Loose Leaf Notes

1. Hanging Out

2. Homeward Bound

3. Got Your Back

4. Look Ma No Hands

Thanksgiving in Outer Space: My sister Trish’s astronaut brother-in-law (and my one time wedding party escort at her wedding) has emailed a second batch of photos from space shuttle Endeavour’s space station mission. The latest update from NASA is that their landing back on earth will not happen at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but has been re-scheduled for today at 4:25 p.m. EST at Edwards Air Force Base in California. All our eyes and prayers are in the sky from now until then. Scroll down for more photos or click HERE.

Update: They have landed safely. More HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

1. Breakfast in Space

2. Don’t forget to brush.

3. The Class Picture (notice the astronauts holding themselves down and the woman astronaut’s hair flying up).

4. Gravity-free Recess

Post notes: The above photos were emailed to my sister Trish whose brother-in-law is Astronaut Stephen Bowen (pictured in the first photo on the right). Stephen emailed them from the Space Shuttle Endeavour to his wife Saturday morning, who then emailed them to Trish, who emailed them to me and our other siblings.

Watch the space tool bag float in space with the earth below HERE. That’s Stephen on the right of Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. For more posts and photos on the spaceflight click HERE and HERE. And send all best wishes to the crew for a safe flight home next Saturday.

Posted by Colleen at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Colleen to Katherine, Zephyr Farm neighbor: "Hey, can I bring an apple crisp to Thanksgiving dinner this year? Joe and I have gone apple picking twice this season and we have apples all over the house."

Posted by Colleen at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I had planned to interview my friend, Mara, sometime during the two day poetry symposium we attended recently. I knew I’d be blogging about it, and if she won for her either of the two presentations she was scheduled to give, I’d be writing a story for The Floyd Press. I thought maybe I’d ask her some questions over a Scrabble game, but the game never even made it out of my car. She was distracted with her upcoming presentations, and with four of us staying in one inn suite, we were busy having fun, reading each other our poetry, eating, and talking about poets Claudia Emerson and Bruce Weigl, who were guest readers at the event.

As Mara was dressing for the first event, putting on her signature khaki cargo pants, she talked about needing to be comfortable and how her cargo pants helped her feel like herself. She showed off the necklace she was planning to wear the next day with a carnelian shirt that would top of her second pair of khaki cargo pants. “I won’t weigh the pockets down with stuff,” she said about her pants. “I think they’ll look neater that way.”

I saw my opportunity, opened my notebook in an “all about it” official manner, and began to conduct the interview:

Colleen: “Mara, how many pairs of cargo pants to you own?”

After thinking about it and discussing the fact that some fit and some don’t, she answered, “Approximately nine in different sizes.”

Colleen: (Thinking fast for my follow-up question), “And how many of those are written on?”

Mara: “Three.”

Colleen: “What about cargo shorts?”

Mara: “Ah … about half-a-dozen.”

Colleen: “Are they all khaki?”

Mara: “No, some are olive green. I like fatigue cargoes, but never ever wear camouflage.”

Post note: To see a ritual performance of the signing of Mara’s pants, go HERE. Shorts are HERE. You can read about Mara's symposium win HERE. You can see the cargo pants she wore for her symposium win in the last shot.

Posted by Colleen at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Joe and I watched the Red Sox win the World Series and The Blob simultaneously on two of the three flat screen TVs in the Hotel Floyd Writer’s Suite this weekend. Mostly he watched the Red Sox and I watched the Blob and we periodically visited each other. Besides The Blob – the 1958 B movie that became a cult attraction after its star, Steve McQueen, became famous – there were other gory movies being shown for Halloween. Being the type that has to cover my eyes when people are eating live hearts and such, we didn’t spend too much time on those. The Blob was scary enough, especially since I had previously grooved pathways of fear in my nervous system for the story. I was eight years old when I first saw it. It must have been in black and white back then because the blob I remember was black and this one was red.

So the blob comes out of a meteorite that falls from out of space. It gets stuck on a man’s arm and grows to the point of dissolving him. Then it goes around killing people in the small Pennsylvania town where the meteorite landed, growing bigger with every body it assimilates. Steve McQueen saves himself and the day when he discovers that the one thing that stops The Blob is cold. The blob covers a diner with Steve McQueen and others inside. They stop it by spraying it with CO2 fire extinguishers.

