Day in the life of Flat Eric

It's Sunday, my least favorite day of the week. At least it's not as bad as Swami's cousin, Flat Eric. Poor fellow.

Wednesday 12:10 update

Nobody's at the Bird Park at the moment. A hawk scared everybody off so it's just an empty gray day here in Nevada, this after Tuesday's lovely, though unseasonable, spring day. I was immediately out in the yard preparing a new flower bed. After my neighbor Dwayne and his wife were rousted out of their house last year by their son Tom, there have been a lot of changes next door and, in my opinion, some for the better. For one thing, Tom cut down the poorly aspens along the property line and pulled out the rangy juniper that hogged all the morning light leaving me with a new, thin strip of space to plant. I feel rich. It not only gets morning light but all day light.

Invisible Theatre conference
Yellow Swami is back after a grueling year
in Cambodia and here at Invisible Theater
we couldn't be happier.

Don't get me wrong, we all miss Dwayne. He was a great guy,  a true bon vivant. The first year we moved here he was trying out sobriety. It was his finest hour. After he went back to drinking we watched his light slowly go out. There were still a few good years when he and Clarence the cat continued to hold their garage court. When the door was up, we'd stroll over. Clarence would meow a cheery hello and Dwayne held forth. It was always fun to visit them. When he went back to drinking the bitterness set in like a final night, then came the cancer, then the horrible years of chemo and booze before his son Tom finally forced the two of them out of the house and into senior care, where they belonged. It got tricky. When Tom mentioned moving, Dwayne threatened to shoot him. They had always had a horrible relationship. That's when Tom came over and asked me to help distract his dad while he removed all the weapons from the house, which I did. When Dwayne saw his guns go out the door, he turned to me like a growling wolf and said, "Traitor. Get out of my house". Those are the last words he ever spoke to me. Within the year he was dead.

Chiang Mai at night
Andre Govia, one of my favorite photographers
"liked" this on my flickr account so I am stoked.

The birds just returned to the Bird Park so I guess the coast is clear. Maggie Magpie is out there too. She and her mate basically hang around all day. The rest of the tiding leave right after gobbling breakfast. And to our delight, the quail, finch, sparrows, a few mourning doves, some blackbirds and even a few crows (probably Minerva and friends) showed up about a day after we returned. I suspect that at least the quail stayed even after we left in October. Seems Suki, Dwayne's cat after Clarence died, disappeared sometime in the fall. I like to think some kindly person, sick of seeing her huddling all winter in the cold and snow, gave her a home. Other than Tom, those of us in Suki's little support group, miss her but the upshot is that the Bird Park has returned to sanctuary status. Other than the occasional passing hawk but, of course, they don't stay long.

Home again!

back in the valley

We got back to Nevada this afternoon, we meaning yellow Swami, coral Swami, Andy, Minerva, M. Lee and I. We're all back. It's been five months. Everyone here at the Invisible Theatre is ecstatic that Swami is home! Who would have guessed he'd be returning with us? He's a little battered and rumpled. The way he says, "Cambodia! Woo!" gives me the shivers. Who wouldn't be a little rumpled after that? But still, wonders really do never cease.

The Somnambulists

We are now about 33 hours into our return trip home. We are all as rummy rheumy as hell. I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but Lee's 84 year-old mom joined us for our last two weeks Thailand. She came to Bangkok on her own, which I think is kind of amazing. How many 84 year-olds are up for that? But she loves to travel. And actually, if it wasn't for her, we would never have seen the puppet theatre. It was part of a boat tour that we wouldn't have done on our own. More about the puppets later.

Bangkok night

Anyway, we are all as rummy rheumy as hell. Did I mention that already? But right now, it's morning in Thailand and I am feeling oddly awake, although it also feels like a long time since that 3 AM when we started out. At the moment, we are enjoying a 12 hour layover at the Los Angeles airport. There is only one direct flight a  day to Oregon, a little little propjet. And, since early afternoon we've been sitting in a really dreary wing of the airport. Half the room is casually draped with cloth that looks like gigantic white bed sheets and partially walled with bare drywall. Either we are dead and in some nether world, transitioning to the next dimension or LAX is doing some remodeling. 

