WHERE DID SHE GO?

so long, farewell

2011-11-17T12:29:00.000-05:00

Folks, this is the last blog post here.

With these words written by Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)

I will close and be off to other adventures.

"It is never too late to be who you might have been."

And so I go.

cats 'n kittens

2011-11-07T06:54:00.002-05:00

barney, barney, barney...

2011-11-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

becky, becky, becky...

2011-11-06T10:52:00.001-05:00

cat

2011-11-03T08:59:00.001-04:00

that's "gorilla whale" to YOU

2011-10-29T16:58:00.001-04:00

When I was in NYC recently, a friend of Sandy's gave me an old, metal Godzilla lighter. It still had a little fuel in it, and it could still spit sparks. Hah! Just like me.

Sandy was working so I sat next to him and entertained myself by drawing pictures of my Godzilla lighter. Did you know that Godzilla means "gorilla whale"? It does. Look it up.

kittens in pearls

2011-10-28T14:06:00.000-04:00

Getting Becky and Barney to cooperate for a group shot is not so easy. Hey you guys, cut that out!

kittenpalooza

2011-10-27T23:29:00.001-04:00

black turnip

2011-10-24T08:47:00.000-04:00

creepy hipstamatic doll heads

2011-10-23T21:33:00.001-04:00

mr. rutabaga head lights the way...

2011-10-23T09:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's that time of year again, when autumn winds rustle through dried cornstalks in the fields, when the setting sun sets trees aflame with color, when darkness lingers into the morning and creeps in early at evening. Yes, it's fall, season of death. But also: season of the RUTABAGA LANTERN!

Let's hope that this year we can carve enough rutabaga and turnip lanterns to see us through the darkness, as we pick our way across the bog of life.

mr. boniato's crazy-mad pet pig

2011-10-20T09:28:00.001-04:00

that's mr. boniato head to you!

2011-10-19T08:13:00.002-04:00

the audacity of a kitten yawn

2011-10-18T22:22:00.000-04:00

Little orphaned feral kitten, Becky (above), barely four weeks old, yawns so big and with such deliciousness that sometimes the audacity of her own yawn knocks her over. Below, Becky lets it all hang out. Oh, Becky!

loretta lynn

2011-10-17T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hey you! Don't come home a' drinkin' (with lovin' on your mind)... heh heh...

Yes, it was Loretta Lynn, singing last Saturday night at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.

And yes, I was there.

I don't usually go to concerts, but hey, even if you don't know who Loretta is, you've heard her songs - If yer lookin' at me, yer lookin' at country... You ain't woman enough to take my man...

She had knee replacement surgery a few months ago, and I figured, oh dear, she's not gettin' any younger; this might be one of her last go-arounds, so I better go!

At first, I thought it was great fun that her twin daughters came out and sang a few songs together. Then her son came out and sang a few, and then, finally, Loretta appeared. Wow, I thought, that's awesome that she gets to work with her grown kids and see them all the time!

But then... well... poor thing, she seemed to forget words to songs, and kept apologizing that she wasn't singing very well. And there was a chair settin' on stage in case she needed it, and she sure did keep a-lookin' at that chair with heartfelt longing... until finally, she just sat her sequined self down and set a spell, bless her little heart, while other band members came forward to sing and fill up the time.

Word to Loretta's kids: let yer poor ol' Mama retire, hasn't she earned it by now?

feral kittens! oh boy! oh girl!

2011-10-13T21:47:00.008-04:00

The family of a colleague at work has decided to foster abandoned and orphaned kittens and help them find homes, so they won't meet the awful fate we shall not speak of.

Joy of joys, two tiny ferals arrived yesterday, just three weeks old, a brother and sister, still nursing on little doll-size plastic bottles (which means getting up every two hours, every night...). One of the kittens (top photo) reminds me of Coconut the Cat, who recently moved to Brooklyn to live with my kids. The other kitten (below) is a bit of a bruiser; she looks like a little wooly bear!

