My color's green. I'm spring.

I've been collecting some things in my wanderings. Striped rocks mostly, and smooth rocks that feel good in your hand, but also these:

This would've been a good rabbit rabbit.

Blurry old sword dance photo of Isaac!

Wait, what?

Can't wait to throw formal magic parties again.

This is a dog reading a newspaper.

Twelfth

Twelfth is a funny word. Here is a quote from Twelfth Night:

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.”

I like that one.

Did you notice right away that today is 11/12/13? Do you think something magical will happen today?

Outside looks like this today:

And it feels so cold. Note: I'm back to Bean boots. I'll probably have those on my feet more often than not for the next five months! I am thinking I should pimp them out, by which I mean I should get some red shoe laces for them.

And inside looks like this:

Biggest, warmest sweater, hot cup of tea, pellet stove on five, attempting to focus and get some work done.

Today's telervision recommendation: Les Revenants, or The Returned. It's spooky, and it's about dead people coming back to life, but here's the thing. They're not zombies. It's subtle and odd in a French way, and yes it has subtitles, but I can almost guarantee you won't fall asleep.

Sixth

Magic, for you from Theo the Magnificent.

(Apologies for the play button in the middle. This thing can't decide if it wants to be a video or a .gif.)

Fifth

The day started like this:

An ordinary morning, driving Isaac to school while he serenaded me with Danny Brown. But there was the funniest little spot of rainbow in the sky (see the center of this photo, above that middle tree. It's not on the windshield, it's in the sky). Ahh, I wish I got a better picture of it, but I was, um, driving the car. Also, look at that pretty poof of smoke or whatever in the street. What a magical photograph!

Then Gus and I strolled around Mackworth Island, where the sky looked like this (above).

Gus watched chipmunks for quite a while. I imagined that it was our own private island. This morning I was thinking, "Today I like trees better than people," but tonight Mark and I went to vote and I loved (almost) everyone there.

ceci et cela

this was my horoscope one day. it's not particularly interesting, but i love how confused it made someone.

i met this dog and watched him eat many potato chips.

for one brief, hallucinatory moment i imagined i'd do one of those "what i'm wearing today" posts. you know the ones that show off the blogger's innate fashion sense in thrown-together outfits that usually include a low-slung leather belt and a pair of leggings? except, i work at home, i'm over forty, and i have no money. and while i very rarely remain in my pajamas, i do occasionally nap in my clothes. so they have to be as comfortable as pajamas, and they're often covered in dog hair and obviously wrinkled. i.e. they might as well be pajamas. also, i have a habit of throwing on the same thing i wore the day before (clean underwear, though, always).

oh, okay, since you insist, here's what i'm wearing today:

you'll want the purchasing details, of course. t-shirt by rogues gallery, purchased by zoë at a sample sale for me because she's sweet like that. i like how long it is. it has 3/4-length sleeves, which isaac recently observed is the most ridiculous length a sleeve could be, but then i am a compromiser by nature and so it is the sleeve length i am most attracted to, except in the winter when i want my sleeves to dangle several inches beyond where my arms end. my sweater, purchased on sale for, like, $4.99 at target in size extra-large (a.k.a. "extra-cozy") also has 3/4-length sleeves. it is soft and comfortable, but i haven't washed it since i bought it and i'm afraid it will lose its near-cashmere softness (it's cotton). my skirt also came from target, about six years ago, and i wear it way too often. not pictured, i am wearing very, very old l.l. bean silk long john bottoms in black-faded-to-gray which i think once belonged to my mom. they're probably 15 years old. my feet are bare and cold. and my hair is in a mid-height ponytail, so as not to intimidate anyone.

finally, the hidden important detail in this random list of things: zoë and max are coming home a few weeks earlier than they originally planned: to be specific, they are coming home two weeks from today!! two more weeks of japan adventures, and then we get our girl back for a whole summer.

please take note of the fact that i didn't complain once in this post about how freakishly cold it has been lately.

fear not for the future

magic: chatting on skype a couple of days ago with zoë and max across a distance of more than 8,000 miles. to them, it was early in the morning and around 75 degrees. they were in a cafe open to the street, and we could hear weird bird noises in the background, and motorbikes going past. where we were, sitting inside at our dining room table, it was dark, cold, evening, with piles of snow on the ground.

like a bunch of ten year olds at a sleepover

saturday night was dinner with friends and party tricks.* have you ever tried the one wherein one person sits in a chair and four people attempt to lift him with just two fingers each (under the sitter's arms and knees)? and it doesn't work, and then the lifters stack their hands, one by one, in the air (not touching) above the sitter's head, and then remove them one by one and try again, and the person practically flies up into the air?

no? well, try it!
























this guy thinks he has a scientific explanation, but i don't buy it. it's...magic.

























*"scary sleepover activities" would be more accurate, since we even found ourselves in jason's bathroom chanting "bloody mary" at the mirror in the dark at one point.