Category Archives: Blogging

Art Is Essential

Art is a way that people can express and process their experience of life. It allows them to express emotions, perceptions, and provides a way for their spirit to be free of the limits of the physical or psychological environment. This post was inspired by a two posts on Hyperallergic “Seeking Escape in Painting,” and “A Painter’s Dreams Go Up In Smoke,” about an artist, Brandi Twilley, who paints a picture of her bleak childhood surroundings yet includes a window with a beautiful blue sky.

“The paintings, which mainly feature the home Twilley grew up in until it burnt to the ground when she was 16, depict windows in a subtly astute manner. They function as portals in curious ways: they indicate the painter’s glimpse of spaces beyond the bleak circumstances of that house, and in seeing the significance of these spaces through Twilley’s hand, I identify with her and wish for that slim chance of escape.”-Seph Rodney Hyperallergic

This brings home to me how powerful and essential art is to our lives. It may be the only way for some people to express themselves, it is their language and best or only way of communicating. Supporting art in schools and the community is as important as supporting language arts, math and science.

Matt D’Arrigo who started the nonprofit ARTS ( A Reason To Survive) in San Diego says,

“Having the arts taken out of schools is a form of identity theft,” ….. “There are lots of creative, artistic youth who are being told to fit into certain boxes. They are being told that what they do is nice, but it’s not important. That’s saying they are not important.”

To eliminate the opportunity for people to develop their artistic gifts is wrong. Here’s the article about ARTS.

“ARTS started with a single success story: D’Arrigo’s. He was unclear about his own identity and purpose when his sister and mother were simultaneously stricken with cancer. He left college his freshman year to care for them, and, in the process, found solace in painting and music.”-James Chute San Diego Union Tribune

A recent article about what ARTS is doing to help lift up a whole community.

Brandi Twilley Where The Fire Started exhibition at Sargent’s Daughters.

This post is part of We Are The World Blogfest #WATWB hosted by Damyanti Biswas and cohosted by Simon Falk, Roshan Radhakrishnan, Inderpreet Uppal, Lynn Hallbrooks, Eric Lahti, and Mary J Giese

Featured image of Art Class Cathedral Senior High School New Ulm, Minnesota via US National Archives by photographer Abul Haque

The Flat

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“In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist.”
― Ari Berk

The last flat¹ we lived in in San Francisco had a little room off the kitchen where there was a sink with a window over it, and there were counters and shelves on each side of the sink. I thought of it as a pantry but it was probably more like a scullery, “since the scullery was the room with running water, it had a sink…”². Scullery³ sounds like a place to store sculls, catacombs. There were no skulls in our pantry.

800px-DJJ_1_Catacombes_de_Paris by djtox on Wikipedia.

Catacombs of Paris by Djtox

The kitchen had a built in breakfast nook with a vinyl covered U-shaped banquette, like a booth in a diner. My mother loved the nook. Flats are like large apartments. Ours had a kitchen, den, two bedrooms, living room, 1¼ bath. I say ¼ bath because there was a small room in the hall with a second toilet. The rooms of the flat were bigger than a typical modern apartment in the US. Our flat was on the top floor. You had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to the front door and another flight once you got inside. My mother did not lock the front door. You were not afraid living in The City in those days. Flats seem more like homes than apartments.

Mission District by Ken Lund

This (above) looks something like the flat we lived in, only nicer. Below image is not too far from my old neighborhood.

800px-CastroAnd20thStreetInSanFranciscosCastroDistrict via wikimedia

2oth and Castro Street

footnotes:

1.flat: A set of rooms forming an individual residence, typically on one floor and within a larger building containing a number of such residences.-Oxford Living Dictionaries

2.Pantry-Wikipedia.

3. Etymololgy of scullery: Middle English squilerie, sculerie department of household in charge of dishes, from Anglo-French esquilerie, from escuele, eskel bowl, from Latin scutella drinking bowl-Merriam-Webster Dictionary online.

One Liner Wednesday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Featured image The Scullery Maid painting by Giuseppe Maria Crespi via Wikimedia

Panther P55

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Panther, Puma, Cougar, Mountain Lion, P55 is what they named you, beautiful cat. You were fitted with a tracking device and crossed the freeway at night. They want to build you a bridge not too far from where I live so you and other Mountain Lions can cross the freeway safely and so your species can survive here in Southern California.

