the sea, all water

does it get much better than this? five-alive.



fabulous sunshine, sneezes and all.





life ain't easy for a boy named sue

two new greenes!



berio (the black) and ophelia (the gray) joined our family last saturday afternoon. they've been living in the laundry room because they're scared of us, mostly scared of the ever exuberent jude. when the kids are sleeping i bring them out to scratch. i think i'm experiencing the beginnings of purrs. they sneak through the house and look for places to hide. i spend a series of minutes crawling around looking for them in each crack and crevice.

ernie likes them too. he's more than a good sport about it (good sport -- i really don't like using that phrase, it seems belittling, really. i was once called a good sport by a well-meaning boyfriend and let me tell you, that was the beginning of the end...). actually, it is apparent that he has some affection for them. he was looking at collars for them at hot topic last night. for berio, at least. "if i'm going to have a cat, it's going to be cool."

berio is boy, named for a favored composer of the one i love the most. and ophelia, (named for, well, of course for hamlet's girl) well. we thought she was girl. but i'm thinking maybe i missed a little something something. "so sad to be a boy named ophelia."

my daddy left home when i was three
and he didn't leave much to ma and me
just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
now, i don't blame him cause he run and hid,
but the meanest thing he ever did
was before he left he went and named me sue....

monday night: our students were fantastic! i was totally beaming -- my face was hurting from the beams that were shooting out of the corners of my mouth. there is so much energy with a job well done and everyone was feeling it.

afterwards we had to celebrate so we dreamed, of course. something more serious. the inclusion of fat frenched fries will not be discussed as i tally the nights we've had ice cream (four). the camera was not among us (?) and being serious about a photograph collage of dairy dreams i brought the trash home with me! and took photos atop the dining room table! i did not save ernie's malt container. nor did i save henry's little cup ("my little cup! where is it?" he shouts as the goods are being divvied out...). only the containers pictured below. i love the fry cup. who thought of that? if you know, please comment!





the neighbor girls have at long last gone inside. they screech and giggle at each other all afternoon. they sit in the yard and make sarcastic comments with each other. some nights, late, they scream and giggle more as they make their way to the car. mornings are quiet because they're sleeping late, a summer long slumber party atop a trampoline, dreams of stars and faraway places and someone to blush and butterfly for. i hear their chatter and smile even though their ebullience has woken the baby.

what will i do with my baby-o?

keeping busy: students to perform tonight, mollie and ernie to perform tonight. beginnings and endings, the summer, the school year.

and something fantastic and minty brought to you by a sleep starved husband who loves me the most.

(and if you're not the type to click on each and every hyperlink, i'd encourage you to reconsider and click the minty fantastic above....)

strange to be so professional here and there.

briefly, some extraordinarily cute pouting and slurping at a recent wedding celebration.





two by two

embarrassing? perhaps it should be.

like animals to the ark. . .





take three.


wonder flying machines

a few things brewing in my cauldron of late. surprises and silliness.

we planted zinnias by seed today. we've been trying to do it for weeks. there's too much going on. they're muddy and secret off of the back step tonight but soon they'll be there to greet us, and those who share the drive with us, when we step out and when we drive in. something sunny and pink and pick-able.



ignorantly, i am astonished at how long it takes to do such simple tasks with fingers grabbing and mouths eating and feet stomping and sliding. it's enough to bark at and complain about but we made it without anything of the kind. maybe a little bit from jude who was very put out that we wouldn't let him eat soil or seed.

and then it rained. we came inside and cleaned up. dinner was eaten and the place was cleaned up. the kids were crabby so the book we're reading together was nearly shouted. brushed teeth and pyjamas and then the rain. dark clouds and puffs of wind, nothing spectacular. "oh no, it's raining!" henry said as he went up to bed, as though we were dressing for a long walk or swim.

early this morning in the midst of the first storm henry rolled into a curl next to ernie and hid his face with his hands from the thunder. so much to learn about for one so small and beautiful.

