Evening Gulf report

They are gone. At the moment they are somewhere in the air returning to Oregon and the very lonely rest of them... sister, Dad, brother, the dingbat dogs, aunts, uncles, cousins, Ms. Willy Nelson the capital "c" Cat, the good grandma and grandpa, friends and a world that needs them and has missed them the five weeks they were here with us on Alligator Creek. The house feels empty, the Gulf feels empty but there is a good breeze here on the screen porch, enough to set wind chimes rustling and Frida's pineapple palm tree whispering. On Thursday we will begin our trans-America trek back to Oregon to await, with everyone else, the arrival of Leo and Frank's new brother or sister but not tonight.

Twilight on Alligator Creek

Fish brain

Ideas dart in and out of my mind like fish, a flash of silver and they're gone. It's very frustrating. I grab for one, notice another out of the corner of my eye and miss both, leaving me empty-handed and empty-headed. Like now.

posted from Bloggeroid

Midnight again?

Summer is slipping by. We leave Florida in one week.

Manatee in the Gulf

Damn. I've barely made note.

Egret contemplating the sea

This is how it is...

Stump at Stump Pass

...and how it goes.

Thea on the Gulf of Mexico

Oh oh

In the snootiest voice imaginable, my granddaughter just told me, "I may look young, but I am five-years-old".

As thunder rolls

As the humidity climbs, Sonny holds forth on the screen porch and thunder rumbles in the clouds floating under a bright blue sky. Gpa Lee and Ms. Thea have settled into a rainy day marathon video extravaganza and Kristiana is moving thousands of photos from one device to another, freeing up gigabytes and gigabytes of memory and I, spurred on by Roy's comment about "the third thing", will attempt to decipher all of Helium's comments in the video I just posted.

In the meantime, here is another video. It is for amusement purposes only although it does remind me of what goes on in my head when I sit down "to write". After one of these sessions, I am always amazed if there is anything left on the page. M. Lee turned me on to cyriak so, if you also find it disturbing, blame him.

_______________________________________________

Ok. Here is it, although I'm not sure about Helium's final comment. And, of course, who really knows what Strindberg's forgotten third thing was, although I think Roy's guess is probably right, dingoes.

On second thought, my guess is that Strindberg's forgotten third thing is....

Motherrrrrrrrrrrr

Strindberg and Helium at the Beach, Helium's comments:

Heeeeliuuuuuum

Dismaaaaaal

Murrrrrdeeeeer

Diseeeeeeeaaaase

Sewaaaaaaage

Heeeeeelllllll

Purtifiiiiied caaaaaarcaaaaaass

final comment (??????)

Sonny is still talking. Currently he's ranting about how "the sonovabitch's door was open" and god knows what else and I am drenched sitting here in the

huuuuuuuumidddddddiiiiiiittttttttyyyyyyy.....

Strindberg and Helium at the Beach

As I'm at the beach a lot these days, I thought I'd post this episode of Strindberg and Helium, a couple of my favorite guys. In other news, it's begun raining again this morning. That may sound like a downer but it's not. I don't know how the rest of Florida is doing, but it has been unseasonably dry here on the Gulf. Yesterday's all day rain and house rattling thunder was very welcome. This morning's rain in very fluky. It's partly sunny and raining like crazy in the front of the house and sunny in the back, then suddenly we are hit by wild wild rain.

LA highlights and Star Party

As for the week in LA with M. Lee's mom, Kathy, and Shane, other than not being able to connect with a blogger friend in the area, it went swimmingly. Every day was different and unique, all due to Lee's superb planning. He does a helluva job.

Breakfast at our Hollywood AirBnB - Shane and Kathy

I wish he enjoyed the trip as much as everyone else but his mom is 83 which leaves zero room for missteps or backtracking. Like a stage manager, he's too busy keeping an eye on things to simply enjoy the show. After a couple of days, we'd done and seen so many things that our attempts to recall details were laughable. It's even harder now, a month later, so this is just a rough sketch to remember things by.

Adventures along the way:

One of our first mornings there we popped into the Hollywood Bowl. In the morning the gates are open and entrance is free so we went in, sat in the shade and listened to the Los Angeles Philharmonic rehearse for their evening performance. Another day we went to Venice Beach and happened upon the Mr. and Ms. Muscle Beach Competition which was in full swing. Talk about a man-fest.