These guys are a whole lotta fun! Some day I'll have better photo equipment to do the kittens justice; but for now, the point-and-shoot digital will do. Just look at those eyes! Look at those tiny little claws! Look at the eyebrows!

Oh, silly little kittens. This is the kittens concentrating very, very hard.

This is how the kittens look when they are hungry. Mew! Mew! Bon appetit, my little friends!

occupy wall street

2011-10-06T10:49:00.002-04:00

99% owls for ows

2011-10-06T06:58:00.005-04:00

squirrels occupy wall street

2011-10-01T11:22:00.001-04:00

everyday disasters

2011-09-29T08:30:00.001-04:00

facial recog

2011-09-28T15:13:00.000-04:00

midnight snack

2011-09-28T08:27:00.004-04:00

who be alpha?

2011-09-28T07:55:00.002-04:00

Lookin' for love

2011-09-26T12:24:00.005-04:00

facebook goes eternal

2011-09-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

monsters are fun

2011-09-24T09:55:00.005-04:00

have a happy weekend!

2011-09-23T16:41:00.002-04:00

letters

2011-09-22T08:45:00.002-04:00

bzzzzzzz

2011-09-20T08:58:00.007-04:00

$$$ reward!

2011-09-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

la la la

2011-09-19T13:31:00.001-04:00

life skills: palm reading

2011-09-18T13:38:00.002-04:00

1,000 places

2011-09-17T13:58:00.002-04:00

do it

2011-09-16T11:59:00.001-04:00

thinking makes it so

2011-09-15T09:42:00.006-04:00

Missoni @ Target - what, you missed it?

2011-09-14T09:41:00.001-04:00

little drop of water

2011-09-14T07:52:00.002-04:00

crazy

2011-09-14T06:06:00.003-04:00

affirmations

2011-09-13T10:36:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the bluebird boys have a downer day. Do you? When Archer and Asher scrape the bottom, they think positive thoughts.

she went to the boneyard...

2011-09-11T22:14:00.008-04:00

just your average mom...

2011-09-11T11:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I went to the Small Press Expo (SPX 2011) being held this weekend at the Bethesda North Marriott, in what used to be called Rockville but is now called Bethesda North, Maryland. Artist Roz Chast, staff cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1979, was there, speaking! Excitement!

Even better: for a $50 donation, Roz was doing on-the-spot drawings for people!

I asked her for a drawing of me, and she said that, although she doesn't normally do portraits, she would.

"I'm not too hard," I shrugged. "Just your average Mom."

And so she did "JUST YOUR AVERAGE MOM" for me! Big excitement!

Everyone wore cards around their necks, designating their place in the SPX universe. My card magically altered itself to reflect inner being rather than outer.

SPX 2011 runs through this weekend. If you're in the DC area, check it out! Roz is speaking again today.

t-shirts you'll never see

2011-09-10T09:34:00.001-04:00

sadness

2011-09-09T16:18:00.002-04:00

The lovely and lively little Hurricane Kitty, aka JJ Flash, who touched so many hearts with joy in such a short period of time, had a terrible accident yesterday and is no longer with us.

She seemed such a lucky kitten.

Plucked from a hurricane, near dead and drowned, she came in out of the rain - a tiny, shivering, bedraggled little thing - and she leapt into our hearts.

Though her time in our lives – 11 days, from one hurricane to the next – was short, the happiness she brought with her was immense. Everyone that came into contact with her knew her sweet, bouncy, pouncy magic.

I had planned on reporting on her happy-silly-tender antics as she took her time growing into cathood; instead comes a lesson on impermanence and the fleetingness of life.

Goodbye sweet kitten. Sleep well with the stars.

postcard from the bluebird boys!

2011-09-07T15:48:00.006-04:00

Had a lovely postcard today from the Bluebird Boys of Port Tobacco, letting me know that they've formed a band (!) and will soon be touring the southerly route for the winter with their folky mix of eclectic rock-a-billy political hoo hah.

