Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a full day yesterday, first with a Father's Day Brunch at our house, with a two year old and baby attending.  Then we rushed to see "Ruslaka by Dovorzak, which was sublime.  Gorgeous music and voices, amazing sets, lovely dancing, the whole nine yards.  We drove directly to the airport after, to pick up our granddaughter, and she was under the weather from three shots she'd had at the doctor's office, so she only wanted crackers for dinner and then headed to bed.  I'm about to wake her up in a minute.  We're planning on going to a matinee and shopping for books today, then her uncle and aunt and baby cousin are coming for dinner.  I'm planning on her not getting in a car today, so she can unwind.  Her last day of school was last Wednesday, so she's exhausted from everything.  I hope to get her rested up!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a nice visit to the zoo with our middle grandson.  The alligators were out sunning themselves a foot from us, the ringtailed lemurs were showing off, one in meditation position, the fruit bats were stretching their wings and then rolling themselves up like cigars with them, and when we got to the bears, the four two year olds wrestled, bumbled and goofed around until they all four fell asleep under the shade of a tree.  One slept with his head on his brother.  We took the gondola back down, waving and saying hi to all the people heading up.  Then we rode the train while a camp group serenaded us with a song about a moose and one about a bee.   Our two year old fell asleep in the car and was carried up for a nap in our bed.  When he awoke, we watched Daniel Tiger until his mom picked him up.  We had a very good day.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, I returned from seeing a matinee with friends (Photograph) and there was a man sitting on the brick steps leading to our front porch.  He was confused, and couldn't rise, though he had a cane with him.  Talking to him I quickly realized he had dementia, and through talking calmly, I got his name and then his address which was up the street about a dozen houses away.  I opened the front door and called to my husband, who came out and drove up to the man's house, where there were two police cars and family and his wife frantic.  He had been gone three hours.  The police were very kind and gentle with him, and by supporting him on either side got him to his feet and in the police car to head back to his house.  Our house is hidden and way off the street, so no one had seen him, though there was a search up and down the streets.  My husband had not gone out and therefore hadn't seen or heard him.  Thank goodness it wasn't Monday, when the temperature was 100 degrees!  But still.  Three hours.  This morning his wife dropped by to thank us, and I was thanking my lucky stars he hadn't tried to climb the final brick steps and fallen backward and killed himself. 
Now I know why they are selling their house.  I had been curious.  This dear old man is going to have to go into memory care, or some supervised setting.  It's so sad, and I hope he fares well in his next stage of life. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, last night the heat really got to me.  My hair was wet with sweat, and sleeping without covers is difficult for me, and it just didn't cool off.  I could have gone downstairs, but I really doubt I could have slept there either.  My husband and I had watched a DVD, Hitchcock's "Notorious", and it's one of my favorite films of his.  So I spent my waking moments analyzing it.  What's not to like about Cary Grant, like ever, and Ingrid Bergman was incandescent on screen.  This one is crackling with sexuality, and the Code people wouldn't let Hitchcock film them in a long kiss, but he got around it by breaking up the kiss by them talking in between.  And since the dialogue is so delightful, it enhances the charge of the scene.  Their faces throughout the movie are a master lesson in acting, and the fact that they are both edgy and afraid of falling for each other makes their attraction greater for us.  These are flawed, complicated adults, with a lot of past pushing at them, and we root for them because they are real.  My favorite Hitchcock is "Rebecca", but that's because I loved du Maurier's novel as a teenager.  Joan Fontaine is really a little goody two shoes, though Maxim played by the great Laurence Olivier is complex and dark.  At the end, you really know they're not going to have a happily ever after, but Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.  You betcha!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It was 100o here yesterday.  And there were fires, but quickly put out here, though a couple north of us are still burning but 50% contained.  I've had two kitchen fires that did damage, and long ago at the cabin when my younger two were still going up with me in the summers for a month, my son was burning pine needles and thought he put out the fire before the three of us left for the Ranger talk at the ampetheather, but when we returned, the fire truck had been there, and one little tree was blackened.  I'd trusted his Boy Scout skills.  Just as I trusted my older son when I took the youngest and went to 7Eleven to get popcorn, so we could watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind (fire kind more like) and when we returned after ten minutes, the house was surrounded by fire trucks.  My son thought he would "heat" the oil to get ready for the popcorn. Both sons were fifteen at the time, but hey, I've just been luckier with my carelessness.   I was so relieved the three kids were okay I didn't worry about having to replace a cabinet, paint three rooms, and wallpaper a wall. 
Fire is barely there and then whoosh.  It's like it's opposite, water.  They can do damage and take your life in an instant.  Respect must be paid.  So, yes I'm jumpy, but I have my reasons, and so does everyone else living in our state.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The heat of the weekend did spark a fire, but hopefully it will get under control quickly.  It's very quiet around here, as if people are holding their breath.  Today will be even hotter, and then some tapering off.  At least today the wind is not working against us.  I worry about my older son up north with his family, my older daughter way up north, and my two younger kids by me.  The grandchildren are especially vulnerable from the air quality, and I'm hoping it doesn't get too bad.  I never even had an air quality app on my phone until last year, or air filters in the house either.  But it's a brand new world, remade by greed, lack of vision and no discernible moral compass.  In this country I guess we are going to die hugging our cars.  We have caused so much of this pollution that we ought to feel responsible for the state of the world.  Why don't we?  Too busy eating hamburgers?  Watching TV?  Distracting ourselves?  If we are ashamed, it's clearly not enough to make ourselves the tiniest bit uncomfortable and act.  In the meantime, our leaders quibble and rant and posture.  Where is the will to save the planet?  I hope someone stands up and leads.  But who?

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We are in the middle of a mini-heat spell, and so careful about closing the windows in the morning and keeping the shutters upstairs closed.  I love the heat, but here it jumps 25 degrees in one fell swoop, so it's a bit of a shock to the system.  The ominous part is the wind.  Heat and wind mean fire, so all our antennea are out, with the frisson of fear.  So many ways for fire to start, either man caused or nature. 
We are going to the opera today to see Handel's "Orlando", and since I know I'll adore the music, I'm happily anticipating the afternoon.  Yesterday I listened to "Where Ere You Walk", a piece of Handel's, and practically swooned with joy.  Today's production is set in a World War II soldier's hospital, Orlando a patient with post traumatic stress disorder.   A psychiatrist is attempting to help him.  The directors tend to set Handel's operas in strange times:  prohibition, the wealthy in Long Island, whatever bizarre setting they can come up with.  The thing is, it usually works.  Either Handel's music overcomes the staging, or he's quite modern in an inexplicable way.