Of course, we went to Malibu and checked out the scene. Eventually we stopped at El Matador Beach where Shane swam, M. Lee grabbed a little sun and I photographed a seagull nibbling a bloated seal corpse. Which reminds me, I also photographed David Geffen's Malibu beach seaside mansion with it's row of garage doors along the street, several of them fake. Phony. Pretend. This dickhead had them installed and fake driveways put in just to keep people from parking in front of his house which is on Pacific Coast Hwy, a public street. Talk about cheesed-dick.

Minerva, Swami and Shane at Venice Beach

The seconded time we visited Venice beach Kathy stayed at the house. Shane swam, I took photos and, as we generallydo when people watching, M. Lee and I make up stories about people passing by. You may be vacationing Russian mafioso. Or perhaps you are a British aristocrat just out of treatment for cocaine addiction and we will debate whether or not you are at the beach to score or meditate. After that we walked to the Santa Monica Pier where, you guessed it, I took more pictures.



And, of course, we did several museum crawls, the Getty and LACMA, and saw work ranging from Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Gogh and Kandinsky to new artists in the Hammer's exhibit, "Made in LA 2014".

Me, lost in the ambient world again.

Then there was the flea market on Melrose and Fairfax. No one bought anything but it was fun to peruse the wares. Shane immediately fell in love with a vendor, a babe in baby blue short shorts. I couldn't get a good photo of her without being obvious. Other than that, I spent a lot of time photographing reflections in mirrors.

Vegan soul food with Shane, M. Lee andKathy

Restaurants:

Our go-to place for the week was Veggie Grill, good veggie and vegan food, hardy servings, good prices. There are several in LA and a couple near where we were staying so it was really handy. And among the highlights there were the adventures like El Huarique, Peruvian Cuisine. This was a tiny, lunch counter down a narrow walkway on Venice Beach. Their sign described the place as a "Hole in the Wall" but "Hole in the Wallet" would have been just as accurate. Four styrofoam plate lunches was $80. I didn't want the fish so my plate was basically a huge pile of rice and beans. Nice guys though. I wish them the best.

Shane at Stuff I Eat vegan soul food

We also tried Stuff I Eat, a vegan soul food place in Inglewood. It was, in every way, outstanding. I hightly recommend it. And we went to the vegetarian buffet at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Monastery with some old friends who used to be neighbors in Oregon. It's the first time we visited them since they moved to LA so, being Chinese, they insisted on tea at their new place, then a tour of the house before leaving for the buffet. Another evening just the four of us went to Dim Sum, Kathy's favorite and a first for Shane.

Dim Sum in San Gabriel Valley

Also, we had lunch at one of our regular stops, Govinda's. That's the vegetarian buffet at the Krsna Temple on Watseka Blvd.. Always good food at a great price. During the 60's I used to sleep on the floor of what is now that restaurant. At the time it was the Temple's women's quarters of what was then the new temple. Before that we all lived at at the original ISKCON temple on La Cienega Blvd. And, of course when we were in Malibu, we stopped at Malibu Seafood, an old LA favorite fish place across from the beach and had fish and chips. It wasn't healthy or vegetarian but it was tasty, even after just seeing the seal and the seagull. We also went to Rahel's Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine for their lunch buffet. I didn't care for it the first time we ate there. M. Lee does and was determined to prove to me that I actually do as well. While I'm sure Rahel's does a fine job, seems Ethiopian food just does't do it for me, or at least, I didn't care for their buffet. Perhaps items from the menu would be more to my liking. I dunno.

Heart of the Matter: 

The big deal, her post cancer treatment kick up your heels treat, the main event of the week was taking M. Lee's mom to the Jewish Women's Council Thrift Shops.

Kathy has been a thrift store junkie her entire life and has an excellent, well-honed eye for designer clothes and Chinese antiquities. She dresses like a million bucks on a dime and, over the years, amassed quite a collection of mostly Chinese artifacts. She loves the Council Thrift Shops and we did all five in LA. She scored some good ones. Designer clothing is not my thing but I did get one thing and took photos. M. Lee and Shane, on the other hand, became instant experts on couches. 

Star Party and secret spots:

And it just happened that the moon was in its first quarter the Saturday night we made it up to the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park so we joined the Star Party hosted monthly by the Los Angeles Astronomical Society to celebrate the quarter moon, otherwise known as the half moon. The lawn in front of the observatory was filled with wonderful telescopes and hundreds of people were milling around, peeking into one, then another for delicious views of the moon,

R.I.P. Robin Williams

sad

FiveOWriteO

The term came out of one of those word jazz sessions Kristiana, M. Lee and I were having the other day, at my expense. At the time it was FiveOWriMo. Later I changed it to FiveOWriteO or its colloquial fiveowriteo. Of course, both are based on the now famous NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which has, over the years, kicked a significant number of people off their duffs to take the plunge, resulting in huge gobs and boatloads of words getting launched during the month of November and some manuscripts actually becoming published works of whatever. Even I managed to assemble 50,000 words one November spurred on by the collective frenzy. Don't ask. The deal with FiveOWriteO is to write for five minutes everyday, one day at a time. Of course, a commitment to write five, f-i-v-e,  5 little minutes a day will only be of interest to individuals suffering from writer's block, which includes me. "Writers write, Owen" . Smirk all you like, writer's block is a drag. So, of course, the important thing about a FiveOWriteO is the word "write" because write is a verb.

