Tuesday, January 11, 2011

What Can I Give You?




Another dark, cold day and hell, it might as well snow but of course it won't.
Owen's coming soon and I've made oatmeal for him and Mr. Moon. Owen will already have eaten but he does love meal-meal as he calls it and will probably have a bite or two, at least.
We'll be in the house most of the day, I'm sure because I do not want to go out there where it's so damn unfriendly, the sun tucked away somewhere too far away to give us any warmth, the ground wet with the rain we've been getting.
Perhaps we'll go throw the chickens some crackers but that's as far as I care to go with it.

I hope he rides his horse who is waiting patiently in the library, ready to take Owen as far as he cares to travel, a smile on both the boy's and horse's faces. I think they should make horses like that for grown-ups. I've been using Kathleen's exercycle and it's fine but oh my! Wouldn't it be fun to bounce up and down on a life-sized horse instead? Do you suppose they could get Chuck Norris to do infomercials for it? Can you see him on a giant rocking horse, a cowboy hat on his head, bouncing away and yelling, "Giddyap!" and then telling us about all the muscle groups he's using?

Yeah. No.
Maybe Willie Nelson though.

Well. Cold. Damp. More of the same.

But wait!

I remembered that yesterday I had seen this


The hydrangea's sharp-tongued promise of spring to come and on my way to take its picture I found this


Fucking Glory! The camellias are beginning to bloom.

Even in the cold, damp gray there is glory.

There. That's what I have to give you today.

Promise and glory.

That will do. For now.

10 comments:

  1. :)

    The adult sized horse is a great excercise idea :)

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  2. Our camelias are coming in too.
    What do they know that we don't?

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  3. I remember those horses. They could take me to the Wild West in a moment's notice.

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  4. What a mental picture of Chuck Norris on a springy horse! HA! Thank you for that :)

    That camelia is gorgeous.

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  5. you have stirred a memory....
    early 80's. palm hill. 120 acres, hill top, vista california. view of the ocean from mexico to l.a. house of mirth painted in fading glory on the dutch door. a house that sat empty for countless years until i discovered it. top of a queen palm lined climb up a long hill. behind a scented ledge of eucalyptis. i courted the eccentric owners, an aged couple cecil and burnie, six months by mail, little hand made cards filled with hopes of living in their cottage..before they would even consent to meet me. 120 acres they owned...from afar and would prefer to leave empty than to deal with "people". they had no idea how many sunsets i had watched on that hill top...yearning to call this hide away home.

    finally that one phone call to meet at palm hill and take a walk together.

    apparently they were taken in enough to hand me the keys. and how did you conjure up all this reminiscing?

    there was a giant lath house....FILLED with camellias. every colour, pure and variegated you could dream of. when they all came in bloom....
    i would STUFF my rag top VW bug to the sky, and everywhere i went for the weeks they bloomed...i took armfuls of camellias and gave them to EVERYONE, anyone.
    there.
    your one single bloom
    opened up a floodgate of happiness.

    you have a tendency to open me for which i am grateful, daily.

    xoxoxoxo,
    rebecca

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  6. Wow! Not Rebecca-type floodgates (such lovely details in those memories!), but you brought memories to me as well with that bouncy horse.

    Loved, loved, loved the little clip of the O-boy on his first ride! You do know just what he needs, Grandmaw =o) We had a bouncy horse just about like that one when I was little. Watching Owen ride put me right back in that little plastic saddle. Hope he has fun on it today. x0 N2

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  7. Stunning camellia...

    Rebecca, your dreamy memory swept me away ~ how I would love to experience that place ~ it sounds magical!

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  8. Jo- Wouldn't it be FUN?

    Lisa- Nah. They always bloom in winter. By mid-spring, they are gone.

    Syd- You know, kids don't watch Westerns anymore which takes some of the joy of the horse-riding away. But Owen loves it anyway.

    Stephanie- Chuck Norris annoys me to pieces.

    rebecca- Why don't you still live there? Oh my god! What a wonderful story. Sounds like an entire book to me. A car's sky full of camellias is my idea of heaven. Thanks, honey, for giving us this.

    N2- He has. Oh yes. He has.

    Lulumarie- Doesn't it sound magical? Reminds me a little bit of "my" house in Roseland where the lions guard the pool.

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  9. I seriously think that an exercise horse would feel too much like having cowboy-sex. If you see what I mean. Which is great for sex, but not so much for exercise. Well, maybe if you were in the privacy of your own home and it was a soft horse. ;-)

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.