You may have noted the dearth of blogs. I was in and out of venues, hotels, restaurants and traveling. Therefore, I was a tad leery to enter anything in unsecured locations. (I’m sure there are vampiric forces out there ready to abscond my clever observations?)

Returning home last night I realized no one had run the dishwasher for days. I feared the dishes would be zamzawed. (My new term for use when I overcook food now applies to the crusty dishes I had to run on high heat through the machine.)

You know where today is going! I’ll be on laundry duty as well as kitchen, zamzawing along. It’s just a fun word, isn’t it? I have no idea of the origin of the word and I do believe it only applies to overcooked and heated food. But I am sure I can zamza clothing, too. We are taking liberties in this thoroughly official publication.

Happy delayed Monday now on Tuesday. Welcome back!

Okay – some young pup is touting travel tips and I’m scoffing. As one who travels lightly, I think I also travel quite cleverly.

She said to pack oatmeal (of all things!) because every hotel has hot water and a cup. We already do that. But we don’t put the oatmeal in little plastic bags, an unnecessary step. We pack the instant which is already doled out. I have learned that arriving hungry is not good for my travel buddy. The “influencer” didn’t mention my all-time favorite hack, which has come in quite usefully many times. Duct tape.

I wrap duct tape around a tube or can of spray or whatever – not taking the entire roll – because you never know? It has held a raincoat together for me, covered a metal emu traveling from Australia to Kansas with its head poking out of my luggage, and enforced a rip in my bag.

I don’t know. These young ‘uns could still use some edjacatin’.

My Wednesdays are reserved for our granddaughter. They always include a good chinwag, beginning with her sitting, hands folded in her lap, looking at me intently asking, “So, how was your day?”

When she began to master the stairs, me crawling in tow for protection, I began the “chats.” I just had to sit a bit! I always asked how her day was with my hands in my lap. She got the gist of it as I coaxed her to answer that she played, she had breakfast (always oatmeal) and took a nap. Now she rattles off playmates, games, airplanes she’s seen. It’s very endearing. And always, it includes “oatmeal,” whether she’s had it or not!

Today we’re off-duty here as her mother is mastering the art of potty training. I will miss our little ‘wags. My daughter has assured me though, that things are going smoothly, and when they need a little outing, we’re on the route! Until then, I’ll just have to converse with my spouse. Not as endearing, but useful. ❤️

Last night I exited the women’s restroom at the mall only to find myself in the men’s room. I just went the opposite way of the intended path and wondered why a man was pulling down his zipper? Alas, one of the sad facts of living with Directional Dyslexia. I swear it is a condition, one I have had since birth.

In the past I have sworn up and down that I know where I am going, only to find I have walked in the totally opposite direction in NYC, driven on a one-way the wrong way in DC, and ended up backtracking in England on roads littered with roundabouts. Thankfully, someone was always with me to help me find my way back. My little sister, college friends and a polite police officer on Capitol Hill, and my 13-year old daughter. Just a few renowned examples.

It’s happened enough that I don’t even get embarrassed anymore. Often I just go in the opposite direction of what I think and am rewarded with finding my car where I parked it. Perhaps that’s why I landed in Colorado? With the mountains to the west I am usually just fine. And cities that people think are confusing with their wonky streets? I have no problem there.

GPS takes over where instinct is lacking. Yes, I have taken the road less traveled, but not always intentionally. Great poem, Mr. Frost.

The Road Not Taken 

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Ever since those daily deluges ceased my little morning dose of hummingbird has returned. He’s flitting about playfully now. Deer have been literally leaping through fields in the neighborhood or lazing in friends’s yards. The hawk carries on with his evening hunt. And of course, those playful and obnoxious pests we relocate have continued to scamper in and out of traffic and yards.

One of my kind neighbors sent this to me. Even the national parks are aware of the problem!

Enjoying Mother Nature and all her antics.

Yesterday I was on the eighth wheelbarrow load of pine needle relocation (they create a mess right by the house!) when my neighbor comes driving over with his newly acquired Kubota tractor. He offered its use to me even though he had yet to run it on its maiden voyage and he also knows my track record with mowing equipment. That’s a trusting neighbor!

If he hadn’t come around I was going to quit for the day, but I found that a cute little piece of heavy equipment can spur a person on! Good thing, too, as I have a mountain of mulch to also relocate. Three loads of that thankless work and I called it “quits” for the day.

Need some exercise and arm strengthening work? Call me.

A liberal arts education provided me with one of my favorite classes – philosophy – and one of my least favorite – psychology. Neither relied on the teacher in my enthusiasm as my philosophy professor was as dry as a desert.

As I age I do think I perhaps should have spent a tad more time in psychology trying to understand the learning process and what our little heads are doing. This only popped into my mind as I awoke from a dream occupied with paint on a child’s clothes, piles of yard work detritus, a stranger helping me somewhere in a foreign house, and the song, “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again.”

My great philosophical take-away from that is, “Sometimes things make sense, and sometimes they do not.”

You may quote me.

The world is a swirl. Ideas, thoughts, dreams, words all spinning around. Are there coincidences?

After publishing yesterday, within five minutes a hummingbird alighted on my Indian Paintbrush. He returned in the afternoon. During my granddaughter’s nap I read my novel which mentioned the Ibsen Museum in Oslo, as the setting of the book is in Norway. Today’s puzzle clue: home to the Ibsen Museum. Those puzzle clues often mirror what I’m reading, doing, or the answers to the Jeopardy clues that night. The world conscience in play.

It’s a delightful diversion to make connections and to see how everything is united. I shall be seeking more today as I dine with my spouse at one of our favorite restaurants, make a major decision on a new sofa, accompany on the keyboard for a funeral, and hopefully just get my plants watered.

Good news! We just made a sofa decision. Things are progressing quite nicely.

This summer the hummingbirds have not made my Indian Paintbrush a stop on their migration. Perhaps they don’t like rain?

Yesterday, however, the largest and most beautiful butterfly I have ever seen alighted on my now-blooming geraniums. It looked like a swallowtail, but I don’t know if they even reside here. It was gorgeous. It was my morning entertainment and may have to satisfy me for the rest of summer.

That – and the hawk who sits on the neighbor’s roof each evening hunting for dinner.

Your Nat Geo update for the summer.

It really works! I diluted about eight drops of spearmint oil and a drop of Dawn dish soap into half of my spray bottle of water. Voila! No wasps. Last night, no mosquitos!

This was a little Pinterest hint I stumbled upon as I was looking for a natural way to get rid of the few wasps hovering under my deck floor. I have a granddaughter to consider, after all. (Never mind I would have sprayed Raid all over when my children were little?)

After each rain in the past weeks I faithfully sprayed the edges and one spot where they seemed to linger. Within days I had no wasps, so I kept it up. Last night we sat out on the deck for the first time longer than five minutes this summer. No mosquitos. I did keep my spray bottle at hand but didn’t have to use it.

A daily spritz is part of my new routine. There is quite a bit of spearmint oil left. Anyone want to give it a whirl?