It Was One Of Those Days, An Open Thread

Shiro Kasamatsu

"Summer Night," woodblock print, 1957

Since I do so enjoy dabbling in cans of worms,

I thought I would mention,

That I think Earth's old creation myths and such,

Were attempts to understand,

The World Without End.

The nature of Eternity,

The structure of the Universe,

And all like that.

They weren't just stupid primitives

Thinking up nonsense for drill.

I mean-

A stack of turtles going down forever?

What else could that be about?

Selah?

Ralph would say, "where you are now, is where you will be."

"Take care of now."

Love, Ralph

Love

Period

Suzy and Toots would advise Purring™!

💮🖤💮

I Went For A Ride With Bubble Woman

 

Coming into Everett on the trestle.

Her Kia is very interesting on the inside.

It was warm and sunny out there today!

Worth*Every*Cent

Then she made some bubbles in the alley, though they are hard to see!

That was our field trip today.

She also shot bubbles out of the car window all along the way!

It was a pretty good field trip.

PS, fall is coming!

🍁🖤🍁

A New Entry from Maurice

 

Dear Book:
            I know it’s been a long time since I wrote on your pages. I lost my pen. It must have been the last time I wrote, but I looked and looked and it was gone.
            I couldn’t borrow one, because, well, nobody in the Great Forest has a pen. Not even Ramona!
            So, I was in the kitchen in this old house. There is no food here. I already looked. I was looking out of the kitchen window. There used to be a garden behind the house, but it’s all baby trees out there now.
            I decided to look in drawers and cupboards for a pencil or something I didn’t notice before because I was looking for something I could eat. Well, guess what Book? There was a pencil in the drawer by the sink. It’s yellow, and cracked, and the eraser is gone. I guess I better not make mistakes!
            So then I decided to sit down and think about writing something. I practiced a little with the pencil, but I needed to chew some of the wood off the end so it would make a line. That’s what I was doing when I heard somebody walking outside.
            I’m a howler. A howler is not a dog. I was smelling a lot of dog. Too much dog. It was like super doggy. Man, Book, it was rank!
            Rank and stank rhyme, funny!
            I had one of those turkeys Ramona cooks. It was leftover from dinner, so she gave it to me last night. I couldn’t eat with that stank going on. Then there was a big loud crash right across the room from my bed on the floor. Something broke the door open. I was never able to get it open. Well, Book, it was open now.
            A thing that looked like a dog, but too big, like nearly as tall as Ralph big, stood sniffing at the doorway and then came in here! He was walking on two legs like me or a man, or a Forest Man, or a chicken. I didn’t know whether to run, or fight!
            I don’t think he knew I was here.
            “Hey,” I said. He kind of jumped and stared at me.
            “Who are you?” said this doggy giant thing, baring his big teeth at me.
            “Maurice, a true Howler,” said I.
            “I want that bird,” said the dog.
            “So do I,” I said. “Who are you?”
            “Gnrr,” he said. I didn’t know if that was a name or a threat of some kind.
            “Just hold on.” I said. “Didn’t Ralph send you away once?”
            “Gnrr don’t owe anything to that big monkey,” he said. So it was a name after all.
            He was black as the bottom of a bucket of used oil. All I could see was teeth and red eyeballs.
            “You want to go talk to Ralph about that?” said I to the big dope.
            “Ah, crap, no. Don’t tell Ralph!” and he snuffled a little bit. What a pup!
            “Sit down, why don’t you? We can both eat this turkey. I won’t tell if you shove off. Ralph won’t want you hanging around,” I said as kindly as I could, considering who I was inviting to dinner.
            I kid you not, Book, me and the dog thing ate turkey together. He finished off the bones too. There wasn’t a grease spot left when we were done. He licked the floor!
            “Don’t tell Ralph,” said Gnrr.
            “Oh, he probably already knows,” said I, by way of encouragement. Book, you should have seen him!
            “I’m out. Think I’ll walk down to town,” he said. Then all 8 or 9 foot of the dog stood up and took off, leaving nothing but a whiff of super canine behind.
            I went and pushed the door back into place. That’s all. The visit was over.
            I’m going to be careful not to lose this pencil. I don’t think there is another one in the whole Great Forest, unless you count the campground, which isn’t really in the Great Forest, just close to it.
 