And yes, I've been telling myself for years to set a daily time and write. I used to tell myself to write four hours a day. When I failed at that I lowered the time to two hours a day, that became one, then one half-hour, which worked until it didn't.

I've been doing my fiveowriteo for about a month now and have gotten quite attached to this little morning interlude. God, that must sound so pathetic. I am embarrassed to discuss it, even here, but now Roy at Blogorahma has upped the stakes and started occasionally posting his five minutes worth (thanks a lot, Roy). His, of course, are good. Mine are not and they are really short but, these days, I'm grateful to be writing at all so, in the spirit of fun and fair play, I am posting this morning's fiveowriteo.

It's hard to make a beginning without a starting point. I do not have one. I start over and over from the middle of nowhere. Is it some kind of twisted snobbery to forego a beginning? A foundation? An idea? The spiral continues its twist. Over and over, Billy (Collins) starts at his window. It is not his privilege alone, something he himself makes abundantly clear. "The poets are at their windows." And I am at mine only, for now, my window is the screen porch.

I am sitting in my screen porch. It is morning. The black birds are at work on the peanuts and seeds. It is 2:26 PM in Addis Ababa. I have never been to Addis Ababa but have wondered about it since I was a child. I leave the porch and wander the shade of its narrow, winding, packed-sand passageways which open occasionally onto bazaars filled with wares and food of every description. The whole scene is ablaze with color and swelters under makeshift canopies and tents and throbs with a cacophony of voices, braying, cawing, banging and music. People look down on the scene from tiny balconies attached to brightly painted buildings.

And then I am back on Alligator Creek with the dive-bombing black birds who, in the time it took to visit Addis Ababa and return, snatched all the peanuts from under Frida Kahlo the squirrel's memorial pineapple palm tree before the squirrels arrive.

References:
Friday by Roy deGregory
Monday by Billy Collins

Check-in

Currently, we are wildly busy trailing after our five year-old granddaughter, Thea. She and my daughter Kristiana are staying with us here on Alligator Creek for the five weeks. It's wonderful. We spend a lot of time at the beach. We all love it and it's the best place to get the wiggles out. Thea adores the water, won't even come out long enough to eat her sandwich at lunchtime. She and Grandpa eat standing in the waves. I swear she's half fish and he's 3/4s kid. Ok. Gotta go.

Drift

So, I posted a new poem at annasadhorse, Drift. Again, it's not "new" in the sense that I just wrote it, but it is new in the archive and relatively new in the order of things in as I wrote it in the last few years.

MinuteCast

9:30 PM  My daughter and I are sitting out on the screen porch, eagerly awaiting the storm but Accuweather's MinuteCast predictions keeps changing the time it will arrival at our house and reducing the severity. At first, much to our delight, they said we were in for a "severe storm" but, after several downgrades, our storm is now predicted to be a "light rain". In the meantime, the wind did pick up, which is very tantalizing. Palm trees are whooshing and, to the south, lightning is flashing in the clouds. MinuteCast just announced that the storm will be here in "four minutes". Finally! We hear thunder. Kristiana has re-positioned herself by the railing.

Florida night with flash of lightning.

Hmmm... MinuteCast changed the changed time of the storm's arrival time again. Now they're saying it will be here in "eight minutes". WTF? Last night we had a proper storm. Mind-numbing thunder cracked directly overhead. That cleared the porch. Damn. MinuteCast now only has "sprinkles" for us. Damn. Changed again. No precipitation for 120 minutes."  Ok. Enough of this. Goodnight.

