Since we’re still in the midst of a surging pandemic and travel of any sort isn’t a great idea, I’m going to honor they day by making a Yule wreath with some pine boughs and rosemary branches from yesterday’s garden project and a few bright red toyon berries. If it comes out OK, I’ll post a photo.
Along with the shortest day of the year, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to see the Christmas Star, the Great Conjunction with Saturn and Jupiter that hasn’t been seen since 1623. Best times for viewing in the San Diego area is 4:47 p.m. until 7:00 p.m.
With a nod to All Creatures Great and Small by veterinarian James Herriot, this is what my Sunday looked like.
We started off the day at the beach and I’m beyond sad that I didn’t have my good camera with me so I couldn’t capture the magic of a school of dolphin jumping and splashing in the water. I’m sure this paddleboarder was happy because they seemed to follow him wherever he went. Trust me, there are about six dolphin in this photo.
On the way home, we saw a bit of an odd sight…check out these seagulls that shouldn’t have been this far away from the beach. They usually only fly inland when there’s a storm, so I have no idea why they were flying around in circles and then perched on the telephone lines.
Today was a work project day in the garden, cleaning up around the rosemary and lavender. I sat down for a minute for a wheatgrass break and this little alligator lizard stopped by to say hi. I scratched his back with a stick and he allowed me to take these pics.
All in all, a great Sunday for creatures great and small.
I don’t know if it’s similar to the Great Toilet Paper Hoarding of 2020 or a supply chain issue, but when I used the very last drop of my Tapatio hot sauce, every store I went to was out of it.
I tried them all: Target, Stater Brothers, even WalMart, and there was the little sign on an empty space where the Tapatio should have been.
There were other hot sauces to choose from: Valentina, Crystal, Cholula, whatever Trader’s brand is, but not Tapatio. I was looking specifically for Mexican hot sauce, not Tabasco or Sriracha–it had to be Tapatio, my favorite.
I didn’t really want to order it online but I would have, except that at my final stop at Vons I found the VERY LAST BOTTLE of Tapatio, a giant thirty-two ounce size, so I’ll be happy and spicy for quite a while.
Funny enough, they were also completely out of the small sized bottle, so that’s all there was to choose from.
Now I can enjoy a yummy quesadilla with vegan cheese!
I know things are crazy now with the holidays and this neverending pandemic, but we can’t forget. We need to remember; today and always, the lives that were lost eight years ago at Sandy Hook.
I’ll never forget where I was when I heard the news–I was happily driving around town shopping for Christmas presents and had to pull in a parking lot because my eyes were too full of tears to see the road. I immediately called my son because he’s my North Star. As soon as I know he’s OK, I can breathe again.
Bay leaves give tomato sauce a special flavor profile, allowing all the other spices to develop with synergy and complexity, providing a subtle depth of flavor.
I LOVE bay leaves in soups too, and can immediately tell the difference when I neglect to add them to the pot.
A while back I planted my very own Bay Laurel tree so that I’d never run out.
I learned that bay leaves offer benefits as herbal remedies, too, as well as value in smudging like we do with sage.
Bay leaf tea is used to treat stomachaches, colds, and a sore throat.
A poultice of bay leaves is used for the treatment of rheumatism and neuralgia (Goodrich et al., 1980).https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Bay leaf tea is alleged to lower blood sugar, can eliminate bad cholesterol, and relieves the body of triglycerides..
Bay leaf protects the heart as it contains cardiovascular protective compounds. It’s rich in acids such as caffeic acid, quercetin, eigonol, and bartolinide, substances that are thought to prevent the formation of cancer cells in the body.
It eliminates insomnia and anxiety, and if taken before bed, helps you relax and sleep peacefully.
I’ve started drinking a cup of bay leaf tea twice a day, along with my everpresent ginger tea.
A simple soothing Bay Leaf Tea to boost immune function:
4-5 dried bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick (or 1 tsp ground cinnamon)
About 32 ounces of water
Add leaves and cinnamon to the water and simmer for about 20 minutes. Drink hot or chilled.
FaceTime doesn’t take the place of hugs and kisses and giggles and holding hands to cross a street; or reading a book with the full weight of not one, but TWO little humans taking up every inch of my lap and my arms, but since it’s all we have right now, I will attempt to be grateful.
A bit of light in the darkness, and isn’t that what the original Hannukah was all about?
It was one of those days where everyone was looking up and toward the horizon.
For me, looking back provided a fresh perspective of tonight’s magnificent sunset.
Photo by Enchanted Seashells.
The sky beautifully metamorphosed all day, culminating in this fiery red-orange sunset. The beach was packed at sundown with people taking pics. I found a place to park, looked in my rear view mirror, and decided THAT was the money shot.
The rest of the day spoke to me, too, in colors and textures.
I must confess that there are quite a few things that escaped my education, probably stuff that you all know; mostly everyone knows this stuff.
Deep breath…
🔳 I didn’t know that whales are mammals, I really didn’t, despite the fact that I love animals and took enough classes in college that should have made this a solid part of my knowledge base.
🔳 I also didn’t know that earth revolves around the moon.
🔳 I don’t know why we sometimes see the moon during the day. Like yesterday.
I know I’ve LEARNED these things, but apparently the facts didn’t stick in my gray matter.
The moon orbits around the earth, not the other way around, as I thought. The reason why we can see the moon at night because of the reflection of the sun’s rays and energy that bounce back to earth. This is what gives the moon the brilliant white glow. It’s important to also remember that the earth has a rotation and an orbit around the sun. The relationship between the earth and the moon is kind of like a slow dance.
The earth is tilted on an axis, all the while going around the sun and meanwhile, the moon is going around the earth. The light from the moon is bright enough to overpower the usual light that we see at particular times of the day. Most of the light that is visible to the human eye is in the blue color range and the moon’s reflected light, combined with its location gives us the chance to see it during certain daylight hours. Due to the rotation of the moon around the earth, it is actually above our horizon for about twelve hours out of our twenty four hour day.
We can only usually see the moon for about six hours during that time period, and then the bright light energy of the sun overpowers the reflection.
The moon orbits the Earth once every 27.322 days. It also takes approximately 27 days for the moon to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the moon does not seem to be spinning but appears to observers from Earth to be keeping almost perfectly still. Scientists call this synchronous rotation.
Earth spins on its axis once in every 24-hour day. You and me and everything else – including Earth’s oceans and atmosphere – are spinning along with the Earth at the same constant speed.
If the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, the atmosphere would still be in motion with the Earth’s original 1100 mile per hour rotation speed at the equator… This means rocks, topsoil, trees, buildings, literally everything–would be swept away into the atmosphere. (Info curated from Google, NASA, and Wiki)
Now I’ve entered a rabbit hole that’s really too much for me to comprehend. My head is spinning. Like Earth? The moon? The sun?
Too much. Now I wonder…are we really the only living beings? Is Earth the only inhabited planet? Shaking my head, it’s too much for me to absorb.
I’m not sure if ignorance is bliss, but my head’s going to explode if I continue to follow the pathways of deep existential thought.
Our existence on this planet is incredibly fragile. I feel an urgent need to step outside and place my bare feet on the grass and the rocks, to touch skin of the earth; to feel and be grounded.
Still no whales/mammals, but a pic of the beach tree all dressed up for the holidays.
