dishpantheism

shifty...

i'm over at wordpress. i didn't even unpack my boxes here. i suppose that's for the best. moving is a drag.

wellidy.

when i got home from...

when i got home from work in the early afternoon today i decided to nap. i set the alarm on my phone. it was ungodly hot outside but my bedroom was quite cool. it's shaded by vines and a very large weeping willow. i put on a camisole and then had to cover up with the duvet because i was too cold. i had the oddest dream. i don't remember the bulk of it but i do remember the ending because it woke me. in the dream i had walked down an unfamiliar alley. it was paved and the pavement was dark and damp. the air was humid. it was dusk or possibly just before dawn. i saw a figure come toward me. it looked like a person on all fours but as it neared i realized it was a baby elephant. it was missing its trunk. someone had sawed it off. the calf was stumbling and trying to call for help but could barely stand. the wound was bleeding profusely and i realized that the humidity and dampness was from the blood it had shed. in waking life i have a high tolerance for scenes of gore. one can't grow up on a farm or in a rural area and not be exposed to the slaughter of animals or farm accidents. i don't typically panic or grow faint. but in my dream i collapsed alongside the calf. i was so sick i couldn't compose myself. and i was so furious i wanted to annihilate the person responsible for harming so defenseless a creature. i got to my feet eventually and somehow tugged the calf into a warehouse and behind some boxes. then i heard voices and looked up to see a gang of teenage boys with jackknives yelling at me to give back the elephant. first i tried to retreat but i realized that there was nowhere else to go. then i flew into such a rage. i bared my teeth and lashed out at my attackers. they didn't go away altogether but i was able to make an opening in the tin of the warehouse siding and drag the wounded calf onto a barge. as i floated down the river injured animals would sometimes appear from the fog and i would hoist them onto the barge. i realized i didn't have enough money to care for all of them and that i'd have to quit my job to look after them. i started crying. then i found myself in the sitting room of an old man and woman. the man was whittling and watching t.v. and the woman was knitting. i was begging the man to loan me money to get the animals to a sanctuary. the man was sympathetic but the woman was incredulous and cold. i tried to explain things to her as calmly as i could but her persistent iciness sent me into a fit of sobbing. i just kept saying "i'll pay you back, if it's with my blood!" so melodramatic. but i woke up at that point because i couldn't breathe. i was laying on my belly with the duvet twisted around me. panting. my closed eyes were throbbing and when i opened them accumulated tears came pouring out. i sat up and my alarm went off. lately my body has had this peculiar way of waking me just before my alarm sounds. i suppose to someone who knows me the dream and its meaning are fairly obvious and i know that job stress certainly plays a part. i just wish my off-the-clock brain were a tad subtler.

been enjoying:
duck eggs. long walks (when i have the time). visits with my father and sis. cold plums stolen under cover of darkness from the tree across town. mirabelles ripening. hiding under my headphones at 6 a.m. listening to paris 1919. reading the funny russian phrasebooks my dad lent me from his time at fort monmouth back in the 40s. if i need to stock up on ordnance or ask where the mess hall is i'm all set.

wellidy. time for sleep. and so.

 

 

i'm a clumsy typist. tho...

i'm a clumsy typist. tho i learned to touch type in school ages ago i never really put it into practice. i type with only a few of my fingers. i don't have to look at the keys and i can type quite fast but when i'm tired my fingers stray. and so it was that i accidentally navigated to some pages that i really didn't want to see. my stomach did flips and then tied itself in a knot. i still feel queasy. that'll learn me i guess.

i introduced one of my nephews to homestar runner and another to some skateboarding terms. it was nerdy and fun. my oldest nephew is at the age where he's really getting the hang of sarcasm and wry remarks. and i love it. he made a funny about phytoplankton today which made me double over laughing and then promptly sock him in the arm. cute shit.

in a few days i'll breakfast with sister. i find i have been leaning on her a lot the last few months. when she cares to she can be a solace. thankfully she's been in the mood for such things recently.

i can't wait to see my friend in saint petersburg. i miss that fellow. i miss his often deadpan sense of humor and his smart assery. i miss staying up in bed until the wee hours cracking wise. i miss his very comforting presence. he's a good egg.

the smell of the albizia is coming through the window. i don't know of anything which has a similar smell. it's so strange and sweet. sometimes i snap off a blossom and tickle my chin with it. they're soft and feathery.

the last week or so people have been showing their steam-powered antique farm equipment near my house. nearly every morning i awake to the sound of puttering engines and an antique train whistle. i think obsolete technology is interesting but now i want everyone to pack up and go home. i want to sleep. and so.

a friend brought me a...

a friend brought me a handful of langues de chat which i wrapped in paper sacking. many years ago i bought the chez panisse dessert book and made jasmine (jasminum polyanthum) ice cream with cats' tongues. it was so good. i hadn't had langues de chat since then. i felt quite spoiled being so unexpectedly gifted with them.

