A Tidings of Magpies

The Talented Mister Ripley by Patricia Highsmith Will be sleeping with the hallway lights on, and tonight, the dog can sleep on the bed. "Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing...bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night." -- The New Yorker Quintessential sentences: "Oh, I can do a number of things--valeting, baby-sitting, accounting--I've got an unfortunate talent for figures. No matter how drunk I get, I can always tell when a waiter's cheating me on a bill. I can forge a signature, fly a helicopter, handle dice, impersonate practically anybody, cook--and do a one-man show in a nightclub in case the regular entertainer's sick." Favorite Word: giggling

Home to Roost by Kay Ryan The chickens are circling and blotting out the day. The sun is bright, but the chickens are in the way. Yes, the sky is dark with chickens, dense with them. They turn and then they turn again. These are the chickens you let loose one at a time and small— various breeds. Now they have come home to roost—all the same kind at the same speed. Patience by Kay Ryan Patience is wider than one once envisioned, with ribbons of rivers and distant ranges and tasks undertaken and finished with modest relish by natives in their native dress. Who would have guessed it possible that waiting is sustainable— a place with its own harvests. Or that in time's fullness the diamonds of patience couldn't be distinguished from the genuine in brilliance or hardness.

Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c'est qu'il cache un puits quelque part... ("What makes the desert beautiful," says the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well." ) please note: quote and illustrations par Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A Blessing by James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom. please note: photo, Another Eye , by compassionateeye

New York Times Op-Ed Section Saturday, June 28, 2008 Your Brain Lies To You Does this mean I don't remember meeting Peter Frampton at the Blind Lemon?? Not cool, man. Totally not cool. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html?ex=1372305600&en=2bb9e9c384a1c7fe&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

She skimmed the yellow water like a moth, Trailing her feet across the shallow stream; She saw the berries, paused and sampled them Where a slight spider cleaned his narrow tooth. Light in the air, she fluttered up the path, So delicate to shun the leaves and damp, Like some young wife, holding a slender lamp To find her stray child, or the moon, or both. Even before she reached the empty house, She beat her wings ever so lightly, rose, Followed a bee where apples blew like snow; And then, forgetting what she wanted there, Too full of blossom and green light to care, She hurried to the ground, and slipped below.

Having commanded Adam to bestow Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew To empyrean palaces of blue That warm and windless morning long ago, And seemed to take no notice of the vexed Look on the young man's face as he took thought Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought Now to be labeled, dubbed, yclept, indexed. Before an addled mind and puddle brow, The feathered nation and the finny prey Passed by; there went biped and quadruped. Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay Into the tragic eyes of his first cow, And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.'"

Went to a Service Awards program this afternoon to recognize those with multiple years of contiuous employment with the hospital. 5, 10, 15 years, etc. 25 years here, not to mention the 4 years when I started in 1979 before I left and came back. Although my name was on the program and a photo of me hard at work was on the screen, no framed certificate with my name on it. No tie pin with the three blue glass gems. No gift certificate to Fancy-Schmancy store. Zip, nada, nothing. Some mix-up on their part. So sorry. Will get it to me. There's only six of us with 25 years of service there. How hard can it be to count the goodie bags??

Mister Pip by LLoyd Jones This book has left me speechless and returning to Chapter One to begin reading it again. It's a short little gem about a young girl growing up in the midst of a civil war on an under -developed tropical island. To give more than that...I wouldn't want to spoil the story for you. "Lloyd Jone's spare, haunting fable explores the power and limitations of art." -- Washington Post Book World Quintessential Sentence: "My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip." Favorite Word: Pop Eye

12 Hrs at work and my dogs are barking. please note: art by tartx

I'm listening to an interview on NPR's Fresh Air with Terri Gross about the execution of six mountain gorillas in the Congo last summer. It is very powerful and very interesting and will be the cover article for this month's National Geographic. Please note, this is not for the squeamish. Millions of humans have been killed in this area as a result of the various conflicts. It has, however, been the death of these mountain gorillas(endangered. only 700 left) that has brought world wide attention to the area. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/07/virunga/jenkins-text

Going in for 4 more hours to pinch people after brain surgery. And they pay me for this...

