A teen no more

Happy, happy 20th birthday Joey.

One and the same

Lead a million lives.
Seconds reverse,
our setting sun
is twisted backwards
down inside, and upside-down
into a glare, exploding
fire, staring at it
blinded by it
carried with it...
Floating along,
our heads laid back
across a soaring ocean's breath
tumbling, over waving crests,
up and down and fro,
and to, a toss around
we're split into infinity...

Then, what a single moment's bliss!
in clarity and heaven's mist
the shine of white, tales of glory,
heroes, magic, tragic stories,
what an honourable thing!
far more than just a vivid dream
for all we carry in one second
dreaming, blessings, tasting heaven!

soft as grace we then fall down
descending back to nature's ground,
and standing, staring at the sun,
may we be back
....and knots undone...
the world, once dark by smudgy fingers,
now brings sweet uncertain futures
bending, giving freshest thoughts,
a new creative warmth of heart
wetting pores where once were cracks,
taping up the broken tracks,
washing all the empty cups,
making beds, closing books.

Now a normal conversation
is a glorious exultation.
There are no places for our spirits
only the open air can hear us
singing in a blackened wind
we are the myths, living with demons!
we are the Bosses in the battles,
we are the shepherds and the cattles,
we are the dirt, the sticks, the bones,
the sopping wet, the dusty moans,
the ticking clocks, we are the waves
of X and micro, blips and rays,
we...and then we're none of these
we are not the wind in trees
we are not the sunny sky
we can and cannot try to fly

In a single second
the greener grass will win
a fleeting thought
and truth is true,
so only this
will i profess:
exchange your constant
with a mess.
upend your life
explore your fears
don't wait.
These are your golden years.

wild river children

i was lucky enough to go to the cool blue river on tuesday. i drove out with this random car-full: carolann, seth, zach nelson, and this smart girl named micah. joining us at bucks bar were: doniella, suzanne, rebecca, zack, sylvan, jenny wood, asher, her boyfriend jeremy, jared mingle, mary, and darin! it was such fun, i cannot even describe it. the perfect tuesday at the beginning of summer. rebecca and doniella want to remake the summer of 2000 and i am all for it. so far, so good!

we spread out a picnic blanket and ate strawberries, cashew brittle, pistachios, and cherries. everyone had wonderous boisterous discussions and told hilarious stories. in the evening we all gathered at zack and rebecca's and had veggie enchiladas and rebecca's famous spanish rice and doniella's guacamole and stayed up very late making each other laugh. sylvan tackled me again and again since he is in love with me. he misses bella though! he keeps asking for her, rebecca says.

siblings dearests: you would have loved this day. i wish you would have been with us. i love that we are friends with the same people. that has got to be rare and truly magical!

More 80's movies

So maybe you didn't see my last blog yet. An infamous movie about a real kid factory where they farm hair for paintbrushes??? Or something like that. But just now I am remembering more. Like
Mr. Boogedy Man (1 and 2)
Fuzzbucket
The Huggabunch Movie
Who in our family has these priceless videos?

It leaves out the scary part!

How can one ever forget this? It is as memorable as the words Fiddle Faddle Bodyguard. It must be something to do with titles named after things that have nuts in them.

The Mission

I just watched a movie I think you all should watch. It is amazing, it's called "The Mission" filmed in 1986 with Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro. It was heartbreakingly stunning. It's about Jesuit Priests in Paraguay who teach the Guarini Indians Christianity and how after they have grown to love these people so much and teach them music and open up to their beauty and innocence, the Catholic orders them to pull out of the missions and return all the peoples back to the forests. But, they don't want to go because many of them are caught and sold into slavery. The music which is composed by Ennio Morricone - who just won a lifetime achievement award for composing music for soundtracks at the Oscars, and whose music is so heartbreakingly, soul searchingly, gorgeous - is hauntingly beautiful. This movie was filmed 21 years ago but it is timeless. Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons are perfect. This movie is based on fact and history, look it up. What mankind has done to each other in the history of this world is tragic and at times beautiful.

