My previous journal entry was for an online condolences' page for Michael.
Here's what I left out:

Though I cared very much for Michael, I never fell in love with him. He knew this.

He had an abnormally high need, which an average woman could not fulfill in the long-term. As our relationship continued, this need became so overwhelming, it repelled me to the point which I believe I'm still feeling traumatized by it.

Looking back, I know what brought us together.

He saw our relationship as a way to learn to live a more balanced existence. He was open about this. Like I said in my previous note, I found him to be quite intelligent and funny. He shared much about the world I didn't know.

Though I never fell in love with Michael, he definitely made an incredible impact on my life.
I hope I made a positive impact on his own life, too.

This is what I wrote for Michael's online condolences' page.



In the mid-1990s, I met a guy 11 years my senior through our mutual good friends, Sheldon Herman and Michelle Salinas. Michael Lapinksi was living with them temporarily until he found a house of his own.

I was drawn to him because he was very intelligent and funny. And, he had a fatherly way about him.

We spent more time talking than he cared for, but he stuck with me. He knew it was respect I was seeking. Not another fly-by-night encounter.

Michael opened up my world to many positive ways of living.
He introduced even more healthier ways of living than I was already doing. He probably has prevented me from having colon cancer some day. He introduced me to Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti and Swami Satchidananda. We spent a few days at Swamiji's ashram, Yogaville, a place Michael had lived for awhile long before he met me.

One thing that struck me about Michael is how he had a high school education backed up by training at a trade school placing him in the blue-collar field, yet his knowledge of the important things in life was that of someone who could have had at least a bachelor's degree. Maybe that's my own prejudice. He was a deep thinker.

Michael was a very giving person, perhaps, too much so, and that seemed to be the downfall of our own relationship. It was clear I could not give to him as much as he needed from me. So we went our separate ways. Yet we were able to be friends.

It saddens me to know he has left this earth prematurely.

 A crazy thing has happened recently.

For the past two or three years, a cousin and I have been corresponding ... mainly about genealogy.
For several months, she's been talking about her eminent trip to our fathers' childhood home, to get more information on our family's history.

I envisioned her being there all by herself ... maybe accompanied by her husband and son.
So I asked her if she would be up for having an assistant tag along.

Instantly she said, "Yes!"
However by this time, her adventure had exploded into a full-scale nuclear family reunion. Her parents are celebrating their wedding anniversary then. Her dad wanted to head back to his childhood home. My cousin, the youngest, has four siblings. All are married with children coming from three states. 

Now you must understand: I haven't seen any of these people since the summer of 1976. One exception: In March 1984, my uncle was at Syracuse University for the NCAA Track & Field Tournament. It was great to see him, and to see him amongst his peers (track and field coaches) and his young team of strong athletes. The weekend ended on a terribly sad note: My grandmother -- his and my dad's mother -- died that weekend.

But as always, I digress.

It seems extremely inappropriate for me to be barging into the middle of a nuclear-family reunion.
Yet my cousin insisted it would be all right. Everyone's fine with it. Plus, Mr. F was encouraging, knowing it would be a great time.
Besides, my cousin and I will spend some time with the dead.


So here we are: I'm on the road again. Heading back to Joplin and an exciting weekend of reconnecting with my long-lost family.

Scared.
Excited.

Happy Trails. :D

Add a few days, and Mr. F and I have been living here in the forest for about 35 days.

The "kids" cabin, or cottage, we're inhabiting with Miss P is a few steps above out right camping.

Nestled in the forest, our living quarters consist of two rooms and a typical bathroom, a little less than 350 square feet, 50 of that makes up the bathroom.

"Tight living quarters," you're thinking?
It's not bad, for now.
It would help if we had less of some furniture,
way more storage. Two closets need clearing out for our clothing.
That's a bit of an issue at the moment.

After living 15 years in that huge 1922 four-bedroom house in Grand Rapids, I'm really glad to be back to smaller digs. Seriously. I had the experience of living in a big old house -- old and stylish is what I sought. Enjoyed it while it lasted, but knew from the start that house was far more space than one, even two, people need. Yet Mr. F and I found a way to fill that house beyond its own limitations.

So here we are. Living in almost 350 square feet.

At this point, we don't have a proper kitchen.

