Quote:  We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense.  They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings – many of them not so much.

-John Muir

There is a powerful smell of skunk out there tonight.  One must have blasted only a short distance away:  I can taste it, and it’s making me dizzy.  Skunk drunk. 

It was a spectacular day today.  The warmth was mellow and I kicked off my shoes to enjoy the warm, freshly mown grass in the park where I was watching my daughter’s cross-country meet.  When the runners were out of sight, off suffering at the other end of the park, I read my book.  Then, when the leaders came into sight, I tucked it under my arm, stood up and clapped for Sara.  She was brilliant again today.  There were five or six schools participating in the meet, and she placed fourth overall.  It was a tough route with a lot of hills; and there was a breeze.  The girls suffered.  I watched one girl from another school slump over a fence and vomit at the finish line.  A teammate came over to her and asked,

“Did you have 1:00 lunch today?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s why…”

I showed my basement rental unit to three more groups today.  Lots and lots of people want to look.  Not one application for a lease has been returned, yet, though.  It’s frustrating, but I am trying to be patient.  One family came to look today but is not interested because their six-year old daughter is (as her mother told me) sensitive to paranormal activity.  The mother asked me whether I had owned the house long and whether I knew its history. 

“You know, we looked at a little house that was built in the ‘50s, but our daughter wouldn’t go into it at all.  Then we found out that someone had… had…” 

She honestly couldn’t say the word.  She just made an “exit this way” gesture with her hands.  I helped her out. 

“You mean, died?” 

[Whispered] “Yes!”

Oh, brother, I thought!  One of the folks who lives in the neighborhood did imply very delicately that someone HAD died in the house.  I’m not sure, but I also don’t CARE!  It’s an old house, for Pete’s sake.  Someone surely must have died in it.  Maybe even several someones.

Today's blog includes a rant.  Back up a couple of feet:  I need my space. 

I really hate it when people call me about the apartment and, when I tell them the amount of the rent / deposit, etc… they ask, “Will you work with me on the deposit?”  I feel so tempted to say, “I would be open to working with someone whom I TRUST; someone who has already developed a relationship with me; maybe paid a few months’ rent.  If that person came to me and asked me to 'work with' them, I would do it.  But you have zero history with me and there is no reason why I should 'work with' you when you haven’t been able to get even one month’s rent into my rent-box yet. "  And it's always "work with".  A euphemism for "cut me a special break".

Wow.  That felt very good. 

And, today’s biggest, best superlative!  Goatheads are the WORST weed on the planet.  Their thorny seed pods are so pokey and hard that they pierce leather work-gloves.  When I was done pulling goat head plants from the front yard at the apartment today, I felt like I was wearing platform shoes.  So many thorns had poked into the soles of my shoes and stuck there that they lifted me off the sidewalk entirely.  We didn’t have those in Wisconsin, where I grew up.  Thistles are about the worst like can throw at you in the Upper Midwest.