American, Express

   One of the members of my cabinet is the Paper Czar, who rules paper and has been slacking on the job by leaving things unattended, defiled and unsorted. There is a method to this madness. It provides a precious opportunity to go on the paper trail in order to discern the sources, uses and disposition of these items.

   A brief survey of the territory: it looks like some of the papers have declared anarchy. Others sit in silent protest. Some may be ignored, only to be followed up with persistent and insistent reminders that change colors like the terrorist alert. Some have their holding patterns, their right places, their spots. I wouldn’t change them.

    Observe how well the Paper Czar has instituted the pile system!  Advice to  handle things only once has been disregarded. Very good. What does this say? Why be efficient? The mystery deepens. To what system does Paper Czar adhere? 

    A cursory inspection indicates the Paper Czar employs a variation of the determinants: useful, beautiful, interesting  and  in keeping anything that falls into this range  has too few clues as to what to do with it all. Too much of a good thing. Yet, Oscar Wilde has declared: nothing succeeds like excess! You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much paper. Paper is thin. Paper is rich. Newspaper owners are rich.  If  the Paper Czar could get a penny per piece of paper, there would be hundred of thousands of dollars flowing in. (If it’s valuable why don’t you keep it?) If the artist in residence can create a demand, Paper Czar has it made.

   This is a problem in search of a solution and the solution is always in the problem. Now for the work, dear cabinet-maker. Better disposition.

   The little heron that flies up, complaining of being flushed in the dark at 6:45 a.m. is the only heron spotted this morning. The temperature is about 17 degrees and the sun I see at 7:43 popping in over the hill and shining its gold on the creek, priceless.

Things in threes and 3’s in Things

 

  Harness the power. Palindromic 12/21 today! Use Feng shui. Make it divine. Group by threes. Love every minute.

   Have dreaded tasks? Break it up. Three simple steps.

   Errands to run? List top three. Get it done.

   Undecided on something? List three pros; list three cons. Add more notes. Weigh the sides. Get the picture.

   Choices to make? Narrow to three.  Mix them up. Pick the middle. Or the first. Or the third.

   Green light, yellow light, red light. Go to where? Why go there? Travel how fast? Why slow down? Where is danger? Why use caution? Why not stop? Stop on dime. Time doesn’t stop.

   If you add an H to trees, you get threes. Both are green. Both are wood. Muerto is dead. Eliminate dead wood. Travel Rio Grande. Flower is compass. Wellsville in center for health. Finger Lakes, finger tips and tips of leaves making z’s. Never bored. Always happy.

The R in CAESAR

   A recent midmorning errand took me past an Italian restaurant in Wyomissing, where someone from the restaurant, who was not wearing a jacket in the cold I might add and was not Vanna White, brought the letter R to the sign along State Hill road and placed it at the end of C A E S A where it belongs. Caesar salad, Caesar the day. Seize the day. Carpe diem before it turns to crappy. 

    Across the road, at the same time, I noticed a large rectangular mirror set out with the trash. From my drive-by perspective, it looked to be in good condition. Was it a curb alert for Craigslist? At any rate, the direction I was heading was opposite; I had no immediate use for a large rectangular mirror that may have been intended for someone else.

   During my walk I saw two leaves placed on the path so there was an equidistant channel between them. I found this bit of parallelism beautiful. Also found near the public area, a small green thin foam toy truck piece. As I combined all of these into one puzzle, the effect seemed too cluttered and I ceased and desisted and left it unfininshed. Days go better when a clear picture emerges and I was chagrined not to make it work. Sometimes its best just to accept and face these things. Et tu, brute.

Bucket List

   On a normal day, six miles is the distance I like. Today is a day for helpful people and travel, for metal, for keeping things moving. It is also a six day by virtue of  the sum one plus five. This is arbitrary: this is part of how I organize.

   The creek is high and full at 6:30 a.m. The barest hint of dawn’s early light strikes the flowing water, looking gray. Orange and yellow reflected light from the houses and street lights bounces off the surface edges.  The creek is so high and full it looks like a river. A cloudy day looms ahead.

   Some mist, just five fellow travellers: three runners and two walkers and I. One heron flies up from the bank at the eight marker. Thoughts about work intrude as I think about the season, observe the tree trunks and the condensed vapor. On my way to the park, a box truck rode in front of my car. The eidetic memory of its rear doors provides the basis of today’s puzzle. Plus a bucket. Value in relationships. A fireplace makes a nice focal point.

    Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

Be Luck

   Time to put the finishing touches on the ark. Rain chattering on the roof early this morning. Chattering. On Commerce Drive, snow plows busy, moving slush. Today’s word is buckle. Buckle up, buckle down and be luck. Take teak, for example, a good wood. Do not buckle under pressure. Travel a biked rut, debut a kite, collect the following for a scavenger hunt: Someting tabu. A bra. An ear. A Rake. A drake. Some material that has been treated with dye and wax. A tuba. A tub and a bud. Or ear buds. An Auk. A bit. A bed and a baud. Time for breakfast. Even the cat chose to stay inside this morning. Red ticking.

