Morning walk

I've been in Portland for the last week, hanging out with the indomitable Ms. Thea Bella and family. Man oh man... toddlers.

Prostitute Mickey 3

It has come to my attention that a friend at the other end of the rainfuckingbow is having a bad day. Cheer up. It just got worse. Shuffle on over to the morgue and see why...


(Note: If you haven't met Prostitute Mickey, it's better to watch parts 1 & 2 first.)

Prostitute Mickey 3

Local news at 11:49

Got home last week and leaving again on Monday. I am totally dazed but no matter. I must do it. Must get to Portland to visit Baby T before she leaves for college which, at the rate she's growing, is coming up waaaaaaaaaaaay too fast.

But the birds in the Bird Park are none to happy about my travels. I've been gone most of the time since September but the 7 o'clock Magpie faithfully continued checking in. She's been doing it for years now. The gulp of magpies only figure out that I am home several days after my return. Until then, she pretty much has the place to herself although no one seems to be suffering without me. Even the one legged magpie is fat. They all have stomachs somewhere between the size of a large navel orange and a small (okay very small) grapefruit.


The latest Bird Park sensation has been blobs of sugar free cherry jam. Yum. And leftover oatmeal. Not so yum but gone by noon. Oh and apples. Everyone likes the apples. Magpies hog them so I have to put several out to keep everyone happy. As is their fashion, the quail share. Seems the Bird Park has settled into being their wintering ground and spring hook-up scene, the quail version of Maui at spring break. The evil neighborhood fat cats make it a less than hospitable place to bring the family, at least when the kids are still the size of golf balls. The cats eat them like popcorn. I should put a sign on the fence like the ones you see at carnivals. You know the kind only it would read... YOU MUST BE AS TALL AS AN APPLE TO ENTER.

And so

Hexagram 58
THE IMAGE

Lakes resting one on the other:
The image of THE JOYOUS.
Thus the superior man joins with his friends
For discussion and practice.

Along came a spider

Little Miss Muffet got it all wrong.



The spider was just a happy little dude checking out the world.

Prostitute Mickey

Prostitute Mickey 1

OMFG...a part of me just died but I can't stop laughing. WTF?
And, as though I'm not already curled up in a ball weeping, I immediately watched

Prostitute Mickey 2

My tree

I spent most of the day in Ashland today, my old home town and place I raised my children. It rained and even the melancholy of the rain was comforting. After lunch with a friend, I got coffee at Bloomsbury Books and waited until it was time to pick up another friend and take him to Fight Night at my in-laws... pizza, cake, ice cream and boxing. It's a tradition, Fight Night.

My tree today

I also visited my tree today. To some degree I measure my life by this tree, or at least my life since that Easter Sunday some 25 years ago when I sat under it and and experienced a "moment of truth". My tree lives in Lithia Park and, at the time, was just big enough to sit under and shelter me from the passing world from which I felt so estranged. Ever since that day, and even though we moved to Nevada, I visit it occasionally to see how it's doing. At this point, it is one of my oldest friends.

Unfortunately, my tree stands at the edge of a playground so its early years were especially hard. Kids can be brutal to young trees, grabbing and breaking branches but, in spite of all that, it is a lucky tree. It also grows close to Lithia Creek and the sloping bank has, for the most part, protected it from the children. Otherwise, I think they would have mauled it to death by now or at least mutilated and dwarfed it.

For several years it looked so sickly I was afraid it would die. Perhaps it took awhile for the roots to reach the creek. And one year I discovered that the top of its trunk had somehow broken over and died. It hung down black and bare into the lower branches. That was a desperate time. I was afraid the gardeners might cut the tree down but, like I said, it is a very lucky tree. Instead they have pruned it back to health. These days, it is looking really good, even with the new forked top. It seems shorter and bushier than normal but it is still growing upward. That's the important thing. Today I saw that the gardeners have pruned away some of its lower branches, the ones facing the playground. I am guessing that is so people can more easily sit in its shelter. It is a very accommodating tree.

Lithia Park's official photo

(That's my tree on the left peeking through
the autumn leaves from the other side of the bridge.)

And my tree was there when I released the remains of my uncle, John Chance, into the snow melt rage of Lithia Creek. The shocking wild flash of ashes turned the creek suddenly white, lingered a moment in the flow as though they didn't want to go, then vanished. My tree holds the memory for me. It's what friends do.

From Beatitude Magazine