Raking Words

A new hard-copy journal is always a cause for celebration. I go through several a year, and lately I've been using up the ones I have stowed away in my closet. 

The new one is not my usual basic black. It's royal blue with a whimsical drawing of a formally-attired man (a butler?) raking "leaves" from the bountiful library around him. The drawing is titled Autumn.

Did I buy it for myself? Probably not. If it was a gift, then, I have a couple of people in mind who might have given it me me. They both have a good sense of humor.

Meanwhile, I'm thrilling to the journal's smooth paper and magnetic-close cover. I'm four pages in; I have a lot of raking still to do.

("Autumn" © Benoit, licensed by Riley Illustration, published by teNeues Verlag)

No Rise, No Fooling

I've already heard about a couple of great April Fools pranks today. The one I pulled was accidental and happened a day early, when the Easter cake I baked and served turned out to be a sodden lump.

I just relived the process and realized my mistake: no baking powder... no fooling!

Some of the men in the family seemed to like the cake in its unrisen state, especially one of my sons-in-law, who took a few slices home, bless his heart. But others wisely stayed away. 

The cake still sits on the counter ... but the garbage can beckons. 

Happy April Fools Day — or something like that! 

(A photo of the cake from the first time I made it, when I remembered the baking powder.) 

Foolish or Fake?

It's April 2, and having shared no foolery yesterday I went in search of some today. I looked online and found a few famous pranks from history. 

On April 1, 1957, the BBC aired a segment on the great spaghetti harvest happening in the Ticino region of Switzerland, near the Italian border. There was footage of farmers "harvesting" the spaghetti and then sitting down to eat it al fresco (and maybe al dente, too). Some viewers were convinced enough that they called the network to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti at home. 

More recent April 1st "new product" announcements include Velveeta skincare, Cauliflower Peeps and Teletubbies cryptocurrency. And then there's this year's "launch" of Harry and Meghan's new video game "Mexit: The Call of Duke-y," in which the couple must surmount obstacles on their way to California. 

My impression in general, however, is that pranks aren't what they used to be. In a world of fake news, April Fools' Day is redundant. 

(Spaghetti "harvest" photo courtesy Wikipedia.)

Beach Bling

Water, wind, sand and sky.  From these basic elements flow the beauty of a beach. It doesn't need anything else. But like a little black dress set off to perfection with a single strand of pearls, even simplicity can be enhanced with a little bling.

I've seen beach art before, but never so much of it. On a hike this week we came across scores of tree trunks decorated with whelks, conches, cockle shells — and a few feathers for good measure.

The shell trees made us smile. They invited us to contribute, which we did. They sum up the beach attitude: relax, create, enjoy. 

Love and Whimsy

A long walk yesterday along a Reston path, the Cross-County Trail, then around Lake Audubon and back to the car. 

It was one of those hybrid walks that I enjoy for its variety. 

Along the way, this Valentine's surprise attached to a fence post. A tribute to the power of love ... and of whimsy. 

The Morning After

It's difficult to get the blog up and going the day after a big birthday celebration. Heading into its teenage years it's needing a lot of sleep — and getting rather surly about picking up after itself, too. 

So I've spent the morning cleaning up confetti and collecting empty champagne bottles.

These are crucial years ahead, years requiring firmness and guidance. I don't want the blog skidding off the rails. 

I've done this three times before, I tell myself. I can do it again. 😊

 (Photo: Pippx, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. And just for the record, I think this is the first time I've used an emoji in the blog. I won't make a habit of it.)

Popped Blossoms

Well, that was interesting. The month of March, I mean. It seemed to last forever.  There was plenty of wind and rain, the University of Kentucky was not in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, and I was under the weather on St. Patty's Day. 

But it's a new month, the cherry blossoms have popped (though I can't think of a way to see them unless I ride downtown on Metro at some way-too-early hour) and with more vaccines being given every day, life seems to hold the promise of normalcy in the months to come. 

Then again, this is April Fool's Day! 

(Photo of popped corn in honor of popped cherry blossoms.)

Up in a Tree

Oh, how I love to climb up in a tree

Up in the air so blue

I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a guy could do

Scaling the trunk and sawing the branch

Till I can see all 'round

Hoping I'm belted and harnessed all right

So they'll catch me if I fall down!

Till I get back to the Earth again

Back where the chipper chips

The homeowners cheer when I'm in the clear

Don't they know, I never slip?!

(With apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson.) 