tonight i felt a swell of sea-sickness while helping jude sail off to sleep. the maple outside the window, the pride of the town, the enormous tree that shades the street, the yard, the house, that paints golden glitter through the windows in autumn, the tree of all trees whose bloom came sudden and serious, the tree who was late this spring, late and lonely all bare among the flowers and fronds, this tree that i had been imagined dying from old age, wrinkled and crusty, having men in yellow boots and orange vests in cranes chopping down for us, one hair and arm at a time with a crash to the street, this same tree all leafy and green was swelling itself sea-sick and i had a flash for a split lightning strike second of dizziness. fall over and try to stand up again dizziness.

the fan was blowing in the back bedroom and our windows haven't had the screens swapped out for summer yet so we've been keeping them shut due to a unanimous fear of bats among the captains of this team. and all of these blocked out the sound of those clapping leaves in the tree so they were moving in a silent swell below the black of the storming sky. jude was humming to sleep as he does each night, cozy beside me. i wanted to start off the same direction myself, humming, perhaps, but henry was next on the to-kiss list so i kept myself from being swung dizzy to sleep.



now ice cream man (ice cream man) ring your bell (ding ding)
play your music i've learned to love so well
ice cream man (ice cream man) ring your chimes (ding ding)
in the afternoon so fine.

ice cream man, ding ding

sad, but true. and quite tasty.



in an effort to see just how much the beloved dairy dream profits from my dearest of dears' and mine own addiction to their fabulous ice-cold confection, i'm recording pics of the dream before it's consumed.

take two.

let me count the ways

check out these hands! taking after his mama, in more ways than one -- check out that spaghetti splattered person!





after a late night and a little piece of sleep with many interruptions i awoke and remembered that there was no half and half in the house! pathetic spoiled brat that i am, i called my understanding, caffeinne-addicted mother to try and bum a bit off of her. but she had an extra, providential quart of the stuff that she promptly offered to pass along! and my terrific and sympathetic husband went swinging by in the creeper to pick it up, meeting jude and myself at the curb to pass it off to me, happily announcing that he was saved a trip -- for he was planning on stopping at hy-vee to buy some just for me and bring it home. because, as much as he knows i'd never ask him to go out of his way like that (glass of water in the middle of the night people that we sort of are, but really aren't, notwithstanding) just for the sake of pleasant tasting coffee to kick-start a rough morning, he's the sort of giving person who always has a surprise up his extra-long sleeves. hearts for him. and a coffee induced buzz that's getting things done this morning.

mullet and a popsicle

my study seems green. our world is ablaze with the stuff of summer. reasonably, it is ever-so-satisfying to work outside. pretty purple flowering vines are planted beneath the aforementioned euginias.



the bird bath emerges from her garage hybernation and finds a new place outside the study window. henry fills her with water. i brush away spiders and set the thing straight. and it's time to wait for birds. brave birds who will come after we go inside. after henry sets sail across the bath a leaf, a stick, the hurricane of his fingers and fists splashing the tree, the mama, the bare feet, the mossy earth.




we are lovers of work in this house. certainly, we celebrate a certain amount of laziness, the sunday nap, televised basketball, slow mornings, early bedtimes on rare occasions when the itch to create is not as strong as the burn to sleep. but there's always something brewing, something hummable, something delicious, something shining and readable, illegible and messy at one end, trim and zippy at the other. lately my thoughts turn to green somethings. black dirt and the twist of roots rising up into branch or vine, frond or flower.

ernie cuts the grass and cleans the garage. the boys and i buy spidery spindling ferns for an old green pot, for an owl, for some promised green-giving rain.



we've some sort of lilac blooming in the back. four of them across the west windowed wall. we fling open the door to the sunporch and the one to the patio and the smell of lilacs soars through, up the stairs, into the kitchen, in a swirl through the dining room, living room, out the front door. "drink it in!" ernie says and we laugh because the lilacs make us laugh. elixir of lilac.