"We're gonna wake up America with our songs!" wrote the birds. "Our unique blend of wit, cynicism, and snarky sarcasm combined with a positive can-do attitude will be the new religion of the masses. Who needs god when you have us?"

of gnomes and tree houses and ominous shadows

2011-09-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

So last night I arrived at a campground whose claim to fame is TREE HOUSES!

I loved making tree houses when I was a little girl - I'd climb up those sticky-pitch pine boughs to a fort I'd made from a few boards and some nails, way high up, with a book and my cat. Up there, I could see the world without the world seeing me. And I was safe from maurauding family members.

Once? When I was a kid? I fell out of a tree on the way down, and landed on my back, must have passed out. Either that, or I died for a little bit, because I distinctly remember floating up above myself, looking down at myself on the ground. A marvelously bright light lit up in the sky, and I looked up at that light, and then I looked back down at me (I looked like I was sleeping so peacefully in the pine needles on the ground), and then I looked over at the house, where I knew, I just knew, there was a pitcher of freshly made pink lemonade in the refridgerator, sweet and tart and all full of pink deliciousness, and so I looked back up at the bright light which, and even though it was very glittery and pretty, I couldn't help thinking: pink lemonaaaaaaade... and before I knew it, THUMP! I was back in my body with great deal of pain in the neck and back. I managed to pick myself up off the ground, brush off the pine needles, and half-limp/half-stagger back into the house for a glass of pink lemonade.

So anyway, back to the present (keep up!). When I arrived at this tree house place last night, I found little gnomes and fairies and cherubs - all the usual yard and garden suspects - all over the place, guarding the office and the bathrooms and the outdoor shower stalls and the forest paths.

Here is a view of my tree house (below). Unfortuantely, almost immediately after my arrival, it started to rain. And then it started to pour. And then it was a deluge from hell like a dam had burst and unleashed the torrents it had been holding back since the beginning of time.

But on the positive side: Mr. Smokey the Bear - who was standing out in the rain because he didn't have the good sense to come in under an overhang like I did, indicated that the fire danger potential was LOW. And that's always a good thing.

Several wet hours later, I discovered how very darkly-pitchy-black-dark it was inside the tree house I had been assigned. No electricity. No lights on the mountainside. No moon, even. How dark was it? It was so disorientingly dark, that when I thought I heard someone or something ELSE in the tree house, I reached for the flashlight I'd set on the floor by the bunk bed and misestimated (in the darkness) the distance from bed to floor and nearly toppled out onto the wooden floor. Luckily, I did not injure myself. It would have been mortifyingly embarrasing to have to explain broken bones or a cracked head by saying, "Well, I fell out of a bunk bed from... um... the lower level."

When I did get to the flashlight, it wasn't much bloody help, because it exagerated and enlarged everthing into monstrous shadows on walls, like the image below which, during the day, is a mild-mannered vase of plastic flowers on a table, but in the shadows of the night, takes on the persona of the head of a wild hairy beast with big teeth in a flowered hat!

Even this morning, when the weak sunlight slunk in with its tail between its pale legs, the tree house was still pretty dark, so I turned on my flashlight again and that same vase of flowers once again assumed its horrible shadow persona, just sitting there in the corner, waiting... waiting...

the mushroom party!

2011-09-06T15:14:00.009-04:00

Early yesterday morning, when I was still in my tent in the campground, and it was still dark out… something rustled outside my tent. When you are alone in the forest, any rustling garners your immediate attention and becomes ten times amplified in your ears. Hmmm... chipmunk? crow? raccoon? BEAR? Then it rustled again. And again!

