Friday, October 28, 2005

Happy Halloween



I was thrilled when loobylu (www.loobylu.com) announced a Halloween theme for MOS. Here's mine. Her name is Paitience. She loves Edward Gorey, shopping and fair-grounds in winter...she makes a wicked pumpkin soup, too.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Thank You.

Thanks so much to the person who posted the link to the wonderful images of the beach near Duxbury. They're wonderful.

Elizabeth Bishop Says It Better

THE END OF MARCH

For John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read: Duxbury.


It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach.
Everything was withdrawn as far as possilbe,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.

The sky was darker than the water
- it was the colour of mutton-fad jade.
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string,
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water,
over and over. Finally, they did end:
a thick white snarl, man-size, awash,
rising on every wave, a sodden ghost,
falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost...
A kite string? - But no kite.

I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream house,
my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box
set up on pilings, shingled green,
a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener
(boiled with bicarbonate of soda?),
protected from spring tides by a palisade
of - are they railroad ties?
(Many things about this place are dubious.)
I'd like to retire there and do nothing,
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms:
look through binoculars, read boring books,
old, long, long books, and write useless notes,
talk to myself, and, foggy days,
watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light.
At night, a grog a l'americaine.
I'd blaze it with a kitchen match
and lovely diaphanous blue flame
would waver, doubled in the window.
There must be a stove; there is a chimney,
askew, but braced with wires,
and electricity, possibly
- at least, at the back another wire
limply leashes the whole affair
to something off behind the dunes.
A light to read by - perfect! But - impossible.
And that day the wind was much too cold
even to get that far,
and of course the house was boarded up.

On the way back our faces froze on the other side.
The sun came out for just a minute.
For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand,
the drab, damp, scattered stones
were multi-colored,
and all those high enough threw out long shadows,
individual shadows, then pulled them in again.
They could have been teasing the lion sun,
except that now he was behind them
- a sun who'd walked the beach the last low tide,
making those big, majestic paw-prints,
who perhaps had batted a kite out of the sky to play with.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Button Therapy


I can't tell you how much I enjoyed sorting my buttons by colour. I got this box on the weekend and it's just the right size to hold them all. Move over Yoga, Button Therapy is here.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Girls Hit The (Small) Town






Had a great weekend with the girls...laughed a lot, read magazines, dinner at the pub and a long walk around town. We went in and out and back into a dozen shops. Bit sad it's over...but here are some snaps, including arty/rude finger gesture (thanks Mavis!).

The Craft




Finally some photos of the Craft Weekend. Here is Mavis and her marvellous beads. Such fantastic colours and designs. Most of the beads are semi-precious and are cool and have a delicious weight...like river stones.

...and while we carfted we sipped (yeah, right) HPNOTIQ. Just lovely...very fresh and light - like a gin and tonic but with zing...''pure cognac, premium French vodka, and natural tropical fruit juices''. Pretty blue, too.

Some Books I've Really Enjoyed

  • Apples For Jam by Tessa Kiros
  • Saturday by Ian McEwan
  • Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life by Andrew Motion
  • The Bell Jar by Syliva Plath
  • Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
  • Stasiland by Anna Funder

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Living, reading, crafting, taking photos, writing.