No Regrets, Coyote

FO: K's Birthday Shawl

Adam's Grandma P kindly gave me $20 for my birthday with instructions to use it for "leisurely shopping." You know what that means. I headed to River Colors ASAP.

My sister K's birthday is just 5 days after mine (just one of many cosmic signs for how close we are). So two skeins of that golden Malabrigo Silky Merino in Sand became this lace shawlette for her present.

I was pretty sure the result was ugly right up until I woke up this morning to the product, dry after blocking. I still wonder about my choice of the slightly variegated yarn. But in the end I'm pretty pleased, I guess. I hope she likes it!

Also, I have a skein of the Silky Merino left over... So I can go get a second ball of that beautiful bluesy-greeny Manos you see in the top pictures. Hooray!

Radishes

These little beauties came out of the ground in the weeding and thinning this morning. They smell delicious: earthy, sharp, and just faintly onion-y. The fact that they have rather overwhelmed more of the garden than their alloted space just leads me to believe that we will have to dig up out entire backyard to plant more veggies or one day move to a house with a very large yard. (I don't care if the house is large, but give me lots of gardening space, please.)

I just finished reading the best book I've read in a long while: The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Put simply (which it can't really be) it is about black slaveowners, or slavery in general, or America post-civil war, or freedom, or identity... In any case, it is some of the best writing I have read, although that may reveal more about my literary tastes than the book itself.

That's being followed by the pleasure of another great book that I began last night but am already enamored of: Rudyard Kipling: A Life by Harry Ricketts. Great writing there, too.

Alright, off to ride my bike to the yarn shop. I should have an FO soon, as I've a birthday present due my sister on Thursday.

Sheesh.

You try to control my right to choices in birth control and family planning.

You try to control my right to choose whether or not carry a pregnancy to term.

And now, you want to control where and how I will bring a child into this world when I choose to do so, and to criminalize home birth.

Fuck you, patriarchy.

Flowers for Every Room in the House 5

The bathroom, or, I didn't even know our thyme flowered, or, I wish I had a macro lens.

Flowers for Every Room in the House 4

Rosie lives on the kitchen windowsill.

Flowers for Every Room in the House 3

I'm counting the front porch as a room, because we live there too.

Father's Day Blues

i was sitting here wondering about Father’s Day

some comment seemed apropos anyway

to differentiate it from any other day

so i asked a poet what to say

he said:  “Nothing, just give him a handsome leatherbound edition of my complete works” so i went away  

and asked a guru what to do

he said  “Meditate on it first for a century or 2,”

so i left & asked a psychiatrist whom i knew

but he said  “Loving your parents isn’t good for you,

subliminally speaking,”  so by & by

i asked a Miss Rand a philosopher;

she punched me in the i

& said  “Think of something for yourself,” and so 

i just guessed at bits i didn’t know:

really, it hasn’t all been gingerbread & nasturtiums but i felt

compelled to remark   

that sometimes   

in the dark    

i am grateful    

for a light;    

sometimes    

of a cold wet night   

i am grateful    

for a place to sleep;   

sometimes, partway

up the heap

of petty grudges, vengeances for procrastination etc

up which I Sisyphusly  climb

i am grateful for a smile, and

sometimes

on a Bikini Island

of the spirit,

i am grateful that you are another human being 

Thank you & M.H.R. 

Father’s Day 21.6.71

Written by my uncle DLM, whom I love very much and who has sent me many great books, including his own, over the years. (And the poem is his property, admiring readers!)