charlotte...

See Charlotte. Grow, Charlotte, grow!

See Charlotte's head. What big eyes you have!

Think it's fun to turn Summer-saults? Acrobatic Charlotte. Come back in four weeks for more pictures.

Happy girl, Charlotte Louise. Enjoy the swimming and the good food...

...and Mommy and Daddy's love.

paw-nography...

Bixby wants requires equal time.

introducing muffy...

Who is the cutest of them all?

Fr. C dared me to entitle this post 'Hello, Kitty'. I refuse to blatantly bait Felipe that way.

So...here's the new kitten (and just for the record: she was 'unplanned'). Her specialties: careening, cavorting, catapulting. Two weeks ago, she careened into the spotlight from the woods surrounding our hosts' home on the evening of the year-end choir party. Her desperate yelping was piercing and resonant even for a much much larger animal. So we batted around 'Magnificat' as the most fitting name for a feline who loudly crashes a choir party, but we already have a Maggie in the grandkitty generation. And Muffy (short for the more respectable 'Muffin') just seemed to fit her. Besides, I like that name and can always plead that she named herself, as pets are wont to do.

Those who are animal lovers/whisperers know that each and every cat is distinct in every way, from how they move to the intricacies of their psyche. The Muffinator is sweet... spicy... grateful... engaged... communicative. She's a rival for 'brains' in an already brainy pet pool at our house. A sprite who's full of reckless inquisitiveness and is fearless in almost all things...and that's where the cavorting comes in. She doesn't simply aspire to climbing onto a sleeping Mommy: oh, no, she must leap in the air and land like, well, a plump tarantula...splat!...and then scamper off to prepare for a string of similar antics. And this is just in the middle of the night. She plays more intensely (insanely?) and intentionally than any cat we've ever had. And this is a vast understatement.


Muffy:5, Camera:1

Mostly, her moves come under the category of 'aerial'. The little flying-squirrel/super-girl likes to go with arms straight out and cape flapping. Or maybe she's spidermancat. I swear, she has little suction cups on the ends of her extremities. Let's just say she uses her claws well. We're all impressed. Here you can see samples of her horizontal and vertical techniques (oh, and her championship 'waiting the dog out' act):



So, how do Lucy-the-wonder-border-collie and Bixby-the-orange-tabby-terror fit into all of this? Well, it's been quite a journey. Her relationship with Lucy looked like it was headed to a control freak circus act. But much to my surprise, the little Muffmeister - who doesn't know she's a half a percent of Lucy's size & weight, is seemingly best friends with her. What she has in her favor: needle-sharp claws and entertaining moves. She is intent on snagging Lucy's nose with the former and can still dazzle her a bit with the latter.

Bixby isn't 'allowed' to open his throat to emit a teeny growl at the new kitten (Lucy long ago herded this wild cat into a straight jacket). But after two weeks of avoiding the new kid in the living room, he reached out a paw to so some 'air-playing' in her direction.

I'm still waiting for WWIII to start, i.e., the three super animal powers to meet in a dead end hallway.

When our children were young, we had a small 'Muffy' book. I may need clarification from them, but I think she was Hello Kitty's rabbit friend. I've stumbled across a couple of short and very clever Muffy adventure blogs. If you've got the time, you may enjoy Muffy Misadventures and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, which are mostly about Muffy looking for her missing sister, Miffy. There's even a link to a 'Carrot Toast' recipe.

This one's for you, Muffy!

seeing nature from two sides...

Today, I retrieved a nest from a bush that was part of 'zealous' shaping and pruning on my part a few weeks ago. It was beautifully crafted: awaiting the laying of eggs, cleverly cradled in the honeysuckle bush that would be producing berries to sustain little ones before they fledged. A perfect avian nursery...I had mortally disturbed.

At the time I buzzed-cut the bushes (but not with any electric hedger -- I like the real blades) in our side yard, I had a worthy mission: to coax them to fatten up and fill in and become one with the chain link fence, i.e., totally obscure it from view. My heart got stuck in my throat when I saw what I had exposed. Deprived of branches and leaves above, losing protection from sun and predator's view, the nest's future usefulness was - in a few 'chop chops' - obliterated.

I brought it inside and set it on the kitchen window ledge. The super clean bottom of the nest bowl confirmed that it was not last year's left over, but intended for fresh, new life this year. At eye level, over the sink, I admired its perfection...but still felt so sad over the deprived future. Then...an earwig crawled out of it and I quickly put him in the disposal.

Earlier, we had pulled up a sprung mole trap from the front yard. We've been invaded, inundated and overtaken by these creatures. Caught in the trap's blades was a perfectly formed mole with cute little toes. Cruelly - in its view - was life brought to an end. We had to work to release it, and somehow that seemed fair. I found myself wishing it could have been trapped live and released. Impractical, at best.

