Sunday, February 28, 2010

backside of February

Yes, I realize that things don't magically change when one flips the calendar page, but I am thrilled to see the ending of this month.  


Bogart stuck his furry face in, so hope you can still see the dime which was found on the way to the library.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

$14.71


is the grand total of coinage that I turned into the bank yesterday!  I shall most certainly continue in my penny searching habit.

Friday, February 26, 2010

t.g.i.p.





Travel Directions
Joan I. Siegel

There ought to be a word
for the way you know how to get some place
but don't remember the names of streets
the number of turns and blinking yellow lights
so that if someone asked
you really couldn't say
except you know the road starts out straight
and when it's sunny the branches blink across
the windshield making you want to rub your eyes
then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn
where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile
and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment
and you remember the road dips downhill
into the shadows of the morning
where you hear Bach's unaccompanied 'cello
and understand what a good fit the 'cello makes
in the hollow of the body
where grief begins and for an indeterminate time
the road winds vaguely past
houses & road signs
while time hums in your ear and you remember
the dream you left behind that morning
which had nothing
to do with where
you are going

Thursday, February 25, 2010

thought for Thursday


"We build our own and our shared realities
and then we become victims of them--
blind to the fact that they are constructs, ideas."
~Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

common cents


Found a penny on the street and found coins in the mail.   This fixation with bits of change may seem trivial, but as the days go past, I find it deeply metaphoric.  Especially when tough days come at me, if I can do one small thing towards normality, I find that it a healthy thing.  One penny doesn't seem like a lot, but after 14 months of collecting change, it has added up to several dollars.

And here, I will leave the metaphor in peace :)


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

simple things


Between the walk to CostPlus for divinely cheap spices and the library, I enjoyed seven miles of a non-splashed walk.   It's much easier to scale Seattle's hills when one isn't wearing sopping wet jeans, I've discovered.



Finally hung my last picture that needed wall space.  With my WA driver's license, WA plates and a Seattle library card, think it's safe to say that I am now settled in.


Trying to capture as many of my hung paintings/prints as I could in one shot.


Yes, I still haven't finished painting the dresser....

Monday, February 22, 2010

hmmmm


"When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

Alexander Graham Bell

Saturday, February 20, 2010

this & that


Bogart aiding in planting my English thyme, silver and lemon thymes.  Please note the penny obtained with a death-defying dash into the middle of 23rd.


Also got some mini-daffodils with my gift card.


It's a bit hazy, but it's the first sighting of Rainier in several weeks.

Friday, February 19, 2010

poetry




Ex-Boyfriends

by Kim Addonizio

They hang around, hitting on your friends
or else you never hear from them again.
They call when they're drunk, or finally get sober,

they're passing through town and want dinner,
they take your hand across the table, kiss you
when you come back from the bathroom.

They were your loves, your victims,
your good dogs or bad boys, and they're over
you now. one writes a book in which a woman

who sounds suspiciously like you
is the first to be sadistically dismembered
by a serial killer. They're getting married

and want you to be the first to know,
or they've been fired and need a loan,
their new girlfriend hates you,

they say they don't miss you but show up
in your dreams, calling to you from the shoeboxes
where they're buried in rows in your basement.

Some nights you find one floating into bed with you,
propped on an elbow, giving you a look
of fascination, a look that says I can't believe

I've found you. It's the same way
your current boyfriend gazed at you last night,
before he pulled the plug on the tiny white lights

above the bed, and moved against you in the dark
broken occasionally by the faint restless arcs
of headlights from the freeway's passing trucks,

the big rigs that travel and travel,
hauling their loads between cities, warehouses,
following the familiar routes of their loneliness.


Wednesday, February 17, 2010

ashes to ashes



As I have three services involving ashes today and have watched yet another relationship crumble to bits through betrayals and lies, I've been pondering ashes and the demise of things.  I do not think that this is necessarily a negative thing.  When I work in parochial schools or liturgical churches, many dread the Lenten season.   I've also loved the idea and the imagery of the Phoenix.  I also enjoy the more contemplative sections of the liturgical cycle.  So, I do not mind at all that today was the day ashes were crossed upon my head.

