Repurposed

     My husband travels with his own noise canceling headphones, so the headphone covers he receives with his toothpaste, travel socks and eye mask on the airplane are superfluous. I do my best to avoid pitching perfectly good paraphernalia into the dust bin, and I think my stick man from Ikea looks dashing in his new repurposed beret...

      But what do I do with nineteen of these?

Giggle

     She is waiting to greet you as you approach my front door. But she is small and her voice is so soft that I am the only one to notice. No matter, she is not offended. As much as it is in her nature to be small and quiet, she also greets life with a giggle.

Case in Point

     I gave my granddaughter, Girly-bird, a picture book for her ninth birthday. She told me she is getting too old for such books. I assured her one is never too old for picture books.

     Case in point: I received two picture books for my birthday this year. I was given The House that Mouse Built from my live-in daughter. I follow Maggie Rudy's blog, Mouses Houses. The world she has created for her little mice and photographed for her books and blog is clever and delightful.

     And I also received Journey by Aaron Becker from Punkybean, Girly-bird's five-year-old sister. It is a wordless book and requires simply an imagination to read. Journey is a Caldecott honor book and the first in a trilogy of magical adventures.

     Picture books are a unique expression of art and literature and these two will find a home on my bookshelf with the other fifty or sixty that I own. The idea when I began buying them many years ago was to have a collection ready for the day when I had grandchildren to read them to; but I sometimes sit down and read them to myself. As I said: never too old.

The Passenger's Photo Album - Peru

Passing beneath the bow of a ship at anchor in Lima

Grumbling

     My husband chopped down a hollow tree on our property a couple of years ago. I asked him to cut the trunk into sections so I could use them as planters in the garden.

     Unfortunately, the rabbits who live under our deck have been enjoying them too.

     At one time, I gave our resident bunnies sweet little names like Hush and Whisper. I have named their descendants Pillage, Plunder and Thug. Grrr. I wonder what Beatrix Potter would make of it.

Book and Cookies

Because it is just that kind of day.

Cloudburst

     I sit outside in the sudden dusk with a summer storm brewing overhead. It feels as though I am wrapped in a wet, woolen blanket, and breathing becomes a conscious act in the thick, squall-scented air. The neighbor’s porchlight blinks like a firefly between the trees. My camera and I are eavesdropping on the silent, electric communication between thunderheads. I record one fleeting thread of their furtive exchange:

“She’s watching…”

“Pshaw!”

     In my ill-suited role as Il Paparazzo, I feel responsible for the short burst of temper that follows.