Sadly, I’m a day behind, so I should get something up for S-day. Not surprisingly, I saw many suitable possibilities for S-words. So many that I opted to sell the word short and simply post a bunch of photos of S-things.
I have very few sunset or sunrise pictures that I’ve kept because so many of them turn out to be disappointing. I did find a handful though.
And, going with the seagull theme…
And finally we have steps, shadow, strange tree pods and sun sparkling on a stream.
I had other plans for R day, but…
This morning I woke to our cat, Monty, lying on the floor wheezing. His neck was wet and he had a hard time breathing. I took him to the vet where they found his lungs were filled with fluid and he had a clot blocking most of the blood to his lower body. Long story short, we had to put him down.
Monty was one of the sweetest, mellowest, quietest cats I’ve met. Of course he was quirky, which was part of his charm. When he was still very young, he broke one of his hips. In spite of that, he got around for years, still managing to explore and get into mischief.
I’ll miss you, Monty. R.I.P.
Monty, 2006-2012
Brothers
Ba dum chhh.
Do you know how tempting it was to just have this be a blank post? You know, that I’d put off finishing until later… Right.
So many P-words I could write about. So many I am nearly Paralyzed trying to Pick the Perfect one. Pah! I’ll keep it simple.
This may not fit the most precise definition of the word, but here is a photo I took along the Bellingham waterfront that to me exhibits a lot of patterns in the sense of repeated motifs. They’re in the boardwalk, the waves, the rocks, the remnants of of the supports, and even the driftwood. Of course, patterns are everywhere if you look for them. How many can you count in this picture?
(click for full view)
Since it’s National Poetry Month, and I’ve already tainted the artform a couple times this month, I may as well continue the trend here with a sort of anti-ode to poetry itself.
Poetry
such a waste
of paper
ink words
When was
the last time
a poem
saved a life
or a love
And what of
that poet
making
purple
word messes
all to
say the obvious
in a
clever (stilted) way
Better to
stay with
the tried and true
noun verb
adjective
in clear order
Leave that
fluffy stuff
to the clouds
Or, possibly one more, just to leave a positive taste in your mouth.
Drowning
Coloring book sailboats
By a lucky bob I surface
and grab the post gracious
and safe
I scream
I have hundreds and hundreds of photos on my computer. Only a small percentage of them are in black and white. It’s trivial to convert a color image to black and white, but I love color, so even if I have an image that screams black & white, I have a resistance to converting it.
But there are exceptions. Sometimes the textures and shapes in a picture are so strong that color actually detracts from the image. For today’s Blogging from A to Z post, I’m going with a photo gallery of black & white images. I suppose some might think I’m cheating because today’s B’s day and I’m sort of including a W word. If you’re a purist, I hope you’ll forgive me.
All images were taken and edited by me. In case that wasn’t already clear.
I’ve been working on a post about speaking gibberish in improv, but then I thought of a quote attributed to Mark Twain:
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
It may seem counterintuitive (because you’d think fewer words = less time), but it’s much easier to write long than to write short. At least, it is for me.
In other words, the gibberish piece is still too long.
So, I thought I could try cheating. If a picture is worth a thousand words, at least it doesn’t seem like a thousand words. Maybe by posting some pictures, it’ll be easier for me to keep the number of (written) words down. This may not make sense. Nonetheless…
Heaven forbid I post pretty pictures. Instead, here are a set of pics I like because of the elements of decay or, perhaps I could say entropy.
(As always, click on an image to see a larger version of it.)
There, that should make this post [worth] roughly 6,200 words. I hope it didn’t feel like it.
What words do you think the photos are trying to say?
I often feel absurdly pleased when an animal “likes” me — especially if it’s an animal that doesn’t typically like people. You know, like the dog that comes over with her tail wagging and the owner says, “Oh, Abby doesn’t usually like men.”
But how many people have had a butterfly befriend them? (Okay, so maybe it’s more common that I’d like to believe, but I don’t want to know if that’s true.)
We were having lunch at Hannegan Pass in the beautiful Cascade Mountains, and I saw this cool little blue butterfly. It did that random fluttery thing butterflies do and fluttered its way to where I stood admiring the view. As it flew close to me, I held out my left hand. I guess I just did it out of a futile hope that the butterfly would land there, but I was still surprised when it ended up settling on my index finger.
He (Hey, how the heck am I supposed to know if it was male or female?) just stayed there and did whatever it is that butterflies do when they’re not fluttering or eating sugar. At first I tried to be so careful not to move too much because I wanted him to hang out on my finger. But, after minutes passed and he just stayed there, I began to move around, walking in the little meadow in which we found ourselves.
The whole time he stayed, clinging with his six little white legs, enjoying (I hope) the ride, and I took pictures, showed him to my hiking buddy, and was amazed at how long this tiny little creature seemed content to hang with me.
So, why was I so tickled by this? I mean, is it really such a significant thing to have a bug land on me? But, it was a butterfly, a beautiful thing. It was also more rare than, say, the flies that had no problem paying us all too much attention during our hike. And, its attentions were more gentle, more sublime (at least, so I felt in my fuzzy little brain).
It’s as if I was being honored by the little fella. Here was a living being, much smaller than me, who trusted me enough to rest on my finger. And, maybe there was some weird background idea that animals (even butterflies!) are somehow able to sense the innate goodness (or badness) in a person, so this funny blue critter hanging out on my finger was almost a sort of stamp of approval, like, “Hey, this guy’s alright.”
And maybe with our pets, or with the animals we encounter in nature, we can imagine some spark of consciousness that is not bogged down with all the crazy human crap that fills our minds. “I like you.” “You scare me.” Simple, straightforward.
Or, maybe I just want to be one of the few, the proud, the liked-by-butterflies…
*****
Full disclosure: I stole this piece from one of my previous, now-extinct blogs hardly anyone saw. Partly I’m posting it to “prove” that not all my hiking experiences were distinguished by stupidly flirting with disaster.
Partly I’m re-posting because I got a kick out of my little butterfly buddy and wanted to honor him (or her).
Mostly, though, I’m re-posting because I’m lazy. Is that so wrong?