Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Eve of Summer

The Eve of Summer,
The leaves all out and lush
loving the rains,
the rains soaking,
washing down the pollen
to the ground.

The birds seem
happier and fatter
this year.
Was winter easier for them too?

Still those stubborn locust blooms have not yet shown.
We wait until they emerge
to really call it
officially
Summer.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Normal Day Welcome

There is a
Normalcy
in Every Day things,
and with
Routine
can come
Comfort,
until you start to
Look at the
Ho-Hum,
Hum-Drum,
and
Question it.

Never question the Normal day,
or the posts unread, unwritten
or poorly constructed
by your own standards.

Do not question the mistakes
or that there are mistakes,
they lead to the Successes,
so short lived,
You should not get used to it.

Back to work
Normalcy,
the vibes still with me
from a special date with that husband
of mine, we travelled to a place,
where the world stands still
For another Saturday Night Ramble,

The work and toils we face,
The daily grind,
The normal everyday,
Welcome this time.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

A Special Ramble

A Special Midnight Ramble,
For Levon Helm's birthday
happened last night
in Woodstock, N.Y.


We will never forget last night. Levon Helm's people threw him one incredible
concert tribute. We felt so fortunate for buying the tickets and being there.

All day I wondered what I would write, how to describe the evening, the faces, the music,
the musicians, songs, the first Ramble without the man who made them
from his vision, his recall of late night shows of his youth, his molding it, modernizing it, making the Rambles my best nights on the planet.

Words really cannot express the feeling of each song, in honor of him, some of Levon's favorites,
some new, all quite special. Some introduced by his band members and family speaking a few words, 
then the music would start. All heads nodding to the beat, some singing or clapping along
in the barn that Levon built from only wood.

We put our hands together and clapped in applause all night long.
When I was not clapping, I put them together in prayer, hoping
for the best for each of Levon's families, friends band members and staff.
We are a grateful audience. mary

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Link to a Tribute

Link to Video tribute to Levon Helm,
It is his birthday.
He is missed
while his music & influence
lives on
across generations
forever


and supporting Amnesty International with a message of freedom
in His special way.

Fred found that The Duke, John Wayne's birthday is also today.
Fancy that,
Levon & the Duke

Friday, May 25, 2012

Travel Bucket List Friday

Come on,
as long as you dream,
dream big.
Imagine sunsets on Europa's beaches.
How to make Vacation plans?
You might need to pencil in a few years
to get there & back, 
& time hanging out
gazing at mighty Jupiter.


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Eagle

Virgil Caine

our co-co adopted golden eagle
is flying about northern New England,
for many days, several years.
seaturtle.org



Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Astronomical

Astronomical,
The photos from the Hubble, Nasa & more,
They aim their cameras
outward,
towards
space.
Since I was
little,
I gazed up in
Awe
at the stars, moon & planets.
Then I dreamed of
space travel,
and my place in all  of that.
We could have dreams like that
in the 1960's,
when slide rules
ruled
and the science was always up,up,up.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Monday

Monday


Monday Morning,
Smell the Sweet air of
May,
darting to my car,
to get to work.

Pause again,
like you should,
it is only a minute,
listen to those
May birds sing.


Sunday, May 20, 2012

Sunday School

Sunday School
That day you learn a lesson
Supposed to last all week
and really for
all of your life.

And Sundays we get to do what we did not get to
last week,
and look forward
we hope
to
next week.

Sun Day,
day of the Sun
our Father in the Universe,
every day we find out is smaller.

Sundays like Today,
Bright sunny warm and we are
Free
within the confines of survival things like cleaning,
eating, tending the cats,
Every once in awhile
glancing up at a bird or
getting a whiff of a lilac blossom
just before it falls,
or a bee buzzing
merrily.

Sundays,
a good day to contemplate those less fortunate
or more afraid,
or hopeless, helpless, hapless.

Sunday school confused me often,
the tales too complex,
not relevant,
not
like the poor we had among us,
the fear, the discrimination,
intimidation,
coercion,
domination,
the
Power
over
another.

