What's your favorite fruit?

I was asked that recently and the answer was blueberries. Love them in cereal, love them in jam, love them as is.
I make several pies every summer - usually a lattice top so this one is a variation on a theme...
...so what's your favorite fruit?

Time to clean house!

Much too much stuff piling up so here's a sampling from the inane to the profane, pick your poison: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ (very funny, especially if you've got passive aggressive people in your life - and who doesn't?), http://www.kerismith.com/explorer/title.html actually a promo for a book but it's a mini book in itself..., bunnies acting out hit movies http://crackle.com/c/30_Second_Bunnies, more later, drop in guest...

Goodbye, Professor

Sad news upon opening my mail this morning that Randy Pausch, a computer scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon Univ. and all around spectacular human being, has died. You probably all know him from his famous last lecture that has been on the internet and You Tube and reprised on Oprah and finally, in book format. When I first heard it, I emailed it to everyone I knew - not so much for the content although it was excellent, but because I wanted everyone to "meet" this incredibly decent guy. I have had a link to his home page under my items "of interest" on the side of this blog. If you haven't yet seen his lecture, please go to it. It's lengthy, make some tea, settle in. It's worth the time and the listen.

Tech query...

Okay, experimenting: I want to insert a link to a Feist youtube (mainly because her videos are fun and in this case, the sort of thing I think about doing on moveable walkways and escalators...although I think I would look somewhat demented and a tad alarming so I will leave it up to the young, skinny, and far more agile....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrNCCx2p5U

poodles. It did not work. Dearest blog readers, what am I doing wrong? How does one say something like "here" and then you click on it and up comes the link?

Although this color thing is fun.

Library Mermaid up and running

Have just started up a new blog over at http://librarymermaid.blogspot.com/

Why? I need more distraction besides family, guilt and rogue cicadas all of which I am blaming as to why my YA is such a slow slog... However, I do love being a librarian but I do not love all my endless baskets of papers and ideas and neat urls to other librarian's great sites. I need a place to put it all. So wander on over for a library fix some time. It'll get better. I promise.

Good Advice

Altered road sign somewhere near Guilford, Ct.

We call them lightning bugs...

...but some people call them fireflies. I guess it depends on where you hail from. After a dinner date with the husband, we went on a walk in Manor Park, a beautiful park by the Long Island Sound (in the small town I happened to grow up in). Lovely to watch the sun set, the lightning bugs start flirting, a handful of children giving chase, and one lightning bug lands on the husband. I let it crawl on my hand and enjoy watching it light up, forgetting about it as the sun sets, the water is a gorgeous slate gray, the bridge lights up like a string of emeralds in the distance, and...hey - lightning bug still on my leg, lighting up. I set him in the grass as we go to the car. Funny feeling in an interesting place as we are starting the car. Lightning bug in my bra (!). Husband quite amused. Open car door, set him (bug, not husband) in grass again, tell him he is not my type but nice meeting him. Driving home, who do I see clinging on to my half open window? I rescue him (devotion must be rewarded, yes?) and promptly lose sight of him (black linen pants at night, dark beetle when not lighting...). It must be love or off kilter pheromones or something. He may be in the car yet (and yes, I checked, not back in the bra). Of course, I now have the crawlies, imagining bugs on me... ah, well, new friends have their quirks. Here's an interesting link or two about them: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/basics/firefly/
and http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
I only realized from looking at some sites tonight that not all places in the states have lightning bugs. I didn't realize they were mostly an east coast magical addition to summer nights. I wonder - do they have them in Europe? Asia? More research awaits.

Farewell duckies, I knew you well

When my youngest son was ready to move into his own room (he slept in ours well into his toddler years but used his room for play), these were the curtains I had there - to match the blue rug and yellow and white walls. I had gone to Country Curtains to hunt down some cute curtains, was about to leave empty handed, and noted the cloth shower curtain collection...and voila! Great duck curtains which were a big hit - plus they make a cool sound when the metal pins slide across the curtain rods.

He is a very non-demanding kid, pretty sunny most of the time, but even he was weary of his "baby" curtains. So now his brother's hand-me-down "these are cool, Mom!" curtains (action figures on material I sewed for the brother a decade or so ago) have now been placed in the 9 year old's room. I did add holes on top so we can still use cool pins and get neat sliding sound. But I am going to miss those happy little ducks.

neighborhood creatures

This tree struck me as so odd the other night during a dusk to dark stroll - and of course, the husband and youngest son inform me it is long known to them ( I had walked past it a million times and never really noticed it before) as The Squid Tree. It does look very deep sea spooky especially hi-lighted by the flash.

The other creature mystery is solved - a few bits back I mentioned Mungo the Mysterious Monster - some large dog-like creature supposedly roaming about... well, what do I see (no longer alive, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on one's view) on the side of the Parkway when I was shortcutting from one part of town to my neck of the woods - this ENORMOUS coyote. I mean truly huge. ( I was near a large white wolf at a tribute to Jean Craighead George - and Mungo was about the same size only broader). So it did exist - and probably a dog/coyote hybred as one of my neighbors suggested. Big enough to merit the Mysterious Monster tag, especially if you are two wee dogs like my two who would have made a proper snack for it. I am sure more coyotes abound, the dogs still don't want to step off the terrace at night.

