Listening for Squirrels

Life is such a good mistake. Everyday casuals in word and image.

Search This Blog

Showing posts from January, 2010

View all

Posts

Traction

January 27, 2010

+

6

One human and two dogs. Human has a sickness that goes like this: cough cough cough COUGH COUGH cough COUGH COUGH COUGH cough cough spit. Dogs have a condition that goes like this: snort snort snort fart SNORT SNORT BURP snort snore snore snore snort. Repeat with variation. cough cough COUGH COUGH COUGH spit cough cough. One dog looks at human, closes eyes. COUGH COUGH cough, throw back blankets, go to bathroom, COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH SPIT. Human returns to bed and positions body under bedclothes. Other dog gazes at human, lowers head, closes eyes. snore snore SNORE SNORT SNORE snore snore fart. Both dogs inhale and exhale. Eight canine legs stretch in opposite directions. Human coughs dozes coughs, watches sleeping canines. Dogs snore fart snore, dream of catching rabbits.

My dad died while watching Monday Night Football

Code blue. Crash cart. And football. On the TV in his hospital room, a football game played before the code and the cart arrived. It played after doctors and nurses injected, pumped and electrified his body. It played when I stood over him in grief in 1 986 on November 17. The game was Washington versus San Francisco. The 49er Joe Montana, online history says, tried throwing 60 passes against the Redskins. Probably my dad didn't care about Joe’s reach. My dad enjoyed watching football. As far as team support, he was a generalist: generally, he preferred the underdog. A Cyclones fan by birth on the western half of Iowan soil, college ball ruled over the NFL. But Monday night was Monday Night. Often, we watched together, father and daughter. Me resting against his side, feeling his lungs breathing, his heart beating. On that final night, the game played while he waited for his family, for me, to visit. The game played while he waited for the next day when he was...

Saccharine

C 2 H 6 0 2. Ethylene glycol. A sugar related to C 2 H 4 0 2 , the smallest known molecular sweetie called glycolaldehyde, a life-building essential found in a gas cloud in the Milky Way. No wonder my head hurts from anti-freeze (glycol) leaking into the passenger cabin of my beater car: the dust in my mind expands as a drive. This time to Austin, Minnesota, near the Iowa border. Ninety minutes into the journey (fifteen miles from destination) I realize I don't want what waits for me there. I stop in a place named for blossoming open fields and call the owner. I tell him my decision, eat my lunch (in the sugar cabin), and make a u-turn. Sweet-plugged ears or not, I hear scraping on the pavement. Park again and walk around. The muffler hangs off the rear. I cruise to a business selling repaired salvaged autos across from a grain elevator. "Can you fix this," I ask. Late Friday afternoon, the mechanic left early, still a body man remains. I follow him around back where he r...

Labels

35mm lens
50mm lens
abandoned house
ABC Sports
adopted children
adopted daughters
adoption
adoptive fathers
adoptive mothers
advice

