And along comes Sharon....

      Though we all can't be sure where Sharon is now, we all milled around enjoying the works of culinary art from   www.justimaginecatering.net     and the wines from Kachina Winery or Cellars and beer from Kevin, Laura's spouse, while we all imbibed the conversation and fellowship of our comrades in the incredible lightness of being.  Somewhere along the line, just before we devoured the tower of cupcakes, Sharon's brothers, first the doctor, and then the psychologist, gave ceremonial evidence and credence to their formative years and then to bless us all before we ingested the smattering of diverse concoctions that Patti Smylie from Just Imagine Catering that she had prepared to wind down from the topical storm that didn't show, but had been created by the lucky ones that had added their presence to Sharon's gathering.  Spiritual ascension not withstanding, a good time was had by all, except Sargent Pepper, who mysteriously vanished early, after teaching the band to play.

Smatterings

     So there were moments in my weekend that collided with the best of times when four cohorts of my extended family from the East Coast came billowing in with the clouds of my untrained and quite often brain roulette of my mind and dazzled me to the point of sophmoric imagery.
       We danced with the culinary traditions of the Child and Mortensen homestead, lingered in the Ukrainian traditions of downing shots of Vodka, and with the help of Carl, the glass blower on our trip down the Rhine, which was represented by his glass blown napkin holder that doubled as a shot glass and Vladimir, our newest philanderer of life, who had entered the front door of the Child family by marrying Lauren, the youngest of the Mike and Anita Child clan of the family tree, we traveled down other avenues of life, for moments at a time.
Along with Carl, Vladimir, brought his own heritage into our perception, cordially admonishing Joyce when she attended the conclusion of  leaving the empty bottle of Vodka (Stoli) on the table, by pronouncing to the conclave of travelers and homesteaders around the dining table that tradition demanded it go on the floor instead.  The significance of this, mind you, was to telegraph to the participants at hand, that unfortunately, the bottle itself had died a glorious death.
         From there purchases of snapshots of Sonoma County were consumed with the beautiful landscapes, baked goods and seafood, and I, by request from Anita, brought the sun out to frolic as we parted ways.  Later, upon request by Lauren, while in Big Sur, for Vladimir, I again brought the sun out to frolic, since by all accounts, it was going to be a windy and rainy experience.  It doesn't always go so well when I am so far away, and yet Mother Nature had heeded my pleas that day.
          Then our niece Sierra came to solicit her birthday wishes on a grateful Joyce, while filling us both in on her next phases of life, pursuing her academic wishes and dreams of a life well fulfilled and deserved.
          The last smatter of existence of our homestead arrived in the form of friends day, an iconoclastic and eclectic collection of Joyce's women friends gathered to celebrate their sharing in her life.  I, though in the prescence of such royalty, pretty much kept to other regions of our home and to finishing the cooking off of the Aebleskivers and washing the first round of dishes so Joyce could join in on the collective frivolty.  
          All and all quite the couple of weeks for what we call our luck in living in this glorious part of the world.  Though, for me, being a long time interloper with appropriate appreciation, while Joyce who had gathered the creativity and moss from being a native, we tended to make this a rather poetic colloboration of shared events.
          It has become perfectly clear, through our smatterings and our additions to the strings that the Universe has dangled in front of our noses, that we are still headed out on the Highway, looking for new adventures, and so gladly willing to accept the consequences of our choices.  I bid you a wonderful and glorious and fond farewell, for now. 
 

The States of Sequestering

      Somewhere before the existence of the human consciousness, nothing seemed to move, inhabit some limited concept of time, made any sound, quite like, I suppose, if a tree had fallen would there have been any sound if noone was around to hear it.
     Now it seems as if the lethargy or nuances of a do nothing congress, not for lack of ideas, but lack of the concepts of compromise, if not for themselves, but for the people who voted them into office, compliance to a self inflicted wound does wonders for the soul of this text philanthropist.  I have for many a moon found it necessary to expound upon my dislike of making government solve all the contemporary problems we face by the decisions we have made.
       The situation is as follows that the more expectations we have on our government, the more we find ourselves duly noting the expansions of some new tax to fund these misanthropic delusions.  Help me understand the notion that when we impose these new dilettante ideologies why they don't end up going to actually solving the situations.
        I am so glad that a lot of people who work for the government, civilian or otherwise are going to have to deal with life in other terms without the financial support they've become addicted to. Let the corporations who have gained so much in profits deal with the fact that they will no longer have a consumer base soon if these problems continue to spiral out of control.  That good old fashion supply and demand concept will linger in their craws. Put that in your sequester pipe and smoke it.