Anyway, I know this is my first post in ages. I've spent many happy hours with Joey, Amy, and the babies and am so so happy to have Heather and Darin back. I'm not going to let myself be lonely and watching movies like this helps me get outside of myself and learn more of the world. I have a dress to make for Heather to wear at her wedding (after the ceremony) a carrot cake to bake for a certain special someone's 20th birthday - then everyone can decide if they do want that kind of cake for Heather's and Darin's wedding. Not to mention all the many books I am reading, want to read and also listen to so there's not an empty moment in my life. I love to follow all of you kids and your adventures, but I realize I need to stay busy and adventurous too! Luckily I have lots of free entertainment by working at the library getting to check out movies, books on cd etc. free of charge. Thanks Joey so much for getting all of us in to see Spiderman III over the weekend. I loved it. I love the Spiderman movies! It was so much fun to see Adie and Art at their concert at the Fox and the Goose on Friday night. They are wonderful as usual. It was great to hang out with them on Saturday night even though I didn't stay for the dinner. What a great couple they are! I loved every second I spent with my grandchildren, they truly are the lights of my life. What a joy to bring a smile to that precious baby Orion's face and play patty cake with him. He is full of smiles for everyone. It was so fun having Jarom, Bella, Amy and Orion stay with me while Matt was gone. It loved it so much and will have a hard time putting away all the toys! There's nothing I love more than children playing and the sound of children playing. When I was first married I lived right next to a school playground (it was behind our house when we lived at 2205 East Lincoln in Escondido) and when I was pregnant with Adrienne and after I quit work when she was born and throughout my pregnancy with Heather - and staying home caring for them, I would hear the children playing at recess on the playground. What a joyous sound.

But my mind wanders, back to the movie, please get it, rent it or buy it (it's worth every cent as well as the soundtrack) and watch it, if only for the beauty of the waterfalls and the music.

I love you guys, you're my life...

Mom

slackers!

Just because you're Beatty's doesn't mean you now have an excuse to no longer post things on this fabulous website. See, I have to resist the urge daily to make a common post. I even drafted one of my posts because it was too much for y'all to handle. But I can't be the only one with daily thoughts and conversations swirling between my brain n' loins, right?

So put something meatless down if you must. Be veggie with your words and just spill out those sauces. I don't care. Anything, just so long as it is something.

'I don't care what you believe in, just believe it'
-Priest
'Each of us will come to the end of this life on earth;
he who can earn it should fight
for the glory of his name; fame after death
is the noblest of goals.'
-Beowulf
'Someday, when I drink my milk, I'll be bigger than you.'
-Nerf
'Let he who snares the devil hold him fast!
A second chance will not occur so soon.'
-Mephistopheles
'Words are priceless in an argument.'
Words are the building stones of systems.
It's splendid to believe in words;
from words you cannot rob a single letter'
-Mephistopheles
'What good is easy consumation?'
-Mephistopheles
'A god is not so glorious as a king
I think the pleasure they enjoy in heaven
Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth.
To wear a crown enchased with pearl and gold,
Whose virtues carry with it life and death,
To ask and have, command and be obeyed,
When looks breed love, with looks to gain the prize-
Such power attractive shines in princes' eyes.'
-Theridamas

'Nature that framed us of four elements...
doth teach us all to have aspiring minds'
-Tamburlaine


Anyone else?

Beattyboys

I'm bored.

666

Hey everyone.

SO:

I wanted to make you all enlightened to a pretty little song by Iron Maiden called:

The Number of the Beast

listen to it. Stand up shirtless in front of your bedroom full-length mirror and shred your air guitar with ferocity broiling bright behind your loins; Jam that air with the dutiful rage Beowulf would have wanted you to bomb from your fingertips, bellowing ballistic bullets of battling behemoths, baBAM!