"please stop, Ratty," pleaded the poor Mole in anguish of heart. "you don't understand, it's my home, my old home. i've just come across the smell of it!"

did we move here for a summer of dairy dreams? possibly. for a buck ninety we can buy this:



and top it with this:



and serve it up like this:



so silly.

did the thought occur when we contemplated moving to this midwestern place of corn and bean, that a whole summer of saturdays could be spent sipping coffee and navigating by newspaper from garage to yard to driveway, cash in hand and pocket, to sail the seas of trash and treasure? perhaps it did. i cannot remember.

it's "big trash pick-up" week in this burg. anyone and to the curb everyone drags their old appliances, scraps of metal, couch and chair, lampshade, mattress, junk in every shape and size. unimaginably and often horribly there are trucks with trailers perusing the trash, their drivers, wearing thin white (gray?) t-shirts and greasy jean cut-offs, are reckless and glassy eyed, blinded by the piles of trash at the curb, stopping without warning, the occupants jumping out to hurl the pieces of trash onto or into the vehicle, jumping in, cruising onward, oftentimes late into the night, flashlight in one hand, sifting through trash with the other.

yesterday our busy road was host to a man driving such a truck with trailer, who was loaded with moth and dust corrupted trash. a cumbersome bleached blonde woman with an aged face, the center of which seemed to be her cigaretted mouth with wrinkles in concentric circles deep and wide and tan, conducted traffic while digging through a box of cardboard-looking debris.

admittedly, i, too, scan the city streets for something of a treasure as my husband speeds on. he drives faster during big-trash week. i gasp and point and crane my neck and he drives on. i cannot help myself -- the idea that something valuable could be sitting amongst the trash at the side of the road, something that could be had for free, something that for years to come i could rave about my good fortune having found it, is too much to bear. i have to look. sadly, however, i've never found anything of note, although my mother boasts her own tale.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did . . .

ongoing wonder

i'm hot and tired today. i feel like i'm a total crab. i want to run screaming into the street. i have zero patience for anything. ugh. desparately, i need chocolate.

my brother came and played crazy with the boys so that i could regroup after the last few weeks of foofaraw. all of the mess was grating on me. and now the place shines and the floors are so clean they're slippery. there's something to be said for those who help mamas with little ones. something wonderful and sweet and chocolatey. something soft-serve and white and cold. that kind of sugary thanks for unsinkable joe.



here's a little dusty, yet feathery, pile of things to think about:

eugenia topiaries and the craving for more: we've two in the pots greeting you and yours as you walk up the front steps. they're tall and fabulous and may sport white flowers sometime this summer. how much money is too much money when it comes to the purchase of plant-life? i could easily go overboard here as the end result is enormously satisfying.

races and contests and winning the thing: congratulations to uchenna and joyce for winning the amazing race! i myself (and of course my one and only) were rooting for rob and amber to win the thing. had the pilot not stopped the plane for the enthusiastic uchenna and the newly shorn joyce, rob and amber would have won the thing to the chagrin of every other contestant. it was an exciting and screaming conclusion to the show. sadly, survivor ends this weekend, too! horrible! i'm hoping for ian to win the thing partly because he's my MVP in a silly pseudo survivor i'm playing with some friends and i'll get beaucoup points if he wins. but mostly because he's the best person left. alas, it will probably be caryn because often it's that kind of person who wins, the quiet and boring person on the side who is standing on the beach thinking, "der, where am i?"

wives and submission and domestic bliss: interesting bits and pieces of conversations on the subject have been floating around me lately. there's so much in the air that i'm annoyed by it. maybe it's just because i'm annoyed in general lately. sneezingly annoyed. congested and stifled. is it just us? in our house i am not the squaw who shuffles about in the teepee, subservient, the sole doer of housework, the sole changer of poop and wiper of snot. my role as help-meet includes the use of my brain and opinion. is it not more "helpful" to my husband that i think and read and vocalize my thoughts to him, whether we're in agreement or not? does "iron sharpening iron" apply within a marriage? perhaps we get along in this way because my husband is not intimidated by women with intellect and spunk and sparkle?

