Sits Up and Looks Around

the sun is coming back?

2012-01-26T20:07:00.000-05:00

the sun came up early yesterday!

made a believer of me

spring is a long slow dance -

step forward, step back

and mud mud mud

meanwhile, speaking of mud,

mudpie put pots of herbs at her tiny houseboat window,

even tho Raglan Shire is still covered in snow.

feels good to see them there.

let your smile be your umbrella - my birthday version!

2012-01-25T23:20:00.000-05:00

let your smile be your umbrella

let your grimace be your shoe

let your smirk be your sombrero

and you'll find a love that's true

let your frown be your long underwear

and your sneer your pocketbook

let your grin be your ballet shoe ribbon

then you'll know you're off the hook!

I thought of this poem in my sleep last night and wrote it down when I woke up this morning! A good birthday poem!

(You have to stomp and clap to the fiddle and banjo, and join in on the chorus)

bumpersticker time warp!

2012-01-23T16:45:00.000-05:00

sooo many books!
one day we go through the ones on the living room shelves
our oldest shelves, that daddy built for us
when we first bought the house.
this book donate to the library, this to the swap shed, this - trash pile!
have to search thru the give-aways for bookmarks -
we tend to use what comes to hand
eviction notices, love letters, photographs, blade of grass, strip of newsprint
omg - a bumper sticker marking a place in a really big book.
ok we have lots of bumper stickers
but this one! we could sell it on ebay... or ...
put it on the car!

which we did.

hood ornaments

2012-01-20T22:48:00.000-05:00

one of my neighbors has a new hood ornament on her jeep - the bowler from a bowling trophy!

she told me she got the trophy at the dump -- there's a shed for sharing good stuff you don't want but don't want to throw away.

i was amazed because i also had a bowling trophy i got at the dump years ago!

(it's also where i got the Buddha that sits on my shrine even to this day)

i've had lots of fun with my trophy, sneaking it onto the office shelf with all the awards.

visitors will remark "I see the company has a bowling team!" to the confusion of whoever they've come to meet with.

but i was ready to give it up, so i gave it to my neighbor to put on her other jeep!

now she has matching male and female bowlers guiding her way down the road.

bunny cat

2012-01-19T18:24:00.000-05:00

this came to me with the information that Penelope is now a bunny.
then later i received an update that it is not actually Penelope but some other cat that looks like Penelope.
you can believe what you want.

warming trend?

2012-01-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

when i drove out of the driveway this morning at 9,

the temperature (according to my car's thermometer) was -6 F

(that's -21.11 C to you differently temperatured).

tonight at 9:30 when i drove back into the driveway,

the temperature was 25 F (-3.89 C).

feels like a heat wave coming in!

fetch boy! meow!

2012-01-13T09:04:00.000-05:00

my cat was was a retriever in his last life, maybe a black lab.

with tiny toy mouse in mouth, he comes to me and drops it on my feet.

impatiently, clawishly, jumponmeandmesswithmylaptopishly he waits for me to pick it up and throw it.

and he brings it back fast!  barely does it leave my hand and he is ON IT!

tiny mouse in mouth, he trots back to my feet.

again and again.

it isn't fair!

i keep cats to avoid such doggy demands.

books!

2012-01-12T14:02:00.001-05:00

after the floods i needed some escape from the strangeness and disorder and difficulties of for example no running water.

many friends and strangers were helpful in many ways.

liz brought me a bag of books!

thoughtfully chosen, each different, each thoroughly enjoyed. i met a couple of new authors and lots of laughs and new ideas.

only one could i not get into and i may try it again before i give them back to her.

here's what she brought:

The Thread that Binds the Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
Zodiac: an Eco-Thriller by Neal Stephenson
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
.

the pond

2012-01-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

by the time i got around to taking a walk it was coming on dusk with a brightening moon.
up the hill, around the block, past the small mill pond, then down dark backstreet where coming towards me were 3 burly young men -- big boys really -- with blades and sticks!
heading for the mill pond... hockey sticks and ice skates.
yes boys still skate on mill ponds.
a good winter for it this year, very little snow so they don't have to clear 2 feet of the stuff off the ice.
on my way back, they are bearishly hockeying around their net at one end of the pond and at the other end a daddy is helping a tiny girl on tiny skates, while mom with baby on back photographs the scene. such a patient dad...whatever happened to "put a pillow in their pants and give them a shove?"
i get home before dark, thinking of the amazing time i skated on mulder's pond, round and round in the dark with all the stars blazing overhead.

say what?

2012-01-08T20:38:00.000-05:00

Osprey: I am using virtual worlds as my condiments.

cat typing

2012-01-07T10:40:00.001-05:00

what Barney cat-typed while i was AFK on the phone:

,.nb mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpoooooooooooo

.

looking in looking out

2012-01-06T09:42:00.001-05:00

a burst of birds flies
through my email - behind me
they pass my window

~mudpie

tea

2012-01-01T17:36:00.000-05:00

apparently tea can get moldy.

even tho it is merely flavored water.

esp if it is left in a pot and the pot is put away in a cupboard for

say a month or two.

for my sister

2011-12-27T15:37:00.001-05:00

i'd thought we learn to mother

by how we are mothered

but when it came your turn to care for mom

i believe you were a better mother to her

than she had been to you

and she a better child than you had been.

.

boxing day cold with snowy ground and fluffy clouded blue sky

2011-12-26T08:07:00.000-05:00

despite all the hard work i did in the last few days, making the house ready for christmas and a party, here on the morning after christmas i am up early and feel happy energy.
the house is still clean and in order, other than the mountains of dishes to be put away, the wrappings and paper hats strewn about, the tablecloths all rumpled by the kitties during the night.
we have so much food in the house! alas most of it is of the dessert kind, that everyone loves to make to give to someone else! i think because nobody officially stated they were bringing dessert, everyone thought they'd better fill in the gap and bring several.
my libby's pumpkin pie in an excellent organic frozen crust was a big hit! perhaps libby's just defines pumpkin pie for us now.
after the hours of talking and eating, drinking and laughing, berating politicians and corporations, wearing silly hats and reading stupid jokes from the crackers, everyone left in the dark night. and i felt so content, i sat by the fire for an hour reading my new book and drinking a little more wine. and i slept so well!

christmas is sticky

2011-12-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

don't you think christmas is the most weird amazing thing ever?
you can't ignore it
i know, i've tried many times to do that
even changed my religion - but it's a national madness
you're gonna feel something one way or another
after all those years of good or bad 25ths
all those movies and shows of how it should be
all those times it was and it wasn't
best is to dive in headfirst and completely give in
don't fight it, shop, decorate, bake, sing,
invite in everyone you meet, cook a turkey or two.

it's sticky - grabs you up and drags you along anyway
not very pleasant, i can tell you
but you can lay low and endure
go to bed early and next day it's gone
like some one day flu thing
at the very least have some little plan
watch star wars movies all day
eat frozen turkey dinners, don't answer the phone
go to the movies, go to a church
volunteer somewhere - the old the mad the hungry
stay in bed with hot chocolate and your pets and read mysteries.

=============== ==================================

winter lightness

2011-12-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

as the nights get colder and colder,
and we add yet another quilt from the closet
once winter sets in the pile gets heavy and then top heavy!

one night it all slides to the floor and has to be retrieved and sorted out.
finally we can barely move and it's time...
time to fold up and put away the blankets and quilts and get out the Real Winter Stuff...
the big down comforters and the flannel sheets!
oooo it's wonderful!

brilliant millions

2011-12-02T09:48:00.000-05:00

after autumn fogs
winter's milliant stars stun my eyes
hello my old friends!

~mudpie

a long strange Sunday!