I have mixed feelings about my interactions with nature. I get really upset when anything is harmed...and, more and more, I do mean anything. A few days ago, I saw a teeny spider running across our carpet. I whispered 'sorry' before flattening it. When we first moved in here, a house centipede attracted Lucy's attention one evening. She ended up being stung in her mouth as she played with it. I was frightened -- had never seen one before. After I finished it off, I went to google 'ugly midwestern huge insect' and found out who/what I was living with. Come to find out, they like to stay to themselves, mostly out of sight, close to the walls. AND, they eat all the insects you don't want to have in your house...roaches 'n' stuff.. Okay. So I gave them a lease...I guess on Life. I felt proud of being able to ignore them, but the reality is this: If I see one 'loose', I worry about Lucy getting hurt. Or at least that's what I tell myself after killing it. And I do wordlessly apologize, every time. Recently, when I saw a baby one in a bathtub, I verbally patted it on the back and left it alone. A few days later, it was dead. The tub was too slippery to escape. How ironic.

I am at the same time a sympathizer and a murderer.

So...with an increasing sense of my intruding footprint on the environment comes guilt (even as I discard the moldy broccoli that was forgotten at the back of my vegetable bin, or wish my solution to keeping garbage smelling 'good' would be something better for the environment than sealing shrimp shells in the ziplocked extra thick plastic bag they were sold in...a bag that will be degrading for eons before those easily biodegradable shells see the light of day), but also the awareness of the inevitability of good and evil mixing it up in this life. Are we all a sea in a Garden of Eden salad?

As I said before...I'm ready for the peaceable kingdom.

Fourth of July in the 'hood...

Aerial view of the greater neighborhood whose identity spans decades...
...as do their legendary celebrations...

Wow. We were warned. I mean...informed. Not one, but three parishioners called to ask if we 'know about the traditional celebration of the 4th' in our neck of the woods. It's decades old. And it's big.

Multiple parties started it off on Thursday night, some closing down the street. At the end of our block, parks 'n' rec picnic tables (in a small town, you can borrow anything) surrounded a home. A port-a-potty stood sentinel at the corner. Across the pond, the house that has become famous for festive music late into the night kept it's reputation for enhancing the mood until well after midnight.

The morning parade on the 4th was said to be 'smaller than usual'. Translation: no elephants or tigers...though they've had them in the past. An official baton twirler led it off, followed by bagpipers. Close behind: the large duck - I didn't get the story on him but I'm betting there is one.

Vehicles ranged from fire trucks to oldsters to jeeps and all the way down to golf carts. Impressively long!!!

The older set who had birthed this parade when their children were young walked the route boasting a 'Sex in the City' theme. Unfortunately...that picture got deleted from the full camera card to make room for others.


There is a 'W' missing before the 'TF' below! Gas prices drove the theme for the day. Even the grand marshal putt-putted on a wee scooter.



Pony rides were available on this corner before the parade. After the parade, 50,000 firecrackers (smoke bombs???) were thickly blanketed along the side of the road...producing, well....a highly impressive blanket of sound and smoke. A fitting end to a grand event.

But the parties went on!


A parishioner's grandfather - he'll be 100 on his next birthday. A treasured folk artist in this state. He carved, painted, etched and decorated the above walking stick. A highlight of the day for me: holding it and turning it as I read, aloud, the poem he cleverly wove into the design. I can't remember the name of the poem or poet...but, ironically, it did include something about failing memory.


The view from the grandfather's seat: A young boy rests on the largest tree swing I've ever seen. The lot straight ahead has a historic house on it that was the clubhouse when the greater area was a golf course.

The day ended with the longest fireworks display ever - well over half an hour - launched from two barges on the lake. Lucy and I drove to a point just beyond the lower right corner of the above google earth map and viewed them through the windshield. The barge was directly in front of us and therefore the show was deafening! Returning home a bit shell-shocked, we were (unfortunately) treated to more fireworks, this time launched from a house two doors down. I do mean launched. Barge-worthy.

mosaic of moi...

In her 'Midweek Mosaic' post, Miz Minka gives instructions and links for making a photo mosaic. An 'in your own image' sort of art project. Fun!

The photos represent my name, my favorite food, the high school I attended, favorite color, celebrity crush, favorite drink, dream vacation, favorite dessert, what I want to be when I grow up (if ever...), something I love in life, one word to describe me, and my alter-ego name. I don't think I'll offer any detailed Jungian interpretations of mine. But the first photo is a Brenda in a training session with the National Zoo's celebrity, Tai Shan. Nuff said. As well as the capirinha, chocolate and damselfly.

micro greens...

'Red micros', purchased from the Goshen Farmer's Market yesterday.
These are sprouted from arugula, mizuna, kale, amaranth, mustard, cress
and tatsoi seeds.
Crisp. Spicy. Extraordinary.

I'm addicted to microgreens. I guess that's not a bad thing. Sprouts are in fact the most nutrient dense food on earth, themselves ripe with the magic of life's essential enzymes. My mouth told me as much when I first tasted the mix above at the same marketplace a few weeks ago. A package or two later, my increased energy became their best spokesperson. A micro second later came the familiar nagging greed for possessing the knowledge of 'doing it myself'.

