I can’t deal with bureaucracy. Having a delicious sense of irony only makes this problem worse. Take, for example, this actual sign on the US I-91 highway in Connecticut, regarding the exit onto Connecticut Rt. 3 North:
NO PERMITTED LOADS ALLOWED
I am not making this up.
If the load were not permitted, would they allow it? Does anyone besides me see a problem here?
Amber the Maine coon cat got a new lion cut for the summer yesterday. He looks so serious and regal, all 23 pounds of him.
Gwenny the 8-pound Russian Blue, who has lived with Amber for fourteen years, no longer recognizes him. She hisses when he comes into the same room with her. And if he’s in a room first, she won’t go in.
Why would the house still be unrented for the week of July 3-10th? This, when the week includes the July 4th holiday, with the island’s wonderful hometown parade, and with fireworks, both manmade and natural. Fireworks a lot like this:
and this:
We’ve reduced the price for the week to encourage some lucky person or group or family to come out and share the beauty of our lovely island. If anyone is interested, call Ballard Hall Real Estate at 401-466-8883.
Speechless.
This just makes me dizzy. And I want to laugh with joy.
The Buddha’s kingdom is within. And the chipmunk’s…?
Take it from me: The chipmunk and its kin are lords and masters of the entire garden.
I am especially partial to those sunset moments when the sun approaches the horizon so that the thickness of the air makes it go all gibbous and misshapen. Especially if there are a few clouds about to enhance the effect.
I just got back from the two-day “Let Your Imagination Take Flight” conference of the New England Chapter of the Romance Writers of America (NECRWA). What a wonderful event!
I went to the conference by myself, having met only a small handful of the attendees, and those, only just barely. And yet: I never felt alone. I’ve come away from this conference with a couple of new friends I really want to keep in touch with. And many new friendly faces I hope to see again.
Thirteen lucky people won a psychic reading. I was not one of them. But like every attendee, I was given spiritual reading card that contained the psychic advice most perfectly suited to me.
One of my characters occasionally hunts with wolves and comes back bloody and wild and shy. Sometimes I feel that way as a writer. Good card.
All in all, I had the best ol’ time, and I learned a lot.
I am so proud to be a member, even a fairly inactive one, of the NECRWA. It is such a friendly, supportive, generous, and hardworking group of writers! I’d like to acknowledge by name (sorry, I don’t have the links to your Web sites; I’ll update this post if I get them) the conference organizers: Kate George, Janet Campbell, Kimberley Dias, Pam Claughton, Mina Bourque, Kat Duncan, Tara Holt, and Valerie Harris. Kudos, ladies! Hats off to you!
More posts on this conference will follow.
This is a first: A post about Block Island while I am still on the island. And pictures of the sky and almost-sunset within twenty-four hours of when they were taken.
Yesterday we took advantage of the clear weather to plant a number* of new Rosa rugosas and weed the garden out front. But at about 5:30 I had to take a break in order to photograph the sky. The prediction was for rain starting at about 5am, and the sky was beginning to cloud up with an effect that looked like some kind of aery ocean.
Below it, the ocean and the pond were lit up like some kind of watery sunfire.
Later that evening, the clouds thickened. There was only one narrow sliver of sunset, and that, only for a few moments.
Today, as promised, it’s been raining. All day. Good for the Rosa rugosa.
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* eight
Sky’s afire!
Our first afternoon on Block Island, we were treated to this sunset. April 7, 2011.
Oh, so good to be home on the island again!