Thursday, August 25, 2022

August 25, 2022

One of my neighbors is cooking bacon, and my stomach is impersonating an angry lion right now.

Monday, August 22, 2022

August 22, 2022

When you want to make space in your fridge cuz there are only three slices of the peach tart left and you put two slices in a tupperware but the third one won't fit but that's by design cuz you want dessert and you don't want to use a plate cuz you don't have a dishwasher and you live alone so you can do TF you want.


 

Sunday, August 21, 2022

August 21, 2022
 
Two new poems of mine appear in the Summer 2022 issue of The Midwest Quarterly, which came out at the end of July.  Here's an announcement from the journal's Facebook page (posted last month): 
 

 

Saturday, August 20, 2022

August 20, 2022

When I left Austin at the end of 1999, one of the things I regretted having to leave behind was my night-blooming cereus, a big gangly cactus (picture a Christmas cactus on acid) that does in fact bloom at night, and produces amazing, and amazingly fragrant, 4-6" long blossoms that last just that night. Blooming was an event, then, and I used to invite friends over to enjoy it with me.  (There is of course a Wikipedia page on them that you can check out if you're interested  to know more.)

I met friends for dinner tonight at a Thai restaurant in a nearby neighborhood, and while we were sitting on a bench near the door waiting for a table for six to become available, I noticed that the plant next to the door was a NBC, and that it had recently bloomed (there was a wilted blossom hanging from one of its fronds). That set me to thinking: should I ask them if I could take a segment home to sprout and plant? I mostly put it out of my mind during dinner, but as we were leaving, the thought returned, and as I approached the door, I surveyed the plant and noticed a small segment at the end of one of the higher branches. "Oh eff it," I decided, and snapped it off on my way by. Since the little guy is contraband, I decided a glass for liquor was the right one to sprout it in. I'm not sure if I'll be able to coax it to bloom, but, well, a cactus on acid is welcome in mi casa any day.


 

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

August 17, 2022

I threw on a baggy black cotton dress before running to the post office this morning. I mean "threw on": when I got back home, I noticed when I turned off my car that there was a seam running down the dress's front, which I didn't remember seeing before, then realized I'd put it on backwards. Sometimes it's hard being me. 

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

August 16, 2022

Latest foodie fun: a peach tart. The recipe called for 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream for the custard (with an egg yolk whisked in). I may die after eating this, but my apartment smelled divine last night. (Then again, the lard didn't kill me...)


 

Friday, August 12, 2022

August 12, 2022

In line at the farmers' market a short while ago, I was chatting with the gal behind me, and she told me that her sweet dog had a bandaid on the tip of his tail because he wagged it so much that it often hit things and started bleeding. She said vets call the condition "happy tail." I told her that name makes the universe a better place. 🥰

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

August 10, 2022

We almost never saw eagles in Maine when I was growing up, but they've since made a comeback, and are now fairly common. My mom, sis, and I saw a few on Morgan Bay last week. I'd never found an eagle feather during my prior beachcombing forays, but that changed this summer when I found a few. Two were probably from juvenile birds, but this one was obviously an adult feather: it was around 18" long, and the quill at its base was the width of a ballpoint pen!