2011-11-27T21:06:00.003-05:00

this morning i was the umdze and it was my first time leading the new long chants.

then i had lunch with karen, always fun!

home in time to go to Raglan Shire's annual talent show - fun even tho i could not always get the audio to work. i took no pictures, but i am sure there are hundreds posted by now!

then to Show and Tell in second life, my sunday ritual. Barney and Flo have organized and hosted it for i think 6 years. i've been going for almost 5 years. this was the last one! they want their sundays back after all this time. very sad...i will miss being at the forefront of creativity and with the funnest audience anywhere!

and then...Gianfar Peaks sims invited all dragons, & dracophiles, of whatever breed, genre, world, age or style, to a memorial service for Anne McCaffrey, beloved author of the Dragonriders of Pern stories, who passed away last week.

held at the Weyr Bowl at Shaula Weyr, dragons of all sizes, and other avatars of every stripe gathered to keen, as is the tradition in Pern. it was heartbreaking and perfect. i did manage to take some crummy pictures of this awesome tribute: (click for youtube to see bigger)

omg news

2011-11-19T15:58:00.001-05:00

mudpie reports she attended zayn & wynx's town hall meeting for tinies and was stunned by announcement that tinies and raglan shire are going to break out silly fun and friendliness to the world at large! (and hopefully waffles too!)

here is a picture of the meeting

click to see bigger

...and here is a lnk to the next tiny thing - JAZZ PAWS www.jazzpaws.com
be sure to get a tshirt and send them all your spare change!

*

sky kine

2011-11-17T07:57:00.001-05:00

in the morning mist
black cows fly through the trees
above the river

~ mudpie

the problem with this haiku, dear mudpie, is that when you are famous and your haiku are in anthologies, this one will be corrected to say "black crows fly through the trees" by someone who assumes that "cows" is a typo. and i suppose the title will be corrected to "sky king."

~

perfectlynormalbeasts detour past my house

2011-11-03T12:51:00.000-04:00

grandma moses had the perspective nailed.

when i look across the back yard to the hill above the stream, it really does look like a flat 2 dimensional hill going straight up with black lines that are the tall riverbank trees.

yesterday, while i was out doing mostly ineffectual bits of this and that to the mud left by Irene, i heard loud cow-calls and looked across at the hillside to see 4 large black muscular long horned cattle-things moving single file across the middle of the flat backdrop of the hill, right midway up in the trees.

flying cows!

and suddenly i remembered a dream from last week of huge black cattle flying through the trees, like some japanese movie.

one of them noticed me hunkering behind a tree trunk and flew down with bovine curiosity to close its muzzle over my hand.

i yelled as loud as i could to chase it off, and john shook me awake for my hollering.

in retrospect i think you are supposed to hit them on the nose.


click to enlarge

got camera barely in time to catch a straggler mooing after the others

goosing the poet

2011-10-31T15:54:00.001-04:00

geese again!

what is it with the wild geese
here's yet another poem
telling how someone's heart lept
telling how new hope was born on their wings
but tell me, what kind of life is that
like rock stars, they bring us momentary joy,
excitement, forgetfulness of self
and then they are gone in the freezing sky
a damp and dangerous life of wandering, homeless
and what about the tame geese?
what's wrong with 3 square meals and a cozy shed?
a few responsibilities, guarding the house or bullying the sheep?
perhaps a swift death and an afterlife as a quilt
not the cruelty of a broken wing, a coyote family feast?

================

FIRST SNOW ~ Irene cleanup retrospective

2011-10-28T09:32:00.003-04:00

here it is! always sneaks in when we aren't looking.

and i found this on my camera from September 5, the brave crew of volunteers who chloroxed my cellar ~ too bad i didn't think "photo op" the week before when these folks and others as well shoveled a foot of muck and stone from the cellar into buckets and brigaded it up the stairs, across the dining room, and out to the road. boy were they a mess by the end of the process! what a wonderful bunch of folks, some from town, some from the Shambhala center, and some from other towns and states!

hard times

2011-10-24T14:49:00.001-04:00

i never wanted to live in the woods or high up in the hills with a great view but no neighbors in sight, even though this is the dream of so many folks who move to Vermont.  i like to look out my window and see houses with lights in their windows, and kids on bikes, and dogs being walked.

my neighbor across the street - i'll bet i only had about 5 conversations with her, mostly just saying hello, nice day, but i knew her so well and she probably knew us just as well. i watched her toddlers play in mud puddles, learn to ride bikes, go off to school, have pool parties when they got a big above ground pool, learn to drive!  Their tiny dog always had something to say when I went out the front door. 

likewise my neighbor to the south - 2 big dogs outside always greeted us from their tie-lines as we came and went. we talked to them and patted them, and worried that one would escape the line and come jump on me affectionately! these dogs were big! and friendly!  we did try to talk to those neighbors, but they were strangely private and mysterious.  i hope the dogs are ok wherever they have all disappeared to.

neither place will have xmas lights this year to brighten the winter darkness ...they stand empty.  one neighbor moved due to her health, the house is for sale. the other folks mysteriously vanished two months ago, and courteous strangers sent by a bank have been taking photos, asking questions, planning to spruce it up i hope.

  the house behind ours will be dark soon, too, sold out to our local Very Rich Man who has a history of buying houses and removing them, gaining a prettier view while eliminating a decent family home. we will be like an island here!  perhaps we should consider putting up xmas lights.  do they make them shaped like little Buddhas?

Shocktober Thriller Dance time again!

2011-10-23T16:46:00.000-04:00

yesterday Raglan Shire celebrated Shocktober with their annual Thriller dance!

click to enlarge

getting lined up and synchronized is... it's alot like herding cats... and bunnehs and pups and otters and ferrets and and and everything else too!

BOO!

2011-10-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

there are cobwebs on my blog! is it neglect....or SHOCKTOBER!
it's shocktober in Raglan Shire and mudpie and friends went to the haunted house.
mudpie ("mud" to her friends) had this to say:
it wuz so skarey i 4got to take pitchurs until we sat down to catch our breaf!
rats chased us, a spider almost got us, we got roasted in da oven, and den
running from a tiny-eating plant got caught by a skeletenoid!
zombies cudn't eat our brains cuz we haz none.

mud & a friend wearing jack-o-lantern masks - don't be scared!

going away party

2011-09-22T11:50:00.001-04:00

mindfulness

ever so carefully stepping
firmly on each narrow step
down our steep new-england stairway
i in my flip-flops
long bathrobe
reading glasses
practice total concentration
to carry a jar in one hand
the other hand steadily pressing an index card to the top
as i place each foot just so
one foot after the other
one eye on the spider in the jar
soon to learn that the world is a very big place

~_^

the song garden

2011-09-20T19:55:00.000-04:00

yesterday T. (not just a pretty face) took me for tea in the morning to a place he'd just discovered in new hampshire, about 1/2 hour drive.

you turn onto a dirt road and drive and drive for what seems like it must surely be the wrong road, and then you come to a wide meadowy place
overlooking distant hills and the mts of vermont, and there is a very large flower garden consisting of rows of flowers arranged in rows by color.

at the entrance to the garden are scissors, baskets, sun hats, jars, ribbons, flower-preserver packets.
you can go in and cut whatever flowers you like to take home with you!
there is a box if you want to leave a donation.

if you walk up the hill there is a small one-room cabin with chairs on a tiny screened porch and a tiny deck on another side.
inside is a table and chairs, set with a lace cloth, china dishes and teacups, fresh flower arrangement.
along the sides are all kinds of interesting objects, plus a big electric container of hot water, all kinds of teas,
a little fridge with half and half, a little sink to leave your cup in, a daybed with lots of pillows, classical music playing.

nobody is there. you are invited by signs to have tea, have a scone or biscotti or granola bar, use the china, etc, wander around, and leave a donation.
you can buy or take some pot pourri and leave money in the box.

and up the hill a bit further is a pleasant outhouse!

isn't that amazing? it was such a beautiful sunny day and so relaxing, that in the afternoon i dragged john over for afternoon tea and he loved it too!

a message from the west coast

2011-09-15T19:15:00.000-04:00

you wouldn't think a greeting card would do much for someone still digging out from a hurricane and flooding, but this one has helped lots! i have it posted right on my big kitchen window where i see it many times a day. thank you Candy!

some things about hurrican irene's effects on the residents of my village

2011-09-08T18:33:00.001-04:00

a truck went into the flooding river - did the road give way? ms O tied a cable to her car, other end to her husband (some say it was an extension cord) and in he went to pull the guy out of the truck. once he had the guy, D. drove her car away pulling them from the river minutes before the flash flood of the jumped river came down and took the truck away.

