trick or treat

Tis the season. Jon carved a pumpkin on Sunday night. By Tuesday there was a bad case of 'what's rotten?' in our apartment. I kept forgetting about the masticated squash on the counter and wondering what was amiss. I honestly came to the conclusion that it was Jon's pumpkin on 4 separate occasions. My mind has been elsewhere. Today Jon transferred his jac-o-lantern to the back stoop where a squirrel promptly took up residence.

enthusiasm II

My neighbor is an enthusiast. I also like fall. Not Halloween so much, but fall in general. I know people who think of fall as nothing more than prelude to winter. A sign of doomsday approaching. And while I, too, consider winter in Minnesota to be the next best thing to the end of the world, fall is so much more than intro to that. Just last week, I walked outside in my favorite clothes and the air was just cool enough to make me aware of every place on my body that the sun was touching. It was not cold nor warm- simply vibrant air all around me. Colored leaves were falling from trees in a lazy way, landing on the sidewalk before lifting back up and around. The sound like a windchime made of paper shells. The light was golden and discerning. I was in love with this day. This is how I feel about fall. I want to protect it from winter. I want people to appreciate it more. I want fall to come early and last forever. And quite possibly I only want these things because I know I will never have them.


crabby apples make me happy

enthusiasm

I support enthusiasm in general. Sure, there are times when I wish that all the scrapbookers of the world belonged to the camp of John McCain, where they can sit together in a semi-circle and cut pro-life shapes out of calico scraps of paper. But I appreciate (respect is a whole other ball game) anyone with the determination to spend hours upon hours making a political statement out of 100% cotton jersey.
May we all be so enthused.

meet cashbury

Cashbury has been hiding from me.

On another note- I found a good samaritan notice posted on 29th street. Actually, three of them. All bearing random misspellings and nailed to consecutive telephone poles. 29th street after dark is like one huge batting cage. Don't say I didn't warn you. Parking between Fremont and Emerson on 29th street is like trading in your windshield for its weight in glass shrapnel.

fish fry

Leif G. left a package of Alaskan halibut cheeks in our freezer upon his departure last week. Come saturday, we had an empty fridge, save for a single egg, one beer, a half bottle of white wine and approximately 3 ounces of cream cheese left over from making salmon sushi. This called for ingenuity, or a trip to the grocery store which we were loathe to make. The end result was the most delicious form of desperation I have ever encountered (at least until desperate times find me with nothing but the trappings of salted caramels). It was a meal that could never be duplicated. We improvised everything. In Ireland, my friends were fond of the saying, 'hunger is the best sauce.' I would like to add desperation to that list of highly versatile sauces. When your fridge is empty, save for a single egg, and, by some chance alchemy, the food on your plate melts in your mouth and brings to mind a most adventurous friend whose labor = fish, you must take that for what it is.

random scraps of kindness

A year and a half ago, I bought a vintage pillowcase. I spent the next 5 months half-heartedly searching for the perfect round pillow to stuff it with. Then, having realized that I would never feel completely at ease placing my face directly on any part of the pillowcase, I tucked it away. Only recently did I endeavor to deconstruct it, deeming the whole markedly less than the sum of its parts. I can't think of many instances in which this is true, but sororities come to mind. And art installations made of paperclips.

Each silken scrap that comprised this piece is magical to me. Today I wore my transformer shoes to work with clusters of the vintage silk on the toe of each. I was expecting my shoes to meet with a certain amount of admiration. No one even mentioned my shoes, save for Larry. Larry asked if I was wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. In his defense, if I had been wearing my high heels on the wrong feet for 6 hours and counting, I would be deeply indebted to Larry for pointing that out. So, a lukewarm thanks goes out to LarBear.

It would be fair to point out that the pillowcase was kind of cool and now I have a pile of tiny silk scraps. This crossed my mind as well. Which is why I am going to send silk scraps to a few people in my life who I think will appreciate them. Spread the love.

on dandelions

Three things come to mind when I think of dandelions.

-A jigsaw puzzle I pieced together ad nauseum as a child bearing a horse and foal in a field covered in them.

-The chain necklaces we made during recess at Forrest Street Elementary School and their immediate wilting.

-Singing ' Momma had a baby and her head popped off,' choreographed to their rhythmic beheading.


one of my favorite flowers

alaska

I have, as of late, been wholly unimpressed with the fruits of Alaska. But all that changed last night as Jon and I sat down to watch the 2nd Presidential Debate. Leif G. and Tyra stopped by in a celebratory fashion. Leif has returned from a summer fishing off the shore of Alaska. He has the beard to prove it. And the salmon. He brought us a choice sushi-grade fillet and all the fixings for homemade sushi (a bamboo mat, nori, cream cheese, wasabi, sesame seeds and fried rice...yeah, we know). What we lacked in skill, we made up for with flourish.

homecoming '08

I was incidentally visiting home on Homecoming this Friday. Homecoming in Black River Falls entails a mid-afternoon parade down main street. I took this parade very seriously when I was much younger. I still recall efforts to paint my fingernails black and a fleshy peach color that was as close to orange as I could find at the local drugstore. We used to call the parade the Hobo Parade because all the elementary and middle school students were expected to dress as hobos. A hobo queen and king were elected for each grade. I think this was a way of not excluding anyone in an impoverished school district. Everyone had the means to be a good bum. It did not offend my parents that our hobo fare came straight from their closet. Our costumes always included crazy hats and standard-size pillows tucked half in our pants and half up our shirts.

It is strange to see things of former importance in my life lose their significance.

reinvention

This is how I feel right now.


I told Mom that this chrysalis is a lost cause. She insists that the butterfly is only waiting until spring to emerge.