Maurice, a true Howler

🐺

A Holiday Is Born

 

            “This is war!” said Suzy.
            “That’s right, Suzy,!” said Toots, firmly.
            “Shall we tell them who our sworn enemy is?” said Suzy.
            “There is no question. It’s fleas,” said Toots. “Besides fleas, any other foe pales to insignificance!”
            “They are more insidious, and more opportunistic, than even raccoons or, in fact, mice,” said Suzy.
            “Therefore any weapon used against them is justified,” said Toots.
            “We propose, in that regard, a holiday to raise awareness,” said Suzy.
 

🌎DIATOMACEOUS EARTH DAY🌎

 
            “How’s that you say? How on earth, ahem, could a bunch of crushed diatoms help in the eternal battle against fleas?” said Toots. “Well let us explain, and you’ll see it right away!”
            “How it works is this. Diatoms lived in ancient lakes, and they are made of like, glass. Over a really long time they get deposited on the bottom of these lakes, then the lakes dry up and they get fossilized.
            “People dig the fossilized diatoms up and grind them into diatomaceous earth!” said Toots.
            “The cool thing about ground up diatoms is that it’s like a whole bunch of tiny broken glass pieces and they pierce all bugs, including fleas!” said Toots. “That’s it! They dry up!”
            “Dust it all over your carpets and floors, be careful, because it’s slippery on wood or linoleum floors. Then you vacuum it up in a few days!” said Suzy.
            “It’s not toxic to cats, or anybody else,” said Toots. “Except BUGS!”
            “Don’t breathe it in,” said Suzy.
            “You’re welcome,” said Toots!
            “July 26! Diatomaceous Earth Day!  Dig it!” said Suzy.
            Both girls dissolve into giggles……

🐈🖤🐈

Remembering A Summer

 

That's the Seattle Art Museum at Volunteer Park in the background there.

            Listening to these fans blowing yesterday, drowsing by my desk, brought a memory to mind of the only time in my life I lived alone.
            I was done with the community college here in Everett, and had moved to Seattle for the summer. I lived in a brick three story building by Volunteer Park, on Capitol Hill. I was working in a factory south of town sewing mostly what we call puffer jackets now. I worked in several of these places when I was a big kid. I still dream about the machines and the big noisy rooms and working just as fast as I could manage to.
            I have no idea what I ate, or cooked. I know I didn’t have much money.
            I took the Metro bus to work every day and then back home. I saw mostly the same characters on the bus every day. We never spoke.
            Just being there in the city fascinated me. I knew Seattle of course, but the last time I had lived there I was 6 years old. Then we moved out to the woods, but I’ve told that whole story before.
            It was a hot summer. I remember evenings with my window open, elbows on the ledge, just watching the light go down, and the city street, with strangers walking by. There were big old trees along the street. There was a scent to it, and a sound, so foreign to home. Distant traffic makes a kind of song.
            I was mostly listening to jazz at that point. It must have been on the radio. I didn’t have a record player, though I did possess a couple of albums. Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, and others.
            There was a crosswalk on my corner. To help blind people cross I guess, it had a beep. I heard that beep until it got into my jazzy head. I remember a scrap of verse from those nights alone in the dark watching the city.
            Why, when fan sings, do birds buy night’s phony beep-cheep?”
            That’s it. All I remember. Apparently some birds responded to the sound, or I thought they did. I’m afraid I wrote an awful lot of verse.
            It has to have been the summer of 1968, quite a year, in all.
            Then I moved back home, went to the UW for a few quarters, and the rest of my life happened.  
            But for one breathless hot summer, man, I was cool!

🏙️

The Man Who Fell Into His Tree

 