i spoke with one of my former neighbors about procuring duck eggs. i'm going to make a few lemon meringue pies. my father loves those and i love making them. one will be set aside as a belated birthday pie for father. the duck egg whites are much thicker than chicken eggs. they make stiffer meringue. i wish i had ducks of my own. for that matter i wish i still had chickens and goats of my own. i miss fresh eggs and milk and homemade yogurt.

i ate the last of the blueberries from my spindly little bushes. tended my garden. the feverfew is blooming like mad. there's bladder campion and devil's bit and honeywort along the little curlicue wire fence. the tiny fruits on the meyer lemon are swelling. the garlic chives have set seed already.

along the borders of the pasture behind the house the milk thistle and hemlock and salsify have grown quite tall. the wholesome grows next to the unwholesome. a while back a local man was saved from death angel poisoning by being administered milk thistle. i watched finches sit atop the fuzzy cups and pluck out the ripe seeds. when the sun is low on the horizon the fluff glows. it's very pretty. the hemlock is pretty too. i don't even mind how horrible the speckled stalks smell when crushed. the umbel is one of my favorite floral shapes. wild carrot is prettier tho.

i am rambling. it is late. i already feel i should erase this post on account of it being nearly incoherent. but i won't. i think i'd like it to stand. cringeworthy testament to a most wonderful day of idleness after weeks of activity and exhaustion.

wellidy.

 

i can never remember which...

i can never remember which end of an avocado pit is supposed to face upwards when attempting to sprout one. it's elementary but i can never remember. tonight i find myself with three pits for sprouting. one is further along than the other two. one of my coworkers left abruptly. will i ever see him again? dunno. i don't even know how to contact him. he left this pit sprouting at work and since my boss has effectively erased every trace of him but for the pit i decided i should adopt the poor wee thing. so. here it sits in its sad little plastic dish. i'll upgrade its housing to a forcing jar in a few days. i'm eating the buttery flesh of the other two fruits which were gifts from said coworker. these are nice thin skinned fruits quite unlike the ones you find in markets which have been bred for travel at the expense of taste. the pits are huge and when they finally leaf out they'll make nice houseplants.

yesterday i drove to father's house. i took him some of the same avocados. a man has been setting up an honor pay stand right outside my work. so. i bought a few fruits. my dad is kind of a nut for alligator pears. i gave him his share and a handful of sacajawea coins. he gave me a pound of smoked salmon and a book. we talked about terms related to counterfeiting. i especially liked the term "uttering." it's quite special, no?

as i left father's cabin i found that there was a patch of pearly everlasting growing outside his door. the blossoms were very bright in the darkness. i stopped and snapped off a few twigs. my hands were sticky with the resin from the leaves. i love that smell. as i stumbled along the dirt road to my car i pinched off needles of rosemary and rolled them between my fingers. i drove down the ruts where winter rills had passed. my car bottomed out a few times. as i was descending the last hill a beautiful doe leapt in front of me. she stopped just out of range of my headlights and toggled her ears and stared at me. gave me goosebumps.

sometimes it is hard not to feel that the universe keeps throwing people in my path only to yank them out again soon after. it makes my head spin. or at least that is what i would believe if i believed the universe did anything at all other than expand. it's too much to think of on a tuesday evening.

wellidy. i'm up at dawn again tomorrow. time for sleep.

 

 

a man came into my...

a man came into my work this afternoon and paid with a credit card. i noticed that his surname was schwarzbart. and he in fact had a big bushy black beard tho it had gone salt-and-pepper in a few places. i complimented him on his name and he stroked his beard and said "thank you! tho strictly speaking it isn't quite true anymore." he left and nobody came in for about twenty minutes. then another man walked through the door. he also paid by credit card. his surname was totmann. i did not compliment him because i thought it somehow seemed inappropriate.

there are two new succulents in the collection. monanthes muralis and monanthes brachycaulos. they are bizarre and very cute little guys from the canary islands.

i am so looking forward to white nights and russian tea. long mornings sans alarm clock and falling asleep in a heap with my pal.

wellidy. to bed.

huntsman's cup...

at work today one of the regulars asked "is your name mary, marie, maria or mahree?" i said "it's mary, but you can call me almost anything you like--within reason--and i won't take offense. i have a lot of nicknames." then he asked me to list some nicknames. when i'd finished he said "those are all of them?" i said "that's all i can think of at present. oh my gran used to call me motsy." he liked that one. he repeated it to himself several times. after i'd helped him with what he needed he said "i'll see you soon, motsy." it brought a lump to my throat. no one has called me that in years.

there's a sarracenia blooming outside my window. they're very fussy things. they cannot tolerate tap water. they must have rainwater or distilled. this particular cultivar has lime green pitchers with blood red veining on the operculum. it's beautiful. the blossom is sticky and yellow-green. i have never had one set seed but i'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one. maybe they're never pollinated because the flowers smell like tomcat. dunno. also i like that the common name is huntsman's cup.

on my chiffarobe there's a very pathetic paphiopedilum. it hasn't bloomed in over a year. i'm afraid i haven't tended it well. it needs to be fertilized and repotted. probably not in that order either.

as i headed out the door this afternoon my niece grabbed my leg and demanded a kiss. she doesn't really speak yet. she's quite wee. she pulled her pacifier from her mouth and stood in my path and puckered up at me. it was disgusting because her face was wet from cheek to chin. but it was also very sweet. i wiped her slobbery face with the back of my hand and then gave her a kiss. she hugged my knees and stepped aside and waved me on my way. she said "go work." so i did.

in other news...

i've long had an obsession with the use of diacritical marks to indicate that double vowels should be pronounced distinctly and separately e.g. reënter or noöne. i like to stumble upon this sort of thing in old novels. nifty. i don't have anything to add. i just like it. it is graphically appealing to me.

and now i go to sleep.

