Butcher Shop Gallery

My painting BLIND DATE that was hanging in Jamie Sullivan's North Main Street Shaw's Meats butcher shop for two weeks just sold! Stay tuned while I gather up another to fill the spot.

Lit From Within

Last night we walked to the swim spot after the sun had already set. The water was very cold; a tingly-cold that feels like swimming in mint. We brought a glow-in-the-dark softball I had found recently. We've discovered that softballs float in water! Lily fetched it a few times. When we climbed back out to the street we ran into friendly neighbors and talked until it was very dark and we were being eaten by mosquitoes. We walked home down the dark streets, looking into the houses along the pond that were lit from within.

Sonny Rollins

When I was in India at an ashram, my teacher told me, When you are playing your horn, that's meditation. And that is a way of worship.
-Sonny Rollins

Guided Missles

Guided Missles, Misguided Men!
-a hand held sign

The Artist's Job

The Artist's job is to be one of a kind, not one of any number of.
-Bill Calhoun

Standing Up

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.
-Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice

There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to one kind of apology alone,
Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.
You go to their house for a meal,
And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;
They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,
And they apologzie publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;
If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,
And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;
They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious dairy can,
But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,
I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,
Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,
And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,
And what particularly bores me with them,
Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,
So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,
Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.
-Ogden Nash

Sunset Swim

Tonight we walked to the secret swim spot and had a sunset swim! Bill threw the stick. Lily went after it and then I swam and threw it further out into the river so Lily had very long distance to swim back to shore! She got tired after about 8 throws. We saw a blue heron fly over us with its wide wingspan and scrunched up legs. It was making noise! As it was getting dark, I ducked into the bushes and changed out of my wet tank suit and put on dry jeans and shirt, sweatshirt, and dry socks and sneakers. For the first time all summer I was not walking home from the pond soaking wet! While I was drying my toes we heard a strange bird call that almost sounded like a horse whinnying but it repeated about ten times exactly the same pitch so we assumed it wasn't a horse. As we walked home through the little neighborhoods we saw people gathered around backyard campfires. We saw solar powered lights glowing in the dark! I was wishing we could swim outdoors until the pond froze solid and it was skating season!

Plato

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
-Plato

September Joy

Last night Bill and Lily and I walked to the secret swim spot at 6PM and swam when the last of the sun was shining at us from across the river. Lily swam after the stick and I swam in and out with her until we were both tired. When we got home we ate leftover potato curry which was even better than the night we made it. I fell asleep at nine! And at 4:30 I was wide awake. This is the season of magic. I wish I could feel this way for all 4 seasons not just Spring and Fall. Cheers to dawn.

Moon Muse

The moon muse got me!
I wrote and sang this with my little red accordion like the Roy Acuff highway song in the key of "A"

It rains in my house
in four places

My feet are bare
on the ground

What do we do
about healthcare

When they're ain't
no cash to be found

They're ain't no cash to be found
dear brother,
They're ain't no cash to be found

Leonard Cohen

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
-Leonard Cohen

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.
-Leonard Cohen

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen

E.B. White

Life will be paperwork; death will be a questionnaire.
-E.B. White

When a glass of wine is poured a wine fly appears promptly- but I never see him at any other time, and wonder where he keeps himself in the meanwhile and what he does for a drink.
-E.B. White

When you can't breathe through your nose Tomorrow seems strangely like the day before yesterday.
-E.B. White

All we need is a meteorologist who has once been soaked to the skin without ill effect. No one can write knowingly of the weather who walks bent over on wet days.
-E.B. White

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
-E.B. White

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
-E.B. White

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
-E.B. White

These Legs

It was Summer. I was running through the cemetery and it began to rain. I ran up the hill gathering my dress a few inches so I wouldn't fall. Admiring my legs, I thought these legs are wasted on the dead.

Mark Doty Poem

Oncoming Train

I hate that moment when the train's coming
into the station, hurtling, inviting, so ferocious in its forward momentum,

the most dangerous thirty seconds of my day, twice every day,
sometimes more; sometimes I have to steady myself against a pillar

on the platform, or stand at a distance, against the back wall,
in order to feel that I will more firmly resist the impulse.

Not that I want to be dead, exactly, and certainly not
that I want to suffer, I have a great deal to live for—

But the idea of simply stepping out of forwardness
—that moment is the clearest invitation and opportunity

to strike against time, to refuse to accede, to win some power
over what no one controls. I'm not proud of this,

I wouldn't tell just anyone, but I will tell you.
The train's a huge onrushing refusal,

and who has any power over time, save to refuse?

Or no:
to hurry time, to make him run—that is a radical form of submission.

—Mark Doty from School of the Arts

Recycled Habitat

I just read about this interesting and amazing man Dan Phillips who started Phoenix Commotion, a construction business in Huntsville Texas, where he builds low-income housing out of salvaged items. I think the whole world should follow his lead. Check it out! Click here.

Quiet Hour

This morning there was a magnificent pink and blue dawn sky! My pressure cooker is hissing away, cooking a batch of garbanzos. With the full moon landing on a holiday weekend this might be the only quiet hour.

Most Things

It doesn't take much, but it does take some.

Flying and Landing

The other evening I spotted three black and yellow butterflies flying in our yard. My husband said they were grasshoppers. I never knew grasshoppers had wings! I knew that grasshoppers hopped but I had no idea they also flew and had colorful wings like butterflies.

Speaking of flying, I just saw a hawk fly by with a dead pigeon in its clutches! He landed on top of the little mill building on Hazel Street and began his feast but he flew away as Lily and I approached.

September Light

I love crisp mornings. The river is ice-cold! I love the shock of swimming in cold water and then drinking hot tea.

September light is less harsh. I've taken off my sunglasses to experience the tones.

Yesterday while walking Lily I saw all the neighborhood kids out on the sidewalks wearing new school clothes, carrying backpacks, and waiting for the school buses. The first day of school!

I can feel the energy shifting in our little neighborhood.