Happiness

Spent the last few days under the weather. Darlin' Darlyn nursed me back to health with hot ramen and tender loving care. One of the highlights of the past few fever-addled days, was sitting side-by-side on the loveseat in my library, playing guitar and singing folk songs - Darlyn's sweet melodic voice floating smooth and soothing over my own, tortured Tom Waits. I like the way this picture highlights the grooves in the well-travelled fretboard of my 1970s-vintage Yamaha G-65 classical guitar. Even the frets themselves look dished and worn from 40 years of therapeutic noodlings. We've traveled a long way together -- from This Land is Your Land and Kum Bi Yah  to Blackbird and Classical Gas, through break ups and make ups and countless campfires. I have newer guitars - sleek electrics with equalizers and built-in tuners. But for good old-fashioned chicken soup comfort, it's hard to beat the sweet, mellow sound of my old friend.

The good stuff:

Darlyn -- just because

chicken ramen

Lemon zinger tea - with Grand Marnier.

humidifiers

hometown heroes

antibiotics

seagulls - miles from shore

the day after the fever breaks

new sidewalks

acorns crunching underfoot.

London, 2008: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets

When you pay good money to be scared, this is the kind of place you hope to find. Here we are, in a deserted alley, on our way home from drinking Absinthe at The Ten Bells -- last stop on our Jack the Ripper's London tour. It was a fascinating night of true crime hosted by Donald Rumbelow, a guy who had literally written the book on the case. Rumbelow -- one of the all-time great author names :) -- claims to have been the studio-hired resource who briefed Johnny Depp on the case prior to the filming of From Hell. We met in the furtive shadows across from The Tower of London, and trod the cobblestone streets of Old London -- one square mile bounded by Roman stone and conflicting suburban police jurisdictions. Rumbelow wove a captivating tale, then opened his attache to conduct a little book sales business. I got the last copy! There are lots of folks offering Jack the Ripper tours and they steal each other's business like Gypsy Cab drivers. We were fortunate to get Rumbelow, and we were his last tour before taking a several week break for back surgery.

The good stuff:

Comfort food

Apple cinnamon oatmeal

eucalyptus

Niquel

Antibiotics

glad tidings

great joy

angels - of all stripes

DIY web design

Solstice

It came upon a midnight clear . . . actually it arrived around 1:30 a.m. -- a full lunar eclipse on the winter solstice. Now I'm not up on my druid lore, but that's got to be some kind of triple-witching hour. Local pagans celebrated with drum circles. And I thought of a couple of summers ago, when Darlyn, Meschelle and I were at Stonehenge on the eve of the summer solstice.

Regardless of your creed, there is something powerful about a solstice, especially the winter solstice, the longest night of the year -- standing astride the midnight meridian, staring up into the honest eye of the moon, you feel closer to God, and somehow empowered to ask him anything. This time, I didn't. I just tilted my head back and watched as the lid of the earth's shadow, dropped like an eyelid, until all that was left was a white tip and the moon eye became a buckeye. And then even that was gone, and the moon slept. A silent night, indeed.

I watched through the improbable December blossoms of my flowering peach tree, and whispered two words -- to God, and to Darlyn, whom I knew at that moment was at her home across town, bundled and sapping the heat from her cocoa, staring up at the same night sky, 25 miles away: "Thank you."

Peace to you all.

Pinocchio - the later years

Like many child stars, Pinocchio had a hard time adjusting to reality. As it turned out, being "real" was not a marketable job skill - not like, say, being a stringless puppet. Desperate, he took matters into his own hands, undergoing experimental surgery in Mexico to return to his natural state. The surgery worked, but by then the world's attention had turned to automatons. His life in splinters, he took to freebasing varnish. An autopsy, performed by a noted tree surgeon, placed his age at 37, although his rings showed signs of termites and the advanced dry rot of a much older tree. He was made into a pine box and buried in a private ceremony attended by a cricket, and several smoking donkeys in topcoats and short-pants.

The good stuff:

Pot luck at the Kerouac House

A good yarn

A nice sweater made from good yarn

Apples and peanut butter

Barnstorming hawks

Woodpeckers at the window

Pajama weekends

Community

Linear parks

Writer talk

Pinocchio -- artist's model

Another great sculpture by Cheryl Bogdanowitsch

 

The good stuff:

A warm day in winter

Rowers at dawn

Ferris wheels

Dancing shoes

Wind-up monkeys

Puppet boxing

Packages on the porch

Crisp, shiny apples

chimney smoke

Faces off

This shot of fragments in Cheryl Bodganowitsch's woodpile would make a nice cover image for a poetry collection.

The good stuff:

Blue moons

Spaghetti and brocolli slaw

New office supplies (feels like new school supplies)

Poetry in motion

Infinity - and beyond

Questions without answers

The Three Musketeers 

Traffic circles

Crop circles

Turning in circles 

Fellahin

More beautiful detail from the work of Cheryl Bogdanowitsch. This one reminded me of that famous National Geographic Cover, the one of the Afghani girl with the searing green eyes. This particular photo shoot was so rich with these powerful images. I think I'll keep posting them for awhile.

The good stuff:

The exhaustion of a day well-spent

Cold weather - nature's bug zapper

Woohoo! 30 degrees - no more lawn mowing this year

Getting pulled over for a burned out headlight - on my way to an auto parts store (no ticket)

Silk Soy Nog. Not the product itself, I just like saying it.

Sidewalk chalk

Vermillion

Chartreuse

Cinnamon candles

Spelunking for sweaters