This was taken this week at work. One of my co-workers wanted to brighten up the place so brought a beautiful flower arrangement that included these fuzzy pussy willows.
-
-
We are still getting snow. And it’s not a “spring snow.” It is some serious snow. We got about 2 inches this morning. The sun has come out but there is still quite a lot on the ground. Everyone here is frustrated. Even the little toddlers in my storytime were talking about how “much they hated it.” and “my mommy wants to plant flowers.” We are all beyond over winter. Way beyond. But at least we are all in this together.
Image via Wikipedia Earlier this winter I read Terry Pratchett’s “Wintersmith.” Have you read this? It’s a fabulous Y.A. novel. It’s third in his “Tiffany Aching” novels. In the story, Tiffany “accidentally” dances with the Wintersmith during a winter festival in a small village in England. Because of this, the Wintersmith mistakes Tiffany for the goddess, Summer and falls in love with her. He does cute things at first like create little tiny Tiffany -shaped snowflakes. Or he makes a Tiffany-shaped iceburg. Then things start getting out of hand and winter keeps growing worse and worse and longer and longer. As it turns out, the Goddess Summer is being held captive and needs to be freed so that the season of Summer can begin.
A rather apt metaphor this year.
-
Image via Wikipedia The Inlander, Spokane’s “trendy” weekly newspaper has published this piece, featuring the Spokane Public Library. Here’s a little snippet if you don’t feel like clicking:
It’s 2:15 on a gray, wintry Saturday afternoon and the downtown Spokane Public Library is brimming with hushed activity. Children scamper about as moms and dads quietly search the shelves. The place is full of men, women, the young and old, rich and poor, interacting silently and harmoniously — reading, browsing the Internet, listening to headphones.
Meanwhile, I sit at a desk with a large computer monitor. I’m in the middle of the action as I begin to peruse pornographic images on sites with names like porno-shack.com and worldsex.com. Racy images flash across the screen, with bodies contorted in unimaginable ways. There are reproductive organs of all shapes, sizes and colors. On screen, women smile back at me seductively.
Here I am, with strangers surrounding me, visiting the Websites your mother warned you about, engaging in a brand of Web-surfing normally reserved for the private confines of one’s own home. Who knew the public library could be so… stimulating?
The whole article chronicles the reporter’s attempt to access, successfully, porn at the Downtown Library. At the end of the article he is shocked because nobody stopped him at all.
I’m not really sure what the point of the article is. Well, that’s not quite right. I do know what the point is. It is to sell papers. Add shock value. There is absolutely no journalism here. This is “infotainment.” It is the journalistic equivalent of bored children making crank phone calls to bars, asking for “Mike Hunt.” The funny thing is that he was doing the very thing he seems to be criticizing. For, what was it? 35 minutes? How many kids walked by him while he looked at porn in the library for 35 minutes?
Gee. What a great idea for a story.
-
Image via Wikipedia Amanda, over at etc has started a list of “100 things to do before you go” and has invited her readers to join in. So I am! She has her list divided into smaller lists of 20, which I also like and am going to shamelessly copy. So here are my first 20:
- Visit Pompeii
- Visit Florence and it’s museums
- Visit Rome
- It wouldn’t be a bad idea to just spend an extended amount of time in Italy. Like several months. Or maybe a year.
- Learn Italian
- Learn to paint in the sumi-e style
- Learn more about Zen (and maybe practice it if it suits me)
- Learn to play guitar
- Learn to play the banjo
- Read all of the Newberry Award winners.
- Learn the art of glass blowing.
- Get paid to be a photographer (travel photography would be ideal)
- Write a damn good poem
- Hike the Appalachian Trail.
- Live at the ocean (again)
- Learn to crochet
- Make a fancy quilt like “Dear Jane“
- canoe down the Little Spokane River
- run a marathon
- be my own boss
Stay tuned for the next 20… In the next few days… Or week…
-
I’ve been blazing through some squares on my Learn to Knit Afghan the past few weeks. I had kind forgotten that one of my goals last year was to finish this finally. That, obviously, didn’t happen. So I picked it up again and am having fun with it.
This is my favorite of the squares that I worked on. This one is called “Square Quilt.” It is a slip stitch pattern. I love that it looks like a cake decoration (to my eyes, anyway).
