balmy

not much going on here except for the bourgeois notion that i must go find some curtains for my office that doubles as a guest room because my mom will be staying here over the holidays and she will most certainly want coverings on the windows. there are a couple of decent sales at some unnamed evil department stores (not wal-mart though) so i guess i'll slip off and take a looksee before work. the only curtains i have ever purchased in my liftime were a wild pair of 60's vintage black and white boldly designed curtains lined in vinyl from a rummage sale long ago in buffalo. i gave those away to my pal laura meisler before i left ann arbor because i hadn't used them in over a decade.

other than that, it is feeling creepily tropical outside.

check out miss ladies photos! she's got a great shot of santa in the abu dhabe airport. i think he's following her to nepal.

poment

mist field
glaze across gaze
to insist on a yield
yawn of autumn knell
in blank shift of begotten shawl
a misfiring of desire
her opulent pearl of somnolent days
groping for a moment
to misfeel a razor for a reel
chimney smoke, chipped paint, topiary
tending the needs of a heedless class
latitude of luminosity
calf, lass, colt
wanting to secure the latch and bolt
toward an arrangment of range
homeric isle
a melding of mud and tile
song of sage and thistle
missive missle toe
of one conniving giant
in a tale of conquest
(that would be best)
draperies now drawn
but for milk pink dawn
seeping through lace

birds, cats, hoopla and hash

i admittedly bought in to the traditional american turkey slaughter, and served one up yesterday, stuffed with an amazing cornbread/sausage/pecan/apple stuffing, and accompanied by the requisite mashed potatoes and giblet gravy. i also prepared breaded sweet potato slices, salad and broccoli. we stuffed ourselves silly and then watched an odd old disney movie called "the three lives of thomasina." it has a great bardo scene of an orange tabby cat, like our own loki, walking down an aisle of languid siamese cats and paying homage to bast, ancient egyptian cat goddess.

this morning tashi and i wandered out into the bitter virginia cold and watched a very lame holiday parade. there were probably a dozen "miss albemarle county," but the bagpipers were fun.

afterwards i checked out the holiday market on the downtown mall. my favorite things were the candle holders made out of old tin cans and the birdhouses and dustpans made out of old license plates. i made it back to my car just in time to miss the gaggles of holiday shoppers beginning to pour in.

for lunch today i am about to make the best part thanksgiving which is turkey hash. you can make it too! just follow these directions.

you will need some butter, an 8 or 9 inch skillet, a cubed potato or two, a chopped green bell pepper, about two cups of chopped turkey leftovers (or tofurkey if you prefer), 2 cups of stuffing and about half a cup of gravy. melt butter in skillet. arrange in layers: potato, pepper, turkey. make sure to dot each layer w/ gravy. top with stuffing. cover the pan tightly with foil. cook on low for 35 to 40 minutes, until hash is bubbling and potatoes are cooked through. garnish w/ parsley if you wish, and serve. yum.

attic rag doll

iris with the red hair: it is lonely in the hills

lavender cat: but there's good rabbit

iris with the red hair: the air is so crisp my lungs ache

lavender cat: i like to tunnel under piles of fallen leaves

iris with the red hair: combat cat

lavender cat: all frailty

iris with the red hair: it is noteworthy, this damp hollow. muddied garment. birds that have gone now. proud evergreen.

lavender cat: i miss the birds

iris with the red hair: and the cicadas

lavender cat: i want to shred the tree

iris with the red hair: as long as it's not the chair

lavender cat: i will curl up there

iris with the red hair: while i tend the hearth

lavender cat: you are the flame in my heart

iris with the red hair: you are the fur on my toast

lavender cat: i do try

iris with the red hair: let's climb the belfry

lavender cat: such chiming never changed a day

iris with the red hair: i like the power of its call

lavender cat: the perspective of a possible fall

iris with the red hair: how very small we are compared to its enormity

lavender cat: how disposable we are against the validity of hours

iris with the red hair: we must make it ours

two virginias

friday evening i decided at the last minute that tashi and i would join dan in his visit to a friend's cabin in the mountains of west virginia. the three of us had gone to the greek festival to have some good old dinner from the homeland, and dan was going to embark on the two hour drive afterwards. i wasn't sure if it would be worth it for us to join him, since we needed to return by 4 the next day so tash could attend a birthday party. i asked tashi what she wanted to do and she thought quite seriously about it over dinner, and then decided that we should join dan in his adventure. so we gathered up some things from home, piled into the trooper, and drove off with dan in the dark toward mathias, west virginia, where peter, sprout and lily would be waiting for us in their mountainside cabin near the lost river state park.