My Snog

Today at Heather's house I see Abby. I see Stormy and Dapper. When I picked up Abby I was sadly reminded that I won't ever be picking up my Snog ever again. I will never sing "It Had to Be You, Simon, It Had to Be You" or "For You and I Have A Guardian Angel on High with nothing to do, but to care for me and to care for you, Love Forever True" while I am dancing with Simon over my shoulder. And his curly tummy fur and his "raah-raaow". It makes me sad to lose my little friend. I guess I could have seen more of him in the last year or so, but I also knew him well for many years. Curled at the bottom of my bed, or eating his own fur off, in my apartment in downtown Sacramento, with Chris, and when I lived alone in the green and gold studio on L Street. He was always so happy to see me. He needed a lot of attention, and that was quite endearing. My Snog. In kitty heaven, I hope, to see me again one day.

Thus far...

i love it here.

but i do

miss ya'll

Fiddle-Faddle Bodyguard

Joey just fell asleep in the next room, and I'm sitting here worrying. How stupid.

I am a safe person. I feel like I know what's safest, how most safely to solve an unsafe, unpredicatbly dangerous situations. Yes. I practice my safety daily. My efficiency, my economical, punctual, balanced sense of the realest real, trying to always achieve a state of "Aware and Prepared".

Then somebody else gets hurt.

BAM! Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Mikie, we're all here to the Rescue!

For instance, when we backpacked up that masterpiece slope of demonic lightning thunderstorms, I was more scared and displaced from my safety net than I had been in years. and you know what I learned from that trip? To trust other people's judgments when mine are disagreeing. To let people do their things, and know that I am not responsible for their choices. Basically, to trust that other people know how to be Safe just like I know how to be Safe.

The hard part then is to watch somebody else be "unsafe," and sit there letting them do it.
It makes you question your notions of safety and freewill, and what's right.
Well I don't want to be right, I just want to be safe. But sometimes, the safest way ain't the right way.

My dilemma, that of the Fiddle-Faddle Bodyguard. I have a motherly instinct in me to try and control the outcome of a situation so that the results are the most economically and socially sound and equal, and safe. I guard that Fiddle-Faddle, not because I want to eat it, but so nobody gets to eat more than their fair share of it, so that our little social circle stays equal, and safe.

Here's to hoping that other people are correct in being so nonchalant about seemingly dangerous situations. And to hoping that sometimes it's best if you just leave that Fiddle-Faddle, unguarded, alone.

Cheers.
Mikie

Orion is from Heaven

Well Hi. I have had something on my mind for a couple of days now. Well, since Sunday. I want you all to know that I witnessed one of the most special moments that I can remember. I got to stand in the circle while Matt blessed Orion. This took place at the Smith's, a family who I admire greatly (putting it mildly) . What happened was such a beautiful thing. As you know, when a blessing is given, all the men in the circle bow their heads while the blessing is given. We start by gently rocking the little guy up and down so he will feel comfortable and not get fussy. Well, as we began, I peaked to see how he was doing. From that point on I continued to look at him and couldn't close my eyes. Throughout the whole blessing (which I thought Matt did a remarkably beautiful job), Orion looked directly at his dad and smiled at him with some of the cutest smiles there could be. He would smile and then settle and then would smile again all the while looking right at Matt. I swear it all looked like he knew just what Matt was saying and responded with smiles continually. I just wonder if newborns are more aware of things than we know, since they have recently left their place in Heaven. That's it, it was heavenly. He reminded me of a grown up newborn.

Well, I'll never forget it; my short term memory lapses will never cloud out that wonderful experience.

I asked Matt after the blessing if he saw Orion and his many smiles. He said that he had kept his eyes closed and was too busy with the blessing.

So I consider myself so lucky to have been there. Just wanted to pass that on. I love you all.

I'm including a few pictures of that day also.

my may

So far this month, this merry may in which i was released from mumma's happy womb, i have really upgraded my state of being. Here shall be a brief list.

