I haven’t had much to say these last few days. However, I had to post today so that you could see the marvelous new masthead for Fannfare Fall. Fall Fannfare. FFF. Jeff McMillen wows me every time. I think at least four of these a year to change with the seasons, yes? If you are still getting the green in the background, refresh a couple times. Don’t you love it, my Pumpkins?

It is Love Thursday today. Alas, on Sunday I left the cable to my camera at a friend’s house, so I can’t tap into the wealth of new photos from this last week on the Nikon. I will, however, leave you with this video — possibly the cutest little person on the planet. I think I love him.

Note: I have committed to take part in NaBloPoMo, which is a push to get bloggers to post every day in November. So, check in then for more drivel!

I wish you love today.

Simon and Garfunkel, Sound of Silence

I can’t stop smiling about these photos. Shaun and I were joking — the fifth one is him at work ANY DAY, and the eighth one (back in the day) is little ol’ me. Except my head probably would have been tipped back! Which one looks like you feel today?

Cheers, kittens.

The Oak Ridge Boys, Come On In

One of my favorite kinds of love these days is the kind my friends have for my kid. It starts off as a love that’s because of you — because you “made” this little thing, and it is part of you and your spouse. But when it matures and grows, with your child, into something that is individual and unique to just those two, it’s very special.

On our recent trip to Hartford, Ruby and Jeff bonded over pumpkins. We rolled around for hours looking for just the right ones…Jeff can be seen here loading the perfect pumpkin into the cart. Ruby made sure, 150 times, that the pumpkins were in the car on the way home. And then, who can’t help but become friends over pumpkin snot and all the jokes that inevitably accompany it?

It was clear, on the plane ride home, that Jeff and his partner David were Ruby’s new pumpkin pies.

I wish you love today.

And, folks? Is it Love Thursday or Poetry Thursday? You’re killin’ me with all these different themes.

Oh, okay. A pumpkin haiku, with some love in there too:

You make me giggle
Connecticut clown-around
As you spit up goo.

Marty Robbins, Love is in the Air

So when’s the last time you just bought it in the middle of the street? Lost balance, kicked a shoe off, stubbed a toe, missed a raised flagstone, ate the pavement? I did it Friday, and I’m still hurtin’. The culprit was an acorn, of all things. I was hurrying to meet a friend for lunch and they were all over the place. Devils. I turned my ankle on one and next thing I know I am in barf pose on Pennsylvania Avenue, having blown out the knees on my favorite pair of jeans (yes!) and with little dots of blood popping up on the butts of my palms.

Today Shaun and I were cleaning the basement (toys, toys, toys) and I was scooting around on my knees gathering wooden letters and Fisher Price School Bus riders and I actually had to stop my knees hurt so badly. What am I, 75 years old? No offense to the 75-year-olds out there, but I would think after a couple of days my 38-year-old body would have bounced back.

Aaah. Maybe this is what the demon 38 is all about?! A prat fall into it and then little swollen knees trying to plod through. Fie on you, 38! I’ll be skipping again in no time. And keeping an eye out for the seeds of mighty oaks.

God love my mother. I wasn’t getting much sympathy from the guys about my fall (Shaun, Dad) and my mom asked “How’d it happen?” “Damn acorn,” I huffed. “OH I KNOW,” she said, without missing a beat. “In the Fall? On the streets? Those things are like walking on ice.”

Be careful out there.

Tom Petty, Free Fallin’

We went to see Leo Kottke at Baird Auditorium today. I hadn’t been to this venue before — it’s in the National Museum of Natural History, down what I used to only think of as “the bird hall.” I would recommend it though, especially for great live music without a lot of fanfare. Leo Kottke fits the bill perfectly.

He told a story that still has me smiling today. He was setting up a song from his new CD, and explaining why it wasn’t for sale at the show. He said he feels a little bad that his label sends CDs in advance to the places he’ll be playing, and expects the staff there to set up and sell them. Apparently, when Leo gets to the venue, he just tells the staff to keep the CDs. He said that he would feel much better if he could get it together to sell them himself, because then at least he would feel like it was “part of his schtick.”

But, he said, “I travel alone, I perform alone…it’s a lot of work as it is. And, about 30 years ago my dentist told me I have an enormous tongue, so there’s that.”

Leo Kottke, Julie’s House

On my local moms’ list today, a gal in my neighborhood talked about her mother-in-law (MIL) having a friend who was directly affected by the tragedy in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania last week. Her granddaughter was one of the 10 girls killed in the attack. Because the Amish shun modern technology and don’t watch television, this Grandmother wondered aloud if anyone had heard of their suffering, if anyone was praying for them, if anyone was moved.

My heart broke into lots of little shards when I read about this woman. Imagine going through something like that and not knowing whether it mattered to anyone but you?

I care. I know many people who were completely shattered when they read the news. I can’t imagine not reaching out.

On today, Love Thursday, I don’t have a photo to share — instead I have a request. A suggestion? A plea.

Jen Smoker, my neighbor, is putting together a collection of emails from families everywhere to have her MIL deliver to her friend. She has asked that you share whatever is on your heart about this particular family’s loss. Your emails should be addressed, “Dear Grandmother.”

Lastly, Jen added that one of the ladies who escaped the school was pregnant and has since given birth to her child. She named it after the little girl that “Grandmother” lost.