age
Agent Orange
aging
airplane
airplanes
alley
alone
America
anger
animal rights protest
antifreeze
apples
art
ASL
assistance
auto
autumn
ballet
bananas
barefoot running
bat
bathroom
Bde Maka Ska
beauty
bed rest
beetle
behavior
belief
beverage
bicycle
bicycles
big box stores
bike
bike passing
bikes
bird
birds
birthdays
bliss
blood
blood donation
BMW
bodies
book
book shop
book store
book thief
books
box
brandy
bras
breast
breast cancer
breasts
brick
bridge
broken wrist
brother
brothers
buddha
buddhist
bug
bus
cafe
cake
california
calm
cancer
canines
car
cardboard
casserole
cats
caution
Cecil the Lion
charity
childhood
childhood crush
children
children's book shop
chocolate
choices
circle
city
cleaning
clothes
coffee
coincidence
cold
Colorado
colors of life
combine
comfort
communication
community
compund
confession
conversation
cooking
corn
corn field
creative non-fiction
credit cards
crime
crochet
cross country ski race
cross dressing
crystals
cycling
Cyclones
D300
daily activities
dance
daughter
deaf
death
Dervish
detritus
diabetes
dialogue
diameter
diner
diner conversation
dinner
dip pen
disaster
dog
dogs
doing
don't be a dick-head
donation
donut
donuts
door to door sales
dragon
dream sleep
dreaming
dreams
dust
dying
earth
earthquake
eavesdropping
education
edward
egg
election 2020
electronics
elementary school
empowerment
encounters
end-of-life
enlightenment
everyday life
everyday objects
F650
faces
fall
fall on ice
Fall River
family
family fights
farm
farmer
farming
fashion
fat tire bikes
father
fathers
fathers and daughters
female
fight
fingernail
fire
fish
fish tacos
flaneur
flaneuse
flight attendants
flow
flower
fly
flyer
flying
food
football
foreign
fortunes
found
found language
found on ground
found on poles
found words
fountain pen
France
french
friend
friends
frozen water
Funduro
funeral
funeral feast
future president
garden
gate
gender roles
girlhood
giving
glycol
god
going slow
golf
good samaritan
graffiti art
grandma
grass
gratitude
green
grief
growing
growth
guilt
guns
hair
hairdresser
hairstyle
Haiti
handwriting
happiness
happy
harvest
hauling
healing
health
heart
heat
help
helping others
hermit
heroes
highway
hitchhike
home
homeless
homelessness
homo sapiens sapiens
hospice
hot dish
house
household chores
how to keep warm
human
humanity
humans
hunger
Hyland
ice
ice cream
ice cream truck
identity
illness
impermanence
information
injured
ink
Iowa
ISIS
James Foley
Jane Austen
Japanese beetles
jeans
Joe Biden
Joe Montana
joy
junk
keeping warm
kid
kindness
kite
knife
lake
lakes
Lamy
language
Las Vegas
laundry
lawn
learning
leukemia
library
life
life on the prairie
listening
Little House on the Prairie
looking
looks
loss
lost
lost and found
lotus
love
lunch
mammal
mammogram
man
man cave
marriage
martini
massage
meander
meditation
melt
memoir
memorial
men
men and women talking
mental health
middle class
midwest
milky way
mindfulness
minneapolis
Minneapolis Loppet
Minnehaha Creek
Minnehaha Falls
minnesota
missing
mississippi
Mississippi River
mittens
molecule
moms
Monday Night Football
Monet
money
monk
moon
mothers
mothers and daughters
motorcycle
movies
mower
murder
music
nano essay
nano non-fiction
nap
nature
neighbor
neighbors
nepal
new world
news
NFL
Nikon
Nikon D300
nonfiction
Noodler's
notebook
November
O-M-G
observations
ogle
old house
old stuff
old world
om
OMG
online shopping
open
ordinary day
ordinary life
outdoors
over 50
overheard
pajamas
paper
passport photos
patience
pause
paying attention
peace
peaceful
pen
people
personal essay
perspective
pets
phones
phony
photo essay
photo sequence
photo series
photo story
photography
pictures
pigment
plant
play
pleasure
plumbing
plunge
pneumonia
Poland
pool
postings
power
practice
prairie
prayer
pregnancy
prose
public transportation
pugs
pursuit
random
reading
reality
recycle
refugee
regret
rejection
relationship
relationships
relax
resiliance
reveal
ride
ridiculous
riding bikes
rifles
river
road
robe
rock
rocks
roll
rules
running
saddles
sadness
safari
safety
saint paul
salvage
san diego
Santa Cruz
saying sorry
scarf
scarves
schizophrenia
school
scooter
scrape
screenplay
script
seeing
sequence
sex
shack
shame
sharing trails
shine
shopping
short essay
short non-fiction
short nonfiction
short prose
short story
shovel
shower
sickness
sign
sing-a-long
single
ski
skipping
sled
sleep
sleeping
small town
smell
smile
snow
socks
south
southern
soybeans
spade
sparkle
spending
spirit
spiritual
spring
squirrel
st paul
standing
star
starry
stars
state fair
steal
stealing
stones
stories
story
storyteller
storytelling
stranded
strangers
stream
stubble
stuff
stuffed bear
Sufi
suggestions
suicide
summer
summer fun
sun
sunshine
surprise
suspicion
sweet
swim
takeaways
taking pictures
talk
talking
tardy
teachers
teenager
televisions
tendu
theater
things
things people do in summer
things we see in spring
things we see in summer
thumb
time
tips
toilet paper
town
tractor
trail
trail sharing
transformation
transplant
trash
trauma
travel
trespass
true story
truth
TSA
TSA Pre
turning 50
TV
unicycle
unplanned pregnancy
urban
vacuums
Valentine's Day
veins
Viet Nam
Vietnam
Vietnam War
vignettes
village
vipassana
virgin
voice mail
voice message
waking during dream
walk
walking
walking dogs
wandering
wash
waste
watch
water
waves
Wild Rumpus
wind
winter
winter walking
Wisconsin
wish worry rock stone river water child
woman
woman cave
women
women writers
wonder
wood
work
yarn
youth

Show more Show less

Powered by Blogger