Sundays are a good day to reflect on your blessings
Count them, they are there.
Focus on them,
you must.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Reality vs. The other Reality

This week, NCIS & NCIS-LA had their final season's episodes.
These are the 2TV shows we regularly watch.
Both shows have similarly intense suspense, complicated plot, story,
characters, cool gadgets, cars, guns, places,action.
We watch again to see what we might have missed.
on cbs.com
This week, a shock to me, Ducky looks dead, and we hope he is not.
Callen looks like life in jail, and then all the rest we worry about,
attached to each character, Ziva, Heddy, Gibbs, LL and on and on,
they are all vital. We want them to be immortal, for us,
for our stability.
Following entertainment twitters,
 the characters
as themselves
giggling in a cab in cute dresses,
or posing in a photo booth,
not disarming some brutish terrorist psychopath
or solving an intensely impossible crime.
I wondered at how we look at a character as
the person who plays the character.
That shows what good actors they are.
There is another reality there,
that of fictional action heroes.
They truly are modern day cowboys fighting the bad guys
and what could be a better reality to occupy for an hour or 2?
Missing Levon esp. every Saturday night...

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Interview with a Clone Chapter 11

Interview with a Clone
Chapter 11
By Mary E. Gerdt
2012 all rights reserved
Dolphin’s Point Lab, Bermuda 2064
Alice carefully packed up boxes of her mother’s books.
They could not be left out now that the weather turned hot again. The better ones were
to be donated to the Smithsonian Complex. They would be catalogued and restored. Many were
one of a kind. The books had a special feeling to Alice, a connection to the things her mother loved dearly, her work, her devotion, her global understanding, her scientific and ethical principles. Alice combed the books for understanding, insight, and looking for answers. How to clone, was it anywhere there, in those pages? She never found the answers,

Why, she thought. Why did her mother want to create an Alice? What were Susan Wolf’s parents like? Who were they? Alice’s Grandparents? Or were they her parents? Is a clone on genealogy like a side shoot?

Alice and the books were bound to fray and come apart, threatening emergence of the truth and the preservation of cloning technology. All of Susan’s cloning books had been seized by “authorities” shortly after her death. Alice thought all had been seized.

A paper fell to the floor in front of Alice. She drew a breath. She must have missed something. She paused before picking up the folded paper, amber in color.

“Alice” written on the front.

She tucked the paper into her briefcase and would open it later, when the time was right,
when she could handle it. She knew it was a letter from her Mom, posthumously, a message
Alice knew would be a doozey.

She went out on the beach for a few minutes, "Take a deep breath..." she heard her mother say.
She looked around. No one. Her mother was gone, who was that?
The hypnotic sounds of the waves and her level of exhaustion put her to sleep in moments.

When she woke up, she instinctively clutched her briefcase, hoping not to lose the message, from beyond.
All was there. She was relieved.
Then she remembered the idea, the idea she just had, while sleeping a deep cat nap.
It was a great idea, a grand idea, a must do, simple crazy sounding idea.
She scribbled,
"The clone tapes", on paper to remind herself, and then she left the beach
for her bed, some food, and a much longer sleep.


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

News Link

a co worker shared this tidbit
which shares the colorful life in Dutch Harbor,
you know, where they bring in the crab,
and other "deadliest catch" (a show on cable)
we do not get cable anymore but will never forget those guys,
that daring winter boating and fishing for delightful food for us landlubbers.
I never question the cost of good seafood anymore. It is hard work.

http://dutchharbortelegraph.com

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Swallow re-run & Spring views


Fred snapped the one above last year

sundrops,rhubarb,solomon's seal,bleeding heart
and white violets

Monday, May 14, 2012

A movie link

Link to a great short movie "When you find me" by Ron Howard's daughter Bryce Howard and himself.



This was an experiment/contest where anyone could submit photographs that became the movie.
Watch it while it is up.
Wonderful.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mom

Mom
and Mother's Day,
a construct of US culture,
made more complicated because
many do not have a Mom or
do not have a
more classically traditional
what is that anymore?
Mom

My Mom,
shared 7 ways
made it hard to say she was all mine
even though sometimes I wished that
and other times I did not.

My Mom,
tough exterior,
mushy sometimes,
hard to know which way she might go
unless you pushed it.

My Mom,
her skin so soft and that
scent
that even with my eyes closed
I would say,
that is My Mom.

She has a way of saying
Mary
with a reverence,
perhaps I  only imagine
and still it is my reality.

She wanted me to feel unencumbered by her goals,
she felt lost through circumstances,
and fate,
She said to go, go and be,
be what you want,
She could not have such freedom.

When she wrote her memoirs,
reviewing 3 quarters of a century,
I am puzzled most by her thinking
her father would be disappointed in her.

