184 days

the turtle is six months old today.
don't ask me how it happened; i've no idea.
yesterday she slept-in till just after eight. it was awesome.
i decided to reward her with free reign of my box of ribbons and lace.








post script admission: in case you're wondering, yes, i am a bit obsessed with her sagging cheeks and adorably huge grin.

No. 8

took this off the bookshelf today and opened randomly to the following.
i may have started a new tradition.

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through
a darkness where new lights begin and
increase,
since your mind has walked into
my kiss as a stranger
into the streets and colours of a town---

that i have perhaps forgotten
how,always(from
these hurrying crudities
of blood and flesh)Love
coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

---after which our separating selves become museums
filled with skillfully stuffed memories

Edward Estlin Cummings

missing appendages

is it weird that i'm tempted to decorate Dinah's room with these?

run-on life

sometimes, when your head gets heavy-full of other people's words and photos of their visits to exotic places in Asia and that article on Salon about hip-lefty-home-schoolers in Brooklyn and all that talk-talk-talk about that animal flu (that might have, turns out, come from people first) that your friend's kid got and your other friend's kid probably won't get but they're not taking any chances and all those "talks with Iran" that "don't seem to be going anywhere" and something in-there-somewhere has got you subconsciously fantasizing about twelve or thirteen different life-styles at once while you eat the last strawberry Yoplait that you ought to have saved for tomorrow's breakfast but somehow you don't care, because it's not quite eleven but it feels a lot like twelve and the baby is asleep (for now) and her daddy is slumbering on the sofa and you can't recall how many months it's been since you had a full, uninterrupted night's sleep and right now it's more relaxing to sift through various lots of size 2 baby shoes on eBay than it is to continue to mull over how you're going to go about mimicking the life-styles of fourteen or fifteen other people who, while viewed through the rose-colored glasses of the inter-webs, look to be the kind of people who would never sit up late at night eating a Yoplait and searching for some killer deal on used baby shoes on eBay.

harvest

dug up the carrots today.
much more impressive harvest than last year's.
we were quite excited.
Ben's only complaint was the several species of spiders he found lurking among the roots.

and here's a photo of some tomatoes from a few weeks ago. we've managed to trim the pile down quite a bit since then.

i love harvest time.

Mina Loy's Baedeker

yes. it's true. i changed the blog name. blah blah blog is no more.

there are only so many times one can look at a thing like that. and that number is the number of times i saw it before i determined not to take it anymore.


the new blog title was influenced by a poem published in 1923 by the too-often-forgotten, Mina Loy.

Baedeker refers to the pioneering guide books of Verlag Karl Baedeker who first popularized the use of travel guide books in the mid 1800s.

here's an example of a map of Brooklyn from a Baedeker published in 1909.

post script: i've been reading far too much poetry lately (most of it modern). and you know what that means...

poetry explained

we (when i say we, i mean poets) write
in order to capture emotion in a butterfly net
and place it in a jar for you to look at.

you are not to touch it.
you can't comprehend it.

but its wings are a colorful geometry of life
and its mysterious beauty is acceptable to you.

so when i say my daughter is an angel
cut from a heavenly mold
and fashioned by God himself,
you nod solemnly.

but what you don't know is what it's like
to sit in the early hours of morning
and hold the warmth of her featherweight body to yours
as you rock gently together in silence.

and if i told you that joy
is watching her eyes curiously examine your face
as her small mouth spreads those cherubic pink cheeks
into a knowing smile,

you would only see a butterfly fluttering in a jar.

Katy did it

got me to sew, that is. September is (was) National Sewing Month. Katy's challenge was to finish a project, or multiple projects, during the month.

my idea was to sew an apron inspired by the art of crazy quilting (something i dabble in).

but you know how ideas are; untrustworthy little bits of inspiration that have a high rate of induction and low rate of fruition.

at any rate, it's mostly done. and i learned something new: i'm not especially good at quilting aprons on the fly.

(it's never bad to learn something new.)
thanks to Katy for her endless inspiration and for making ideas into material objects. i salute you.

post script: i did spend a fair amount of time this month working on these; which i very much enjoyed.

first attempt

we're fed up at our house with store-bought salad dressing. the preservatives. the price.

so here's my first attempt at some homemade stuff (other than plain ol' olive oil, vinegar & lemon juice).

this recipe mostly consisted of fresh tomato juice, and anything containing tomatoes is definitely welcome these days.

it was pretty good, albeit a bit watery.
and i made way too much, as a little goes a long way.
post script: while i'm being foodie (NO, THIS IS NOT TURNING INTO ANOTHER FOODIE BLOG...or is it?) i insist upon adding that i also made delicious kale & zucchini enchiladas tonight (my own signature recipe); topped with some of this fresh salsa. our fourth batch(?)

Intake Interview

What is today's date?

Who is the President?

How great a danger do you pose, on a scale of one to ten?

What does "people who live in glass houses" mean?

Every symphony is a suicide postponed, true or false?

Should each individual snowflake be held accountable for the
avalanche?

Name five rivers.

What do you see yourself doing in ten minutes?

How about some lovely soft Thorazine music?

If you could have half an hour with your father, what would you say to him?

What should you do if I fall asleep?

Are you still following in his mastodon footsteps?

What is the moral of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?

What about his Everest shadow?

Would you compare your education to a disease so rare no one else has ever had it, or the deliberate extermination of indigenous populations?

Which is more puzzling, the existence of suffering or its frequent absence?

Should an odd number be sacrificed to the gods of the sky, and an even to those of the underworld, or vice versa?

Would you visit a country where nobody talks?

What would you have done differently?

Why are you here?

- Franz Wright

post script: the original structure of the poem is slightly different from this. can't figure out the html to post the bloody thing right. forgive me Franz.

it's a mouth thing

and a hair thing too...but Dinah's is down for once in this shot. see below photo with lemon.

listed

*click*