Garden

at pixies and peony in alameda

think i'm going to like this automechanic album i just started listening to by jenny o.  

also enjoying the new JT and the new emmylou harris/rodney crowell.

 

more stars

hen house

hey ladies

hopefully this won't become a chicken-only blog.

open/closed

either way, these tulips are big. 

when i found these the other morning on my doorstep (left by a nice neighbor), i bent down to check if they were real. even after touching them, i thought that they might be fabric. after they'd been in the sun a while, they opened up almost flat. 

 

roller rainbow

pretty sure this is where the roller skating/blading disco magic happens in golden gate park. i managed to not take any photos of the de young museum or of my friend today. instead took ones of the rainbow above and of my food. 

phosphorescent on first listen
 

chickens!

there will be three clucking in the back yard soon. they were just outside for a spell today to get used to their soon to be home coop. 

i need to get lena sjöberg's hårdkokta fakta om ägg (hardboiled facts about eggs). she also linked recently to this article about a boy in sweden who had permission to ride the bus with his chicken. when a bus driver slammed the door in his and his chicken's faces, the boy called up the bus company. they apologized and treated him and his chicken to a cab. oh, sweden. lena has shared a lot of fun (and some sad) stories and pictures on her blog about her own chickens. 

outside/in

 
pinky leon likes to hang out on his cat scratcher thing. 

good lookin' docs:

ovarian psycos 
GMO OMG
finding vivian maier 

flowers ^

around alameda

starry

 
went star crazy after seeing stephanie's star how to in 3191. 
easy to get lost in folding and gluing and trying different color combos.

alana paterson found via fvf

dani padgett (a very talented photographer i met in italian class)

grass valley/nevada city

some bits from a weekend visiting a friend who left the city (where she grew up) for grass valley about seven years ago. she's a horse and mountain gal now. little curl to her hair. little wild to her (competent) ways.

funky cars

february morning

yes please light

pretty food

and speaking of friends in videos... 

bob lake skates 

and a ton more of mr. lake skatin' it up here

and katrina and lisa on video for their upcoming online class, interwoven (starts tomorrow—you can still sign up)

little cat and

little flower

two artist videos:

helen oxenbury found through annamaria

and friend lisa congdon!

and to listen to, a tiny desk concert of anais mitchell
  

✿ / ✿ --- \ ✿✿ || o

 
poet martín espada on bill moyers

pulitzer prize winning poet tracy k smith on forum

beautiful photos of andorra, spain and norway (and more) by natalie mccomas


 

favorites

 
some of my favorites here: pinky leon, morning sun, flowers, and npr. 

just after this picture, PL sniffed a succulent and spied something very exciting outside. 

(also, after this, he tried to eat the flowers (in his usual flower-eating fashion), so they had to be removed to a cat safe location to avoid petal-y vomits.)

yesterday i finished a place in time, wendell berry's latest port william book, this one of short stories. i actually took my time reading it, because i worry this may be (and really hope it's not) the last port william stories he publishes, and i wanted to stay for a while in each story, with burley coulter, dick watson, elton penn, and the rest. something about his sentences too. they're not like other people's. not around here anyway.

 

 

warm colors in the cold

siri kristinsdottir

dearleila's instagram

on a sunnier day

now, cold rain

hello 2013

it was a quiet end to 2012/beginning to 2013 for me, since i was cooped up with a cold. had to skip a couple of fun activities i was looking forward to. but there's time, hopefully. 

i have a lot of plans, intentions, and resolutions for 2013. we'll see how closely the year cooperates. 

happy new year!
 

welcome

when i returned home to alameda the other evening, i was welcomed by the two slutty cats who live a block away. the other one (very bushy calico) was rolling on the ground as i approached, but s/he ran off when grey-white took over the flopping about. they have both followed me a block before. but they're plump and trusting and always on the same block, so i assume they're doing ok at their house. it's not like pinky leon would accept them anyway, if, say, they were to follow me all the way home. 

double fish-cycle! 

 

above/below clouds

although i can sometimes not breathe when flying because it scares me so much, the flight down to orange county last week was one of the more beautiful ones i've been on skywise. the sun was setting, and the clouds were just below the plane for much of the flight. the sky was the lightest, clear blue. toward the end of the flight, the clouds were not as thick and puffy as in the above photo; they'd smoothed out some and rippled like waves. 

the bottom photo is a view from my parents' house of laguna canyon at dusk. bigger.

tract housing and mini malls and roads have advanced closer and tighter around laguna since i was little, but the canyon is mostly intact. i heard frogs there this year, which i haven't heard there in a long time.

 

 

✿

shimmery blue winter day yesterday

my cutie pie

hey lady by peggy honeywell 

morning/evening

hanna konola's annual online christmas calendar

i would like to have this calendar in my kitchen.

been listening to the new martha wainwright album on repeat. favorite so far.
and a lovely martha interview to go with.

colors

thinking about where to hang annamaria potamiti's beautiful little watercolor. i love it.

the back yard wears a green clover blanket during the cold. (the green teepee was for growing beans.)

tree!

tree is dressed.

this wild idea 
 

alameda calendar

printed some alameda calendars i made. months include mostly photos from my alameda houses set. 

redux, a favorite store in alameda, is carrying some. and now they're also carrying some from orchards, fields, and gardens. only took me a year to try to sell them in alameda. such a bad salesperson. but it was encouraging that they seemed excited about both.

 

/

 
these leaves have probably fallen now. these were the hangers on this past week.

it was hard to listen to the fresh air show about yemen last night. makes me disappointed in obama and our foreign policy, especially in regard to drone strikes and the lack of guidelines around them. 

the interviewee, journalist Gregory Johnsen says:
 
I think that one of the failures—or at least for me—one of the failures of both the Bush administration and the Obama administration has been to not put in place a legal or an ethical framework for the use of drones. Drones I think are a great piece of technology. They are a piece of technology that groups like al-Qaida do not have. They are something that the U.S. I think can use to great utility, and can use to its advantage but they have to be used judiciously, and I don't think that's what's happening right now, unfortunately.  
 
he also mentions a ny times article by scott shane and jo becker that says that the US doesn't count military age males in yemen as civilian casualties when they are killed in a strike zone. they're automatically considered combatants if they are in a strike zone. this makes me very very sad. this disregard for lives (in addition to the deaths during strikes of those the US does consider civilians) can only lead to more violence and enemies.

mr. green eyes

pinky leon 

the words green eyes always remind me of this song

just like walking on lafayette street here in alameda never fails to plant paul simon's that was your mother in my head— "standing on the corner of lafayette..." i won't even realize it either until i'm blocks away and humming, "headin' down to the lone star cafe..."

fall houses in alameda

 

gobble

happy thanksgiving, americans.

savoring the last of the season's leaves. more fall photos to come.

now it's torte baking time.

  

jack london square

 
jen's bob lake cuts sprout studio cards at patchwork, a craft sale held at jack london square. (skateboard footrest not pictured.)

i purchased this sweet cloud mobile made by katrina.

the JLS tree was getting dressed with lights (already). 

the JLS farmers market pears were looking cute.

the sky, blue.