Speeding Along

There are fewer cars on the road than this time three months ago — but more on the road than this time last week. And many of the automobiles out there are apparently speeding.

Not to condone these scofflaws but I can understand the lure of empty pavement. It's such a departure from our normal state of affairs (see above).

I found myself putting the pedal to the metal a few weeks ago when driving down an almost empty Dulles Toll Road. But I slowed down after I spotted this sign:

"Speeding tickets available ahead."

At least the police had a sense of humor about it.

April Fools!

With deep respect for the unprecedented situation in which we find ourselves ... today the universe has a chance to tell us this is all a big joke, that we aren't actually living through a pandemic. I doubt a chorus of "April Fools!" will be forthcoming, though.

In fact, I've heard that Google and other big companies will not be concocting their usual April 1st pranks out of respect for those fighting the coronavirus. A sound move for corporate PR — though not for those of us trying to approach the situation with the occasional leavening of humor.

So on this day I'm calling up the funny memes sent by my colleagues, including the ones you see here.

Happy April 1st ... or something like that!

(Thanks to all the members of the wonderful Winrock Comms Team!)

The Sunday Funnies

The pandemic is creating many strange situations, some terrifying, some exasperating and some ... unexpectedly funny. I just experienced the latter.

The humor came not from one of the many memes circulating via group text, nor from a streaming late-night comedy show but from the videotaped Mass provided by my Catholic parish.

The service was conducted with utmost respect and solemnity, but a series of little blunders left me chuckling by the end. First, the voice track of the video lost sync with the action, which made all the speakers look like they were being dubbed. Next, church bells started ringing loudly toward the end of the service, which seemed to surprise everyone on the altar.

And then there was today's presider  — a puckish older man who brings smiles even on ordinary Sunday. When it came time for the sign of peace, Father Dick shrugged, looked around and finally settled on a jolly, window-washer-type wave. Next, he had to be reminded to alert parishioners to the food van in the parking lot today (a whispered reminder from the pastor that was transmitted to the listeners through the mic Father Dick was wearing on his vestments). And finally, he began the dismissal before giving the blessing. When he realized his mistake, he knocked on his head and said, "Well, at least some things are happening like usual around here." It was a splendid self-deprecating  recovery that left me laughing out loud.

I'm not sure Hollywood will be calling my church anytime soon. But ... maybe they should.

Absolutely Ridiculous!

Early January requires a sense of humor, I've decided. Holidays behind us, long nights and bad weather ahead, we must cultivate a lighter way of looking at things. This does not come easily — especially with the doom and gloom that come to us regularly from the airwaves and our phones.

Watching comedies helps. So does talking to upbeat people, animals (though they seldom talk back) or, in a pinch, to one's self (again, talking back seldom happens, or at least let's hope that it doesn't).

The right kind of book can also do the trick. The Salt Path, which I just finished, is one example; of course there are thousands of them. And then there is noticing the silly and ridiculous details of daily life. That works best of all.

Shell Art

If rocks and shells could talk, these would laugh, whistle and shout. Look at us, they'd say. Someone has picked us up off the beach, spiffed us up, cast us as heroes in a crazy beach novel.

Here we are telling a joke:

Here we are sharing a tale:

We have no idea why we were willed into being, what our creator has in mind for us. But for now, we are alive and transformed on this Gulf Coast beach.

Birthday Surprises

An email this morning told me a package had been delivered.  I got a kick out of this — the fact that I had come in through the garage last night and overlooked this large item on the front stoop, being informed of it through a bunch of 1s and 0s on my computer. It was a funny way to begin this last day of November, the birthday of two people I love — my daughter and my brother.

But that was just the first surprise.  The second happened when I was lugging in the first — and Copper trotted around the front of the house (where he is never, ever allowed to be because he will run away) and right through the front door. The backyard gate must have been left open.

Whatever the case, it was all meant to be — the package left out overnight so that I could be there when Copper escaped, could usher him back where he belongs. The rescue of a dog that means so much to the birthday girl.

Yes, it's often a random world — but sometimes it's not. Today is one of those times.

Hats Off!

Reading today's obituary of Mary Tyler Moore (the only front-page story I could stomach in today's Washington Post), I thought about what set this actress apart.

She called herself a "funny straight woman," and that was part of it. There was her spunkiness, her niceness, her grace under pressure. But there was more.