“Los Angeles is one of only two megacities in the world (the other is Mumbai) that have big cats living within the city limits. In a place more often associated with freeways and traffic, the fact that the city can support such large-ranging animals is a testament to the quality of open space and the habitat connectivity that still remains.”-National Park Service

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Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Prompt for today is “pant.” Photo of P55 ( captured to outfit him with a tracking device) by the National Park Service Santa Monica Mountains. California Mountain Lions info. Slideshow photos from National Park Service.

No Wasted Words

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“No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”-Erin Bow

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”
― Erin Bow

I was born and grew up part the way in San Francisco. You could buy fresh San Francisco sourdough bread all over The City. I really love dark crust sourdough bread with some dry Italian salami and a good cheese, a semi-soft cheese like teleme or Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery, Point Reyes Station, Ca. Seems like the only place you can get the original sourdough dark crust bread by Boudin Bakery is at Tadish Grill Restaurant. Both Boudin and Tadish Grill have been around since SF Gold Rush days (1849).

Red Hawk cheese

Columbus salami San Francisco by Kent Wang

Humboldt Fog cheese by Sharona Gott

One Liner Wednesday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Featured image of San Francisco sourdough bread and beer by Jon Sullivan on wikimedia, Image of Red Hawk cheese by Frank Schulenburg on wikimedia, Image of Columbus salami by Kent Wang on Flickr. Had to throw in the Image of Humboldt Fog cheese via Sharona Gott on Flickr.

Guess What

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A couple of random things for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday post. Today’s prompt word is “guess.”

You’ll never guess what I did today. You might think it is something exciting or extraordinary. It is something I would have not thought I would be doing. I am not into scrubbing, dusting, and polishing a lot around my house. But today I cleaned almost all the grout of our tile flooring throughout the house. Pretty exciting huh. I used this steamer cleaner and it works pretty well but I can feel that I was using muscles. I am tired and almost skipped writing.

You’ll never guess what else, I started drinking beer instead of wine. I have developed a taste for beer lately. We have some really good breweries in California. One that I am into now is Lagunitas IPA India Pale Ale from Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California. Oh yeah, I just said ale not beer didn’t I? This one makes me happy because it’s hoppy. I really like the stronger taste, hoppy-ness. My son told me that in the old sailing ships they would add extra hops to the ale to preserve it on the long voyages to India. It turned out it gave the ale a great flavor. So this afternoon, after I finished my grout cleaning, and before I started making dinner, I decided to have a nice cold Lagunitas IPA India Pale Ale.

Now I am ready to go watch a good English mystery on Amazon. Lately, it’s been Inspector Gently.

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt today is “guess.” Image of Lagunitas India Pale Ale by Matteo Doni on Flickr.

Whales Sleep

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“What if the catalyst or the key to understanding creation lay somewhere in the immense mind of the whale? . . . Suppose if God came back from wherever it is he’s been and asked us smilingly if we’d figured it out yet. Suppose he wanted to know if it had finaly occurred to us to ask the whale. And then he sort of looked around and he said, ‘By the way, where are the whales?’ ”
— Cormac McCarthy in Of Whales and Men

Female Sperm Whales sleeping in the Indian Ocean by Stephane Granzotto

“Where great whales come sailing by,

Sail and sail, with unshut eye,

Round the world for ever and aye?…”-Matthew Arnold (from the poem The Forsaken Merman)

Scientists, according to National Geographic, have discovered that sperm whales have dialects and accents.

Images of sleeping whales shared on Facebook by Organic Rising. Full set of images on National Geographic.

Quote from Cormac McCarthy found on Spirituality and Practice.com

Quote from Matthew Arnold found on inspiringquotes.us

This post is my contribution to One Liner Wednesday hosted by Linda G Hill.

High Low

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I was feeling very high when I found out I won the WEP June Challenge for my fiction piece “The Final Transition.” A wonderful surprise and the fantastic high you get from receiving recognition for something you wrote. I was not expecting to win first place. It is hard for me to judge my own writing. Many times I have written something and thought it mediocre and then gotten positive feedback. This has encouraged me to take the risk and put my ideas out there. Other times my writing is not given much notice. But you never know if someone is reading and enjoying a post. I have had a few people tell me how they have liked my writing and I did not know it. So as in life, with writing, we have to expect to experience the highs and the lows. Just don’t let the lows get you down.

