Today, the Friday of Memorial Weekend, I have temporarily staved off insanity with olive trees, white roses and dark red flax. Fruit trees too, layered one by one on the hillside, meyer lemon and orange and guava and plum. They are frail and somewhat pathetic now but will grow big and strong by next year. Olive trees are soothing. The color is soothing, that pale mossy gray-green, and the sounds of the leaves in the breeze...just a slight whistle. I climbed onto the dirt-covered hillside and surveyed the trees from my new vantage-point, as my feet sank into the dirt and for once I felt connected to something. Immature apricots serve as perfect throw toys for the dogs and we amused ourselves that way, the dogs and I, me sitting in the dirt and throwing hard green apricots and the dogs running after them and bringing them back to me breathless and smiling. The spotted dog is an idiot. Of this I'm sure. But the most charismatic, charming idiot ever. She grins at me and spins in circles and groans in pleasure when I touch her. The spotted dog is my friend. I pick her up in my arms and she dangles their, like a colt, awkward and miserable and desperate to please, with legs akimbo and the smile never leaving her face. Spotted dogs come from God. There is no doubt. Spotted dogs, olives, flax, hard green apricots and the whistling wind.
What on earth is the whistling wind?
Lisa has a parrot called Scarlett. A bright green bird that whistles like a street sweeper in London at girls in short skirts. Of course, vanity-thy-name-is-woman I turned round, surprised and eyelashes batting, thinking a man was indeed whistling at me! I'm about as nutty as my dog. Maybe that's why I feel I understand her.
Can we discuss my undying fascination with the brilliance of the human mind? Not mine, of course, but in general? Or is that another topic?
We must focus on tomorrow's picnic. Fried chicken and crabcakes and meatloaf and potato salad I'm thinking. Lovely thick homemade mayonnaise over sweet little new potatoes, and some chives on top? Sweet potato fries. Lebanese cucumbers. Sweet tomato sald with that rich green virgin olive oil. I love olive oil. Swirled it into Trader Joe's hummus last night and made it taste perfectly middle eastern and exotic.
Spotted dog: 
