News Flashes!

1. There are no good snacks in this house! (Food section.)

2. This arrived today, and I have already read one chapter! (even though my daughter in Scotland had it downloaded to her Kindle and had already read half of it!) (International News.)

3. Another student for whom I made a special appointment stiffed me! In related news, I'm starting to take it personally! (Business section. Also, possible advice column material.)

4. The park down the street is full of water! like it always is after it rains a lot! (Weather, obviously.)

Really, I'm only giving you the local news because the New York Times, which I make a point of buying on Thursdays at Starbucks--because the Thursday Times is the best Times--was full of terrible news.

Point A: The cover photo was of Donald Trump, mid-bloviation, and Jeb Bush, with his patented 'Why am I currently behind that blowhard?????? I am a BUSH!' expression.

Me, to the historian: (pointing at the picture) I don't want either of these guys to be president.
Historian: EFFF no. (that isn't what he actually said, but whatever he actually did say, 'EFFFF no' is what he meant.)

Point B: The Style section, which is historically one of my favorite sections, had pictures of leather jackets with patches of fur, or faux fur on them? Ugggggghhhhhh. Although, if that's the kind of thing you like, I'll share my Style section with you. Because uggghhh.

Point C: I haven't read the Arts section yet because of the previous disappointments.

Well, in my personal Arts section,

5. I added new material to my emerging poem!

6. I got a manuscript rejection today! With a 'Dear Author' form letter!

7. I went to a poetry reading tonight!

There is no sports news, because

8. The U.S. Open is over!

In conclusion, tomorrow is Friday, which kind of saves everything, if you want my opinion (see: my personal Opinion section).

(I have additional opinions, but they are available only to subscribers to The Megastore Times.)


(But basically, you can have them for free everyday. We're a daily edition around here.)

Teeny tiny newsletter.

1 New York Times story on the Bush library dedication. All the living presidents were there. Sue me.

2 "Amour" from Carmen.

We discuss the news.

A conversation.

Me: ...and after tomorrow, Miriam and Evie will be out of school for two weeks for the Easter holidays.

The historian: Two weeks? Wow.

Me: I know! And then they get an extra day off, because of the royal wedding.

The historian: ...there's a royal wedding?

Me: Whaaa?

The historian: I'm serious--there's a royal wedding? Who's getting married?

Me: (laughing) It's Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The historian: First I've heard of it.

Me: I don't know what you read.

The historian: Will they get to watch it on TV? When I was a kid, when Queen Elizabeth got crowned, we got to stay home from school and watch it on TV.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the royal wedding will be televised, but if not, I give you the royal wedding in Legos:

(click the link above for the whole slideshow)

Memo from Idaho.

Up the road, they're excavating a site where, formerly, there was a cabin. This was a place on the river--we used to use their pier to walk out to the water, and to clamber up after a river float. Now, there's a truck rumbling up and down, carrying away dirt and rock from that site. Eventually, maybe, there'll be a new cabin there.

In the spirit of home improvement, we have purchased two new mattresses. The old ones were pretty darn old--fifty years old, my dad says. Below, the miracle of a box spring, naked and still shiny. It was very springy, which made it not such an excellent mattress for sleeping. For making a lot of bouncy noise, it was awesome.

Hardly anyone is up here in the village. So we walked up the road past the cabins, at the moment unoccupied, to the river.

There are birds everywhere. We found a couple of nests in the eaves.


We also have burrowed in, with our food, our paints, our woolly socks (it's a bit chilly here), our cameras, our books.

On our evening walk, the birds let us get pretty close:

Some more desert.

When we're out and about in foreign environs, such as the desert almost directly south of Barstow, we like to pick up all the free ephemera floating around in the racks at the Seven-Eleven, or in this case, at the Stater Bros. grocery store in Twenty-Nine Palms (this might be the all-time greatest name for a town in the history of the universe, and I am including Constantinople and Timbuktu).

In this little rag, we found an article about a brand new book that was having its brand new book party that very weekend. The book is called Jackrabbit Homestead, which is all about the little homesteads that sprang up in the Morongo Basin near Twenty-Nine Palms as a result of the federal government's (hows you spell that, son? I said: g-u-v-m-i-n-t. God Bless America.) Small Tract Act of 1938.

Turns out that our little piece of heaven in the desert is right there in the middle (or on the verge, anyway), of the remains of these homesteads, which are basically mostly abandoned shacks. Some of them are being reclaimed by all sorts--artists included.

Shack architecture, is what we started calling it:

tags: shack

Minister plans pilot badger cull.

I've set up my iGoogle page with BBC headlines (also: the New York Times, NPR, and The Onion), and sometimes, when a headline like the above comes up, I find it completely worthwhile.




A Badger. (also, a meditation upon the word "badger.")