April Fool

I'm supposed to remember when I get up tomorrow morning to say, "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!" before any other word passes my lips. Or maybe I should substitute "dust bunny". Either way, although I may be dimly aware that it's the first day of a new month, I'll be more attuned to the weather. NOAA is predicting another one of those delicious winter storms. Schools may be canceled, and there may be another chance to gas up the snow blower and follow it around like the faithful acolyte I've become. Then perhaps the sun will come out and it will all melt and the daffodils will bloom. I can see it in my mind's eye like some crazy stop-action video.

Tomorrow the kitten is supposed to go visit the vet and get spayed. We've explained it to her various times, in more or less kind tones. She may get a reprieve if it snows, but her first heat was really quite embarrassing for everyone. So the sooner done, the better.

I'm almost done reading a fascinating book by Natalie Angier called; The Canon. It's a marvelously brisk and humorous overview of the basic sciences. The last chapter is astronomy, which of course is my favorite. So once again I'm trying to get my head around the expanding universe as depicted by a balloon with wee galaxies drawn all over it. From rubbery and flaccid to incomprehensibly huge -- perversely, I can never shake the feeling that some overzealous windbag is going to blow too hard and explode the metaphor. A sort of Big Bang big bang, and all of those billions of hapless galaxies more or less splattered into any number of dimensions, save the four we know and love. Actually the coolest and most absorbing thing for me is the notion that the expansion of space is really the stretching of its very fabric. Like no new space is being made; it's just getting thinner. What does that mean for an empty vacuum, getting thinner? Suddenly my brain is very small and way out if its depth. But I'm good with that. I'll keep trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. Life gives us time for that and snow days, but makes no promises. What a deal!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

If dad's posts are artistic and he is a fine artist than I am an uppity young "artist" who tapes dust bunnies together and calls it art. Do not attend my shows if you have allergies. Not that I'm comparing my life or the people in it to dust bunnies, nor do I think badly of all abstract art (she said hastily). That is all for now folks. It's late, and I don't want to go on for fear of waxing dull. Farewell until inspiration next strikes!

sublimation

Driving to work this morning I was treated to a rich glimpse of sunrise sky which featured a combination of orange and turquoise, for which I have occasionally drawn ridicule as a chosen clothing color choice. (I reckon my shoes clashed.) But in the sky it was movie set material, for most any planet you could wish to populate with pleasant, well-shod aliens. (Of course, if it was their planet they wouldn't be aliens, would they?) So the patch of sky that caught my eye was this much-preferred shade of blue, and the clouds a bottom-lit orange -- one in particular was a neat oval with an inner edge carved out by a recently vanished sky-spoon to allow the blue to peek through. That sort of lighting, I thought (as I deftly steered the truck back into the right lane) is best experienced when the mind is still geared low from sleep. Or just geared low -- a function of age, I find.

So the day dawned, and the sun tried to be warm, and the cold wind blew out of Canada. We're all fairly desperately committed to this Spring thing ; we had such nice mud and now it's all frozen again! The road crew was out today dumping gravel on the ruts and smoothing things out as if it wasn't going to be plowing time again as soon as the weather turns. Notice how I say 'as soon as' with that precious conviction that, as Spring has always come before, so it will this time as well. I'm thinking, if the snow won't melt, maybe it can just quietly sublimate and leave old Winter none the wiser.

There's this Welsh song I know; Mae'r Ddaear yn Glasu (The Earth Is Greening), and I sing it softly to myself as I wash toilets in the morning, prepping the school for the arrival of the kiddies. I don't even remember what all of the words mean, but it always evokes a quiet militancy which I can carry through the day. I nod encouragement to the frozen crocuses in the planter boxes outside the school. Carry on, guys. Nobody says nay to axial tilt!

The Google Machine

I periodically google myself. Just to keep tabs on what pops up and as a sort of mildly narcissistic habit. Usually I google my full name but tonight I tried googling just my first name and I found out that Stephen King wrote a short story about me. It's called, of all things, Willa. Bet you didn't know that. And according to the Wikipedia article about the story I'm a ghost, an engaged ghost. So he didn't really do his research but hey, that's pretty sweet, thank you Mr. King.

While dad's unused characters are waiting patiently in their boxes (they're obviously well trained) mine tend to natter at me during key moments in class lectures. With any luck I'll be able to put them to use in my final project for my "Cinema of Dream" class. We can do pretty much anything we want for it. I could probably carve faces into vegetables and take photos of them doing strange and eery things and get an A. Actually that's  not a bad idea... For today though, the most I achieved* was managing to get the song Scarborough Fair** stuck in my boss's head at my internship after engaging in a pleasant conversation with him about whether or not parsley should go in with the greens or the herbs (I was sorting seeds). Fear not, we decided on the herbs.

*Of course I achieved more than that, not the least of which was getting my laundry done.
**Incidentally, Thyme is the name of my D&D character.

first steps

This is a new medium for me, but I've never had much difficulty filling a page. In the realm of fiction, character and setting were never a problem either. I just inevitably fail to think of a plot. So my characters sit there twiddling their thumbs and smoothing wrinkles out of their costumes waiting for me to give them a reason to exist. I have boxes full of unused characters and dusty set dressing. I reckon they're none too pleased with me for starting the process and never giving them anything useful to do. Well, that's life for some of us, isn't it? Honestly, I wouldn't begrudge any of them shoving the lid of the box off onto the basement floor and venturing forth to decide their own fates. Better if they didn't do it in the wee hours of the morning and get the dogs barking and such, but I shouldn't really complain either way, should I?

So, just for the record, "playing the goat" is an expression I heard on a TV show somewhere, and if anyone knows anything about goats it should be fairly self-explanatory. It's about acting out and causing mischief just for the hell of it, which is something goats do. It isn't what makes me like them, but it is what makes them goats.

So, did everyone on the planet get a chance to experience a bit of that last full moon? It was worth a walk out on snow shoes, which Hannah and I did. Moonlight on snow is beautiful any time, but that one was particularly stunning!

An Experiment

We started with a sudden virus attack, hence the lack of decorations around here, but we'll work on that.

I just asked Steve (my dad) if he has anything he wants to say and he said, "Not yet." So there you have it, an auspicious beginning.

This is going to be a joint blog. We're taking turns posting, myself (Willa) and Steve (my dad, as explained previously). This first one we're writing together, dad's just contributed with "What a good way to start the spring!" We're here mostly to entertain ourselves and any close family that wanders by, and the occasional dog. (Dad's watching shadows moving on the dog). This may also be a way to train me off Facebook, once I post this there and actually get people to read it, we shall see. We'll return soon with more indispensable gems of wisdom, or we would if we had any in this post. Don't forget clean dry socks, there we go, that's one anyway. Have a great day!