Here is a great cartoon from one of favorites, Introvert Doodles by Marzi. It was originally posted on Facebook by Quiet Revolution on Thursday, August 3, 2017

I think I could check off several things on that list and add a few more. A good way to survive the lows is to realize we are not alone, other people feel the same way. 🙂

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is “high/low.” Featured image of City Coaster by Henry Burrows on Flickr.

Who Spit On My Rosemary Bush?

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I have written a few blogs about my garden. I have been learning about some of the succulents, plants, and trees in my yard. My Pyracantha appears to be doing fine. I had noticed a few woolly aphids and spider mites on it in the Spring but now they are gone. The sage bushes are thriving and attracting hummingbirds and bees. I haven’t gotten out into my small backyard garden as regularly until the past few days. I was looking at the garden through my kitchen window and noticed a cute little bird in my rosemary bush. It looked like it was eating something off the branches. I wondered if birds like eating rosemary and then thought maybe there was some kind of bug on the bush. I went out to look but did not see anything and then recently I noticed a little white ball on one of the branches. At first I though it could be some kind of cocoon or a bit of fluff. Today I decided to investigate and saw several more little white balls on that bush. On closer inspection, they looked like white foam or spit. Either the plant was producing this foam, which I thought can’t be a good sign, or some wild animal was spitting or slobbering on my rosemary. I thought of skunks, coyotes, and my brother in law’s dog. Well, of course I had to google it. Turns out it is Spittlebugs! They are the nymphs of the Froghopper bug. They produce the foam as camouflage or for insulation in hot weather. We have had hot weather here in Southern California. They really don’t spit out the foam, it comes out the other end. I thought I saw one of the adult (froghopper) bugs on the bush but it was too small, and camera shy, for me to get a photo of it. I had never heard of Spittlebugs or Froghoppers. Hopefully they will not infect any other plants. Although, from what I have read, plants usually survive them. I don’t think I want to use any of this rosemary for cooking right now however. 😉

I found some information about Spittlebugs from SFGate and I like this quote from their post:

“A nice stroll through your garden can help reduce stress and calm your nerves — that is until you find unsightly spit-like foam covering your plants.”

That about says it all. 🙂 I hope that little bird comes back and eats some more Froghoppers.

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Anniversary Three

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July 29 was the 3rd Anniversary of my blog Notes Tied On The Sagebrush on WordPress.

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com! You registered on WordPress.com 3 years ago.

I have always had trouble tooting my own horn. This seems to be at odds with the fact that I am willing to write and state my opinions on a blog. This may have to do with being an Introvert. Many writers are introverts and find it easier to express themselves through writing. I found this in a post from Introvert, Dear 7 Reasons Why Introverts Are Good At Writing by Gloria Kopp:

“Introverts don’t like the spotlight. In fact, anything we can do to avoid it, we’ll do. When we write, we get our thoughts out without having to put ourselves physically out there. We can express ourselves freely, without being intimidated by a room full of eyes staring back at us.”

So I like to express myself by writing but feel uncomfortable in the spotlight. I will stop talking about it now but just add Thanks to my readers for continuing to visit my blog. ❤

Featured image ‘Allen’s Hummingbird in Santa Cruz, California’ by Shravans14 on Pixabay.com

Limber

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We are often told these days that we must exercise. I have tried to duck the questions about exercise I get anytime I have contact with a doctor’s office, ‘ Do you exercise? or How often do you exercise? or What type of exercise do you do? I do try to be creative in my answers but then my honesty gets in the way. I used to be able to say, ‘I do yoga.’ My warrior and cat poses were pretty good. But I quit doing that too. I’ve wasted a lot of money paying for gym and yoga studio memberships and then did not go to the classes after a while. I have decided to try some exercise classes at my local city recreation center in the Fall. They are closer to my house, are scheduled at a decent time, and are not overly expensive. And I don’t have to sign a contract. I am looking for gentle limbering up not high impact, weight-bearing, hot chakra yoga or some such thing. Not looking for a triathlon or Iditarod. Not even interested in Zumba Gold. Maybe a nice Qui Gong.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by the ever limber Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is ‘limb.’ Featured image of Contortionist via wikimedia.