Rabbit rabbit

 

Flooded with gracious light

"Too busy" to write on this blorg. 

I keep intending to call my dancer friend, but unfortunately she is in Spain and it always seems to be midnight there. The fact that she slept through that fabulous comet chunk makes me feel a little better about the fact that I slept through the northern lights.

We are piecing our back yard back together, slowly slowly, after losing two huge, stately trees. It looks less like an empty rectangle, bleakly immense, than it did two weeks ago. There are birds, and a faded forsythia, and bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, rascally strawberries everywhere, violets, lilies-of-the-valley snuck over from next door. A bed of herbs growing inches overnight, especially after rain. We bought a serviceberry we'll pick up next week, and we're contemplating a dogwood. We're planning a pea stone patio, another garden bed, planning and planning as we sit on the dirty back steps with our morning coffee.

My "notes": 

Sweaty season commences, as evidenced by how everyone in Hannaford smells today.

"To pay attention is to love everything. To see the future as brightness." - Sarah Manguso

"It was early summer; everything was fresh and fair. The grass was green green; the sky was blue, immensely blue; the world was flooded with gracious light." - William Steig

Agree with these synonyms.

Be careful out there. I love you.

Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.

The pandemic can apparently be blamed on...Maine lobster. 

Driving in the countryside on Friday, we passed a sign that said "Death and Breakfast." Halloween-themed B&B, I guess.

We also saw the White Mountains as we drove; I know they're wee as far as mountains go, but they always make me say "Oh!"

And then Melissa got married, which was the loveliest. 

See what I mean? The loveliest.

Oh! And then I got to join Holly and Maia for a drizzly outdoor breakfast, then rally for reproductive rights with them and my girl. I love how 100% of the people you see at such gatherings are wearing masks and giving you space. 

On Sunday, Adam and I went for one last dogwalk before he heads back to SF for a spell. And Zoë indulged me by helping me figure out my beautiful new game, which as it turns out is fun to play and also, birds. 

And then Clover got skunked. I always run out of bandaids and tylenol, but let me tell you, I am never without a quart of hydrogen peroxide and a box of baking soda. 

Memento

Melissa and I
totally forgot what film 
we'd planned to watch — ha!

Yesterday I was seven in the woods

I don't remember if I've mentioned Spencer Tweedy's blog, Observations, but it's one of my favorites. It's so simple, just a list of ordinary or extraordinary things he observed that day. I like the way he sees the world.

The other day I met my pal Melissa for lunch at Rose, where we split a delicious bagel sandwich. It made me extremely happy when the bagel was ready and they called out, "Circe?"

I am tired of all the takes on astrology lately (maybe because I keep seeing youthful astrology memes where the Libra version is unrecognizable to me, a 50-something Libra lady). However, this thread on the signs as NYT Cooking comments is hilarious.

I'm glad to know the correct spelling and pronunciation of Kyiv now.*




*Whatever ends up happening, we are, in fact, impeaching this motherfucker as I type.

Airport

I saw a tweet today that said something like, "Wow, you know people are mad about this Muslim ban if they'll actually go to the airport, the worst place on earth, to protest." Our little airport in Portland is the easiest one ever, in my airport experience. It takes about ten minutes to get there, five minutes to park (close, cheaply). It's quiet and laid back for an airport. Granted, I am almost always delivering someone or picking someone up when I go there--and sometimes the planes they get on or off look really really small and somewhat terrifying.

Anyway, I went to protest the Muslim Ban with the Dancer and her girl, signless (I was signless--the Dancer had one). It was truly heartening, with hundreds or thousands* of us crammed into the baggage claim area. We were early, and we watched the crowd gather--lots of families with wonderful, hastily made signs, and it wasn't even entirely white, with quite a few POC and Muslims represented. Before things got started, I noticed a guy walking slowly through the crowd, and then lurking around behind us for a while. He was white, and had a red "Make America Great Again" hat on, and a backpack. He made me nervous--he looked like the kind of person who would have a backpack full of weapons, or... I don't know, I was totally profiling him as a "type." And then, I watched two Portland police officers with a dog do the same thing. They walked toward him, walked around him, let the dog sniff around, including his backpack, which he'd put on the floor. They talked to him for a while. The end of the story is that he had no explosives (or whatever), and he was totally there to collect his luggage--just some traveling Tr*mp supporter who happened to find himself in the middle of a protest. I don't know, it was weird.


*There was an announcement that we numbered 3,600--which seems too big? Maybe?

Tenth

I kind of want to do this while listening to Bon Iver. I did take a lil' nap earlier, lying on the little couch beside the pellet stove, reading The Year of the Goat and daydreaming about my goat herd (not my goatherd, although I'm positive that Mark would be just as good at that and cheesemaking, or whatever, as he is at tiling and plumbing and computering and electrical repairs, etc).

Today the Dancer came over for tea and also there was coffee and bagels from Union Bagel Co and dogwalks and cozy cats. Upstairs, Mark is finishing the installation of beadboard in the bathroom. Just you wait, blog friends, I will post an After photo of that bathroom one of these fine days that will amaze and charm you. Yesterday I was equally productive, painting all the trim in the dining room and kitchen. Today's been dark and sleepy, despite all the coffee and tea.

Blorg

I will nibble on your tiny feet, they are so tiny and delicious.

