this day of apples and stones

Every fall the apples are more beautiful than the last. The Ida Reds. The Macs. The ever-popular and only-available-for-a-little-while, not-very-good-keepers Macouns. All of the ones I never try. The glaze, the sheen, the burnished surface covered in beads of moisture. In all my life, I have never eaten apples as delicious and crisp and prettily dewy as the ones we get in the Valley. Pleasure is not an adequate word.

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Yesterday morning, in the front yard, no mushroom. Yesterday afternoon, this:

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School has begun. She never rode a bus to school before. Strange, hunh?

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Did we experience our last beach day of 2012? I’m hoping not. I know it’s not a very beachy photo, but it’s my favorite-ever-in-the-world bracelet or at least one of them and I love the way it washes and shines after being in the ocean. How about those age spots? It doesn’t get much hotter than that. Can’t we think of a better name than age spots? Do you think the home remedy that I found on the web that involves lemon juice and vinegar would really work?

I remember the first age spot I ever got. Hawaii, 1995. Yup. I can still identify it. It’s the biggish weird-shaped one to the far left just above the bracelet.

I’m not sure any more of the names of the 8 wrist bones. They are small, cute, important, intricately formed, and a wonder of evolutionary advantage. I know I could look them up, but I’d never remember the names anyway. Here’s a mnemonic for them in case you want to try. But you kinda hafta know which bone you’re starting with. Good luck!

Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle

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I’d like to hear this speech at one of the Conventions.

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I am thinking of changing the photo at the top of my blog, as bored as I am right now. Possibilities include photos of other rocks.

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Here are some of the mini-cairns I’ve been making in my garden. It’s not so easy to balance a stone with a rounded surface, but by gum, I’ve done it. Even in the heavy, heavy rain of 2 night’s ago, the 2 top stones didn’t tumble off and no stones have dislodged (I just wanted to use the word dislodge cause it makes me feel smart).

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Here are some more of my garden rocks. I love the long, oddly-shaped one that looks like a tool, but it’s just a natural ocean rock as far as I know. Not like the arrowhead I have on my desk that was shaped by human hands.

See the little rock of Ohio? It doesn’t get much better than that. It’s greyish-clear. You cannot believe it. I wish you could hold it, it’s really quite lovely.

Okay, another [final?] beach photo, because I am so vain

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FIN

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the spirit’s binding seam

the road through the middle of several farm fields in Hadley on which there is a road sign stating Drifting Snow in black letters on a yellow background with 2 squiggly black lines: in a normal winter, yes. This winter? ironic

the sign at the car wash on Rte 9 heading west just after the I-91 S entrance: ouchless Car Wash. They’ve put back the letter T, but they didn’t really need to, did they?

I see red tails all the time on the telephone lines next to Bay Rd, the hawks surveying the ground for mice and voles, anything, nothing

This clip is not ironic, but it is brilliant, one of my favorites from one of my favorites. That Wes Anderson knows his shit.

This is brilliant, too

I like to think that I’m not as big a fan of The Who as any male could be. I certainly listened to my share of The Who in high school and college. I even saw them at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1980, after the Cincinnati trampling tragedy. My parents were understandably freaked out, but I still went. It was only half of the Silverdome, seating 40,000 instead of 80,000. When I write this, I don’t believe any of it. Not the year, not the numbers, not that I was there, not that I shirked off my parents’ concerns with a teenage disrespect I now understand from the other side.

The Who=Cock Rock

I had tickets to see Led Zeppelin when I was in high school and then Jon Bonham OD’d. Man was I pissed.

Led Zeppelin, although also Cock Rock, still works for me more than The Who.

How can I predict what music I’ll still like in a year? In thirty?

I can say with some assurance that I will never tire of Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying and I think it might be their greatest recording and also one of the finest recorded examples of that particular gospel tune. Robert Plant’s pleading is the heart of the heart of gospel. I love when the drums kick back in to rejoin his a capella solo.

I did look up Blind Willie Johnson’s version, but I am more familiar with him singing “John the Revelator” from the Harry Smith recordings. Amazing.

I notice the slowing of my mental sharpness. I can’t remember lines with any facility like I could in high school. Ironically, I didn’t do any acting from then to about 10 years ago and now I can’t remember lines without a shitload of rehearsing.

Will I eventually be like my mother? How can she last to 97 years like her own mother? That’s 20 more years. I don’t see it. I don’t like it.

Originally, I was going to title this post “oh, the irony” or “small ironies” or “bitter irony” but I couldn’t come up with enough ironic things

And am I born to die? To lay this body down/ And must my trembling spirit fly, into a world unknown?

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