Asakiyume mita

(With this job I'm likely to be mainly a Friday-Saturday-Sunday poster, but I'll try to be reading and commenting on people's blogs on other days.)

The crow and the dove
This morning was *warm* and although the hills are still waiting to spring alive again, there are hints of life all around--pussy willows, birdsong. On a morning run saw a magnificent crow up so close, close enough to admire his bill and exchange glances and hear the wind whistling in his wings as he flew off.

Later I heard a distant radio--but it wasn't so distant: it was on the other side of the road, and there was a woman sitting there on her stoop in her bathrobe, enjoying the sun slowly climbing above the trees on the hill across the road. I waved and she smiled and waved. Something like that is as good as sharing a whole meal with someone.

Then a little further on in the run a mourning dove flew up into a tree and the sun shone through its white tail feathers, glowing ... After the flood the dove and the crow became neighbors and told their kids stories about Noah's crazy habits.

music
And music. I have been listening to lots of cumbia and now want to learn to dance it, couples-style. Past me is looking at present me in frank amazement. There there, past self. It's all good. But what I'm sharing here are two songs that are not only nice to listen too but also have cool videos. The first I discovered through Afropop Worldwide: "Tenemos Voz"--very cool animation and a great song.

And "Zapata se Queda" is spectacular in a different way.

Gender of the Day
There's Twitter bot called @genderofthdday that comes up with different amusing combos each day. "The gender of the day is the smell of stale beer and the sound of a dial-up modem"; "The gender of the day is a dragon with a lute." (Actually, I'm realizing as I trawl the back pages that it gives several per day.)

A couple of days ago it gave "The gender of the day is a tired basilisk on a pegasus," and I thought that one needed an illustration, so:

Out my kitchen window (... if not elsewhere in the world), the day is made of soft and shining.





What adjectives is your now made of?

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.)

My friend dudeshoes was asking if the color of spring is pink or purple (here is her sampling of purple).

I think maybe yellow needs to be a contender?

mustard, celandine, dandelions


We had dandelion greens for dinner the other night, fresh picked. They were bitter, but it was a good bitter.

ETA: Yellow, day two. Don't let anyone tell you that dandelions don't last if you pick them. They close up at night but reopen in the morning. Also, I picked more dandelions greens.



I want to share about books I've read recently, but it'll have to wait . . .

I was driving to the high school yesterday, and anytime I passed a wet, low-lying area, the cheerful sound of spring peepers rose from it. Not only water, but also frog song, collects there. It was as if the scene were a giant coloring book, and someone had colored in the sounds, filling in the low spots with peepers. So then I got to thinking about how else the scene was colored, aurally. The roads are colored with the sounds of engines. If the picture is colored in the early morning, the roads are dark with that sound--people heading to work. At midday, there's only the hint of car sound--much paler. In the woods, the upper trees are colored with the calls of flickers, chickadees, and cardinals. The meadow is colored in with the sounds red-winged blackbirds and kildeer.

Have a picture of a wet, low-lying area.