Sunflare and Shadow (134/365)

 
"Black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost."

Evening, Hilda Doolittle (American, poet, 1886-1961)

TIME: 7:02 PM
PLACE:  Front yard
SUBJECT: Red Sunset Maple Leaves

Just behind these leaves is my neighbor Marilyn's house.  As I was taking this photo tonight, another neighbor walked across the street and delivered some bad news.  Marilyn passed away Wednesday while at the doctor's office.  She had gone to the doctor to have an ultrasound on her abdomen, and while having the procedure, she had an abdominal aortic aneurysm and she died.  Her daughter was with her at the time.

I was and still am in a state of shock.  I considered Marilyn a good friend as well as a good neighbor.  She and I would talk often.  She was the "go-to" person for any neighborhood gossip.  I did her taxes.  She babysat my children.  She was always one of the first persons I would invite to see any improvements we made to the house, whether it was new paint, floors or garden plants.  When I shared SD's Neighbor paper with her, she was both amused and touched that she was the subject.  I will miss her.

Purple Haze (108/365)

 
"Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don't seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple haze all around
Don't know if I'm comin' up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me

Help me help me
Oh no no... no

Yeah
Purple haze all in my eyes
Don't know if it's day or night
You've got me blowin, blowin my mind
Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

No, help me aw yeah! oh no no oh help me..."

Jimi Hendrix, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Purple Haze", Are You Experienced, LP, 1967

TIME: 2:37 PM
PLACE: The front yard
SUBJECT: Anniversary planter

I think HandsomeHusband gets a Clint Eastwood tick in his eye whenever he looks at this planter.  In 2004, he asked my mother what would be a good gift for our anniversary.  She told him that pottery is the traditional gift for the 9th anniversary.  So he went out and purchased this planter for me.  When he gave it to me, I got upset and started crying, not because he bought me a planter, but because I had thought we agreed not to spend any money on each other.  I hadn't gotten him anything.  I felt bad about that, plus I was nursing StellaDella and the postpartum hormones were raging.  And to top it all off, my mom had just gotten the news that her cancer was not responding to treatment and had traveled to her spinal column.  My emotions were not in a good spot at all.  Naturally, HH took my upset reaction to the gift quite personally and thought I was being ungrateful.  Who could blame him?  But, I do love the planter (it's my favorite color!) and whenever I look at it, I think about how much he must love me to place that type of thought into purchasing it for me.

Rainy Days and Mondays (103/365)

 
"For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

A.C. (Algernon Charles) Swinburne (1837-1909), British poet, critic. Atalanta in Calydon, chorus, st. 4 (1865)

TIME: 7:32 PM
PLACE:  Front yard
SUBJECT: Purple Sand Cherry blossom

Today was the last day of spring break and my sanity today.  It was rainy and chilly yet again.  To top it all off, it's Monday.  I finished up taxes for my family and my neighbor from down the street; cleaned the master bedroom; did a couple of loads of laundry and several other sundry chores.  What a blah day.  The good news is, I was able to use my new-to-me tripod to take today's photo.  HandsomeHusband found the tripod at the Goodwill store last Thursday and bought it for me!  Isn't that sweet of him to think of me while he was out and about?  That's what I call a romantic gesture.  Thanks again babe...I love it!

Peony Promise (098/365)

 
"...peonies, their favorite flower, are saluted by the Chinese, according to their form or color, by these delicious names, each an entire poem and an entire novel:  The Young Girl Who Offers Her Breasts, or: The Water That Sleeps Beneath the Moon, or: The Sunlight in the Forest, or: The First Desire of the Reclining Virgin, or: My Gown Is No Longer All White Because in Tearing It the Son of Heaven Left a Little Rosy Stain; or, even better, this one: I Possessed My Lover in the Garden."

Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden, "The Garden," Chapter 5

TIME: 1:25 PM
PLACE:  Front yard flowerbed
SUBJECT: Peony shoots

These peonies were given to me by my mother from plants she grew in her backyard.  Mom's peony plants were given to her from her mother's plants.  Originally, the above plants were located by the back porch of our first home.  My mom planted the tuberous roots for me soon after DramaQueen was born in late October of 1997.  When we moved, eight years ago, I dug up the peonies and replanted them here.  I am so very glad I did.  I cannot wait for them to bloom so I can cut bouquets and fill the house with their fragrance.  That smell immediately transports me back to my childhood, when Mom would do the exact same thing each spring.