during the storm we were evacuated at the fire station. nobody could get any information. that night we could get home to our house, after the rain let up and the flood stopped rising. still no way to get information. but then we started getting calls from friends (we have an old wired phone we hooked up) who were telling us what they saw on TV - where the storm was and what we could expect during the night. we had calls from california, south carolina, ohio, and even ethiopia!

that night i looked down from the upstairs window into the wind tossed black-black electricityless night and saw for the first and probably last time in my life foxfire softly glowing on a rotten log below!

early in the morning after, mr A arrives at the village mom & pop store with a check for $1000 and the instruction that anyone needing food should be given it free. food was free all day to all comers anyway.

partly because the store had no generator to keep the freezers going. lots and lots of food was sent up to the volunteer fire dept, as was all the food from the school (it was to have been the first day of school) and a big cookout blowout town wide dinner was held at the fire dept for anyone who could get there.

later the store located a generator to use, but food remained free to all for the rest of the day. the streets were full of people all day, exchanging information and help, and the volunteer firemen were everywhere pumping out cellars and giving out whatever supplies they could. by the next day the national guard had arrived with bottled water, MRE meals, cleaning supplies and more. mr X who has his own helicopter went back and forth overhead taking arial photos for whatever use may come in the future.

early the morning after, old mr O started calling the government to get permission to volunteer to work on the flooding. after many hours he got the OK and took his Great Big Yellow Machine to the flood where he spent all afternoon and half the night clearing under the bridge, digging the riverbed back to where it belonged, and when he was done the river was back in it's bed, altho of course everything it carried off, including the road, was still gone. i think he had the time of his life!

as the assessment and pumping continued all day, the street was like a party - no traffic could go, but everyone was out walking and talking. two of the firemen were catching 3 and 4 inch trout from sinkholes with their bare hands, and taking them back to the river.

.

tired and muddy!

2011-09-04T08:42:00.000-04:00

less than a week and the road to the south is passable again!
i drive out to shower at kathe's, stupified by the new scenery,
the young who rioted in london were a puff of air
compared to the rioting of vermont brooks
let loose from their beds for a day to rearrange the landscape to their liking.
here and there i pass a house that looks solid and untouched
my heart leaps with the wish that i lived there.

something glowing

2011-08-29T22:21:00.000-04:00

last night we slept fitfully waiting for the wind that follows the eye, listening even as we dozed off and on, still dressed and downstairs in case a tree, one of the many big big maples now rooted in nothing but soft deep mud should fall on the house. there was not a light in the village because there was no electricity and the stars THE STARS were a wonder beyond telling and as i gasped at a shooting star above i glanced down at the grass below the window and something was glowing.
what glows at 2 am? a wind-dropped solar light would not be still bright, reflective paint would have nothing to reflect, a rectangular glowing shape in the grass maybe 18" long and 2 or 3 wide. nothing in my experience could explain this.
the next morning on the back porch i remembered the glowing thing and looked over where i'd seen it. and there it was. an old rotten piece of tree branch.

making vinegar

2011-08-21T19:22:00.002-04:00

friends used to talk about fruit flies - even get into animated conversations with strangers - it was some class i guess i didn't sign up for....breeding fruit flies.

my neighbor has given me a big bowl of blackberries from her bushes.

or are they black raspberries? the internet says: Black raspberries become hollow in the middle when picked from the main plant whereas the blackberries retain its stem.

must be black raspberries.

last year i froze much of what she gave me, then never knew what to do with them.

so this year i am making vinegar.

here's how:

cover berries with water.

mash them up.

pour into a sterilized jar (i boiled a large canning jar for a bit)

cover with cloth and a rubber band (i used a flowered handkerchief i found in my drawer - where/when did i ever get that?)

wait 3 months or so until the mother (gloop on top) falls to bottom and then pour off the vinegar!

sounds easier than the saurkraut i tried to make last year and ended up throwing away !

but what about the fruit flies?

they seem to like the idea, and gather on the top. what are they doing?

if they are sitting, ok, but if they are laying eggs or pooping, i'm not happy about that.

i can't see that they are leaving anything there...they just seem to like to gather in the vinegary atmosphere.

i guess i should have taken that class!

another baby story

2011-08-17T22:47:00.001-04:00

must be baby season! everyone's having them recently!
i admit i'm not up on the latest trends in childbirth and baby care, so when these pictures came via email of friends and their newborn, i was very surprised!
decided i'd better disguise them, they might not want to be blogged.
you think there's people who object to women nursing in public, wait'll they see THIS on the subway!

it is too much to be too long anywhere*

2011-08-14T19:54:00.004-04:00

we always moved before 4 years, and usually not that long when i was a kid.
but i've lived HERE many times that now.
now everywhere HERE tells me stories. where cats are buried, where we played softball, where houses stood, where my friend was killed in a car accident, where my baby learned to swim.

everything is impermanent.
when you move around you don't notice this.
when you stay still things change around you like a slow carousel or a fractal kaleidoscope.

now a new baby has been born to a village family, and i am one of the few in the village who might recall that once upon a time another baby was born to that house.

that house has had a few owners since then.

the tiny years-ago baby died of crib death, so heart-breaking that now i irrationally fear for this new little boy.
i tried for days to remember the name of the other little boy, to assure myself they don't have the same name! finally i remembered -- and to my relief it is not the same.

i'll never say anything about this to anyone if i can help it, but it's a hard thing to know.

* said gimme the ax in the rootabaga stories

Perseids answer the crickets - summer is ending

2011-08-13T10:04:00.000-04:00

dark before 9 now
takes us by surprise - and lo!
meteor showers!

driving through the night
shooting stars distract our
watch for deer on the road

~mudpie

nothing gold can stay

2011-08-10T18:26:00.000-04:00

summer's perfect day
until i heard the cricket

and knew all was lost

~mudpie

the biography of cancer

2011-08-05T21:03:00.002-04:00

i never thought a book about cancer would hold my attention so completely. cancer is not a subject i want to even think about. but awhile back, the NYT had a fascinating article about The Emperor of All Maladies, and i suggested to the local librarian that he should purchase it. he said "sure, who's gonna read THAT!" to my surprise, he did buy it -- even before it won the pulitzer prize! so then of course i had to at least sign it out and begin to read it. and something about the way it is written kept me reading.

the author has a love for his profession and also for all of the great poetic scientist-writers. soon i was drawn into the stories of trials, theories, frustrations, successes, life and death, pride and battle, and enjoying the writer's vocabulary and use of words. over and over i was pleased and impressed by tangential quotes and references, the breadth of awareness beyond the medical world. i began stealing sly peeks at the author's photo and the brief bio on the back flyleaf.

that was it. i fell in love. if i were 13 i would put siddhartha mukerjee's picture on my wall and maybe write him a fan letter! ironically, he totally looked like he should be dreamily holding a cigarette (smoking is one of the things in the book that gets him steamed).

400 pages and then another 100 of notes, index, bibliography, appendix. hard to believe i am sorry to have finished a book i would have expected to be gross and joyless. and how does cancer's biography end? what's our prognosis? well no spoilers, you'll have to read it for yourself!

more owl pellets - they do regurgitate most curiously!

2011-08-04T17:00:00.001-04:00

often i've read that one cannot interpret the dreams of others, only the dreamer can say what it means. to that i say "pish-tosh." i love to interpret other people's dreams! just now i am puzzling over a friend's dream involving an aggressive scary nebulous thing in an attic.

we all know that the cellar can represent a trip into your darkest hidden self eeeewwwwwwww! and discovering new unsuspected rooms on your house...that's always fun!

but an attic?

(click to enlarge)

in this dream the dreamer is helping out a friend whose house is haunted. our dreamer climbs the stairs alone to the friend's attic to take a look around and perhaps help. but instead of getting an idea of what sort of boggart was haunting his friend's house, he entered the attic and was immediately rushed by a formless threatening something-or-other -- it INSTANTLY RUSHED TOWARDS HIM!