brandishing new swords: ernie came home with new Bibles each, something we've been talking about doing but had not done yet. nothing quite as nice as a fresh Bible with fresh pages to turn. of particular interest is that we will now be devoting from the english standard version for a time. something new.





stormy nights and soggy sleep: the boys sleep soundly at last. henry's hair is curlier than it has been for a long time. the heat and hurry, the humidity sends it circling around his head. jude is long and lazy on the couch. at long last this day is quiet. the rain is steady. the street is busy tonight, as usual, only it sounds busier as the tires of the cars splash across the wet pavement, plundering the uneven places of pool and puddle.

with hey, ho, the wind and the rain

mud everywhere! let mud kill you.

it's a day for digging. i hope to buy plants today, something green and delicate, something fascinating for the front of my house, a greeting in green, something of a spike, a twisting vine, something pinkly orange and glowing. henry has new garden tools, compliments of a doting gift-giving grammy. we've seed packets in a bag hanging from a hook on the wall down the stairs, new potting soil in a bag in the garage. pots to fill and muddy beds to plow by hand and by finger and mostly likely by toe.

we drove home through blue and white, sky and cloud to find our house, locked tight and exceedingly messy. the kitchen table boasted a sad series of forgotten cereal bowls, the makings of yogurt or a terrible cheese from friday morning's cereal milk in the bottoms of the bowls, lending a stink to the kitchen.

there you have it, a little secret no one had to know about and here i post it for all the world to see, anonymous surfers who, perhaps, don't matter at all, family who don't care at all, and friends who had no idea at all. my darling husband continued the mother's day celebration by washing the frightful bowls as i opened door and window and flicked on fans, the boys creeping and jumping through the house exploratory frenzy style.



rise up, the children of this house, all in your rich attire
for the summer springs so fresh, green and gay;
and every hair upon your heads shines like the silver wire:
drawing near unto the merry month of may.

no wonder you rise in the middle of the night

just when life and work is back to it's breezy, shining self, we're off again. this time to find family and do family things together. it's not even summer. but i don't believe we'll be traveling at all come summer we we might as well get it out of our systems now. and it's been a very long time. this morning over cereal i quiz henry on the names of his uncles and cousins, pointing at their smiling faces, the photos pulled from the fridge and placed on the table. we discuss playing gently and using kind words when we go to play with other children. he is excited and says, "no hitting!"



inspired by the dark and mysterious quincy, i leave you the first of a few in a series shouting out "if i could be...."

if i could be a chef i would have a cabinet painted turquoise full of exceedingly sharp knives. first i would take a knife handling course, of course, of course, possibly even a grad-level cutlery class, so that i would not slice off a precious finger or two. i know all about cutting ones hands, and it's not pretty, nor is it pleasant, nor is it something i hope to ever experience again, either self or vicariously. nothing overly glamorous about tendon and nerve therapy, although the experience was emotionally cathartic and matured me in many ways, thanks to the smiling shellye and the handsome dr. millon. and i have the most fabulous curling scar across my wrist and down my arm. and one little one on the palm of my hand. tarenne wanted pictures of it once. i don't remember if she took any. she had a book of scar photographs and i felt like i was the proud owner of something secret and special (instead of a wayward freakshow) when she wanted pictures of it.

as an english-accented chef with a multitude of mezzaluna knives and large, shining butcher knives, (and a box of spiderman bandaids) i would also have an unending supply of ripe avocadoes. a woman in a red truck wearing a golden jumpsuit would back into my drive and deliver a crate of them daily and i would in turn hand her a crusty loaf of bread and some sort of aging cheese from the larder.

