A news blip on my "Odd News from AP" widget caught my eye this morning.

"Australian cat strays 2,400 miles, returns home."

Clyde the cat went home to his original owners after three years of wandering about. One of the most interesting points of the story is that Clyde started out on Tasmania, which is an island in the ocean off Australia's south east coast. He ended up in Cloncurry a city two thousand miles into the Australian outback. If he hadn't been micro-chipped he would still be a wanderer.

As his happy owner said, "If only he could talk."

What is it about such stories that fascinate us? We are thrilled with the tale of a lost person or animal finding their way home.

Perhaps it is because we all feel a bit lost sometimes. We move around so much more than people used to because travelling is easier, so home is left far behind. It calls to us with its knowledge of our beginnings; sometimes making us long to return or sometimes causing us to keep moving further away.

Or maybe, as was popular in the 1960s and 70s, we feel we have lost ourselves. That need to find their "true self" caused many people to leave home and family, even walking out on their spouse and children, to go "find themselves". All too often the results were like Dorothy's: the realization that they hadn't lost themselves to begin with and there was no place like home. They had only become bored with who they were and what they were doing.

The stories of those who have truly been lost, stray animals or homeless people, finding their place in the world can help us see how good we have it. We get the chance to see our home, family, job or community through new eyes when we realize we could lose it all.

So, thank you Clyde. Thank you to all those who once were lost but now are found and whose stories give us hope.

See a video about Clyde here:

A Foggy Morning in Kickapoo Park

I love walking in the fog.

I go for a walk a few days a week in a local park and the fog changes so much. Part of the walk leads through open areas where the mists swirl and occasionally the sun can be seen looking like a white dinner plate in the sky with no glow of its own. The distant tree lines could be mountains as all that is there are dark masses.

Then the road enters a dimly lit tunnel of trees. Spider webs dusted with moisture festoon the oaks and white pines. Osage orange trees look ready to pounce on spindly legs, like the giant parents of the lesser spiders. The fog is no longer comforting and relaxing, but menacing, hiding unknown threats.

I round another curve and the air is lighter, the light brighter as the trees give way to another open field. And so my walk goes, forest and field, welcoming mist and foreboding gloom, until I'm back at my cozy little car, my hair curly from the dampness of my foggy day stroll.

Goldie on our deck

It is Monday morning and I'm out on my deck.

There's a piece of earth-shattering news.

Last week ended up an emotional disaster and I barely managed any writing because of it.

This week will be better.

I have my cat, Goldie, out with me. She's wearing a halter and is hooked to a leash tied to a leg of the patio table. Goldie has wander lust. She used to go out everyday until five years ago, when she took to adventuring too far from home; that being out of our yard. A stray to begin with, money has been invested in shots and spaying so I had no desire to find her dead on the pavement . . . or not find her at all.

Investment aside, I love the little pest.

Goldie and I found each other the last weekend in August, 2000. I was walking home from the art in the park part of my town's hot air balloon fest when I set my bags down to take a breather. From a pile of dead brush behind the redi-mix office I heard a tiny, high-pitched mew.

"That's a kitten's mew," I said to myself, then mewed back.

A small orange streak shot out of the brush pile, stopped at my feet and then tried to climb my left leg; mewing non-stop the whole time. I picked the kitten up, held it to my shoulder and it snuggled up tight. After a little cuddle time, I held it out to check its "equipment". The little orange tabby was a female.

"Ah!" I told her, holding her up to look into her eyes. "You're an unusual orange tabby. Only 20% of orange tabbies are girl kitties. Did you know that? You're not rare. It doesn't make you worth a lot of money. Just unusual. How would you like to come home with me?"

She was purring and struggling to get back to my shoulder. I took that for a yes. I gathered up my bags and off we went. I asked a couple of boys, who were playing on the sidewalk a block down, if they knew who owned the kitten. They said they had taken her around the neighborhood the day before and no one had claimed her. The kitten snuggled deeper and started to knead my neck.

Not sure what my husband would say to keeping her (we already had three cats although, technically, one was our daughter's) I sat with her on our deck while she guzzled the food and water I brought out to her. There was a Christian Contemporary Music group around at the time named PFR (it stood for "Pray For Rain"). On one of their CDs they had a song, "Goldie's Last Day". The song was about a golden Labrador retriever who has passed away, but I found myself singing the chorus with the words adjusted to fit my situation. The changes are in brackets:

"Goldie's last [first] day. Goldie's last [first] day.
If a picture paints a thousand words,
There's nothing left to say.
Wish I could've been there for Goldie's last [first] day."

The kitten jumped up into my lap.

"Are you Goldie?" I asked as she climbed up to my shoulder and started kneading my neck again.

I took that as a yes.

He walks by my house, slow and a bit unsteady, using his cane but out walking nonetheless. I'm only five foot one; Ed is shorter than me and thinner, grey hair sticks out from under his farmer's style hat. He smiles as he tells me that when he joined the army right after high school the sergeant couldn't believe he only weighed one hundred twelve pounds. He is a small man. He is an amazing eighty-five year old man.

I knew he had a couple of heart attacks and a stroke a few years back. Ed didn't let those stop him. Three days after the stroke his wife spotted him shuffling down the hospital corridor. He didn't let it keep him down.

Two weeks ago I learned Ed had had another stroke. This morning I talked to him, stopping him as he drew abreast of my house on his morning walk. We talked about the stroke. We talked about his life. He has lived on the same street in our town almost his entire life. He said he's happy with the life he's lived; proud of things he's accomplished.

He told me something that I think is a big factor in Ed's long life and his recovery from his strokes.

