Hashbrowns with a side of Bush

Breakfast in the Bird Park this morning is hashbrowns and popcorn but the usual tiding of magpies was not impressed. I thought they'd love some tasty leftovers from a very greasy spoon, but they did not. Magpies are a bit picky. Even the starlings were freaked out. Maybe they don't like potatoes. Or perhaps it's the spices. Damn. If they don't clean it up by the end of the day, I'll have to do it. Before the mice. But I'll be surprised if the starlings don't polish it off. Where are the crows when you need them?

Did you catch the Cafferty File last night? His question, following McGovern's call for impeachment, was "Time to IMPEACH Bush and Cheney." We all know why it's not happening. Congress is owned by the corporate lobbies and won't touch the issue because they themselves are as guilty as Bush but there is some satisfaction hearing Cafferty read comments from people all over the country clamoring for Bush and Cheney's removal. Collectively we have woken up and smell the ... uh ... "coffee". America the beautiful.

Local new at 7

Another mouse in the PETA humane trap as Bartok plays away in garage, 7 days now, the magpies had popcorn and peanuts for breakfast, the starlings are mopping up, and the snow is still on the ground and white under a the blue Nevada sky. I hope your day is a good one, wherever you are.

Ghostwriters in the sky

And speaking of ghosts, for you writers looking for a little extra cash, ever thought of being a ghostwriter?

Snowy morning

Now for the Saturday local news.

The spécialité du jour at the Bird Park this morning is delicious, albeit moldy, Christmas bread. The birds are delighted. As there is snow on the ground today, I put all 3 feeders out and that's caused quite a fuss. Naturally, the occasional fight has broken out. Those chipper little birdy songs we like to think are happy hearted odes to morning aren't always sweetness and light, you know. Birds can cuss like sailors on Saturday night. And, as you might have noticed, the Santa in the foreground of the above photo is missing his right hand. I accidentally broke it yesterday while re-organizing my office so he is now awaiting repairs. Poor bastard. I'm going to fashion him a little hook. As for last night's snow, we got about a foot here in the valley, but there was four or five feet in the Sierra. M. Lee is talking about cross country skiing to the park today and, although I don't feel like interrupting my coffee high with exercise, I may drag my self along lured by the possibility of a photo or two.






Today I will put the finishing touches on my new office space. I thought about taking a "before picture" but that area was so oppressive I decided against it. But here is the NEW IMPROVED version. M. Lee is amazed, even jealous. And, for him, that is saying a lot. He fancies he can wander in here any time and threaten me with an intervention clean up. Now too bad. My tons of stuff at the moment all has its very own place.



The laptop is new from Christmas, an Acer Extensa 4620Z with Tablet PC. I have barely used it so far as its arrival necessitated creating a space for it, hence the Great Re-organization of 2008. It has Vista which so far I don't care for, but I've learned to live with worse. And I hear Microsoft has fixed some of its initial problems, if you trust them. So far the most obnoxious thing I've come across is the cheesy elevator music that goes with the Acer Tour. What the f$@#!ck were they thinking!#!%? I haven't even tried the stylus yet but soon I will shake the pen and see if any strange creatures fall out. I also added some atmospheric blue lights to the invisible theatre which are very cool.

By way of a footnote to the holidays, I lost weight over Thanksgiving and Christmas in spite of eating grand feasts and am now down to 113 pounds. They are right. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels! I suppose this will brand me as a total dweeb but... I love you Weight Watchers.

And yes, the ghost of Bartók continues its microcosmic surreal concert in the garage. Day five. I wonder what Rimbaud would have to say about it. He was adamant that "the air of hell will tolerate no hymns" but then it's not hell. It's my garage.

Snowy night

Here is the view from my window tonight. The color is as close as I can get, given my limited knowledge of photo editing. It's hard to capture as it's so dark out. The spirit is right anyway. Béla is still grinding out the Christmas carols on his calliope in the garage so it's not a silent night, but a lovely one. Four and a half days now and counting.

Béla Bartók on the calliope

The Christmas card battery has been wobbling out its warped melodies for more than three and a half days now and in that time I have become very fond it it. In fact, today I retrieved it from the trash and it now sits on a small black plate in the garage where it can sing till it dies. As Roy said, it's like "Béla Bartók on a calliope of the macabre, having gone horribly awry." I love that image. Bartók has been one of my favorites since I was a kid. My piano teacher turned me on to him. I was charmed. At that point in my life he was one of the first to open the door to the world and myself that, until then, I was not sure could, should or wanted to share. Later in high school I had a painter friend, Miki Balogh, whose father had studied under Bartók in Hungry and been the head of Cornish in Seattle during its early days. He was dead by the time I met Miki but I was thrilled to be have come so near the masters. She and I instantly became fast friends and spent seemingly endless time obsessing about art, poetry, freedom, sex, drugs and every kind of music and musician. Her mother had a lesbian lover who lived with them in their small home that doubled as a piano studio. That also impressed me. And for a while they had a house guest from Hungry, a wild darkly handsome revolutionary who had escaped from persecution under its fascist government. Miki told me that one afternoon when her mother and friend were gone, she lay in his arms on the couch as he recounted the sufferings of the Hungarian people, kissing every scar on her body, weeping all the while. That really impressed me. So, if a bit of the spirit of Bartók has incarnated in my garage this new year, eeeexceeeelleeeeent!



A BIG STORM is supposed to hit tonight or tomorrow. Weathermen are predicting 5-10 feet of snow in the Sierra. Old timers in the valley have already made a run on the grocery stores and the shelves are eerily bare so we followed their lead and stocked up as well. Tonight the wind is howling around the house and seems intent on knocking over our back fence but so far, no snow. But the birds must know something is up. The last few days, very few have been around, I had to put a "BIRDS WANTED" sign in the window. Other than that, I'm in the midst of reorganizing the north side of my office. I'm sure, in it's pre state, it would have made a Feng Shui expert desperate.

