Happy Spring!  It's the Vernal Equinox__the first day of Spring!  Joy! And all good things green and growy.

Oh, wait, is that too ambitious?

Hmm__how about a compromise?

:)
This week's astrological report:
http://www.cafeastrology.com/thisweekinastrology.html

Have a great week

Green.  A color/ur of many ranges. I like green, mostly. My bedroom is seafoam.

I will paint my room when I move the same colour. It's relaxing.

There's the designated Emerald green for the year of 2013. It's a dramatic color__a jewel-tone. Beautiful in the right kind of fabric.

And, of course the jewel itself__

There are pale greens and vibrant greens and poisonous greens__

There's pea soup, which I like to eat but as a colour on the wall, not so much. There's lime green, which is brilliant but a little over whelming and green nail polish, which truth to tell I'm not sure about__

And there's hospital green, which I have decided to call bile, and I think it was designed to drive you out the door sooner than later. An awful color.

There's chartreuse, which is also a liqueur...

And sage

And ivy

So many different greens. The abundance is remarkable. But not all are pleasing, at least not to my eye.. And some I cannot wear, although I'd like to.

The other morning I woke myself laughing. I love when that happens. I wish it happened every morning. I wish it happened for everyone at least once in a while. It's such a great way to start the day.

What had me laughing was the dream I was having at the time. I was visiting a friend who bore a striking resemblance to this man:

He was showing me a car__No, not That car, another car. Something along the lines of this:

Cool__:)  [it's a 1938 Ford coupe].

Anyway he's running around frenetically, as is his wont, and he's trying valiantly to get me to sit ['Just sit ' ] in the car. And I am resisting because he has some sketchy past with cars as we all know but I finally get in and find one seat.  I don't mean one bench seat that runs across the inside of the car, I mean one bucket seat__and it's right in the middle of the floor__not up close to the dash but in the middle of the car, like a captain's chair on a star ship and the only other thing I see as he's closing the door behind me with a THUMP is the large shift lever next to the seat. It's a floor stick but there are no pedals. No gas, no clutch. Well isn't that just nifty.

About this time I look out the windshield and notice him chasing something. I look more closely because I am concerned about getting out of the car before I get sent to someplace like Alpha Centauri for a lunch of space goop a la mode and I see my dog Mattie running up and down the hillside dragging something in her mouth. I squint to try to make out what it might be. One can never tell with the beagle. She is a sneak thief extraordinaire.  I still can't make it out but my friend is giving a gallant chase and not getting any closer. Up and down and around they go. Meanwhile I'm starting to enjoy the feeling of sitting in the car/ship/theatre. I finally realize what Mattie has in her mouth is a packet of floor mats__

and that I no longer need worry about being zipped off out of the solar system because the vehicle isn't going anywhere w/o it's finishing touches, my friend being persnickety in that way.

Which is when I began to laugh.

Today is hump day. It is also the first real snowstorm we've had  here in the mid-atlantic region of the US all winter and it's decided to make up for the lack. We're at 18" and it's still coming down. It's a heavy, wet March snow and the power could go at any moment. Many in the area are already out as the power site has indicated on the net we keep an eye on.

The dog is loving  it...the one cat who finally got her wish to go outside__not so much. Sari thought it was dirty pool that she  finally managed to get out the door and into a snow drift over her head. I might have felt sorry for her but she's been such a pain in the keester lately that I overcame all sympathy and took pictures instead.

As I mentioned on + all the stores in town were inundated a good two days before the storm was due to hit [and given that the weather prognosticators have been batting about zero lately the stores were making out like bandits] at least that was how I viewed it at the time as I sat and waited endlessly for things like my scripts at the pharmacy which may be an explanation for what happened.

I found myself actually attracted to someone. 

Shocking I know.

It really is. It's been a long time. I was surprised. I didn't jump up and down and act like a complete idiot but he knew and given that I was sitting on a bench a good fifteen feet from where he was and trying not to be obvious about it I guess I must neon my feelings.

But, wow.  And he turned around and came over to me and asked if I was in line. __smile__ How cute. I think I may have blushed.  Geez.  What am I, 15?

Anyway, enough of that.

The astrological stuff for today and the week:
On Monday, the Last Quarter Moon is exact, when the Sun in Pisces squares the Moon in Sagittarius. The Last Quarter Moon phase points to some sort of crisis of consciousness. After basking in the awareness symbolized by the full light of the Moon at the time of last week's Full Moon, we disperse our knowledge and come to a point when we need to sort out what works for us--and what doesn't--in preparation for next week's New Moon, when something new is born once again. This is not the best time to start a major project, as the decreasing light of the Moon symbolizes a descent into unconsciousness. It's time to begin finishing up the details of that which was conceived at the last New Moon on February 10th. What revelations did you have last week? What did they mean for you? What can be done now?

