Christmas morning at gramma's

On Christmas morning, gramma let me have just bread and butter with ham, coffee and juice. It was amazing to sit around the table with her and look out her windows at the farmland. Thanks, gramma, for a perfect morning!

I can't believe it. I can actually do Su Doku!

Not walking, not walking, not walking!

I missed the transit strike! Nana-nana-poo-poo!

I'll miss you, Mike Jones

Tonight we are going to see one of our favorite bands, Levy, for New Year's. We saw them last year at the same venue. But last year, Mike Jones was their drummer. We got to meet Mike Jones when we saw him at the movie theater in our neighborhood.

Mike Jones, wherever you are, you will be missed, man.

An actor so cool...

Last night we met T. Ryder Smith after seeing "Apparition." We also saw him onstage in "Thom Paine" and "The Gods Are Pounding My Head." I don't believe there's a cooler actor in New York. And he seems so humble!!!

Walking Underneath the Construction

I don't like scaffolding
Except when it rains
But not when it's windy.

Thoughts From a Plane

Serena Adele
Heaven and hell
Don't hold a candle to your smile.

Are you going to say hi to me
Or just stand behind your mother
And stare?



Uncle Stephen wants to say hello
But he's afraid you'll be frightened
Of his facial hair.

Smile if you like
Or cry
I don't mind
We can get an ice cream sundae.

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside -

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown -

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

Robert Louis Stevenson

HOPE

We shall
find peace.

We shall
hear angels.

We shall
see the sky sparkling
with diamonds.

Chekhov

I Shall Be Coming Back to You

I shall be coming back to you

From seas, rivers, sunny meadows,

glens that hold secrets:

I shall come back with my hands full

Of light and flowers...

I shall bring back things I have picked up,

Traveling this road or the other,

Things found by the sea or in the pinewood.

There will be a pine-cone in my pocket,

Grains of pink sand between my fingers.

I shall tell you of a golden pheasant's feather...

Will you know me?

from "I Shall Come Back"

Hilda Conkling (age ten), 1922

I found it in "The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley.”

Aspirations

I just finished "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing." I like what Robert says at the end...that his work aspires to be "beautiful and funny and sad and true."

Yes, Poet, there is a Carousel

I met a poet working in a shop recently. I was looking at some plates with images of Paris on them, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triomphe and a carousel. He asked me if I remembered the carousel in Paris, because he never saw it. I didn't really. It's been years since I've been in Paris. Later, I discovered a poem about the carousel. So, for you, poet, proof of your carousel.

Carousel de Paris
from 7 Little Parisian Poems
Elizabeth Smither

Across the avenue and through the trees
the carousel turns. All the white horses
pierced through with shafts like unicorn horns

and a little gilded rearing horse
on the peak of the wooden tent
and the frill - so domestic, so sweet

and this eternal - when it is going - motion
surely it is the most assured, most desirable
motion in all the world. Is it a bellows

like the rising and falling of lungs
or the heart and its cavities, emptying, filling
or simply hope of a firm earth and heaven?