So I embarked on a Google journey. After hitting dead end after dead end in my search for a workable home system (let's just say most info sources are geared towards selling the expensive little gems), I discovered a wealth of info at SproutPeople. There I found my ideal: hemp bags. Seeds for micros need some sort of medium and the hemp fiber is an easy, reliable and reusable (and therefore economical) one. Next step: obtaining a bag of seeds that replicates the 'wow' of the above mix.

An Amish farmer at the above market declared that it now take five apples to match the nutrition found in a 1965 version of one. Depleted soil, herbicides, pesticides are perhaps the basic culprits. But a larger issue looms on a grander scale: In our good intentions to feed humanity easily and thoroughly, we may not have done either as we super-manage food producing, processing, packaging. "We're consuming 'edible foodlike substances' -- no longer the products of nature but of food science." (Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food). Honing the art of nutritional science, we're seemingly much less healthy than where we started. Malnourished some would say. Perhaps we've lost something essential: What food was truly meant to be.

Thank goodness the pendulum is showing signs (...not macro quite yet) of swinging...of increasing awareness of and desire for health and wholeness. Being human, we will ever do it imperfectly. For now, I'm choosing a micro remedy - with some hope and gratitude in the mix.

talking cat...

Miz Minka's recent post with a singing dog has reminded me of this YouTube video. When I discovered it a few months ago, both Bixby and Lucy came barreling into the room, trying to locate the interloper. On 'replay', Bix jumped onto the table beside me, walked across to the computer, went around back to sniff the speakers and...hissed!!!

Of course, I just couldn't resist replaying just a few more times for him. Some would say that's messing with his brain. He did end up staring at the speaker for quite some time.

Catatonic???

pond music...

We're enamored of the nighttime bullfrog-serenading going on in the pond. While living in Aumsville, Oregon, thirty years ago, we enjoyed these amphibians on the millrace that bordered our property, which was across the street from a feed mill. (I'm not going to go 'there' now as the mill's practice of putting out poison for their mice had a fateful effect on two of our beloved cats, including the one we got as a kitten when first married. Well...I guess I did go there. heartbreak...) The 'singing' can be considered irritating But, like a gently rolling train in the midwest background, it truly grows on you.

Soon after the first bullfrog commenced his unique arias - a month or so ago - a second one emerged across the pond. Some nights it was obvious they had moved, but still seemed to be facing each other on opposite sides of the pond/island/etc. I took to calling them 'Tristan and Isolde', thinking them star-crossed lovers that yearned to be together but were separated by familial expanse: Mom & Dad didn't approve of a liaison. Then, my visiting sister-in-law googled bullfrogs and announced if they're singing they're both males.

Like most males in the animal world, they have to work hard to attract females. In this case, the females are a bit larger than them. The wily mates not-so-slyly and attractively (???) honk away. When females come to check out the nature-karaoke and are put into some altered state by the males' bravado, they are summarily and quickly jumped on. Nothin' romantic or star-crossed about that.

Just yesterday I heard an NPR story on Wagner's opera, Tristan and Isolde. Well, actually, the drama surrounding the writing of it. While consumed by the T&I story, he was also consumed with passion for his benefactor's wife, Mathilde. By the time of the opera's premier years later, his wife Minna and said mistress Mathilde were both out of the picture. And Cosima Liszt von Bulow (Franz Liszt's middle daughter) - wife of Hans von Bulow, a famous conductor who was, in fact, collaborating with Liszt on the opera and conducted its premiere performance - had just borne Wagner a daughter. She would bear him a second child and be pregnant with a third before officially leaving husband-von-Bulow for fifteen years of marriage with Wagner. At his death, she clung to the corpse for 24 hours and longed to take the plunge to the afterlife with him.

Makes pond life look pretty dull. But, clearly, in some way that refuses to be pinned down, 'it's not over until the fat toads sing'.

Recently, Fr. C submitted my blog for a literacy test. Came up 'junior high' level. OK. I can take that, I guess. My propensity for making up words and writing incomplete sentences and often disrespecting the English language and its rules (though I was fastidious when young) are most likely to blame. However, Richard Wagner's life-tale is certain to ensure a solid PG rating.

Interesting quote about Wagner: During rehearsals for Tristan, Wagner's friend August Roeckel recalled: "If a difficult passage went particularly well, he would spring up, embrace or kiss the singer warmly, or out of pure joy stand on his head on the sofa, creep under the piano, jump up onto it, run into the garden and scramble joyously up a tree."

Click on the picture of the scary frog above and a National Geographic page comes up with lots of interesting bullfrog info. You can even listen to their 'music'.

we're pregnant...

Well, not exactly us. Sum and Dom are. Well, actually Sum is. Delight does not even begin to express our multi-faceted joy, generously kissed by gratitude.

Some time before the end of 2008 (hopefully a month before, for Sum's sake), we'll welcome a Chester or a Charlotte into this life. Oh such darling names! Middle names: 1) the D.C. station where S&D agreed to meet for the life-changing blind first-date; or 2) Sum's middle name.

They've heard the vibrant heartbeat, which has become palpable in grandmother/nana/wingedlady's prayers...a precious bird-in-hand...