innovation & failure

above: the january full moon is about to rise and i can't find the doohickey that attaches my camera to my tripod. so i fashioned a tripod with what was handy. see my camera at the ready?
below: although last night the full moon was astonishingly huge and clear, tonight it rose in a shroud of cloud. too bad.

homework

so in the midst of all this blog of note hubbub, i began a new graduate class. this course is totally online - no face-to-face meetings, no gatherings on campus, no study groups at the local pub. still though, we participants need to know one other. so for the first week's assignment, as part of our getting to know you introductions, we are to describe ourselves to the online group - from our pet's point of view. i'm having a bit of difficulty getting started on this because any pet that i've had has thought i was simply wonderful. don't you think a pet's point of view is undeniably biased? better to have asked for a description from a pest's point of view - then it might be easier to get to the truth.

wonderstruck

the subtitle of this blog reminds that i post about "things that make an impression on me...for whatever reason". what's impressed me today is the number of people who have visited this blog through blog of note and the distances from which they have viewed it. in the last 43 minutes alone, five hundred viewers have dropped in to serendipitous. visitors come from above and below the equator, from lands i'd need a map to locate, and from places where it's already tomorrow. all these stops into my little corner of the blogosphere serve to demonstrate just how big the world really is - and how very small it has become.

thank you for your visits and your comments. i'm glad you like this place.

b.o.n.

humbled, and momentarily at a loss for words.

thank you, blogger.

sucker II

in the local dunkin donuts restroom, i have washed my hands and turned to dry them at the automatic hand dryer. my eyes rest on its shiny metal surface and this, a million dollar bill, with president rutherford b hayes staring stoically over my left shoulder. obviously a fake, i chuckle to myself as i shake the excess water from my hands. the mint doesn't even print denominations this big, i tell myself as i rub my hands together. probably some sort of prank, i theorize as i hit the dryer button again, just to stall for time. i study the bill but i can't read the fine print. it sure does look like real money. for a brief moment, i forget myself and think someone somewhere may have lost it and is frantically trying to find it. could it hurt to just take it out to the donut counter? to say, hey look what i found in your bathroom? i pick it up. i turn it over. and there on the back is a message about jesus and how he saves. too bad he didn't save me from looking like a damn fool.

sky at noon

much more success at photographing overhead on a brilliant winter afternoon. white birch, white moon, and cloudless blue sky.

night shoot

still trying unsuccessfully to photograph the night sky. clear nights like this one are perfect for star-gazing, but even using the timer tonight did not ensure a good photo. this is orion's belt, part of the constellation orion, which is high in the sky in winter in the north. the belt is an asterism, or a well-known cluster of stars, easily recognized as part of the constellation.

i would dearly love to photograph the big dipper, standing on end these winter months, but it's located in the sky directly above a neighbor's brightly illuminated barn so it's just not dark enough in that direction. light filters into my yard as well, ample enough to capture the frozen photographer and her tripod, shadowed on the january snow, which glitters like the stars above.

good buys

so far this week, by post or by fedex, i have received four books, one jacket, a bottle of imported perfume, two shirts, a prescription, and the second DVD in a series of three. this may be an innovative way to shop, but it's not new. my grandmothers must have shopped like this, seeing only pictures and reading descriptions of their purchases and never dealing with the actual objects until they arrived in the home. don't you think internet shopping must be much the same as ordering from the old sears & roebuck catalog?

the day off

out my window on this holiday, snow day, do not-much-of-anything-but-have-fun day.

on loan

whilst my own car was being serviced, the dealership loaned me this nondescript model for the day. good thing it had one of those key fobs that made lights flash and horns beep when it unlocked the doors. without that i might have lost the car in parking lots. odd that after only six hours of sporadic city driving in this automatic, it took me more than a few miles to get re-acclimated to a five-speed!

better late than never

with striking brilliance, the christmas cactus blooms. it's late by a few weeks but in the dead of winter, i'll take any flower, any way, any time.

for the birds

on the right, the new christmas birdfeeder. tonight it was filled with seed for the second time this week, so someone is dining there! my gift-giving friend insists this bird feeder is squirrel-proof. after only a week, i remain skeptical and will believe it when i see it - perhaps this weekend!

a crystal mystery

when i wear earrings, i always wear the same ones - little pearl studs. well, almost always. but in the darkest days of winter, between the solstice and the new year, i have taken to wearing these crystal earrings. i love the sparkle, the way they glitter like stars in the frosty night sky. they seem in keeping with the seasonal themes of dark and light. besides, they look festive - way more festive than pearls.

this year, when i went to get them from their special box, i could find only one earring. i searched through the box several times, then looked in a few less likely jewelry spots, to no avail. i was missing an earring. so i reluctantly went back to wearing the pearls.

several days later, i awoke in the morning and, from my pillow, saw something on the chair rail that runs along the outside wall next the bed. without my glasses, it was a shapeless shadow - a spider, i thought, as i rose to fetch my glasses and a means of disposal. but clearer sight revealed that this was no creature - it was my missing earring. how it got there, to that remote section of the bedroom, i cannot explain.

i have been turning this event over and over in my mind for weeks now. i thought writing about it might help to see it in a clearer light. but it remains a mystery to me.

so i'm still wearing the earrings, even though the new year has now come and gone. i want to keep them with me, just for a little bit longer.

2010

now what shall we call this bright and shiny new year? the past year (and the eight before it) had pretty straight forward names: oh-nine, two thousand and nine, 2009. but how do we refer to this change in decade? do we call it two thousand ten? two-oh one-oh? one-oh? 10? ten? maybe 2k-10? MMX? for me, i think i will write it longhand for a while until i decide. so have a serendipitously happy twenty-ten, everyone!

for the new year

breathtaking snow to usher in this new year. the soft and quiet kind that whirls and floats down all day and all night. that edges branches and boughs. that muffles the sounds of road and woodland. that collects on the ground in flat crystal slivers. a friend calls this narnia snow, perhaps because it's just so magical. such a lovely and peaceful start to a brand new year.