L is for laughter, bright and beautiful

I'm late posting for ABC Wednesday, having to over think everything. . .but, who doesn't love the sound of laughing babies? In particular these bathing beauties. That's ticklish Dr. Erica [who will turn 30 this Saturday!] on the left and little Audrey on the right in our back yard in Virginia with their dad, early '80's. Finding this old photo of my dear ones truly lifted my day. Hope it does yours too.

Visit Mrs Nesbitt here for more lovely L's.

Winter's on the run

I've been under the blog radar for the past week or so, visiting Chicago and family. Because the days there were cloudy with rain and, no surprise, wind, it was lovely to be back up north to see the blue sky and measure how far winter had receded in my absence. Thus, these two photos this week as I scanned the skies. The first is the sun rising over the Mississippi casting its coat of many colors on Canada Geese rising. And who doesn't thank the Robins for coming back so soon!

You'll be than

kful for the opportunity to see many more skies @ Skywatch Friday.

Grand-Cats on CameraCritters

Meet my very own grand-cats making their debut on Camera Critters. Above is Baby [aka Baby Phat, Fatima, Fatsa, etc.] who belongs to Erica and lives in cat luxury in Washington, D.C. She's a rescue cat who had lived on the street for a time resulting in some residual, umm, weirdness. We think she is a black variety Korat Cat, all black with a tiny white star on her chest--even black whiskers!
This is a Maine Coon Cat who owns Audrey and also lives in the lap of luxury in Chicago. Before she came to Audrey, she had a neglected past, and was later rescued by someone who named her Squirrel. Dave and I especially like playing volley ball with her--she sits, we throw a sparkly ball which she spikes across the room, we go get it. . .and so on.

More beautiful creatures here.

Happy Birthday, dear Cakes

She was born on an early Wednesday evening to the soft sway of an easy listening station piped into the operating room. Two doctors helped deliver her into the new world she was reluctant to visit--flipping like a small dolphin and hiding high under my ribs for another two weeks. She was named Vanessa for her sleepy first 24 hours but finally given the name Audrey to make me happy. She grew up to be not only Audrey but Cakes, Chocolate Eyes and now just Aud. Strong, beautiful, funny, generous, hard working, left handed, artistic, ever so stubborn and kind, I'm still reeling when I realize that she's been on this earth for thirty years today!

No sense in asking where the time went. . .I have memories to last a lifetime. Now I am jealous of the time because I want to keep her as a daughter/friend, watching where she goes and with whom. And what I know about her is that she will make a difference in the world--even more than she did in mine.




Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. Dr. Seuss

O is for orange. . .otra vez

O for me is orange-red brick on an old building in the historic Czech Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago where my daughter lives. A close up behind the ornate bars shows a lovely stained glass window. My eyes are always drawn to the complimentary color of orange=green, in this case my favorite blue green/aqua. Call me 'umm, not very creative' but I've used 'orange' for every O round of ABC Wednesday. Oh well.

See more examples of the letter O from bloggers all over the world at ABC Wednesday, hosted by Mrs Nesbitt. Happy Wednesday!

ABC WednesDay

Dawn on White Bear Lake in early spring. If you click on my photograph you'll see that ducks were already eating before the sun was hardly up.

An update: I couldn't leave out Dave dancing with daughter Audrey at a neighbor's wedding, back when she was in middle school.

Today is the letter 'D' for the ABC Wednesday meme hosted by Mrs Nesbitt. Do stop by and/or join in the fun.

you've been invited

to see more family photos from our trip to Lake Superior's North Shore and Gooseberry Falls. Enjoy!
note: to turn off the music, mouse over 'slide' in upper left hand corner then click on the speaker icon

A cat called what?

Today's ABC letter is 'M' and boy do I have an 'M' this time!

'M,' as in Maine Coon Cat. The cat in my photos is named Squirrel and belongs to my daughter Audrey. She and Squirrel stayed with us for several months and we fell in love with this fetching and rascally cat. Maine Coons are noted as intelligent and resourceful. So true.

First of all: her name. Squirrel was rescued from some neglectful owners by a guy named Pickle. He named her Squirrel because of her big, fluffy tail. [I don't invent these names, I just report them!] I might have named her Whiskers for the l-o-n-g ones she has.

At our house she started and ended each day with a rousing game of volleyball with her favorite sparkly ball. She'd jump on a table and wait for some poor, unsuspecting chump to throw the ball while she batted it back. Said pitcher then bent over and threw it again. Back and forth and eventually it became evident that the real workout was had by the pitcher. When I first met her she was trying to walk off with Scrabble pieces when no one was looking. She stole food whenever she could, including things too big to carry off like fried chicken or sweet rolls. Embarrassingly funny. Her favorite heist was eyeglasses. She'd rip them off, then leave them somewhere the owner would never expect to search. My glasses will forever have little Squirrel teeth marks on the sides.

We don't see this fluffball very much but even Dave, who maintains a stanch ambivalence toward cats, likes to reminisce about how she would sleep on the back of his desk chair whenever he was at the computer. I remember how she carried her sparkly ball around the house hanging from one tooth.

Maine Coon Cats, gotta love 'em!

Stop by Mrs Nesbitt's place for more 'M' words. You'll be glad you did.

Spring Break--part two

Rainy last day in D.C. and some doors in Georgetown. . . Erica and I visited the National Cathedral and spent the rainy afternoon in Georgetown. We ate soup and lemon Madeleines at one of Erica's favorite restaurants here aptly called le Madeleine. We got out of the rain, dried off and did a bit of people watching as well.


