Windmill

"Are windmills always this beautiful?" I asked me. Me replied, "Not if it's grey and windy and you are tied to one of its blades~"

~ Prachi Blue

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I remember the many hours our Grandma Boettcher would spend grinding down the wind with the wind mill. We'd scamper around her asking, "What are you going to do with the wind, Grandma? Watcha doin' with it? Huh?" And she'd get so angry she would scream - "I'm about to break it over your heads you vexing vermin!

She'd get even more angry when we laughed imagining her breaking wind over our heads.

Communicating

In the world of words, imagination is one of the forces of nature.

~ Wallace Stevens

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 I love the Supreme Court. I love that my friend Abbie knows that and shares with me when she engages with SCOTUS. 

The image above got cut off somehow. Weird. Anyway, just know that Abbie's response was pretty detailed about all the nice things Justice Sotomayor said about me.

(pause)

Really too bad that other part of the text got cut off. 

Dreams

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

~ Khalil Gibran

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I don't know what dreams mean. I don't remember a lot of my dreams. I have awake dreams - day dreams, things I dream of seeing, being, or achieving. 

No. Wait. I have those dreams during the day, but when I fall asleep.
 

Shadow

some things can only be seen in the shadows

~ Carlos Ruiz Zafron

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Like shadow monsters.

Or things you see with night vision goggles... all of which look like shadow monsters.

Only

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with. 

~ Haruki Murakami

- - - - -

Leslie and I may be the only people in the world who have eaten a sardine and toasted Brussels sprout leaf pizza. We did that on purpose. I would maybe do it again sometime. Not every day, though.

Contradiction

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.

~ Naguib Mahfouz

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Another way to read the messaging on this guitar case:

Don't be violent with animals. Violence only belongs between children.

Flight

Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.

~ Victor Hugo

- - - - - 

And every person that flies - leaving the nest, leaving the school, leaving an oppressive relationship, leaving a horrible job - has the same. Well, except in their fingers, not their claws.

Birthday

Where words fail, music speaks.

~ Hans Christian Anderson

- - - - -

 I don't think "Happy Birthday, Crank," is a very nice thing to sing to someone on their birthday.

Chickens

Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as a cathedral.

~ Frank Lloyd Wright

- - - - -

I hope if I am ever a winner, winner, I get more than a chicken dinner.

Calming

I believe a calm dog is a happy, obedient dog that won't get into trouble.

~ Cesar Millan

- - - - -

I took Lily to the dog park today and she was kind of the epitome of this quote. Calm. Obedient. I think happy. She's kind of mellow. I like that she looks mature compared to other dogs. 

Of course when Bill and Zeke visited, it was Zeke who was calm and obedient and didn't get into trouble. 

Lily was ridiculous. Just excited to have company, I guess. She'd never had a dog friend over for a sleepover before. I had to stop things when she kept trying to prank call her friends from doggie daycare, though. 

I mean... caller ID. Duh, Lily!

She's so immature sometimes.

Barriers

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

- - - - -

I am not sure I have considered sarcasm as a strategy for self-protection before. I think maybe that is true. Plus sarcasm is easier to wear in public than an aluminum foil suit.

Dog

I had never realized it before, but the nose is to the mind of a dog what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man. Dogs perceive the scent of a man moving as men perceive his vision.

~ H. G. Wells

- - - - -

The past few times when I've dropped Lily off at a daycare, she wants to take a small detour to the dog potty area outside. She sniffs and sniffs and sniffs. I know that the ability of a dog to smell something is like 60 times more powerful than our ability to smell things. I realized that maybe each dog's pee smells a bit different and that maybe Lily can tell which of the dogs has been outside before she's gotten to daycare.

Then I realized - if all of that is true - maybe dogs smelling each other's pee is like us scrolling through social media.

Mail

I wrote this card for you last year.

~ Amanda Melita Green

- - - - -

I am the luckiest person I know. I get some great things in the mail from my friends. Occasionally I get some great things in the mail from strangers, but I assume most of those are accidents.

My friend Amanda sent me a great card she made and inside wrote about the trials and tribulations of sending the card to me. 

I think it's good when people have to go through trials and tribulations to send cards to me. It builds character. And gives me stuff for my blog.

Reflection

Time and reflection change the sight little by little 'til we come to understand.

~ Paul Cezanne

- - - - -

If I am out and I see a reflection, I am probably always going to take a photo of it. I have seen many of these in my life. You might say, "If you've seen this kind of thing once, then they're all the same." But you are wrong. And annoying. And I don't want to go on walks with you anymore. You need to fix your outlook on life. Maybe do some reflection on what you really value and celebrate and appreciate. 

See what I did there?

You're welcome. That will be $300. 

Dishes

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

~ Confucius

- - - - -

Dirty dishes in an art room are beautiful. I can see that.

Dirty dishes under a pile of clothes in the bedroom are not beautiful. I cannot see that. 

(pause)

I guess because they're under the clothes.

Words

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

~ Rumi

- - - - -

Choose your words carefully.

(pause)

Or else I won't be able to understand you.