and what a cabin it was. a beautiful wooden two story high up in the trees. the windows looked out upon a deep and twinkling valley, and a long chain of the appalachians. a stood there mesmerized by stars and mist at 3am, after strong beer and heh heh heh, a wee bit of scotch and warmth from a wood burning stove. the trees were leafless still gestures in charcoal bathed in the bright light of a chipped moon.

we arose this morning to sunlight and sky, pancakes and eggs and bacon and bagles, and took a steep hike upward, upon the greenest, mossiest, spongiest forest floor i've ever tread upon. tashi was a great hiker, but pooped out when we neared the top, so her and i and sprout hung out by an outcropping of rocks. i built tashi a little lean-to out of long branches, and she crouched there pretending to cook acorn soup, while sprout and i discussed childbirth. lily and dan and peter danced about on "cranny crow", and afterwards shared with us their pictures of the vista.

we left after lunch, a visit too short, but just perfect. tashi made it to her birthday party, and now we are all sleepy and pleased because the country roads took us home to a place where we belong.

blahgrrr

i was hoping that i would wake up feeling more cheerful, but alas, not. especially after i poured boiling chai over my hand while trying to fill a thermos. dan watched the whole performance and said, "you should use a funnel." my response is not worth noting, but it wasn't quiet.

i slunk out of the house and, on the way to work, stopped at foods of all nations hoping to find some lunch. in their deli case was one bowl of dolmas and nothing else. so i perused the sandwiches and they were at least $2 more than they were the other day. i'm not sure how that happened.

so i moved on to the belair market, a "gourmet gas station" as it's called in these parts. you can fill up your gas tank, buy an espresso, order a horomone free meat sandwich on fresh baked bread, pick up some ghirardelli chocolates or a toblerone, fill up a bag with jelly bellies, and buy a christmas present. i just got a peppered turkey sandwich on wheat bread (for about $2 less than the afore mentioned sandwiches). and a toblerone.

i thought the barnswallow would make the blahs go away but i walked into a ship wreck. everything was in chaos because tomorrow night there is an open house and the owners are madly rearranging and pricing and dusting and polishing. so i tied little ribbons on bells and polished glass and cleared away clutter and walked around with a feather duster. izzy the cat showed up and kept me company and curled up cutely in picturesque corners.

the blahs had pretty much passed by the time i picked up tashi from school. we took the scenic ride down to highway 29 (can i say fucking highway 29?) where just about every good and nasty grocery store strip mall shop plaza and chain store is in charlottesville. we did discover a small indian market on the way, tucked off on rio road. so we picked up some haldiram's moong-dal-snack and a package of naan.

why am i talking about grocery stores again?

b is for blah

everything is just a little blah right now.

blah blah blah

i've had a heachache for two days. the first two human cases of the bird flu have popped up in china. the holidays are upon us. my cat has diarrhea. and the customer of the day is a woman who has had like two bowel movements in a month. not even senna leaf worked for her.

sorry to be so scatological.

on other fronts, i watched the wal-mart movie in a full theater on monday. i even got a free wal-mart watch t-shirt. the wal-mart movie is loaded with appalling information. like: the walton family gives less than 1% of their riches to charity compared to bill gates who apparently offers up more than 50% of his. we all know wal-mart sucks, but go and see the movie and you'll discover that they suck even more than you could have ever imagined. it may not be too late: clickity click to find a screening near you!.

bed, bbc news and book are what i am going to curl up with now. they all begin with b, just like blah.

in the wake of the quake

this just in from a friend of a friend of a friend. she is a nursing/midwifery student at yale and spent two weeks doing relief work in pakistan. there are some good website links at the bottom:

I'm home safe and sound, but it's difficult to process all that we saw in
northeastern Pakistan. The official numbers--80,000 dead, at least that
many wounded, three million homeless--are overwhelming, but it's my patients'
faces, their smiles and kisses and tears that tether my heart to Kashmir.

The first place we visited was the city of Balakot, once one of the
loveliest spots in the country, now completely reduced to rubble and permeated with
the stench of dead bodies. From there we went to Kashmir, where I worked with
a team of doctors and surgeons in a field hospital in the capital city of
Muzzafarabad. Our camp treated 1200-1500 outpatients a day, and had male
and female inpatient tents as well as basic surgery and radiology facilities.
From 9am til 9 or 10pm I gave injections, cleaned and bandaged wounds, and took
care of inpatient nursing needs. As camp midwife, I saw all the pregnant women
and was on call for deliveries. When not doing clinical work I sat with
patients and chatted in my limited and apparently rather amusing Urdu.

