plumb

 * My father's older brother was a plumber in a small town. He disproved the saying that a cobbler's children always go shoeless and barefoot because his house was perfectly plumbed. Visiting every June was a hot, humid trip with the added  indignity of being dragged around for exposition and display in front of relatives and people I had no interest in and seemingly nothing but blood in common with. (I wish now that I had been more interested in them, but, kids, what can you do with them!) Dinner out was the MO because his wife did not cook. To her credit, she worked the books for the plumbing business so probably after a day fiddling with numbers cooking was not so much looked forward to. After a day of people pleasing a tidy up for me was necessary before dining out and my uncle had plumbed a claw foot bathtub as a second wash up place to get visitors into the restaurant bound cars faster. He put it in the just barely able to stand up, angled, slope roofed attic. A window beside the tub presented a treetop bathing view. The uniqueness of the tub, the attic, the view and the at last I get to be alone by myself relief tended to slow my ablutions so that I was always the last to hop into the car as it pulled away from the curb. This timing was unfortunate because that meant I had to ride in the backseat behind my uncle with my window up and closed to avoid the tobacco juice which he periodically spit out of his window. Everybody else dibbed the good seats.

circus, mag

 * Every morning a circus arrives at my house. Well, I've never actually been to a circus but I am a well read circus attender. Dogs. Dogs which seem to have multiplied overnight. I do have just two but their stunts and enthusiasms of mornings lead my eyes closed brain to believe in overnight exponential multiplications. Anticipated food seems to be one element of their enthusiasms. But, what can explain their excited cavorts in  dashing out to the wet and cold? At some architectural epoch narrow hallways were drawn. I walked through many old narrow hallways in Scotland so there must be a long history to them. I write of passages so narrow that a short armed woman (me) has not enough room to angel stretch her arms owing to the bumping of walls. (My short arms challenge knitting patterns.) I live with a narrow hallway. Thus, my litany (do you have morning litanies?) to avoid trips sounds "Outta da way", "I'm walkin here.", "Watch it! Watch it!". And that is just on the tottle to the dog grub. I keep the litanies clean owing to the idea that I endeavour to present a dignified, cultured presence to my lodger. I think I have fooled him. So. A circus every morning.

* Confession: I have  a not cheap subscription to a British magazine because I enjoy the smell of the pages. Okay...the pictures are purty, too.

city, sparrow, fence

 * The city shrouded in gossamer.

* Standing at the window enjoying the dampness patterned on the river rocks I notice a sparrow calmly, discretely bobbing about finding breakfast.

* Dampness patterns on a grey weathered fence.

brush, cricket, bun

 * I crawled into bed at midnight mourning the loss of a face brush that I bought in 1982. Sometimes it is the smallest losses that pause us, that trip us up. Such a frivolous thing to miss! How silly to be distracted by a hairy thing the size of a golf ball. But..but. What it had lived through with me! When thirsty at 3am I tottled to the kitchen and...there on the counter was the face brush! Disheveled woman seen dancing in the kitchen.

* A cricket finds a place in the bathroom to escape the cold and snow.

* A soft warm bun as incentive for leaving the warm house early.

fresh, vest, tea

 * Inhaling fresh, cool, smoke free air for the first time in weeks. Thank you snow and rain. Thank you for the promise of continuing precipitation for the next day or so.

* Pulling my quilted vest out of the trunk. Putting it on though it is unwashed from last spring (do not tell my mother!). Where were my thoughts then? How much have they shifted since?

* Hot tea, hot tea, hot tea......

waiting, punkins, nothing

 Waiting while Mommy gets coffee.

* Ready to choose punkins to line up on the porch.

* A day with nothing scheduled.

optimist

* As the darkness visits I sing, as they used to say, at the top of my lungs:

When the skies are a bright canary yellow

I forget every cloud I've every seen

So they call me a cockeyed optimist

Immature and incurably green.

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow

That we're done and we might as well be dead,

But I'm only a cockeyed optimist

And I can't get it into my head.

I hear the human race is falling on its face

And hasn't very far to go,

But every whippoorwill

Is selling me a bill,

And telling me it just ain't so.

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello

And appear more intelligent and smart,

But I'm stuck like a dope

With a thing called hope,

And I can't get it out of my heart!

Not this heart...

Thx R & H