  

took lola for a stroll...

took lola for a stroll last night. (horse)chestnuts in blossom. the white of their blossoms stood out from the dark. wonderful odors. artemisia. freshly mown hay. cured hay which had dampened. white lily. the heat-shriveled friable heads of privet. warm pavement. fog coming from the sea. gum tree. sycamore. the palings radiating the day's heat into the dark and with it the smell of worn wood. cedar. king's clover. oak tannin. crushed peony stems (which always makes me think of iowa city). the latex and opiate smell of milkweed. even tomcat didn't smell so bad. it was just so nice to be out and moving. my body doing everything on autopilot. my mind far away. it is really lola who walks me.

had a nice chat with my father this evening. he ended our call by saying "well, mary liz, i'm going to have a cup of coffee and finish my book." it was close to midnight when he said this. i expect this is where i picked up my bad habits. anyway. it was like an eerie glimpse at my future. father turned 80 last month and he still maintains the habit of dozing off to sleep (for the night, mind you) in front of the wood stove with a book in his lap and a lamp glowing over his shoulder. he wakes up and starts all over again the next day. at intervals he eats and chops wood and gardens and listens to the news. occasionally he kills a deer and pets his cat, the woolly and hardly tame, eblis. give me fifty years or so and that will be me. tho probably without the deer slaying and with a friendlier cat.

another comyns arrived yesterday. the juniper tree. so far i am loving it. this particular story (at least the first few chapters) reminds me of barbara pym. to me this is not a bad thing.

the cloud forest in the windowsill has survived the last few hot days. the sage slip, with its associated happy memories, is particularly welcome.

wellidy.

 

the last few nights the...

the last few nights the stars have been incredibly bright. i decided to take my portly old hound for a stroll and admire the milky way. it was nice. bumped into sister and her beau. we got to talking about a book she'd read aloud to me a number of years ago. warm nights like tonight remind me of that book. in my memory the book is much better than it actually is. sister and i talked about how much potential it had and how it fell short. still arensberg must have done something right because it has left a lasting impression.

stole privet from the hedges under the elm. stole a peony too. i had to shuck it when i got it home because the heat has made the buds brown and sulk. when it finally unfurls i fear there won't be much to it. most of the burnt outer petals are in the waste bin. i stood in the dark outside my window and snapped off stems of honeysuckle. paused at the sunflowers growing by the shed. they look like people standing stationary. makes my stomach flutter in the best possible way.

ungodly hot at work today. the building (which was built in the mid-1800s) relies solely on an ancient swamp cooler to mitigate the heat. it was so hot this afternoon that the swamp cooler was almost completely ineffectual at relieving us but it did make the interior of the building feel like an equatorial rain forest. so humid. my clothes were stuck to me by the end of my shift. i found condensation building in the corners of the window glass. then it obscured some panes completely. after work i went to town to find something sundress-ish to wear. it probably isn't appropriate dress for work but until this heat relents i'll risk the possibility of reprimand. anyway. i found very little in the line of sundresses but an absurd selection of rompers. for adults. when i finally did find a rack of sundresses they were so short that i thought they were tops. i ended up by buying one of those to wear over jeans. i need to hem it up about an inch to make it a convincing camisole but it should do the job. now if the shop where i bought it would only refund half the price for selling me half of what they promised. grumble.

wellidy. there are allsorts in the licorice cache. i'm going to watch an angry scot and dig into my supplies.

oh and here's a video. i couldn't find allsorts so dolly mixture will have to do.

Dolly Mixture-Whistling in the Dark(Demonstration Tapes 1983)

 

 

i've been indoors so much...

i've been indoors so much recently that i missed the hills changing from green to gold. i noticed this evening when i drove to the market to get groceries. it's still a bit green in the low places but the hills are yellow with ripe oats.

the nights have gotten warm and the catbirds and mockingbirds won't be still. last night i heard an owl go screeching past my open window. honeysuckle is blooming. bumblebee moths. the third part of the night i could hear steady streams of cars passing along the highway. where were they all going? dunno.

the pavement by the carriage house is covered in walnut catkins. they're bright chartreuse and look somewhat otherworldly. the chartreuse doesn't last tho. wherever the catkins have been touched they discolor. brown and brownish-yellow. finally they turn black and look a bit like woolly bear larvae.

this evening i devoured three blueberries from my garden. i can't expect a high yield because this is only the first year for them. they are spindly little shrubs. next year will be better. still these three were sweet and spicy and wonderful.

i am so tuckered out this evening i can hardly think straight. and so.

adieu.