I caught three babies in a delivery room we set up in the dirt-floored
supply tent. One of the moms I cared for had lost 45 members of her family,
another had lost her husband and other child, another didn't want to leave our
camp because her tent wasn't warm enough for her new baby. One pregnant mom I
was examining told me, "I was taking prenatal vitamins, but then my house fell
down." One of our patients had had two miscarriages and a stillbirth and
her husband had threatened to divorce her and take another wife if she didn't
have a child, so we decided to do a c-section. The generator died after we got her
anesthetized, but we went ahead and did the surgery without power.
Thankfully, mama and baby did just fine.

Among our patients on the inpatient ward was a family with six injured
children, including one boy who probably suffered a concussion and went into a coma
after not eating or drinking for ten days. His mom was convinced he was
possessed by a jinn and at first told us not to touch him. On one of our worst nights, an old man died in the camp and then a few hours later, a little boy died, the only one of his mother's four children to have survived the earthquake. Holding
her as she sobbed, it seemed we were inundated by far too much grief for one
mother, one nation to endure.

I am deeply grateful for your love and prayers that sustained me through
times when I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. Please continue to pray for the
affected people of Pakistan, and consider donating to relief efforts. The
situation is critical, especially in the mountains as winter approaches.
$80 will buy a tent through the UNHCR; Save the Children and World Vision, two
agencies I know do good work, are also on the ground. I've listed their
websites below, plus the BBC site which has the best coverage of the
situation. The human spirit is resilient and there's good work happening, but they
desperately need our help.

bbc coverage

un refugee agency coverage

save the children

worldvision

foods and fuss

i didn't really like the gourmet grocery store foods of all nations when i first came to town. i just thought it was a lot of hype. but now that i've started to visit the mermaid express, a woman owned cafe inside foods of all nations, i'm gaining a new respect.

first of all, mermaid express feels like a cafe-car on a train, or a lesbian truck stop, or a teahouse in a roadside trailer. not that it's even close to any of those things, but that's the way it feels to me. and they make the best chai latte in town. the twisted branch tea bazaar makes the best indian style chai, but mermaid express makes the best all-western chai latte.

today i went to mermaid express with dan. after he left i looked at the abysmal employment ads in the sunday paper and then after that i decided to pick up some onions in the grocery store so i could make tashi's favorite [boring] kasha dish for dinner. in doing so i discovered that foods of all nations has pretty reasonably priced produce. at least today they did. and they carry a complete line of ecologically grown greens and herbs from planet earth diversified. ok, so what? well then i discovered a small reasonably priced bottle of taramosalata which is a greek dip that only my mom and i like. it is made of carp roe caviar, lemon, olive oil and potato pulp. i don't expect you to understand. and then i felt happy about the huge vats of sheep feta followed by a longish row of indian foods. also, the deli is interesting and the sandwiches priced fairly. lastly, they have a whole lot of wine and chocolate, but i'll stick to rebecca's for that.

maybe i shouldn't be promoting one grocery store when i work at another? maybe i shouldn't be promoting a grocery store at all? maybe i shouldn't be working in a grocery store?

anyhow, i think i should go and plant the bulbs our friend suzanne gave us. she will be in nepal writing her dissertation when they bloom. i'll plant the bulbs while wishing her a fruitful journey.

attic rag doll

iris with the red hair: the fox with too many ideas was paralyzed by indecision when the hunters came around.

lavender cat: but the cat had just one idea and he acted on it. he climbed a tree.

iris with the red hair: you cats believe you're so superior.

lavender cat: just don't think about it too much.

iris with the red hair: i will close my eyes and a pick a book: it is the collected works of lorine niedecker. i will do it again: it is dharma family treasures: sharing buddhism with children. ok, one more time now: it is light in august by william faulkner.

lavender cat: i'm just going to pick one: it is the celtic consciousness, edited by robert o'driscoll.

iris with the red hair: i thought the walls were closing in on me.

lavender cat: but at least the framed painting offered an opportunity to step out.

iris with the red hair: quit name dropping.

lavender cat: quit folding up.

iris with the red hair: but i love origami. and those notes we passed long ago in grade school. and the laundry. it is so warm and crisp when i pull it from the drier.

lavender cat: what about dahlias. and peonies. and calendulas. and cosmos.

