huffy

this is my new vintage huffy sun country bike. i love it, and have been loving riding it to work and store and gymn. i feel twelve again:)

abc guy

my beautiful grandson, a capricorn...

defenders

the defenders of wildlife action fund has put out a video about the brutal killing of wolves from airplanes. ashley judd narrates this pointed attack at sarah palin and her aggressive promotion of this cruel act. watch

loathsome

the buffalo beast has their list of the 50 most loathsome people in america in 2008 posted. i forgive them barack obama because they are so damn funny, and maybe a little true about the prez. read, laugh, and enjoy.

poem

best poem ever...

THE PUMPKIN TREE

Up a lattice of sumac and into the spars

of the elderberry, the pumpkin vines had climbed,

and a week after first frost

great pendulous melons dangled like gods

among the bunches of lesser berries

and the dazzled, half-drunken birds.

Then the pumpkins fell, one by one, each mythical fruit's

dried umbilicus giving way in a rush

of gold and a snow of elliptical leaves.

A skull thud, the dull thunk of rupture,

a thin smoke then, like a soul, like dust.

But the last, high up and lodged

in a palm of limbs and pithy branches,

sways now in the slightest breeze and freeze

after freeze caves in on itself

and will, by spring, cast its black

leathery gaze out over the garden

like the mummy of a saint or an infirm

and dessicated pope. Below, where the others fell,

that seed not eaten by winter birds,

one, say, buried in meat and sheath

of skin, will rise. From its blunt,

translucent nubbin, a leaf trifoliate

and a stalk as succulent as bamboo, it will climb

blithe as a baby Christ up the knees

of the wood it cannot know it is bound for.

more by robert wrigley here

body type

i think this is a neat font for the tattoo i'm thinking about. the words below, with some crows flying away and around them. on the shoulder.

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

tats

this is the shop of my tattoo artist aries rhysing. it is in taos, nm, and is called talisman tattoo. stop in and get inked if you are in the very beautiful area of georgia o'keeffe's home. cute, huh?

ink

i'm sorry, but i think kat von d and l.a. ink is fabulous. it inspires me to search out my next tattoo. little pisces sun, leo moon girl. swimming art, written on the body. good stuff.

love dad

parade magazine has posted an open letter from barack obama to his daughters.

"Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have. But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey."

read the rest here.

bendertent

the vardo, or gypsy wagon, was used as housing after the bender tent.

"A vardo is a traditional horse-drawn wagon used by English Romani Gypsies. Previous to this travelling people generally used bender tents - so called because they were made from supple branches which they bent inwards to support the fabric.

The design of the vardo included large wheels running outside the body of the van, which slopes outwards considerably towards the eaves. One of the most prominent families involved in building vardos were the Duntons of Reading, Berkshire.

There is evidence of the vardo in use as early as 1840 when Charles Dickens described Mrs. Jarley's van with its bed, stove, closet or larder and several chests (Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxvii):

'One half of it... was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the windows, with fair white curtains... The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It also held a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which in that portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines'"

tumbleweed homes has a new version of the vardo gypsy wagon.