Asakiyume mita

The parking lot at the supermarket was thick with road salt, as if they're expecting a storm, but I don't think there's a storm coming.

It's not much to look at in this photo, but: all the white spots are salt crystals.



It was so beautiful up close, like gemstones:



You might gather them up and count yourself rich, only to have the dissolve if--well, if what? If you kept them in a velvet-lined box you'd probably never be the wiser. But if you tried to set them in silver or gold to wear at your neck or wrists, you'd be in for a sad surprise.

Last week was the tall one's birthday. Between pizza and cake, I sent him and his girlfriend on a quest. Find me a feather, I said. They searched the woods, but reported there were no feathers to be found. They brought me these beauties instead:



But then the other day I was walking, after the rain had thinned the snow somewhat, and behold, feathers everywhere. They were hiding just below the surface of the snow, maybe, waiting to be revealed? Or was there a scuffle after the rain fell?

On my walk this morning I was thinking how on a walk some days ago, I'd found a robin eggshell. I looked down and found a cardinal eggshell. Further along on the walk I found a luna moth wing: it was a morning for sweet finds.



In the evening, as the sun was setting and streetlamps were lighting up, a cardinal came and perched on one. From newly hatched to adult in one day.

Later in the evening, when it was quite dark, I went to pick some cilantro, and the first firefly of the season was in the cilantro patch, lighting up the underside of the cilantro leaves--and he paid my hand a visit, too.

Earlier in the day, some kids were playing soccer on the common, and one of them was wearing a Brazilian flag as a cloak. I had only my cell phone to take a picture with, but:


Viva Brasil!

I guess we know who he's rooting for in the World Cup!

I am writing a little something with bridges in it, and almost every day I walk along a bridge, and as I walk, I think about bridge folktales--mainly bridge battles: the three billy goats and the troll, Robin Hood and Little John, Benke and Yoshitsune. Can you think of any more bridge battles in folktales or legend?


Benke meets Yoshitsune on Gojô Bridge, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Source)