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I am getting that look from Dilly. I think she is saying, “Just stop everything and pet me.” I think it is a good idea.

A couple of weeks ago the HOA yard people came and out of the blue decided that this tree needed some control. The problem was I didn’t catch them in time to say my regular yardman and I were going for a larger, freeform look. Something so the bush/tree did not look so trapped in itself. Now even the rabbit is exposed.

I need to call and explain that no tree trimming is necessary here unless in violation of some ordinance. And I need to be nice about it. Actually I think I am getting better on that score. What has turned me is that I do not want to sound like some of my neighbors who turn everything into a complaint. I am giving myself a pep talk before walking around the neighborhood, plastering a smile on my face and putting one foot in front of the other. It actually gets easier.

When I feel that I need to take control of arranging things to my liking, I do not look at my over-trimmed, rabbit-exposing bush/tree and come inside to move something on a shelf by 3/4″ and all sense of order is restored. It’s the little things.

Today I baked these pumpkin oatmeal muffins. No flour and nothing but maple syrup to sweeten them. Now I will have to poke several holes in them and make a thin maple flavored frosting to drizzle inside. They also sit like lead pellets.

I am thinking that it might be a good idea to cut my website down to just the blog. I no longer make art, and when I do, it can be part of my blog. I will need to ask my web guy about it when I see him. Actually, we have lost touch with each other these past months.

I keep writing poetry more than short stories so am also thinking about another book of just poetry and putting stories and essays in a separate book.

There is a new coffee shop about to open in town. I plan on going when it does and ordering a flat white. It would be so nice to have one again. Not sure this small town can actually muster up a barista, but it would be so nice to have a good coffee with a heart or fern leaf etched into the finest of foams. This week I may be able to order one and take a picture.

Also a new Asian restaurant is due to open on the square. But nothing happens quickly here.

The rest of the afternoon might be spent indulging in a movie or series. Something English to be sure.

Off to frost those pitifully healthy-tasting muffins, then grab a cat to pet and settle in for the sound and views of somewhere else.

Til later…..

Out my window on a dew-filled sunny morning this week.  Something beautiful can come from the burden of holding up under the weight of the moment.

This morning I saw this image of English textile artist, Janet Bolton. I have followed her work for many years…the simplicity, the deft ability to maneuver thread and needle into such tiny appliques! Here is her work posted this morning along with my comment back to her.

S. Webster

Today is a good day for writing. It is cloudy. Words can’t escape quickly into the heavier air outside. They will linger long enough to be rearranged and shuffled into meaning. I suppose I should get to it.

There are thirty-seven new poems, five new short stories, and a few more essays to put into a new book. Maybe I will just do a second poetry book and keep the stories and essays for another.

When we are older…past eighty…we think of perhaps not being able to finish the plans we had for ourselves. The worry of that is like a small prod in the back and a whisper in the ear to get on with it.

So, maybe I will….

Til later…

The International No Kings Day Rally was highly successful here in Hayesville, NC.  Not a trump support sign in sight! Here are some of my favorites from other places.

I took a like-minded neighbor for our drive through town support for all the wonderful people who turned out for No Kings Day. Kermit hung on out the window in support of the frogs of protest in Portland….an ICE infested city invaded by trump’s insanity and ignorance.

We handed out a bag full of cards and pins to the protesters.

I still have plenty left for the next rally. It was inspiring for both my neighbor and myself to see so many come out to support those of us who can see the damage that trump and his insatiable MAGAS have done to America. Thank you to all the countries who also rallied against the insane downfall of American values on No Kings Day.

Afterward a few (the few who are not trump supporters in my neighborhood) of us went out to dinner to celebrate the small difference we may have made.

I will have the rest of the champagne from a small dinner with friends the night before the rally and leftovers from last night’s dinner.

One thing I have noticed is that after the protest rally with so much support around the country…at leas seven million…it does not seem so hopeless to be an American. It feels that we might just get through this mess of manipulated madness.

Wish us luck!

Til later…

Mornings are getting crisper, fresher. The other evening I took myself out to dinner. I needed a gift certificate for my retiring eye doctor. We said goodbye at my last appointment this week. He has been putting plugs resembling fine fishing line in my tear ducts to prevent dry eyes for the last several years of our twenty year relationship. I will miss him and his staff who will also be leaving the office as it is taken over. I ordered a drink called the “Sandy”. It was nice and lemony.

Followed by shrimp and scallops.

The sun has moved just enough lower in the sky to give a lovely light through drying dogwood leaves and grasses.

I have been working on an essay about museum shops and the things that we buy from them for so many reasons. But mainly because you know that you will never see them again. It is your one chance ever to own this small thing that will so easily fit in your suitcase to bring home. And how the best section of those shops is the children’s area where things are scaled down in size and meant to be fun. The children’s books can be interesting here as well. That is if they have illustrations that are not that god awful flat big-eyed commercial drawings that look like they could fit into any story by just changing the little girl’s hair from a pony tail to pig tails. The over-sized kids are racing around frantically as the reader chases them from page to page. Anyway, avoid buying these mass-produced ideas of what children’s illustrators are striving for today. They are dreadful and all look copied from the same book that some publisher has told them will most certainly sell.

Instead, find the books illustrated by a person who can not only draw, but bring words to life with the careful mastery of a practiced hand. Maurice Sendak, Jill Barklem, Tasha Tudor, to name a few. Almost any book illustrated in England seems a much better idea than US illustrators. Our standards seem to have slipped in all aspects of what we used to take pride in. From our politics to our health to our cheap mass productions made for marketing, we are often not even a sad imitation of what we were not so many years ago.

Anyway, buy the books that make you want to save them just to pause over pages of finely done drawings.

I am going to do a bit of baking later today. Spinach phyllo triangles for the freezer seems a good idea.  I am toying with the idea of buying a new saucier pan. Maybe even add a one quart stainless pan for boiling up eggs and melting butter. My old pans have hot spots burned into them from my gas stove. It could be just me, but one wonders if there is a cutoff year for old ladies to stop buying pots and pans, and just make do with whatever is there. I will give myself another week and maybe by then will forget I ever thought it was necessary.

Next week I am going to write a cautionary tale about hanging onto things that make you wish you hadn’t…and do you call for another backhoe or bonfire to give a proper sendoff. In the meantime, each of them is worth writing down the story of how it came to be part of a collection that needed to be cherished forever….before it became burdensome. Our “forevers” are a bit short-lived as we age.

Anyway, out to the kitchen to see if the phyllo has thawed.

Til later…