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I finally had all the dead ferns and weeds removed from the pots and brought the birch sticks back out. I probably should just keep them there year round. Potted plants have expectations of receiving water at a quicker rate than I seem capable of thinking about it. I thought of buying more of these “birch twigs” from Amazon, but it seems even dead sticks have gone up in price.

No point in looking for dead branches in this neighborhood. Seems that any unsightly-ness is camouflaged, or attempted to be disguised at any rate. Note the latest attempt to cover a port-a-john on my morning walks around the block. I suppose covering the outhouse with plastic flowers is a distraction from all the other construction necessities surrounding it.

It has a bizarre resemblance to a woodsy wedding chapel…or confessional. Anyway, it makes me smile in it’s attempt to hide its function.

Needing some calm in what appears more and more like the fall of the “United” States, I have returned to my sketchbooks. First up is the Concertina Poetry Book. remember, I left off with the frog and his camel. Well now I having a dancing rat come to town. Writing the rhyming verse will be fun to do.

Since this last image I have added the town and the road going in. The pocket hand wrench clutching the rats money bag is interesting to me. Where did that idea come from? The toe sticking out of his shoe indicates that there is not much reward for dancing your way into town. I do get caught up in these drawings that beg for rhyming words and will blame the last audio book of the Harry Potter series. That voice of Jim Dale’s bringing the story by Rowling to life is fun to listen to. I love a story read to me. My mother would read all the classics that were illustrated by N C Wyeth to us…only so many chapters per night as I recall. She would be amused that nowadays I am listening to books on my telephone while getting 8,000 steps in per day.

Now it is way past lunchtime and I need to heat up the latest attempt at soup…a tasty concoction of onion, celery, carrots, black beans, chicken broth. and one bag of Mexican street corn flavored rice. Of course there are spices and herbs tossed in to give it that restaurant flavor that someone may have picked it up as a take out. I have to say that while at the store the other day, I bought a can of Campbells Tomato Soup. I wanted to add milk instead of water and then heat it up to go with a grilled cheese sandwich. I tossed the soup out! There was no tomato taste…but something more like the inside of a can was all I could distinguish. Whatever the flavor was, it was not bad enough to make you think you’d been poisoned, but only could be if you continued.

Better go. Lunch to eat and a poem to write.

Til Later…

The fog seems to want to cling more to the lowlands. Mornings are clearer or maybe crisper is a better word. Hay bales pop up wherever the machine drops them. I can appreciate the randomness of that.

Morning walks are lovely. So quiet…me, birds, and the occasional deer. Then there is that ever-changing morning sky!

I went to the library writing time of pure silence. No one was there but me. I worked on getting a new short story into one of the forms of short fiction. Later in the week, I made it exactly 100 words. The title and author do not count as words. I like how it came out. My very first murder. I titled it Stairs No. 1. Now I can do an entire series of short stories centered around stairs. Have you ever read Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space The classic look at how we experience intimate places.? My copy from graduate school was dropped into a bathtub by a friend I loaned it to. And since then has become more impressive with all the discoloration and ripply pages. It is wonderful to hold.

I asked one of the men I have coffee with (a trained architect, now my age) if he had read the book. It seemed it should have been required reading for students of architecture. No, he had not. So I bought him a copy from Amazon. The cover is not near so romanticized as my copy that is all grey shadows of angles, but the text is the same.

From the back cover:

Thirty years since its first publication in English, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space remains one of the most appealing and lyrical explorations of home. Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams.

My copy is from 1994.

How he describes the feeling of going upstairs contrasted with those when we descend downward is so spot on. The downward travel of basement stairs is there in Stairs No. 1.

Anyway, my joining poetry groups and a recent foray into time with those writing prose has made it quite clear that my tribe is more likely my own company. Did you know that poets want to talk about the importance of getting published? Which actually means someone a fraction of the poets age decides if there is enough space in their next publication for the words that may have meant every emotion one could possibly expend through their pen.

And the prose people were similarly focused on what sounded like following a prescribed formula for getting an agent to notice their next best selling novel.

So here I am. Still planning on going to the poetry reading this week…just expecting less in meaningful dialogue. Did you just see that word “dialogue”? One of the poets last month took the ue off the end! I wanted to ask if that was correct. But looked it up instead. You can lop off the ue if you want. But it still looks like a misspelling.

Okay, so I retreat into drawing and stitching to get more comfortable. Nearing the very last page in the Basket Gathering Book, I added the image of the use of Jed’s last bit of willow before he passed away last month. The basket makers put it to good use with talk of Jed and how much his kindness and knowledge affected us all over many, many years. I will turn the page and fill in the last of this book before making another one to continue on with my escapes into memory.

Til later….

 

Sad news from Australia this week that Inga Hunter has passed away. Thirteen years ago I got to spend time with her in her studio. What an artist! Never a moment without passions flowing through her work. She was a wonderful inspiring student in my workshops…always pushing boundaries. She will be missed!

