Wherein I sound morbid, but am not.

I do think about my funeral sometimes. Not my death, mind you. I don't think about that much, and when I do, all I think about it is that it will probably be in some stupidly hilarious fashion that those who are mourning over me will be slow to speak of it, because then both the teller and the listener will have to choke back the giggles. And if I'm correct in this prediction, I give you all leave right now to go ahead and laugh. If I get pulled halfway through my paper shredder, or manage to hang myself upside down while trying put up a new shower curtain, it's ok. Laugh. You have both my permission and my blessing.

But anyway. I don't think it's ever to early to think about your own funeral. I've already buried two of my dearest friends, so I know. And because nobody, not them, not their families, expected to have to throw a them a funeral, the ceremony held as little of their personality as the body being buried.

I don't think that thinking about it is morbid either, because it involves thinking about my life more than anything else. What my life is about, what it means, and how I'd like it to be remembered.

And what I think about is a place I've loved to hike to ever since I was a teenager. A short, leisurely ramble out from the old Sweetwater bridge in Jamul is a place I've written about before. Someone started to build a rock footbridge over the river, and I know I'm not the only one who tends and rebuilds it after rains. I've never seen my fellow workers, but we see each other's work. And it makes me think about life, about how what we do could be part of something bigger, putting our rock in the bridge that brings worlds together, never knowing who it will inspire or affect, and that no bridge is so perfect or permanent that it doesn't need to be tended to survive.

And so when I rule out having my ashes put in fireworks and lit off as being too expensive, or having my ashes mixed with glitter and scattered from a hot air balloon as un-eco-friendly, I think I'd like my ashes scattered there.

Just carry my ashes out there, in that round brightly colored tin in my kitchen (you'll know it when you see it), down the path where the wild grass grows, green for just a few weeks in the spring, then turns gold and waves lightly in the hot dry air. Odds are it will be a sunny day. It's pretty hard to be sad while walking, especially in the sun. So don't fight it. Don't feel like you have to be completely sad. Take some deep breaths. Then when you get to the bridge, put a rock in it yourself. Let your eyes adjust to the shade and look for crawdads. Stand on the bridge and pour my ashes out into the creek.



Leave me there with the crawdads and hummingbirds and herons, and go out for breakfast and talk smack about me. I'm not a saint, and I don't expect to be spoken about as one when I'm dead. Laugh, cry, neither, both, both at once, whatever you want. No rules, no guilt.
Because that's how I try to live.

Ok. I MIGHT have lied.

That might not be our yard, per se.
It might be the San Diego Wild Animal Park, if you wanna get all technical about it.

If there was any justice in this world, what I wrote wouldn't be a lie, and my yard would look like that. Except that I would be riding the rhinos. And also, except that I would never own that many souvenir shot glasses. They would be a bitch to dust.

PumperNickel and I had a GREAT day yesterday. After a leisurely breakfast of coffee and breakfast burritos (Luca and I shared an egg and potato, Knickerbockers had egg and ham), Nick and I headed up the back country way to the SDWAP.

I would have a lot more pictures of the WAP, but my camera has developed a most disagreeable habit of only saving the pictures it feels like saving. Usually the ones I'm not as anxious to have. But it might be just as well. The picture recreated below might have used as evidence to ban me from the park.




Nick and I devised a game while we were there. 5 points for touching an animal, 20 for getting it out of the park and back to the car. Percentages of these point amounts were awarded for good efforts. Nick won, 8 to 5.

Another set of pictures my camera decided to send to a gaping black hole were all the pictures taken at the tiger pen. I shall attempt to recreate the scene, but from a better angle than my pictures would have.. I'm leaning over the railing toward the tiger, who is stalking something. My Nick is paying 25 cents a minute into a telescope to stare at a very fat man on another observation deck. I think we lost these pictures because I had to turn my camera off in a hurry, after Nick poked me and said, "Aaaa, he saw me and he's headed this way! We'd better go, quick!"



My favorite part, hands down, was the catfish. I was throwing bits of my $8.00 pretzel to the ducks, and suddenly it looked as though the water was boiling, as the catfish surfaced for their share.



Add to the file of reasons we probably SHOULD have been thrown out, I told kids that if they could touch an animal, they could keep it, and Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be able to say no. Actually, add that to the file on why I probably SHOULD have been bludgeoned with a stroller.

Gawd, I love chaos.

I can't decide which is more amazing. That they didn't make us leave, or that they didn't keep us there as an exhibit.



After we left the WAP, slightly sun-crisped, we stopped at a small museum, the San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park. A long name for a small place. It's pretty much just a museum because it's our only battlefield. We were the only car in the parking lot. Inside was a very bored looking policewoman.

"I have a video, if you guys wanna watch it. Just lemme know, ok?"

"Uh, sure. We'd like to watch it."

We sat down in the little theater as she started the film, which was basically the long version of this postcard.



"Psst. Nick. Wanna make out?"

"Dude. She has a GUN."

"Good point. So, no then?"

We stayed as long as we could find ways to look interested. The policewoman looked so starved for company, I keep expecting her to stroke my hair like a doll and ask us to stay. I stalled over the guestbook awhile, making note that the last guest had been a week ago.


We wandered up the trail a ways, and spend a lovely half hour trying to catch lizards on an old red wooden bridge over a dry creek bed. Because that's what warm Sunday afternoons are for and where else would we want to be, anyway? We didn't catch one, but *shrug* we laughed a lot.

After awhile we headed back through the mountains, and while passing through Ramona we decided to stop at a winery. After accidentally crashing a private party at one winery, we ended up at Schwaesdall Winery. There were three other people there, and the owner holding court, so to speak. The cat shown on the homepage there also came around to be sociable. After a sip of so many good wines that it was hard to choose, we did manage to choose two to buy. I was a total girl and went for the white zinfandel. Nick picked a great Cab.

When we got home, I picked the last of the cheesybites off of Sat. night's pizza, and we snuggled in to watch some very stupid tv.
It was a perfect day.

Within a couple of blocks.

I have this theory that there is far more fascinating things within a few blocks of one's house than one realizes, until you walk around it on foot.

Driving doesn't count.

You're never going to find flowers growing through cracks in the sidewalk while you're driving.

You're not going to talk to the fat old dog who seems so anxious to prove that he's still tough and intimidating that you reassure him that you'd never come in his yard, mostly just to soothe his feelings.

You're not as likely to wander down a sidestreet, following a yard sale sign on a whim, and finding a pair of gold(ish) elf slippers, which fit perfectly, for a mere $0.50.

Or to notice that plastic duck statues in the neighbor's yard are the size of labradors.

Or make the aquintaince of a nonsensical little blue that sprawls over the side of a hill with no rhyme or reason, just like houses in your dreams.

Or that half of the oranges on a neighbor's tree are plastic. What exactly are they trying to do? Show off?

Or that Luca is always happy when he recognizes home, but seems entirely turned around and confused that you're approaching the house from a different direction that whence you left. "How did the house get over HERE?"


What's within a couple blocks of your house?