mumma yaga

 august 31 John Prine: Summer's End    https://youtu.be/nXbEFTv9zr0 Leaves drift along the curb, August 30. Summer's end is in the cool September air and the blue-and-white sky, going to bed with the window open, pulling up the bed sheet for the first time since June.  Two sides of summer this year: nature's summer of burgeoning trees and gardens, flowers alive with bright colour, birds full of song. The  psycho baby squirrels leaping and jumping and chasing, scornful and dismissive, easily evade the juvenile hawks learning to hunt among the trees. And fruit and vegetables fresh from farms have come to our supermarkets. To our summer city where nothing else is the same. For Torontonians, and all of humanity, the summer of 2020 was a sci-fi sequel to The Pandemic Spring , by Covid-19, ghost-written by Stephen King (fear and death) and Isaac Asimov (technology and a fictional future). The celebration of picnics and backyard barbecues, the usual summer joys, cold b...

 August 27 It rained last night. This morning is a classic Toronto August morning. Humid to the point of dampness - cool but close, and hazy, reminding me of the Ex. The Canadian National Exhibition has been part of Toronto life since 1879, cancelled only during World War II, until this year. * The CNE of my childhood was a short-lived treasure of noisy shiny delights. Water poured like rain down the glass windows of the food building (does it still?) and sometimes it  was  raining, but it wasn't a food court then, it was a showcase of companies' signature products: everyone gave out samples : a tiny coke bottle, a drink of orange squash, a paper cup of Green Giant Corn Niblets. The Better Living Centre showed futuristic ovens, vacuums, and other Stepford-wives white-on-white breakthroughs. The Ex was rides, cotton candy, horses and a million blinking hot lights. The Air Show delighted my father: engineer and wartime Air Force navigator, he awoke in us a love of machines ...

August 26 Suddenly I can smell the lake. We are a long way from it at Bloor Street. There it is again. Last night it turned cool without bringing a rainstorm. Today has been overcast and cool. Rain would be welcome. Does anyone know what these mutant triffid monster (obviously genetically engineered) "dandelions" are? Their flowers are so perfectly dandelion they must be related. Actually, I am in awe of the ways plants protect themselves, from mild psychological confusion to downright prickly, cannabis, cacti and the mutant dandelion somehow have it covered. But what are they?  Speaking of mutations: This is a squirrel whose white-tipped tail makes him look a little like a skunk. Two years ago I saw one. The next year two or three more, this year one is living in the tree down the street. Louie, I think this is the beginning of a darwinian survival of the imitate-a-skunk squirrel. [Casablanca ref.] And in other mutant news: In Florida some scientists plan to release 750 mill...

    I am going to take a large step back here, and a leap forward, which might take us into the new world, if they could be tied to leaps in fair living wages and real equality between the sexes. First, look at what parents have accomplished in a pandemic lockdown. We have used previously untapped parenting skills and teaching strengths to see the children through an unprecedented crisis. Step back now and remember when a mother or grandmother was at home when you came home from school and a snack waited and someone wanted to hear about your day. There are parenting books that espouse every variation of care from day care and nannies to a full-time at-home parent or guardian. There is considerable evidence that a single attachment figure in the early years is a strong base upon which to build psychological strength and effective discipline. A child who feels secure in his home and his family learns to trust the world outside. It is not in the "quality time" with children ...

                                   A view of the Vermont mountains from Rain's farm August 21  Was it five days ago I last wrote? We have had a whirlwind few days, I hardly registered their passing because we were planning our (or my) escape. We found a place to stay and I depart on the seventh of September for a month in Québec. If the children are going back to school K will come with me, or even if they don't it will be nice if he does. Tamar is still uncertain about the children going to school. I don't know what I'd do if it were me. I spoke in April and May about the slow pace of time that the pandemic produced, but that seems to have progressed to a sense of urgency in each day. Not only for me with a deadline, but for many because there is a window of freedom just now, while we exist safely in stage 3: three weeks have passed and there are no horror stories of massive outbreaks. Some o...

august 17 Ideas are coming fast as I put my Sea Log in the house and begin work on the Sea Cave. There is about three weeks of preparation: making the base, and sorting the ornamental pieces into a layout plan. This is necessary because there are several focal points on the sphere and larger pieces will go nearer the back, so must be graded in order. I have decided that I don't want to make this one public while it is in progress. Sea Log was a unique exception to my policy of privacy during the making. And I think I will go back to that.  But there are other jobs requiring my attention. K and I are planning to go away for September when the children return to school. Partly for a get-away (see existential crisis 200724) and partly because we have to be gone when the kids start school. I have to arrange housing (cabin, RV, tent?) for then and pack what we will need and leave the house workable for Tamar and Nick. We have tipped into the second half of August now (When is the ex, mu...

 august 14.  The Sea Log doesn't look much different until you get up close. (It hasn't looked much different for weeks!) The grouting is complete and the wood has been sealed with beeswax polish. Below, in the sun and some close-ups.   The back: Sorting out my materials: Robin breaking stuff: It began. Ideas that didn't take! Jaws: When it rained in my studio! (I needed more "dedicated" space  so I moved to the picnic table in front of the house) and Fig.:                    In the dark: Thank you for visiting!  Keep Safe.

