Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1255:
I do so love my house and how it is situated. I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon as I stood at the sink, washing up the lunch dishes, watching a shower of rain sweep in. Out this window, looking west, I can see some rooftops, and the opposing wall of a deep canyon called Rose Canyon (there is a railroad line that runs along the bottom of the canyon, and we can briefly see one section of it.) The ridge that makes up this western wall of the canyon goes clear across the horizon, with a large swath of sky above it. On the other side of this ridge the land goes down to the beach community of La Jolla.
When we bought the house, there was a duplicate model across the street that had a back yard pool. While the idea of having a pool was appealing, the house backed up against a steep hill, which blocked the morning sun, and in the afternoon, the houses on the other side of the street then blocked the setting sun. In short, the house would be dark in the morning, and dark most of the afternoon, and no view of the canyon. In contrast, he house we bought, not only got more sun in the morning, but had good afternoon sun, but it also had this expansive view, where we can watch hawks do lazy loops in thermals above the canyon, watch huge gatherings of crows as they come together to roost in trees on the edge of the canyon, and watch the fog or rain come in from the west. The light and view is what sold us.
And that view is what made watching the shower come in possible as I washed the dishes.
During weather like this, there is usually a bank of clouds that show up along the top of the ridge, but as I watched, suddenly the ridge began to fuzz out as rain began to fall, sweeping quickly to obscure the canyon itself as it came towards us. Sometimes when it is fog, not rain, the fog doesn’t make it all the way. But today it was rain, and within about a minute of me first noticing the phenomena, a hard shower of rain was pelting the house. However, before I had finished drying the dishes it had moved on east, and the back yard was bathed in sun.
Then I put the kettle on for tea and left the room, but by the time I came back in the kitchen, the sun had gone and another rain shower had sped from the west and was again briefly pelting us, and I rejoiced in having a view that literally goes on for miles, which lets me see weather actually come to us in real time.
As I write this post this morning, we had a sudden shower, but since I wasn’t in the kitchen, I didn’t see it coming. But below is a photo of what that view looks like only a few minutes later. It rained hard for just five minutes near midnight last night, a third of an inch in that short time, and while there was no more rain predicted for today…there was that brief shower, so who knows. But I will try to get in a walk this morning.
I got 1550 words written yesterday, not quite sure how, since I did my usual Pilates, took my usual hour off to fix and eat lunch, and had an hour phone call in the afternoon, and did my 30 minute afternoon walk. But I’m not complaining! Today, I have the usual Thursday noon zoom meeting and a meeting scheduled afterwards, so I don’t expect to get as much written. But I do often pick up speed with the last quarter of a book. So, who knows!
In addition to photo of the view, here are some narcissus that come up every year. they are from bulbs that were a present a dear friend that we planted when they were done blooming. She gave us the bulbs at least a decade or more ago and I frankly never expected them to bloom. She was one of the first people we lost to Covid, and so this has become a bitter sweet reminder of a remarkable woman.
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Friends and flowers make last ing memories!