F is for Flowering Trees.

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 4 has gone down the alphabet as Far as F. To link to participating blogs, click on link or on banner.

As Pogo sang: "Now spring has sprung the cyclotron,
How now browse thou, Brown Cow?"
These blossoms are not in my yard but in front of a neighbor's

As is this Tulip Tree (Japanese Magnolia).

My Husband

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "trust."

Otto J. M. Smith

On my twentieth birthday my family - Daddy, Mama, Allen and me - took a picnic supper to La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. Besides fried chicken and potato salad and fresh tomatoes, there was a birthday cake and there were gifts to open. One of my gifts, from Mama, was a bedspread for my first year sleeping away from home. For my first three years at Stanford I had been able to live at home in Palo Alto, but Daddy had recently been transferred to the Los Angeles office.

As I watched the black tar bubbles of the black lake rise slowly then burst with a lazy plop, I was miserable. I had said goodbye to Otto two days before. I wore his engagement ring on my finger, but that was scant compensation for his absence. He would be in Oklahoma at his parents’ home by now, on his way to his new position as an instructor at Tufts College in Boston. I suddenly knew that I wanted nothing more than to be with him. Forget my senior year at Stanford! It wasn’t the only place in the world to finish my degree.

Mother cried when I announced that I wanted to go back to the house to call Otto to tell him I wanted to get married in Oklahoma and go with him. Daddy said it was my life. I phoned Otto with some trepidation, but he seemed really happy and asked to speak to Daddy, whom he assured that he (Otto) would take good care of me. My family drove east, Otto’s sister planned a church wedding, and without ever regretting a minute of it, I put my trust in this good man (who was all of twenty-four years old at the time).

September 3, 1941

Now, almost sixty-eight years later, Otto is the person I most trust in the entire world. We don’t always agree. I think it would be awful if we did. One thing that we trust is that, even after noisy disagreements, our love will be no less.

I trust Otto’s word. He has never, in all those years, lied to me even once.

I trust and admire his motivations and his determination to work toward unselfish goals, whether it be to save the world from global warming or to rid it of wars.

I trust his intelligence, proved over and over as he develops social and engineering solutions to the world’s needs.

I trust his love for his family and his students.

I trust that he wants me to follow my own dreams that may not always be his, and that he will lend his help wherever he can.

Golly, I love that man!

E is for Evergreen

Mrs. Nesbitt's
ABC Wednesday Round 4

has followed the alphabet to E.


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click on
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And of course my favorite evergreen tree is the redwood.
Our Northern California redwoods grow tall...

1

...and massive. Daughter Candace stands beside a lichen spotted one
at the edge of our drive at our Mendocino County retreat.

There is also a wonderful university in Washington called Evergreen.
Above is a photo of Grandson Johnny Smith
at his Evergreen graduation last June.
He is now a teacher in Vietnam.

And what do think those trees in the background are if not...?

Mad Kane's Valentine Prompt

Limerick:

The love of my life sent me roses
A gift that he rightly supposes
Would fill me with glee
Were I allergy free
Not sneezing from all of my noses.

Haiku:

In my husband's arms
Seventy years of loving...
Who needs red roses?

D is for Disc

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 4

has progressed to D.
Other participating blogs can be accessed
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At Christmas time we were at son Otto's home in Port Townsend, Washington, where he is (among other things) a software developer. This means that there are plenty of obsolete computer discs, which Kristin had hung in the windows as added shine and color. They turned in the slightest breeze, sending rainbows of color swirling around their centers. They were magical in daylight, as above...

...and at night they took on a mysterious depth and brilliance from the lights of the room and the Christmas tree (all white lights).

A Brief History of my Art Life

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Art".

Yes, computer doodling is what I now often substitute for the other art forms of my lifetime. I usually do not bother to save it, but I kind of liked this one.

It is a far cry from the landscapes and portraits of my years at Stanford University as an art major. I loved the scent of the art building, predominately of turpentine, probably unhealthy, but associated in my mind with the pleasures of smoothing my moistened watercolor paper on the wooden board, securing it with brown mailing tape, then later returning for it and my watercolor palette, number twenty red sable brush, an assortment of Windsor and Newton watercolor tubes in various squeezed and flattened states, mayonnaise jar of water, portable easel. With these I could venture forth into the nearby landscape for an afternoon of intense pleasure, albeit with considerable sneezing and watering of my eyes, since I was allergic to the wild oats that carpeted the foothills.

I've posted the following watercolor before, but I will show it again as the only example I own of those Stanford afternoons. The others have made their way into various households - one still hangs on the living room wall of a friend whose ninetieth birthday we celebrated two years ago.


And above is one that Granddaughter Josie sent me to show me how she had had it reframed. That bright white spot is the reflection in the glass of her flash. I know that with the magic of my computer I could get rid of it, but I'd rather continue this blurb. Just for fun I had made a tiny copy of the original (by hand and watercolor, long before the age of computers) which she included in the frame. The painting is of the patio of the Menlo Park Arts Guild in a neighboring small town.

After I married Otto I continued to paint, mostly in watercolors, feeling that I was increasing in skill. All of those paintings have fled to other places. But then we moved to Berkeley where there were wonderful stores selling all manner of art supplies, and, out of homage to my elementary school days, I bought a box of Crayola crayons with 64 colors (as compared to the eight colors that I had when young). For almost the first time, I decided to draw some abstracts. This next picture will be one that I have posted before, but I am avoiding the temptation to spend the afternoon happily rummaging through the house for new examples, thus putting off the end of this tale.

Of Moons and Springs and Dragon Wings

I am excluding all my adventures into crafts, such as macrame, stained glass, colored Easter eggs, ornaments of all kinds, fimo necklaces (see a few in side bar), simple pottery, etc.

And now we come down (or up) to the age of computers and my preoccupation with dragons. The dragon phase had started quite a while back, but mostly I collected them. With a computer waiting I could get out my pencil and draw a dragon...
...as in the smallest sketch above, which has as its model one of my wooden Balinese dragon sculptures. The brown one to the left is an actual photo of the sculpture. Then follow variations accomplished on the computer. I have never drawn anything from a photo or other two-dimensional picture. My drawing was of the actual carving. I have become very adept at using my mouse to draw directly on the monitor image.

I became good at drawing imaginary dragons to illustrate my stories. I don't know whether illustration should be included under art, but whatever I call it, it's fun. Sometimes I would integrate - by the magic of computer - one of my fictional dragons with one of my crayon abstracts, as in the next picture.

Also under the heading of illustration, I occasionally use oil pastels, as in the illustration below that I drew for a poem of mine called "Celebration", a fantasy of bears celebrating the winter solstice.

Back in my college days I thought that art would become a major part of my life. That hasn't happened. It didn't take too long to realize that I might become, at most, a very minor artist. Writing has been more rewarding than drawing, and then there was all the rest of life (meaning 98% of it).

So should I end this with another computer generated abstract? I consider these amusement, not real art, but this one can support my opening picture like a bookend. And a message perhaps?

C is for Colorful Produce.

C links to other participating blogs at

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 4.








... or perhaps I should say produce of unexpected colors.

Grandson Byron, who is currently staying with us, brought home these bright vegetables (among many others) from the Monterey Market, and I couldn't resist taking photos of these few. Purple Cauliflower?