How could a five year old girl
lose her father
and feel that way?

A larger than life figure to me, my Mother,
looms tall in intellectual self discovery,
exploration of faith,
and parent to 7 children, wife, productive worker
and volunteer,
and yet she sees herself
so small
compared to her mythical father.

He too, her father Kelly,
would have seen her for who she is today as well,
I have no doubt
if he could have,
he would have told her of his pride
in her
and his love
for her
he would have wished her Happy Mother's Day
and she would feel a great relief

kelly would be 127 years old

Friday, May 11, 2012

Stubborn Spring

 

DSC02138

nice to see bees again on the dandelions

dandelion’s name origin roughly dente de lion aka lion’s tooth.

stubborn tree leaves are slow to emerge,

in spite of warmer than normal winter,

spring has been on the colder side.

 

DSC02133

This week’s work took me to eastern VT

seeing special lakes, mountain views,

 

 

DSC02119

and this one speaks for itself:

DSC02126

(makes me itch just looking at this…)

Have a great day in your corner of the universe.

mary

Link to photographic journey

 
Link to amazing visual journey done By Shawn Reeder
 


http://shawnreeder.com/

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Moon

 

DSC02083

The full moon, nearby and bright

hard to capture

like the eye sees it

& we are captivated

by sunlight reflected by

the moon.

Lakes

Lake Morey


Harvey's Lake

Beautiful spring day

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Spring

tulips
flowering crab

Spring went from delightful and mild to chilly, frosty and blustery @ times

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Tom of the evening


DSC02097
Fred took this one of Jasper Sean
He is my main service cat who keeps me in
my routine.
If I do not do the sequence,
he lets me know.
He is the oldest feline here by 2 years.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Monday

Monday
back to work
necessitates
re-runs of former photos.
This was a beautiful day facing the spine of the green mountains
from the champlain valley below, once a sea bottom.
happy monday

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Changes

Changes

Changes to my blogger wallpaper
and once I started,
the changes kept coming
some things I seem to be missing,
some better left to attrition,
some images may be lost
or maybe mis-filed
Some readers, dismayed,
others oblivious,
still others
lost to
Changes.


and yes i know my fish pond got smaller.
it is oddly humanly reassuring that people care about that. mg

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Tom of the Morning

Tommy
Troublemaker Tomcat
Barncat heritage
Classic Black & White.
born circa Y2K

When I read somewhere someone asked if cats can be service animals,
I had no doubt in my mind,
absolutely

They give you a reason to get up, they are relentless
in their
selfishness
self-centered
ordered, orderly, regimental, disciplined
(he expects discipline from us and he does not return in kind)
and
Adorable, endearing, purringly delightful cooing sounds he makes
to say
I love you,

and in turn,
my daily morning ritual is to sing to him,
"Tommy's in the basement, mixing up the medicine,
I'm on the pavement, thinking 'bout the government."
as I open his can of food, he selects,
I dump it on the plate, He latches on to the meaty gravy bites,
gobbles full force, now arrogantly oblivious to me,
and then
we both are reassured.
we are on schedule
and we know,
 it will be a good day.

Friday, May 4, 2012

music link



we found this on you tube
and are grateful and amazed
again at the talent
and passion of these rare people

More links to Toast to Freedom Celebrations



more musicians for freedom
the message so plain,
say it with them
share this
give to amnesty international
http://www.amnestyusa.org/
stayed up late (rare any more)
and watched Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Kris Kristofferson, Justin,
and all. They did A Toast to Freedom and I felt Levon was in the air
as his message from a song came across loudly in his abscence.
"I wish I knew how it would feel to be free,
I wish I could break all these chains that are holding me
...sing it loud, sing it clear, for the whole wide world to hear." by levon helm.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Relaxshacks.com: TINY HOUSE SUMMER CAMP- Building/Camping/Learning/...

Relaxshacks.com: TINY HOUSE SUMMER CAMP- Building/Camping/Learning/...: JULY 6-9th- FOUR DAYS of Tiny House Building, Learning, Touring, and MORE! (Photo by Bruce Bettis)      Here's pretty much the final bi...

Summer Dreams

Vermont 2010
Summer Dreams,
summer sunrays
more intense
closer now, yet so distant,
far away flowers, long gone
and that color in my memory
That rich rust brown velvety sunflower
was it called called Autumn Beauty?