C'est la vie

The Visitation.
Frida Kahlo, the Gran Ardilla

It's an established fact that I love squirrels, well all animals, but this post is about squirrels. And, this summer, as previous ones here in Florida, there are several who come every morning for the peanuts I put around Frida Kahlo, the Gran Ardilla's, memorial pineapple palm tree. But this summer, other than Ragnar Halftail, the crew is a bunch of scraggly tailed imbeciles. They're cute but dumb as rocks. And lazy. To begin with, they're being sandbagged by a cluster of enterprising blackbirds. These fellows define the term "early bird". I had to change tactics. Now, instead of scattering peanuts around the tree, I wait till the little dolts get here then I toss nuts to them from the balcony. But there's no guarantee they will notice them, even when accidentally bonked on the head by one. And, if they do notice, chances are the simpletons immediately break into a fierce up, down and around the tree battle over it while the blackbirds dive-bomb from the fronds, scoop up the nuts and take off. And these dunderheads are picky. Sometimes one grabs a nut, smells it, drops it and goes for a piece of corn instead. The birds don't seem too interested in corn so I put plenty of that out. And, if a squirrel does decided to have a peanut, they are just as likely to scamper off and bury it in grass and yes, the smarty pants blackbirds loooove that. So, c'est la vie.

Scenes from LA's Melrose and Fairfax Flea Market

July 14

My recap of our recent week in LA languishes.

Looking in on things.

It's not that that I'm trying to make it "literature".

Pink flamingos and palm trees 

Like M. Lee always says, "blog writing isn't writing".

"Don't you listen to him, honey!"

Of course, that's bullshit.

It's all good

But he's also right.

Man and man in the glass

Anyway, it's like I said, I'm still turning and tweeking photos

Flea market explorer with David and Marilyn

and not getting to the damn list of places we went.

The yellow-breasted Haggler
Habitat: flea markets, yard sales, thrift shops,
rummage sales and kool-aid stands

So here are a few from LA's Melrose and Fairfax Flea Market
for your amusement and to refresh the page.

My little problem

I am finally having to admit that I have a problem with, how do I say, cameras? It's not a technical problem. It's not the camera. It's me. I'm obsessed with taking photos. It's unmanageable. I spent the day juggling an absurd number of images from the last month alone. I (excuse me. quick pause while I take a couple of photos of some really fabulous clouds in the evening sky) 'm not kidding. It's bad. I am drowning in images. I've got to start dealing with this.

LA at night from a moving vehicle

Sky Bridge home

Sunday lunch with the Chaus at the
Hsi Lai Buddhist Monastery - Hacienda Heights, CA

posted from Bloggeroid

We're home. Or were. I'm writing this as we drive  across Florida on Alligator Alley. No. Haven't seen any alligators. They troll rest stops for handouts but this time we're on a mission and not stopping

Crossing Tampa's Sky Bridge
yesterday with Swami, Minerva and Andy.

Thanks to M. Lee's fastidious planning, the LA trip went very well. Once I download the photos I'll post a few and a recap.

Lunch at the Buddhist monastery buffet

We're out of here in 15 minutes to pick up Kathy's friends and then... well .... the title tells the rest of the tale. Photos to follow here and at Instagram. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm totally sucked into Instagram these days. It's the Deconstructionist's fault. I joined just to see her photos and then she stopped posting. Go figure. And her blog hasn't been updated for over a year. Damn! She's my favorite blogger, and not just because she's my daughter. She's a wonderful writer.

Anyway, like I said, photos to follow, including (at some point) photos of the Airbnb place we're staying. It's pretty cool and in a great location, two blocks from the Melrose entrance to Paramount Studios. Every time we drive by it I expect to see a long black limo pulling in with Marilyn Monroe in the backseat.

LA wanderings

LA graffiti artist

We're in LA for the week but I just can't keep up with it here. As usual, we are running from morning till night. I'm dashing this off at breakfast time but we're leaving shortly and that will be the day.

Shane & Lee - James Ensor exhibit at the Getty

More photos at imgur.....

Morning notes

Leo negotiating a mealtime compromise

We think it's hard keeping track of toddlers and getting our kids to finish a meal. Try being the parent of a fledgling. This morning I watched the Mockingbird parents feeding their kids. One of the babies landed on a frond in Frida's palm tree and waited while they rustled him up a little grub then, when he'd had enough, flew off. A minute later one of the parents came back with another squiggly goodie but the baby was gone. Imagine if our toddlers could do that to avoid eating their broccoli.

"Frank, just one more bite then you can go play."

Also, all morning Sonny has been out on the screen porch ranting to his parents about how hot it is in Florida and it's only June, how he had a life in New York, ten years, how he learned all about being responsible during his forties, there, up north. His mom says something and he gets very animated about how he doesn't do anything illegal anymore but his deadbeat friends are cheating him out of a lot of money. I believe him.