I peeked out, but couldn’t see anything. I’m a bit shy of intruding on wildlife outside my tent, because once? When I was young and unmarried? I went canoeing in the Everglades and we made camp at a small clearing in the mangroves with very little tent area, so our tent was only a foot or two from the water. And, of course, I woke up in the morning needing to pee. So I unzipped the tent flap, only to come face-to-face with (I swear!) alligator eyes! Staring at me! In the head of a BIG-ASS alligator! That big ol' alligator scared me so bad I zipped the tent flap back up as noiselessly as I could, quietly slid back into my sleeping bag, and zipped it up over my head for further alligator protection; delaying a morning pee seemed a far less painful agony than being eaten by an alligator. Besides, if he ate his way through the tent, I had a 50/50 chance of survival – maybe he’d eat my sleeping boyfriend first.

Anyway, back to yesterday morning: when I did emerge from my tent, I found that a white mushroom had been on someone or something’s breakfast menu! The mushroom was broken off its stem and sitting upside down on a stump, with teeny tiny eeney weeney little itty bitty bites taken out of it.

“Probably a squirrel,” said my son, Nick, when I called to ask him about it. Nick knows everything there is to know about mushrooms, and if he doesn’t, he knows how to find out.

“Nick, it was so cute!” I said. “It looked like little gnomes or fairies had came to call, and they had a mushroom party in the forest - just like a tea party! - sitting on the tree stump, and they nibbled all around the edges of the mushroom!”

“Squirrels do that.”

I promised Nick an updated photo of Mr. Mushroom Man, because his beard grew OVERNIGHT, faster even than green hair on a chia pet! Well, here he is!

Reporting LIVE! from... a tree house!

2011-09-05T19:34:00.009-04:00

Well, I packed up and moved on from the campsite this morning, and tonight I am camping out in a tree house! But there simply is no electricity or Internet up here in the tree, so all I can manage is this quick post, or I'll use up all my iPhone battery, and, um, I might be needing it later...

Here is a phone conversation I had with my son, Sandy, yesterday. I was walking around my campsite in the big forest, counting mushroom types, when he called.

"Oh Sandy, I was counting mushrooms and then you called and made me lose count!"

"It happens," he said.

"But you know what?" I said, inhaling deeply, "The forest smells like a mushroom! It's an earthy, musky, damp, wonderful mushroom smell in here!"

"I love how forests smell," he said. "I want a soap that smells like a forest."

"Seriously? You want to smell like a forest?"

"Yes. And I want the soap to give me splinters."

"You want little wooden pieces embedded in the soap so you can get splinters?"

"Now you're getting the idea."

"Well... but skunks live in the forest too, you know."

"Exactly."

mr. mushroom man lives!

2011-09-04T15:44:00.001-04:00

Camping is going good, thank you for asking!

Last night, I made a big ol’ camp fire and roasted hot dogs for dinner! It was yummy!

After dinner – and because I usually take things about one step too far (ask my children, or my boss) – I didn’t just sit by the crackling camp fire, no. I threw a box of FIRE COLORS I’d bought at 7-11 into the fire – they were supposed to turn simple fire flames into DANCING SPECTACULORAMAS OF COLOR! Cracklin’ Green! Sizzlin’ Blue! Poppin’Purple!

Then I sat back in my fold-out camper chair and beheld the marvelous color show of my own making.

And it was lovely.

This morning, I awoke in my orange tent homestead in the middle of the big forest, after eleven (eleven!) hours of sleep.

Got up, stretched, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. Wandered around the perimeter of the campsite. Mushroom alert! A rather large, flat-headed brown mushroom had come to call during the night. Looked sort of like a poisonous pancake. The weird thing was that he sprouted a fungal-looking, scraggly frizz on his chin.

How peculiar. Odd. Curious, even!

Seriously, he looked like an old man with a beard but without facial features. So I figured, Well, I can help you there. I am, after all, a writer and an artist. I reconstruct things! (My children would say I make things up; but I say, well, it may not be how you saw it, but it’s how I saw it, and since I’m me and you’re not, and this is the story I’m telling and – well, there you have it).

So I just helped Mr. Mushroom to realize his full humanoid potential. See?

And it was good.

oopsie!

