Shiny Things

Roller coaster recovery time. Yesterday we arrived in Maine. One of the things I like most about traveling is the opportunity for unexpected moments with random strangers. This can happen at home of course, but the odds are better on the road. Somewhere between Erie and Buffalo we stopped for coffee and car snacks. I stood at a bank of coffee pots along the side of the raised box where the cashiers stand and poured myself some "bold" roast coffee, but I couldn't see anything to put in it. David had already gotten his so I called back over my shoulder, "Where's the cream?" He was involved in some important junk food negotiation with the kids and didn't answer right away. "David, where's the cream?" I asked again. The woman behind the counter gave me an odd look and said, "It's behind you." A second later David chimed in and said, "It's over here." I shrugged at the woman and apologized. "I was trying to ask h...

American mink - I saw one in the wild at Shaker Lakes last week! I'm plagued with the sense that the summer is passing me by, which morphs into one big existential cliche that bores me too much to elaborate. Regular readers will notice that I have not been blogging at all, which could contribute to this syndrome -- not catching the quick silvery moments, and so on. This is not for lack of thinking about what I would write if I were writing here, but thinking is not writing. Rather than reconstruct weeks worth of observations and interesting bits, let me tell you about the nowish things, a few of them. I dropped Z at a friend's house this morning and stopped for a bit to chat in the kitchen, which always amazes me with its beautiful, oddball Americana decor, complete with vintage signs and green milk glass (maybe jadeite?) tea cups. Today I noticed a collection of vintage orange juicers, each with its own unique juice glass underneath. I love this. I will try to divert myself fr...

I've been thinking about this place, the Chiricahua Mountains, a lot lately. Maybe someday you will get to read what I have to say about it. I've been trying to spend writing time out of the house. Wednesday I made my office in a local coffee house. At the gas station across the street, a woman in an old fashioned cinch-waisted black and white dress and pumps cleaned her windshield. The guy who runs the gas station came over and took over from her, so she stood back by the driver's door and talked to him while he washed the glass with big arching strokes. I could tell he was following the edge of the arc of the wiper blades, getting that line that forms and making sure the whole pane was uniformly clean. Every few passes over the window, he would pause to wipe the squeegee off on his pants in big, loose-limbed motions. Thursday I sat in the atrium at the art museum. I was amused to see a woman in yoga clothes clutching an ill-rolled yoga mat on her way into the current Yoga...