iris with the red hair: you're brilliant, so smug in that tree.

lavender cat: and i love you most when panic casts the shadow of a dozen twiggy branches across your face.

war is not good for children and other living things

customer of the day award goes to a man who came in and told me he's used every homeopathic/herbal sedative and form of melatonin on the shelf, and he still has trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. i suggested some simple infusions but he seemed dubious. "i just haven't been able to sleep well since i returned from military duty," he informed me.

a true reggae uprising

a great song called "slogans" has risen from bob marley's grave. apparently it was discovered by son, ziggy, on a tape of family archives, and is believed to have been recorded in miami in 1979. it has some overdubbings of eric clapton on guitar. and this freaking awesome video which apparently will be viewable online for a limited time. it has some amazing marley concert footage, and some incredible historical footage of events from the 60's to the present. do check it out brothers and sisters!

great blue propane clustered lanterns

it was 36 degrees this morning when i went to work and the barnswallow was cold. it is a barn after all. soon the owners will hook up the wood stove and i'll have to build a fire in it each morning. i think that's really quaint. but today we had the proprane heater going. this is kind of like sharing the room with a rocket. really loud and spitting flame.

at one point i stepped outside to turn off the propane tank which was emitting a horrible stink. as i opened the door a great blue heron flew from its spot just a couple of yards away. it had been hanging out by the brook that winds by the barn. it flew away from me and then gave me another thrill by turning around and flying overhead before disappearing into the distance. i was so in love.

and there were customers! one woman bought a necklace for $275. and another woman bought a wall lamp for $185. i can't even imagine spending that much money on pretty things.

after picking up tashi from school we had to kill time for a bit because we soon had to return to school for an autumnal potluck and lantern walk. we went to the greenwood greengrocer, a gourmet grocery store/deli/espresso bar in the middle of nowhere. we opted for dark chocolate coated raspberry ice cream bars, organic mind you. then we took a bit of a drive up toward the shenandoah national forest and then down a windy mountain road through a quaint village called afton. we reached a sort of valley and i was just blown away by mountains mountains mountains mountains everywhere! don't get me wrong, they're not granite sprouting snow pointed mountains. but soft rolling thick lovable mountains covered in gold and orange and umber. they feel like friends.

we drove a sort of loop and ended up back in greenwood where we stopped at the country store, an antique shop where anyone can rent a shelf and have like a permanent yard sale.

and then we drove back to the school in crozet where there was a kick ass potluck and lantern walk. i ate lasagne and quiche and ravioli and kale and salad and sesame noodles and apple sauce and pumpkin cupcakes. the kids walked and sang songs and carried beautiful carved out tin can lanterns with candles inside.

and then tashi yelled with great venom at me the whole way home because she felt her class had plotted against her and left her out of the circle of children singing songs at the end of the walk. i told her that i felt her sadness, but tried to explain to her that there was no circle, just a jumbled group of bobbing kids with no organization what-so-ever. she simply hadn't pushed her way into the jumble. but she was convinced the class had a secret plan to exclude her and that they were all to blame for the fact that she was on the outskirts and that i didn't care. it was depressing and infuriating and frustrating and i had to struggle to remain sympathetic yet rational. one of those moments when you wish the perfect parental words of wisdom will just flow forth and sedate your kid-gone-bonkers.

when we got home i drew her a diagram of what the circle really looked like (many dots randomly placed in a cluster) versus the perfect circle she thought she'd been shut out of (many dots forming, yes, a perfect circle). suddenly, it all seemed to click. she realized that all the kids had someone in front of them or behind them and that she wasn't the only one on the outskirts. and she realized that no one was to blame, but that it simply just hadn't gone the way she wished it had.

and so we had a breakthrough lovefest followed by a snack of frozen corn kernels (what can i say, my kid likes to eat frozen corn kernels), bedtime stories, lullabies, hugs, kisses and easy sleep (after getting up once or twice for this or that). phew.

who says parental wisdom can't come in diagrams.

down with the evil regime

the good news is in:

the house rules committee has removed the nasty arctic refuge and offshore drilling provisions from the budget-reconciliation package

and (this is old news now)

tim kaine won the vote for virginia governor (and even better, jerry kilgore did
* not * win the vote for virginia governor)

and

next week the exciting documentary about wal-mart's poor labor practices will be screened in over 7,000 neighborhood sites nationally. find the screening near you! dan and i will have to take turns attending, as we have a kid who is a little young for this sort of thing. dan is going to view it on wednesday at an anarcho activist community space/art collective called "better than television." and i'm going to view it on monday upstairs from the collective at the jefferson theater. let's hear it for grass roots community action!

