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She Dreams
As I read, my arm is draped across Bluebelle, who snores. Just now, while scanning some lines by Ezra Pound, I felt her muscles beneath my forearm bunch and twitch. Her breathing quickened like an engine starting to rev. Her breath funnels down into groans, then tiny yips, and a tide rushes across the surface of her warm body just beneath the brindled fur; she dreams now. And I, pater lacking perception, cannot tell. I cannot tell if her dream is a bad one or joyous. Is she fleeing some foe, or chasing a rabbit…or her own multihued tail? And even if I could stroke her small arena of a…
- Bluebelle, Books, Daily Life, Dixee, Holy Days, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
Like Most Others
Today started out like most other Sundays. Mid-morning, all the dogs wanted outside, so I let them out while I was preparing breakfast for the missus and me. A few minutes after the dogs went out, I heard what sounded like the spotted twins a-rasslin’ on the porch and didn’t pay it much attention. But a minute later, I heard Dixee’s shrill shriek of pain and went running. Jinx was holding her down with one paw and Bluebelle’s snout was buried in the fur on the right side of Dixee’s throat. When I burst out of the back door, bellowing and cursing, the twins scattered. Dixee was flailing around on…
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The Chokin’ Kind
When I was a small boy, the only stereo with which I had contact was my aunt’s big monster console record player/AM/FM radio, about the size of a deep freezer, with a deep, rich bass. You could load six (I think) lps on it and it would play one, drop the next one onto the turntable, play the next one, and so on until the last was played. The arm would swing back over to its rest and the thing would shut off. This was scary-good high tech in those days. The stereo had a small red light, about the size of one of those red dots that we’re not…
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Second Sunday in Advent
We attended a Christmas party last night, the only one to which we’ll show up this year, except for the upcoming annual gathering with eldest son and his clan, to which will be added a son in late January. The party wasn’t excruciating, and we were well fed. We don’t eat a lot of beef these days because of the high cost, but I made up for it last night. Extremely tender beef tenderloin, a nice herbed chicken, green beans, lumpy mashed potatoes (and that is NOT a complaint), salad, and rolls, and started off with chicken salad, crab rangoon, pimento cheese, and several other finger foods and croo dee…
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7 October
We haven’t seen many bluebirds at all this year at the farm, but this evening, my wife called me to the window to watch a large group of them taking turns at the birdbath in the front garden. Gorgeous creatures, blue and orange, splashing and playing their bird games. It was God’s gift to my wife, whose birthday we celebrated today. I played hooky from work and we went on a jaunt, ate lunch at one of our favorite little hideaways, did some browsing, then came home and rested. Happy Birthday to my beloved wife, my best friend and the best human being I’ve ever known. I’m so glad you’re…
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‘Tis October
The hurricane/tropical storm took an eastward cank as it approached the eastern states and so most of the rain missed us. We had some on Friday evening, then overnight that night pretty hard, but yesterday it only sprinkled a time or two, and today is dry but blissfully cloudy. Friday night, Mrs. Orr was driving home and texted me, “Look at the rainbow.” I went outside and looked west, but saw only a golden sky, lit from behind the rain clouds. When I turned back to the house, there it was, a double rainbow in the northeast of our little world, and my heart sang within me as I stood…
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Update On Mrs. Orr
I wanted to thank all of you who took the time to leave comments and email me about my wife’s health issues. I am especially grateful for those of you who have been praying for her. Just a small point of clarification, because I realize that in my haste to get the post up, I inaccurately described one of Mrs. Orr’s symptoms. In fact, her throat has not been swelling. She describes it as a sort of spasming. And she believes it may be psychological, a sort of panicked reaction. Any time she swallows wrong and, for example, aspirates water, the terrors just wash over her and it’s difficult for…
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Covordidities
Guess I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off about people reveling in their various diagnoses. Looks like Mrs. Orr has the ‘rona. She wasn’t feeling well yesterday, and we thought it was a sinus infecton/allergy thing. She laid low most of the day except for a brief errand excursion, and when we retired, she seemed fine. Around 0300 this morning, my wife began coughing uncontrollably. She’s done this on and off for years, and it’s a very frightening thing. She says that she can literally feel her throat closing up, and this induces a panicky state, which makes her breathe faster, which turns the whole thing into a debilitating cycle.…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Firth of Jelly
Early this morning, Bluebelle went to the patio door, huffing and rumbling. I didn’t look outside to see what might be causing her displeasure, but instead let the dogs out into the backyard. Then I returned to the patio door and looked out through the blinds. A young buck was feeding with quiet deliberation among the young grapevines and tiger lilies between the trees lining the driveway. I managed to get a couple of photos of him, marveling at his movements, delicate and powerful, and also shaking my head at Bluebelle’s ability to hear this silent creature at least thirty yards from the front door, with Americana music playing in…
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The Value of Moments
This morning, this gray and dripping morning, I walked in a neighbor’s corn field, thick-grown with silage for his cows. Except for the soft sighing in the tops of the trees in my woods behind me, the silence was deep and cyclical, like a tide, like a black spot in space between two stars. I stood in the chest-high corn plants and listened, and heard nothing but breeze, and I listened again, and inexplicably, a song came into my head, a song I have neither heard nor thought of in years. I walked on through the corn and then at the perimeter found some bear scat. A calf watched me…