Asakiyume mita

Goodness, I didn't post at all last week ...

Well, today I bring you three things. Let's lead with puppies...

( puppies )

( motorcycle jackets )

Popcorn Jasmine

I have a jasmine plant which gets to live outside during warm months. It gives me great joy to go admire its flowers and breathe in their scent... and sometimes pick them for tea. I have the shape of their petals memorized.

This past Saturday, we stopped at a highway rest stop on our way home from visiting my dad, and in the parking lot by one car there were all these jasmine flowers scattered. I started imagining how it must be because the car was carrying a newly married couple and their families were scattering jasmine flowers at their feed ... at every rest stop ... (?)

There was a sparrow picking at the jasmine blossoms--a jasmine-eating sparrow!

I came closer and then realized the truth: what I'd taken for jasmine flowers was actually popcorn.

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.

I know the people at the post office; I'm there a lot. Back when Little Springtime first was in Japan (she's back there again--let's have no earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disasters this time, please, Seafather and Lady) I found out that one of the women who works there has a daughter who lives in Japan. That woman--Tasi--is Samoan.

The other day when I was there, I had Timor-Leste on the mind, and seeing Tasi reminded me that in Tetun, tasi means sea--so I told her so. She smiled, and said, "and in my language it means 'noble.' Aliitasi, 'noble one.'"

So Tasi is just a nickname. Aliitasi is the complete name. It sounded so beautiful when she said it--here, I found it online: Aliitasi.

"'Noble one.' So every time someone says your name, they're respecting you," I said.

"Suuure they are," she said, skeptically.

But I think, yes. Even though they don't know it, even if they're acting disrespectful. Noble One. Even here and now, names have power.