A decade younger than my parents she was still part of that generation, a generation that's vanishing and that I miss more every day. And one of the things I miss most about them is their self-deprecation. They just didn't take themselves as seriously as we do.

Moore said she was reluctant to be a symbol of women's liberation, and tried not to think about the 50 million people watching her on TV. A photo that accompanied the obit showed her mimicking a statue of herself, hand upraised, right before she doffed her hat and threw it into the air.  

(Photo: People.com)

Pre-Dawn Haul

Today I woke up early. Was it the rain? Was it a dream? Does it matter?

So I came downstairs and started looking through old file folders. This was not a completely random exercise. I needed notes I'd kept in one of them.

I found much more. There were two pieces I'd forgotten I'd written, a letter from a former student telling me that one of her essays was about to be published, and a solicitation for an author to write a book on creative praise programs across the top of which I'd scribbled, "For the 'Can you believe it?' file. "

The solicitation went something like this: Smart managers are learning that to keep Gen X and Gen Y workers happy requires celebration mailboxes, applause notes, prize packages, even balloons and confetti. A potential author would be familiar with these kind of programs and able to write a book about them. My question: Would a person familiar with such programs have not already slit his or her wrist?

Still, not a bad pre-dawn haul for a unrepentant packrat. How glad I am that I looked through those files and found what I did. I start the day a little more cheerfully now. Not praised but amused, which is much better.

The Fine Print

The Catholics are at it again. I love them, of course. I'm one of them. But their pronouncements can make me cringe. One of the latest is about cremation.

It used to be verboten. The resurrection of the body and all of that. But now, for reasons I don't completely understand but which may have to do with the number of people on this earth and the popularity of the practice, it's allowed as long as the cremains are buried respectfully. No scattering the ashes about in woods and fields and mountain tops. No keeping them in jars on mantels.

I read a letter in our diocesan newspaper last night. Can I be buried at sea? was the question. And the answer: Yes, if your ashes are in a special container.

For some reason this morning all of this makes me smile. I mean, if the good Lord is capable of raising us on the Last Day, is it really going to matter if we're in a jar or the ground or scattered across the Appalachian Trail?

I have to hand it to Catholics, though, because we care about these things. And that's the point, isn't it?

Oldest Living Albatross Lays Egg

It's been hard lately to make my way through the national and political news sections of the newspaper. Which is why I've been open to other, more offbeat stories. Like Wisdom, the 66-year-old albatross who is still laying an egg every year. Just laid one a few days ago, in fact.

Wisdom was banded on the Midway Atoll in 1956, so scientists are pretty sure that she's truly a (late) middle-aged gal.

What an inspiration! Here she is at a time when many human females might be slowing down. Instead, she's adding to her brood.

Is she worrying about her children? Heck no, she's too busy having 'em.

And as for her appearance, she's smooth of feather and sleek of bill. No tummy tuck or chin lifts for her.

(Photo: courtesy Smithsonian.com)

Bustopia

Should we coin a word for the way it feels to run to a bus stop only to find no one there and the next bus not due for  30 minutes?  Shall we add in early darkness and a brisk north wind? Shall we also include the uncertainty of whether there even is a next bus?

Lonely doesn't do it. Bereft ... maybe. Some combination of tired and cold and anxious and angry. Bustopia? Like the gloomy imaginings of a dystopian novel only it's actually happening.

Let's add a ray of hope, though. The other commuters, when they finally show up, are proof that there will be another bus. They bring gallows humor and crazy stories.

The bus stop is no longer a cold, lonely, windswept place. Now it's just cold and windswept. Brave New Bustopia.

Castle in the Clouds

I sit at a stoplight, one of several long ones I've already encountered on the way home. I'm running late and the light takes forever. I strum my fingers on the steering wheel, tap my feet, fiddle with the knobs of the radio and then fiddle with them some more. I look up, light's still red. 

It's then that I think that I have become Fairfax County. Its tempo is my tempo. Its impatience is my impatience.  I drive too close to the car in front of me as I listen too intently to public radio. I have come to believe that what I do every day is more important than it actually is.

What I need is a summer off. Humility Camp. In which people from the East Coast are sent to carefully chosen out-of-the-way burgs in the Heartland. Let us walk down empty sidewalks to the only store that sells the New York Times, only to find that there is no Times delivery today. The wireless in our rented two-bedroom will long since have fizzled. Our Kindle is out of charge.

There is nothing to do, then, but to lie back on the grass, look up at the sky and find a castle in the clouds.