A few trees were in bloom on the Cathedral grounds: small magnolia, flowering crab and one or two early cherry trees. We visited the herb garden and greenhouse. Also there was a small thrift shop run by the Episcopal parish where I found a beautiful vintage Vera scarf and, of course, books.



Earlier in the week the three of us visited on the Mall at the new National Museum of the American Indian and the Hirshhorn Museum. I was particularly interested in the exhibit of handmade women's dresses called Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses. It was an amazing collection that included very old and very new designs with most Nations represented, including the Shoshone-Bannock tribe from my part of Idaho.
Inside the Museum I caught the prism reflection from the rotunda's stained glass.


Facing the mall, there is a 'natural' waterfall that comes out of the Museum. In the distance in the taller tree you can see the Washington Monument in the distance.

So we were waiting in lines for our lunch in the restaurant within the museum that is laid out geographically to highlight different food by regions of the Americas. I passed up the frog legs but had wild rice & watercress salad from the great lakes Objibwa's; fry bread from the plains and west, and a black bean tamale from the south. At the register the check out person kept fiddling with her machine and it kept spitting out something that wasn't right. As the line behind me got longer, I told her it would be o.k. as it was and she said, 'I just want to make sure you get your discount.' The discount exists for members of the museum and for Native Americans. She didn't ask me if I had a membership and it occurred to me later that she though I was, in fact, an American Indian. . .because I have always resembled one. This all made me smile from ear to ear.

While Audrey was in the Hirshhorn book store I walked around the extensive sculpture garden that runs in a circle around the building. I was smitten by these bronze sculptures by



Juan Muñoz part of a series called Last Conversation Piece 1994-5. My kind of guys--tough yet light on their feet!

Washington, D.C., a city of questions and reminders . . .

Split by a tendril of revolt

stone cedes to blossom everywhere.
Muriel Rukeyser

and where Erica works and plays hard. Always willing to take life at its word, she will be in the Georgetown Medicine Class of 2010!

Spring break or bust!. . .or how I found some culture

Hard to believe that the spring break trip I'd been planning since February has come and gone. In spite of our best intentions, it is never a surprise when some drama interferes with our visit whenever we all get together. Usually it involves the hospital--an untimely flareup of Dave's cellulitis, somebody with a bad cold or me with an imagined heart attack. The exact manner of the drama always eludes us until later when we realize we've been had again! This much-anticipated trip included the last days of our dear Pashka on the earth, an event I kept at bay, at least in my mind, by subscribing to the Scarlett O'Hara school of denial: 'I'll just think about that tomorrow.'

'Enough already with the camera!'

More about the trip, however. Audrey and I met Erica in Washington, D.C. where Georgetown was on spring break. We had perfect weather--cool with bright blue skies, some sprinkling of early spring crocus and daffodils as well as the tentative first blush of the famed cherry blossoms. It only rained once, my last day. No need to explain that we ate our way around the city for 4 or 5 days, mostly ethnic choices like Afghan, Indian, Native American, French and really wonderful pizza. Deciding we needed to get our culture not just from yogurt, we visited the new Katzen Art Center on American University campus, Erica's alma mater. We saw an exhibit of Chicago Imagist Roger Brown's work from the late 1960's and a large showing of mixed media of southern artist William Christenberry. The Katzen is a full service venue: dance, art gallery/peformance art space, interesting design, and lots of windows.




William Christenberry 'Untitled', June 11, 2006

Roger Brown, 'Lake Effect,' 1980

Roy Lichtenstein 'Brushstroke' sculpture, Hirshhorn Museum

Ellsworth Kelly, Red White, 1961

Another day we visited the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn art museum. Audrey wanted to see an exhibit of current oil paintings by Brooklyn artist Amy Sillman. These were large, colorful (read: atomic orange, green, turquoise!) with a style that reminded me of Richard Diebenkorn. We also saw small Calder mobiles all in one room, seemingly suspended in air and real life Ellsworth Kelly.

P', 2007 by Amy Sillman

Next installment will include the Native American Museum where I got the 'discount' without even asking!

March winds

The date hadn’t been set except I was two weeks overdue. I had been able to balance the book I was reading on the hard lump under my ribs for a month by then. Weekly visits for a sonogram doubled. As unpredictable as March could be, that day was definitely bleak and damp, and as windy as any other day of the year.
First one doctor did the sonogram, left the room and in walked the other. Then they both left me deeply concentrating on the pattern of the ceiling tiles. Returning in tandem the doctors filled the room. One thought the other had told me. What I hadn’t been told was that they were leaving town in the morning. One of their young friends from medical school who was soon joining their practice had instead died from a heart attack while doing surgery. My doctors were leaving for his funeral. Usually they presented kind and cheerful countenances but today the skin was drawn tightly on their faces. They wanted to induce labor and both agreed that they’d be doing surgery in the long run. Only it had to be done today. They were concerned about many issues I’d faced during the term and both wanted to be present for the delivery. Tonight.
In a shiny, dim operating room I listened to the local radio station piped into the room. Each doctor, one tall and blond and the other short and dark stood on either side of the gurney. The anesthetist was subdued, listening and charting the event. Sweet Audrey, as cool as a thawed turkey, was placed next to my face, her black eyes searching the lights. Later in my room, flat on my back, waiting out the spinal’s slow retreat from my body only one doctor came to see me. He said the other was on his way home to pack. He sat on my bed sounding cheerful once again but looking forlorn and exhausted.
The day our children are born is never forgotten. Likely these doctors still remember their friend who was almost their partner on that day in March.

From a prompt for Sunday Scribblings.
[painting entited Peasants Bringing Home a Calf Born in the Fields / Jean François Millet French, 1814-1875]