cosy delights

fluffy new towels and a box of teas as housewarming/early birthday gifts....and fifteen cents found on the road made for a good morning.

to market, to market

a lovely day of swirling fog and a healthy walk to Pike's Market with my parents

figured that I would never have a shopping cart in my house again--until one is my home, so thought it ought to be documented.  We used it to unload riches in the form of fresh California produce and my grandmother's china--which has been stored in California for the past two years.

The bounty in my kitchen and pantry at the moment.  Sometimes things that don't occur are a huge blessing--for instance the packet of Splenda that has been in my toaster for the past several weeks and did not catch on fire.  Also, the eagle-eyed will notice the penny that was found on Pike Street earlier today.

let evening come

a few leaves survived the torrents of water this weekend

Seattle's version of cobblestones

nature's confetti

when at night, I go to sleep, fourteen angels....

west winds, golden

Yesterday's outing was a downtown trek to a free concert by the Golden West Winds from Travis Air Force Base.  During my undergrad years in the Napa Valley, the entire band would come to the college.

Yes, the autumn dampness has begun; I think it makes the leaves more brilliant, but I do have to admit that I do not enjoy being curbside in a bus deluge situation.

The concert was held at the Seattle Central Public Library, an intriguing bit of architecture.

They played some patriotic tunes, some Mozart, some Debussy, some spirituals and something by a French woman composer that the announcer got so enmeshed in the historical/biographer details that she left out the name of said composer.

This floor, the 10th,  is vertigo-inducing.

Gotta love an elevator with the Dewey Decimal system on the panel!

Cantilevered Inferences and Solid Nothings

This is a bit dense to digest, but oh, so worth it.  Also feel that it may be a good Christmas poem, but did not want to wait to post it.  (Although, in choral rehearsals, we're already up to the 20th of December, so I do feel in the festal spirit.)  Been a blessed day--gorgeous groceries were delivered to my doorstep and I finally found a penny--it's been a few days.  The happiest of Fridays to you.

And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day

by Michael Blumenthal

Things are not as they seem: the innuendo of everything makes
itself felt and trembles towards meanings we never intuited
or dreamed. Take, for example, how the warbler, perched on a

mere branch, can kidnap the day from its tediums and send us
heavenwards, or how, held up by nothing we really see, our
spirits soar and then, in a mysterious series of twists and turns,

come to a safe landing in a field, encircled by greenery. Nothing
I can say to you here can possibly convince you that a man
as unreliable as I have been can smuggle in truths between tercets

and quatrains on scraps of paper, but the world as we know
is full of surprises, and the likelihood that here, in the shape
of this very bird, redemption awaits us should not be dismissed

so easily. Each year, days swivel and diminish along their inscrutable
axes, then lengthen again until we are bathed in light we were not
prepared for. Last night, lying in bed with nothing to hold onto

but myself, I gazed at the emptiness beside me and saw there, in the
shape of absence, something so sweet and deliberate I called it darling.
No one who encrusticates (I made that up!) his silliness in a bowl,

waiting for sanctity, can ever know how lovely playfulness can be,
and, that said, let me wish you a Merry One (or Chanukah if you
prefer), and may whatever holds you up stay forever beneath you,

and may the robin find many a worm, and our cruelties abate,
and may you be well and happy and full of mischief as I am,
and may all your nothings, too, hold something up and sing.

cheaply entertaining

As I don't have a library card yet (I know, gasp) because I don't have an utility bill to prove my existence in this county, I've been going through serious book withdrawals.  Fortunately, I found Goodwill has paperbacks for mere pennies and I now have 1358 pages to devour.  What a fabulous bargain as we head into rainy season.

the centre cannot hold

“I believe everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so that you will eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes, ...good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.” —Marilyn Monroe.