The Ways We Remember

It’s 99% Delmar and 1% Tadaki – the palm-sized nest that Eileen found on her back porch delivered by the Dog God. The bird bed flew in on a Pacific wind this last Vernal Equinox. She held it in her palm examining the soft white hair woven through a few twigs. Soft and light, it is too big to be a Swallow nest; perhaps a Hummingbird; no telling since the lawn held no broken eggs. The white hair braided through and through with a few black ones for contrast. Ron will build her a pretty box to put it in beside the tagged collars. The dogs are gone – gifts to people who need them – Tadaki is mine.

Good Purchase

Amy is moving so she needed to clear out her garage to lighten the moving load. She ran across some used-only-once sleds that she didn’t want to take to flat Kansas. They are the Back-to-the-Future version of a metal saucer that was the latest innovation when I was a kid and hiked mine up the Sugar House hill. I’d drag it behind me as I clanked up the hill. A line of frozen gloves with kids attached stood in queue hanging on the steel handrail – a line all the way to the top. Amy got a bite on ksl.com, so she met the potential buyer at a nearby park. We’ll take them! The buyer said. Their family collects sleds; they have over a hundred; and they didn’t have these! They’ll reunion on the hill next winter.

Investment Palace

We’ve been redesigning our financial house with investments that will come through when we most need them. CDs are doing well and we’ve been fortunate to be able to roll them over at maturity when many people are forced to cash out. The ill economy has definitely affected our day-to-day spending. We have tried different things here and there – couponing, scaling back Christmas gifts, and we’ve been fortunate to be able to help our kids with a few things. Every few weeks we reevaluate our investment results to make sure the money walls are standing tall -- refinance, extra principal payments, and close in the payoff date. We have a piggy bank for spare change dug out of pants pockets and the car cubby hole. Someone challenged me to keep all the $5 bills that pass through my wallet and we have an antique bean pot stuffed full of Lincolns.

We’ve built up our capital – our financial capitol – so our foundation is sturdy. Five years ago we made a smart investment in a pink and purple Princess Bounce House we found in the classifieds. This weekend our daughter borrowed it so her soon-to-be grandkid could have the perfect birthday party in a pink Princess palace. Claire’s smile shows that the payout is working.

Leavings

A leaf followed us down the street today. Outside was windless and nearly quiet; just the jangle of tags clinking against Tadaki’s sturdy black collar and the whiz of electricity lingering on the tracks. Then tick, tick, tick… and stop... as we look back at nothing but a sound. Tick, tick… again, and it sneaks up like elves tiptoeing from tree to tree. Pears are blooming, and dried oak leaves from the winter chill are blowing away. Today one tumbled after us--as though we were its last chance at life again. We stopped to wait for it, but a sudden breath…whewww… sent it tripping skyward. I wished we could fly.

March Winds

Kevin, Kelly and Dave flew kites in the cool March winds. We assembled kites from kits wrapped together with sticks, plastic and a ball of string. Kevin always used an extra ball making his kite sashay so high that you could barely see the colors of his dragon tail -- torn from old dish towels – a rudder gliding the kite’s diamond belly above Sycamore trees.

Migration

Trash floats at 20 miles per day. Two years after the Japanese earthquake, people are finding pieces of oriental culture on beaches from Alaska to Oregon. Commercial fishermen watch plastic bottles float by when they are far out to sea. Chopsticks tangled in nets making a table of fresh sushi. Scratches of foreign language on plastic lanterns. Sheets of corrugated roofing bent in unnatural angles like cupped hands—palms up with pools of salt. Shiny parts of cars. Shards of glass washed smooth into ocean marbles. They float deeper in the sea; about seven miles per day. I may plan a vacation to Oregon in a few months to see them wash ashore.