How the Raven Gave us Stars

It was the raven who gave us stars. He stole them from a village next to a large river that ran from the mountains to the sea.

He made himself into a small pine needle, and dropped from a tree into a drinking cup. The village chief had a daughter who was drinking tea from that cup. And she swallowed the pine needle with her tea.

Once inside the chief's daughter, the raven changed from a pine needle to a baby. He was born soon after, and he was the chief's favorite grandson. The chief could deny him nothing.

The stars were highly prized by the villagers, and it was the chief's duty to guard them. They were held in a soft bag made from the belly of a white tail deer. The chief's daughter coloured the bag with blackberries so that the light from the stars would not shine through. But the raven was not fooled.

He cried for the bag. And at first his grandfather said, no. But the raven child made large tears to run down his beautiful face, and in the end the chief could not deny him. He gave him the soft bag to play with.

Just as soon as the grandfather gave him the bag, the raven pulled on the sash and let loose the stars. They poured upwards into the sky and spread all across, millions and millions till the bag was empty, and light was now sprinkling down from above.

[click image to enlarge]

Approaching

Missoula buses talk to us now. They're not reciting poetry or anything like that. (If we're so inclined, we need only look up, and there's plenty on the ceiling.)

Nope. Missoula's busses offer cheer:
Welcome, and Happy Holidays from the staff at Mountain Line.

They caution us:
Remain seated until bus comes to a complete stop.
Do not talk to the operator while bus is in motion.

And they tell us where we are:
Now approaching Russell and Wyoming.
Now approaching Missoula Library - Front and Adams.

Listening to this for 20 some minutes is incredibly annoying, I can't imagine what it's like for the drivers who hear it all day long.

This morning, I was on Route 1, and the bus I boarded was in an especially chatty mood. For every stop along the route, we were reminded twice of its approach. And then we started approaching Brooks and Sussex. A good 4 blocks out, my helpful bus made sure to tell us. Then, about 2 blocks out, it reminded us again. And then a block out, and then yet again, when we were caught at the traffic light at the corner of Brooks and Sussex, it told us twice more, "now approaching - Brooks and Sussex. (Maybe Zeno had a point.)

I asked the driver, "does it ever approach orgasm?"

He didn't skip a beat. "Only if you rub the seats."

Stitch

Ye gads! There's been a tear in the space-time continuum!
If we don't act fast, we're gonna lose the 9!

These Blogs Make my Day!

I'm tickled to learn that I've made Ces' day, and I'd like to pass that feeling along.

Here are some blogs that make my day!

Boiled Egg's blog (Caution: This egg takes drugs, and he farts, too!)

Jack's Bird-brained blog (I wish I could find a man as cute and colourful as this bird!)

Sexy (but married) Scientist's blog (I have a crush on 5 men I've met on the internet, and 3 of them are married. But I stalk them anyway...)

Sexy (but married) Artist's blog (I like Mick's use of collage and his sense of light and movement. I find something to think about every time I look at his work.)

Val's blog (I get hungry for candy every time I see Val's work. Her colours are positively edible.)

Serendipity

This last Fall, I kinda followed the progress in the construction of a new wall and stairs of an apartment complex in my neighborhood, documenting some of it with photos.

Repair of the wall was a long time coming. It had gotten so bad that I was almost afraid to walk past it for fear that it would burst, and all the earth, junipers, iron fencing, and building sitting atop would avalanche, burying me right along with passing cars.

Noting that the largest crack in the wall was actually moving outward about half an inch a day, I started to record the wall’s deterioration with my little cheapy, digital camera. Every day for 4 days, I took a picture.

On the 5th day, I came down the walk to find that the wall was gone, and the property had been cordoned off with orange plastic fencing. There was a great hole, and I couldn’t imagine living in that corner of the building without worrying that the floor was going to fall through. I took a picture.

I found the process of repair fascinating. In order to construct a wall stable enough to hold back tons and tons of earth, they had to secure a foundation, which meant tearing out the existing sidewalk, along with the flight of stairs leading up into the building. The whole yard looked like a bomb had taken it out. No lawn, no sidewalk, no stairs…the demolished wall was in piles 8-feet high, in the yard and out in the street. I took more pictures.

Forms for the wall’s foundation were built, concrete was poured, and left to set for a week. Then, they went through the process all over again for the wall itself. A great 7-foot vertical, wooden face, gridded, and sprouting with rebar stood for weeks in the wind and snow, while the concrete inside hardened and cured. I wanted to document the small changes…snow on this day, ice on the next…the movement of dirt and broken concrete, hauled away bit by bit. The photos could have been in black and white, except for the plastic – orange fencing and traffic cones to warn off the curious. But still, I took pictures.

Then finally the forms came down. And the welders came, moving in their auras of arcing blue and white sparkle…they strung the yard with black shiny iron…a new fence along the top of the wall, a guardrail for the new wheelchair-accessible sidewalk, and handrails for the stairs. Naturally, I took pictures.

All these pictures, weeks of pictures - 2MB files, dozens and dozens, and I never really looked closely at any of them. It was enough to know that I’d made the captures...until they started filling up my hard-drive and hogging my laptop’s RAM. I noticed that my Public Pictures folder was taking a long time to load. So I organized…I decided to choose, to search for favorites, and delete the rest. A tedious job to be sure, opening each and every photograph…

Bits of glass; bits of pink; bits of crack.

Even such ultra-large pixel shots don’t look like much when you see them in the camera’s window. They don’t look like much when transferring to the files on your computer, either. But honey, when you actually open them up, they fill your entire screen, and you see things you didn’t even know were there in the shot when you made the original capture – Like where the sun has slipped under pebbles of glass, the tiny streaks of pink in what you thought were plain bits of orange plastic…and in the shadows of a stairwell, a young man’s pants held not by his hips, but by his thighs.

eventful morning

I saw a mink today. And I got him on film for just a second...two frames...and even these are poor.

I thought he was an otter*, but someone there explained that he was indeed, a mink. It's the first time I've ever seen a mink in real life.


I also saw a newborn...made a quick sketch.




*a little trivia:
'Otter' shares its etymology with 'water' and 'winter'.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/otter
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/winter

walmart cardigan

Head over Heels

Circular Joe took a spin in the round
ice skating rink on the cold side of town.
He zipped, and he whipped,
then he slipped, and he flipped.
And he soared through the air with his up-sides, down!