At the end of the movie the frozen blog is being airlifted by the Air force to Arctic. The town cop turns to Steve and says that nothing can kill the blob but it will stay frozen in the Arctic. Steve answers that every thing will be alright as long as the Artic stays cold.

I turned to Joe and said, “Oh oh. They don’t know about global warming.”

The next day I blogged about the blob on my laptop at the Writer’s Suite kitchen table.

Post note: In Phoenixville Pennsylvania, where The Blob was filmed, an annual Blob Fest is held, which includes a re-enactment of the scene in which moviegoers run screaming out of the town’s Colonial Theatre after seeing the blob.

Posted by Colleen at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Mrs. Pickle, a character creation with an educational mission and a flair for drama, has taken her new stand-up comedy act and her passion paraphernalia business on the road. I was one in a group of 13 women (mostly friends) who was there for her virgin show.

“I use the C word once and the F word once, both are part of a limerick I’m going to read,” she admitted to me before the show, as women milled about the kitchen sipping wine and munching on anatomically designed cupcakes and cookies. She wanted to know what I thought about her using those words.

“It’s okay with this crowd,” I assured her, “especially since it’s from a limerick. You can call it your poetic license.”

I was asked by the host whose home we had gathered in to read some of my erotic poetry, so now I can add “opened for a Mrs. Pickle show” on my writer’s resume. As I finished the last of the poems, Mrs. Pickle appeared and approached the podium in her “church lady” costume, which made for a dramatic contrast to the words she would soon be uttering as calmly as one might order food in a restaurant.

The show began with the hilarious re-telling of her first trip to an adult sex shop, which she was taken to blind-folded by some women friends and where she felt mortified and curious at the same time. The educator in her brought some props (you can imagine) and included some informative historic background and sex education in her act. Initially, the audience’s laughter may have been a way to release nervous tension, but as the evening went on it got more spontaneous and at times bordered on uncontrollable. We took a break at one point to compose ourselves (and to eat more cookies).

Mrs. P’s alter-ego has plans for a Roanoke production of the “The Vagina Monologues,” an award winning play by Eve Ensler based on interviews with more than 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality. But before that, Mrs. Pickle will be tickling some other Floyd funny bones with her stand-up act. She’s scheduled to perform it at the February Spoken Word Open Mic, on the 17th from 7-9 at the Café Del Sol.

Post Note: Upon returning home, my husband wanted to know if the show was a success. “Absolutely," I told him. “You don’t have to work too hard to convince women of the value of a good vibration.”

Posted by Colleen at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

My girlfriend, Juniper, called me from her cell phone on her way to the airport. She was headed for “The City of Love,” San Francisco, to visit one of her sons and was wearing a poppy flower in her hair for the occasion.

I can always tell that it’s Juniper when I pick up the phone and hear her barking. Literally.

“Woof….Woof…Woof,” she yipped, in honor of the nickname my father gave me: Colly Wolly Wolf, Wolf, or Wolfy.

“You’re the only one who does that!” I said to her. “I love it!”

“You lucky dog! It’s your birthday! Are you still 49?” She asked.

After catching up a bit, we talked about San Francisco. I told her about my trip there a few years ago and how I wanted to go to The City Lights Bookstore but didn’t get to.

“I don’t think the friends I was with understood my interest in it. We had spent too much time in Sausalito, walking up and down the pier looking at the houseboats, and then in Chinatown,” I told her.

She wanted to know what was so special about that particular bookstore, and so I explained.

“It’s a literary landmark, where Allen Ginsberg and other poets got their start, a small press, and always politicaly progressive. In the old days buses full of tourists would stop there to see the beatniks and hippies. We actually drove right by it,” I continued, “but didn’t stop. It looked like any other small independent bookstore.”

Then we talked about my son’s wedding and her son’s new girlfriend, and before we hung up she said this: “I’m going to bring you something RED (in honor of my last name - Redman- and our Moonlodge history) from The City Lights Bookstore for your birthday!”

I was thrilled! She might as well have offered to fly me to Paris for lunch.

Posted by Colleen at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

AKA: What will they think of next?

