eggnot

i looked UP, but the branches of the oak were so distant and relatively bare, i couldn't imagine a bird's nest perching on any of them.  but the bright yellow yolk was now splattered on our driveway, having fallen with some speed and hit with enough force that the yolk debris went outward for at least eighteen inches - little flecks of yellow flung from the center of impact.  the blue egg, shredded and crumpled, part of it missing.  likely a robin's egg.  we have an abundance of that bird, a super-sized american version of the lovely european robin.  though, it could be the egg of a bluebird pair i've seen swooping from tree to tree this spring.  there is a bluebird's nest in a garden where i work, inside a nesting box.  four blue eggs which have now produced four plum-colored, blind babies. 

fairy godmother

being a fanciful sort of child,

that is, perhaps, how she always seemed to me.

with her halo of blonde curls,

aquamarine eyes,

and flight attendant* gracefulness.

all she needs is a pair of wings

between her shoulders.

 

my godmother, Jo,

who has, perhaps,

known my mother the longest

of all her friends -

since junior high in springfield, ohio.

 she is a nurse*, by trade,

and lives where she can look out

at the Hudson River

in the state of my birth,

driving into the City for her work

each day.

*she was the requisite flying nurse during her airline career,

so both are true.

i have a willowy, blonde friend, too.

whose friendship i can count back to age eleven. 

& i am hopeful

that my friend and i

will also be holding friendship close

in our eighth decade. 

because the people in our lives

are the best gift. 

mermonster & an octopus flute

~ a beautiful spring day for an art show ~

the Keep It Local Art & Pottery Show!

a semi-annual event, which i have been wanting to get to for awhile,

held by Leanne Pizio on her property in Oak Ridge.

 i already have several pieces of pottery by Leanne,

one of which is a black-and-white carved plate

featuring chickens much like these.

i discovered some fantastically frightful dolls today!

made by Kim McEntee

the unassuming creator (in hat, not bows)

a frightful trio

 a blue-haired mermonster is now mine.

beware the blue eye

right at home

i was quite captivated by this art,

by Dot Blue (aka Janet Schaefer)

 so i brought home Blue Suede Shoes

in Leanne's studio....

her Alice in Wonderland work.

& Leanne, outside, with Princess Inca

 the llama

final stop was at Jack Wolf's (aka John Carvino Malpass)

demonic tableau

sunstruck, mayhaps

jack-in-the-box

& i brought home my octopus flute cup!

three cups by Jack, the mud-slinging pyro-philiac

shoe stories

it occurs to me that i've always loved shoes.  i am fairly matter-of-fact when it comes to my clothing - but shoes?  i can practically wax poetic when i find a pair i like.  which is interesting.  because i have a foot issue. or, rather, i have a slime issue.  i cannot stand to encounter surprising, slimy, or wiggly anything with wet bare feet.  it sends me over the edge of rational thought.  i like to believe i have matured out of this - but i think, more likely, i just know now how to avoid putting my feet in these vulnerable situations.

i was born with pigeon toes.  true.  technically (and according to my mother),  i had tibial torsion.  my physical therapist friends probably call it in-toeing.  in any case, from a very early point (pre-walking, for sure), i wore special shoes with a metal bar between them every night, holding my tibias (as it were) in a preferred, more neutral position.  my mother attributes this nightly hefting of a metal bar to my early walking (at ten months), with the added encouragement of being put in pretty dresses which caused me to bear crawl to avoid stepping on the hems.  who wouldn't want to move on quickly to walking upright?

as a ten-year old i was so determined (read: desperate) to possess high-heeled shoes that i made myself a pair out of corrugated cardboard.  my recollection is that they held up well as long as i, essentially, walked on my toes.  in seventh-grade, wooden Swedish clogs were the must-have foot apparel.  if you've ever tried to walk in these, you will wonder how we all endured them for two years of middle school.  and what a racket in the halls!  i recall embracing quiet, little black Chinese slippers late in high school.  and, then, there were my purple Birkenstock sandals and gray Birkenstock felt clogs from my college days.

i have three stories about my feet's encounters with wet, slimy things.  when i was about nine, we visited my maternal grandmother on Long Island, and my mother, brother, and i thought a quick swim in the sound at the edge of her property might be just the thing on a hot summer day.  slime! algae! sludge!  i was beside myself in a panic to get out of that water as quickly as possible.  the neighbor's golden retriever, sensing my incredible state of agitation, even hurled himself at me in a valiant rescue attempt.  one way or another, i exited the water.  likely my mother played a much larger role than the dog in making this happen.

when i was in my early teenage years, we were often at the beach.  i recall one time my parents thought it would be interesting to explore the banks of the sound where others frequently looked for clams.  i'm sure they had no idea we would be sinking up to our knees in thick, slimy mud.  encountering little creatures with each muddy, slimy descent of our feet.  i have rarely concentrated so hard in my life.  because there's no way out other than to get through the mud.  i invoked any incantation i could that would keep me moving relentlessly forward without losing my mind.