2011-09-03T13:23:00.007-04:00

Today's adventure: Camping in the rain!

Awesome additional adventure: Thunder! Lightning!

You might think this would suck (camping in the rain), but don't think that I'm unhappy here in my little orange tent in the middle of a big, green forest of rain. Trust me, I am delighted to be here, right where I am.

And don't pity me. I put myself here! This is a choice, a clear and deliberate choice.

I didn't want to be who I was anymore. Didn't want to live where I lived, live the life I was living, or own so many things; all the STUFF that needs tending and storage and replacing is so... distracting.

It wasn't that I sought simplicity (although I do), it was that I finally finished taking care of everyone else. The kids grew up and moved out. Coconut the Cat moved to Brooklyn. I sold the furniture on craigslist, sold the condo, gave away the plants (except for one splendiferous orchid that travels with me).

Finally, it was me, just me. Solo.

For the first time, I get to be who and what I want to be, and not someone in relation to somebody else. So often, life seems lived not only on autopilot, but in terms defined by relationships to others: daughter, sister, girlfriend, wife, mother, friend, colleague, supervisor... but if you peel back all the layers of all those roles... what is there, really there, on the inside?

I don't know. I've never been there.

But I'll tell you where I have been. Tibet. China. France, England, Wales, Italy, Ecuador (five times!), Mexico, Costa Rica, Nova Scotia. The Starbucks on the corner. The library. Any bookstore.

And here I am now. And look! Here comes the sun!

hurricane kitty grows by leaps and bounds... literally

2011-09-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

Q: Who was the most adorable little black kitten to be found bedraggled and nearly dead by the side of the road during Hurricane Irene?

A: Why, it's the Hurricane Kitty, of course!

Every day, Hurricane Kitty grows a teeny tiny little bit and develops new skills and talents... like climbing up pant legs with teeny tiny little claws and chewing on fingers with teeny tiny little teeth.

One of Hurricane Kitty's sweetest “awwwww” moments (of the many) is when you lay him out on his back, in the crook of your arm, and rub under the teeny tiny chin; Hurricane Kitty falls fast and deep into kitten sleep, paws in the air, world abandoned.

Pure, lovely kittenhood.

bluebird alert!

2011-09-02T11:55:00.000-04:00

Well, what do you know. The bluebird boys of Port Tobacco – Archer and Asher – spread their blue-feathered wings and soared out into the world.

“I went to look in the nest,” I said to my son, Sandy, on the phone, “And they were gone. Gone! All they left behind was an old shell and some shit.”

“Well Mom,” said Sandy, “that’s what kids do.”

“But it happened so fast! One day they were there; the next day, they weren’t. And the nest was so… so... empty!”

“And that’s why it’s called an empty nest.”

Well then... good luck, bonne chance! Bonŝancon! ¡Buena suerte! and Ngikufisela iwela! to the bluebird boys of Port Tobacco. I have very high hopes for them. I hope they dream big in life.

As for me… it’s time to make like the bluebirds and spread my wings. My allotted days in the little camper at the RV park next to the water in Port Tobacco, MD (big thank you to my ex!) have come to an end.

It’s been a lovely few weeks, full of earthquakes and hurricanes, yes… but even more full of bluebirds and bunnies and dragonflies and turtles and cawing crows around the camper, and the moon and stars, herons and rainbows above the mists of the marsh.

But now it’s time to move on. I don’t know where, but I’m pretty sure that, wherever it is, I’ll be there by tonight.

And that's all she wrote for now.

we interrupt our bluebird programming...

2011-08-31T09:47:00.000-04:00

...to bring you... Hurricane Kitty!

Seriously, this little nubbin of black sweetness was found on a roadway in Bowie, Maryland during Hurricane Irene.

He/she was sopping wet, could barely hold its little head up, and was close to death. The mother cat was nowhere to be found.

The current theory is that Mom was a feral cat trying to cross her drowning babies to safety...

... when she dropped Hurricane Kitty, who was lost in the storm.