(click to enlarge)

well of course he screamed and woke up. too bad!! i'd be curious to know what happened next. was this cloud-like thing going to cloud his mind? or maybe envelope him entirely. or maybe just pass right through him in an escape down the stairs through the door he just opened!

maybe the attic's a place of dryness and reasonableness, the higher thoughts of humans.
perhaps our dreamer tried to help his friend, using logic and reason, only to find himself attacked by something he can't grasp nor make no sense of?

and at the same time, the attic is the repository of someone's past. all locked up in trunks and stored safely out of the way where it can be forgotten and ignored.

in which case he has entered his friend's past, which attacks and terrifies him, or he has entered his own past -- there's the fun of dreams, because in a dream, they say, you play all parts, and he is the friend, and the helper, and the house, and the SCARY THING too!
or is that more pish-tosh?

owl pellets

2011-07-30T13:59:00.000-04:00

(click to enlarge)

my dear friend,

i am sorry i did not do a thorough serious job interpreting your dream, but sometimes it takes me awhile.
i'm the same with movies -- a day or so after seeing a movie, i'll suddenly say "oh NOW i get it!"

you were running through a field of lavender! so wonderful! but i never asked you what lavender is to you. don't people use it to scent their linen closet? their bedsheets? or is it the scent that helps people sleep? i would like to know.

in any case, you were moving energetically through a lovely free open bright unencumbered world!

and you tripped and fell.

well we all understand this on some level! this is life. this is impermanence, yes, thank you Buddha, we get it.

notice, though, it was not a rainstorm, or a monster, or a thank you Freud snake, nor your parents appearing from behind a tree, that ended the bliss. you did it yourself.

isn't this so very feminine....blame ourselves! i would advise you (and all of us) to watch for this. not to shake a finger and say bad girl, but to pat yourself indulgently, fondly, and say "silly there you go again."

you must tell me sometime, did you trip on a stone, or your own shoelace, or even worse did your own feet get tangled? you see, it makes a difference in understanding.

the good news is, you were still in that lovely scented paradise. you were down but not out. ready to lie there and enjoy or get up and run further. and frankly, i don't believe it was a fall by your own clumsiness. i think really, something over which you had no control, something that is actually someone else's problem, perhaps someone's thoughtlessly abandoned shoe lying hidden in the lavender, is what you tripped on.

i will have to give it some more thought.

what IS a meadow for?

2011-07-28T11:25:00.000-04:00

what IS a meadow for?

i'm sitting on my meditation cushion
and in the morning sunlight i can see
faint green diagonal lines
behind the strongly buttery yellow walls.
the old wallpaper.
i remember my cousin roger's room
years and years, paint after paint
i could still see the cowboys from his childhood wallpaper if i knew what i was looking for.
isn't it a wonderful metaphor?
open the gate and let the cows in to graze.

*************

more hot hot hot

2011-07-23T22:04:00.000-04:00

heatwave or not, we are fortunate that it cools off at night.
and we have the brook!
sprung up out of cold springs and tumbling down out of the foothills over rocks through deep shady ravines down and down to the falls and the swimming holes it can turn your feet numb in a matter of minutes!

yesterday afternoon, 90 degrees and rising, at the local store, the staff was putting a sign on the door "Gone Swimming Back in 1/2 Hour."
they explained "we have the best boss! he told us to go cool off in the brook!"

enjoying the heat wave!

2011-07-22T18:45:00.000-04:00

hot hot hot!

the east coast heat wave has been in effect here for a couple of days!

being old fashioned, we did what folks did in the old days -- went to the movies!

("Come on in! It's COOL inside!")
not just The Movies, but we went to the brand new Springfield VT (home of Homer Simpson) movie theater, which after 3 years has risen -- just in time to open with the new Harry Potter -- phoenix-like, from the ashes of it's burnt down self.
not long after the town won the distinction of being named the official home of Homer Simpson, some rejected young lover in an apartment above the old downtown movie theater started a fire which burned the whole building down! we've missed having movies just 20 minutes away.
and now it's back!

the other way i've been keeping cool, with plenty of friendly funny companions, is at the ool in Raglan!

and no UV to worry about either.

mudpie is sunning on the raft in her new bikini.

click to enlarge - dive in!

cat toy!

2011-07-21T15:28:00.000-04:00

it's fun to invent new ways for the cats to amuse themselves.

one cat finds an ice cube in the water dish fascinating, the other doesn't care, he's more of a jock than a philosopher.

recently i dropped a translucent sparkly marble into a quart size tonic bottle, and he played with it for a few days! that's a success.

then after a few days of ignoring it, he's running it around the house again!

it's a winner!

i see u in there you marble!!!

W00tstock 2011

2011-07-17T20:46:00.003-04:00

in Raglan Shire the tinies partied for 2 days of peace and waffles and great music! best band was CRASH, an all rhino band! (slide show is better full screen...the creative details of the costumes and setting are so much fun!)

TROLL! bwahahahahahaha?

2011-07-17T09:30:00.000-04:00

watched Trollhunter last night and enjoyed it for what it was.
woke up this morning, slapped my forehead and thought "duh, it was supposed to be FUNNY!"
it's not that i have no sense of humor, just takes me 8 hours to get the joke?
or...maybe all those funny parts were meant to be serious?
guess i'll have to learn norwegian.

birth and death

2011-07-15T12:30:00.002-04:00

at noon, six of us showed up for meditation practice. 

afterwards, we began our discussion with a chapter from Chogyam Trungpa's book, Smile at Fear and wound our way round fear to the subject of death.

 a fine traditional Buddhist topic for a beautiful summer afternoon. 

awareness of one's fear of death, and appreciation of the impermanence of life, can have a beautiful effect on how you live.

the six of us, all women today, all know we are going to die, have been dying since we were born. 

as Buddhists, we are accustomed if not comfortable with that understanding, although knowing it and KNOWING it are not really the same.

only one of us has an actual doctor's assurance that she is dying... and barring some strange accident, she knows what she will die of...in the near future.

she described for us what that is like, and how you can't comprehend that you are going to die in quite that mind-stopping way until a doctor tells you that this is it.  

she described some of what she has wrestled with; she said often people say they'd like to die in their sleep, but she wants to be there for her death -- she said "i missed my birth, but i want to be present for my death!"

another of the group said that giving birth, which 3 of us have done, seems similar to dying. 

for one thing, she said, we couldn't possibly convey a full understanding of what it is like to give birth.

those of us who've borne children agreed, it is an experience beyond transmission. the non-moms looked like maybe they thought they knew quite well what childbirth is like.

the moms smiled to themselves remembering how manners, poses, learned behaviors, modesty, ego, fall away and become irrelevant when you are aware and giving birth... and so also, can we assume?... when one is aware and meeting death.

.

the p in the ool

2011-07-12T23:02:00.000-04:00

if you look close here you can see the P, more than one P, someone has put in bottom of the ool. done i heard as a joke.

don't you think it is suspicious that Enjah knew all about it?

click to see larger

at the ool

2011-07-12T12:34:00.000-04:00

mudpie is staying out of trouble at the Raglan ool.

lots of fun things to do there if you are energetic, or just loaf around with friends.

and no worries, there's no P in the ool.

here they are

2011-07-11T16:06:00.000-04:00

flowers!

2011-07-10T18:04:00.000-04:00

my imposing cat

caught pawing the posies

pauses and poses

~mudpie

party on!

2011-07-06T20:19:00.000-04:00

there must be a mathematical formula to figure out how long it takes 2 miles worth of cars to stop for an accident on the freeway (that's when we came along) and how many more cars will line up behind us over the next hour or so.
that many cars stood still, engines off, going nowhere for their holiday weekend, in the afternoon on July 3.
are vermonters nicer and smarter than other people, or is it only the horrible violent traffic snarls that make the news?
here's what happened.
people got out of their cars, walked around chatting with each other, meeting each others' dogs and kids. kids in front of us played volleyball with a beachball over their SUV. the breakdown lane became a promenade, young couples, old couples, teens on skateboards, cell phone yakkers, a kid with a guitar, and a nice lady who went car to car telling us satellite radio said it was a motorcycle accident (which i don't even really want to think about).
what could have been a miserable time of frustration trying to get to the party, actually became the party!

click to enlarge

if it's july, it must be summer!