the last surprising encounter my feet had with slime was towards the end of high school, on another beach adventure with my family.  we thought to cross a very low tidal area, which seemed safe enough what with all the very visible sand, shells, etc.  there were those nice sandy ridges made by the tide, clearly visible through the shallow water and clearly felt by my feet.  until one of them moved - something (a flounder?) slipping quickly out from under my foot - leading me to, basically, squeal my way across the rest of the tidal pool.  because, just like the mud, that was the only way out.

so, maybe, that's why i like shoes.  they are my saviors.  my protectors.

my slime repellers.

here are some of my favorites right now.

i've had these blue shoes for at least ten years.  i even had them re-soled recently.  when i saw them, in the back room of The Shoe Market, i just couldn't rationalize buying them.  i mean, when was i going to wear blue shoes?  but i couldn't stop thinking about them, so i went back and bought them a few days later.  they are, i believe, my favorite pair of shoes.

these are completely impractical shoes.  and i am not used to being tall, so wearing them is a bit surreal.  i bought them partly because of the speckled wood at the front toe, partly because of the orange starburst near the buckle, and mainly because they are green.

these are great shoes, but i get a blister on each of my little toes if i walk too far in them.  i found that out when i wore them to an interview at UNC (for a post-graduate grant, which i ended up securing).  i parked (of course) some distance from the interview location and ended up having to take off the shoes and walk barefoot most of the way (see, i don't have a problem with bare feet - as long as they are not in water).

the only reason i own these shoes is because of Halloween. how women walk on their toes all day, i cannot fathom.  if only i had a video to show me learning how to walk in high heels, all dressed up as a weather girl for our school's fall festival.  everyone at work found it quite hilarious.  i got the hang of it after about an hour - and have never been so glad to remove shoes in my life!

likely the reason my coworkers were so amused by my high-heeled antics is that this is the kind of shoe i typically wear to work.  well, these particular shoes are pretty much retired from making public appearances, but you get the idea.  these are not the oldest shoes in my closet, but they are certainly the most broken-in.  they are what i wear if i know it's going to be a really rainy day & i'm going to be getting in and out of my car frequently.  poor, beaten-up, soggy leather shoes.

much belatedly, i own a pair of Doc Martens.  they were quite the thing when i was in college, but i finally found a pair of my own about ten years ago.  i was, actually, looking for a used pair of dress shoes for one of the boys (not part of their usual wardrobe but needed for some now-forgotten special event) and, there on the rack of the goodwill store, sat this unassuming pair of boots.  the big gash on the toe of the right boot is very recent, taking the brunt of an opening wheelchair lift when i was helping unload buses at my school one morning.  i was sad it took a chunk out of my shoe but very okay that it was the shoe and not my toes.

likely the oldest pair of shoes in my closet.  they are sandals sent to me from Ghana.  when i was in high school, i had two penpals, garnered from the back of an international magazine of some sort where penpals could advertise their desire to correspond with you.  out of all the ones i wrote to, two wrote back - a young man in Ghana and a young man in Syria.  fairly quickly, the one from Ghana sent me these leather sandals and a little leather purse.  then asked if i could help secure him a green card.  i demurred, and he hit the road for Libya, never to be heard from again.  i corresponded with the young man in Syria for at least seven years.  he lived in Damascus, and i have recently been thinking of him often.  wondering what his fate was in his country.

 i got these sandals re-soled recently, too.

pinkishness

before i get to the pink of it, here's a refreshing blast of orange.

two new poppies popped this morning!

here's how they did it.

 

now, maybe, you can survive the pink that follows.

too pink

much too pink & too much pink

i can handle this.  more of a salmon color.

much more restful to my eyes.

close to orange, so i approve.

could be too pink - but all the green makes it okay.

the last camellia to bloom is in the far back corner of the yard.

the flowers are heavy, layered, and blood red.

not pink.

they resemble roses, don't they?

under the dogwood 

which, if you follow the link, does so remind me of a scene

from my favorite movie.  it is, as follows:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Chapter two," said Cecil, yawning. "Find me chapter two, if it isn't bothering you."

Chapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences.

She thought she had gone mad.

"Here--hand me the book."

She heard her voice saying: "It isn't worth reading--it's too silly to read--I never saw such rubbish--it oughtn't to be allowed to be printed."

He took the book from her.

"'Leonora,'" he read, "'sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich champaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The season was spring.'"

Miss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose, for Cecil to read and for George to hear.

"'A golden haze,'" he read. He read: "'Afar off the towers of Florence, while the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All unobserved Antonio stole up behind her--'"

Lest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face.

He read: "'There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as formal lovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the lack of it. He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.'"

"This isn't the passage I wanted," he informed them. "there is another much funnier, further on." He turned over the leaves.

"Should we go in to tea?" said Lucy, whose voice remained steady.

She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery it came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had been forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.

from Chapter XV: A Disaster Within in A Room With A View by E.M.Forster (1908)