"I see nothing but good coming our way. I try to find the best in everything."

I think I'll chisel that into the walls of my house or paint it as a mural in every room.

Ed was a farm kid during the depression. He was in the army in World War II. He knows hard times. Ed works hard and doesn't quit.

"I see nothing but good coming out way. I try to find the best in everything."

I'm going to start thinking like Ed does.

I've been taking a lot of photographs lately, and all that looking at my camera made me aware of something; it is designed for use by right handed people. The majority of controls are on the right side of the camera body.

I wondered if left handers have trouble working a camera? Are there left handed cameras?

My daughter is left handed so I have some familiarity with the challenges can be a part of the left handed life. But I'm also aware of how often leftys are actually more ambidextrous than purely left handed. Is this because they've had to be or is there more to it?

Some researching showed that most ambidextrous people have either been forced into it, as back when schools forced left handed children to do everything right handed, or have they chosen it on their own to adapt to the right handed world they live in. The truly ambidextrous person is rare. The highest percentage of ambidextrous people are usually left dominant by nature.

My daughter does many things right handed because she just adapted to the right handed implements in the world, but I will say that she did it with an ease that surprised me. I'm an ambidextrous fencer even though I am definitely a righty. I started practicing both ways right from the start so that I wouldn't build up muscles on one side of my body but not on the other. When I received a fencing injury to my right hand, I was able to keep fencing while it healed, discovering that I was as good left handed as right.

Have you ever tried to use your week hand? Did you have much success?

On July 13th I posted about submitting a story for consideration in an anthology. This evening I heard from the editor. My story was not accepted.

I hope to find someone to go through it for me, find out if there is something it needs, and find some other places to submit it.

My first rejection.

Onward and upward.

Today while driving to my daughter's house I was treated to the vista of a deep blue sky with powder-puff clouds. Painting perfect!

Which got me thinking, as such a view usually does; why do clouds float?

I had my theories and went to check them online.

My theory was wrong. I thought it was for the same reason steam rises but, though there is a similarity, that isn't how they work.

The particles that the water condenses on are tiny but they do have weight and all together the particles in one cloud can weigh tons. They float because they are spread out enough and small enough to be buoyed up by the warm air around them. That's where the similarity is: the steam is warm and the air is warm. The article I read compared it to dust motes, another lovely subject.

Science aside, clouds are compelling. They can appear all fluffy and happy or they can be powerful and threatening. We see white clouds, varying shades of grey clouds, and black clouds. At sunrise and sunset they are amazing shades of red, orange, pink, yellow and purple. In massive thunderstorms they can look as green and full of water as the ocean. There are mare's tails, cotton puffs, majestic mountains, wisps and solid featureless layers that blanket the sky. Sometimes, they even look like Snoopy or Micky Mouse.

Go outside. Look up. What kind of clouds do you see?

I hate exercising.

Actually, I don't hate the actual exercise itself in whatever form it is taking. I dislike the peripheral activities as well as one of the main by-products of exercise.

One particular by-product.

Sweat.

I know, I know. It's necessary. It is vital. I love biology and physiology and I understand the function of sweating. I just don't like being sweaty. And it is because of the sweating that exercise becomes such a pain.

First, you have to change into your special exercise clothes; which are either the scuzziest things you own or make an exercise fashion statement. You need special clothes so you don't ruin your regular clothes by sweating in them all the time.

Step two is the actual exercising; the fun part. You get to play a game, dance, walk, run, or try to turn into Superman or Wonder Woman. The half hour or so you spend exercising is the actual purpose of the whole thing.

Now, you're all done and you are back to the parts that are really a waste of your time. You are now all sweaty. Perhaps even soaked in sweat. You have to get out of the sticky exercise clothes and take a shower. This involves getting ready for the shower - do you have a towel? soap? shampoo? washcloth or scrubbie? You get into the shower and you have to adjust the water temperature. Finally, you can actually wash. You have to wash your hair because your head sweats a lot. You have to wash your pits because they sweat a lot.

Well, you simply have to wash all of yourself.

Then, particularly the women, you have to apply oil or lotion so you don't dry up and turn flaky - your skin that is; you might already be flaky otherwise. You dry your body; you possibly have to dry your hair as well.

Last, it's back into your regular clothes and you are finally done.

Whew!

Just think, if you didn't sweat you wouldn't need the "exercise clothes". You wouldn't need to change clothes so you could just do your half hour or so of exercising. When you finish, off you'd go and you're done. No need to strip off again. No need for the shower, for the moisturizing, the drying (and maybe styling as well), no need to re-dress.

Ah well, I can dream can't I? Meanwhile, tomorrow I get to do it all again!

Sandra

Remembering Apollo 11 and other flights of our space program. I'm so glad that we are still explorers. There has never been exploration without disasters and, yes, there have been several with our space program, but I'm glad that we have not stopped reaching for the unknown. I think we will wither as a species if we stop striving to do what we have never done before.

I was 14 years old in July of 1969. I sat at the dinette of my family's travel trailer watching a small black and white TV as American astronauts landed on the moon and walked on its surface. It was amazing then and it is still amazing now.

Do you remember where you were the first time we landed on the moon?

I didn't place in the writing contest I entered back in February. I'm ok with this, I knew it wasn't as good a story as it should have been. It was one of those cases where I did not seem able to get what was in my head to come out onto the page so that it had the same ambiance.

Ah, well. Onward to try, try again! :-)

I'm finally doing it. I have sent a submission to an open call for an anthology of mystery stories. I'm pleased with my story and the people I had beta and edit it liked it as well.

Now I just have to hope the publisher likes it!

Wish me luck!

Sandra