there would also be a prolific garden with a variety of helpful, tanned and smiling gardeners wearing white all day long, who, when not sent into the garden to fetch cilantro or fennel or large red bell peppers would lounge lemonade-worthy in an assortment of hammocks hanging at various intervals and heights in the surrounding trees. white hammocks, white shoes, white everywhere so that i could find them in the midst of the green.

my children would wear aprons and learn the proper way to slice a tomato, techniques for roasting garlic, the concocting of a sensational new green goddess salad dressing, all at an early age. they would run barefoot through the house, the yard, eating strawberries and waving homemade swords at the gardeners.

my husband would come home to dinners served on green or yellow plates and an italian speaking boy (eighteen years of age, of course) with long black hair and green alligator boots will be doing the dishes while we four eat our dinner and taste tempting desserts out under the starry tree. the boy will bring us coffee and while we drink it, slow and creamy, and henry spins circles, and jude drifts off to sleep, the boy will play an accordion or perhaps a piccolo, something simple and sweet to finish the working day and send us soaring into the black of night.

if i were a chef....

and the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night

we've two gray pigeons fluffing themselves into feathery balls while sitting in the sunshine on the driveway. most of our world here is green.

i cannot seem to push myself out of vacation mode. it's horrible. the kitchen is a serious disaster. i am hungry but hunger is not worth facing the mess of the kitchen in order to find food. ernie shrugs it off and doesn't even care that i seem to have lost all interest in cleaning the house. he steps over smooshed strawberries and crusts of toast and is not bothered in the least by it.

sigh. it's tuesday and these things must be faced and dealt with. i don't know how much longer i can shrug the thing off. somehow the morning's sunshine make the cleaning of the kitchen more realistic and possibly even enjoyable. gray days are hard to clean up.

to make matters worse i have had the most outragous time making coffee (of all things!) this morning. two times (twice!) the perking coffee clogged in the machine and overflowed all over the already incredibly messy countertop. i gave up and made espresso, carefully measuring and assembling the thing to perfection. but even that bubbled and spattered all over the burner. what's going on here?



a few new things to look at, to smell, to smile:

late into the night i sat up with the one i love the most who transformed this blog into this delicious skyline blue daily delight. the man will do anything for me. "admit you're a lucky dog." "i'm a lucky dog."

at long last i was able to watch lemony snicket's "a series of unfortunate events." the books are witty and wonderful so i was a bit skeptical of the choice of jim carrey but he was marvelous and creepy, a total jerk and a wonderful surprise. the movie is a must see, and possibly a must own. it's dark and light and reminds me of a stage production more than a film. and the music -- wow! it's creepy and fanciful and completely delightful.

perhaps your part of the world is not blooming with lilacs as early as ours is, but if you've got any nearby, i suggest you take a walk and find something blooming and bury your face in the efflorescence of it.

and, finally, some photos by henry, and one of the photographer, himself.







"youth full of grace, force, fascination..."

now only do i know you,
o fair auroral skies -- o morning dew upon the grass!

and these i see, these sparkling eyes, these stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
on the soul's voyage.....

ah more, infinitely more....





the house is cold again. the trees sport new clothes for spring and parade them outside my windows with wind and zest and zephyr. with a creak and a sigh the afternoon presses on.

the men of the house sleep long and hard. the neighbor's dog barks long and low. sunday pulls and pushes our dragging legs and limbs over into the work week. new espresso perks brown and bubbly on the stove. the floor is a map of blocks and scarves and miniature african safari animals.

suitcases and bags, pillows and shoes, an explosion is brewing from a week-long free-for-all in and out of water, a day of shark and dolphin, late nights, late mornings, no laundry, no routine, resting, sleeping, reading, playing, watching, horribly large breakfasts, snacks, coke, gum, the beginnings of colds with thick green snot and deep, garbling coughs, new friends with food and friends again and new food, driving with napping boys in the gray of friday, home with long grass and the beginnings of a newly painted neighboring house, forgotten toys and forgotten work and forgotten internet.

"home is where one starts from," and, so, here we are again.