2011-07-03T09:54:00.007-04:00

just when we quit staying home because it was raining
stopped bothering with umbrellas
took rain as the natural condition of life
it stopped
and the sun came out

-----------------------
sorting out the garden's jungle mornings, evenings
(hatted --
against my dermatologist's anxiety)
i tear out thriving 'wrong' plants
leaving the 'right ones' to flourish.

these to discard these to keep what is the point of this
i ask myself,
enjoying the sun thru my shirt
the sweat under my hat.
a waste of time.

the garden will never be done year to year the weeds the thinning
wasting time,
wasting time...
the time i could be wasting
some other way.

the singularity will not be webcast

2011-07-01T15:57:00.000-04:00

5 sends me a link with that as subject.
the link

i reply this looks good, but it's going to take awhile.

5 replies

I'm taking it slowly in bits, started it last night,
will get a bit further sometime today

also reading some very dense books on "jazz"
and apparently (according to the library) two novels
tho I had forgotten they existed

I believe they are on the coffee table under some
books of scale exercises, two rolls of tie-dye-colored duct tape, and a cowbell

chocolate mousse guacamole??

2011-06-30T14:36:00.002-04:00

some saturdays i leave the radio on a while after "wait wait don't tell me" -- until it just becomes annoying.

a few weeks ago, a cooking show came on with guest cheryl crow. her recipe for chocolate mousse caught my ear, basically thick chocolate pudding, made with 2 avocados, agave nectar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and almond extract!

i got a couple of avocados and gave it a try. since john doesn't like avocados, it seemed like a perfect test!

it was simple to make and he loved it.

deeeee-licious! (it's not green either)

i didn't have almond extract, plus one of my friends is allergic to almonds, but i had just made coffee, so i put in that instead. we ate it like pudding, in little bowls, not being the owners of martini glasses.

hell i drink wine out of little juice glasses and john likes to drink water or juice from canning jars....martini glass? gimme a break.

here's the link to the recipe....it's great stuff!

chocolate mousse recipe
oh another thing...i didn't use a food processor, just an old blender i have. worked fine!

Manta Whispering

2011-06-18T21:03:00.000-04:00

see youtube for more details! my first machinima!

the tea room gets a mysterious teapot

2011-06-16T20:19:00.000-04:00

I closed my eyes and reached for a tart...I do a random taste test now and then.

Usually it's pretty quiet here in my tea room, but there was some rattly racket down in the square, getting louder and closer.
I looked down on that side of the building, and along came a bag lady with a cart! Never saw that before in Cowell!

click pics to see larger

She had a sign saying Free Kittens. She looked up at the tea room and beckoned to me.
I'm a sucker for kittens. I sure don't need one, but of course I wanted to see them. Then as I approached her, she rummaged around and brought out a pretty teapot that she set on the table.

It seemed like she couldn't talk, or chose not to ...she pointed to the tea shop and pointed to the teapot and looked expectant. The kittens were cute, much as I knew I'd better not take one, so I gave her some Linden dollars for the pot, which was quite attractive. I wanted to ask her all about it, but she took off like she had somewhere to go with those $Lindens!

That's when I noticed the design on the pot was not just abstract, it looked like a moth.
A moth! That's one of those pre-erase thingees Sal is always on about. I wondered if this was an actual artifact!

I turned to call to the bag lady, but she was out of range. I wasn't going to run after her!
Curious now, I turned the pot round, and discovered a crack in the bottom. Not only a crack, but ...more moth designs! Very clear this time.
Wow I will have to ask Sal about this.
Too bad about the crack tho.

Since it was so pretty, I decided to keep it out for customers to see until I could let Sal have a look at it. He probably knows who the old biddy is, too, and we can ask her where she got it.
Stop by for a look, and some free pastries and tea.

But come by the tea room before I submit the pot to Sal's ArcheoExpo2011 to see if it came from the ancient Moth People. The expo is June 25. Don't miss it!

2011-06-13T11:36:00.000-04:00

Gorey was right they are going bonkers!

Raglan Film Festival

2011-06-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

Still raining, raining, raining! fortunately yesterday, as it rained and rained, mudpie was able to attend the tiny machinima festival awards (The Otters). ten machinima were screened as over 50 tinies cheered, commented, nommed, a few biggies attended too.

here are links to 2 of the best, one of which has a brief glimpse of mudpie singing wootmas carols, and the other is by my good friend enjah and lucy was playing piano in one scene but i think maybe it ended up on the editing floor :-(

or is that lucy at the second tavern?
anyway, here you have some of the best of tiny machinima

Silent Film Found in French Village

and a documentary Merry Wootmas

to see some more go here Raglan Shire Film Festival 2011

France was punished on Thursday for not taking proper care of its hamsters.

2011-06-11T17:42:00.001-04:00

According to a New York Times article :

The Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Union’s highest court, ruled Thursday that France had failed to protect the Great Hamster of Alsace, sometimes known as the European hamster, the last wild hamster species in Western Europe. If France does not adjust its agricultural and urbanization policies sufficiently to protect it, the court said, the government will be subject to fines of as much as $24.6 million.

mudpie is quite worried
lucy cheers her up, helping her build a new house & then they roast marshmallow.

good fences

2011-06-07T12:54:00.000-04:00

between my back fence and the river is a narrow strip with a house,
a house right close by my fence, and a road.
the road is called Back Street.
that's not its name, it's just what it is called.

the house is ugly -- really. sometimes worse than others.
i've fantasized about buying it to tear down.
but it is a good house, it has sheltered a variety of people,
all related in some way, as people around here are.
you have to be careful what you say.
"who her? she's my cousin!"

when we first moved here, it was occupied by a man
and his high-school age daughter.
nice girl.
he had killed his wife -- caught her in bed with another man
shot her dead.
went to prison.
came out and raised his daughter.
the neighbors told us we were supposed to keep an eye on him
not good if he was drinking.
my hubby talked to him sometimes over the fence
said he seemed like a nice man.
he gave us some horseradish plants.

eventually daughter grew up and they moved out.
some other people lived there, dogs and kids and motorcycles.
then the old woman who owned the house came to live there
once after a big storm she called us to say part of our roof was gone.
we didn't know, but she could see it from her window.
we were very appreciative.
but still, when her visitor (son? grandson?) 's pit bull got into our yard
and chased john into his car
we called the police.

a young woman with 2 young kids,
one was the beautiful one of indeterminate gender,
lived there for awhile.
SJ ran into her when his band was playing at a bowling alley
and during the break he wandered into the next room
where some heavy duty exotic dancing was onstage.
it was our neighbor.
she recognized him and came over to his table after her act
he said they had a nice chat. she was a nice person.

last year m. moved in to care for his mom
who had been failing, as they say.
he was a retired man, happily living in florida,
but had to give it up to care for her.
not enjoying winter, tho he was born and raised here.
the Very Rich Man (see earlier post) has been trying to buy the house for a few years.
it is certainly a blight on the picturesque village he wants us to become.
the old lady and her son m. refused to sell.
it was her home. who wants to move when you are old sick and dying?

now that she is gone, died in April, m. says they are after him again.
"they just don't know how to talk to new englanders" he says
and becomes more resistant.
i see him now as i sit on my back porch.
whatever he lost those years in florida has come back
with a vengeance.
like a true vermonter, he is digging, planting, making a garden.
he wants to fix the house up to be nice
like it was when he was young and his grandparents lived here.
getting him out is going to take something
that goes deep down into the roots.

ruth and the ticklewhiskers

2011-05-22T15:02:00.002-04:00

we didn't know ruth at all when we knocked on her door.

the vet said she had kittens, and we were looking for a kitten..

he said her landlord told her some of her cats had to go.

she had 26 or was it 32?

her house was small, run-down, unmowed,

yard full of dandelions,

and ruth herself, when she came to the door looked run-down and unmowed.

she was sweet looking and slight -- boney slight -- like my aunt emma

but unlike emma she had a warmth and friendliness that lit up her face,

weathered more than aged.

she welcomed us and took us to meet her cats.

inside they were everywhere.

i tried not to look at her scratched up legs,

imagining it must be from the cats,

but was probably from berry-picking.

all sorts of cats came over to greet her when we sat down outside.

she greeted each by name, and they responded.

we looked at some kittens, all adorable,

trying to decide,

and then out came a tiny long haired white kitten with big blue eyes.

well, of course, that was the one! Our Kitten!

