mumma yaga

May 31   grandmother I looked after Fox for the day. He was quite contented to hang out, eat food, play in the yard, and go for a stroller ride (which put him to sleep for his nap before he crashed from tiredness). He is delighted with the dogs. He did not cry until late, after supper, when his mother was expected, because he fell and was tired again, and wanted his mom. I am okay, but not solid ground for him. I sang and rocked him, but he only said, "no", he wasn't to be distracted from wanting mummy now. I was not sad; we had a very good day until then. While we explored the meadow, he took my hand on hilly places, and once or twice asked for it: "Hand." He talks a lot - he knows over a hundred words, and uses signs from American Sign Language, that he was taught long before he was ready to learn spoken words. We taught our own children signs as well, that's where Rain gets it. Fox makes sentences too, although I do not know all of his words; many of them...

 May 23 Eddy Izzard: You may know him. He is a comedian, out of Britain. I first encountered him in Glastonbury at my cousin's house. My cousin's house was four hundred years old, flagged with great slabs of black - was it some sort of slate? The walls were several feet thick, of some sort of plastery cement. Windows were tunnelled through to the outside. The door tipped one straight onto the street. My cousin played us a video, in the days of VCR machines, and I was an instant fan. That was twenty five years ago. I saw him, Izzard, live, recently (well, sometime, just before the pandemic), in Toronto and I absolutely fell in love, though I loved him already. Izzard draws out the humour in grocery stores and the universe. But he never uses racially hurtful material, never sexist,"aren't women a drag?". On the contrary he promotes peace and inclusivity, and shares his love of the sciences and of history, humanity.  Stan Rogers: I have known of Stan Rogers less than...

 May 15 I am "being here now": looking at the world, seeing what it is saying today.  I wonder about these trees. Are they normally late to leaf, or are they dead? Or just not well and so leafing later. This groundhog was on the road when I drove out yesterday. He did not go far up the tree, but waited to see what I would do. I was able to take a couple of pictures and then I thanked him and left him before he felt the need to run away.  This tree coupling is not uncommon. I have seen several such younger trees embracing an older tree, as if borrowing from its strength.  These two are growing by the car, at least the car spot is next to where they are. Violets: Azure bluets, I realize the name is a redundancy. ***** top shelf. if you get it, you get it. ***** I have not noticed before how golden the dandelions can be. I am sure that it will rain today, although the weather stations are saying tomorrow noon. Bumblebee: We noticed that the dandelions grow in a swath ac...

 May 14 Mother's Day #1: I have always wanted to skip mother's day. My poor children were not encouraged to celebrate or express their love on this day, because I could not stand the hypocrisy of society! My objection is that mothers get no credit the rest of the year, and are blamed for everything wrong with their children. They pick up after, cook for, clean up barf (and worse) for the children, in addition they do most of the housework for the family, cleaning of bathroom, laundry, dishes. None of this brings money into the home or into her pocket. And then one day of the year, it's "yay, mom, we love you!", but not enough to ensure you have food on the table, money in your pocket. To see the value that society puts on mothering, you have only to look at the pay that day-care workers earn, while the mothers of the children go and earn enough to pay daycare and anything else that the household needs. Yup. If you add in the fact that many pregnancies are unplanne...