What Santa does post-Christmas

The Bliss of Nothing

The brilliance of three days off post-Christmas. Day two finds me reading, scribbling, playing with new Christmas toys, cozy in my ridiculously cozy slippers and yoga pants and flannel as it drizzles in the gray outdoors, drinking dark magic coffee with a scoop of vanilla ice cream instead of milk...if I could I would purr.

Not a creature was stirring...except...

Tucker who was mighty sick of posing in his Santa costume. Merry Christmas to one and all!

The dog is afraid...

walking at night, some of these festive decorations seem a tad sinister, hmmmm....

Don't want this light bill

Every year we enjoy swinging by this house a half mile or so from ours and taking a gander at their ever-growing display (much more than I have portrayed here, half my photos came out blurry). The youngest, now 12, is so over the whole thing, so the 25 year old and I enjoyed it (she's getting old enough to get nostalgic!). Usually the joint is jumping but we went late on a Monday night and had it pretty much to ourselves.

Sunday Quote

Breath of Heaven Lighten my darkness
Pour over me your holiness
For you are holy
Breath of Heaven.

-Chris Eaton

O Christmas Tree

The more the years gather, the more bittersweet Christmas becomes...here's
a wee song that feels about right.

Lunch Story

Could have had lunch at my desk

but decided to go to Starlite and grab a special - half a turkey on rye sandwich with a cup of soup, tea, and the good company of the Beatles.

Took a stroll afterwards - nothing much to see in a winter gray small city. Just an angel,

soem beautiful decorative ledges (had to look up, always a good thing to do),


amazing the little details of even the most pedestrian things...


A lonely mannequin would agree perhaps...especially if he knew that

a friendly Western family was just a block away in another store front.




















maybe I just needed a sign



to tell me to look around for inspiration - like roses blooming in December.

Sunday Quote

Some good reds in the city and bad blogger

Some street shots from our small city, I like the pops of red - my favorite is the rusted red side of a large dumpster. Beauty everywhere.
And blogger is messing with the design sites so now the header photo will not adjust to the size of the header. All of this happened already when I tried to change up some stuff at my infrequently posted upon other blog, Library Mermaid, and really ruined the look of it. Growl. Blogger, why "fix" it if it ain't broke? Truly dislike their new template set-up. Anyone else using blogger having issues?
Well, I will grumble myself off to bed and try not to dream of technology run amok.

Back when - and blogger mystery

I must be the last person in the USA to not know that Ceelo's song "Forget You" is not really that F word. So much for that music in my car this morning on route to work. I only knew the Glee version which is not what comes out from my interlibrary-loaned Ceelo Green, The Lady Killer, cd I played (briefly) this morning. I ended up singing along to this song to recover.

Then onto here where my header photo is not the photo I thought was up, a cropped version of a mug on a quilt photo - at home on my computer, it is a closeup of the mug and a bit of the quilt and I think it is quite appealing. At work where I nearly never do a thing to my blog - it is the whole quilted mat in the slightly grimy storefront window, a quick snapshot in Edinburgh last summer. So - any blogger friends reading this - which picture do y'all see - the close-up one or the whole storefront one? And what weirds me out is how did blogger get the whole storefront one when the one I uploaded to blogger was my cropped and saved version? Can blogger go into your Kodak account and pull out random photos? Weird.

Oh, nostalgia, when you just played your radio and it was whatever came up - the best when a favorite song came up, when it was so rare to hear anyone swear on the street everybody would turn and look if somebody did, when stuff on tv before ten pm didn't make you have to tell the kids to leave the room, oh, yes, nostalgia Friday, my Dad should have lived long enough to see his youngest daughter going on like this, how he'd be laughing.

Paper Scotland

Here is the completed and wonderful story of intrigue and whimsy in Edinburgh, Scotland - was glad to see it updated by a FB friend. It's a rainy, wind-whipped night here (would be so much more romantic if same weather found me in Edinburgh but oh well, we bloom where we are planted).

the fog crept in ...

Sunday Quote

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

- Jeremiah 29:13

T is for Terror or...

T is for Tucker who looks fierce during one of his nightly wild runs before he settles down and gets sleepy and his mood turns sweet as pie. (Don't be afraid of those teeth, he is all poser trying to get us to chase him down the hall when we are all boring and checking email or sipping tea instead of understanding that tug of war or chase the sock is so much more fun!).

Sunday Quote

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

― Maya Angelou

Poets, Poetry Review, and then some

This strange November for Northeasterners - this is one of my favorite months when the sky is this strange intense blue and the leaves are all off the trees so they are stark black outlines against that blue; the wind whips your scarf around and you pull your coat closer and your animals senses tell you to hibernate while your modern day sensibilities tell you to put the tea kettle on.
Except it is sweater weather and some leaves still cling and people are out shopping for Christmas gifts when it feels like late summer. Hmmm. I don't know if I would fare well in Florida or some other warm climate year round.
Have to share this link where a younger Anthony Hopkins reads Dylan Thomas' poem
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. I like the comment directly below that she would listen to him read a cereal box...yup. And the links beside it - Christopher Walken reading Poe's The Raven? I'm there.
Another poet I encourage you to discover, Heather Hartley, was nice enough to let me know the review I wrote for The Chattahoochee Review of her wonderful book, Knock Knock, is now up on her website. You can access it here.
I recently discovered the work of this poet, Linda Pastan, at the library and just a few poems in to one of her collections, ordered several of her books. Not thrifty I am sure, but my poetry bookshelves are happy as am I.
A sadder way to discover a poet unknown to me is to hear of her death and then - searching for her work - find it is also kindred and moving and wonderful, and now edged with something like tarnished silver knowing she just left the room of the earth. An NPR spotlight on Ruth Stone. There are so many poets to get to know (and don't you hate it when people say (with a gasp) "you mean you don't know his/her work?" as if there was even enough brain cells working here to know a third of anything much less a world and lifetimes of poets. But I wish I could.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.


All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty

A favorite poem and even so, I find myself yearning to make pie puns - bad enough I have searched my photo files for dappled deer. I will blame the hunger (now I sound like something out of Twilight) as dinner is not until five-ish and the smell of turkey and my husband's to-swoon-for-stuffing is making me a little woozy with want. Yes, I contribute - my mother's amazing cranberry relish recipe and my lumberjack appetite that thrills all cooks who like to watch people tuck in. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving all - and hopes for peace and warmth and joy for the start of my favorite holiday season.

Interview with my lovely daughter

An interview with my daughter who is a natural with animals, they really love her. She is also a dog groomer and had some interesting stuff to say with Pet Edge. You can read her interview, part one and two, and see a photo of our funny little dog, Tucker, right here.

Image mystery

not this - these are swans a number of years ago by red bridge, a local spot. Mystery is why blogger won't allow me to load the previous umpteen photos I attempted to load. Anyone else having trouble with blogger?

Sunday Quote

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

- Toni Morrison

Autumn colors

We kept asking where autumn was - the trees were holding onto leaves that were still mostly green, a few plants bloomed in their confusion over the warm weather, then a smack of heavy wet snow breaking branches and downing wires, and still no fall feeling - and suddenly - BOOM - autumn. The trees have been magnificently vivid as I drive to work, from the first tell tale change of one tree out my window to a splendid red gold blaze of trees I pass each morning en route to my job. Welcome autumn at last - even though you are still too warm for November and all these weathery shenanigans have left me with a whompingly awful cold.