Here are two shots by Keeler moments before one of the little creeps broke my camera. I love Eliott's happy expression in the glass.
Here we see Keeler out to breakfast wearing his normal button down and tie, drinking coffee, interacting with a gentleman at the table beside ours and doing some weird moves including the "President of Turtleville" face. I adore this person.
Recently there have been some complaints about the lapses in posts on this blog. Complainers: please quit your snivelin' and get a life.
Here's what's new:
Keeler took this rad picture.
rat babies!
when I make a request on the college station, Fel thinks I am magic.
This song is inspiring me to take singing lessons. I love love love you, Neko Case. You can read the lyrics here:
Sick of the six words project.
So, I am taking a break from it and from blogging and computering of all kinds. Peace out. 
This thing was on our street!!
I finally looked it up and found out that it is called a Hickory Horned Devil and is actually harmless but, as you can see, it is an enormous mofo with menacing spikes and horns. Crizazy nature.
This little guy is the first in a series called, "monsters: how we shield our genuine, tender hearts". The inspiration for this series came from the writings of Pema Chodron, these two passages in particular:
"Rather than original sin, there's original soft spot. The messy stuff that we see in ourselves and that we perceive in the world as violence and cruelty and fear is not the result of some basic badness but of the fact that we have such a tender, vulnerable, warm heart of bodhichitta, which we instinctively protect so that nothing will touch it."
"... this is a practice where compassion begins to arise in you because you yourself have been there. You've been angry, jealous and lonely. You know what it's like and you know how sometimes you do strange things. Because you're lonely, you say cruel words: because you want someone to love you, you insult them."
To me, recognizing these things about ourselves and others is the basis for relating to each other with compassionate understanding. This is so important! All of us are monsters: sometimes just annoying, sometimes horrific, but always with great big tender hearts inside.
1. making and eating egg salad while listening to "Love, Stargirl" on cd (Marth - I was able to take out the book and cd from the library so we can have a mini book club! :))
2. playing poker with the kids
3. unexpectedly passing inspection with friendly inspectors
4. wearing a shirt with watercolor-y birds and flowers and a ric rac skirt
5. going to bed ultra early
7. tall sunflowers with big buds on them in the backyard
8. getting a letter in the mail from a sweet friend
9. hearing the satisfactory conclusion to "Harriet Spies Again" and being in love with these books
10. contemplating my new name: Fireflower, given to me by Keeler and inspired by Super Mario Bothers.
