I love haiku. It's so damned hard to express an idea in limited syllables, but even once you do that, there is a certain level of art and eloquence that can also be attained if you can just figure out how to juxtapose phrases, ideas, sounds... and on the rare occasion I'd managed it. I enjoyed the idea of the challenge and leapt to it, wondering if I could accurately compose what was in my head.
Instead, I went outside of my head and immediate events. Somehow I managed to write perfectly about what my life's been like for the last several months. Possibly with a bit of art... verging on eloquence? Not sure. I lose points for paraphrasing a bumper sticker in the first line, anyway:
Wandering, not lost;
I love everything I've seen.
and brought it with me.
It's true. I photograph things daily. I draw. I enjoy petting my cats and cooking dinner and drawing and knitting and doing all kinds of other things. I'm happy just being in this spot like I haven't been in a while, collecting up the places, sounds, smells and sights in my head and going off elsewhere with a small smile on my face. I am content. It's a good place to be in.
On the way home the wild tiger lilies surprised me, blaring bright orange from the side of the road. Every year I promise myself I will take photographs of them and every year I miss them.
I'd been so busy with other things that I hadn't even remembered they were on their way, and now they're already here! This weekend I shall set aside time to go hunting them by the roadside somewhere and see how they'll turn out on a Holga and a Nikon. maybe even a camera-phone, who knows. :)
This evening was spent crafting miso from scratch (a MUCH easier process the second time around, let me tell you.) and I finally got it adjusted to a place that I liked. We had some soft tofu that had escaped being frozen by the busted thermostat in our fridge, so in it went along with the green onions. That, and a test drive of the tamagoyaki pan yielded wonderful results, although it is quite obvious that there needs to be more practice. The tamago wasn't as sweet as some we'd had before, and I allowed the eggs and pan to get too hot, so there was bubbling and browning. It came out tasting decent, it was consumed with gusto. But I have work to do, and if it's THAT easy to make the stuff, really there's no excuse for me not to more often. I am further thrilled that the specialty tamagoyaki pan is amazingly easy to clean and I basically ran it under the faucet to get the gunk off it. It's totally clean now. :)
We bought plants on Saturday in the hopes of getting to put them in the ground and rescue ourselves from a summer without fresh tomatoes or hot peppers, but didn't get around to it until tonight. It felt good to get my hands in the earth. I've got dirt under every fingernail and I'm proud of it! Planted seeds of herbs we'd gotten last year, and we'll see if anything comes up. I'm hoping the basil and the mint do, as I'm dying to make some fresh, sweetened mint tea for the disgustingly hot days to come. And nothing beats freshly made pesto.
Also planted 3 big marigold plants and a handful of sunflower seeds out back. We'll see if the sunflowers pop up. if they do, i would love it. If not... eh, no big worries. I can live a year without my favorite flowers outside. I've done it before. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I had my fingers crossed and was willing them to sprout like nuts and grow tall in the sun. :)
I then followed all of THAT up by filling up the seed and suet feeders in the hopes of seeing some of the local wildlife around. I've vowed to only fill it once a week, as I really don't feel like shelling otu a ton of $$$ when 50% of it just goes to fatten those little fucker squirrels out back.
We released a white mouse last week as the pet shop had sent us home with 3, but one was a full adult and Tiamat would've torn her mouth trying to swallow the thing. Bob took him out back and dropped him off in the high grass, and we figured that would be the last we'd seen of him.
Except that the next morning he popped out from underneath our cement patio and proceeded to eat bird seed before taking a walk down to the far end and disappearing. okay, we thought, nice that he's found a place to hide, but it won't last.... until he proceeded to show up every morning in that fashion for the next several days.
Unfortunately we got attached to him, and I made sure to throw small bits of grain or stale popcorn outside both for the birds and for him. He came out in the mornings and evenings and nibbled here and there, then disappeared. Great! we thought, he's doing well and he'll survive! We'll have him under our porch and he'll make it...
Bob found him in the middle of the street by the dumpster on Monday, flattened as if he'd been stepped on or backed over. It's my hope someone backed over him carelessly and someone didn't intentionally see him and stomp him, leaving him there. As Bob said, though "How weird was it to find him that way, way over there? It's obviously the one we let go, it's just so weird that he was somewhere we absolutely could NOT miss that he was dead."
I believe Bob moved him, perhaps back in to the tall grass where we'd set him loose originally. Now he gets to stay there peacefully and undisturbed.
I can't wait to see the mice showing up with partially white shocks of fur on them by fall. That's enough time to disseminate the genes through the gene pool and start having run-ins with those carrying his albino gene. It might be a fun mini-game.
Either way, I'm really glad we didn't name this one. And I'm glad his last few days he was free, enjoying the sunshine and fattening himself up on sunflower seeds.
So we don't end on a lousy note, here's a shot of the world from Bob's car window as we were driving down 30 on Monday:
It's been a longer day than I thought it was. Time for sleep.
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