            Something woke Max in the middle of the night. It wasn’t noise. Not at first anyhow.
            It was light.
            You know how a person becomes accustomed to the ambient sounds around home, and the usual smells, and the normal level of light. It all depends on where a person lives. If there is traffic nearby, there will be headlights through open curtains. If a person lives in the woods or on a farm there are only the sun, moon, and stars, and whatever yard lights and such.
            Max and Judy lived on a one acre hobby farm in the suburbs of a small city in western Washington state. Max was retired so  he was there most of the time, tending his trees, raised garden boxes, and a flock of busy hens. It was a nice life.
            Outside Max’s bedroom window, on the far side of the lawn, next to the woods, was a an old maple. It has been there before the house was built and the garden made. It was late summer, and the bedroom window was open. Max and Judy believed in fresh air at night.
            Something changed enough to make Max open his eyes. Judy slept on. Something was different outside. He sat up to take a look around. The room was fine. Totally normal.
            So, he went to the window to take a look out there.
            There was a globe of yellow light, a normal color, about the size of a cantaloupe melon moving around among the leaves of the ancient maple. Max’s first thought was that someone with a large flashlight had climbed his tree and was up there moving around for some unaccountable reason.
            “Judy, wake up. I’m going outside. Some nut is up in the maple with a light,” said Max.
            “What? Don’t go out there! Just call the police,” said sleepy Judy, up on one elbow.
            He put on his terry robe, and said, “It won’t take long. I’ll  just tell them to get out of the tree and go home. I bet it’s some nut who thinks it’s a magical tree or something.”
            “If I don’t come back, then you can call the cops,” said Max, barefoot, stomping out of the bedroom and to the backdoor of their house.
            The night was like night often is. Cool, a bit of dampness to the air, quiet in a sort of impending way. There was traffic noise from the freeway a few miles away, and he could see lights here and there in neighbor’s houses. The grass was in need of a mow and covered in dew.
            When Max got to his tree, the light was still up there, moving slowly around as if it was taking inventory of the leaves.
            “Get out of the tree!” Max ordered. Nothing changed. Not at all.
            There was a bench under this old tree, made of wrought iron, painted green.
            “If you don’t come down, I will come up there and make you get down,” called Max.
            It was kind of a rash threat to be made by a man pushing seventy years, barefoot, and in a bathrobe. But, Max climbed up on the iron bench and threw a leg over the lowest branch. Then he grabbed a higher branch with his right hand.
            The yellow light moved up higher into the tree.
            He couldn’t see any person associated with the big yellow light, but he was so sure that he hefted himself up onto the second branch. Sitting there, on a branch in his maple tree, in the middle of the night, Max noticed a sort of ringing sound, very high register, like you might imagine, if you were so inclined, that fairies might make by ringing fairy bells. It made him
 feel something or remember something, but he couldn’t quite place it. It felt like a memory but had no attached data. He frowned, working on it, trying to remember.
            Then there was an odor. Not unpleasant, but strong. The smell of sap, and crushed leaves. And while he was listening to the fairy bells, and smelling the green sappy scent, the night changed all around Max. It was as if he were in another place. He fell.
            He landed plop, right on his bottom on a stoney slope. He was in twilight, and surrounded by millions of wee lights, starlike, but not stars. Perhaps they were more like fireflies, though he had never seen fireflies at home.
            While Max was sitting on the stone surface, some small figures ran by  him laughing. He couldn’t really see them well at all. “Gotcha!” one yelled as they ran past.
 
            It was then that Judy woke for real. “Oh!” she said, remembering what Max had told her before he went out. It felt like it must have been some time too.
            “Oh!,” she said, and threw her feet onto the floor. “Oh, no!”
            Wearing only a granny nightie, Judy padded rapidly into the kitchen, and reached down into a lower cabinet. What she pulled out of there was a five pound bucket of honey of known provenance, real honey, the real stuff.
            Then white cotton billowing behind her, Judy ran out the same way Max had. There was no light in the maple tree, and the bench was knocked over.
            “Oh, no, they di’n’t!” she muttered in her Appalachian accent, picking up the bench.
            Judy put the bucket of real honey on the grass under the branches of the ancient maple  The she stood back.
            “Take this honey, and give me back mine!” said Judy, like she meant it.
            “Give him back!,” she called, saying a few words in some old language nobody speaks anymore.
            It was quiet for a while, a standoff. Negotiations, bargains, who knows?
            A small figure the size of a cottontail rabbit ran out of the darkness and grabbed the bucket and disappeared again.
            It was quiet again for several minutes. Judy waited, and did not lessen her pressure.
 
            Max fell off of the branch he had been sitting on. Plop, he landed right on the iron bench, looking startled to find himself there.
            “Why have you been out here so long?” said Judy. “I was worried about you!”
            “I saw a light in the tree, I think,” said Max. “I came to see who was in the tree.”
            “You must have sat down and gone to sleep,” said Judy.
            “I think I did, Judy! I think I came out here and sat down and went to sleep,” said Max.
            “I  had a funny dream though, but it’s fading.”
            “We may as well stay up now,” Judy said. “Morning is nearly here. I’ll start breakfast and why don’t you have a shower and warm up?”
            Max agreed that a shower sounded nice about then, and then breakfast after.
            Before they went back into the house, Judy turned and gave the tree a long deep blue-eyed look.

💙

           

Any Little Road Anywhere, Open Thread

 

The best thing ever, I think.

No particular destination,

A mystery to be followed to its end.

Timeless.

Don't you think so?

🍁🖤🍁