4-29-11, Day 235

To Mandy:

Tin can sculpture made by "JJ" a homeless man who's been
in my neighborhood for the past month using a Swiss Army knife to puncture and shape.  His hands never stop moving, even when in conversation, mildly distracted.  He brings to mind women who weave rugs, embroider, knit.  When he runs out of tin cans, he uses cardboard.  We chat.  Last Sunday when I stopped to wish him a "Happy Easter."  He said, "Oh, I don't believe in Easter...just the eggs."

The artist.

From Mandy:

Before & Afters of our weed patio turned zen garden. We are growing tomatoes, strawberries, basil, cilantro & gnomes.

4-28-11, Day 234

To Darrell:

My favorite kiosk graffiti gallery is For Sale.

From Darrell:

4-27-11, Day 233

To Kathy:

Dragonfly

4-26-11, Day 232

To Gloria:

J and his two boxers.

From Gloria:

I had something planned to send you this week, but when  I saw this humongous moth (?) on the garage door. I just had to send it.
This thing was about as big as my pinkie. Beautiful but the thought of it flying in front of my face scared me silly.

To Judy:

Maiden voyage on public transportation.

From Judy:

Skunk Cabbage

4-25-11, Day 231, week 33

To Ashley:

From Ashley:

Ashley's new love (borrowed).

4-24-11, Day 230

To Landlocked:

Happy Easter

From Landlocked:

4-23-11, Day 229

To JP (somewhere in Texas):

Masters of grading and drainage

A beautiful thing

4-22-11, Day 228 (Earth Day)

To Mandy:

Topiary Rabbit
When I used to ride my bike to work in this neighborhood 10 years ago, this was a wee bunny.

From Mandy:

 Ema tablet painting for a woman here in SD who put together a charity auction for Japan relief. Here is what I came up with and a link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Artists-Help-Japan-Mandy-Jouan-Ema-ORIGINAL-ART-/120713681991?pt=Art_Paintings&hash=item1c1b189c47#ht_826wt_1139

4-21-11, Day 227

To Darrell:

Graffiti gallery, Telegraph & Ashby

From Darrell:

Innovation

4-20-11, Day 226

To Kathy:

From Berkeley art walk on Addison St.

4-19-11, Day 226

To Gloria & Judy:
Creating breathing room and keeping it flowing:

Hauled away many pounds of clothes, about 200 lbs of books, a defunct clothes dryer, dishwasher.   Feels like a window flew open, the ceilings got taller, walls stretched.  

4-18-11, Day 225, Week 33

To Martha:

Pen, paper, ink

From Martha:

4-17-11, Day 224

To Landlocked:

Rubber band ball

From Landlocked:

4-16-11, Day 223

To JP:

Fresh Abalone

Shells sans abalone

From JP:

4-15-11, Day 222

To Mandy:

Bullwinkle Cat

From Mandy:

4-14-11, Day 221

For Darrell:

Ah, Bullwinkle!

From D:

4-13-11, Day 220

To Kathy/Dan:

The First Dream

The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

Billy Collins

From Kathy:

4-12-11, Day 219

To Gloria:

The City has closed the Claremont Branch library near my house and several others for renovations.  This bus will be cruising the neighborhoods for the next year or so, delivering and picking up borrowed books.  

From Gloria:

To Judy:

Poem to Be Read at 3AM

Excepting the diner

On the outskirts

The town of Ladora

At 3 A.M.

Was dark but

For my headlights

And up in

One second-story room

A  single light

Where someone

Was sick or

Perhaps reading

As I drove past

At seventy

Not thinking

This poem

Is for whoever

Had the light on

                                                                                                  by Donald Justice
From Judy:

4-11-11, Day 218, Week 32

To Ashley:

From the Way Back Machine:  "These are my people."

From Ashley:

My nickname is snacks.

Carlos' is pickles.

Weird graffiti by our houses... Do we have stalkers?

4-10-11, Day 217

To Landlocked:

Grown Children

One from one direction, one 

from another, one day they come back, together,

and suddenly my body fits

in the air it is standing in, and my brain

fits in my skull again, and my mindF

in my brain, and over the anticlines of my

mind light plays.   Last week I had seen

a being on the beach I couldn’t name at first,

a short, upright creature with a round

head and a swaybacked torso and brief

appendages flashing to the sides and below

like the beams of a star, so it appeared to sparkle,

to twinkle along the sand—it was a tiny

primate, and behind it along came another,

tinier and more primitive,

a dazzling winking, scintillating

along, it was a baby.   And now our daughter

is asleep on the couch, not six poundsL

thirteen ounces, but about my size,

her great, complex, delicate face

relaxed.   And our son, last night, looking closely

at his sweetheart as they whispered for a moment, what a tender

listening look he had.   We raised them

daily, I mean hourly—every minute

we were theirs, no hour went by we were not

raising them—carrying them, bearing them, lifting them

up, for the pleasure, and so they could see,

out, away from us. 

From Landlocked:

Found Bobbie Jo on top of the Goodwill pile, apparently she's ready to move on!

4-9-11, Day 216

To JP:

Presidio, SF CA

From JP:

4-8-11, Day 215

To Mandy:

From Mandy:

Mutant

4-7-11, Day 214

To Darrell:

From Darrell:

Here is my pic for this week. I'm on the left. It was last week. A dryer fire. Make sure u clean out your lint trap and that exhaust hose every now and again .

4-6-11, Day 213

To Kathy:

Wheat Grass Spill

From Kathy:

4-5-11, Day 212

To Gloria:

From Gloria:

To Judy:

From Judy: