Portland, how I love you

Two best things I've seen lately:

1. Tin foil guy in a suit, sans tin foil, looking for the speed-dating at the Empire.
2. Pigeon guy, looking as if he's experiencing the rapture as about 6 pigeons land on him while biking on Congress.

Sullen child

This is a repeat from my FB status that's absolutely worth repeating:
Saw this note taped to a first grader's shirt today:

Don tok
tome
rit nao.

It's not scientifically proven, but

women with glasses have a definite disadvantage when it comes to shaving legs.

Walk Along Casco Bay, Jan.

Bay: Pantone PMS 300
Staghorn sumac berries against the water: Pantone PMS 186

Rugged, determined stubs of apple tree twigs make me think of penguins huddled together in winter, or the lone horse standing still in a bleak field peering out only through eyelashes of tight-pressed lids: "I will get through this."

Bright sun.

A cloud of government-check-cigarette smoke from the chain smoker in the wheelchair at the edge of the beach. Baked beans. Diesel fuel, plowing the last edges of the trail. A bufflehead dips into the blue paint.

resolutions

1. To play more games. People keep snickering when I say this. Games bring joy into my life, why should I not want to play more? Cribbage, backgammon, euchre, Shanghai rummy--all good times. Played scrabble on Jan. 3. Need some stiff competition, if anyone wants to lend themselves.

2. To learn to bake homemade bread very well. I got a good start on Jan. 2 making homemade sunflower bagels. They were very good, chewy on the inside, crunchy outside, if a bit on the thin side. Oh, and dropping them in the oven onto the hot coils kinda blew.

3. To get new baking pans that I don't drop.

4. To organize my craft area and use up most of the old stuff.

5. To overcome my songwriting block. The first step is recording what I've already written!

Southerners vs. Yanks, cont'd

Things I will never understand about northerners:

8. Restaurant service. I will not go on a rant here, but maybe, once, you should go out to eat in the south and you will weep to return to a restaurant in Yankee world.

9. They don't realize that putting spaghetti noodles in chili is perfectly normal.

Things I love about them:

5. There's a certain independence or DIY-ness here. It's quite charming and very useful. I am not sure that I have ever met a Mainer, for example, whose parents don't "put up" food for the winter in loads of canning jars.
6. I like about Maine that the world does not stop in the event of a snowstorm. In Louisville, they predict a few inches, and the Kroger's is literally cleaned out of milk, meat, and bread (apparently the essentials.) The city shuts down. In Maine, you get a foot, most people still have to go to work. Oh, well that part sucks, but the rest I like.

A thrill of hope

I have been practicing singing and playing "Oh Holy Night" for Christmas carols. Jon remarked that he preferred the less religious carols. While I do not consider myself a religious person, I do love the beautiful songs and do not want to shy away from them because they are religious. After all, I am a bluegrass musician, we like the old-timey gospel stuff.

Then I listened to the words:

"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices-for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!"

What a gorgeous thought. A friend remarked that it reminded her of Obama. Listening to only those words--not the rest about the Saviour, etc--there is a nice bit of truth to that.


We certainly live in a weary world. How beautiful the idea that for this weary world, there might possibly be a thrill of hope. Whatever that hope is, it is lovely.