Luckily, Hurricane Kitty was found by people crazy enough to be out for a walk during a hurricane. They brought her home, took her to a vet, and got up every two hours during the night to bottle feed the little pookie-poo.

Who can resist such divine sweetness?

bluebird dreams a-go-go

2011-08-30T17:36:00.009-04:00

The Bluebird Boys of Port Tobacco are growing up! Archer the Bluebird is definitely the more outgoing twin. He's more extroverted; he's bigger and faster. He's the alpha-bluebird.

Asher the Bluebird, on the other hand, is smaller, quieter, more introverted and shy. He doesn't mind that Archer sits on top of him; rather, he thinks Archer makes a dandy blanket. Asher is the more creative little fellow of the pair. As they say, still waters run deep.

the bigness of bluebirds

2011-08-29T19:23:00.003-04:00

The bluebird twins, Asher and Archer, are growing mighty big! The two of them rather fill the nest. Won't be long now until they begin their first flying lessons.

What do you think they dream of when they sleep? Bugs and worms and assorted yumminess? Or do they dream of flying? Each other?

archer & asher - alive!

2011-08-28T18:06:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene blew through Southern Maryland during the night - power went out in the Port Tobacco area - tremendous winds toppled trees and stripped branches, shredding and tossing leaves like green confetti - but come the morning sun, there were the bluebird twins in their nest - alive!

Both mother and father bluebird assumed their awesome task of feeding the growing babes. I am happy to report that no bluebirds from that nest in the rotten post succumbed to the storm.

After visiting my little feathered friends, I took a lovely drive around the area, but wait! Ahead! On the country road! What's this?

Box turtle alert!

wet wet wet

2011-08-28T07:14:00.006-04:00

Oh, the weatherly weather.

Although evacuation was ordered for the Port Tobacco, MD campground where I'd been staying prior to incoming Hurricane Irene, I snuck back in Saturday to check on my little bluebird friends, Archer and Asher. Gusting winds blew the rain sideways. Most of the RVs and boats had been removed to higher ground. The water from the Port Tobacco River was high, but not yet flooding. This is the rotted piling holding the bluebird nest inside. It's right on the water, but the water would have to raise several feet to submerge the nest.

I found the bluebird twins damp but safe, snuggled in their wet nest.

The mother bluebird, however, was freaking - crying out in what sounded like distress, flying back and forth over the river waters.

No sign of the father bluebird.

all my litte friends at the campground...

2011-08-27T07:35:00.000-04:00

These are the last photos I took yesterday of the bluebird twins, Archer and Asher, before leaving them behind when I evacuated the campground at Port Tobacco, MD for higher ground.

Archer is the alpha bluebird of the pair - he gets hungry first and opens his mouth first; he sleeps on top of Asher; he wriggles and flails the most.

Look at his eye! He appears to have sweet little yellow eyelashes! With those lovely yellow lashes and yellow beak, Archer the Bluebird could give Lady Gaga some swanky makeup tips.

There are other little creatures at the campground, including this pink flamingo.

The night before I left, a rainbow appeared in the storm clouds over the marshes of the Port Tobacco River.

Asher & Archer - will they survive Mean Irene?

2011-08-26T11:03:00.009-04:00

I arrived at the camper in Port Tobacco in Southern Maryland on a Sunday night - homeless (having sold my condo) but happy to have the use of my ex's camper for a few weeks. Life is an adventure again!

Having been told bluebirds were hatching in a nest in a rotten post next to the water - the RV park is on a little spit of land with water on both sides - I was excited to wake up the next morning to mist rising on the river and newborns in the nest! Three featherless babes! But alas, only two live hatchlings, the third was already dead. Such is life in the wild.

Archer and Asher, I named the surviving twins. They were just wee little bits, the babies, and although they didn't make any noise yet, and their eyes weren't open yet, their adorableness factor was immense. They were all floppy and loose-jointed.