Oh hello, it is I, onetime- sometime- blogger extraordinaire. Your fairweather blogger. Nothing new has really been happening around here, aside from spring grudgingly not-really-springing, which has brought:

:: More cold weather, interspersed with slightly warmer weather.
:: Flowers in other people's yards! I always forget to plant bulbs in the fall, every year.
:: A couple of iced coffees, a milkshake.
:: Isaac is still a slave to the school calendar, since he takes history at the local public high school, so he took advantage of spring break to visit his adoring San Francisco relatives.

There is a list of spring-related activities. I also spend time looking out the back windows at the yard, full of willow branches and falling-down fence, with a sinking feeling. My birdfeeder attracts no birds and must need to be cleaned. There are dry, deadish things that ought to be cut back to make way for green.

As far as non-seasonal activities, here's another list:

:: Orphan Black on BBC America is a really good science fiction series, a pleasant surprise.
:: MAD MEN.
:: Do this: roast some sweet potatoes in olive oil. Saute some greens and maybe onions and garlic. Salt and pepper on everything. Fry an egg, put it on top. Eat up.
:: My sweet long-lost friend came to visit! We ate noodles and went for a walk and drank warm drinks in the sunshine!
:: Fries and the aforementioned milkshakes with the dancer. That was a two-Melissa day.
:: Oh I am reading If It's Not One Thing It's Your Mother, by Julia Sweeney, and I'm only a few chapters in, but I just love her. I've been reading her blog for a while, and I know I'd like her in real life. She recommends books and movies every month, too.
:: The usual cat-and-dog-shenanigans.

Handsome fella number one.

Handsome fella number two.

Silver Linings Playbook

As Melissa said,
"It's pretty much 'Cuckoo's Nest'
meets 'Dirty Dancing.'"

Is You Is Or Is You Ain't

I realized recently that it's me in a house with four boys (or male-type animals). Two of them went to Kansas this week to celebrate the holiday in traditional lighting-things-on-fire-and-shooting-bb-guns style, leaving me with the four-legged boys. It was fun. I walked on the beach, read a pile of books, went for walks with the dancer, drank lots of iced coffee, chatted briefly online with my girl, worked a little, and painted some stuff in the house.

They came back last night, and boy was I happy to see them. This morning Mark and I got coffee from Speckled Ax and walked to the Maine State Pier. Lovely, lovely Portland Maine.

you smell like plums and garlic!

wow, what a block party last night. the video below demonstrates possibly the best thing that ever happened in portland.

that's what cheer! brigade from providence, and they helped turn congress street into new orleans for an hour or so. it was magical (and watch for a plaid-shirted isaac dancing past at the beginning).

my other favorite thing was the analog tweets project by pickwick press. people could submit "tweets" and have them block printed on fabric and hauled up the side of the building. mark and i hung out with the dancer and chatted with some of our favorite people, while isaac danced down the street and assisted oliver, who was filming the whole thing as part of his intern job at pickwick.

we finished up the evening by sharing a three-taco plate at taco escobarr. the price was right (three for $7.50), and they were delicious (vegetable tacos, crispy-style), but the atmosphere was...weird. sports bar-weird, i guess. stools and high tables, kind of bad music. maybe it's just me. most likely (well, not just me, but me and my two cheap-date pals).

the pavement under me, reeling with feet

this truck drove by my window. i like the goats pictured on it, and i like the fact that it says "our animals are vegetarians and don't do drugs."

i took a walk with the dancer through evergreen cemetery, which was so summery. the walk, i mean, and the talk. and the cemetery too. poor little freddie.

spring is definitely here, the windows are open more often than not, and both my favorite redhead and my favorite gentleman farmer have celebrated birthdays recently. we attended graduation at the learning shack yesterday, which was extra enjoyable since i don't know many kids in the class of 2011 and thus didn't weep. that school puts on a pretty wonderful graduation, though. eleven days of school left for the boy, and about seven weeks until the return of the girl!

the mermaids in the basement

when i walked outside saturday morning, i thought it must be seventy degrees, it felt so warm! really, it was only in the fifties, but in april, in maine? that feels almost summery.

this morning my dancer friend bought me treats at rosemont, and we walked in the sunshine and had coffee at her kitchen table.

i spent yesterday morning with my best pal on willard beach. in every photo i took of minnow, his tongue was out, and in most of them, his eyes were almost closed in pleasure.

how perfect that my mom sent me this poem yesterday:

"I started Early—Took my Dog—
And visited the Sea—
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me—"

(emily dickinson)

now i'll sit here with the windows open and my cup of tea and get some work done that i put off all weekend due to the lure of the sunshine. mark is home from a quick kansas trip, and isaac is getting his gear together in preparation for a school camping trip next week. meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, zoë is preparing to leave india and fly to hong kong. isn't life strange and wonderful?

the inexorable sadness of pencils

there are many pairs of scissors in my life. i have been spending some quality time with them lately.

the dancer and i meditated with the buddhists last night and then visited zoë at work. i was so impressed: she looks just like a real barista! and she made me something very delicious (off the menu) to drink.

i've been "playing tennis" a little bit lately, with zoë and david m. and my leaping boy.

he could've been a ballet dancer if he wanted to.

the way it's done

this is how easter goes, chez moi. first of all, the easter bunny changes into his white jeans in honor of spring.

























candy, silly putty eggs, and arabica gift cards on pretty liberty of london for target plates. so they're kind of 'easter plates,' rather than easter baskets.
























after a candy breakfast, bean, m, and i went to willard beach with a very happy dog.
























.m finally found a sand dollar, as well as nicely shaped shards of pottery.
























in the afternoon, i hiked on the cliff walk with m and the dancer.
























i went sockless.
























happy springtime from me and my rabbit friend!