Written Monday, delayed from posting until today.

The sunset yesterday... clouds are always interesting after a storm. Sunsets after one can be particularly beautiful. The problem comes when you can't see more than a glimpse.

I had such a glimpse. Driving to a friends house on Sunday evening, as I topped a small rise just before I would have taken the exit ramp, I looked straight ahead. The irregular line of the mountains was black, but a black tinted brown, tinted a rosy darkness with the light that was remaining. The sky was pale blue, and heavy along one side of it were fat and dark grey clouds, already shed of rain and now waiting to be blown elsewhere. But it was not an abrupt demarkation - when the clouds began, they stuttered along the edge of the mountains, dark against the brightness of the sky. And at one point along the meandering line of nearly equal peaks, they formed a cup. A cradle. A hand. Any and all of these, and the sun was nestled down within it, spilling its last light in radiant gold up the sides of the clouds that cradled it, already past the line of the mountains, lost from direct sight. It was one of those moments you wish you had a camera, and lacking a camera, you stop, and watch it, until every last moment of inspiring beauty is wrung from what you see.

But you can't stop when you're driving on city streets. And you can't pull over when you're on the freeway. And it wouldn't matter if you did, because what you can see from one perfect vantage point is blocked by buildings, by overpasses, by power lines and soundwalls from any other angle, from even a few damn feet away. And the roar of cars is constant, the whine of planes, the distant sounds of construction turning a fallow, green-coated hill into flat brown dirt for another apartment complex.

So I have the memory of that incredible sight for a breath, for a heartbeat... and the next thirty minutes trying fruitlessly to see it again.

That was my day. At least there was the moment of beauty. My month. Well. The good news is, my mother's knee surgery went well. She seems to be recovering just fine. She can walk now, albeit she's having to ease back into it and take pain medication. I'm going to visit her tomorrow. She was working off the clock at her job, and tossing some things into the dumpster out back. Well, in trying to make them fit, she slipped and hurt herself quite badly. She was in a wheelchair half the time, on crutches the other, and in quite a bit of pain. She finally had the surgery though, and it wasn't as serious as they'd feared. So that's a good thing. She'll be fine.

My brother. I haven't talked much about him, but then, lately, I hadn't had anything to bitch about other than work. Sorry about all the bitching, by the way. I know it gets tiresome. Still, I think this is the first job I've had that I truly hate, rather than dislike. Anyway.

My brother is a topic far more convoluted and plain messed up than anyone would enjoy reading about. I love him dearly, and he has his shining virtues, and then he has his utterly fucked up priorities. I have at times in my life stood up in his defense, and had to move out before I killed him myself. Maybe I'll talk more about -that- issue later, because I'm going to see my mom tomorrow. As always, it will likely prove... interesting.

Kaz