Illuminating Blogger Award

I’m absolutely chuffed about this award—that’s a good thing, in case you’re wondering. It couldn’t have come at a better time. How uplifting and encouraging to think my blog is illuminating.

I saw the notification in the comment section on my website a couple of days ago when I managed to crawl into my writing studio for a few minutes after spending the previous four days alternating between my bed and Jake’s leather chair with the flu. The real deal. The kind that zaps your nerve endings, that makes you wish you didn’t have so many body parts to hurt, that makes you go from burrowed beneath every blanket in the house to standing naked in front of the fan, that makes reading impossible, that gives you a headache that morphine won’t stop (actually, that might work). Worst of all, the kind that gave Jake one false hope after another that I would throw the ball for him on one of my many visits to the throne. I would’ve if it didn’t take so much energy.

I’m coming out of it. I managed to read Sunday’s newspaper today, the Advil’s starting to work, and I can now drag myself around instead of having to crawl. But best of all, I’m able to throw the ball for Jake on less frequent visits to the old throne.

I want to give a big heartfelt thank you to C.J. at foodstories.com for the Illuminating Blogger nomination. It was the muti I needed. One more thing, I need to share with you one random thing about myself. I sleep naked. Actually, I think I’ve revealed that before, but hey, maybe you don’t know.

In turn I would like to nominate the following four fabulous inspiring bloggers, in no particular order:

Britton Minor Graffensteiner–The Jaded Lens

Irma Oosthuizen–Lily&Rose Design Studio

Jayne Martin–injaynesworld

Julie Farrar–traveling-through

 

 

Looking For The Moon

I hurried up Canyon Acres, Fergie and Jake straining on their leashes, camera bouncing against my hip.  I had to catch the full moon just as it crested the rocks at the end of the road.  Earlier that morning there’d been a total lunar eclipse in Gemini: sign of thinking and communicating (two of my favorite things to do).   It would be a spectacular shot.I got to the end of the road.  Where was the moon?   Just the night before it had perched there not quite full, bathing the entire hill in its soft milky light.  And then further up, in the middle of that road that detours around this one hill, I’d caught the sun in a blaze of glory above Catalina Island.  Two shots for the price of one.  Except I didn’t have my camera at the time.  Now I did and there was no moon.  Well, I could at least try to catch the sunset.I ran up that first leg, not something I’m fond of doing, think steep slalom ski slope, only to arrive at the aforementioned viewpoint to see the sun’s fairly unspectacular retreat, as evidenced by the above shot.  Okay.  So, the moon had to be somewhere, right?  Or had I imagined its location the day before?  Clenching my jaw, my Taurean–read persistence–jaw, I kept going around the hill headed for the next.  Maybe the moon would appear at the Top of The World (if you’ve read my musings before, you’ll know that’s what that area is actually called), another two miles up.

As we rounded the hill, Jake and Fergie, grinding against each other in play ahead of me, I stared at the top.  Where the hell was the moon?  And then I noticed the two figures pinned to the second hill above in the dying light; a woman’s laugh rang out in the clear air and I saw them bump together.   We kept going up the next hill, and then the next, up to the caves.  Still no moon.  I had to turn back.  Coyotes at this time of the evening, with two maniac terriers afraid of nothing.  I started back down the hill, running.  And then just as I reached the last leg, I heard that same woman’s voice shout out: “I love you!”  I stopped and feeling a soppy grin spread across my face, took it personally.  I’d missed the moon, but I’d been bathed in the light of love instead.