1. I quit my redundant, overbearing job at the grungy old placerville cinema
2. I wandered the prairie lands and badlands and foggy midwestern cities and black soiled hills and bony rockies, which I've always wished for, and I couldn't be happier about that quick stint of time spent lazily getting lost.
3. I moved to a big, spacious, warm and brightly lit room in a weathered teetery house on a hill in Santa Cruz, with two tall windows leading to a splintered wooden deck and the slanted roof which overlooks the hazy bay and snaking wharf and all of the bushy lumps of coastal trees and cinderblock stucco redbrick houses and hotels and buildings all over town.

So things are good, family and friends.

Today I awoke at 3:30 am out of a groggy stupor and brewed thick coffee and drank it deep and packed up the final sundries into my strong bench of a backseat and said goodbye to mum and headed out for the final time in that now-previous phase of my life. I went and picked up Matt from Heather and Darin's and said hello to the sweet kitts whom I probably won't get to see for some time, at least until June 30th. I drove Matt to the Sacramento International Airport and on the way we listened to Limbeck and Rob Crow and things were jolly, despite the early hour and our sleeping souls, because brothers seem to be kindred spirits.
I let him out at 5:30 am and proceeded to press the crooked gas pedal in my sloppy volvo for a good consistent three hours or so, onward to the Pacific sea. I stopped on Mission Blvd. in San Jose at the Starbucks, of course, and got fruit and yogurt and granola and refilled my coffee and sat around gladly thinking, "At least I never had to live in San Jose."
Finally I arrived in foggy downtown Santa Cruz and parked my car, headed up into the house. I met Alex again and we sat in the living room talking about things. He is friendly and levelheaded and I am happy to share the same squat as such a boy.
In came everything I wish to own from the backseat and trunk of my car, all pulled and lumped into place, and I sat amazed and in awe at my life. Stan and I went to Taqueria Vallarta around 1 pm and Mikie called and met us and we got delicious delish dishes without fishes and then I went over to the parking office and got myself a residential permit for 20 dollars which allows me to legally park on the metered street in front of my house without depositing little slivers of silver into the meter, EVER, which is nice.
I proceeded to spend the day walking all over town with Mikie, loading up on some fresh potatoes and cereal and lettuce and hummus and cheese and beans and pretzels and broccoli and other things at Trader Joe's.
Here I am at my computer, laying narrow on my stomach typing on my computer, which has internet via my trusty old Belkin wireless adapter.

Things are good.
love y'all
-joey fofe

The thing about Don Quixote

If you have dreams, which I know you do, dream them. Live them out. Love their strangeness, take on your name and say it and sing it, let your imagination destroy reality as glass twinkles under golden sunlight- see monsters, mechwarriors, looming doom, epic rivers. Create the world. Imagine your future, believe your ideals. It's true, make it true.

The thing about Don Quixote is that in all his faulty wrongs, misconceptions and dreamy lust for adventure, he became one of the most famous men on Earth.

Believing in our dreams is a daunting possible failure -
but sometimes our biggest failures become our greatest achievements.

See you all tomorrow.
Love, Mikie

poetry

Hey everyone,

something's bothering me.

In browsing the books of our beattyland blog,
I get giddy and smile, like 5 times a minute,
the little boy child inside me again,
so close-

But poetry. Here's my issue:
human bodies live in rhythms. Our heartbeating pattern,
our ceaselessly breathing
in fresh or air that is salty or hot,
involuntary, we live by the seconds,
slaves to our patterns, adapting our rhythms
It's why i love Shakespeare and
Marlowe and techno,
there's something so natural, chilling and sexy
wetting dry holes of cracked clay, and tough bellies
fed satisfyingly *bum bum* like that drumbeat
that twitters your heartstrings and tapping your right foot
you're stuck in the sweetness of rhythmical beauty
a magical pleasure inside, in our systems
and thoughts, electricity sparkling away
ah ha HA! there you feel it? the beats of the living
clap clap to your bare chest and try to deny it,
the rhythm, like sunlight, is always alive!
above death, behind dark, under rocks that are mossy,
the ocean is cleansed by it, babies are born by it,
dancing is sought through it, thinking adheres to it,
whenever you see a hearse go by
you wonder what rhythm you feel when you die -
or is that where the Death is, the end of the quest for us,

rhythmless.