""oh " said ruth -- were we not supposed to see that one?

"well " said ruth, possibly thinking of her landlord.

"you can't take that one -- unless you take her brother too."

out came the brother - bigger, short-haired, white, blue-eyed.

well ok then, i will get a kitten as well. we'll take two.

and so we ended up with silky white ticklewhiskers

and sunny jim ticklewhiskers!

a year or so later ruth stopped in to see them.

she looked at grown-up sunny jim and said

"he is the spitting image of his grandmother lulabelle!! "

tea room gets tweeted - also Henrietta Lacks book

2011-05-16T11:19:00.001-04:00

while researching info on Salazar's lands for the upcoming event in june, i stumbled across a tweet Sal sent about my tea room!
so here is a picture:

click to enlarge

oh and yes that is Lucy, who is a woman of color lately, perhaps because i am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
highly recommended! an amazing book! be sure to read it if you haven't already.

left behind

2011-05-15T16:38:00.000-04:00

barney: it's really dark in here. i hope the tall ones let us out soon.
hank: it's your fault - you hit the door and made it snap shut.
barney: i'm getting hungry.
hank: i don't think they'll let us out.
barney: yes they will!
hank: i think they went on a trip like they did one time. only for longer.
barney: no they didn't!
hank: they're going to be gone a long long time. they probably left lots of food out for us.
barney: i'm hungry.
hank: but we can't get to it because YOU got us shut up in the bathroom and we can't get out!
barney: it's not my fault! you were jumping too! are we gonna die?
hank: one of us is.
barney: which one? me?
hank: with no food and water you'll die first 'cause i'm fatter and i can live longer. then i'll eat you.
barney:waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
-- OH THERE YOU ARE! DID YOU TWO SHUT YOURSELVES UP IN THE BATHROOM AGAIN? YOU SILLY CATS!

what to do with bin laden

2011-05-15T16:29:00.000-04:00

my computer shut itself off

it had some important update thing going on for itself.

meanwhile, i'd left an unsaved note to myself

with a long poemy sort of thing

asking have you found your inner bin laden

and that it's important to do so

but then what --

don't want to kill off part of yourself!

bin laden's a smart energetic dude

if you find where yours is hiding

best plan is to turn all that energy

to something beneficial!

anyway, i didn't say it just right

and it was too long anyway

and now it's gone.

but i like the idea.

you know -- bin laden lives on

in each of us.

but most of us don't know him.

he hides out in a cave or mansion

and ambushes us from time to time

and we say omg how could i do/say

something like that!

mr & mrs phoebe get a new nest

2011-05-06T15:20:00.006-04:00

mrs phoebe thinks they'd best be heading north to grab a good nest site.

mr phoebe says nah, nah, no hurry!

last year's nest was in good shape! we'll just fix up that nest.

piece of seedcake!

little did he know
last year's nest -- on top of the light fixture on my back porch -- is gone.
i did appreciate them eating up all the GIANT BARN SPIDERS we used to have BRRRRR!!!!
but not from atop our light fixture!

when the weather felt just like it does
just before we hear FEE-be! FEE-be!
i cleaned away that old nest
and wrapped screening around that light.

all night i worried
those birds will come home to....no place to live!
so i built them a little platform!

and HOORAY! when they came back

well she gave him a hard time for a week or so

but then, she relented, and in no time at all

had a nest on that little platform!

here's how to build one http://www.50birds.com/MPOpenPlatform.htm

april 23 easter in ogunquit

2011-04-26T13:45:00.006-04:00

we look at each other and at the falling snow
should we go?

the crocuses vanished!

the car slides on the road even before we are out of the village.
we drive on eastward slowly! cautiously!
finally -- behind a salt and sand truck
slow but not slippery.
into new hampshire it is 33 degrees --
a slippery road temperature -- and snowing.
it lets up for a bit, but then before concord
even deeper snow. on we go.

finally it is 35 and a freezing rain.
gradually, gradually, the land is lower
the trees shorter, the ground flatter
"i smell the ocean" says john.

the bridge, the state of maine,
its motto "maine --cold, but damp"
the hotel, a good dinner.

next morning winter's fist unclenches
its open hand offers bright sunshine!

long rolling waves, the marginal way,
children in easter clothes go barefoot on the beach

coats are shucked in surprise!
a perfect day! are we really in maine?
more fishy meals consumed
we sit with the coatless many --
where did they all come from?? --

click to enlarge!

in late afternoon sun watching the ocean

and the next morning
in bitter wind and icy rain.
we start for home.
and along maine's shore road,
forsythia has bloomed!

mjane & lucy

2011-04-19T20:57:00.000-04:00

it's nice that my alts get along. here mjane and lucy discuss a table and chairs lucy wants to borrow for her new cafe. mjane is happy to help out!

fire drill

2011-04-16T19:50:00.001-04:00

when the smoke alarm earsplittingly clangs

there's not much chance of finding cats.

they be gone!

when the fire engine pulls up to the house

and the firemen stomp in

clanking and clumping in their monstery gear and gadgetry

you'll never find a cat however hard you look.

and should you spy one under the bed

you'll never get it out and boxed.

i'm thinking of having fire drills for the cats.

put some of their very very favorite treat

in the cat carrier

which we'll keep open by the door

then turn on the fire alarm.

or maybe turn on the alarm first,

then turn it off and put treats in the carrier?

what do you think?

then if it sounds for real

will they run to the carrier?

Oh and you are probably wondering, but no, i'm sorry to say i didn't think of it until too late, to ask the firemen "would you like something to read?"

in defense of northern spring on April sixth

2011-04-06T17:46:00.001-04:00

a friend in maryland emails:
Sympathy to you both......my lilacs are blooming and the purple martins have returned with nesting materials in their carpetbags.....82 degrees yesterday

my maine friend responds:
Ah, but talk to us in July or August, when WE'RE at 82 degrees

and i am seized with inspiration and my love for the north and my annoyance with those who think we are somehow held here against our will and are to be pitied, and i emal back:

or talk to us now!
when snowflakes are falling
and the white hills with their bare black trees
backdrop for the fields, white with brown showing
and vernal pools form where soon
frogs will thaw - riotously desperately fatally mating
yelling their heads off about it

and talk to us now
while the streams crash and thunder
as boulders moved by the roaring waters
are fueled by the melting ice
that crashes into the bridges sending the river over the land
and the birds maddened in their homecoming excitement
trill and call raucously all day
in the misty air of the hot sun on the cold snow

i've learned to love a wilder spring
not the generous ripening sort
from my southern childhood
all perfume and soft breezes
now i love the crazed dance
of a crooked crone and her consort
staving off death
dancing wild and desperate
clamouring for life
drinking the cold maple sap
straight from the bucket

That'll tell 'em

catching up with my second life!

2011-04-04T12:22:00.001-04:00

i have gotten better at remembering to take snapshots in Second Life but then forget to post them here! so this is catch-up time (i don't really spend all my time in SL).
there was carnival back in feb or march - serious business in some of the roman sims!


too bad i don't speak italian, but i could dance anyway!

while searching for a carnival costume, i found this - i wanted to be snoopy, but for obvious reasons, i had to be lucy!

a friend and i explored the Unfairgrounds fair - a fund-raiser for cancer or something- it was pretty good but could have been lots better! i think people created a scene of their worst nightmare! but mostly lacked good ghastly endings.

my favorite - click to enlarge!

and i have become a groupie going to live performances by Bubbac and the Bubbettes, who does a mean Elvis show...great voice and guitar and believe me he knows all the songs! apparently he is an Elvis performer in 'real life' too.

the bubbettes are not usually so overdressed for SL :-)

almost famous

2011-03-24T17:44:00.000-04:00

a mystery picture appears in the alumni magazine - a girl on a skateboard. barefoot, madras jacket, flying down a campus sidewalk.

the magazine asks "If you know who this girl is please let us know."

the grainy black & white picture is from the 60s, like 1964 or 1966.

who knew from skateboards!

someone knew.

someone's surfer brother had made it from rollerskate wheels.

sister brought it to college and mostly just rolled up and down the long halls.

sister's pretty blond barefoot friend tries it outside on a gorgeous day

on a looong sidewalked hill - a smile of delight on her face, hair lifted by the breeze -

someone took a picture!

years later the picture turns up!

now the secret identity is revealed.

girl becomes famous - the girl on the skateboard!
eventually a book is written, a stage play, then a musical, then...hollywood!

at the oscars, many years later, the actress strides across the stage to accept her award.

an overdressed crone in the audience lifts herself up by her walker and yells

(this is the sister yelling - see paragraph 3)

"IT WAS MY FUCKING SKATEBOARD!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

hold still for just a minute will you?

