Shopping and summer...showers?

Went out shopping for a bit to see if I could get pants that fit without going to McMinnville. Not that I don't love the store there - I definitely do - just that it's a bit much as drives go. Found a couple of good pairs of petite, machine-washable no less, so I'm happy.

Treated myself to a stop in the mall, got salmon jerky (the trout jerky, which was slightly better, seems to be gone - pity) and some candies. Barnes and Noble yielded up a book on small tree gardens that I'd wanted when I saw it at Powell's, but hadn't wanted to pay full price for; at B&N it was on sale for $5, which seemed like a good enough deal to me that I grabbed it. Also confirmed that the sequel to the book with the "hey waitaminit!" ending not only isn't out, it doesn't have a planned release date yet. (That book came out in May of 2001...come on, guys, don't vanish on me....)

Neither is there a new book listed or planned for Kristen Britain. She's only published one I'm aware of - Green Rider - and it's excellent but I do know the rule about some authors and one-offs. I really hope she writes more; she's very good.

And on my way out of B&N, the summer downpour (sorry, shower doesn't really apply) arrived. Or rather, it arrived sometime while I was in the bookstore. I joked with the lady at the checkout stand that I ought to browse a bit longer until it passed, and begged for a plastic bag (which I got). I huddled over it on the way to the car, as soaked books and magazines have never really appealed to me.

No, that was not overreaction, by the way. I had to cross two lanes that went in front of the store, and one aisle to my car. When I got there, my hair was wet on the surface, starting to be wet deeper, and my purse was running with water. I got in the car, and sitting still needed the windshield wipers on the lowest non-intermittent setting to keep constant visibility.

Which is why I wasn't really very annoyed that the guy who was ahead of me in getting out of there parked in the lane by the sidewalk for his family to get in, or that they were slow and awkward about it because they were hesitant to move forward into the rain. By the time he'd finished that and we'd driven around to exit the parking lot, the rain had slacked off to the point where the windshield wipers could keep up with it while I was moving.

The freeway was a beautiful experience: it had slacked off enough to drive more or less at-speed, but there was a layer of water on the road, ready for tires to kick it up. It rose in misty layers around each car, to full tire-height or a bit above, and dropped quickly back to pavement in their wake, with the result that each car looked like it was scudding along in its own cloud of mist, dragging it with it along the road. Very pretty.

By the time I got home, it was only misting lightly.

*pleased* Now, that was nice!

Today, I was given permission to work as a full member (almost) of a volunteer team I'm on - which is the vote of confidence I was hoping for, but not sure if I'd earned or not. That was really cool. (The almost is because there's still one thing I'm supposed to let others review before I send it in - and I knew that would be the case, as I've hardly done any of that so far to be reviewed.)

That was really cool. But to add to it, just now, I was asked to join a really wonderful administrative team on a site I love.

I turned it down. I don't have the time, and the last thing I want to do is give them the scattered, unpredictable, left-over bits of my time - or worse, overload myself and dump the stress on them. I wish I had the time, but I don't.

But being asked? Made me feel wonderful. And so did realizing that I'm actually recognizing when I do and don't have time for things. It wasn't that long ago - a couple years at most - that I'd have jumped at the chance and then doubtless failed it.

I did volunteer to help with one-off projects as they fit into my schedule, if that would work for them. I don't know if it will, but if it doesn't, that's cool too. And I'm still all bouncy that they think enough of me to ask.

That's so very cool.

And I stillll need to do the laundry, so now I and my happy overstuffed ego are going to go start sorting. :)

Mindfulness.

Looking out the window. Somewhere in the distance I hear what I think are the faint, happy calls of children. Far more closely, the sharp cheeping of a bird, repeated and then falling into silence.

The pasture behind the house is mostly in shadow from the trees, but a spray of orange-gold sunlight marks the southeast corner of it still, and the trees around the house that goes with that property are vivid, for all that they're darkened by the tones of the sunset: red remains almost constant, too dark for the light to change, and yet it's faintly gilded; the greens darken faintly, but are likewise gilded.

Birds still dip and flirt, small black shapes, over the pasture; here it is marked by reddish-brown plants rising up, there with the yellow of what I'd swear was tansy-weed, still another spot with the white flowers (clustered, a patch perahps ten feet across) of a plant I have known and avoided since childhood, and still forgotten the name of.

A crow calls.

Most ofthe pasture is wheat-colored, warm against the cool of blue and blue-grey sky above. Most of the sky is clouds, the bottoms darker, the upper portions lighter, as the sunset touches valleys. Lower clouds, here and there, are a soft shell-pink, glowing faintly; and to the south, a break of pale cyan sky, light and delicate against the vividness of the ground in sunset.

In the time it's taken me to type this, the last of the sun-gilding has vanished from the pasture. So quickly, I think a cloud must have come across its face, making the beauty of that moment all the more admired. A bird with a red-orange belly just flew, quickly, across from right to left, past my window but not too close - over the trees opposite. The tangle of berry vines below is a mix of greens, medium and dark, and beautiful in the shadow of the house.

And, yes, the sun returns to the pasture - further out than it had been, the sunset advancing, the night approaching, but obviously it was only a cloud. It's odd: those red trees are mostly in sunlight, partly in shadow, now, and where the shadow already touches them they are almost black, made the more indisinguishable from it by the colors where the sun touches.

So very pretty.