We rely on:
• A small cube-shaped refrigerator with miniscule freezer;
• A small Hibachi grill, which Mr. F uses for many meals;
• A half-sized microwave oven, we rarely use;
• One of those 1950s coffee percolators, which we use at least once a day;
• A toaster oven, which we rarely use at this point;
• A hutch-style cabinet for storing dry goods, dishes, glassware and utensils;
• And the bathroom sink for cleaning dishes.

For the first couple of weeks, I believed that little refrigerator was all we needed for cold storage. But it would be better if we had one twice its size, like those you see a lot in motel rooms in Florida. We definitely need more room for freezing leftovers. We could get one of those small freezers. Or we need to learn to cook less. I can't bare the thought of going back to our full-sized refrigerator, which is sitting in storage. It's too big for two people and one cat. Yet society leads us to believe we need that size. Just like everything else.

Our cabin has a third room, attached by a short walk-through closet, which houses the tractor, along with a menagerie of tools and stuff. Mr. F was extremely kind to allow me to store my bicycle there.

At some point, we hope to have an exterior storage structure to house all of that stuff.
Then we can turn this third room into a large kitchen ... or kitchen and ... a small guest room?
Again, this room is far more than I believe we realistically need for a kitchen.
Mr. F may believe otherwise. He's the one doing all the cooking.

So as we clear out what isn't needed, bring in what is, we'll continue to make a nice little summer home out of this place.
I hope we can find a similar size place down in the Southwest.

mr. f just announced that he wants to stay here in northeast Indiana until it gets cold. at least until nov. 1.

ugh.

as much as i'm enjoying living in the forest with all the wildlife (the mosquitoes haven't gotten bad yet),
i really want to spend much more time in a big city.

i don't wish to offend the decent people of northeast indiana,
but this area is not like being in the Leland, Harbor Springs, Petoskey, Traverse City area.
the closest city to us is fort wayne.

oh, blah.

three days later, mr. f and i are still thinking and talking about the fawn.

we haven't seen him, and believe he was safely reunited with his parents.

he was soooo cute!

It's been raining and thunderstorming all day, so we drove to Fort Wayne to hang out at a decent coffeehouse that stays open past 5 p.m.

Around sunset, we arrived back at the property. As we walked to our little cottage, about 500 to 1,000 feet from our car, we heard the high-pitched crying of ... a cat? A cat in the middle of the woods? Did our cat get out?

Mr F thought it might be a fox, yet the creature walked up to us so non-threatening and fearless, as it came into view, I thought I was seeing an alien from outer space.

It was a fawn about the size of a cat! 

This little fawn obviously was separated from its parents during one of the thundestorms, and believed we could help him find them. The little cutie was wagging its tail in our presence. Then it sat down in front of our cottage door, waiting for us to lead it to its parents, feed it or maybe allow it inside.

I know it's not a good idea, but I couldn't help but pet the fawn. It was too darned cute. It stayed where it was, waiting, hoping.

We tried to take a photo of it, but it was dusk. Way too dark for my cellphone's camera. We didn't want to startle the fawn with a flash.

After much debate: Do we feed the fawn some milk? Cover it in a blanket? Try to help it find its way home? I decided to help it get on a path to its home. We see deer all over this land, so its home could be anywhere nearby. Mr. F didn't like that I led it away from our cottage, deeper into the forest, fearing it could be attacked by a fox or some other fawn-salivating creature. I left it about ten feet from the cabin, hoping it might not get as wet and be found by its parents. Every half hour or so, we've been checking outside for it.

What a sweet little animal. It's cuteness and need pull at your heartstrings. Yeah, that sounds sickly sweet. But you wheren't here.

So this encounter with the little fawn trumps the story I was going to quickly share: All along the gravel/dirt road leading up to the big cottage, if Mr. F and I saw a frog, we stopped the car, got out and attempted to catch 'em or just get a closer view. Frogs enjoy coming out when it rains. We found at least four. I almost caught the first one, but frogs are so quick, they all jumped in the safest direction away from us.

what a relief waking up the morning after we were supposed to receive callback notices. 

feel so much better than yesterday. 

i can move on.

now i can concentrate on other music AND volunteer for backstage work.

the day after an audition,
it seems, no matter how you feel
about getting a part or how you did,
is pure agony. 

last night, the audition seemed to go well
with the singing portion; and about
40 good/60 bad for the dancing portion.
i've got rhythm and can learn routines with time,
but i'm extremely outta shape.
plus, they asked us to do high kicks at one point.
never was a strong suit. still isn't.

so much for being one of the little old ladies.
i guess they'll double the willowy chorus girls
for the little old ladies.

the director was going to email us before today was through.
nada. nothing. zilch.

this morning, i was feeling so light about any result.
rejection. call back. it was all fine.

however as the hours passed, anxiety slowly crept in, torturing me.

i locked my keys in the car this afternoon.
and was miles away from mr. f and his parents.
though they say they weren't angry with me or upset in any way,
i felt terrible. ugh.

so much for playing a part in the musical that offends everyone. 

maybe they'll call about helping out with props?
that could help.

