I'm home!

Making my rounds in the blogosphere today, so you probably already knew. :) Thinking about Karen and her Kitty (sorry for your loss!), I'd like to say we own a cat, but actually our cat owns us. :) She yelled at my husband every day while we were in Oregon (sometimes at 3 in the morning, she woke him to complain) because she wanted to know if we were missing or dead. And if we were alive, then why wasn't he busy looking for the missing children??!!

I missed you, Cali,
the valley snug between pines,
mountains, palms and sea.

Of course you know it was raining here...

Sheesh. Every time I visit...anywhere...it rains! Doesn't matter if it hasn't rained in the mid valley region in July since...well...since the last time I was here in July I suppose. Anyway, we went camping this past weekend in one of the warmer, non-rainy parts of Oregon, and it rained. Still, we managed to enjoy ourselves tremendously.

Although the weekend was a little damp, it ended on a dry note. Today we visited Ona Beach with Grandma. Somehow my rainmaker curse doesn't extend to this magical place in Oregon. The weather always seems to be perfect every time we visit this particular beach. The best part, of course, was being able to spend some time with Grandma before we head back home.

She's the girl friend...

...of the whirling dervish. Before I knew what one looked like, long ago in my child mind I imagined a whirling dervish was an animal akin to the tazmanian devil from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Just goes to show you that the old cartoons are only semi-educational. Although, I think I was watching a cartoon the first time I actually heard that phrase - Porky Pig once sang the words, "she's the girlfriend of the whirling dervish..." Only he probably said, "d-d-d-d-d-dervish."

Historically, the act of whirling is a spiritual ceremony practiced by the Dervish; it is in the whirling that the Dervish throw off what encumbers them. We have a similar concept in Christianity - there is a verse that says, "let us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin which so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us..." (C'mon - you knew there would be a reference to running right?!)

So even though I am neither a Dervish nor a Sufi, metaphorically I'll be doing a little whirling myself this summer. It's already been a whirlwind of a trip to Oregon (yeah - you knew I was here. Why else would I be blogging? On dial-up, no less!). And I've only begun the soul searching.

Unbelievable...

I've been on summer break for almost two weeks now, and I haven't really done anything on my "to do" list yet. And we are going to Oregon in a few days! So that means I'll have even less time to do stuff around here.

It might help if I actually made a physical list so that I could remind myself what it is I wanted to accomplish this summer...