![\"nothing1\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/nothing1.jpeg\")
<\/a>I know I don\u2019t always succeed, but I always try to write something entertaining about where I\u2019ve been or where I\u2019m going, as I love travel and I seem to look at things from a little different perspective than most others. Or I\u2019ll write about some little, but hopefully interesting, observation of life. Sister Suzanne does a particularly great job of the latter \u2013 I mean really, she brought us to tears last week writing about taking her dog for a walk out to the end of her driveway. Me \u2013 not so much, as I said, I usually rely on \u2018going somewhere\u2019 and hoping to find something interesting to write about.<\/p>\n<\/a>Santa Barbara coast<\/p><\/div>\n
Last week I was supposed to go on a camping trip along the Santa Barbara coast, exploring the beaches and cliffs of this beautiful area, but for various reasons that I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not interested in \u2013 heck, I\u2019m not even that interested \u2013 the trip was cancelled. So there I was, ready to regale you with my adventurous treks along the beautiful Central Coast and now I\u2019ve got nothing. Didn\u2019t go anywhere. Didn\u2019t see anything interesting. Nothing extraordinary happened to me. Didn\u2019t discover any special or unique places. I’ve got nothing. Even though Seinfeld made a career out of it, it\u2019s hard to write about nothing. Although some have said there\u2019s a lot of nothing in many of my previous blogs.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Deck-side umbrella table and palapa<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Outside fireplace<\/p><\/div>\n
So last weekend instead of camping in the Chumash Mountain Wilderness, I wandered around in my backyard. No, I didn\u2019t camp there, although there have been occasions, when the kids were younger, when I\u2019d pitch a tent on the back lawn, spend the night in it and be awakened in the morning by the sprinklers that I forgot to turn off. So, this week my ‘going somewhere’ turned out to be my backyard, and while I enjoy putzing around back there, I\u2019m not finding anything of interest to write about this week. Unlike my sister\u2019s backyard, which has Pinnacle Peak, I have no natural landmarks. I do however have some \u2018man-made\u2019 landmarks and so I wander around back there trying to find inspiration from them. I look past the pool deck umbrella table where no one is sitting to the palapa that no one is sitting under, and I get no inspiration . . . nothing. I check the \u2018Tiki Bar\u2019 to see if there are any stragglers left over from the weekend, perhaps with a good story to tell that would make for an interesting blog . . . nothing. I recently bought a new umbrella for our outside fireplace area, and although it\u2019s nice, it\u2019s hardly blog-worthy. I crank up some Jimmy Buffet music through the outside speakers hoping to get some inspiration from him . . . nothing. We bought this house new 28 years ago and the backyard was just dirt . . . nothing. And today in terms blog inspiration . . . nothing. I\u2019m thinking maybe I should talk to some of the plants; perhaps they\u2019ll talk back and give me something to write about. I bend down and put my ear to the hydrangeas . . . nothing.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The Tiki Bar<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Plumeria<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Behind the pool is what I called my \u2018Ho\u2019omana\u2019O Honopua\u2019<\/i>, which loosely translate in Hawaiian to \u2018Memorial Garden\u2019. I love Hawaii, so my intent with this garden was to bring Hawaii to my backyard, so I wouldn\u2019t have to pay airfare or expensive hotel rates to enjoy the sights and smell of palms and plumeria. I\u2019ve told my family that I\u2019d like my ashes under the moai <\/i>(stone monoliths from Easter Island \u2013 a bucket list destination) on the right in the picture below. It is already a memorial garden in that when I returned from my best friend, Don Klapperich\u2019s funeral, I purchased the moai on the left in the picture below and buried under it a shell casing from the rifles fired during the military memorial service.<\/p>\n Ho’ Omana ‘ o Honopua<\/p><\/div>\n It\u2019s getting dark and there will be no lights turned on in the backyard tonight, no tiki torches lit, no music playing, no adult beverages consumed; there will be, like this blog . . . nothing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow I know I don\u2019t always succeed, but I always try to write something entertaining about where I\u2019ve been or where I\u2019m going, as I love travel and I seem to look at things from a little different … read more<\/a>