Yesterday, Mr. F and I first heard, then saw, this papa Sandhill Crane with moma and their gosling.
I tried to get as close as they would let me and take this embarrassingly bad photo via my phone's camera. Eh, what can you do?
The photo, due to the built-in wide-angle lens, makes it seem like I was much further away. But I was about 15-20 feet from this Sandhill Crane.
I had no idea they were so big! Last year, we some them from quite a distance. I assumed they were smaller than a typical Canadian Goose, but no way. These cranes are huge!



We've been living in the forest for two weeks, and now I know the call of a Sandhill Crane. Just heard one a few minutes ago.
It's fun seeing all the different wildlife here. Most of it seems old hat to me since we've been coming to this nature retreat every summer Mr. F and I first met. Spotting deer is regular. In fact, seeing the Sandhill Crane family upstaged our sighting of a Whitetail Deer leaping away from the scene.

Besides the Sandhill Crane, there's a great variety of birds are here. On the larger side, we believe we saw an owl flying from its nest. It was at dusk, so we only saw the silhouette.

The most prevalent creature here, other than insects, seems to be the chipmunk. I know this is all very exciting. You have to admit though,  they're cute.

The other morning, there was a tick crawling on our bed covering heading straight for me! It was coming from the direction of where Miss P was sleeping. Yuck. Of all critters to be here, ticks have got to be the creepiest.

So, things seem to be going all right here. We are far away from a lot of the action, a good thing and a bad thing. Gives me time to focus on getting stuff done.

Now you all know,
I've been attending
a conference
for minerals owners
in the oil and gas industry.

yeow.

for decades, i didn't want to know about this stuff my father inherited from his grandfather, who is the one who began purchasing mineral property rights in the early part of the 1900s. my dad died decades ago, bequeathing all of it to my mother.

there's a lot of malarky surrounding this inheritance going way back, much of it i don't know.

forever i've focused on environmental health. accepting money from the o&g industry has not been easy on my conscience.
it felt better when i was helping my mother with all of it.

anyway, since december, i've been registered for this NARO conference.
i've been embarrassed/ashamed to share this info. on this blog,
but i can't wipe it out of reality by not posting it here.

there are others like me. a couple of years ago, i met a bleeding-heart liberal man from San Francisco who started helping his father with their own mineral interests. he agreed it felt awkward, but he reminded me that o&g is more than running cars or destroying the drilled land. as we attempt to move away from paper books, more and more we're seeing plastic books. this week, we met an older man who's doing quite well in the business, having inherited it from his father. he says he's a true blue Democrat and not afraid to let others know it.

as o&g companies get more involved in alternative energies, it feels better. sure there are downsides to solar, wind, wave energy. not going into those issues now.

just trying to make peace with this new part of my life ... well ... renewed part of my life, which i didn't pay attention to as a kid.

funny, when mr. f and i were touring donald judd's steel box exhibit in marfa, texas, we started talking to a young woman who i really believed was a bright art student. she wore her "hippie" attire, long brown hair flowing down her back. turns out she's a true-to-life landman in tennessee.

tripped me right out.
you can't box us in. we're all individuals.

Saw the NARO executive director this morning and told him that's who I am. I love to sing.
He seemed very sincere and said he enjoyed the moment. 

(I found out later from another board member that there can be piano playing and singing at the national NARO conferences.)

The exec. director and I went on to talk about the little town he's lived in the past 14 years. Bartlesville. Mr. F and I have been wanting to visit this architect's tour town. I told him Mr. F and I have been loosely considering relocating to Oklahoma and Bartlesville is one town we were considering. He said his hometown of Norman, Okla., is the most progressive city in the state, far more progressive than Tulsa or Oklahoma City. He highly recommended it and said he believed he would never leave that town.

It's nice moving beyond what seemed to be an awkward moment.
whew.