Here's the thing. Sonny is a good guy at heart but his friends? I'm sure he's right. A rough lot. It's not his fault. He explains to her how, just recently, he went with some girl to help her rescue her drugged out friend and ended up getting "dragged into the middle of a situation".

"Then some guy walks up and threatens to put a bullet in my head", he says.

Also, he's upset because some strange guy just showed up on his Facebook page.

"I'm gonna erase the damn page. Everybody knows your business. People you don't even know. What's up with that? That's the most turmoil damn thing anybody could have made."

Pops is quiet but Sonny and his mom are deeply into it.

"Don't interrupt your Mother!"

"You're interrupting me."

"Can't I even talk?"

"My voice don't even matter around here, Mom! For years I've been telling you to drink that shit. You've been skinny for the last seven years but you only listen to Pam. You drink that and it's like an extra meal. It's like an extra meal throughout the day, but you only drink it when Pam tells you!"

When the conversation switches to Sonny's difficulty filling out rental contracts...

"It took 35 minutes just to fill out the damn form, then they wanted a credit card so I tore it up!"

...mom interrupts asking Sonny what he wants to eat.

"It all depends on what you want to do, Maw."

"You want pancakes with an egg?"

At this point, Pops mumbles something in a feeble voice and she yells,

"I'm not talking to you!"

Ok. Enough. The screen porch has reached sauna temperatures. BTW, if this sounds a little.... mmmmmm..... snarky..... I don't really mean it to be. First off, I would be the pot calling the kettle black. If you're a regular here you know that, by nature, I'm a total deadbeat. I get Sonny. I am Sonny. And anyway, you know... I don't judge. I just report.

Lucky Pierre and me on the job

Morning and all is well along Alligator Creek

I've been doing a lot of obits these last few days so I thought I'd better sweeten it up around here with some happy things. So, this morning Sonny is out in the screen porch running it down to his mom about everything from "bingo to food allowances, calories, getting his own room at a motel, something that's sixteen dollars a day (probably the motel room), roller derbys, how a man can't live like that, taking showers outside from a bucket, carrying water down from the neighbors, what if the pipe breaks?, living in a trailer, how you need water for the toilet, how when you flush it it needs to go out" and on and on.

Sonny's been coming and going a lot lately and I was getting worried that he might have a job or a girlfriend or something like that so today is very comforting that he spent the morning ranting in the screen porch although he did just say something about "going out there" and "work" so let's hope he's not talking about himself. I know. I'm weird but hey. Some things should stay the same, at least for now.

So, we're off to the beach for a walk. M. Lee is currently training to do a solo century, which is a long long long lonely bike ride, maybe eight hours or more in the saddle. I am impressed but it makes my back hurt thinking about it. I did go to the gym yesterday though. Anyway, yesterday he ground out 75 miles so today we are going for a cool down, in 90° heat. In fact, he just came to the sliding glass door of the screen porch and gave me "the look" so gotta go. Pardon me. No time to edit. This is a post n go.

Frostie the Snow Goat

Sadly sweet, plucky little Frostie the snow goat died suddenly a couple of days ago of complications from spinal injuries. Nevertheless, the kindness of those who rescued him and his love of life and determination to thrive is a heartwarming story for us all. Farewell, little guy.

Frostie the Snow Goat from Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary on Vimeo.

ARG!

View from the screen porch

posted from Bloggeroid

Arg! The guy next door has been vacuuming his vehicle for going on two hours now. He should know better. He's from California. Hey, buddy! News flash! You will never, ever get rid of all the sand. Get used to it. God! Oh, and guess what? The minute you get in the car.... sand. And don't forget your sand trap kids. And the dog? You guessed it. Sand, sand and more sand. WTF?!

Charles Barsotti, bye-bye

Source: The Bark

Charles Barsotti. I loved the cartoons but knew nothing of the man until today, reading his obituary in his hometown paper, the Kansas City Star. Damn. Now I really really miss this guy.

Artist and nice guy: Charles Barsotti

Happy Summer Solstice!

Longest day, shortest night and the official beginning of summer in the Western Hemisphere.

Now, I'm going to go do a Summer Solstice I Ching. Yes. I do the I Ching online these days. Don't even carry the book or use coins. Haven't for awhile. To a purist, of course, the idea of an online oracle must be total heresy  but that's their problem. Anyway, today's a good day to do a reading, as in tune in, tune up.

I'll probably post the result here later. Today's entry is already one of those run-on repost reposts. In the meantime, we pause for a public service announcement.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The Seattle Humane Society is holding a Summer Solstice Adopt-a-thon. Good luck doggies. I hope today you all get your new fur-ever homes. I know. Corny.