This is the first time I was served tea with a pyramid shaped teabag that could stand on its own and was taller than the cup the tea was in. My husband’s niece and I snapped picture after picture of it while diners turned their heads to watch. I felt like my blogger friend Carmi, who frequently photographs grocery store produce and recently had close-up photos of tea and cake on his site.

It’s was also the first time I got served a whitish, seeded fruit that was cut into star shapes and that I couldn’t identify. My husband and others who were at the table are still laughing at my speechless reaction and my drop jaw expression when the server brought out my lunch of tuna and greens served in a wine glass.

We were at the Chateau Morrisette Winery and I swear no one was drinking anything alcoholic. The tea was delicious! I was ready to describe it as being encased in a sort of mosquito-like netting, but the tea company’s website called it a sachet.

Posted by Colleen at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

AKA: What Does Nina Simone have to do with it?

The Background: Last Friday I posted a follow-up to an original blog entry titled “How Much is that Pot in the Window?” It was related to a pottery piece that my Asheville potter son, Josh, had displayed in the window of his “Clay Space” pottery studio; 9 pots glued to piece of wood, which was set on the ledge of his studio, not necessarily for the purpose of selling, but more to draw attention to his studio.

“How Much is that Pot in the Window?” Last week, Josh called with the answer; “$400.” It was purchased by a private collector.

The Plot Thickens: The art collector who bought Josh’s pots glued to wood has a blog! It’s called “The Eunice Waymon Birthplace” and chronicles his efforts to restore the original home of Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina. In the time it took to click on a google search, I discovered that Eunice Waymon is Nina Simone! Of course, I knew Nina Simone was a singer and a major talent, but I didn’t know anything about her history, or the fact that she was active in civil rights, recorded several Bob Dylan songs, and sang a rendition of (my all time favorite) Suzanne by Leonard Cohen. Her webpage describes her as: "Singer, Pianist, Arranger, Composer, Honorary Doctor in Music and Humanities, High Priestess of Soul, Queen of African Rooted Classical Music. " She died in April, 2003 at the age of 70.

But the best part of this connect-the-dots saga, is that the private collector who purchased Josh’s Clay Space window pots sent me a photo of them in their new home. Don’t they look great?!

My son, Josh, doesn’t have a webpage yet. I’m thinking maybe he needs his own category on the sidebar of my blog.

Post Note: We are heading out for some R&R to an undisclosed location that I’m hoping involves the ocean. Posting here may be erratic.

Posted by Colleen at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

I originally posted this photo, the front window of my Asheville potter son’s warehouse studio/ living space, on January 8, and asked, “How much is that pot in the window?”

Yesterday my son called and gave me the answer; $400.

It’s all one piece (the pots are glued onto wood) and has been purchased by private collectors. I’m hoping they will let us take a picture of it in its new home, so that I can update you all on this pottery adventure.

The couple who purchased it left a comment on the original post, which I first took for spam: COPUS Assemblage. Clay and wood, 2005/2006. Private Collection, Tryon, North Carolina

Hey, does anyone else have any wares to advertise here?

Post Note: Tomorrow is the last day to vote in the Share the Love Blog Award of which Loose Leaf is a finalists in two categories, Best Writing and Most Thought Provoking. Voting is done here. Thanks!

Posted by Colleen at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

AKA: 2 Pink Tutus
It's like meeting a friend of a friend of a friend; one blog link leads to another, and soon I’m lost in cyberspace on an unfamiliar blog and I can’t remember how I got there.

I clicked a link on somebody’s sidebar because I liked the name, “A Sense of Wonder.” Once there, I scrolled down a little and saw, to my surprise, a young girl standing by a Christmas tree in pink tutu!

Hey, I have one of those! (My son’s girlfriend’s daughter who visited this past Christmas) Is there something going around? A pink Tutu flu?

The whole thing reminded me of the incident of Reese Witherspoon’s vintage dress at the recent Golden Globe Awards, which one press member called “the dress debacle” because, God forbid, someone else wore the same dress to a Golden Globe party 3 years ago.

Not only did I stumble upon the parallel world of the Christmas pink tutu, but just days before I did my blog friend, Bill, mentioned a pink tutu in a Loose Leaf Comment, as though he was setting the stage for what was to come.