At first, Archer and Asher mostly slept, their favorite position being on top of one another in a pig pile. The parents must have removed the eggshell remnants and the rotting corpse (which began to emit a rather foul odor), because those remnants disappeared in a day or two.

"Good thing the snakes didn't git'em," said a little boy from next door, who was casting his fishing line into the Port Tobacco River next to my picnic table.

"Snakes?" I said. "What snakes?"

"Water moccasins!" he said. "An' they're big! I saw one once with a catfish in it's mouth! An' you gotta watch out 'cause they kinda can leap up at you from the water if you get too close."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No ma'am."

The twins began to open their beaks for food, but their heads were heavier then their little bodies and they often fell over from the weight of their heads.

The parents fed the babies about every twenty minutes, over and over again, all day long and into the night - a lovely variety of grasshoppers, brown worms, crickets, a katydid, a long-legged spider, and other assorted yumminess that builds strong bluebird bones.

The little ones clamored for more yumminess, and began to make faint chirping sounds. Then their eyes opened!

Their feathers began to grow! They perfected the pig pile sleeping technique.

After one week, with open eyes and feathers, they actually looked more like baby birds than plucked chicken flesh.

And that's how Archer and Asher look this morning, the little blue-feathered twinlets in their nest in the rotten post. Luckily, no water moccasins have shimmied up the post and found the little morsels yet. The twins have survived numerous downpours this week, but now Hurricane Irene seems to have Southern Maryland in her sights, and with Archer and Asher not able to fly yet, their future is in question. The camper is located on a low floodplain, which, as the fellow next door delights in telling me, was five feet underwater last January.

"But don't worry," he said, "your ex and I put a flotation device under your camper, so you'll float."

"But won't it float away?"

"Nah," he said. "I'll tie it to the trees. It'll raise up in the hurricane when it floods, but the beauty of it is, it'll float and then come back down in the exact same place."

"Really? Do you think it'll flood here? My ex didn't seem to think so."

"Ah, he probably just wants you to stay in the camper so he can see if it floats all right."

"I don't want to be here if it floods, not since your nephew told me about the water moccasins..."

"Eh, they won't hurt you. Worst is the ants; they'll eat ya alive. Bite after bite, they'll come in if it floods to escape the water and eat everythin' in their path. Bite you all over!"

"Are you serious?"

So, anyway, in light of Hurricane Irene, I am evacuating the camper on the low flood plain for higher ground. But Archer and Asher? What will become of the sweet little bluebird twins?

8/23 - 45 seconds of shake wobble wiggle

2011-08-26T10:57:00.004-04:00

earthquake! 8/23/11

2011-08-24T15:12:00.004-04:00

what happens next

2011-08-22T17:03:00.000-04:00

sunset cemetery

2011-08-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

when suddenly...

2011-08-20T14:10:00.000-04:00

She's freeeeeee!

2011-08-19T16:10:00.002-04:00

“I believe that writing is an account
of the powers of extrication.”
John Cheever, Journals

Wheeeeee!

Yes! I just changed my life! I extricated myself! I got rid of all the riff-raff and accumulation of stuff! Me! I! Myself!

It's so different from when other people change your life; change that is forced upon you, without your consent, sucks. But this, I did this! Deliberately!

Wheeeee!

It went like this: Step 1, Phase 1: Put condo on the market. Phase 2: Sell condo.

Step 2: Give the kids any antiques and family pieces they want.

Step 3: Move Coconut the Cat to Brooklyn to live with the kids; move the plants to the office or the dumpster.

Step 4: Sell furniture and rugs on craigslist; haul everything else Goodwill.

Step 5: Move out. Move on.

For the next two weeks, "home" is a borrowed camper on a river in Southern Maryland - close enough to so I can drive to the office, but far enough so I feel a comfortable distance from "what was" and can freely concentrate on creating "what will be."