A girl told me today that she could see herself spending the rest of her life with me. I am on a raft, and it's funny when somebody else wants to jump on. I'm a pretty darn good river guide, and for once someone else noticed. Here's to our last 4 weeks of Santa Cruz.

life part I

So I am finally making some more posts. Sorry if I monopolize the blog a little while.

I added a bunch of May events to the calendar. I like the calendar. I think if we all really used it, it'd be so useful in many ways.

I created two new Flickr photosets:

-Our trip to Idaho
-Heather/Darin/Mom/Joey's visit

Flickr created a much nicer slideshow feature. So when you click the link, you can select "View as slideshow". Then, when the pictures come up, just click once on the current photo, and you'll see the title/description/dialogue I added for each one. (You can also control the speed of the slideshow in the lower left.) I'll be creating more photosets too and I'll post here when I do. Hey, if you have a Flickr account and haven't added me as family of friend, do it!

Okay and here's a shoutout to myself:

Here's the link to where I'm featured for winning that last poetry contest. It turns out the poem that actually won was not the poem I wrote about Adie and Art's wedding (sorry guys--they screwed up), it was really the poem about me feeling inspired about Orion's name: It's right here: The christening

Also, that same publication/website (called Artella, they're pretty cool and worth a casual checkout) is releasing the tenth issue of their print magazine very shortly. It features my poem Tale of a frozen mountain boy which won that same contest last April. The poem is coupled with a piece of art and they include little artist trading cards that we made with a picture and bio etc. Here's a link to Artella #10, it at least shows the cover and discusses the contents. I'm getting a couple print copies in the mail; I'll show em off when I get em.

Sorry for all the selfpromotin. But it's just nice, I guess, you know? Anyway.

So today Amy is throwing Bella her early-Utah-birthday party. At 10:30 (I could've added that to the calendar). She had to have one out here because she'll be in California during her real birthday. Bella's getting the greatest 3-years-turning ever. Disneyland. Utah birthday party. California birthday celebration. Jealousy from all other children ensues.

We leave super early Thursday, as in the a.m. I love the drive. Amy'll probably be driving a lot so I can work on my three online classes (read: lots of reading and writing, plus the need for selfmotivation). Actually we'll be trading off because one little junior I know needs to eat. Such temperate weather. Such beautiful spring-inbetween-summer days. Watching sunrises over central-western-American mountains, like people have for generations (only not always from cars on highways, but to me the road is my modern ocean, passable yet dangerous still and always offering. I'm sure Heather and Darin and Joey and Adie know this more than any of us right now. Whatever--we all know it, they're just the lucky ones today.)

In this kind of weather I miss rafting. After all, I did it for seven seasons straight! I bet Mikie misses it too. And Joey and Dad and anyone else who has been down before. Have we all been before? Mom you'll have to go, honestly, one day. That's one of my little dreams, to have one raft and enough jackets and gear to do some trips. Mikie are you with me? You should get one too. We could guide all our family and friends; it sounds dreamy to me. Okay sorry now I'm rambling and reminiscing and this is a long rambly sort of post already so for now, I'll tourniquet it off.

Stay tuned for more later, I have more things to post (children mp3s, more photosets, etc.).

new calendar

Okay guys, per Dad's excellent suggestion, I just added this calendar. It may be a bit tricky. See, it'll show us ALL any events, etc. that we choose to place on it. The only trick is you need to have a Google account (which I think Mikie, Heather, Amy and I have). So I sent everyone invitations at the email address they use for the blog. Please sign up! Unless you think it's too hard, confusing, or just a plain bad idea. If that's the case, comment and let me know. I think it could be useful for camping trips, for road trips, graduations, plays, performances, shows, whatever and ever.