-------------------------------------------------------------

So on to the Summer Solstice reading...

Cast Hexagram:

13 - Thirteen: T'ung Jên / Social Mechanism

"....You are not building a new organization, but shoring up an existing infrastructure.
It's worth the effort, because it will provide union, community, and an ironclad alliance."

Transformed Hexagram:

51 - Fifty-One: Chên / Thunder

"....to one who understands its significance, this thunder is a signal to repent.
Centering the Self, seeking balance, the enlightened person will respect and align himself with this Higher Power, while his fellows remain subject to the whims of every passing storm."

Just read that a very experience hiker had gone missing on Mt. Rainer. That gave me a start as my nephew is climbing that mountain today, along with his girlfriend and some buddies. I've been wondering if he's going to propose to her when they get to the summit then the headline about a missing climber popped up on Yahoo. Turns out it's no one in their party which a relief but, of course, I'm sorry anyone is having trouble up there. Six people fell to their deaths on Mt. Rainer just last month. Conditions are still too dangerous for crews to attempt to recover their bodies then a member of the rescue team searching for Karen Sykes, the climber who just went missing, was hurt when he punched through a snow bridge and had to be airlifted out.

Squirrel with a nut!

Squirrel with a nut!

And now I am off to do my five minutes. That is all.

Rainy morning update

For the last two mornings I've been practicing doing my "five minutes" of writing, writing writing, not blog writing which M. Lee claims is not writing at all. I differ with that opinion but I know what he's getting at. Anyway, two days ago I (once again) rose to his challenge and made myself "work". In other words, I stared down the blank page, fought off the Brutal Editor and scratched out a few words. So much easier to do this. Or, easier yet, photographs.

But, then again, griping about writer's block, is a device. I just need something to replace the current top post. I'm tired of that vulture staring at me whenever I drop by to grab a link or see if anyone on my blogroll has done a new post. By the way. Where's the Deconstructionist? It's been almost a year now! I know. Busy. But, back to that vulture for a minute. It feels like my blog is the roadkill laying in the street, and beyond that, the rest of my writing, what little there is of it, or might ever be, and that gets old.

It's bad enough that I'm already feeling pretty uninspired lately. I like Florida but I'm also really isolated here. Okay, I feel like that everywhere. On the upside, we have a healthy routine. We bike, swim and go to the gym on a regular basis. I'm grateful for that. But, once again, no friends, no history and not much chance of either. How would I make it different? At this point, I'm not sure I can. We'll be gone in a couple of months and do it all over again somewhere else. It's the curse of the road. Love it or leave it, right? My family is my anchor but they have their own lives. And so do I. I don't want to "live through them". That sounds so sadly vampirish and just plain sad. Even being a grandma is a relationship, certainly a wonderful one, a precious gift, but it's not my identity. And, I'm not "retired". I cannot even begin to wrap my head around that word. It doesn't make sense to me at all. I always have a project, a goal, a dream and my own personal nightmares.

I know. So get on with it. Blah blah. I've written about this before. Boo-hoo. The feelings will pass, even if the situation does not. I'll get to the Florida Writer's Association meeting next time they meet. That will help. They're nice folks and dedicated writers. Excuse me but it does help to sort it out here. So okay. Thanks for listening. I've got my feet back under me now.

In other news, the fight for domination of Frida's pineapple palm tree is all but won by none other than Diego Rivera, champion of the Battle Royale. The twins and Leon Trotsky gave it their best but Diego is a fearsome foe. You might ask, how can I know it's him? After all, we are talking about squirrels, are we not? Well, Diego has a distinctive tail. Of course, he's fatter and fuller than he was back in Frida's day, and that funny little ratty tip of his tail has filled in some, but the kink is still visible and the tip is still a bit on the ratty side. Plus, that's who he is, whoever he is. Easy.

Roadkill Cafe

A vulture enjoying a tasty lunch at the Roadkill Cafe., 

Taken from my car window, this fellow did not even consider moving when I stopped to photograph her. And why should she? Who better to the task of cleaning up the dead?

posted from Bloggeroid

Notes from the porch

Life here along Alligator Creek can be deceptively simple. Days have a rhythm unlike other places we stay. It's an end of the road thing, days marked by sunrise and sunset, rather than the human impositions that generally mark time. And so, a week plus in, and I have hardly done a thing. Again, I am sitting in the screen porch, birds are chirping, Swami and Minerva are here also enjoying the light as it works its daily way through the fronds of Frida Kahlo pineapple palm. And, new to the troop, Molly McGee is also here enjoying the morning.

