My Godparents - Tom and Ulla...

Great Music & Videos

Diving to be Deeper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGrPOO5YD4&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Don't I Know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8D8LMQOKCs&NR=1&feature=endscreen

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT - LIFE OF A SHRIMP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K8ou0iA_68


KOOKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBQbkbnj780http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBQbkbnj780"

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^^

Me Today

Remembering Esther

Esther, aka Pink Nose, aka Esty Bobesty was a timid sweet cat - who spent 17 years with me here on Brookside. She warmed up to me after a mere 13 years and even allowed me to brush her daily when she could no longer do so for herself. She was admired for her brilliant green eyes and beautiful calico markings. Her best friend was a buddhist tabby named Thelma. (They spent many hours pondering the mental status of their owner and trying to redirect her misguided wanderings.) Being a timid creature, Esther's heart was weak and her kidneys even weaker. I had to put her down last week. I buried her under one of my found object sculptures in the back yard next to Chester and Emi. I keep looking for her in the room where she slept but she is somewhere flying free - unscathed by loud noises, or the leaves rustling in the night.

My Cousin Sally McGee and Me

Love this stuff...

http://www.burrowburrow.com/robots.html

!!

My Favorite Things

kaboom and making of kaboom - PES

http://www.eatpes.com/kaboom.html

http://www.eatpes.com/makingofkaboom.html

http://www.eatpes.com/western_spaghetti.html

http://www.eatpes.com/fireworks.html

Good Distractions

Marilynne Robinson - Paris Review

INTERVIEWER Were you told that it would compromise your creative energies to teach creative writing?

ROBINSON Yes, of course. But everything compromises your creative energies. Years ago I accepted a grant from the American Academy that was supposed to support me for five years without teaching. I lasted about a year and a half before I nearly went crazy. Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it’s also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you’re trying to work on something and it’s not going anywhere, you can go to school and there’s a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which you can accomplish something.

Gretchen (Johnson) Bonini

Missing Nova

Self-knowledge

by C. K. Williams

Because he was always the good-hearted one, the ingenuous one, the one who knew no cunning,
who, if "innocent" didn't quite apply, still merited some similar connotation of naïveté, simplicity,
the sense that an essential awareness of the coarseness of other people's motives was lacking
so that he was constantly blundering upon situations in which he would take on good faith
what the other rapaciously, ruthlessly, duplicitously and nearly always
successfully offered as truth. . .
All of that he understood about himself but he was also aware that he
couldn't alter at all
his basic affable faith in the benevolence of everyone's intentions and that because of this the world
would not as in romance annihilate him but would toy unmercifully with him until he was mad.

Melanie and Babyna

great song - great lyrics..

Get Lynn Miles - Unravel

I've been livin' out here by the hydro towers
Tryin' to feel my feet and regain my powers
Livin' on the flight path, tryin' to feel the ground
Tryin' to break the chains that hold me to this town

I've been watchin' the crows, sittin' on the wires
Listenin' to the muscle cars burnin' their tires
I thought I'd stick around for a month or so
Well I've been here for seven and this is what I know

You can read a lot of books, it don't make you smart
Kiss a lot of fools, don't mean you got a heart
Walk a million miles, don't mean that you traveled
You can make a perfect plan, and see it all unravel

Well you know who your friends are when you go through trouble
They're the ones who come around and pull you from the rubble
The phone don't ring as many times a day
But when it does, they have somethin' good to say

I watch the new mothers push their strollers on my street
They're scared and they're happy and they're sad and they're sweet
I watched two seasons come and go
And this is what I know

You can read a lot of books, it don't make you smart
Kiss a lot of fools, don't mean you got a heart
Walk a million miles, don't mean that you traveled
You can make a perfect plan, and see it all unravel

Now I'm sittin' in the window and I'm watchin' it rain
Thunder and lightenin', love and shame
It took me four long years to crawl down to this place
It'll take four to get back and it ain't no race

Now there's cats on the sidwalk, dogs under trees
And the wheels on the pavement buzz like honey bees
The laundry's wet and the wind is gonna blow
And I don't care 'cause this is what I know

You can read a lot of books, it don't make you smart
Kiss a lot of fools, don't mean you got a heart
Walk a million miles, don't mean that you traveled
You can make a perfect plan, and see it all unravel

A Man Named Pearl

http://www.amannamedpearl.com/

Whatever It Takes

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Savage clearly wants Nadal to win...

