COLORS BEYOND SIGHT

A man who works with my husband describes our little section of Arizona as being "beautiful landscapes drenched in 385 different shades of brown."

The first time we lived in Arizona, back in 1981, my husband, an Oregon native, thought this all was simply ugly desert.

Then he served six months in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the first Gulf War, and learned what real desert looks like.

Now he is able to appreciate the beauty of the high chaparral surrounding us.

This monsoon season has been very generous, and the surrounding valley looks lush and green as Kentucky.

(And this is obviously when real estate agencies take all the the photos they display on the Internet to get people from Nebraska and Wisconsin to move down here)

But I am beginning to seriously question my sanity.

We have incredible sunsets here normally, but over the past couple of weeks, I am seeing seen colors that I don't actually think exist.

At first I just thought I was being extra sensitive to the beauty, or perhaps a heightened appreciation with all the unusual greenery.

Or perhaps because of being diagnosed with glaucoma is making me simply more conscious of my sight.

But I am now seeing greens/emeralds/ chartreuse/malachite (do you have any idea what malachite? I didn't until right now - cool word)  that are brighter than regular greens - shades of purple/lilac/violet/mauve/lavender/ amethyst that I would give almost ANYTHING to have a shirt the exact same color as.

I'm either taking drugs that I am not aware of, or I am having flashbacks from drugs that I did not take when I was a teenager.

Hey, if you can come up with a better idea, I'm ready to hear it.

FOR PURPLE MOUNTAINS MAJESTIES

Tonight was one of those spectacular sunsets which, luckily for me, are a fairly normal event in my life.

Red rimmed clouds, purple hues, streams of light coming over the mountains with just wisps of clouds at the snow-capped peaks.

Honestly - it was that breathtakingly beautiful.

As a child, I could see the barren Sierra Madres when the smog wasn't too thick.

I like this much better.

And I did stand at attention with my dog by my side, and I did sing "America The Beautiful" out loud (badly, but Murray didn't seem to mind), and wished that everyone else in the United States - nay, in the entire world, could see this - and put aside our petty differences, biased views and prejudiced opinions, and be joined together in the belief that we are all here to help one another.

All religions, all nations, all political parties, all cultures - that's the reason we are here, and that's the lesson we all need to learn - somehow.

Glorious sunsets like this seem to make it obvious - at least to me.

Any way we can think of a way to pass this on to everyone else?

INFATUATION OR LOVE? AND WHO CARES?

I have lost my heart... once again.

I do have as a personal resolution to fall in love at least once a day.

Think about it - remember how you felt the last time you fell in love? How wonderful you felt, how beautiful the world became, how perfect the person you loved was? Colors were brighter, the songs on the radio became 'your' song(s), you felt so beautiful?

Well, why not feel that way all the time?

Now, I'm married, and very sold on monogamy (is that marriage to one person or a type of wood?), and I don't want to ever have a romantic relationship/ affair/ liaison with any other man... or woman, either, I guess, in today's progressive world.

But I can fall in love with the purple and yellow blossoms on the cactus right outside my front door - I can be infatuated with Starbucks Double-Chocolate Chip Frappuccino - I can dance around when I see the awesome reds, purples and oranges of the sunset behind the Huachuca Mountains.

Why not?

And this week I fell in love with a vacuum cleaner.

I have had a standard-run-of-the-mill-on-sale-at-Sears vacuum cleaner for years, but it is now demanding more and more attention, muscle to move around (is it getting heavier or am I simply getting weaker?)  and dirt- bags it's particular size which are becoming more and more difficult to locate at local stores (a sales technique, I know - wasn't it just a few days again that VHS was still 'the' thing?).

So I bought a new run-of-the-mill-on-sale-at-Target vacuum cleaner .

And promptly fell head over heels (which makes no sense as an expression - I mean, you are head over heels right now, aren't you?) with it's lighter weight, double the rpm or hertz or amps (whatever the correct term is) and easily-changed attachments that actually WORK.

Okay, so perhaps my expectations are small - but it is a great feeling.