Please address your emails to jen.smoker@starpower.net.

I wish you love today.

Annie Lennox, A Thousand Beautiful Things

Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs
are second nature to me now,
Like breathing out and breathing in…

A friend and I went to see My Fair Lady last night as the first in a subscription series to Signature Theater. That place never disappoints, and I hadn’t ever seen the stage version of the show either. I really did think about Ruby during Professor Higgins’ empassioned song…and then I came home to a manila folder with these school pics in it.

How will I top this tomorrow on Love Thursday?

Lerner and Loewe, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face

…and then I think he got shot in our alley.

People! Shots again last night! What the?!

Shaun and I were making sandwiches in the kitchen and I heard a shot (ring out? Why does that sound too pleasant?) I looked out the window to the alley (as I was heading to turn out the light in my office) and saw flashes of light that corresponded with each shot (as if from a gun). I was actually scared this time…it was no less than 100 feet from me behind our back gate. By the time I called 311 they had already received a handful of calls and patrol cars were on the way. We never saw a patrol car, although I can’t say I spent much time at the window after that.

Sigh. I am, at some level, so tired of living here. It is awful to be afraid…not only of what happens around me, but then afraid of the way(s) I feel about it. I don’t want fear to define me as a person.

Shaun and I were talking recently about The Wire, a show that we have really gotten into over the last couple of years. Great comments and reviews of it here, here, and here. It’s set in Baltimore, which is close enough to DC that we can draw certain parallels. I am definitely more aware, since watching this show, of drug activity that goes on on my block. And, I am more afraid. Of my African American neighbors. There, I said it. Damnit! Not of Willa at the Safeway, or Eddie next door, but of the late-teen, early-twenties groups of black guys (and gals! Don’t kid yourself, watch The Wire!) that hang out at the corners and flash hand signs to each other and then walk, quickly, with their folded newspapers to passing cars for hand-offs.

We’ve even said we need to stop watching this show. My fears build and become more irrational every week. Will we get caught in a shoot-out over some deal-gone-bad? Will a junkie needing money shove me into my house and beat me up for money or stuff when I’m getting the mail? Will someone need my car to get away one day as I am pulling in with groceries and my daughter!? I can’t even think about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are scary people everywhere. And, we are moving to Colorado! Home of Columbine and this other recent debacle involving a school shooting. So, that takes care of it! Instead of being shot by a black hoodlum in our alley, Ruby can get shot by a white nut-job at her school. Or, we could escape it all and move to Amish country. Aaaaaaahhh!

Today is definitely one of those days when I will not be watching the news.

And, if I were an African American person, I wonder how I would feel about The Wire? Anyone? Before you write that it’s “just a television show,” the producers have said that they have had to water down some of the violence they observed in the few years they researched and prepared for the show, to be fit for TV.

I think I need to find that big box of Little House on the Prairie videos and heat me up some apple cider. All, of course, done far from the back windows this morning.

Before we went to bed last night, Shaun decided he wasn’t going to take the garbage out after dark anymore. He added “The good thing about this time is that if there are bodies scattered in the alley, they’re in a good spot for trash pick-up.”

Be safe, people.

Rod Stewart, Young Turks (I have no explanation for this other than it won’t stop looping around in my head)

On our walk through the New York Botanical Gardens a few weeks ago, this Chihuly (one of many in the garden) rose up like a phoenix in our sites. Up close? Even better:

I first fell in love with Dale Chihuly’s work at The Bellagio Hotel in Vegas. I think I sat underneath that mind-numbing thing for 20 minutes before being able to move on and keep gambling.

Another treat that awaited us on our stroll:

The hits just kept on coming as we wandered throughout the day. Just amazing.

And, I kept running across this fella:

who is a work of art of an entirely different sort.

I wish you love today.

Blondie, Heart of Glass

Last thing I knew, I was 37. Go away for the weekend to Chicago, come home 38! Dang. Note to self: Look out next time you go to the Windy City! My older sister will do anything to try and make me her age.

I don’t know about you, but when it looks like that? I think aging is delicious. And, at least I’m not this guy’s age:

I shouldn’t poke fun. I mean, he’s only 27 years older than me. Dennis and I have been friends since we were both itty bitty babies (ok, about 12 years) and this is our favorite photo of us yet. He was stirring batter for an overnight french toast recipe, and I was….what’s it look like? Continuing to defy the aging process by covering my grey. The apple peeler I am holding makes any dish involving slicing and coring something double the fun. And, honestly, so does Dennis.

38-schmirty-eight. It all feels the same to me. I had such a great time on my trip — especially when I found out I share an age with this gorgeous creature:

Monica Munro is one of the performers at The Baton Show Lounge, a place I find myself compulsively going (we went twice!) each time I am in Chicago. Now that I know we are both 38, it makes perfect sense that we would be best friends. She can show me how to put make-up on (at least an evening application), how to lip-sync people out of their pants, and how to make a living doing something that you love. I vow to get to know more about her, now that I have been paying to gawk at her for more than a decade.

Maybe next time she can sort of move her arm up to cover that wicked (what IS that?) chin thing I have going on.

By the way, my sister was in attendance at all of these events, but she is a) behind the camera in most instances and b) hyper-conscious of the internet and all you scary people in it. Honestly? I think it’s because she looks like Kim Basinger, and as we all know, Kim Basinger is a hog.

38 Special, Caught Up In You