Discovery Drafts

We went to the daffodil festival in Meriden, Connecticut, on Saturday.  What a crowd those little flowers drew.  We had to park miles away and take a school bus to Hubbard Park. It was worth it.  the 600,001 daffodils were bright, fragrant, and beautiful.  They are my favorite flower, so it was a real treat to see so many on a clear, bright Saturday. There was even a parade to celebrate the yellow blossoms.  There was a fife-and-drum  band playing patriotic tunes. The cormorants seemed not to be speaking to the gulls, or vice versa, but they sure did pose nicely. These folks take their daffodils seriously.  I'm glad--because the daffs come back every year.  It's a nice neighborhood. Our World Tuesday

Liquid: Melting. Flowing. Running. As the clouds that shroud The sea from the stars in the cold night Melt in the dawn light To become the dew that dampens the sand That claims the mark of my foot That vanishes in the flow of the rising tide, So am I: I run Without a trace Along the edge of dreams I would, but cannot, claim: Everywhere, nowhere, And cool with spent passion, They belong to a dawn That makes use of them. One Single Impression

The camellias were in bloom when we were in Wilmington two weeks ago.  The red, white, pink, and red-and-white variegated blossoms were all kinds of stunning.  They don't smell like much, but they sure are pretty. Today's Flowers

Skywatch Friday

Last week, we took in Airlie Gardens with one of Adella's friends.  It was great to be there when the azaleas and the camellias were in bloom. Then there's the Bottle Chapel.  I tried to see it in a new way since we've been there a few times before. This time around, I saw the faces more than the butterflies in the bottles. The chapel and surrounding sculptures honor the visionary artist Minnie Evans, who was a gatekeeper there for many years. It's a joy-filled place that is new every time. It's a mad world.  Seize your happiness and love it. Our World Tuesday

My daughter, her friend, and I were taking sunset photos of Surf City last night.  When we were done, we headed for the car and noticed these pelicans perched atop a pedestrian walkway through the marshlands behind the park.  They made us smile after a week of one disastrous news story after another.  Wishing you health and safety, good friends and family. Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday

You don't need a road sign to detect the crossing into North Carolina; the pine trees tell you all about it.  They become taller, leaner, neater, and just plain better looking.  The smell of pine and tar and earth are rich.  I love it, and I always wish I could take pictures as I'm zooming along.  (I could stop, but I don't because stopping just screws up the driving mojo and makes a long trip longer....)   This time around, I asked Adella to take some drive-by photos for me to capture what makes Carolina itself unlike any other place.  These photos are from her phone.  She did a great job of snapping-to every time I said, "How about that?" And that, and that, and that.... We pass many fields like this one, where a house from years gone by sits alongside a barn and outbuildings, and there are signs of life but nobody around. If you have any hang-ups about the importance of spelling, this is not the place for you. Neat brick churches

Jackie Robinson was a man of considerable character, and Brooklyn Dodger's GM Branch Rickey was shrewd enough to recognize this when he chose Robinson for the  special project of breaking the race barrier in Major League Baseball almost 50 years ago. Actor Harrison Ford's interpretation of Rickey in 42 , which opened April 12, captures a shrewd businessman, a keen observer of human nature, a Methodist, and a thoroughly decent human being who knew what he was doing and where he was going when he signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946. In the movie, Rickey tells Robinson he made the move for his love of the game as well as to redress an instance of racial abuse he witnessed years earlier but did nothing to correct at the time. Actor Chadwick Boseman does an admirable job of interpreting Robinson as a man of integrity whose self-respect made enduring the insults of  the ignorant--in the form of teammates, team managers, gas station attendants, hotel manage

Skywatch Friday

(Adella's first-ever drawing is in the frame in the upper right, and the frame's shadow seems to be reaching for her most recent high school assignment.  The sun seemed to be playing the part of a Cubist painter last night.) Wordless Wednesday

We made our way to the New Britain Museum of American Art on Saturday to take in an exhibit of Toulouse Lautrec 's art--primarily his commercial work.  (How Lautrec wound up in a museum of American art, I do not  know.)  There was Don Quixote at the end of the driveway to say hello.  He's a little on the gaynt side these days, and he seems to have lost his pants, but he's still charming in his way.  (What for pants when you have all that personality?) The museum used to be housed in the big ol' house in the background of this image.  Since our last visit, the place sure grew, and it's beautiful. The museum offers free admission between 10 and 12 on Saturdays, so we were off to a good start.  We had no problem getting past this security guard, either.  At first we thought he was friendly, but it turns out he was a stuffed shirt. Before we got to the Lautrec exhibit, we encountered this one, which was just plain stunning.  It's made from 20,000 paper an

Every year on this day I post a memorial to my friend Craig Lundwall to remember him and the day he took his life. Every year, I receive lovely comments in which good and kind bloggers offer me their sympathy for the loss of my friend.  I am grateful for all this warmth and kindness.  But it isn’t about me and my loss of a fabulous, kind, warm, generous, loving friend.  It is about my friend. Every year since his passing in 2001, I have failed in my memorial post because it has ultimately been about me, not my friend. I appreciate the sympathy, the kindness.  But it’s about my friend, Craig Allen Lundwall.  So I am going to try to get it right this time.  Please stay with me. Craig was gay.  He came out in the late 80s, when he was in college.  It was big for him to say it out loud, and I was there for that.  But it made no difference to me. I knew.  We had known each other since the 8 th grade, when we were in confirmation class together at the United Methodist

The bouquet I gave my daughter after her first performance in a pit band for a school musical gave up the ghost after two weeks--or so I thought.  After I peeled away the way over-dyed daisy mums, these guys showed themselves in their enduring glory.  I put them in fresh water on the window sill, and after dinner the evening sun lit them up like little yellow rock stars. Today's Flowers

The cold spell this week has put me in mind of winter and of winter vacation, when the cold air in the early morning stiffened my fingers but was not strong enough to keep out the promises of spring that came with the lengthening day.  So much good air to breathe.... Skywatch Friday

During our Easter egg hunt on Saturday, my nephew came across this nutcracker standing guard beside a canoe.  He looked like he had been there a while, and the boat looked pretty safe and sound, so maybe he is a good-luck charm. Wordless Wednesday

We took a walk on Saturday morning to find a good place for a geocache, the search for which was part of our Easter egg hunt.  We were on a well-worn path that could live without these markers, though maybe the tree would feel naked without them after all these years. The one-and-only swan who was iced in during a nap a few weeks ago left evidence of his whereabouts.   Farther down the path, the boys were back in town swimming with their girlfriends.  Peepers provided the music--along with the woodpeckers, robins, red-winged blackbird, blue jays, and crows. The day was alive. Della, her cousins, and her friends got a bit of exercise during their search.  Adam, who found the golden egg with the first geocaching clue, also found the geocache.  The bunny filled it up with some good stuff. And then it was time to color eggs.  An important Easter tradition is eating strangely colored egg salad in  the days after the holiday.  We've got it covered with these