Inga gave me the chicken who drives the children in my Cow Story Book about the perils of collecting.

And a small robe I bought from her hangs in the entry with many other pieces from Australia.

I listened to the world leaders speaking at the United Nations this week and was appalled by the presidents contribution. I so hate what the ignorance and bigotry of our country has wrought upon the entire world. So back to the installations…My opening reception for one was quite successful.

Title: The World Has Had Enough!

I made pumpkin muffins and squash soup yesterday. The butternut squash cost $2.48 a pound! Insane prices for something we used to try to give away. I added a whole apple to the soup because it was beginning to wish it did not come home with me. Plus a yellow onion, some herbs, spices, etc. I made the mistake of assuming the cayenne pepper had a fitted sprinkler top and ended up dumping too much in the soup. Had to add more half and half to help make it edible. If it still makes me gasp, I might just add pasta. It could be time I simply give up cooking. I am beginning to remind myself of the hostess in my short story titled, Loose Threads….

……One time Dora tried a quiche. She liked the word. It sounded sophisticated. So she looked up a recipe and included some of her own ingredients to the frozen pie crust. It wasn’t as good as she thought it would be. Maybe the half can each of cream corn and green beans were too much to add to the cheese, egg, spinach and ham that the recipe called for. Later in the kitchen scraping the plates, Dora assumed it must have been the green beans clinging to a wet pie crust that was the reason no one asked for her recipe. Maybe today her scones with just a small amount of crushed corn flakes worked in and served with a rosemary flavored honey butter would be a better offering…..

I saw a Canadian commentator talk about this game and the teenagers who designed it. He thought they should be up for the Nobel Peace Prize. Needless to say I ordered the deluxe model because it is completely made in Canada and part of their profits go to charity. I am contrasting these boys to our American counterpart…seven Cornell University rapists who only have to write an essay about their experience. This was the best those men in charge could come up with as suitable punishment. My country makes me sick right now and I am quite convinced that I won’t be around to see corrective measures being made.

But as Annie says, The sun will come out tomorrow…

Til later…I am going to tidy up and mix a Negroni later.

Sadie and Dilly are good company. Trying to trap Dilly under the scissors to clip out mats is a challenge. One more to go and so far neither of us has drawn blood. She never had them before so I will blame it on the heat and humidity this year.

Mornings are still lovely and now with a tiny chill in the air.

The fog hangs around until mid morning.

With Annie Dillard passing this week, I recalled her writings that stuck with me. Remember the one…probably from An American Childhood…where her teacher, with all good intentions of showing her class a science experiment, raised a moth (or was it a butterfly?) in a glass jar? And when it went to spread its wings their was not enough room and one wing became deformed. The last she saw of it, it was walking away down the sidewalk. The story made me feel so sad and angry at the same time. And the image of a limping butterfly making its way down a concrete walk has forever lodged in my mind. I don’t remember if my own children ever read Annie Dillard’s books. I came across them after they were grown and off on their own. If their college readings centered around the natural world, they probably did. But I suspect most their reading was science based without the emotion of reading Dillard and others like her. I thought I still had most of her books on my shelves but only found, The Writing Life.

I remember not too many years ago, I saw a large female frog in the pond. It was patiently waiting for a much smaller male frog to finish his business while perched on her back. She kept trying to keep her head up while he busied himself with the task at hand. I wanted her to roll over and slap the little bugger. And when she didn’t, I just had to look away. And you know the first thought I had was when I looked away? Annie Dillard would have watched to the end and probably taken notes! I looked back and with a feeling of not being up to the task, I found both frogs had disappeared. Missed opportunities!

Anyway, Annie Dillard always made me to pay closer attention to Nature. Annie Proulx, to people. Remember how she, Proulx, was sitting in a bar in Wyoming when two fellows came in and something about them prompted her story, Brokeback Mountain? I don’t think much got past her or her imagination.

Nowadays I notice people more than Nature. Probably because I don’t take off onto unsteady ground to get among the frogs who might be waiting for me to show up. And people are most anywhere I look if I get out of my house and into town. Mostly I stay home and pretend I know what is going on without having to be there in person.

Speaking of pretending to be somewhere in person, I am vicariously attending the latest Tasmanian Basket Gathering and drawing/stitching in the Gathering Book. I only have the back side of this facing page and the book is complete. Should I make another book?

I think I am ready to make another political work for the garage. Already the Reflecting Pool one seems a year old. It is probably because the people’s choice for president can’t help himself from bouncing from one national embarrassment to another. And, of course, his ignorant, loyal followers need to know he is there for them. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is to hear so many complaints about what he causes and yet, see so little protest artwork being posted on social media. Thank heavens for the political cartoonists who have no problem putting their work out there. As long as I have space to hang a work and the time to give myself an opening reception, I will keep on.

Now an early drink is in order…a toast to the Annies.

Til later….