 august 14 The morning I wrote "day 42" on the covid slate, I flashed on writing day 157, and I really couldn't imagine I it, but it's here: 22 weeks, 5 months we have been doing this. The world is showing burnout, the need to gain economic ground and the increasing desperation of the poor and the marginalized is pushing at the gates of change. On the other side of the coin is a wider scientific understanding of the virus with metadata starting to provide answers and labs getting closer to a vaccine. New, more hopeful data is showing up, just in time for school starting (??) and a Russian vaccine.* Data out of Africa is showing differences in covid-19 behavior there. "Reality" is a word without a meaning. It is a limp clock in a Dali painting. Its doors are blown off.     The Sea Log, completed August 13, 2020.     !? The young Cooper's Hawks are out and about this morning. Moments ago they flew to their tree and perched unsteadily under the edge of the ...

a poem. come home come home the wind's so hot  the sky is white with august haze the thinnest cotton still  too close  for the humid air air like breath around me thick as honey round me come home come home my body cries take off your clothes let me feel your skin damp as the undersides of leaves come lie with me on the stripped down bed tonight's too hot for sleep Mumma Yaga 1997

August 8 The mosaic so far: It is called Sea Log. The first stage (shown here) was completed a few days ago, all (or most) of the china bits fastened on. I am grouting it now, just like grouting tiles in a bathroom except each little area must be done carefully and completed before the grout dries. The blue and white box has a lid, in safe-keeping until everything is done. The green and pink fish salt-shaker below the blue box used to say Tobermory, which is where K and I honeymooned! It just says TOB-R now. These two fish, (above and below) say Canada. I love saving these gems from landfills. All the bases (ie the log) are second-hand from garage sales and church bazaars and all the china too: such beautiful ornaments and dishes no-one wants any more. Here are two completed mosaics: English Morning and Fish Pillar. Where it started: Once upon a time a china cabinet fell over and the contents (antiques) fell to the floor. Surprisingly several pieces survived intact. We had several rest...

august 7  Correction: follows first paragraph to correct misinformation contained therein.    The baby hawk(s) have fledged. I can't tell one from another except for the sex if they are close enough so I don't know how many there are now, but they are much more active, talking and flying back and forth from the nest. Sometimes one streaks by like a little fighter plane to attack its prey.  [Those little fighter planes were the parents calling back and forth "they're still hungry!". Now, there are at least two baby planes, and the distinction became evident when I heard their own juvenile calls like a cry or a whistle. They are flying about now and practicing sitting on branches (they keep tipping over!).]   The baby apple trees didn't make it. They made a brave go if it. Meanwhile Indre and I are enjoying all the wildflowers and the gardens. She is showing a good deal of interest in plants.    Bee on a flower, so little! Insects seem so prolific this y...

[Image credit to Indian Express.] And then Beirut blew up and all its grain spilled like sand around the ruined silos. August 6, 75 years since USA dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.      A weird day yesterday. Still no solid ground to stand on. I was out early from 10 am til 12 at various stores, home at lunch, which I prepared and K and I ate. Then I was done and had a lie-down, fast asleep two "gone-a-long-way" hours. I rose and went through some things needed doing , then back to lie down: didn't  feel well, nothing too bad just heavy fatigue. Nine pm I looked back on the day. The morning of constant covid awareness, the needs of children and household tires one out. I couldn't prepare dinner, but nibbled leftovers from what Tam and Nick prepared.    We have been in this for many months now and if the strain is getting to me then how much more are they suffering and burned out who have less space, less food, fewer healthy outlets for relief, fewer res...

August 3 Thank you to my friend on facebook for posting this article: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/schools-returning-5160890-Jul2020/ Liam Printer is a teacher in Switzerland where schools reopened safely in May. There was no rise in case numbers and schools have remained open.    " I teach in a secondary school in Switzerland and here, all schools have been back teaching in our real classrooms since 11 May. Yes, with real, live people around who exist as more than just avatars or thumbnails. .... We need to continue to put the focus on happiness, inclusion and relationships. .... This unprecedented situation provides us with an opportunity to be brave, explore new approaches and do whatever we can to get our students smiling and fully engaged again." Good news amongst all the bad.

august 2 It is covid day 145: 4.5 months, more than 20 weeks. I don't think any of us imagined this. Haha, I don't think any of us is imagining it, either! Whatever the naysayers claim, this is not a drill nor a hoax. Just count the extra graves, talk to a "SALT" (sick-a-long-time) person, a "long hauler", they have named themselves. *sigh* I will have to save "SALT" for my novel. perfect for a post-apocalyptic knowledge-lost society. Oh, wait. That's us.        [I mean no disrespect nor hurt to covid -19 long-haulers for whom this illness has been a rollercoaster of debilitating symptoms week after week, while the medical profession is scratching its head.]  Toronto has opened to stage 3 and I saw people in the bar at the nearby plaza, unmasked, how else to drink?, and gyms are open and beauty salons. The schools are set to open in September (with precautions). At our house, however, we are still adhering to full lockdown protocol against cov...