A Tidings of Magpies

...that is, if your idea of a party involves punching a timeclock and scrubs. Day of birth was fabulously hot here in CinCity. Hubby and I had lunch at Don Pablo's on the river where the humid breeze could smooth out the 55 year old laugh lines I've accumulated. Flowers were included and a book and gift cards. Life is truly good. Grad school starts in 21 days. I think I may still need one vaccine and I definitely need an ID, but I made it through the orientation program and I know where my classes are. On. A Map. That works. please note: photo of Judy Holliday, star of The Bells are Ringing--movie from whence we have The Party's Over

...after the festivities subside.

by Dana Gioia News will arrive from far away: the phone rings unexpectedly at night, and a voice you almost recognize will speak. Soft and familiar, it mentions names you haven't heard for years, names of another place, another time, that street by street restore the lost geography of childhood. Half asleep you listen in the dark gradually remembering where you are. You start to speak. Then silence. A dial tone. An intervening voice. Or nothing. The call is finished. Not even time to turn the lights on. Now just the ticking of the clock, the cold disorder of the bed.

Wish I could tell you how many times Barbie accompanied us to Sunday mass clutched in the small hands of a much younger College Grrrl. No matter what ensemble she arrived in, by the time communion rolled around Barbie was buck naked. So off we'd go, waiting our turn to the front of the line--me holding a little Grrrl who's carrying Naked Barbie and offering her to the priest. He blessed them both every time, although sometimes half a smile snuck by. Happy 50th you old broad. I'm putting some money down on how long those outfits stay on.

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