TEMPLE TRACKS #writephoto – Marilyn Armstrong

11/19/201811/19/2018 / Marilyn Armstrong / 9 Comments

MEMORIES IN STONE
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL MINI MYSTERY
#WRITE PHOTO

You could see where the temple had been. The ground was slightly raised forming what appeared to be a circle. If you looked carefully, you could see the tip of a pillar poking out of the ground. Not full evidence of what lay beneath the ground, but certainly some strong hints.

Every time I pass that place along that old road, I wondered what lay beneath the soil.

Then, one summer, a group descended on the area and began to very carefully dig. They found the pillars of a church, but when they dug further, they discovered the pillars of the church stood on the pillars of a Roman temple. Not merely pillars, but statues and a mosaic floor that was nearly perfect.

There was more.

The deeper they dug, the more they found. The Roman temple rested on pillars of something so ancient, no one was quite sure what it was and below that, what appeared to be tombs, possibly neolithic.

The ground was clearly regarded as sacred to every people who had lived here. Now, of course, it was an archaeological park with a small fee required to enter the area.

It was seeing history reveal itself in layers, and as each layer was lifted, it was taken to a museum. When finally, the reached bedrock, they brought back a couple of pillars and a covering so that this special, sacred space, could be remembered.

What memories were part of the ground, the air, the stones? Why this spot? Many guesses, but no answers. The ones who knew were long-buried.

THURSDAY PHOTO PROMPT – Sue Vincent – The Daily Echo

JEWELS FROM THE SOUTHWEST – Marilyn Armstrong

11/19/2018 / Marilyn Armstrong / 19 Comments

RDP Monday: JEWEL

I fell in love with Native American jewelry in a tiny store in Boston’s Italian North End. I didn’t even know it was Native American, but I loved it, that first pair of earrings. Many more were to follow. Necklaces and bracelets and rings and things featuring beautiful pieces of turquoise stone.

Eventually, I realized what I was buying and learned more about it. I’ve never loved any other jewelry the way I loved Navajo and Pueblo and Hopi work from our southwest and on my two visits to Arizona, I always got something special while I was there.

Turquoise necklace

I also discovered online sources until I collected quite a treasure-trove of it. Now I’m at the point of beginning to let go of it because I don’t work. We don’t go to fancy parties, either.

Meanwhile, my wrists have gotten allergic (this is a real thing, no kidding) to anything tight against my wrists. It’s called “wristwatch” allergy and it comes from wearing bracelets and watches for a lifetime. Apparently, your wrists get sensitive. Bizarre, right? Thus with few exceptions, I’ve rehomed my beautiful bracelets with the incredible stones in them because they were just sitting in the drawers of my big jewelry dresser. But I’m glad they will get worn.

Big sky in Navajo land

I also discovered fetishes, mostly carved from antler, but some carved in turquoise. It’s not exactly jewelry, but it’s not exactly not jewelry if you get my drift.

For me, it has always been much more about the stones than the silverwork. A beautiful piece of turquoise doesn’t need a lot of fancy silver around it. It speaks for itself.

So when you see my pictures, all the jewelry I’m wearing — these days, usually just rings and earrings — it’s all from the southwest and most of it is silver and turquoise. But there are also various carved shells and other stones too.

Modern pieces, older pieces, I love all of it. I may not get to wear it often, but I love just having it. And every once in a while, I get to wear it, too.

SNOW AND THE HOLIDAYS – Marilyn Armstrong

11/19/201811/19/2018 / Marilyn Armstrong / 11 Comments

Today and tomorrow are doctor visit days for Garry. His three-month surgical checkup for his ear and a stress test for his heart … so I’m writing ahead because I’m just not going to be around. Hope you don’t mind.

This is turning out to be a crazy busy month. I feel like Alice, running as fast as she can just to stay in the same place!

The holidays haven’t officially “hit” because of a calendar thing. It’s not because Thanksgiving is just a few days away. Nope, it’s that all of a sudden, it’s winter. We’ve got snow.