2011-03-24T12:59:00.000-04:00

winter battles spring
regrets snivel, hopes dance
why do i live here

~mudpie

what leaving already?

2011-03-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

it isn't like her
she's never done this before,
elizabeth taylor

~mudpie

i'll be changing my hairstyle

2011-03-23T20:01:00.000-04:00

at the reading,
the good poems were by poets
with weird hair

~mudpie

what do you say to a dead man?

2011-03-20T09:31:00.000-04:00

i fell in love with Warren Christopher yesterday

npr's website said he died
i knew the name. i clicked the link
i saw his picture
my heart burst with love
an old man 85
a good man
he tried - he worked so hard
he did so much
his heavy spirit clung to me
i held his spirit i didn't know what to say
it would not leave me
my heart was so full
i said what little i knew
or understood
of how to guide the dead
he would not let me go
i need to learn more
in case this happens again
i tried to send him off
to people who know how to help
in these situations
but the love between us was so strong
at last i remembered that today
i am going to a friend to work on a project
a friend who knows
who can guide the dead
or the living for that matter
my heart grew lighter then
and i wrote this

early spring call of the human

2011-03-08T17:46:00.001-05:00

redwingzarback!
bright and sunny today - March 8 - and a fresh new layer of snow.
nothing is whiter than snow -- snow defines white!
yesterday morning, shoveling the walk,
the snow heavy, wet spring snow,
falling and falling even as i shoveled,
wishing i was not doing this,
but knowing anything else i might be doing
would be equally if not more meaningless,
like i'm not going to be discovering
a cure for cancer or anything like that...
i suddenly stopped.
could it be?
am i hearing that unmistakeable sound of spring?
yes it is - a red-winged blackbird song.
and now another.
not a flock mind you, but just the few crazies who risk all to be first arrived.
when their gamble pays off, they get the best land and the best mate months later when the girls drift in.
smiling, i call my hubby, using the spring call of the northern human "redwingzarback! redwingzarback!"
soon our call will be heard all over town,
in the store and the post-office,
on the steps of the library...
"redwingzarback!"

University of Western Australia

2011-03-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

Arches in the Mist at UWA's Virtlantis

Blue Tsuki's installation Vessel which closes today.
"Before you is a concentric landform of unknown time and origin. It appears to bear witness to an ancient artifact in the sky known as the Vessel. Walk the circular labyrinth to the center where you will find teleports to the Vessel."

they don't mention that the labrynth is more fun if you are riding your horse, and the Vessel above is way more fun if you are on your unicycle!

click to enlarge - see me on my horse?

wheeeeeeee!

a dream of pigs

2011-03-03T14:34:00.001-05:00

i dreamt that some men in a couple of boats were pulled up in the shadows across the river to watch a huge white pig that had escaped as pigs so often do, swimming away from the near riverbank encampment of naked beautiful dark-haired women , one or more of whom would soon notice and be coming to chase it back to their compound.

no doubt this is a very obvious and common sort of dream...which can be interpreted to mean....ah would you like to guess?

Cutting for Stone

2011-03-01T16:18:00.000-05:00

by Abraham Verghese. a good read, as they say!
long and involving with the depth and breadth of the truth of human existence and emotion mostly found only in fiction.
complicated characters living as the best humans they can be considering where and when they live. ethiopia. which i didn't know when i started reading.
and coincidentally, friends of mine had just a month ago moved there from here.

Raglan Mardi Gras

2011-02-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

one day lucy sez to osprey "there should be fortune cookies in Second Life" and osprey grabs it and ran wid it!

she made fortune cookies dat breaks open and gives you a fortune when you click's dem (fortunes made up by lucy and enjah and maybe more peeps ... dey so funny!)

somma da fortunes only makes sense if you hangs out in second life.

den she went charging on an made fortune cookie avatars we wears so we is fortune cookies in ossem red sneakers, and we was in da Raglan Mardi Gras parade yestiddy - best second life parade i ever seen!

it wuz Mysteries of da Orient so we fit right in behind a chinese takeout float!
here some pics. hunnerts of peeps wuz dere!

~ mudpie

dere we is lining up at start

dual alarm cats

2011-02-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

one cat misty predawn grey
striped with wet deep brown bare trees
the beech still with their tan leaves
that hang on all winter to guide the deer
pats my face before cold sunrise
crawls in as i lift the blanket
to a warm ball against my tummy.

sunlight filtering thru blinds
the tiger cat comes stiped like
sunbeams thru dissolving mist
orange shadows cross white snow
a fire beneath glows brighteyed
pounce! on the purring lump
beneath the blanket
morning is here!

Mars - another excuse for human curiosity

2011-02-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

why does the japanese astronaut selection process involve origami?

who ate the onions experiment?

what happens if you don't bathe or change clothes for 2 weeks?

how much will NASA pay you to stay in bed for 3 months?

what happens to your bones then?

so how do old ladies benefit from space research? (get it?)

how do dolphins have sex under water?

is that why they don't let male dolphins in the swim-with-the-dolphins pool?

what is astronaut chow?

what concoction best simulates human shit for test purposes?

what tests are those??

what percent of people can light their farts?

why is drinking Orange County's water kind of like being an astronaut?

did you ever think that sustainability engineering and human spaceflight engineering are just different sides of the same technology?

PACKING FOR MARS by Mary Roach - a book by a science writer who walks the fine line between making fun of and seeing what is funny about space exploration and the research that is part of it!

i loved this book, and had a new view of the value of it all... all the research spills out into everyday life. her last paragraph is surely thought provoking - to summarize, any money saved from not funding space exploration would not go to any of the things you feel it should be used for anyway! you know that! so why not play and learn.

oh just read it, you'll laugh out loud at sentences like "The zero gravity fart has been a popular orbital pursuit, especially on all male flights."

some bad guy has a car like mine

2011-02-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

a DRUG dealer! or maybe a TERRORIST! -- somewhere around here i am SURE there is one with a car JUST LIKE MINE.
you would NOT THINK they would drive a BORING looking vehicle like a blue subaru IMPREZA station wagon.
(granted it does GO like ANYTHING!)
why else would the cops KEEP STOPPING ME?
ok i WAS speeding, but not enough to be given a TICKET apparently.
i just got a WARNING. and then--
ok i went through -- i DID go through a red light when that cop was BEHIND me,
but i had never BEEN in that town before, and i DIDN'T EVEN SEE IT!
and HE didn't give me a ticket EITHER, so it must happen ALL THE TIME THERE.
and then YESTERDAY i was stopped because my INSPECTION STICKER is over a MONTH out of date.
i forgot! and i can't SEE it because of the rear-view mirror HIDES it.
and yet...who NOTICES things like that UNLESS --
they are already checking out your car looking for an excuse to STOP you?
no ticket again.
you SEE?
they just want to look in the BACK...
see if i have bombs or bodies.

we were meant to fly!!

2011-02-11T19:13:00.001-05:00

should second life be a copy of a first life? for most, it is.
most choose to be humans, have houses, cars, horses, dogs, even kitchens and bathrooms! crazy!
why walk when you could fly?
live in a house when you can live in a bubble, a mushroom, underwater, or on mars?
look human when you could invent a life form for yourself?
or - ah - live in the sky! YES! people DO like this.
we happily take naturally to flying and off-the-ground life.
here's a snapshot of the sky high above Dunvegan, a sim where i hang out sometimes, with all the hang-outs and homes people have put high above their land.

