AQUA ACCURACY

It is important when you write (or do anything for that matter) to be as accurate as possible. Accordingly, I need to correct the impression I might have given in previous postings that my house's exterior is any shade of green -- not even Thunderbird Green.

After the paint dried and aged a little, it settled into a moderate shade of aqua -- precisely halfway between green and blue. Aqua is, noticeably, one of my favorite colors. Many of my clothes are aqua and my bedroom is painted a deep aqua. It's becoming.

The color choice may be an example of auto-synthesis (I'm not sure that's a word) my word for the phenomenon that I have found most noticeable in people and their dogs -- tall slender people with greyhounds and short dumpy people with short dumpy dogs.

Maybe that happens with houses too. My house is filled with me -- favorite colors, mementos of favorite people and places. Even favorite photographs clinging to magnets on my refrigerator.

It is also filled with little pleasures that enrich my days: the rainbows created by prisms hung in sunny windows, the stone fireplace, the windowsills just the right width for cats to repose while bird or squirrel watching. Cozy nooks for writing and reading. The view of my garden from the dining room table.

My favorite thing is something no one else sees. It's the view of the night sky from my bed. My bungalow is just a story higher than the house to the east. My town restricts night lighting so there's little light pollution. On recent nights, I have seen the moon (now waning) rise and bathe me in its light before moving on, leaving star tracks -- including something I think is the big dipper. It is so beautiful. Like a blessing.

And in the morning, the sun prompts my rising and a quick glance reveals whether the day will be typically Colorado clear or stormy.

All of this is ephemeral. I know that. Houses and prisms and even cats do not last. But while they are here, where I am, I am grateful. And that is an accurate statement.