Thunder Struck

We had a good soak from the last storm with another on its way. Right now it's beautiful weather, warm and clear with not a cloud in the sky, but that is soon to change, according to the weather man. Another storm is on its way and with a few days worth of rain in it.

More rain, more cold weather and I like it. After months of heat and to have days of cool, wet weather is pretty nice and the garden thinks so too. It's lovely. The vegetables I started from seed are doing very well. Lettuces, turnips, peas and the rest are growing, albeit a bit slowly, with the shorter days, but they are growing and also doing well. And it is very peaceful to see their progression, the carrots are beginning to get their ferny tops, the radishes are greening up well and the tiny Swiss chard is popping from the soil.

There is a turkey in the fridge ready for Thursday, a small group of friends coming for Thanksgiving and help from Prince Albert with cooking will make for a pleasant day, even with the rain that is expected that day. I can see it now, the dinner table laid with a rich red cloth and table napkins, plates glistening and a sparkle here and there from the champagne glasses ready to clink for a toast. Candles light the room and maybe, as we sit and talk, tipping glasses of bubbly, thunder might be heard outside followed by the patter of rain.

A very nice Thanksgiving, with a fire, rain and a Thanksgiving feast among friends. Happy Holidays!

Storm Clouds

We're hunkered down with provisions in the pantry to see us through if the weather turns ugly. A conversion of two fronts are heading for us, one warm, the other cold. One from Mexican waters will hit an Alaskan cold front and cause the storm to stall, wringing its energy on us. 

The hood is quiet right now, not a lot going on, the rain expected to start before sunrise tomorrow and continue on through the next day. If all goes well, we'll have the gardens watered well. That will help the turnips and carrots. If not, if it rains too hard, we'll have a big muddy mess where the young seedlings have sprouted.

There is a fire in the den where we read by a bay window overlooks the street. It's cozy, books line the wall behind us that surrounds the window, its paned glass letting in light. A pot of tea sits on top the fireplace, cast iron, heavy and warming for the tea. Tomorrow, I'll make an apple spice cake for the morning tea to help warm the house and fill it with vibrant odors of cinnamon and nutmeg. Wally is better now, walking well, for him and laughing. His trip to the dentist was successful, no cavities and his teeth are being cleaned well. 

Well, the fast diet is still working. I began to loose weight once again with a slight change in the diet. Instead of an egg with toast three times a day, I now have two eggs with toast twice a day, switching a carbohydrate for a protein. I'm still hungry at times but always with the idea that the next day I don't have to diet. And it's  working.

Adapt Or Die

Read that on some guy's T at the gym years ago. It's the logo of my life. In fact, I don't think you can live very long if you don't adapt. For me, life was a struggle at the get-go. I learned as a kid to adapt to stay alive. We lived in a black hood as one of two white families on the block. My playmate was the other white kid, a girl. Then off to an all white hood at ten. And from my ability to adapt to stay alive, being beat up pretty regularly in the old hood, when the white bully of the new hood challenged me--I kicked the shit out of him. So easy, cause white folk fight differently and I had learned a lot to live to ten in my old hood.

The white hood wasn't any better. Richer, but not better. I had the same old shit to face, being different, queer in this case, in the breeding grounds of the Great White Flight. All around me were testosterone driven white men with wives and kids. No one in the white hood were light in the loafers. No effeminate hair stylist, drag queens, nancies. All that went on in Hollywood, not the San Fernando Valley. At least if it did, and they wanted to stay alive, they melded in with the rest.

Recently, someone contacted me about a high school reunion, it would be the last high school reunion since people are thinning out. Just when I worked through the anger of all those years of torment in high school, I find out some of them are still alive. Why? I thought I outlived them but apparently not, some are still alive and enough of them to want to gather and reminisce in one spot.

When  I read of some kid in high school going postal and slamming a bunch of kids at the school with high power weapons, I know what is going through their mind. The constant torture of being bullied, humiliated daily in front of everyone and having to go back day after day for more with no way out. It twists you in strange ways.

I didn't go. I think it already happened. I'm not sure, trying to block it from my mind. I e-mailed back to the person that I probably wouldn't attend, high school being a traumatic experience, I left out that I had pegged them for dead by now anyway. My way of surviving it all was to commit to outlasting them. It's a win-win that way.

Wally ain't doing so good. Adapt or Die, the logo in its perverse logic is getting me through this. Wally is failing, little by little even though I try to keep going, to keep a stiff upper lip, and even with Prince Albert's help it's hard. In some ways harder, but I'll survive somehow, someway. That's what you do--or die.

Halloween Fast and Feast.

Prince Albert loves Halloween and this is what he came up with for the front yard. The guy holding the lantern was once a skeleton that he transformed into a zombie with his creative abilities.  The kids liked it, all some twenty of them. And of course, what else but drive by trick-or-treaters. Really, they drove down the street and when they saw candy, stop and let the kid out. Then there is the high school future dropouts that come by and ask for beer. Seriously, "Got any beer?"

It was fun though and everyone that came by said the house was the best of the lot. We had a party that weekend, on the Day of the Dead. Prince Albert again did his magic with a Puerto Rican dinner. It came out really good, tasty finger food of little fried pasties filled with meat and spices, a chicken soup made with lime and cilantro and of course, beer and fire in the fire pit.

Well now it's time to find a turkey and gorge ourselves once again and then on to Christmas with more food. Can my fast-diet of 5/2 get me through the holidays? So far I've lost forty pounds and holding.