So, to use it--follow the invitation email I sent you. I think it'll come from me (Matt) or some homey called Beattytown. Then, go to calendar.google.com and sign in/create an account. After you're done, you'll see on the left a little drop-down arrow and a section that says "Calendars". Under that you'll see *two* calendars: your "personal" one will be on top and probably says your name, and the Beatty family one (which I lovingly called "Beattytown") should be below it. That means you have full access to *both* those calendars.

Whenever you add an event (which you can do just by clicking on any day/time/etc. on the calendar--but not from the blog, sadly, only from the Google Calendar website), you can then select *which* calendar to add the event to. So just select the Beattytown calendar and add away! The events should show up quickly on the blog calendar-version, or just refreshing the page will make them show.

It's really pretty easy! Try it out. I added a simple little event on August 16th for my graduation commencement. You can see a blue link which you can just click on to view/edit the event. *OR* you can click the "Agenda" tab at the top and it will show you all of the upcoming events, agenda-style! Cool huh. (We can also make it so the calendar shows the Agenda tab *first*, if we like. Please please, any recommendations/comments/hatemail/criticisms welcomed.)

What do you think? Good/bad? Yea/nay? Useful? Can you use it Dad?

California is for livers

and sometimes, the degradation of livers.

So, Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Although, I argue that America has no right to even remotely celebrate a holiday that exists completely outside of our country's history. Yet instead, American college kids (at least in California) seize the day as yet another worthless opportunity to drink our worries away, excused once more to rebel and indulge and party, party par-tay!

Yeah. But I really don't mind so much. In fact, I fully advocate any efforts to familiarize the American people with the cultural celebrations of others, such as the Mexicans.
Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day (that takes place in September). It is instead the celebration of when the French invaders were driven from Mexican shores some several-hundred years ago. Funny thing, those same French returned a year later to reinstigate their advance on the Mexican world, only to be beaten AGAIN, later.
Those darn Frenchies.

So,

How is everybody?!

Heather, your posting makes me happy and pissed. And happily pissing myself I piss happily in my piss over your pissy piss piss piss. Is piss even a swear word? Yeah, I guess so.

Anyway, Happy = because your adventures are so captivating to us masses.
And, Pissed = because I would have nothing more than to be standing in a bookstore with you in some backwater Virginian countrytown.

In the meantime, I have my beautiful Santa Cruz weather to keep me placid, calm and redundant. I'm soothed by my many beautiful girlie flirtees and copious amounts of tourist eye candy to oogle at and enjoy during my slow-drifting recent days of coast.

I'm not killing time here though; I'm creating time. Time is a semisoft purple mass of clay; each morning I am handed one fistful lump of dough, and with sleep wiped from my eyes I begin to mould. Every evening, I have completed a new little sculpture, glazed fired and gleaming, or wet and shapeless, or mid-perfect and cracking dry. And every day I place this new little creation of Time up on my Shelf of Days, a real place where my life is infallibly stored, a museum untouchable by human hands, and only I can look back down my line of Times, a beautiful circular hallway filled with fantastic imagery, artwork making up the corners and decorating my eyes with wonder. I have this life, these Times, and even if nobody ever sees them again they're still there, here, and one can never take away a Time from up on the shelf.

Since I told her I would, I'm supposed to mention a girl in my journal entry tonight. And since this seems to be my only journal entry, and it's already 3:41am right now, I might as well mention her here.

She's a knock-out height. Nothing beats a girl that's 5'1".

The nice thing about things is that
no matter in what rut you're stuck,
there's still stuff just beyond our eyes,
that our hands can find,
our bodies discover
our glass can fill up with
the love of another.