This? This is pure happiness!

good night

2011-08-17T18:44:00.008-04:00

This week I sold my condo in Bethesda (big step in creating a new life!) and am happily homeless. For the rest of August I am in a borrowed camper down in Port Tobacco, MD, located on a water inlet. The RV resort is very quiet during the week, so on my days off I am left to myself with the resident heron, the geese, ducks and crows, and every night the stars and moon come out in the vast darkness above. There is a skylight above my bed, so I get to sleep with the stars.

It is all rather lovely.

And the deer here romp - they actually ROMP! They leap! They frolic! They run circles around one another. They sneak up behind other deer, poke at hind quarters and then run away again. I've never seen deer play like this. It's amazing. Perhaps we should all do a little more romping in life.

Nights are good here, sleeping in my camper with the stars. It's like a pod house, just the right size for one. Some day, I want to travel all over in a camper; but for now, I'm happy in my pod by the water.

hipstamatic wanderings

2011-08-16T09:35:00.010-04:00

Oh the horror!

2011-08-14T08:43:00.000-04:00

words to live by...

2011-08-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

life lessons...

2011-08-12T08:14:00.003-04:00

on today's to do list...

2011-08-11T08:22:00.003-04:00

can you tell i used to make quilts?

2011-08-10T15:14:00.003-04:00

Just imagine the audio equivalent of the visual.

fortune cookie

2011-08-10T08:35:00.002-04:00

watch out!

2011-08-09T11:30:00.000-04:00

life lessons

2011-08-09T06:34:00.007-04:00

answers from the wasteland of broken dreams...

2011-08-08T18:37:00.009-04:00

Amy Winehouse said it best:

it's cat girl!

2011-08-07T09:44:00.001-04:00

get rich quick plan #27

2011-08-07T08:44:00.005-04:00

back to suck, la la la

2011-08-06T14:29:00.001-04:00

floozy, floosy, flossy

2011-08-05T10:11:00.009-04:00

your choice

2011-08-04T15:22:00.002-04:00

rut much?

2011-08-03T07:00:00.002-04:00

"The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions."

Ellen Glasgow

art is fun. r u?

2011-08-02T06:49:00.001-04:00

"Every work of art is an uncommitted crime."

Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia

the audacious irrelevance of orchids

2011-08-01T12:37:00.007-04:00

Two months ago I posted on the irrelevance of orchids. Yesterday, on the bus from Manhattan to Maryland, I was reading an Edith Wharton story of New York - "A Cup of Cold Water" - and there, in print, was a sentence about the irrelevance of orchids! Such lovely words!

"Her ideas had the brilliant bloom and audacious irrelevance of those tropical orchids which strike root in the air."

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Then to walk into my apartment and find that, during my absence, an orchid had bloomed...

think

2011-07-31T16:51:00.002-04:00

for my fave girl

2011-07-30T15:32:00.004-04:00

- for Katie -

to the apple of my eye

you're the diamond in my sky

let's git in trouble...

2011-07-29T19:00:00.000-04:00

hipstamatic walk, chelsea

2011-07-28T08:55:00.001-04:00

in the garden of goddesses

2011-07-27T15:21:00.005-04:00

don't do it

2011-07-27T09:30:00.002-04:00

really?

2011-07-25T13:13:00.001-04:00

trouble comes to town

2011-07-24T08:03:00.000-04:00

the girl in the coffee shop

2011-07-23T21:18:00.003-04:00

make bad art!

2011-07-21T12:34:00.002-04:00

colorful crazy quilt!

2011-07-18T20:20:00.017-04:00

...la la la, life is good... for tonight, anyway...

last night, I had a dream...

2011-07-18T19:17:00.021-04:00

circles of life

2011-07-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

La la la, around and around we go.

goodbye old island, old friend

2011-07-18T08:16:00.003-04:00

when all else fails, be the flower

2011-07-16T16:47:00.002-04:00

remember me

2011-07-15T11:00:00.001-04:00

fiery sunset + skinnydip + double rainbow = priceless

2011-07-15T09:30:00.006-04:00