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding, but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend; If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck If we have unearnéd luck, Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long: Else the Puck a liar call. So good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

Frisbeetarianism--the belief that when you die your soul soars up to the roof and gets stuck there. I bet God is laughing so hard tonight his stomach hurts. George, you will be missed.

My hubby's birthday has come and gone. "55 and staying alive." Sorry if the BeeGee's song rattles around in your head now. ("...stayin' alive, stayin' alive, ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo, stayin' alive, stayin' alive"). Just sharing the wealth with y'all. We still have birthday pie here. We are Pie People. You know, cake vs pie?? We would pick pie every time. I am no cake snob. I will eat cake, but I luuvvvv, luv, luv pie. We once had a pie we picked up from a roadside stand in Delaware that to this day has remained the Gold Standard of pies for us. A peach, raspberry, apricot pie. Perfection. What heaven should be like--homemade pie in a beach house in Bethany Beach in the summer. Funny the things we take for granted: cake vs pie Fritos vs potato chips salty foods vs sweets diet pop vs the real thing. Differences or similiarities in taste that truly bind us as soul mates and BFF's. For our family it's all about the pie. We will gladly let ...

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack t...

1. Do you know why you shouldn't have sex with a bird? You can get Chirpies and it's untweetable. 2. SHE: "If you can guess what's in my hand you can have sex with me." HE: "I don't know...an elephant?" SHE: "Close enough." Rim shot on the drums, please.

I've spent the greater part of an hour reading through several of my favorite blogs and trying to respond in kind with morsels of witty, intelligent, and meaningful comments. Hard work. It was a late night for me. College Girl came home last evening to see her StepDad and take him out for a birthday dinner. She stayed around to talk after I got home from work and we yakked on till midnight. She has work today and wanted to drive back last night to Kentucky, so I stayed awake till she texted me that she'd gotten back home safely-- by which time I was entrenched in watching Dead Man Walking with Sean Penn and Susan Saradon. That ended at 3:30am. So now I'm awake with a foggy brain and a slow moving body trying to find my Things To Get Done Now list. There's a balmy breeze coming through the west bedroom window and "California Dreaming" drifting up from the park. Rather lovely, but I'm gonna need a lot more coffee to manage this day. In all fairness, it was ...

Wasted away again in Neuroramaville

Fare thee well to one of the Great Broads and a true and perfect reason to watch musicals from the 40's and 50's. What a dancer...What a dame... **quote by Fred Astaire

27 May, 2008 Overheard At Denny's At 3 AM "I could be wrong, but there may or may not be a live turkey in here..." OVERHEARD BY SHAHALA

Tonight I lingered over your name, the delicate assembly of vowels a voice inside my head. You were sleeping when I arrived. I stood by your bed and watched the sheets rise gently. I knew what slant of light would make you turn over. It was then I felt the highways slide out of my hands. I remembered the old men in the west side café, dealing dominoes like magical charms. It was then I knew, like a woman looking backward, I could not leave you, or find anyone I loved more

Again, I am begging you...wear the freakin' helmet!!

Found this true-to-life gem at http://notrocketsci.blogspot.com/ . Find this hilariously dead-on coming as someone who has worked forever at a teaching hospital. We really are that full of ourselves yet somehow able to retain a quirky and charming sense of humor about the grandiosity of our superiorness. Just basking in the love...

Tonight after yet another 12 hours in Neuroramaville I took the dog for a walk and saw my first fireflies of the summer. I'm guessing they were out before, but I must have missed them while I was in Montana IN THE SNOWSTORM. Fireflies and a close to perfect full moon. It's so good to be home...

