Public Posts Seattle, WA Seattle, WA (zoom)

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A Space Launch System rocket left planet Earth on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 1 mission, the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems. Over an hour after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center's

Cheese or pesto filled ravioli with sautéed spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, and capers... See the recipe

I have been
running on empty
for a long while.
To sleep again,
then I'll smile.

The frost is on the pumpkin.
On grass and leaves too.
Leaves turning golden red,
solid now, the frozen dew.

Forever the night.
A good time for bed.
A moments reflection
of my words, said.

Forever is never,
it's in your head.
Say something wrong,
your declared dead.

Dead to the social life,
nevermore to be,
happy in your life,
according to she.

Why the heart ache?
A heart can't shatter,
it certainly can't break.
The emotional pain,
stomach queasiness,
brings forth so many
memories to me.
I recall. She does not.
Memories, made together,
now forgotten by her,
rips a hole in my heart,
which will remain,
until my mind is gone.

Frost laden grass blades,
blanket the lawn and
crystals in the dirt.
Icy, the feel of the cold
inside my nose,
as I walk the path,
there's cold on my toes.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in the heated constellation Fornax. Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy above and right of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral's luminous core. That's not NGC 1097's only peculiar feature, though. This very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious jets, seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a supermassive black hole.

Photo by Mike Selby

Now the mizzus was a sort of mail order bride.  I came out to the rainforests here in the 70’s, bought my 7 acres and my mule just before the interest rates went wild and discovered how few single ladies there were in the woods of the South End.

So I resorted to what our pioneer ancestors turned to … no,  not THAT … I wrote back to the Midwest for a wife.  I had a lady friend in Minnysota who was just fixing to graduate with her masters degree in librarying.  Librarying, I thought to myself, is even better’n school ma’arm.  She could teach some of the artists on the South End here how to read and write and then we could sit around the porch and discuss Nietzsche and Tolstoy, the events of the day.

Late spring of l981 I commenced to writing heart wrenching, bodice ripping, pulse pounding love letters.  I told my darling all about our little island, how it was a tropical paradise where our beautiful cottage nestled in the arms of million year old cedar trees and coconut palms and you could see the Olympic Mountains every night at sunset glowing like a fireplace and that old sun had nothing on the lovelight in my heart for her …

Course she didn’t have a chance….  Who could resist my literary charms?  And I’m sure she carried a picture of my irresistible self in a locket in her bosom, pining – PINING, ladies and gentlemen – for that day a letter would arrive from her Prince Charming, old lumber Jack himself, king of Camano, practically Paul Bunyan with a book of poems under his ax arm.

Well, I was surprised TOO she didn’t rush out to my waiting muscle bound arms.  So I wrote some more.  I wrote a dictionary worth.  Then I wrote an encyclopedia Britannica.  Spring turned to summer, summer turned to fall, fall became winter, my dreams turned to mush.  I run outa words.  ME!  With nothing left to say.  I was about to give up and become a Zen hermit priest.

But one day I got a letter saying she was coming OUT.   …  For a day or two, then going to Alaska to see her cousin.  Alaska?  Why on god’s green earth would she go to a godforsaken hellhole like that when she could have the whole South End paradise?

Course she was gonna see the cottage wasn’t a cottage – it was a shack.  Leaky roof, crooked floors, a ladder to the upstairs.  Alaska was gonna look REAL good.  And Prince Charming?  I was in serious trouble now.

But luck was on my side.  The day she flew in a storm took out a dozen trees to the South End and power was out when we pulled in the drive.  So I lit up the oil lamps and popped the champagne and boiled the crabs on the woodstove and I won’t tell you the details but let your romantic imagination run wild and you might have some small notion of why the mizzus is still the mizzus and why we both still celebrate the day she came out here and not our wedding anniversary and why the South End will always be a tropical paradise to at least a couple of us old lovebirds.

The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I awake with a start.
It's 3:45 in the morning.
My wife is patting my head.
I say, "I have to go"
and she replies, "Come back to bed."
I tell her I will, as I
do not want to get up yet.
Here I am now, pen in hand,
writing words to paper,
for I don't understand.
My vague recollection, is now
on "seek" for I believe
she has been awake and
not asleep. Her behavior
has changed, something into,
I not sure how to handle,
this change which I view.

(Three months later, we will
admit her to a memory care
facility as her Dementia is
moving towards Alzheimer.)

Why has our life
become so awkwardly hard?
Is this life's game,
we drew a bad card
Why does it happen,
with a "Just God?"
Why has God, abandoned thee?
You led a good life
and don't deserve to be,
left in life's shambles
of our family.

Run with me
to the top of the wall.
I need you with me,
lest I stumble and fall,
for if I do, it will be
the end of it all.