Stunning Nuts

   Today is national bittersweet chocolate with almonds day and that sounds good if you like that sort of thing. There is not a heron to be seen this morning and when George and I meet, we talk cameras and picture taking. He says that a couple of days ago, he went home to fetch his Canon and came back by bicycle just to capture a digital image of a tree he saw growing out of  a rock.

   “Do you have your camera with you?” he asks.

  ”No, I’m sorry to report the lens on my Nikon is dissheveled and a lens error message keeps coming up. George suggests I change the memory card. Taking it to the shop will cost an arm and a leg.

   This morning am well served at the grocery store. I drop the kitties’ water bowl which brings an end to an era. It was one of those glass vintage potato chip bowls with colored twine or string around it. Alas. On to the next thing.

Blue herons, blue tree

   Water feeds wood. Tree decorating time at the park. Keith Beck takes a step back to evaluate his work thus far. The tree they wrap with blue lights is fifty per cent done. It is a perennial crowd pleasing favorite. He likes the new LED lights they have this year, they are efficent. They can string 44 strands together.

   “We actually eliminated a power harness,” said Beck. “We’re doing a lot of cost saving! That gives us power to use somewhere else.”

Elsewhere on my walk, a heron in the landscape and a female mallard duck in trouble. From afar I am seeing a different shape, a different color as one duck swims in the canal with half a dozen others. “there’s something different about that duck.”

Sure enough, at closer range it becomes clear the duck is wearing a sycamore leaf, like a ruff around its neck and this has it agitated while making it look like a queen or a courtier.

   “

Silhouette

    Fasten your seatbelts: Art group Thursday night.  The leader of our meeting, having abstained from work on the theme, Silhouette, instead provides a seasonal picture – a pastel drawing of a rainspotted maple leaf drafted in gentle fall colors. We all ooh and ahh.

    Next: a photo of the oddest and most intriguing kapok-like clouds and silhouetted trees. Somehow the bumps in the sky associate with the rain drops in the previous work. Where is Bette Davis? Can it be going to be a bumpy night?

    A handsome pair of linoleum prints are trotted out: a composition of fall leaves done in black and white and in color. We like these, too, and are interested in the process.

   Another member of the group produces a seasonal, i.e. Hallowe’en, card made with an iris folding technique and  a silhouette theme. Accompanying these, my own little nitwit puzzle, from a tract left by someone at the Y, a dictionary page, and the mental looping of lyrics from A Fine Romance, the fine song by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields which I like sung by Rosemary Clooney.

   One person provides the piece de resistance, a postage stamp quilt. A showpiece. It is derived from a photograph taken by someone she knows, a factory maintenance worker. The sunset sky is composed of  batik fabric: purple and orange and red and yellow, with an overstitched black tree silhouette. Although the finished product has an authentic Asian look and feel, it is not a tree in a Chinese or Japanese painting, it is a tree crown at the botanical gardens in Allentown.

   The one-inch squares make it measure about 23″ x 17″ plus double-mat and frame. She has sold it, too. We marvel at her gift for turning an idea or a picture into a fabric design and executing it, all in the past six weeks. She receives our highest honors. Here is an artist showing and sharing the power of making wise choices and in making something lovely, beautiful and desirable. It’s like a trip to bountiful that we all want a view to admire.

Real Simple

Real Simple by Allison Huyett

 

 

   Honey locust leaves all over the trail.  It’s real simple.

   A heron at the half-mile rapids. Rain again, prompting use of umbrella, a rare but necessary accessory for the fact. Just the facts, Ma’am. Ready for the sun to come out.

    This is my to-to list for the day because I really got to be about my business. Who else in the entire world makes a honey locust leaf to do list? No one. Who gets it done better than you? No one!

    Oh, you can get a honeydew melon. You can put “ honeydew” on the list. You can find and make a  Honey Do List. ”Honey, do this.” But this? Only I can do this, that and the other thing this way.

    Stick out your can, here comes the garbage man. Got that to do too! Git R Done.

  Gotta run!

All Things Considered Reconsidered

 

All Things Considered Reconsidered by Allison Huyett

 

 

 

  Today is complete before it even locates the opening. Incomplete when ending. Down arrows abounding and bringing us to earth. Gravity. Up arrows shooting sky high. Ecstasy. 

   Trapped in the middle – agony! Free. Seeking center, driven with centripetal force. Sometimes going with centrifugal movement. Every which way but loose.

  Consider now the lily that neither toils nor spins. Let me be. Beautiful.

  There sits a heron on a dead branch, five or six feet above the creek. The morning mist wafts up from the water and envelopes the still creature, crisscrossing it with an overlay of mystery and macabre.

   Simple condensation swirling around a perched fishing bird. Let the dust settle. All things considered, things are going according to plan and according to not being planned.