new year's resolution

I hereby resolve to try to remember to try to avoid whining about my blog on my blog. On New Year's Day.

all I want for Christmas...

All I want is for some (any) Christmas elf to tell me how to blog. Specifically, how to post pictures and/or any other media. And actually a lot of other stuff, too. Like, what's a link and why? Kudos to Blogger for making this as user-friendly as it is, but I'm not a friendly user, so nothing is obvious to me. I have sweat, bled and cried, all to no avail. I've managed to make this blog LOOK like someone here knows what they're doing, but I have no one to ask for advice. I doubt that anyone actually reads this, but if you do and you are out there reading this, Santa, please send help. Any help. Hell, if nothing else, just tell me where to go to get help. Otherwise, I'm going back to the studio to make great paintings that none of you will ever see. Also known as, shooting myself in the foot.

therapy dog

I took my very good friend Jazz for a walk about this time last winter. Jazz, 11, is a big ol' Golden and a certified therapy dog. My dog Gracey had died that week, and Jazz's person thoughtfully sent him across the street to keep me company. He's genuinely great at what he does, perceiving need in others. If he spots your need, he'll promptly park his 70 lb butt squarely on your foot. It's strangely like a big hug. "Don't move. I'm here. I got you." After some therapeutic foot-warming, Jazz took me out for a walk in an icy twilight lit by colored lights. Christmas in Boulder, and garbage cans over-flowed with rejected this-and-thats. The following wrote itself right after we got home.

I saw Jazz's big head buried in a snowbank.  
Though most folks wouldn't, I hollered, "Hey, Jazzy!  Watcha got there?".  
Though most dogs wouldn't, Jazz pulled his head out of the snowbank.
He grinned at me in dazzling technicolor. I stared at him in disbelief. 
"Awww, Jazz.  I'm really sorry, but I don't think you should keep it. *Sigh* I think you gotta leave it."
He stared at me in utter disbelief. *Sigh* "For real? I gotta leave it?".
"For real, dude. You gotta leave it."
Slowly he opened his jaws, for lo, the frosting was very deep, 
And the jujubes of many colors all stucketh to his teeth.  
The house's gingery gable toppled over in the snow, 
And eight tiny reindeer slid somewhere down below.
"What a good boy!" I exclaimed as we passed on out of sight.
Jazz burped, "Er, I swallowed the chimbley by mistake... just one teensy bite." 

ace of space

Though it was as unlikely as a pure white moose (see Dec.9th post), I now know why I started this blog. I have absolutely no doubt that Ace has something to do with this. Really. He's all over it, like static on socks, or syrup on a stack, like moonlight on the snow. If I'm right, I am honored and expect a great ride. December 13th marked eight years since that Great Digital Storyteller, our co-conspirator, eternal friend and brother Dana Atchley went someplace the rest of us will have to wait to see. Boy... wasn't it always the way?

A couple of weeks ago, I revisited Dana's online site, no doubt goosed along by himself, this time playing The Amazing X, a Puckish connector-of-all-things. Another character in his trunk. I was delighted to see his site is still there as a memorial, with tributes posted. I was more than relieved to see that fixed star right it where ought to be. Like spotting an island.

I sense that Ace (sorry, Dana, but you know you're Ace to me) might be, okay, IS very envious of all this blogging stuff. Back in the day, children, he blogged by bus. Literally. He drove a progression of rolling home/studio/library/theatre/museums back and forth across this whole country for years, keeping folks connected and all of our stories collected. If he were here now, I can promise he'd be doing things with the blogosphere that would astound and amaze everyone.

I bet he's pretty amazed to see that even I blog. I do it to keep telling the story, just as he would have us all do. To make sure you get the link to his site, I have to include it in this text in case I blew the setting to include it automatically. I can hear him roaring with laughter. Hey, stop being a smartass, dude, and gimme help. Here it is... http://nextexit.com/

Don't be lazy and miss the Next Exit. Ace knew that pulling off the highway is when the adventure begins.

We love you, darlin', and miss you a lot. Thanks a lot for the goose. Lookee. Here I am.

look the other way

Well, so had enough of Maine for now? Hawaii sound good for a change? Go ahead; spin the globe westward to the other side and see that Hawaii is getting hammered by a cyclone, locally referred to as a Kona Low. Massive rainfall and lots of flooding. Still going with "climate change", but given that there's already hell and high water, who knows how long that'll be good for.

this is global warming?

No. Global warming has become an archaic term. To be more precise (until we find out how much trouble we're really in and have to come up with an even more cataclysmic descriptor), I think "climate change" is just about the level of understatement we humans can take about now. As the sweat broke out from under the pancake (Bronze #5) on the brow of the guy on the Weather Channel, he begged, "Is there ANYwhere in the US that isn't under attack by Mother Nature this weekend?".

First answer: no. Second answer: Mother Nature knows she doesn't have to do anything but watch, let alone attack. Third answer: we're cycling, folks. That's a good thing. Really. It gets bad when there's stasis, when it's silent and nothing moves. Now, THAT'S dangerous. In other words, when She holds her breath...

There, there... Did that help? Me neither. Moving right along...

I grew up in Maine. Up there in the tiptop righthand corner of the US of A. The other Maritime Province. Where winter goes on and on like that damn battery bunny. So you might assume an icestorm of historic proportions wouldn't phase me. Wrong. They're comparing this storm to the wicked one of 1998. That one also took out a lot of eastern Canada. Of course, odds are there have been at least another few dozen back before anyone was likely to survive to tell about it. However, this time's different. This time my elderly parents, in their home on the coast, along with another quarter of a million people, are without power. And that's just in Maine. Icy damage has blacked out most of New England and upstate New York. It'll take days, if not weeks, to get everyone's power restored. Which only begins to say how much those two gloriously perfect weeks in August are worth...

Last I heard this morning, when I got through to my sister who lives on an island nearby, my parents had gone to the Downeaster Motel for b'fast and hopefully a room. I'm waiting to hear anything else. I get it; blogging is for when you're helpless to do anything else. I think I'll go soak my head in the shower while I wait.

That's all it took; the phone just rang. The juice is back on. My parents are fine. Flushed by the excitement of survival, having tea in my sister's kitchen, and booked into the Downeaster for the duration. Exhale.

wildlife

Sure, a white moose dazzles in broad daylight. But can he glow in the dark?

saviour

Mighty Mouse was da bomb!