a silent historian

it was raining when i woke up yesterday morning and raining when i fell asleep last night. but during the day there would be bursts of bright sunshine, as if the day had forgotten it had rained at all and then it would cloud over all dark again and drizzle.  i had the little baby i am temporarily nannying for and needed to run some errands.  i have to say, i had no idea just how much work mothering is --even temporarily--.  (of course, mama went up in my estimation...nine of us.   NINE!!!) from the moment i got up, i was thinking about just how i was going to manage with this baby in town.  take the car seat in the store?  leave it out.  go to the bank?  drivethru. what about in the other bank?  i have to deposit the check...   sign it before leaving.  alright.  so i go to town and my knuckles are white on the wheel.  it was the first time i'd driven a baby and  i was sure some meteor or goblin or drunk would slam into the car or run out in front of us or that there would be a car chase, firing guns and sirens.  none of it.  i was shocked. when i took the baby into the bank, i then saw another formidable obstacle: the deposit slip.  ahhhhhhrg!  i forgot that.  so i hoist her from one hip to the other trying to balance pen, baby, deposit slip, keys and wallet.  the guy that works there came up and said ' you want me to hold her while you do that?'  i almost burst out laughing.  yes.  thank you goatee'd man with a purple shirt.  you certainly can.  now the question is, how many people in stores will i need to hire to do that from now on?
  i'm determined one of these days to have a moon watching party.  i wanted to do it so badly last full moon but i imagined it all up in my head and so now, it just needs to happen.  we'll go to an open field, take blankets, thermoses of tea (a super yummy indian tea that chris makes a splendid brew of) and ourselves.  nothing but us and goodness and the galaxies.  then we'll talk.  talk for a long long time about so many things it will be impossible to trace how one thing led to another and how we could get from one topic all the way over to this other one.  but it won't matter.  everybody dotted on their blankets will be cozy and have red noses and who knows what the sky will look like.  that will be for us to find out!
   chris and i stayed after the folks left from church last night.  the church parking lot is grassy and the ground was wet and soft.  the trees around our church are wild at night, especially,  and even more so in the winter, because of their bare arms.  they seem to reach out and weave their gnarled fingers into inky blackness. there was just enough light to make out the lines of the branches and some of the ground.  we stood talking.  he reminds me of mr. knightly.  so honest, and yet, gentle. reproving, but very kind.  and while we stood there, verbally patching up holes in our garments of good and better thinking, we saw an owl.  he flew up in a branch of the cedar tree and looked at us and the ground and the dark woods.  it drizzled, and chris said some words that have made me think and that i wrote down in my book.  the owl flew off, dipping low to the ground and swooping until he faded into black.  the air smelled spicy and warm and sweet.  i love the smell of rain.   but today was brilliant. all sunshine and so chilly. 

p.s. one of my all time favorite actor/actress combinations.  they feel like home when they act.

and she is lovely.