dreamslinging

the other night i had a dream that i worked in some sort of department store. an undisclosed california friend came in with a bag full of random items and said he wanted to return the stuff. the problem was, the store carried none of what he brought in. i was searching all over for similar items, but was not having any luck. so, friend or not, i couldn't give him credit for any of it. he was infuriated.

wishbox

* a new iron
* flannal pajamas
* yes! glue
* "the grand permission: new writings on poetics and motherhood" ed. brenda hillman and patricia dientsfrey
* a printer
* mason jars
* hip winter boots

fight the power

tell the government you don't want them to drill for oil in alaska or on other precious coastlines. sign this petition.

customer of the day award

goes to a woman who was searching for supplements that might enhance brain function. she said her husband and son had been in an car accident, and both had head injuries. after we looked over various bottles of this and that, she disclosed that it hadn't actually been a car accident. in truth, someone had broken into their house, beat both son and husband several times over the head with a crowbar, knocking them out. now they are having trouble with focus and short term memory. none of the docs at uva have been helpful she said, but every time she introduces them to an alternative therapy it seems to work. well i sure hope the bottle of dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) tablets help, because people shouldn't go around hitting innocent people with crowbars.

grey day, grey curtains

it's a moody, overcast day in the charlottesville area.

i am working a closing shift at rebecca's this evening, so spent the morning running errands and hanging out at the twisted branch tea bazaar. i love this place. it is very much like a cafe in dharamsala called khana nirvana. it's a total hippy haven, with the smells and sounds of india. there is funky artwork all around, shelves displaying teapots of various influence, lots of dark wood and pillows and fabric and hookahs and altars. and they make a mean chai. at the bottom of my teapot was a huge slab of ginger.

a cause for celebration: last night i sewed up a pair curtains for the first time ever! i cut a sari scarf of dark greyish khadi fabric in two, and finished it off so each panel could slide and bunch up on a curtain rod. the color works well in our bright yellow living room. with each churn of my sewing machine i am filled with domestic euphoria. and we can finally take down the make-shift tibetan cloth door that doesn't belong in a window anyway.

ok, so maybe i don't have a whole lot to talk about.

tim kaine for virginia governor!

in detail

i spent my entire sunny saturday working at rebecca's. the day went quickly but i kept dropping bottles of vitamins. perhaps it was because i drank strong fair trade coffee. then dan came in to pour himself some strong fair trade coffee and promptly dropped it.

i left work in the 6:30 darkness and drove home in football traffic. it took me 20 minutes to drive a distance that usually takes me two minutes.

i brought home a bunch of free stuff which included a pomegranate, a neti pot, a box of gluton free apricot biscuits, a beeswax candle shaped like an angel, a tin of whole wheat/soy flour pancake mix, some aromatic fizzy bath eggs, several packets of tomato and bell pepper organic seeds, and a cookbook. i held off on the ground flax meal but i'm not sure why because the stuff is good for you.

customer of the day award goes to a hippy woman who came in with her two kids. she'd weighed each of their bags of halloween candy at home, and had them pick out health food variety sweets and snacks from rebecca's, amounting to the same weight. she was going to throw the prior bags of mainstream candy in the trash, where they belong, she said, and replace the old stuff with the new health food variety stash. she spent $60 on healthier sugar! now that's commitment.

i came home to spicy lentil soup cooked by dan. he even made homemade croutons. it was delicious. he also cleaned and sorted the pumpkin seeds and started baking them. they had been sitting in the refrigerator amongst pumpkin guts all week long. after dinner dan, tashi and i played a lord of the rings board game that dan has had since childhood. it's super cut-throat. dan was gandalf and tashi and i teamed up as legolas. dan won.

now i'm drinking a troegenator doublebock. i get a 30% discount on wine and beer! soon dan and i are going to watch dr. strangelove because i've never seen it and he thinks i should.

bombard bombardier

do it folks, do it! my man dan says:

bombardier is the company that is supplying rail cars for the railway China built up to Tibet. if those trains start running, Tibet will be very quickly
overwhelmed with an influx of Chinese settlers that will dwarf the
numbers that have managed to get up on the plateau since 1950. the Chinese
government itself has publicly acknowledged the rail project is
politically motivated.

Please visit this website to send a fax to the CEO of
Bombardier.