(people's sky places! click to enlarge)

Blue Lagoon

2011-02-05T17:23:00.001-05:00

yesterday i installed phoenix standard on my old laptop.

right away mudpie went to raglan to test it out, and ended up at a kind of charades game.

the contestant had to create clues from prims (simple 3D shapes) --

clues to the words or phrase the rest had to guess.

mudpie didn't know how the game worked exactly,

but got all caught up and correctly guessed one!

wow she won 25 lindens!

but then - uhoh - turns out she had to be the next one up!

how the heck do you create prims using phoenix? omg.

i did figure that out, and her words were "blue lagoon."

after a few false starts i managed to make a flat oval

and fill it with BLUE.

then i decided to add water texture.

then i found a fish in mudpie's inventory and added that.

the fish swam round and round - and someone guessed "blue lagoon"!!

what i hadn't noticed was that the moderator, awenbunny, had

been hollering at mudpie in chat "you can't use textures!"

and then with the fish, she completely lost it!

that was totally against the rules!

luckily it was raglan, home of the fun-loving tinies,

so everyone laughed and laughed.

awenbunny said she laughed so hard her dimples hurt!

snow body

2011-02-03T18:15:00.000-05:00

knock knock!

who's there?

Snow Body

Snow Body who?

's nobody gettin' to YOUR front door!

my front door -- good thing we haz back doors too!

after i opened the windows and shoveled awhile to keep them from breaking, i went off on my snowshoes. wheeeee!

i was the first one out after the 15 or so inches of snow....ugh it was hard going!

painting the magic

2011-02-02T13:26:00.003-05:00

"i hate to tell you this...but..."
this is what carpenters say to you when you get home from work.
that is, they do if your house is a little cape built in the 1800s.
i've been hearing it for years.
pull off a wall, some clapboard, some flooring, and it's -- uh-oh!!
one of our first carpenters was a young guy i'll call bob, mostly because that's his name.
carpenters here are like new york waitresses ...they are really something else.
bob was an artist.
we named our bathroom after him.
i wish we had gotten him to sign it!
not long ago i went to his house on an open studio tour, and -- whoa! $1000 and up?
wonder what our bathroom is worth now!
i love his paintings. take a look!
i love them because he paints the things i love;

and he knows how to capture the radiant magical energy of the world's display.

phoenix creates butterfly cat-woman

2011-02-01T17:33:00.000-05:00

the viewer phoenix has been good on my w7 64 bit lappy, so based on new info, i decided to get all my old viewers off, and then download the phoenix 818 SSE2 viewer.
it worked beautifully! looks so good, and so far not crashy and stuff rezzes! here's a picture...(it dint make me a better photographer)

HOWEVER i must have deleted a cache or failed to create a separate cache or SOMETHING! because....
when i logged into my old 32 bit lappy on SL, i got a little of my current fairy look, plus a little of my new year's eve tiny tiger look all jumbled together! what a hoot!

chilblains?

2011-01-29T12:20:00.000-05:00

for years i've heard people discuss painful finger cracks they get in winter, and what to do about them.
i never experienced it until this week, when suddenly my right thumb got one!
first stop - google!
is it chilblains?
is it really?
wow!
didn't i read that word in some musty book we had to read in 6th grade about dreary new england depressives?
wow, cool!
immediately i begin a series of experimental treatments.
honey?
may help but too slow and kind of messy.
my plan was to go on from honey to try yogurt, vinegar, and super glue, holding back on cortisone cream as a last desperate measure.
unfortunately i lost interest and just went with a thick layer of johnson's first aid cream (disclosure - i have some shares of j&j) and using my left hand for everything.
using my left hand is an endlessly fascinating hobby i developed the year my shoulder was frozen.
it's more fun than curing chilblains.
i love seeing what it can and can't do.
oddly, my wii bowling scores as a lefty are about the same as righty.
all in all, i feel extremely lucky in life to be so easily amused!

barney and hank a few weeks later

2011-01-27T16:27:00.000-05:00

we did wonder for awhile if Hank would kill Barney!

we hoped they would become pals.

i think it has finally happened!

they fight like brothers, and play like friends.

it is still a circus!
a ruckus!
the cat-town races!

a keystone cats show!

but now it's a fun one.

auspicious coincidence or loss of entropy?

2011-01-26T16:54:00.000-05:00

i wanted a joke-a-day calendar
but border's in mid-january had none.
so i have a metropolitan museum of art
page-a-day calendar.
i love it!
on my birthday i was amazed
to turn the page and reveal
a tibetan buddhist painting
tanka style
of Onpo Lama Rinpoche (1251 - 1296)
in his indian incarnation as
Jnanatapa
surrounded by
the progenitors and abbots
of Taklung Monastery.

how did they know?

jack frost paints our windows

2011-01-24T12:49:00.002-05:00

the responsible thing would be to replace all the big old loose windows in this 1850s house with smaller tighter windows. but we get so little light in the winter! and when it's clear and -24 F (-31 C) at night, and the sun rises bright and low, our morning glows with crystals and feathers thanks to jack frost! at least we don't have ice on the inside of the windows, like we did in one place we lived!

now at noon it's up to 50 on our glassed in porch, from the sun! (the predicted high today is 4.

silence of the yams

2011-01-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

clocks hum, cats ticking,
refrigerator purrs --
the snow makes no sound

~mudpie

the monster is gone, but things are still bad!

2011-01-18T16:55:00.000-05:00

the only vacancy in shanghai seemed to have 3 dead bodies stored in it.

so much for my whim to move back to the beautiful steelhead sims!

(click to enlarge)

things had not been this bad when i had my shelter open there.

a little research, and i discovered more than i wanted to know and concluded that i'd stick to higgins and raglan a while longer!

here is the latest from Dr. Beck

driving route 1

2011-01-17T10:44:00.001-05:00

i always think it should be fun to take road trips in second life, along the public highways. but vehicles are difficult to control, and the scenery went by too fast to rez, so i didn't see much!
today i noticed a car in my lost and found, so i rezzed it, and decided to take it for a spin on rte 1.
driving seems much smoother now! even getting a bit of the scenery and buildings as i tooled along! sim crossings didn't crash me either.
the only problem was finding a place to stop! i drove on and on -- no spot where i could park and resume my journey next time i logged in. if i stop just anywhere, i have to go back to the beginning to rez my car.
finally i found a parking/rezing stop! like finding a rest area on a real life highway! yippee!
however, i must say, it could win a prize for most boring spot in second life!

click for total boring effect - car was freebie from burning life or man or whatever it was

stranger than second life

2011-01-17T10:25:00.002-05:00

Poorly Dressed

A Visit from the Goon Squad

2011-01-13T13:32:00.008-05:00

by Jennifer Egan

another book i actually finished! it started out as interesting enough to keep me coming back to it, although not compelling. when the pages turned sideways i got really annoyed, then intrigued once i caught on to where it was going, then i skipped the graphs entirely.

but the LAST CHAPTER could have been standalone. i was totally hooked at the end. loved it.

(the last chapter has to do with a rock concert come-back by a long forgotten musician -- the music biz is a recurring theme throughout the book.)

harnessing the mind!

2011-01-13T13:27:00.000-05:00

great news in medicine!

tiny mention in NYT science section a few weeks ago.

this could change lots of things.

doctors have discovered

that if they TELL THE TRUTH

then in certain illnesses, such as I.B.S.,

they give the patient a placebo, and

they say something like

"this is an inert substance, like a sugar pill,

that has been found to produce significant improvement

in I.B.S. symptoms through mind-body

self-healing processes"

the patients given the sugar-pills

in a bottle marked "PLACEBO"

reported significantly better pain relief

and reduction in severity of other symptoms

than those who got nothing.

not just a little better!

"The magnitude of effect here is very large."

said Dr Ted J Kaptchuck a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

think of it!

trigger the mind-body self-healing process

by giving a pill!