Have you experienced any cyber-synchronicity lately?

Post Notes: Pretty in Pink #1 can be found here.
January's Spoken Word Open Mic Night at the Cafe Del Sol is tomorrow night at 7:00

Afternoon Update: I just became aware through a reader that it's Photo Friday and the assignment for today is PINK. I've never played Photo Friday and was not playing when I posted this photo! Case closed on the cyber-synchronicity thing, huh.

Note to Readers: I'm currently experiencing difficulties with my main index template codes and am unable to post. Sorry for any inconvience.

Posted by Colleen at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

This is the compliment I received first thing Sunday Morning: “You look like Mary Poppins. Your cheeks are rosy. Don’t tell Joe (your husband) I said that.”

It came from one of the individuals with a developmental disability that I sometimes provide weekend respite foster-care for, and it translates to mean: “You’re a fun caregiver and I like you, the way Mary Poppins was a fun nanny and the kids she took care of liked her.”

“Thank you!” I answered.

Posted by Colleen at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

AKA Just in time for Halloween…
One of my earliest childhood memories goes like this: When I was 5 years old, I found some pills in the bathroom medicine cabinet that looked like M&Ms. I promptly sampled them and quickly discovered that they weren’t candy. The medicine left my lips and tongue bright purple, which of course caused me to get busted by my mother. “Just in time for Halloween,” I remember her saying, which scared me because Halloween was weeks away. Were my lips and tongue going to stay purple?!

Years later in an unrelated event at the age of 13, during puberty and after a couple of fainting spells which landed me smack on the gym floor, my hair began to go white in a bold streak on the left side of my head. Then, to my horror, my eyebrow and eyelashes on that side also went white. I learned to use eye make-up and part my hair to cover the streak, and I feared the worst. Would I look as spooky as Mrs. Adams from the Adam's Family? Would I end up being completely white on one side and dark brown on the other? My mother took me to a doctor and all he said was “People pay money to have that done. You’ll love it when you’re older.” Six months later it stopped.

Many years after that and with the help of the internet, I learned that the loss of pigment I experienced has a name: “segmental vitiligo.” Vitiligo, which shows up most on African Americans (and which Michael Jackson claims to have), can spread all over the body and generally gets progressively worse with time. The kind I had, “segmental,” only lasts about 6 months and is only on one side of the body, most commonly the head.

This past weekend in a “can you guess the lie?” post, I revealed 4 things about myself, one of which was a lie. Most readers guessed that the white eyebrow was the lie. While I don’t have a photo of my white eyebrow, I do have a poem about it (posted below). The first time I read it in public, I looked up as I was reading and noticed that people’s mouths were dropped open and their faces looked strained, as though they were struggling to understand what the heck I was talking about. I laughed and lost my rhythm and had to start the poem over, but not before giving a better set-up and a little background information.

My Missing Eyebrow

I don’t go out without it
my eyebrow
neatly matched
like shoe and sock
to the other one

I wonder if it’s crooked
If other people take theirs for granted
I worry that they’ll smudge it
or accidentally rub against it

And who’ll put my eyebrow on
when I get old
when I can’t even see
where it goes?

And what if I forget
and leave the house without it?
Will people be shocked
bold enough to ask
What happened to your eyebrow?!

I envy those
with reliable eyebrows
two that look just like each other
and people who can go out
without checking in the mirror

to ask, Does it look convincing?
Will it draw attention?
Will it have the durability
to last all day?

Photo: Butterfly art by Steve, Halloween, maybe 5 years ago. The comb-over completely covers the white streak, which you can see a little better here." Don't forget to check out the related photo below: My Little Prodigy 2.

Posted by Colleen at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I was born in Quincy in 1950...My Dad was in the Navy...and my Mother was pretty...Are you doing the math in your head yet?...Here, want a pencil?!

I don’t tell anyone my real age unless it’s going to save me some money, which happened recently.

Floyd’s Jacksonville Center for the Arts has a new retail store that features the creative efforts of local artists. A few days ago, I stopped by the Center to drop off some of my books (“The Jim and Dan Stories” and “Muses Like Moonlight”) for sale in the shop, and I discovered that you had to be member to sell items there. I was more than happy to become a member, seeing as how the Center is such an asset to our community, and I fully support its goals, particularly the newly opened folk art school.