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice is my personal New Year's Eve but I've not got anything special planned this year. I'm not at home. I'm not in my own country. I don't even have a candle to light. I am observing the solstice quietly, in passing, a moment of reflect ion on this, the longest night of the year, a moment of peace in the pause as the earth rounds it course and begins it's journey back towards the light. Best wishes in the coming new year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S.
I'm not posting it like I have other years but, if you like, here's a link to a Winter Solstice poem I wrote some time ago.

Visa run recap

The visa run went well the other day. Mostly we waited. M. Lee read. I did some reading, people watching and talked with some interesting people. When my number was finally called I stepped up to the counter, handed over my passport and paperwork and, most important, paid the fee... 1900 baht (about 60 dollars US). We were both done and out in three hours. Before lunchtime. A friend happened to be there at the same time getting his residency extended (a yearly task) and I hear, three days later, it's still not done.

I will say this, the Immigration office is a world class crossroads. Everyone who wants to extend their stay passes through there... tourists, travelers, scholars, entertainers, writers, photographers, cyclists, charlatans, nuns, missionaries, do-gooders, clergy, monks, imams, shamans, wizards, warlocks, expats, refugees, wanderers, outlaws, volunteers, professionals, politicians, drunks, addicts, dirty old men, kooks and just plain crazies. I think a good many of them were there on Monday. I hear there are services that, for a fee, deal with Immigration for you, otherwise you go in person. Of course, that doesn't mean everybody does but they run the risk of fines and deportation.

Our extension was routine. The 60 day tourist visas we got before leaving the US had expired. We had to either extend them or leave Thailand. We did 30 day extensions so we'll leave mid-January and return to the States. We want to spend some time with the family. The grandkids are growing up way too fast.

As for photos of the place, I didn't even try to take one. The second anyone snapped a shot, an Immigration officer immediately appeared and made them delete it.

Morning report

I can't figure out exactly what's going on at Villa Ratchathewi, the place we're staying in Bangkok. Don't get me wrong. I love our apartment and our host. The apartment itself is wonderful, quiet, airy, well lit and I love the view of the city from the bathtub. Plus, our host immediately replies to our emails. It's another fantastic find via airbnb, It's just that the lobby seems more like a student lounge and study hall than the lobby of an apartment building. We almost never see any adults around here. It's not that expensive by US standards but how can these kids afford to live here? Other than the old Chinese lady in the gym, who is perpetually walking on the world's squeakiest, most rickety treadmill, it seems there are almost no other adults in the building, and by adults I mean people over, oh say, twenty or twenty-five. And no. It's not because Asians look young longer than Westerners. Trust me. These are kids. So what exactly going on at Villa Ratchathewi? It's all very odd.

Clearly, the old woman is up to something. Whenever we go to the gym, she's there grinding away on that goddamn treadmill. She's there when we arrive and still there when we leave. I suspect she is the one who powers the Reality Generator at the hub of the universe and is responsible for maintaining the entire Cosmic Show. There is no other explanation. If she were to stop walking we'd all disappear. Don't worry. We'll never notice we're gone.

Frogs doing it in a mall pond

The other notable thing about this place besides, like I say, the bathtub in the window, is the mosque which we can see from all the windows. The first chant is before sunrise. It's really more like an open throated yell. The first few days, when we were still jet lagged, it was really annoying. It felt like 2 AM and neither one of us could get back to sleep. Then I got accustomed to it and one morning I actually got up and checked the time, 5 AM. Not so bad really. In the yoga community where I used to live, we started at 4 AM. According to a national survey at the time, our Society was ranked the most despised neighbor in America. People dreaded living near us more than they dreaded living near gang members. Anyway, the following morning, when the chanting began, I awoke to the charming mental image of a lone desert Mullah chanting in the courtyard of an outpost white stone mosque as a gigantic orange desert sun rose over the vast Sahara, its rays streaming across the horizon into the otherwise indelible silence. Then last night, we realized the chanting is a recording. Talk about buzz-kill. Plus, I just noticed that I dropped one of my ear buds in my coffee.

Bangkok massage parlor

Bloggeroid ate my post

I did a more complete post on the bus coming in from New Jersey but the blogger app ate it. This one I'm doing as we wait for the day's sandwiches to be made. Today we're going back to the Met. OK. That is all.

posted from Bloggeroid

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.....

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,

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.

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.

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

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

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?!

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.

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.

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.