I haven't talked about Molly before although she appears in a couple of the photos I posted of our cross-country drive, not here but on instagram. But more about her later. I'm still sorting that one out myself. So. The day is far too begun. M. Lee is on a bike ride and I need to get out of here before he gets back. Otherwise, I will really feel like a slob.

This is a test

I'm back to testing free image hosting sites because Blogger is so anal about what they will link to. Plus they promised unlimited storage if you join google+ then cannibalize older photos they host to make room for new ones. WTF?!

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Street shrine hosted by photobucket

Plus, I hate google+. It's just facebook by another name and I already hate facebook. Flickr is best. They offer a free terabyte of storage! Basically they rock, but then they disabled direct linking. WTF?! Lame.

Chiang Mai, Thailand -  playground hosted by TinyPic

Photobucket and it's offshoot, Tinypic, are both still free. I posted these two photos there and yes. Blogger still accepts the links so good. You don't even need an account to post to TinyPic. You have to watch an ad to get the captcha, which is obnoxious, so I won't using it much, but it's worth keeping on the list. As for Imageshack? I logged in and found out it's no longer free. In the process, seems I activated their 30-day "free trial" countdown but I won't bother. They're out.

Sonny morning

Sonny was in fine form today though, at this point, his morning screen porch screed has burned down to a mumbling amid the trilling, twittering and whistling of the birds. Pops is out working in the yard. He is skinnier than ever and probably more fit. I think he's the one who put our mailbox door back in the box yesterday. It's been broken forever. I tried taping it last time we were here but it didn't stick. Maybe this year, I will actually spring for a new box, if they don't cost too much.

It's day three here along Alligator Creek, or at least I think it is. I've lost count. The only thing that's missing now is the squirrels. Frida's daughter did show up but hasn't checked today. She needs her own name, perhaps that of a Mexican poet. It will be a chance for me get acquainted with writers I don't know because, of course, this will require extensive research.

Literary road dogs and Alligator Creek

Sunday - last day - Georgia to Florida

Forget Kerouac and Cassady. Perhaps, they were never really all that anyway. For this five day drive from Portland, Oregon to Florida's gulf coast, Rilke, Odysseus Elytis, Roy DeG., Galway Kinnell and Billy Collins have been our literary traveling companions. I should say Billy McCollins because, for all his admittedly delightful surprise poetic twist endings, and being a former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy really is the Rod McKuen of the hour. Sorry Billy, but you know it's true. Anyway, their company has been, in turns, painful (Billy's same-ie sameness), lofty (Odysseus's romantic Greek modernism), electrifying (Rilke), heartbreaking (Galway) and delightful (Roy DeG.).

M. Lee, Roy DeG. & me in K.C.

When we got to Florida we turned off I-75 to gas up and found ourselves in an alternate Elmore Leonard universe and stopping at the Sarasota Trader Joe's we entered the alternate universe of "ageless" women sporting every implant known to modern and primitive man plus some double, perhaps triple, implants and lifts known only to aliens and Jersey surgeons before which we could only stand in jaw-dropped awe.

Monday - home - Alligator Creek

The old place looks good. Since we were here last, Frida Kahlo's pineapple palm was (finally) pruned. There was even a young squirrel in it this morning eating a nut! Surely, she is one of Frida's descendants. And, wonder upon wonder, Sonny Boy still lives with his parents across the street. He's been out in the screen porch all morning expounding to his mother about the fat epidemic, environment disasters, jail, death, work (which he does not) and a variety of other subjects as flocks of white ibises fly over the twittering, splashing mangroves on their way to the beach. In the last year, we've spent more time on Alligator Creek than "home" in Nevada. It's comforting to see that something of the world as it was still lives there.

Laramie tonight

Laramie, Wyoming home for the night. Expensive. $62 a night. But there is a vegetarian restaurant in Laramie and it's sunny so it's all good or is it? Looks like our room is in the basement.

posted from Bloggeroid

Tonight's home sweet home

Elko, Nevada and the sweet smell of desert sage after the rain. Elko is a friendly town. The billboard about 50 north of town welcomes visitors to . . . Elko Nevada, City of Paved Streets.  According to Yelp there are no decent restaurants in Elko, especially for vegetarians, so tonight it's dinner at Denny's to split a $2 stack of pancakes and a veggie burger... a delicious $8 dinner for two.