Lockers

No one knows what to say in a loser's locker room.

~ Muhammad Ali

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I like lockers. I owned some for a while and moved them literally all over the country, but my move to South Carolina I decided was one move too many, so I got rid of them. I miss them and wish I had them sometimes, but I could always get more. 

Anyway, I just did some research on lockers. Do you know why footlockers are called "footlockers?" It's because originally the locked boxes were used by cobblers to carry models (stone, clay, etc.) of feet so that they could make shoes. They had different sizes of feet so they could make different sizes of shoes.

(pause)

That's a lie. If you want to know why footlockers are called "footlockers" do your own research!

Gogh

The way to know life is to love many things.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

- - - - -

I love many things. Like the fact that Vincent Van Gogh came over to South Carolina to paint this on the side of a building. Who would have guessed such a thing could happen?
 

Meetings

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and will never achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings".

~ Dave Barry

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 This is an exchange with my friend Corrine about sitting together at a virtual meeting. She didn't show. Well, she did virtually. 

Lily was disappointed.

Beauty

(Artwork by Aurora Flewelling)

In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what is going on, but it's representative.

~ Annie Liebovitz

- - - - -

I don't know if this is a portrait of someone in a corn storm or someone with corn hair. I don't care. I just think this person is beautiful. 

(pause)

I think the corn is beautiful at least. I love corn.

 

Mistakes

I am glad I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it, I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.

~ Edna St. Vincent Milay

- - - - -

"5y3 wi6 8w g3q758r7o" typed the pastor gazing toward the heavens as she prepared her sermon for the next day with her fingers on the wrong keys of the keyboard.

Bugs

 Any foolish boy can stamp on a beetle, but all the professors in the world cannot make a beetle.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

- - - - -

The other night I was sitting outside. I like to sit outside and watch the bats come out in the evening. 

Well, on this particular evening, there was one mosquito in all the land. It was bothering me. I decided to go inside to escape it since my bat friends had not come to save me from it (which, in all honesty might have freaked me out).

The mosquito followed me in.

The moral of the story is: sometimes we try to escape our troubles, but our troubles follow us until we have fully dealt with them. 

The other moral of the story is: I don't like mosquitoes.

Baby

Having a new baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate.

~ Anne Lamott

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I find that many times people's sonogram photos of their babies look like night vision photos of an opossum in the back yard with its mouth open.

Woods

I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.

~ Mary Davis

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About 45% of the shows Leslie and I watch have recurring scenes of someone being chased through the woods. 

Why

Why take when you could be givin'

Why watch as the world goes by

It's a hard enough life to be livin'

Why walk when you can fly

~ Mary Chapin Carpenter

- - - - -

I saw a video of an owl running up to meet a person the other day. It made me really want an owl. Why walk when you can fly? Because if you're an owl you look super cool walking. Still, I get your point, MCC.

(pause)

And, yes, I know that isn't an owl.

Words

The secret of being boring is to say everything.

~ Voltaire

- - - - -

The other day I was scrolling through social media when I read "captions are over-rated." I thought about that for a moment and realized that I often agree with the idea. Then I re-read it and it actually said, "captions are auto-generated". 

Ultimately captions are meaningless if you don't slow down and read them carefully.

Magical

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

~ Roald Dahl

- - - - -

Suddenly, the dog was surrounded by a halo of light. There was a touch of rainbow and a touch of sunshine and a touch of shadow. It made the dog seem magical, but not any more magical than she actually was - because all dogs are magic. 

Truck

Keeley: Roy, if you die, do you want to be buried or cremated? Like, if you were hit by a bus today, what do I do?

Roy: Go after the bus drive and make him pay for what he did to me. Avenge me, Keeley! AVENGE ME!

~ Ted Lasso

- - - - -

I don't like it when people say, "You could be hit by a truck tomorrow." They also say it about busses and trains. Why are you wishing that on me? Why would you want me to be run over? How did that even get into your head?

And why is it that there are so many bad drivers out there? It has been a little while ago, but I am almost sure one of the things I learned in driver's education was, "Don't run over people." 

 

Peace

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

- - - - -

This is the porch of the cabin we rented for a few days of vacation last June. It was very peaceful. We relaxed and did some talks and walks (Leslie and Lily actually did some pretty long hikes). I took some photos. I got to go fishing for a little bit. Lily got to swim and explore. It was a nice time.

There was a larger cabin at the top of the hills in the trees not too far from us. I only saw two men and four or five boys. I thought maybe they were Boy Scouts or something. Some days they left early in the morning and were gone all day.

Then I heard the boys all come out one morning and one of the little kids said the f-bomb. 

After that I didn't think they were scouts anymore, though scouts make bad choices sometimes, too. 

Sky

I feel like if you put something out into the universe, then you increase your chances of it happening.

~ Tom Holland

- - - - -

The other day I was looking at social media and a thing popped up that said, "Eight Things You Don't Know About Tom Holland." They could have put nearly anything about Tom Holland on that post. I know virtually nothing about him. 

I imagine that goes both ways, doesn't it Tom Holland?