Photos

Photos In & Around

And right now I’m cleaning this up. I’m removing the published photos of others. The photos should only be the ones I have taken. This is going to take a bit of time as I posted way too many! They are appropriately posted in THOUGHTS.

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Back to Jotting

I have had to come back to revive my site and do some posting as I keep thinking of things and wanting to jot them down. For instance this morning (long ago now)—as I accidentally consumed the last gingersnap cookie—I thought that was just wrong. You should never have the last of anything without being aware of it. What an unsatisfactory ending. Like falling into a pit because you didn’t know it was there. (Only a slight exaggeration psychologically.)

In the interval—that is, between when I started the above first sentence and now—I had to go out to refill the frog fountain on the patio table. Because when I stood up from here I saw the watering jug. That’s how things start. That’s how I ended up with a garden on my patio table in the first place.

Here are some photos to show you the Before. Before the deer come to drink from the frog pool and eat the pink blossoms off the fuschia and make it so that I have to go out and bemoan the fact that I ever made friends with mama deer in the first place.

This is mama deer:

This is mama deer with Zeus:

Now mama deer has told all her friends. Last spring she brought her twin babies to show them to me (or me to them). All of the deer come now, many at night. I know this because the fountain is dry when I check in the morning. And most of the lovely buds are gone. I picture the deer lining up at night for the buffet. I have put away the deer spray that is safe for pets. It is also safe for nature. It only makes deer stay away. I can’t do that as mama deer brought her babies to meet me.

This is all of the jotting for today. I hope people will come back to see me. Maybe even some new people. Although I wouldn’t blame anyone for staying away. How awful to not talk (or jot) to friends for so long.

[I keep trying to add some tags but don’t quite know how or remember. That’s how long it’s been. Maybe I’ll figure it out for next time.]

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On This Mother’s Day

Sometimes I think I will walk right in and there will be the Crazy waiting for me, welcoming me. And we will dance off together and there will be nothing to look back upon. It will be a good thing only I will not remember.

Once Joel said he always thought about me but only when he wasn’t thinking. Aren’t we always thinking? I asked. Yeah, he said. Pretty much.

The most beautiful flowers a Mother ever gets are the dandelions held in a bunch in a tiny hand. Small. Small I always picture them, and young, and with little round faces. And so much hope and slammed doors and giggles and tears to brush away.

Yellow roses and mums and love from Angela who is doing so well and living in Portugal where I will be going to visit in October.

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Ohio & Chess

Well then and there. A surprise that someone currently living in Japan told me about: The World of Chess in Ohio. Wow. So here we are with a visit to the downtown Cleveland Public Library on the third floor of the main building, and a step into the rabbit hole. I took a few photos (not of everything or all) in order to put into a slide-show. (Which I couldn’t do today for some reason, but will try later.)

The lovely Stacy took us around and also pulled out of the archives for us—original hand-written folio sheets from as long ago as the middle ages (Chaucer), unrelated to chess, and little books—see the only person photo, and the skull on the desktop. Somehow I lost the other photos of little books. The one in the photo below is of Hamlet. I now have a new appreciation for little books and learned their purpose, which was to hide and smuggle information where it was not welcome or illegal. Many of them are quite incredible works of art.

For those who don’t know, the second photo below is of Bobby Fischer playing chess and the third is of Boris Spassky, famously defeated in Laugardalshöll arena in Reykjavík, Iceland, by our own Bobby. People from all over watched the brilliant encounter and final chess game, even those who had never heard of it before. Bobby, a grandmaster, won the tournament to become the reigning chess king of the world in 1972. He eventually disappeared, chased by the U.S. trying to arrest him for playing chess where sanctioned. He was eventually found in Iceland where his mental decline into madness was obvious and where he died in 2008. He went back there as it was the only county to offer him citizenship.

From Wikipedia: Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11–0 score, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. 

All of the exhibits in the library are donated, and they may be freely photographed. The John G. White collection takes up all of the floor in that wing and includes books on chess as well as the notes of famous chess players, game cards (with the moves noted) as well as the chess sets from the centuries and world.

Ohio’s own Calvin Blocker won the International Master title in 1982 and continues to play upon occasion. He will be appearing at the White-collection room this month where he will be playing several at once. He is often described as an eccentric who loves the game of chess. He is also said to be an absolute grandmaster player who has all but the title (as he will not leave the state of Ohio to play). The chess floor entertains regular chess games and competitions where it is not unusual at all to see Blocker.

My friends and I spent the afternoon there. I personally could have spent the day and come back for more.

P.S. Apparently all you have to do is click on any of the photos and you’ll get a slide show. To start at the beginning, select the first photo.

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Thoughts on My Daughter’s Birthday

These are actually thoughts I’m having on the date of her birthday, not thoughts about her birthday. Sometimes too many words are involved in order to make something clear. Especially in a header. And more than once I have thought that the preposition carries a boat load on its little shoulders.

• The daughter was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, eating a toasted-cheese sandwich. This means that it is a Friday and the rules are set aside for “Wild Wild West.” Her hair is shimmering and shining its thousand shades of brown in the sunlight that streams though the window. The boy is sent to his room for some childhood offense and loses out on the broken rules and favored TV show. Just as he walks by, without turning around or looking,

This from the girl: “He’ll never learn.”

• Another TV night, this time on the front porch. The girl is sitting in a chair, not eating, and watching a show. It’s another shoot-em-up but not a western. At some point a man rushes into his bedroom and lands on his bed. As he does so, the bed explodes.

This from the girl: “Oh boy! Is he ever in trouble!”

• The girl and boy are sitting on the sofa. They are watching a TV show. I walk into the room and ask them what they are watching.

The girl answers: “I don’t know but it must be ‘Mission Impossible’ because I don’t know what’s going on.

• Baby Z and I just got our noses slammed by a door. It was the cat’s fault. Her last words were “CAT! NO! No cat.” Followed by a slam. I was stunned. So was baby Z. We just looked at each other.

• The point of it is that a true novel would never end. We are living it after all.

• What is the need to be doing two things at once? Or is it something else making a distraction or a comfort in the background? Nope. It’s about having something to distract the part of the person who becomes aware.

• When the boy was very young he came into the bedroom to tell me that he had a stomach ache in his head. And he came laughing into the kitchen the first time he got the hiccups. He’d hiccup and giggle, hiccup and giggle. Big brown eyes wide and grin the whole of his face.

• Religion and Sex are the same things…sooner or later someone is going to end up on their knees.

• Hey, if we start every new sentence or break with a capital letter why do we need periods at all? Aren’t they redundant?

• Slowly you fall back in love with the things that mattered to you.

• “Permission to leave the battle, sir? God? God, sir? Permission to leave sir?”

• Household rooms need to be renamed: living = group therapy; kitchen=anorexia /bulimia /gluttony, talk therapy; and so on.

• Fear is the dog that’s lapping at the heels same as the voice that calls you back to awareness…

This is a photo from the candlelight chamber-music concert that we went to when we celebrated my birthday here in Cleveland. It was so beautiful. Then the daughter went to Portugal to lease an apartment and celebrate her birthday which is on the 28th.

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From The Little Book of Cat Syllogisms

From a sampling of cat logic. Feel free to answer True or False.

Boston ferns are brought indoors.
Boston ferns shed a great deal.
Humans sweep up Boston-fern sheds.
Humans sweep Boston-fern sheds into neat little piles.
Cats jump into once neat little Boston-fern shed piles.
Therefore
Cats spread Boston-fern sheds more than Boston ferns shed.

And here is the author himself, quite noble and pleased with his abilities, Baby Z, aka Zooie Cat, or Zeus.