Jeri, a friend who works there, said to me, “It costs $25 to join. Too bad you’re not 55 because then it would only cost $15.”

“Hmmmm….It just so happens that… I recently turned 55,” I lowered my voice and confessed to her. She was shocked because she, like most of my friends, doesn’t know how old I am, due to the fact that I generally lie about it…usually by only a year.

But I hadn’t confessed quietly enough. Wayne, the director and another friend (Floyd is a small town), overheard us and said, “What? Colleen! You don’t look 55.”

“That’s because I hang around with that young guy. You know, my husband, Joe. Joe is 10 years younger than me,” I told Wayne.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“NO! I lie about that too! He’s really 11 years younger than me!” I said laughing and stomping a foot.

So that’s my formula. I shave one year off my age and add one year to Joe’s. It’s information I don’t share freely, but if anyone really wants to know (or if it will save me some money), I will admit the truth.

I wrote out a check for $15, and a few days later I received a membership card in the mail. I gasped when I opened the envelope and saw the word “senior” written on the card. Being referred to as a “senior” was a first (and much worse than the first time I didn’t get carded in a bar or the first time someone called me ma’am)!

Post Note: Summer of Blog 2005!
Mooalex is hosting the Summer of Blog 2005, which is a gallery of blogger’s summer photos. Loose Leaf has a photo featured, “Taking the Cure,” taken by my sister Sherry’s husband, Nelson Pidgeon, of her and I in Rockport, Massachusetts.

Posted by Colleen at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Number 28 in my “100 Things About Me list” states that my husband and I have the same IQ number, but for different reasons. More than one intrigued reader asked for some further explanation. So here’s the story:

I found a good IQ test online, which professed to be the most thorough and scientifically accurate IQ test on the Web, developed by PhDs, and previously offered only to corporations, schools, and certified professionals I had never taken one before and was curious. I know I’m smart enough, but I don’t always come across that way, probably because of my family inheritance of unusual brain wiring (aka known as dyslexia and/or dyscalculia).

I surprised myself by getting a fairly high score. For the next day or so, I teased my husband, claiming to be a “genius.” Although it was an obvious exaggeration, being a “genius” was my new explanation or excuse for every thing, as if I had discovered a royal family background.

Then…I don’t know what I was thinking…I baited him to take the test, asking, “Don’t you want to see if you’re a genius too?” After he agreed, I realized that a competition of intelligence for mates is like playing with fire. Whether his score was higher or lower, life between us might never be the same. I became increasingly uncomfortable as he was finishing the test.

Lucky me! He scored the same exact number as me. But that’s not where the story ends.

Like two scientists whose curiosities were peaked, we re-took the test together, carefully comparing which ones we got right and which ones we didn’t. For over an hour, we deliberated and explained to each other how we came to our conclusions. We discovered (no real surprise) that we are of two completely different minds. He, the more linear and mathematically minded, took longer to complete the test and used more paper to compute his answers than I did. I was quick, intuitive, and strong in nuance and language. There was one question comparing rates of time and distance that I didn’t even try to answer. At times, I couldn’t break down my explanations of why I had answered a certain way, and at one point, I remember saying, “guessing well is a form of intelligence too.”

In the end, my husband didn’t need the IQ test for validation. His kind of intelligence is already well recognized and supported in our modern culture. But for me, as one who starts in left field and has to work my home, it was an important validation.

Sometimes I think one of the reasons couples marry is to put 2 incomplete brains together to make one complete one.

Posted by Colleen at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Her name is Jazzy, but it could be Aslan from “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” or maybe Red Riding Hood's "Wolf." She’s my son Dylan’s dog, but she may as well be ours, since Dylan now lives in an apartment in Roanoke that doesn’t allow big dogs and we have the 3 acres.

A few years ago, when Dylan was a teenager, I was driving through town when I spotted him cruising along in his black Honda civic. Sitting next to him was what I thought was a wild blonde woman. What the…? She’s way too old for him. And what’s up with her hair? This was definitely not your typical high school girl, I thought.

Feeling confused, I pulled up closer to get a better look and realized…you guessed it…it was Jazzy.

