Inspired

First, Anna posted a posy from her yard, and that made me go check ours.

Then, Aunt Sally's picture from earlier in the week of her teddy bear and Uncle Walter's toy lion reminded me that I should try adding a bit of stuffing to my panda so it could sit next to Phil's bear and not flop over. Tah-dah! She looks much less tragic, now. I tried adding a bow, but that was too much.

And my final project for this damp day is a bit of a left over from last week's yard sale clear out. I unearthed this collage that I believe hung in my senior year dorm room and first apartment -- and has lived in storage since then. Pictured: Mitch; sailboat Blaze; Jamie and Kristin; 1986 CITs; Laurie-Liz and me; Mary Sam; oh look, that's the Galers so that's 1989 or so; Junior Show; a picture from GS Maine trip; Ween and me at Junior Show; Laurie and me in the snow; Claire and Gretchen.

What's bugging you?

Pose

Perhaps I will recreate this woman's pose when we put  up the aluminum tree this year.

Done!

A year ago, we started doing puzzles at work.  We're quite hooked. When we were in Boston in May, the only puzzle in the art museum shop that I liked was an Edward Gorey design. Made by Pomegranate, it felt good -- nice heft, nice paper -- as well as being a fun design to put together. For my birthday, I asked for another -- and here it is!

Addictive Game of the Moment

GeoGuessr.

Proud of this guess! (Seeing the name on the electric bus helped. . . . )

Still mad about the one before it: IN the ocean, near Hawaii?! Also, convinced that I have seen the same stretch of rural Scandinavia more than once.

An Incomplete List of Places We Find Earwigs @ Our Library

• in the bookmarks holder
• in the notebook with school summer reading lists
• on the scanner (on the glass)
• in the lid of coworker's covered coffee mug 
• behind the lock on the glass display case 
• under keyboards
• in the plastic holder with a flyer announcing an upcoming event (2!)
• in the plastic holder featuring a photocopy of the bestseller list 
• inside an interoffice mail envelope 
• in the drawer of Summer Reading Club prizes

("Some tunnel as deeply as six feet into the ground to escape the cold. The name earwig is from a European superstition that these insects entered the ears of a sleeping person and bored into the brain. This belief is totally unfounded." -- learn more about these mostly harmless critters from the Virginia Extension Service website, here.)

Observations from a Major League Town

Since I last paid attention, the footwear of choice while commuting in business attire had become more likely to be flip flops or Toms or Converse than running shoes.

I always think that Richmond's narrow sidewalks are holding it back, but that's not it.

The parts of New York I know don't have 18th and 19th century buildings smack up against modern in the way that Boston does.

People talk on cell phones all the time, everywhere; no wonder they are shocked at the library when we ask them to quit it.

Monday night was Daisy Girl Scout and Cub Scout meeting night in Beacon Hill.

"White Violets in South Hadley" by Cynthia Zarin

So many of them wicking the lawns--
a hundred handkerchiefs dropped
by the daughters of the Pleiades
to mask their seven-square fears.

Their gold is the hive's dry dust --
their petals a thousand small white knuckles . . .

On Faculty Lane, the whiteness
of the dogwood bleaches their white
bank to almost nothing, ghosts of
ghosts, damp violet coals burnt out,

as if a bruise that seemed to leave no mark
had left the image of its pressure here.

(The New Yorker, 10/12/1992)

#poeminyourpocket

Wigged

I'm really wigged out by how quickly official statements are made, official logos created in the wake of disasters. For example.

Spring Still Life

A bouquet of current-bloomers, some macaroon-type cookies off of Pinterest that I wanted to make look like those nest confections, and the slightly absurd bunny (a housewarming gift from the teachers' society next door).