Perhaps it's not at all a bad thing to have everything burned down to nothing.

It's been a long day, so I stop philosophizing and simply share some T.S. Eliot:

"Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still / Even among these rocks, / Our peace in His will / And even among these rocks / Sister, mother / And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, / Suffer me not to be separated / And let my cry come unto Thee."

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

miniature blessings


One of the nicest things about my 13-shelf branch library (well, it has a few more shelves than that), is that it not only provides a gently hilled 3 mile walk, it has FREE dvd's.  Unlimited.  A fact that is making this week a very nice one.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

b-day cookbook debut recipe

Chocolate mascarpone cheesecake pots.  I opted to make fresh caramel to drizzle on the top instead of the whipped cream.  Nickel found on Friday's city walk.


Yesterday's rainbow viewed from my balcony.


Too bad blogs don't come with a scent option because my home is redolent with chocolate and butter and vanilla.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

feeling feline


I've decided it would be a fine thing if Bogart and I were to swap lives for a month or two.  I'd be darling at sleeping for 14-20 hours per day.  Not to mention how delightful it would be to be only concerned with eating and grooming and chasing the occasional catnipped mouse.  My hair would always look fabulous and I would be neutered, so the whole agony of dating would be a moot point.  Now, if only he would agree to this swap....




How Bogart works on my thesis....

Friday, February 12, 2010

Friday & Poetry

This Year's Valentine

by Philip Appleman
They could
   pump frenzy into air ducts
     and rage into reservoirs,
   dynamite dams
     and drown cities,
   cry fire in theaters
     as the victims are burning,
but
I will find my way through blackened streets
   and kneel down at your side.

They could
   jump the median, head-on,
     and obliterate the future,
   fit .45's to the hands of kids
     and skate them off to school,
   flip live butts into tinderbox forests
     and hellfire half the heavens,
but
in the rubble of smoking cottages
   I will hold you in my arms.

They could
   send kidnappers to kindergartens
     and pedophiles to playgrounds,
   wrap themselves in Old Glory
     and gut the Bill of Rights,
   pound the door with holy screed
     and put an end to reason,
but
I will cut through their curtains of cunning
   and find you somewhere in the moonlight.

Whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws,
however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail,
they cannot prevent me from sending you robins,
all of them singing: I'll be there.


**************************************************
(or not, I might possibly be doing my nails and feeling loathe to smudge them.  I'll end with a more upbeat proverb:  True pain to my sham friends and champagne to my true friends.)


Thursday, February 11, 2010

drippy February

sooooo jealous of all my Princeton classmates photos of all the snow they're getting right now!  I would love a few quality snow days.


But this is the view of the morning, decided it was time to break out the muffin tin and indulge in some blueberry therapy.


Monday, February 8, 2010

success with bureaucracy


ethereal fog over Bellevue


my tres chic Valentine's gift from H&M, courtesy la parenti!
verrrrrry expensive metal--good thing I found $.11 to help defray their cost

Saturday, February 6, 2010

semi-success with bureaucracy

have yet to procure license plates despite two treks to City Hall.  Next week.  However, finally did get my Seattle Public Library card!


Friday, February 5, 2010

poetry for Friday

Autopsy in the Form of an Elegy

by John Stone
In the chest
in the heart
was a vessel

was the pulse
was the art
was the love

was the clot
small and slow
and the scar
that could not know

the rest of you
was very nearly perfect.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

glimmers of grace


A nice long walk in the crisp air to procure my favorite hot sauce, a penny found, and a cd of my Princeton graduation music in the post, a Teapot lunch with my new business partner; February is already looking upwards.

Monday, February 1, 2010

rabbit2


Yes, I did find change during the computer's hiatus, but I didn't keep careful track of the days....but all of these were found on a hike to Elliott Bay.