These photos speak for themselves. This was today.
Category: Home
Life in the Mountains
Life is complicated, for another few days, it looks, and then I hope to be covering a possible series of storms which may arrive next week. I may be able to get the long-over due Mud Creek photos up later this evening, but I can’t make any promises right now.
Life on the Cusp …
What a ride the last few weeks have been, and thank you all for understanding! We have reported on the storms and shared information, provided a forum, and supported our winter life here on the coast.
Just before Christmas, major changes in family …
dynamics …
Relationships redefined, status sublime
and the family I know, is recreated.
Oldest generation is leaving behind,
the next group of elders … for the “adults”
and their children.
My mother is passing, my son is re-creating, my daughter is becoming an adult, my brother is being his creative, story-telling, bullshit self, and I am doing what I can to provide the anchor for this family drama/comedy which we are dancing.
This is my blood family. My Big Sur family is much more stable and mature. Thank you for all that you are and that you do.
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bigsurkate’s Christmas Tree
Merry Christmas one and all, and thank you for sharing this year with us.
Christmas Trees #2
Hey, keep ’em coming. Here are a couple I got tonight:
You will note by the photos behind the Christmas Tree that Ray is one of my firefighter friends. And look at all those fire engines and air support on that tree! It wouldn’t dare catch fire! Thanks, Ray!
And here is one from another friend:
That is a beautiful tree, Nadine and a great shot of it! Thank you.
I have one from Australia I am still downloading, so will add that one when it comes through.
Keep them coming. I’d love to see a whole forest of Christmas Trees here by Christmas Day! You are all the best!
Christmas Trees
I know it is not Big Sur-related, but it is season related. Here is my daughter’s tree:
Here is a friend’s tree:
Gotta love those zebra Xmas balls! Only Rose could even find them! For those who don’t know Rose, she has a “thing” for Zebras. She collects them in all forms except the real form.
Thanks, Crystal and Rose, for answering my call.
Do you have a Christmas Tree? I do, but I’m still decorating, so I’ll post soon. Send me a photo of your Christmas Tree to post here. I’d like to keep this going because it is joyful and lifts my spirits. I hope it lifts yours, too!
Family Transitions
Families grow apart, come together, constantly reforming themselves from one entity to another.
When my mother got breast cancer, 5 -7 years ago, our dynamics changed once again. I helped her through the classes, the double mastectomy, the recovery. They got it all, and we were happy.
When my son went through a painful divorce, a year or two ago, we talked almost every day as he learned to handle the pain and redefine his being. He visited from Oregon more often.
Yesterday, Mom called to say she had metastatic breast cancer. It was now in her bones. My son has been working on wrapping up his life in Oregon and starting new down here in Big Sur. The two events are coming together during this year’s holiday season, and my life will never be the same.
As I help my mother through her transition from this life to the next, and my son from being two to being one, my own life is full. I need to get my practice into a position that I can take off at a moments notice, my own house in order in many ways, and be available to my family in transition. That is my current priority.
I am not abandoning bigsurkate’s blog. I am still here. I am still keeping an eye out on storms, road conditions, community events and other items of interest for and about Big Sur, it is just I won’t be here in cyberspace as often until this time of transition is a bit smoother – until at least one transition is complete, probably my son’s. I will check in when I can, but through the holidays, at least, posting every day, as I have for the past two years is not likely.
Blessings, and may this post remind you all that what these holidays are about is family and friends and sharing your time with them. Gifts mean nothing, unless it is the gift of yourself. Namasté.
bigsurkate is back
My time off is over, and I will be back to reporting as usual.
First, Avis Latone, yesterday’s post was magnificent – and those Jade photos are so very beautiful!! Thanks for sharing them with all of us. Because you are such a precious friend who is ALWAYS willing to help me out, I have a wee something for you from Kiwiland. What an adventure! I will share a bit after I catch up with things at home, work, and blog.
Second, in the 2 weeks I have been gone, I received 2.75 inches of rain, for a season total of 3.0 inches. Old-time Big Sur locals all agree that when we get this much rain this early, we will be having a dry winter, which is in line with the La Niña that NOAA is predicting.