posted from Bloggeroid

The final climb

Before leaving Oregon, Hwy. 140 makes one last perilous climb then enters Nevada in the middle of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge. The last time we took this route we were swamped by a cattle drive. Today we zipped along, crossed the state line just after noon and were soon greeted by dark clouds, rain, hail and, to our dismay, discovered that the very excellent wild hot springs by Denio were cold and nearly dry. Damn. We were hoping for a quick dip.

posted from Bloggeroid

Launch minus 10

I thought we were leaving today (Tuesday) but, being so uprooted these days, it's easy to lose track. Yesterday we were in Portland. It was a splendid visit. We got to do a little bit of everything, the Children's Museum with Thea (five next Sunday) and Leo (four in August), swim class with Frank (two in August), toss balls for the goofus dogs, Nevada and Owen, watch baby birds in the old apple tree, have time out of time sunny afternoon chats vetting names for the new baby coming in the fall as the kids played in the yard, do a birthday shopping spree with Thea Bella, watch this year's crop of sunflowers rise up out of the ground and enjoy a big noisy family Sunday barbecue on our last night in town. Already I miss everyone terribly but tomorrow we begin our trek across the country. This will be the third time we've driven to Florida. We'll be on the road five 650 mi/10 hour days, the high point being a meet-up on Friday with Roy in Kansas City. That will be fun. We have never met in person but go back to the good ol' misc.writing days on the usenet and M. Lee and I both really enjoy his blog.

posted from Bloggeroid

Notes along the way and a great link

In the last month or so I have started and abandoned many posts. I could not settle on the words. I seem to be changing. How, I don't know. Motivation, patience, medium? Something is different. Maybe I'm just restless but I think it's more fundamental. I just don't know yet.

Generally, for my future self, I like to make note of at least the basic changes, events and circumstances in my life but they are slipping by unnoted. So...here's a recap. We were home for about a month, now we are back on the road. It was good. It was different. It was centering. I regretted leaving but also don't feel like I can hold on to anything anymore. And last week our neighbor Dwayne died. His cat Suki still lives next door, now with his son, but he neglects her, won't let her in the house, so she spends a lot of time in the Bird Park. It is safe and quiet there but, of course, her presence keeps the birds away. While we were there, I fed her anyway because she was hungry and for Dwayne because took her in when she showed up in his back yard a couple of years ago, hungry and lonely. Now she sits on that chair on my porch waiting for me and I am not there. That makes me sad.

And while we were home, I didn't contact any of my writer friends. I told them I would would when I got home but I didn't. I am always reluctant. I don't know why. I'm a freak. And it seemed there was never time enough. Now, we'll be gone till fall. This week we will be with the family in Portland. We're really looking forward to it. After that, we'll drive across the country to Florida and, along the way, we're get to meet Roy. Woo-hoo!

Ps. If you're a writer, painter, reader, thinker and/or conscious person Matt Ashby's article "David Foster Wallace was right: Irony is ruining our culture" is a must read.

My mother's diary

April 29, 1939  Friday - Andy and I talked again to-nite of marriage - religion - breaking up. What's the right thing to do? I think we really love each other - - And I think it's up to me to break it up.

The entry is done in pencil and the years have nearly completed their job of erasing it.


Lucky for me, she didn't break up with Andy after all. He's my dad.

The Ballad of Cliven Bundy

Cliven Bundy. This guy is an embarrassment to the great state of Nevada. I live in Nevada and, contrary to what FOX News would you believe, we are not all racist idiot squatter hicks like Cliven.

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We've spent a lot of time in the Nevada interior where guys like Bundy "run" their cattle. Trust me. It's animal abuse to abandon them to the desert. In their effort to survive in this harsh environment, the poor cows chew vital, shade-giving willows to the ground turning our precious few rivers into stinking fields of shit and muck. Boneheads like Bundy joke about how this threatens already endangered species. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner Bundy and his dim-wit brethren die off, the better.

Check-in

Little A'Le'Inn - Rachel, NV bordering Area 51
I feel like a sailor in port, neither here nor there. For the next few weeks we're home but we've mostly been living out of our suitcases for the last year and the months ahead will be the same. Home. The word sounds odd but when I look around, yes, it's home. My stuff is here, what little there is, and I get into my own routine here. That's nice. And I have friends here that go back awhile. That's comforting. But, if our med checks turn out ok, we're leaving. I'm not complaining. I just need to acknowledge everything, write about it, photograph it, keep some account. Otherwise, I lose my bearings. The Language Barrier is one of my few constants. I need to come here otherwise, in a way, it's like I don't exist at all.

How to create a better password

This post is filed under the label "notes to self" so, if you're not interested in reading about creating better, stronger passwords.That is all.