Posted by Colleen at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I was watching the 4th of July fireworks – I like to ooh and aah and give them names like “Pistachio Afro” or “Orange Zinnia in a Blender” – when my eldest son said, “Mum, you’re just like Gidget.” I took it as compliment because when I was a girl, I wanted to be either like Gidget or Annie Oakley.

On another occasion, my younger son was mad at me for some reason I can’t remember now. He was fuming. His face was red. He stammered and stuttered and then let this out… “you…you…YOU BIG FAT OLD LADY!” I tried to keep a straight face. I was neither old nor overweight, but there was no sense in mentioning that and risking escalating him further.

Later, when he calmed down, I had to ask (and did not hold back my smile when I did), “Do you remember what you called me?”

“Yeah…well you won’t let us curse,” he answered.

Posted by Colleen at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Death is real. It comes without warning. No one escapes it. Soon my body will be a corpse. ~ Buddhist passage

When my brothers, Jim and Dan, died a month apart in 2001, the reality of impermanence hit me hard. I’ve been reading about death and contemplating it ever since. Although I’ve experienced firsthand how it feels to have a loved one die, I still don’t understand death. Most of us don't. We know it happens, but when it happens in our own family, our innocence is shattered and our understanding is reduced to that of a child’s. Where do we come from? Where do we go? How do you lose a person? Below are some of my attempts at putting into words the stages I’ve lived through coping with loss over the last few years.

~ In the first year, you look the same, but you’re different. Someone who was a part of you is gone. You feel as if you’ve been abducted by aliens who have conducted experiments that have changed you. You look around for others who have also been abducted (lost a loved one) to compare notes with. You know those who haven’t lost someone close yet will be abducted someday too. But you can’t tell them much about it, because they won’t believe you.

~ The first couple of years: You know how it is when you’ve lost a tooth, and your tongue keeps going to the spot where the tooth used to be? Your tongue is drawn to feel the remaining sharp edges and to repeatedly examine the huge gapping hole left in the tooth’s place. You realize you’ll have to learn to eat differently. It’s sort of like that, losing someone you love. Your mind is compelled to review every detail of your loved ones life and death. It’s a seductive kind of torture that feels good while it hurts.

~ By the 3rd year after losing a loved one, you’re busy with your life. You don’t cry much. Things seem okay, but then you remember: They’re gone. They’re still really gone. It’s like getting the punch line to a very bad joke, over and over.

Posted by Colleen at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

(AKA: Why is my face on a billboard?!)
The first time I saw an Iris flower, I was probably 7 years old. It was growing on the side of a big old abandoned house that was destined to be torn down by the time I was a teenager. I thought it was an orchid. It was the most beautiful flower I had ever seen, and so unlikely to be growing next to a house that all the kids in my Hull Village neighborhood thought was haunted.

Years ago, I read somewhere that talking to your plants helps them to grow. At that time, I was reading a variety of metaphysical fare, such as “The Aquarian Conspiracy” by Marilyn Ferguson. And so, the idea of plants responding to the human voice only seemed to confirm what I was already coming to accept, that there’s more going on in this world than what we can actually see. I have since fallen away from metaphysical studies – where science and spirit meet – although I still hold an interest in such things.

I have to confess to those who read my recent post “Brunch at Tupelo Honey,” in which I announce that blogging has cured me of shopping, that I actually did buy one item before leaving Asheville, North Carolina, where I was visiting my eldest son. It was a book, of course (who can resist buying at least one book in Asheville’s wonderfully independent bookstore called Malaprops?).

The book is titled “The Hidden Messages in Water” and was written by Dr. Masaru Emoto. At first, flipping through the pages, I thought it was full of snowflake photographs. I love snowflakes and would like to learn more about them, which is why I was drawn to the book. But it wasn’t about snowflakes. It was about how water responds to human intention and particularly to the spoken word.

According to Dr. Emoto (whose work was presented in the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know?!), speaking kind, encouraging, or prayerful words to natural water causes it to respond by forming beautiful symmetrical crystallized patterns. If you speak harshly to the same water, the crystals don’t form. In one exercise the author, who uses a high speed camera and microscope in a very cold room, photographed the changing expression of water as it responded to the words “Let’s do it,” and then to “Do it.” Apparently, the forces of nature don’t respond well to commands of force because “Do it” produced a flat, dull image; whereas “Let’s do it” resulted in brilliant snowflake patterns.