...and please spread this one far and wide. This is a critical moment for
Tibet.

attic rag doll

iris with the red hair: i hope virginia gubernatorial candidate jerry kilgore doesn't win

lavender cat: it's too bad so many fish are contaminated with mercury

iris with the red hair: that guy alito seems like a real thug

lavender cat: is it safe to collect feathers anymore?

iris with the red hair: in its third quarter, exxon mobil's net income was up 75% to $9.92 billion. that is the most a U.S. company has earned from operations in a three-month period and greater than the annual gross domestic product of entire nations including cameroon and zimbabwe!

lavender cat: Bisphenol-A (BPA), a man-made chemical used to manufacture polycarbonate products such as hard plastic baby bottles and food storage containers, is extremely dangerous. the chemical acts like the female hormone estrogen and interferes with the body's natural processes. BPA has been linked to adverse effects on male reproduction, altered immune system function, behavioral changes, learning disabilities, brain damage and an increased chance for certain cancers. it's also been linked to miscarriage.

iris with the red hair: the us body count in iraq is up to 2040. there have been more than 15,000 us soldiers injured in battle. and it's been estimated that there may be more than 30,000 innocent iraqi civilians killed.

lavender cat: oh no, the basement is flooding. i better get on top of the bookshelf.

iris with the red hair: oh dear, some one is robbing the house next door. i better close the blinds.

good art on first friday

what a flurry of activity week we've had.

tashi was home for most of it with the afore mentioned chicken pox. lucky for all of us it was a relatively mild case. i gave her rhus tox throughout, which seemed to control the itching and proliferation of pox. she was very energetic each day and today was well enough to return to school. she didn't like the oatmeal bath or the calendula ointment (though both helped), but she loves the cat sewn from left over halloween fabric and stuffed with wool and lavender.

one night we were visited by tad mondale and adele borie (and their sweet pooch lily munster) en route to their home in new orleans. even though they lost their boat and their basement, tad and adele seem to have fared pretty well in the aftermath of katrina. the basement, which contained a great deal of their belongings, suffered under six feet of water. but as adele explained, upstairs from the devasatation was their bright and beautifully unscathed living quarters. tad and adele are planning to pick up a new washer and dryer in alabama, and return to new orleans to mend the damage and resume their life. adele runs a very cool performance space/gallery on clio street called the big top. the big top was also unscathed, and no one even looted the fully stocked bar. dan and i saw an awesome band called the tin men while at the big top in february, and viewed a whole lot of demented baby doll art.

the next two nights we were visited by san francisco laugh riot, sonic. she is on a two month road trip all across the country with her dog, cha cha. cha cha suffered a spinal injury over the summer, but was rigged up with a doggie a wheel chair and some diapers. cha cha still likes to chase squirrels and enjoys a rigorous walk around any neighborhood.

my cat loki (the alpha male) was none too pleased by the doggie visitations and spent most of his time upstairs or outside. alternately, his sister luna (the shy one) did quite a bit of flirting and hanging close with cha cha.

sometime amongst all that was an armed robbery around the corner on shamrock avenue. it's refreshing to live in a neighborhood rife with crime and intrigue.

tonight we ate some dinner at neighborhood mexican restaurant, guadalajara. hefty servings for a fair price. it was delicious. and we made it to our car safely.

afterwards we headed downtown to check out the art walk which takes place every month on the first friday. i got kind of agoraphobic in the first gallery we were in, but dug christoph vorlet's haunting topical illustrations. we moved on to the more spacious quarters of the mcguffey art center where we talked to painter, cynthia burke. she has traveled all over the globe observing animals, and creates these incredibly ornate and odd animal paintings. most notable were the goats and owls in elizabethan costume. do check out her most enjoyable website, studio burke.

we (and particularly tashi) were exhausted after hitting just two galleries, but i'm so pleased with what i saw tonight that i think i'll smile until the next first friday.

when i went to india five years ago

my first and last nights were spent in paharganj.

attic rag doll

lavender cat: don't you get tired of hearing the same songs

iris with the red hair: yes -- but you love those old poems don't you

lavender cat: i can't hear them sometimes

iris with the red hair: just go out and dance

lavender cat: i'm saving my money for some glue

iris with the red hair: i saw a star tonight, it was so bright and big. then a raccoon carried off the lid of my pumpkin. can you believe it? such craft

lavender cat: let me nestle up now

iris with the red hair: under the star shot ebony

lavender cat: volcano rock, brick red wall

iris with the red hair: this yellow tension

lavender cat: that tabby is climbing the rolled up futon

iris with the red hair: those humans are too loud