There was a rave party (or techno, or whatever) up on Prewitt Ridge on the 16th, and I received a voice mail from the USFS about it. They were headed up to check on it, make sure it complied with requirements, and were taking law enforcement with them to assure compliance.
Lastly, it has been a gloriously sunny day on the mountain, particularly welcomed after a very wet drive down the coast (lots of pebbles on the road and one search and rescue yesterday) and a very muddy trip up the mountain.
So, that is my brief report tonight, back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow or the next day. I’ll also be changing my links from fire to weather watch shortly, as the rain these past two weeks, and the two days of rain coming later this week, have certainly ended fire season 2010.
The Alien 6 foot spider
BTW, I need to tell a story that has nothing to do with the Jade Festival, except that it happened to me this morning.
My friend and volunteer in the main booth, Rose, came up to my place to spend the night in paradise Saturday night. In the morning, we went out to the Jeep to go down to the festival. The driver’s side door and the driver’s side back door were covered with a huge, silk-string spider web. We are not talking an ordinary spider web here, we are talking about something that looked like an alien spider about 6 ft. tall landed and tried to capture my Jeep, sucking out the good parts, and leaving the rest to become an empty hulk.
Rose and I are a tad freaked. At first, we hypothesized that kids had snuck in during the night, and sprayed the spider web on my Jeep. Nah, the dogs would have freaked out, and how would they get in? Then, we decided it must be the alien spider from hell. I had to brush some away in order to get in my door. It was quite thick, quite strong, very sticky, and a lot like silk. Amazing stuff, actually.
So we get in and start to drive down to the festival. We both feel really creepy, look at each other, then look in the back of the Jeep. I had left the windows down, and we were both convinced the back was occupied by our 6 ft. spider. We notice similar stuff on some of the plants as we head down, and decided that wherever this massive spider-web was, it was blowing all over Plaskett. 16 years. I have never seen this phenomena. Okay, when I get down to the Jade Festival, hopefully John Smiley, the bugologist who was present Saturday will be there, and I can ask him. He isn’t. Squeeky doesn’t know, and Avis swears it is probably a Wolf Spider. (I looked it up, and Wolf Spiders do not weave webs, but carrying their young in an orb on their abdomens.)
Exhausted though I am, I guess I have to at least try to find out what it is. If I do, I will let you know. Now, back to the rest of the Jade Festival.
Here is a link to a HUGE spider web in TX. The one I saw was big, but not this big. The phenomena is a rarity, and they think it is caused by “stretch” spiders working together. Texas Webs
How NOT to deliver disturbing news
There is a trend developing in this electronic world, that I would hope people will really take a look at and re-evaluate. It is beyond inappropriate, in my view. This trend is to send out notice of an individual’s sudden and unexpected death through a mass email list.
I just got one from PelicanNetwork, and let the owner know that in my opinion this is in extremely poor taste. I have known about this death for most of the week, but if I hadn’t, this is not how I would want to find out. Think about it. Think of the people who hadn’t known. Is this the way they should find out? This is the kind of news one prefers to get from friends, personally, not through a huge email list, many of whom don’t even know this person.
Two years ago, I was traveling in Peru with a friend. We were out on the Amazon, completely isolated. When we finally returned to civilization, 10 days later, at the hotel in Lima, I checked my email. I had received another sudden, unexpected death notice via a different email list. I could not breathe – literally. My friend and I were both devastated. We spent $200 on international phone calls trying to find out what happened, how, and why. This was the type of news that we would have received from friends upon our return. Instead, we received it in isolation, far from our beloved Big Sur, where we could hold and be held.
Think. Please. Would you want to be notified via a huge impersonal Big Sur email list about the death of someone you had known since he was in Kindergarten?? Maybe I am old school, where manners and civility, particularly in times of tragedy, matter. Maybe being unconscious of the pain one’s actions can cause is the way of the world, but I don’t think so.