The implications that water responds to the human voice is enormous. If water responds to kindness, what doesn’t?

When my family and I moved into our log home on the Blue Ridge Parkway over 10 years ago, we inherited several beds of perennials, one being a large outcropping of purple iris. Over the years, the May blooming irises have petered out. I can now count the ones that bloom on one hand. Too little sun? Do they need fertilizer? Or are they just reaching the end of their lifespan?

I don’t know what’s got into the Iris, but on my morning walks in the garden, I’ve taken to talking to them gently, telling them how beautiful they are. Is that what the birds are doing in the spring, singing the flowers into bloom?

About the photo: I looked through my photo albums and this is the only picture I could find of an iris. The picture is way bigger than I intended to post (my computer skills have been on an uphill learning curve) and was taken on my birthday in 1997. I cropped my husband out because he was making a goofy face (and was also wearing an iris in his hair). I bet you want to see it now. This year I’ll make sure to photograph the 5 brave Iris flowers that have decided to bloom. I think it will help their self-esteem and encourage more to follow suit.

Posted by Colleen at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I was sitting on the porch of the North Star Day Program (a facility for people with developmental disabilities) across the street from the house in the photo when we heard the crash. Soon after, a man came running down the sidewalk from a nearby house to offer help, or so we thought. It turned out that the man was the driver. He had fallen out of the truck. The truck then careened down the hill, driving itself, until the house got in its way and stopped it. It helps to know that it was a bread truck, open on the driver’s side the way UPS trucks often are. But even knowing that, it’s hard to grasp how someone could fall out. No one was hurt, but everyone was amazed. The driver was concerned about getting fired from his job.

An alternative title to this entry could be: Why I like Non-fiction. Although I understand that truths can be told through fiction and that non-fiction is filtered through personal perception, I am generally drawn towards reading memoirs, biographies and history. I like poetry, humor, and essays that draw from real life because life is so much stranger than fiction. Let’s face it, life is funny, and I like that we never know what’s going to happen next.

Posted by Colleen at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My son, Josh, was published by the time he was 3 years old. An article and a poem I had written appeared in “Mothering Magazine” around that time, and I was a regular contributor to "Nurturing,” a Mothering-like magazine out of Canada. I sent his poems, drawings, stories, and recipes, along with my own submissions to “Nurturing” and, much to my delight, they frequently used them.

Today, Josh is fully grown. Although he is primarily a potter, he is an artist in every sense. He has a way with lingo, lives larger than life and has stories to prove it, the kind that you couldn’t make up if you tried. I knew when I started this blog that if I ever was at a loss for what to post, I could dig into his wealth of stories and find a gem. He’s agreed to guest post a story from time to time, but because he’s nearing the end of a school semester and preparing for a 3 week trip to England after that, I don’t expect one any time soon. So I’ll relate a story he told a group of us over a sushi supper last Friday night. He calls it “The After School Special” and I’m guessing he was about 19 or 20 at the time. It still makes me shudder:

She was pretty and blonde. They were in bed, making out. They had been drinking. Things were heating up when he rolled over and his head hit something hard…metal. “What’s this?” he asked her. He was shocked to see that it was a gun. “Let me show you,” she said, grabbing it. It was loaded! And went off! “Hey, can you keep it down in there,” a friend from the other room shouted to them.

As Josh tells the story, “It blew up a shoe, and after that, I lost my license.”

I was confused. “Did you get pulled over, driving home?”

He whispered in my ear a hint of what he meant, and then I understood that HE WASN’T IN THE MOOD anymore.

He got the message loud and clear, and he was never in the mood with her again. When they ran into each other months later, she gave him the bullet as a souvenir.

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In Other News: Loose Leaf is being featured in a Showcase Carnival this week hosted at BlogCruiser. Go take a look. There are a variety of new blogs to check out with topics including everything from sex to politics.

Also: Mainstream Media and Bloggers by Juan Cole is an article worth reading. It's about the state of blogging today. Cole is an author and Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

Posted by Colleen at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)