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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.

The Fountain of Youth,
I'd love to see,
to refresh an old life,
to what it used to be.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that has also been called Wolf's Cave. At the center of this deep telescopic view, the cosmic apparitions are nearly 1,400 light-years away along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Interstellar dust in the region blocks light from background stars and scatters light from the embedded bright star, giving the end nebula its characteristic blue color. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud's velocity. At the image bottom is the planetary nebula Dengel-Hartl 5, while red glowing gas from an ancient supernova remnant is also visible along the image's right side.

Photo by Gianni Lacroce

Modest Urgell (1839–1919) Spanish painter, writer and art teacher born to a wealthy family in Barcelona . He studied at the Escola de la Llotja. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes and maritime scenes, often set in isolated places such as cemeteries and monasteries. The image shown is in the Public domain

Jumbled up words,
inane they are.
Bragging by some,
thoughts were afar.

No matter the choice
of where you seat,
you will find
life in your feet.
Move your chair
to another place.
It's really ok,
not a disgrace.

I wish I could be
everything to you,
by making a list
of things to do.
You are my light,
my beckoning soul.
I hope to be
everything to you,
but feel I've failed
in answering who,
caused the disease
to come through,
destroying all your
memories, so true.

What was the light
gleam in your eye?
Why do you love me?
Why do we try?

Loving arms
encircling my waist.
What's the hurry,
why the haste?

You will ask me,
"Who are you?"
each morning,
asking me who.

I can only say,
it's me,
not a stranger,
your husband, see?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, featured here, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer. The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus). Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.

Photo by Ioan Popa

An Arroya, a Canyon,
a space 'tween your ears,
enough room for worries,
more space for your fears.