Lots of children lose their fathers and my brother and I were no exception. First we lost him to work and his silences when he was home, then we lost him to the younger secretary at work, and finally lost him altogether to a new marriage and family. In with the new and out with the old. No cross contamination. However, since I am a product of the fifties there is still the desire to put a false front on the image, buy the perfect Hallmark card that will set things right. There will be no setting things right here, no sitcom ending for a foolish misunderstanding of words or deeds. We were the reminders of a failed family. Replaceable cogs in an inefficient milling machine. And the new wife had even less desire to keep mementos of past loves lurking about in her kitchen and dining room. Life is so much better when debris is swept clean and clear and fresh starts are all that loom on the horizon. There was no place for the arms of two children tugging at sleeves and holding on. So today i...

It's noisy here. The kids run around, screaming, their mothers slap them and they cry. I have the bottom bunk, I hang a blanket from the bed above me for privacy. In the middle of the night it's finally quiet. I lie awake and think about goals. Sheryl, the worker, says I need some. She says What do you want Rita? and I say peace and quiet, maybe someplace sunnier than here. I say I'd like to have a dog. A big one, a retriever or shepherd with long soft fur. What else? she says. I remember my dad's garden, how I used to like sitting with him while he weeded, putting my toes in the dirt. He grew tomatoes, corn, peas.There was a rosebush, too, once he let me pick a big rose and there was a spider in it, I got scared and shook it and the petals went all over me and he laughed.He showed me how to put my thumb over the hoze nozzle so it sprayed. Sheryl says I could garden. I think about the coleus Jimmy and I had, how I would take cuttings, put them in water and they'd gr...

Or, depending on how you feel about humidity...

What a person desires in life is a properly boiled egg. This isn't as easy as it seems. There must be gas and a stove, the gas requires pipelines, mastodon drills, banks that dispense the lozenge of capital. There must be a pot, the product of mines and furnaces and factories, of dim early mornings and night-owl shifts, of women in kerchiefs and men with sweat-soaked hair. Then water, the stuff of clouds and skies and God knows what causes it to happen. There seems always too much or too little of it and more pipelines, meters, pumping stations, towers, tanks. And salt-a miracle of the first order, the ace in any argument for God. Only God could have imagined from nothingness the pang of salt. Political peace too. It should be quiet when one eats an egg. No political hoodlums knocking down doors, no lieutenants who are ticked off at their scheming girlfriends and take it out on you, no dictators posing as tribunes. It should be quiet, so quiet you can hear the chicken, a creature ...

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler " A rich saucy lark of a book." Quintessential sentence: "How could I have romanticized this world? A world where a woman's place, substandard as it is, hangs by a thread." Favorite word: saucy, of course, closely followed by ill-fated.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills "--a romantic and gracefully executed literary puzzle." The New York Times Book Review Quintessential Sentence: "Things can make sense at the time, but as you get older those consolations no longer help you sleep...We all think we know the answer, and we're all wrong. Shit, I'm not even sure we even know what the question is." Favorite Words : La Divina Commedia

It's almost our last day of vacation and we're getting ready to pack up the suitcases for the flight home. Drove 4 hours through rain and snow--crazy day in June for this girl from CinCity. It's been a blast and a wild west adventure. This is a big, big country with room for all shapes of dreams. Here's to more adventures for all of us...

We have spent the last seven days in Dillon, Montana tooling around the southwest corner of the state in a shiny red Mustang. Life cannot get any better than this. Right now it's 9:30 pm in West Yellowstone and the sun is just about ready to go down. I don't know what the temperature here is, but it's been lightly snowing off and on all day and there's a cold wind that's whipping through the streets and alleys. No moose, bison, or bears yet. Saw "Bullwinkle's." Didn't see Rocky. Honey haired girl has bunches of photographs on her computer--internet has been hit-and-miss for us. Hoping she'll share if I feed her. More days in Yellowstone National Park and a ranch in Wyoming, then back to CinCity to our lives there where we shall spend long periods of time untangling the lovely panoramic pictures floating around in our brains.