13: Checking All the Right Boxes
1. Every time my answering machine lights up with “13” messages, I want to take a picture of it and post it here.
2. The beauty of a blog is that no paper journal has ever had a search bar.
3. Then again, the blog is only as real as its server, its paid domain register and its electric connection.
4. Is ‘pull the plug’ the new ‘when the shit hits the fan?’
5. Drizzle or mizzle?
6. Innate or an 8? That was the question I had while watching SNL’s Saturday Cold Open called “The Impeachment Trial You Wish Had Happened,” when Alex Baldwin’s Trump was found guilty and forced to say something nice about Nancy Pelosi. “Fine, her body is an 8,” Baldwin’s Trump said, but I thought he said “Fine, her body is an innate.”
7. There’s a museum in Japan that honors rocks which resemble human faces, like ET and Elvis HERE.
8. Inside “the box” HERE.
9. When the arsonists hold the matches / that hold us all hostage / adding fuel to burning bridges / while the whole world catches / a Midas curse for the love of money / that’s reduced to kindling / and fanning flames – Read the rest of Fire in the Theater HERE.
10. “You can’t write poetry in a hurry and you can’t read poetry in a hurry, because you can’t dream in a hurry. Poetry is dreaming on the page – it slows us down.” – Grace Cavalieri
11. It’s hard enough to get us all together in one place and harder still to keep a secret from my mother (who may have suspected the anniversary party and maybe even our secret photography shoot). We tried to be discreet when we met for the photographer’s sitting the previous summer at Stony Beach where we all grew up. Gathering together for the pose, all five brothers stood in the back while the four sisters sat in the front. Jim and Dan stood at either side. Jimmy had his arm around Sherry while Dan had his around Trish. Even then they seemed to have a plan in mind, like big brother bookends my Dad would later say. The ocean was behind us, and Boston Lighthouse was in the distance. Danny looked like the protector. Jimmy, who won the prize for being the least changed at his 30th class re-union, looked like a big kid. This was the picture we pinned up on Dan’s hospital bulletin board, along with one of our mother and father beaming, still looking like Beebe and Babsy, taken at their 50th wedding anniversary party. These were the pictures Dan died with on his chest. – More from The Jim and Dan Stories Revisited: Chapter 12 HERE.
12. Daddy left me a magnifying glass / to read life’s fine print / He watches birds from up on high / in apple blossom time – Read Inheritance in its entirety HERE.
13. “And it’s just a box of rain / I don’t know who put it there / Believe it if you need it / Or leave it if you dare / And it’s just a box of rain / Or a ribbon for your hair / Such a long long time to be gone / And a short time to be there…” Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter
______Thirteen Thursday
February 6th, 2020 7:51 am
Cool list, as always, CR! I enjoyed the (re)visit to the face rocks museum. My mother and I used to collect them, too. I had a brief piece published about that last March at Star 82 Review. You can read it here: https://eggsovertokyo.blogspot.com/2019/03/face-rocks.html
Have a great weekend; we’re getting 8-12 inches of new snow.
February 6th, 2020 10:55 am
The rock museum is pretty cool. I see faces in stuff all the time, so much so that I tend to shy away from buying clothing or decor with patterns in it. Even in things where I think I won’t see things, I ultimately end up seeing something. I have done this since I was a child. At times, it is disconcerting.
February 6th, 2020 2:55 pm
I see faces in patterns all the time too!
February 6th, 2020 7:36 pm
#1 do it do it
February 7th, 2020 3:58 am
It’s getting so I’m notices faces in nearly every rock and tree I see. Not too good of a thing while I’m driving.
The photos on your brother’s chest gave me the shivers.