Christmas loop d' loop and new year's resolutions

As today is the first day of 2008 and a socially agreed on new beginning for a lot of people, I decided to break with my past tradition and make a new year's resolution or two.

Number one: I will move more. Not only will I ride my bike more and walk more and go to the gym more, I have set up the new laptop I got for xmas on a separate desk in my office so that I will have to get off my ass more when I am home, because the way it is, once I sit down in front of the monitor, until forces conspire against me, that is where I stay.

Number two: I will do more comix, write more poetry, more flash fiction, do (some) videos with action and/or content, play more music etc. etc. etc., although doing anything along these lines is almost automatically more than I did last year.

Number three: Stay open to change and continue to work on smoothing the edges, being less self-centered and more kind, compassionate all that.

Number four: I will keep my office neat and clean.

Before I get to Number four, I want to mention that Driftglass posted a smokin' year end post last night which set me off on a rant this morning which I include as prelude below. Warning. Some of you might want to go away now. I'll wait...



Okay then...

Like Drifty, I don't believe that lockstep Republicans are capable of facing (much less "compromising") with reality however, having made many mistakes in my own life, I have come to believe that consequences cannot be bought off forever so something has got to give with this nonsense, be it global warming and environmental collapse, a depression, the rise of China or simply internal betrayals, back stabbing and total panic as moron Repukelickers finely get it, that they have been sodomized en masse by the GOP which is unraveling our democracy and long ago sold America into unwitting slavery or all of the above plus handfuls of other karmic delights long ready and waiting to go in the pot. But then there's always the possibility that mass hysteria will finally and throughly engulf 'merika and undo this country from the inside out, as the fundamentalists already hold a sizable portion of the dark age patriarchy and their women folk in hypnotic sway, so as for even a thorny, long range, hard won political solution? We shall see but this leads me to...

Number five: It's a new year and I chose to begin it with faith, confidence and resolve, to throw my shoulder to the wheel and do my infinitesimal part, break the silence, speak the truth as I see it, and support and vote for whoever manages to buy, bribe and crawl to the top of the steaming heap in order that, in my wild dreaming, collectively we will create an articulate, successful global resistance to the subversive cancerous fascist corporatocracy even now carving up the world for its own lewd consumption although I suspect that, in our heart of hearts, many of us hold out hope that we won't have to actually do anything to save the planet and ourselves to boot because, like in the movies, the comeback kid and others will magically, at the last minute, appear and do it all for us.

So here's to new beginnings and better times. Cheers. There is a mouse in the trap from last night so I have to go now and release it into the wild and yes, the Christmas loop d' loop is still singing its little heart out in the trash can, 48 hours and counting.

"Doing another BLOG post, Asha?"

I can't count how many times M. Lee has crept up behind me and said those words, in a very loud, slow voice. So yes. I am doing another blog post, this one on new year's eve.



The music box from a Christmas card we got this year has been playing in a trashcan in the garage for the last 36 hours. At this point, I'm betting that it will play all the way into the new year. As I refused to take a hammer to it, M. Lee insisted I reset the (humane PETA) mousetrap. He claims the music sounds like a bunch of mice having a big party and will attract mice that might be happening by. So okay, he'll leverage anything but I set the trap and, naturally, made a video, 2 minutes and 17 seconds of pure tipsy existential wonder and pathos. I dedicate this to my beloved SO. If it's not enough to set your sails for 2008 baby, lemme know. I also have a version that runs 21 minutes and 48 seconds.

Christmas loop d' loop

0:02:17

Contact language, letter six hundred eleven

Xmas, there and back again

The magpies are dropping down into the yard this morning. They are the first to notice we are back from Oregon, we as in peanuts scattered freely on the ground and fresh water in the tubs. One is taking a drink right now. And now they have all ascended to the rooftop for a noisy debate. And now they are gone.

Oregon, eye of the beholder

Inside my mind

For such a non-traditional bunch, we had a surprisingly old-fashioned type xmas this year, with elders who were like logs in a roaring fire around which children, grandchildren and many loud and lively Norwegian and Croatian in-law/relatives and friends visiting from Europe gathered for warmth, fantastic feasts and merry times. And there were the good old friends, seen only briefly, but who leave a warm and lasting glow. And The New Puppy, born on the auspicious day of winter solstice, upon whom I am eager to rain goodies and puppets. But, perhaps sweetest of all, there was the son who, though never leaving Oregon, was the traveler from the greatest distance. After ten days of back to back here there and back again and again and again seeing everyone doing everything and topping the days off with nights around the game table we were full ready to go and felt lucky to get safely over the passes back through snow wind and slippery roads.

Game night

Road home

Red flares lying along the road behind Mt. Lassen warned us of what was almost certainly a fatal one car accident ahead, a black jeep, roof frame showing like the bones of a ruined building, body smashed, engine crumpled and crushed into the driver's empty seat, filling with snow. The ambulance was already gone, just cops and a road crew standing along the shoulder discussing how to remove what remained. As we drove by I looked to the placid snow-covered trees that the driver saw last and marveled at how detached, deceptively ordinary, and discrete they seemed, sentinels standing back just enough to make way for the road, as though promising safe passage through their midst.

Nevada, wide open

Good to be back in Nevada. We grabbed some food on the way home and today are laying low and staying warm. My text message quota is maxed out, I haven't caught up on the news, called anyone or even done my solstice/new year I Ching reading for the year ahead.

Happy New Year