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there forever.

virginia is for lovers

that is their state motto apparently. they have bumper stickers that say that. west virginia is "almost heaven." and richmond virginia's city motto is "easy to love."

and i have to admit i agree. i am in love with richmond virginia. i am in love with the whole state of virginia. it is a bit funkier and a bit quirkier than it's southern companions in confederacy. also built heavily on civil war history, as well as colonialism, virginia takes you very carefully down that historical road. always including various points of view and being respectful and cognizant of the wrongs done to others in the european dominance of this country.

jamestown virginia, the first lasting british colony in america, was founded four hundred years ago in 1607. in april three ships sailed up the james river. if you saw the NEW WORLD movie (which i strongly recommend as it is beautiful and strange and delicate and it is a terence malick movie who is my favorite director) anway if you saw it you know this story. we went to the jamestown settlement where costumed folks reenact the ways of life back then. there are ships and a fort and an indian village. i got to grind corn. there are lots of kids exhibits, like furs you can pet and stuff like that and darin said, "i miss jarom and bella."

okay but let me tell you a little bit about richmond. once again, it is an old old city. all the houses are narrow and brick and two or three stories high with little porches and balconies with plants and flowers. we parked right next to a community garden. there are different ethnicities seeming to live a little more comfortably and harmoniously next to each other than in other places. there is a big college called virginia commonwealth college so you see all kinds of students and there must be a fashion school because there's a "fashion district" called carytown.

best of all there is a place called 821 Cafe that has vegetarian sausage and all kinds of other vegan and vegetarian options, and cheap! they have grits and omelettes and pancakes and vegan biscuits and gravy and rosemary potatoes and that is only breakfast! there is strange and wonderful art on the walls and it is a little place so it feels cozy and homey and the waitress (there's only one working) her name is heather and she is married and very easy going and chatty and nice and there are people at the counter chatting with her that she obviously knows. all talking about funny little stories from their lives and i am thinking they sit out on their porches hanging out together and rEADING BOOKS because reading books is a big deal in richmond and kids are too. the only bad thing about the cafe was that you can smoke inside. which is very very odd and disgusting but the old man with a very long beard who looked like an old storyteller was the one smoking, so what can you do?

we went in the best "toystore" ever. it was almost like a toystore for adults because of all the bright colors, mexican style paper flags and dia de los muertos pink and orange hanging skeletons, weird postcards and art supplies. but also every crafty and unique toy for kids you can imagine. a big reading area. everything painted yellow, hot pink, green, blue. vibrant and alive and the young people working there so smiley and funky you just want to hug them. that's richmond!

in a vintage store darin showed interest in these antique photographs. there was a heavy set blond gal working there who had her nose buried in a book the whole time which made her very intriguing to me. she didn't try to watch customers or be chatty, she just read her obviously engrossing book. but when darin started looking at those pictures she explained to him all about how special they are - i think they are daguerreotypes - in tiny pressed tin frames. he learned something new! that store was cool too because it was hot and there were old magazines kind of flung all over the place and glamorous scarves and jangly jewelry and capes and tiny boys' suits and little switzerland dresses and so forth. random and exciting old old treasures.

fun to look, ,hard not to buy, but we already spent way too much money on books!

now we are in kentucky. we have passed glorioius fields of bluegrass. the limestone bed underneath this states apparently feeds and enriches the kentucky bluegrass which in turn gave the foundations for the products that made kentucky wealthy: whiskey (somehow made with stream water enriched by bluegrass?) and racehorses whose bones become strong because of their excellent grazing food. neither one is something i am all that interested in but by default we are thrown into derby madness. the queen of england is here for the derby even! geez. i always thought it was kind of ajoke, how people dress up fancy and wear big hats and strut their stuff at the derby. i just don't get horseraces but hey, it makes some people happy.

i just want them to treat the horses right. especially after finishing listening to the book on tape of When Elephants Weep. which we loved. the stories about various animals are completely delightful, like they make you squeal with joy sometimes to hear them. not that i needed any proof that animals experience rich emotional lives. it is a good book though.

speaking of books, maybe i better wrap this up. i am still only skimming the surface of all my endless prattle i could give you. but alas i must go read Lolita! it is addictive, hooray!

i am sending you all hugs and kisses and tons of love!

Thanks for the webcam.

I call this: Cycle of the Hairwolf.



















There's a lot more where this came from.