The Savage Beast

Bury Me in Guido Gobino Chocolates

CREMINI AL SALE to be exact...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Refined gianduja paste with integral sea salt grains and Extra-Virgin Olive Oil. These chocolates are indescribable. You must try them. Unfortunately, my favorite, the cremini al sale is not available on-line, only at their location in Turin. Order other varieties through mail at gourmet chocolate importers such as:
http://www.worldwidechocolate.com/shop_guidogobino.html

To Romona - Sinead Lohan

Mom in Madison 1958

Mom - (the great mushroom hunter) would have loved this talk.
---------

The Vanishing Bees

Watch the trailer...

http://www.vanishingbees.com/

Beautiful music by Erika Luckett - Listen!

http://www.erikaluckett.com/music/

Bill Moyers - Naomi Shihab Nye

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/watch3.html

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

1971

What We Want

What We Want

by Linda Pastan

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

Eres Tu - Touch the Wind

>Touch the Wind
Like a promise, you are, you are
Like a summer morning
Like a smile, you are, you are
Like that, like that, you are

All my hope, you are, you are
Like fresh rain in my hands
Like a strong breeze, you are, you are
Like that, like that, you are

[Chorus:]
You are like the water of my source
(Something like that, you are)
You are like the fire of my home
You are like the fire of my bonfire
You are like the wheat of my bread
You are

Like a poem, you are, you are
Like a guitar in the night
My whole horizon, you are, you are
Like that, like that, you are

-Juan Carlos Calderon

Grammy Elisa (Felici) Roma

Elisa Felici

Shots of J-GURLS Writers (2002, 2009)

Leslie, Robyn and me

some great videos from pangea day

http://www.pangeaday.org/filmDetail.php?id=10
http://www.pangeaday.org/filmDetail.php?id=73

http://www.pangeaday.org/filmDetail.php?id=7

String Theory - Brian Greene - We are energy.

My hero - a model of resilience

me surrounded by sculptures...

http://www.devotchka.net/
great tunes to look at found object art by!

Buy local. Check out who's buying organic!!!

Scroll through these pages to see who has purchased your favorite "organic" company.
http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehowardp/organicindustry.html

life's too short not to love everybody....

Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern
http://www.last.fm/music/Todd+Snider/_/Ballad+of+the+Devil's+Backbone+Tavern


She said "Life ain't easy getting through
everybody's gonna make things tough on you
But I can tell you right now if you dig what you do,
they will never get you down"

She said life's too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
Life's too short not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate
I meet a lot of men who haggle and finagle all the time
Trying to save a nickel or make a dime
Not me, no sireee, I ain't got the time

My back yard in spring...

I am addicted to the TED conference videos

Eckhart Tolle interview -

http://www.oprah.com/spiritself/oss/ss_oss_archive.jhtml

Me & My Arrow - The Point

Me & Moogie

Nellie McKay - The Dog Song... (Maggie loves this song)

The Lilacs are coming - The Lilacs are coming!

a friend is a friend is a friend to the end and it's oh so simple (The Cat Empire...not Gertrude Stein)

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Cat+Empire/_/Protons%2C+Neutrons%2C+Electrons

Protons, Neutrons, Electrons by The Cat Empire

I’'ve done too much of some things
And not enough of others
Just like all life lovers
I’'ve changed and changed
and changed and changed
From one thing to another
I’'ve had complicated dealings
With complicated feelings
And I’'ve cut and bruised and torn
I made blinds on the windows of my mind
with the time that my back once wore
I’'m a single person in this universe
And I am here to say to you:
On the day that I die I’'ll just give a smile
And fly into the blue

CHORUS
(Cause we’re all just)
Protons, Neutrons, Electrons
That rest on a Sunday
Work on a Monday and someday soon
We’ll be singing the old tunes
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-doo
I'’ll be sitting on the porch with you
Then I’'ll die and I'’ll fly off into the blue

Some night I see the world with its winds and its whirls
And I feel undefeated
But every day I see the girl with the strawberry curl
And I’'m too shy to meet her
Some nights I go to bed
There’s a ghost in the air above my head
And I tremble
Sometimes I eat KFC
Other times I give up meat
And I just eat lentils
I’'m a single person in the universe
And I am here to sing a song
About the day that I was born
Till the day that I'’ll be gone
And the song won'’t last for long
(Cause we’re all just…)