However I am grateful not to have bears in the backyard, that would do me in to encounter one hanging around the trash can (just read of such an event in a several months old "O" magazine...) Anyone out there have to deal with bears? Moose? Bobcats? Loose roaming dogs like at our elderly Aunt's farm? Just curious.

what does he sing as he weaves amid blooms?

Old obsessions still haunt...

Ah, bliss. Sure, there is the joy of great literature (just reading Mary Oliver's amazing poem, Spring, the other day knocked me out once again...
http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Spring.html
but in my world there are many surprising bedfellows coexisting... and this makes me happy - the fact that I can find my tween obsession - Gull Cottage - online:
w.macwombat.com/images/PhotoofGullCottage.jpg
and that I can hunt down The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (the tv version, of course!) and find that someone has taken the time to create a Barbie Theatre version of the show - now that is just sublime: http://www.angelfire.com/art/dollmemories/gmm/gmm_promo1.html
Of course, the fact that I am checking this all out after midnight instead of writing or, gee, I don't know, sleeping, says something about my level of creative productivity and priorities, I suppose, but - it's THE GHOST and MRS. MUIR and GULL COTTAGE. What could rock more?

Evening sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kieyW-FKyQ

Do it yourself docent

I like this site about the artist Joseph Cornell and the Thoreau quote they find applicable to his work: "the question is not what you look at, but what you see."

http://americanart.si.edu/education/cappy/13acornellbio.html

Also, here, for a short film, Faces in the Flower (S?) that I found compelling although I wasn't sure why beyond the lovely children's faces...

http://invisiblecinema.typepad.com/

but like Cornell, assembled meaningful nothings, found objects, so many of these good odd things that I respond to are like the best poems - they let me in but keep their mysteries even after my examinations.

Xander in the garden

Xander, our rescued (abandoned in the snow!) Russian Tortoise bonks against the glass of his tank until someone takes him for an outing. Here he is, his usual disgruntled expression, exploring part of the garden. One thing owning a tortoise teaches you is to care for something that does not love you back.
I like him, however, and his commitment to being aloof and crotchety no matter what. Consistency has its virtues.

shadow people

Ooh, sounds so spooky, shadow people. Brought along the camera on a dusk turned dark walk - trying to capture some of the magic of that time of evening. After I was trying in vain to capture our shadows, the husband points that I had the flash on - which would, of course, eliminate the shadows...duh. So many pictures later (including one where I am trying to get a slimmer shadow, so sad, and one where it was vaguely pornographic, blame the husband's whimsical sense of humor) this is the result, cheater cheater, a tad enhanced on the Ofoto sight otherwise it would be a blah. I do like the road shadow and lawn shadow effect - yes?

Meanwhile some mysterious creature is rumoured to be running amok through the neighborhood. Described as not a coyote, much larger, with scary eyes, and also described as "terrifying creature" by a gal in a car the previous evening (hello, where are your meds?) so of course, we look. No Mungo the Monster, just rabbits and a very silly woman trying standing in the road trying to capture shadows. (Would that not be cool if Mungo turned up as a background fleeting image? I'd be so thrilled).

Why not jam fish?

Growing up on Long Island Sound I saw a lot of jellyfish, usually in that shock of recognition that something NOT GOOD is coming near you in the water. There was a big Man-'O-War scare at the beach we went to when I was young, they closed down the beaches for awhile and it was the scariest thing, the alienness of them...so of course, I remain fascinated and my interest is, interestingly enough, matched by my husband (it's those similar quirks that have given this marriage wheels).

Don't want to swim with these guys but oh, how beautiful they are.

Joke: What do whales eat for lunch?

Answer: Peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches.

Coney Island's Mermaid Parade

Having wanted to go to this for a few years now, we nearly missed it hanging around at the New York Aquarium. The crowd insanely deep as people were coming off the beach to watch, my youngest complaining his view was teeny and he mainly was stuck by "smelly armpits" which I guess is the deal if you are a nine year old in a crowd of mostly adults. As I was kvetching about this and that on the drive back, the exhausted, most patient husband pointed out - well, it's something you've wanted to do and now you've done it. Yup. Of course, now I am thinking how the parade would be vastly enhanced by mermaid librarians pushing book carts decked out like fish or seahorses or something, yes? Mermaids read? Don't be a chowderhead, read? It could work.

Mermaid Parade, Saturday, June 21

Tasha Tudor

I received Tasha Tudor's book, Take Joy, as a Christmas gift from my favorite Sunday School teacher ever many years ago. To this day it remains a favorite as does the quote in the front of the book.

I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! . . . And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
"Letter to a Friend" by Fra Giovanni, 1513

So it is sad news that Tasha Tudor has passed on on June 18th at the age of 92. A prolific illustrator and writer, she led a wonderful, individual life.

http://www.tashatudor.legacy.com/LMW/HomePage.aspx

the quiet after

Evening sky after a torrent of rain...