Nine Different Faces...

...reflecting all the emotions that have been shared on Blipfoto over the years. These are individually carved olive pits that were strung on a cord when I bought them from a vendor at the Great Wall of China in 1980. The cord broke and many of the faces have been lost over the years with many people young and old getting them out of the little rosewood vessel where they now live, but I do think they are quite extraordinary. The number nine is in recognition of the nine years Mono Monday has been around. It is one of the longest running challenges and also one of the most challenging. LIghting these little faces, and keeping them from rolling off the drawing paper I had arranged them on was not easy! Thanks to Skeena for hosting this month....

We weren't sure if we were going to make it to Kathy's today as we have to pass through the flood plain to get there and it is definitely flooded in many places. It rained hard last night and was very dark when we got up, but the rain tapered off and Kathy texted with an alternate route to her house. Having had a bit of an accident when I got tangled up in my slippers last night  (trying to put them on and walk at the same time whilst carrying my laptop and phone) and an uneasy night's sleep, it seemed a good idea to go and get checked out.

The drive across town was uneventful, but once we got off the freeway the extent of flooding was evident everywhere. A couple of essential roads were closed and backtracking was required. It is always worth the effort to see Kathy, even when it is a challenge. We decided my aches and pains were purely muscular and my bruises well earned. By the time we were driving home the sun had come out, which was a good thing, because the materials for our new porch /deck were delivered while we were gone. Kathy's husband, Mike, who is a contractor and will be organizing this project, followed us home and moved everything into the garage. Now we've seen the deck material and know that we'll like it much better than what is out there now. There are also a bunch of mystery boxes whose contents will be revealed when work actually starts.

Apparently the storm door is open and the storms aimed at Northern California are lining up across the Pacific for quite awhile, so it is unclear when work on the deck can actually begin. The news outlets seem to be competing with each other to find the worst damage and make the weather sound the most threatening and dangerous, so it is hard to know what the forecast actually is. For the time being, the creek is staying in its banks and the trees are staying in the saturated ground.