Asakiyume mita

Wakanomori and I went walking with a friend at the Quabbin Reservoir, and we came to a little pool that was alive with frogs, swimming around in the melting water above the ice still covering the pool. Amazing! Aren't they cold blooded? But they didn't seem to mind the icewater--they swam powerful breaststrokes this way and that in the three inches of water above the ice.

Wakanomori took this video. You have to turn the sound up very high in order to hear them, probably. Unfortunately, no closeups of the athletic swimmers, but imagine them with long thin arms and legs and graceful webbed feet and hands, swimming here and there, and singing.

First it will be snowstorming, then it will be back to the deep, deep freeze. Keep the home fires burning and a light out for the stranger.**




**Rich of me to say this since my outdoor lights don't actually work. But now I have the ice lantern, so it's all okay, right?

Anyone who drives the Massachusetts Turnpike between Westfield and Blandford enjoys the Cthulhu-esque ice that cascades down the rock face every winter. There are shades of blue, green, and gold in it, as well as white. I suppose you get similar in any cold place with rock faces? I always want to get a photo, but it's hard because it's not a place you can really walk to (being on an interstate and all), and if you're traveling in a car, you're speeding on by.

And yet! I got this shot the other day:



I was coming back from visiting my father for his birthday, and, simultaneously, volunteering for WAMC's fund drive. Here is pledge central! On the walls are framed doodles done by Pete Seeger.



( will only mean anything to listeners of WAMC )

While I was there, for every pledge of $100, Charlesbridge Press was donating three books to the Reach Out and Read program. This program gives books to doctors' offices, and the doctor then "prescribes" books to families with small children to encourage families to read together. This holistic approach to a person's well being (recognizing that family time and education are important to health) is popular right now--this article by Deborah Youngblood of the Crittendon Women's Union is about getting public services to work together (and getting them accessible at one point of contact) to help people climb out of poverty. Anyone who's ever suffered from a long bout of very low income knows that you spend your time moving from crisis to crisis, and on top of that, dealing with seventeen zillion different social services uses up *tons* of time, especially if you don't have reliable transportation. Having things accessible at one point, and interacting with each other, could make a huge difference. ... But I digress.

I'm off to jail later today. One woman and I were talking about "a" and "an"--how the rule that you use "an" with words beginning with a vowel is *mainly* true, but that there are exceptions, like "unique," that depend on the *sound* of what you're saying.

"You wouldn't write 'an unique book,'" I said.

"An-unique," she murmured. "That would make a pretty name."

"Yeah it would!" I said, imagining it. "It sounds like a ballet dancer's name."

Take care all. See you later this weekend.

snow squall
On the way to my father's there was a snow squall. The trees melted away and the lanes of the highway disappeared.



pizza
I am so sorry, but it must be said. Here we have a leaning tower of pizza . . . boxes.



ice
This puddle has the smoothest ice, the best ice. if you run and slide, you can go almost clear across--no friction.



The ice has creatures. . .

( an ameba )

And treasures . . .

( an embedded bottle )

On Christmas Eve, there were messages written in a loose, accomplished hand in the ice. I can't read them, but the Snow Queen's Kay could--he was studying that language, I hear.





Some days later, Little Springtime had a college interview with an alumna of the institution in question who happens to live locally. They met in a coffee shop. The ninja girl and I tagged along. I edited and she doodled, but then I finished my editing, so I doodled too. She doodled a Medusa and remarked that snakes for hair wouldn't necessarily be ugly--just rather alarming. I wondered how other things for hair might be. Birds, for instance, or knives. Later I thought, what about dogs' heads? (or wolves or foxes. canids.) Here are those alternative medusae (with one inexplicable fish head in among the canids in the third second):