Asakiyume mita

My run today took me across an expanse of concrete beside the train tracks, I think a former staging area? There was a large Band-aid on it, as if over a wound, a wound in the concrete. I'm imagining the determined child who saw the concrete's boo-boo, went home, got the Band-aids out of the medicine cabinet, and came back and applied it. Or maybe the child was walking with an adult who happened to be carrying some emergency bandages, just in case.

So then I was wondering what caused the wound. It would have to be pretty small, in the scheme of things (the staging area is quite large), for one Band-aid to cover it. An adamantine-tipped arrow? But who shot it, and why? A single acid tear, from some sorrowful alien of the type that has acid body fluids?

It only makes sense if the staging area I ran over is some large creature, floating in the ground with just a flat flank exposed to the air. It can rise up from the earth like a muskrat or otter from the water. Someone with an arrow wanted to slay it, or its old friend the alien came to cry on its shoulder.

Something like that, and the child is its friend. The Band-aid has healing properties.

Valentine's day just happened, but this little valentine was apparently given to Mrs. Escobar not in February but in June--June 2011.

That year, Mrs. Escobar must have been reading A Cup of Friendship (my book group's next read)--it was the year the book came out. Alina gave one of those pictures that switch between one scene and another depending on how you tilt them (this one is either one elephant or several), pasted on a small piece of paper and with a pink heart colored around it.

Mrs. Escobar stuck it in the book and lost it when it got returned to the library. But that was six-and-a-half years ago. The book surely circulated after that. Everyone else who borrowed the book left it in?

Or did Mrs. Escobar maybe only read the book a few months ago, using an old card from Alina as a bookmark? And then the bookmark was returned with the book?

I think I'll leave it in the book too. It can be a treat for someone else to find. Mrs. Escobar, Alina, and all the future readers of this copy of A Cup of Friendship

A wise old woman gives you an item. She says it is very valuable. Why is it valuable?

Here are five items and eight interesting answers to the question: A wise old woman give you an item.

Excerpts:

From Victor:

The old wise woman I seen at an antique shop came and told me what is it that I seek in her sanctuary of wisdom and knowledge. I said to her that I am seeking a lock to protect stuff I put away.

From Reniell:

One day I was walking down the street, and this lady walk up and said, “Here, have this. I can see that this item call to you.”

From Leshiara:

she wanted to share this beautiful shellfish with me cause she probably seen in me that she didn’t see in anyone else.

From Mario:

She said some magic words, Azarack Meteron Zinthos, as the gold started to glow.

Somewhere in the archives of the Bibliotèque nationale de France is this collection of ever-blooming sound-flowers.



(Photo by Joseph Redon, originally posted on Twitter, and sent to me by Wakanomori)

And in the tower Great St. Mary's Church, in Cambridge, England, someone has stashed a collection of hangman's nooses! Or so it seems, but actually those are the bell pulls, for ringing the church bells. Still. Who knows what nefarious things may have happened in the tower while the bells were being rung?



(This photo courtesy of Wakanomori, who was there for a conference recently and climbed the tower.)

Is it a human person or a fairy being, imprisoned behind the leaf-vein bars? What was the crime, or were they falsely accused? When and how will they be freed, or will they free themselves?

The reason I feel anxious when I dump off my papers in the paper recycling dumpster is because people like me will see interesting items and pull them out--as I did, yesterday. I was attracted by the fancy handwriting. The book in which it had been inscribed was falling apart, but I grabbed the first few pages to situate the dedication.



It might have been hard to decipher the name of the person who was making the inscription if it didn't happen to be ... the author of the novel!



Although he was writing under one of his many pseudonyms:



I thought the name "Erle Stanley Gardner" sounded somehow familiar--and a Google search told me that yes, indeed: he was the creator of Perry Mason and many other mysteries. Regarding his writing, the Thrilling Detective website says, "Although critics sneered and many felt that Erle Stanley Gardner was not a very good writer ... Gardner was one of the best selling writers of all times, and certainly one of the best-selling mystery authors ever."

Erle Stanley Gardner


source

Armed with this knowledge, and with some effort (and invaluable aid from Wakanomori), I take the dedication to read,

To my friend and
instructor
Capt. Frances G. Lee -- Trooper Gardner reporting.
With all my love
Erle
Stanley Gardner
June 1958

So who was Captain Frances--female spelling--G. Lee?

Well! She turns out to be Frances Glessner Lee, whom Wikipedia tells us is the "mother of forensic science"!

She had to wait until she was 52 to embark on the career for which she became famous, but at that point she inherited a fabulous fortune that enabled her to pursue her studies and endow departments of legal medicine, police science, and a library.

Further, Wikipedia tells us that "for her work, Lee was made an honorary captain in the New Hampshire State Police in 1943, making her to first woman to join International Association of Chief of Police."

a picture of her

source

And, Erle Stanley Gardner dedicated several novels to her.

... and somehow one that he'd sent to her himself, with an inscription, ends its life in a recycling dumpster in my town. I wonder who owned the book?

( an extra, on prisons )

In any case: not your everyday find!

Missy went walking
On the fairy path one day
And this alone remains
After she was spirited away

Last night I got an email asking me to sign a petition (if you sign one petition, you will forever be sent these emails asking you to sign others) This one had the subject line "biggest petition for bees EVER," and my mind went in an odd direction:

Many are petitioning for bees, but our petition is surely the biggest. We really, really, really want some bees. We've petitioned three times before unsuccessfully, but this time, we collected signatures all winter. There is no one in a 50 mile radius who hasn't signed our petition. Even babies have signed. Even the newly deceased. We will be delivering our petition to the keeper of the bees tomorrow. It is our sincerest hope that this time, at last, we will be granted bees.


source

I believe the unadorned form of naked toilet paper should be celebrated, not shamed into covering up, and yet-- a conversation with a friend this morning got me looking at the usually very frilly, and sometimes very creative, world of toilet paper roll covers. An image search revealed to me a world of Southern-belle-style covers. This is a particularly frilled-out version (Source evil Pinterest page):



Here's a sweeter one, with a homemade head (source).


But some people have let their imaginations roam in other directions:

Octopus (source)


Cupcake (source)


Duck (source)


It's a wild world of toilet paper covers out there!

[ETA: In 2018, only one link had died, but with time, no doubt more will. The Internet threatens to be forever, but all things are perishable.]

I saw this yesterday. It's not really in the woods; it's at the back of someone's backyard, which backs onto the woods. But it looks like it is. The woodcutter was alone in the world after the untimely death of her husband, so she took her child with her when she went a-felling in the forest. She strung up a swing so the baby could rock and sway and converse with the squirrels and the birds while she worked. (They have red plastic in this mythical nevertime.)