CHORUS

And enemy is a remedy to a malady in your melody
If you’'re strong not brittle
And a friend is a friend
Is a friend to the end and it’'s oh so simple
A man is a man and a woman is a woman
But the times we are living in demand
That a man can change from a man to a woman
And a woman can demand to be a man
We’'re just flesh with socks and locks and frocks
And I am here to say to you
On the day that I die I’'ll just give a smile and fly into the blue
(Cause we’re all just…)

Protons, Neutrons, Electrons
That rest on a Sunday
Work on a Monday and someday soon
We’ll be singing the old tunes
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-doo
I’ll be sitting on the porch with you
Then I’ll die and I’ll fly off into the blue

Joni Mitchell - political music and art

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14766057

before and after axie's wedding

Cathy Roma wins Ohio Governors Award!

have you ever?

Have you ever

Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods?
And everything there feels just as it should
You're part of the life there
You're part of something good
If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods
if you've ever wandered lonely through the woods

Have you ever stared into a starry sky?
Lying on your back you're asking why
What's the purpose I wonder who am I
If you've ever stared into a starry sky
Have you ever stared into a starry sky

Have you ever been out walking in the snow?
Tried to get back to where you were before
You always end up not knowing where to go
If you've ever been out walking in the snow
If you'd ever been out walking you would know

--Brandi Carlile

unimpressed

Potter and Musician Extraordinaire

STEVE THOMAS, a native of Phoenix, plays mandolin, banjo, and fiddle. His amazing instrumental musical abilities and jovial stage persona never fail to make him an audience favorite wherever he performs. Steve's collection of antique musical instruments is second to none. He is also a collector old sheet music and song folios. An outstanding potter, Steve incorporates designs from prehistoric people of the ancient Southwest and successfully blends them into his art at his home studio, "Stuck in the Mud." Steve performed for over 15 years with "String Fever," the house band at Rawhide Western Town and Steakhouse in Scottsdale, Arizona.

being young at young's

me and billie angel

two aunts groovin'

Maggie Moo

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Surpassing the love of people

Oh Cecilia - you're breakin my heart!

Thelma

always in my heart...

better instincts

You walked in the door
as I was walking out -
and I hoped you would stay...
and for almost twelve years
you chased me -
and I chased you
and you met me at the door
and met me at my car
and danced me through lonely nights
you comforted me when I cried
and then left me alone to make a very hard decision.

I miss your wise ways.

Chester Climbs the Mimosa

This has been the year of lost animals. First Chester, then Emi and now Sweet Pea. I think Sweet Pea just wanted to join Chester in the land of constant tuna. Or he missed his unconditional love. Probably both. Chester would force his gorgeous purring self onto strangers, and his engine would hum louder than any happy cat I have ever had the pleasure to know. I should be so lucky to ever be appreciated this much again. I miss him very much.

Emi

Emi

[Photo]July 15, 2007

Emilio the Bunny

July 2005—July 2007

Emi the sweet, loving and a wacky California Giant bunny died today – peacefully, out on the deck that overlooks Coats Alley in Northside, Ohio. He seems to have died in his sleep – from a cause unknown. He hadn’t shown any signs of sickness or harm. After finishing a gourmet meal of zucchini and lettuce the night before – he retired for the evening outside on the deck, where he was found the next morning.

He loved most foods and some non-foods, his preference being red peppers and zucchini (the Italian in him) but he also loved apples and carrots too. He loved to be petted and loved having his ears massaged.

Emilio was named after Emilio Roma, because he was purchased from the Ohio State fair on August 11, 2005, 18 years to the day after ER III passed away from a severe heart attack. Emi peaked out of a cage in a room full of fuzzy bunnies. A chunk from his left (upright) ear had been bitten off by his mother, and his other ear suffered tendon damage and fell down like a floppy eared rabbit. This gave him an irresistible appeal. He also was bouncing around the cage when all other bunnies were comatose from the humid and intense heat in the fair tent. I immediately searched for the owner – and purchased Emi.

Emi will be missed by his many admirers for his dancing, jumping and twisting, his nibbling antics and his sweet yet sometimes difficult nature. He was a happy, joy-filled rabbit. He had a vertical jump of about one foot when startled or happy, and he would twist about while airborne — which made even people indifferent to bunnies — smile.

Me