappeared, but I can see her rising up out of the back seat now just like an angel rising up from a tomb. And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are..."

It's true... a backward look, brings the past close again, sometimes closer at second glance than it was the first time around.

Anyone care for a drive tonight? Let's go....:::smile:::.....

Christmas party, cussing, and a plan....

Last Tuesday night our monthly book club met, for a wonderful Christmas celebration in Christine's home. Of all the holiday celebrations and activities scheduled this month, the promise of this one excited me most. We are seven women who came together to share an interest in reading, and found much, much more. We call each other "bookworms", "wormies" or "worms".... terms of endearment of course. We've become a sisterhood, a mingling of estrogen and brain pumping ions, as salty as a bunch of tattoo-covered sailors one moment and as ruthless as Murphy Brown in a room of cheer leaders the next. A quilting circle we are not. But perhaps we are more like quilters than you'd think... just a different kind of needling!

We "needle" with surgical precision, dissecting plot lines, analyzing characters, nothing is spared our scrutiny. And when we disagree (which is often) we only love each other more! We truly respect each other, and feel completely safe in saying anything at all when we are together.

I'm not quite as "wordly" as most in our group, never was one to speak out without being sensitive to the feelings of others. Each of us holds the spark of divine love inside us, and I consider that when asserting my own thoughts. But I'm learning that kindness, generousity and love have many faces. You'll not find a finer bunch than these women in my bookclub.

Among us are:

Christine, a divorced mother of grown children, an interior designer working at a mart showroom... she's bright, upbeat, spiritual and confident.

Kellie (above), a married mother of two little ones, working at Children's Memorial Hospital as a pediatric surgical nurse.... she's funny, smart, practical and blunt, a bit quiet, free thinker... a good mother.


Karen, former corporate woman, now a business owner of a bead store... she is intense, enthusiastic, passionate and bright.



Beth (left), divorced artist/rehabber/retail manager at a local home improvement store... she's free spirited, insightful, thoughtful, trusting, optimistic, quick to laugh.

Lauren (right), a specialist in new home sales in a new town house development... she's hard working, focused, obsessive, neat, direct, funny, impatient, intelligent and independent. ~~~~>



Kelly, a divorced mother to Kellie, and interior designer at a retail store... she's witty, brutally direct at times, particular, opinionated, politically minded, non-religious, shrewd, loyal, honest, hardnosed and endearing, a devoted grandmother and terrifed of spiders.


And this is me, enjoying the "worms" as we chatted around the table last night!

One thing it's taken me awhile to get used to ....is the fact that these are women who are very comfortable cussing... eff this, eff that... and it isn't at all unpleasant for me to be around! As a matter of fact, it seems refreshingly open and appropriate given the easy candor and ability to say anything and everything in each other's presence.

Here is something I just read... from next month's novel, "Saving Fish from Drowning".... I think it describes another viewpoint...

"Can we discuss this more rationally?" Vera said. My dear friend despised hearing people use sexual expletives for emphasis. Invoke religion instead, she'd say to those in her organization - use the "damn" and "God almighty" that show strength of conviction. Use the f-word for what it was intended, the deep down gutteral of sex. Don't bring it into arguments where hearts and heads should prevail."

The "f-word" has fans and foes. It's not a word I use. Perhaps one day it will be... who knows. I don't hate the f-word. I do think of it as a word with a literal sexual meaning, and as such, find it odd used in moments of road rage or a stubbed toe. It amuses me to hear it fly back and forth at my book club. It amuses me when someone flips me the bird as they mouth "f-you" and zoom past me on the highway. (I was only doing 80 after all.) Most swearing amuses me, rather than riles me.

(How I do ramble...)

And last but not least, our book club has a plan! In 2008 we will go on a cruise together! We will start saving now and make it a trip to remember. We have two years to plan it. It will be glorious!

I add it to my wish list, of dreams that WILL come to be....

*Dinosaur digging in Montana is on the list.

*Mooning Amtrak in California is on the list.

*And now.... a cruise with my book club is high on the list.

Life is sweet!