Snow falls and suddenly, everyone thinks Christmas, including those of us who aren’t Christian. Much of the snow that fell while we were away has melted. Not all of it, but more than half, anyway.

More is expected today and tomorrow. I suppose we might as well get on with holidays since, with the ground snowy, icy, and muddy, there isn’t much else to do.

The last time we got significant snow before or on Thanksgiving was 2014, a year during which we got 120 inches of snow out here in the country. That is, no matter how you look at it, a lot of snow. It’s the amount they normally get in northern Maine. It’s downright Siberian.

Christmas is so minimal in this house, there’s really isn’t much for us to do. I don’t put up wreaths any more. We have so few visitors and live far off the main road that no one sees them.

Also, the nursery where I used to buy them closed and somehow, buying them at the grocery store may be cheaper, but it doesn’t have that “feeling” it had, picking the perfect one at the nursery.

We don’t give gifts because we don’t have money and anything we can afford is no more than a kindly thought. We give small things. Holiday reminders, maybe. Remembrance of days gone by when we ran up our credit cards because we got into some kind of bizarre Christmas frenzy.

These days, the tree gets plugged in. Our blue Christmas lights live in the living room drapes all year round, so when the holiday arrives, I just plug them in.

It doesn’t get simpler than that. We had fun with Tom and Ellin and that’s always a treat.

The weather isn’t as bad as it is going to be in a few days. Hopefully, we’ll have time to get some of the many errands, doctor appointments, vet appointments, and other stuff done.

And I have my fingers crossed that we’ll find someone to plow the driveway!

Boston’s big holiday tree

This is an El Niño year which can be bad. But, you never know. Sometimes winter starts out bad but eases up. Meanwhile, I’m keeping a close eye on weather maps and trying not to worry.

TECHNO-ADDICT – BY ELLIN CURLEY

11/19/201811/13/2018 / Ellin Curley / 17 Comments

I didn’t realize how dependent we are on technology, or more precisely, our household machines. Then our Keurig coffee maker had a glitch and wouldn’t work.

How were we going to make coffee??

!!XX??

We’ve always had a French Press and a regular drip coffee maker in the house. So I dug them out from the back of a bottom shelf in the pantry cabinet.

The only problem was, we had no real coffee to go into the real coffee makers. We only had Keurig pods. I used to always keep fresh ground coffee on hand. When we actually used it. But that hasn’t been for two years — since we got our Keurig.

We’re obviously not coffee aficionados. We buy our coffee, even our real coffee, at the supermarket. Not a gourmet store or a coffee specialty shop. We don’t know the difference (or care) between coffee from different countries, or different blends from the same country. We don’t need notes of fruits or nuts or wood or chicory in our coffee.

We know we like light roast, not medium or dark. That’s our only requirement.

I used to like flavored coffees and I tried endless different ones. I landed on a few that I liked. But after a while, I stopped liking them. Now I like plain coffee, with my own home flavoring. I add vanilla extract, cinnamon and/or nutmeg, or some combination of these flavors to my regular coffee. I like it much better than the artificial tasting flavored coffees.

Sometimes I’ll add orange extract to black coffee. Or if I want to go wild, I’ll throw in some flavored, sweet liqueur, like Kahlua, Amaretto, or hazelnut.

I panicked when the Keurig wouldn’t make my morning cup of coffee. Tom stayed calm. He’s dealt with a lot of finicky machines in his life. He knows what to do. He had read the manual. He ran a mixture of vinegar and water through the system. He poked a toothpick into the part of the machinery that might be clogged. He puttered around while I paced and asked if it was fixed every five minutes.

Finally, it was working again!

Victory! Crisis averted!

Thank you, Tom!

Our hour without coffee-making capabilities reminded us that we are too dependent on our machines. Like when the power goes out and we lose phone and internet service.

But that’s another blog!