For more...:http://www.cafeastrology.com/thisweekinastrology.html

I find myself rather pensive today. Not sad, really but contemplative about the possibility of moving away from this place. I've lived here in these old, old hills for longer than I've lived anywhere in my life and I am quite attached. But there comes a time when facts must be faced and that time is closing in.

I moved here in the early 1970's from farther up the eastern seaboard after making the move across country from my origins out west. I took one look at these mountains and it was love at first sight. The Blue Ridge Mountains. Nothing like the huge towering edifices where I grew up [the Rockies], these rounded and forested mounds are far older [and interestingly, part of the same range that are found in Scotland__where many of my ancestors hail from].

But enough of that.  The reason I'm thinking of moving? Well, I live on the side of a mountain. This is not level ground. No, you say. I nod. When you have no balance, it makes it tricky to navigate. And the house is a two-story. I'm not too good on the stairs these days, either. I know, I sound like a walking disaster. There's some truth to that. Then there's the opinion of one of my dr's, who asked why in the bloody hell [her words] I was still living in allergyville when I should be living at the ocean where the pollen levels are drastically reduced, etc...I won't treat you to that entire rant... she can go on.

And then there's my son. He moved home several years ago to help me out. It was a kind and considerate thing for him to do.  And I appreciated it more than I can express__but__he needs a life. And he's never going to have one as long as all he does is work, go to school, commute and in what minimal spare time he has, take care of an aging, grumpy mother.

I need to move.

Now I just need to figure out how to go about making that happen in as beneficial a way for everyone as possible. I've got a few thoughts. It's going to take more but I'm working on it.

The other day my son and I were watching the movie 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford '  with Brad Pitt [which is about an hour too long if anyone is interested]. While we were watching this very long drawn out version of events leading up to his death I figured I'd throw in a little personal history and mentioned that my great-grandmother had known Jesse James mother. He looked almost intrigued. I went in search of pictures. 

This is not an easy task around here. Things are in boxes and are not terribly organized. We are not a big photo taking family to begin with, either, so throw all of that together and, well this is what I came up with. And it wouldn't even had amounted to this if the movie hadn't been so interminable__

My great-grandmother Rosa is the first one standing on the back left. All the ladies in the photo are relatives__mostly sisters-in-law. 

My great aunt Vi is standing next to her. She is the one who, when in her nineties had gone blind but continued to drive a car with the help of her sister, Mable [who never learned to drive but would tell her where to go] She is seated in front of the table. One of the scariest experiences of my young life was going to the store with those two in Hastings, Nebraska.

While I was rummaging around I found some other pictures. None of the James family...but some of mine so I thought I'd post them. I don't usually. Matt doesn't approve of putting personal pics on the net but I figure these are old enough that it won't matter.

Rosa's son, my grandfather, Jarvis and my favorite person in the world when I was a kid. These were taken in 1917 when he was 17 years old and in the USMC.

Me hanging with the boys at Lake Arrowhead in the 60's.

My brother and me with our grandparents in the 70's

Me getting caught in a rainstorm during a hike a few years back.

My Aunt Betty

There are two cats in residence here: Boo, who came to stay after Matt's grandmother passed [she was her cat]

 and Sari.

Boo is special. Oh, I know, all cats are special but Boo is special in the way you describe someone who has special needs...Matt says he's going to get her a helmet. She is, in a phrase, not too bright. And as far as motivation goes? Zip. She has a place all staked out on top of the dog's crate and that is where she stays unless she journeys down to the basement where her cat-box is__oh, and to go on safari by walking the duct-work and make it sound like a thunderstorm is brewing in the basement rafters. This is usually at 3 am.  Anyway, while she camps on the dog crate she needs a scratching post [even those challenged in the brain pan need one] so she was using the wall. I tried many different things on the wall but the only thing she would accept instead was a piece of cardboard. Ok. Simple enough. It's not pretty but this house is not house beautiful with all the constant work going on so no big deal. A couple of days ago I replaced, or rather covered the current shredded cardboard with an empty cereal box. Corn Pops. Classy. I made a big deal about how she was getting Pop Art for her wall. I got a vacant stare from her.
Sari, the tortoiseshell terror, on the other hand was not happy about it. She feels that all things in this house are hers__well, except Boo who she would gladly dispatch if she thought she could get away with it. She went on a minor Genghis rampage to show her displeasure and tore up the office in revolt.
Meanwhile, Boo discovered her pop art has a slightly more slickery surface to it than the old cardboard and her claws just slide right off.  This has caused some consternation. She scratches__pauses__meows__scratches__well, you get the picture.

Sari finds this fascinating.  As does the beagle. They watch it as theatre. Cat Kabuki.

We are awaiting the arrival of my yoga mat from Amazon for a cardboard transplant.