Happy Fathers Day

A poem I wrote for my Daddy during one of my 30 day challenges, still in its raw form (meaning still a very rough first draft) and most likely to stay that way. The photos I took last year in 2009 at Camp Caswell. Rachael is working on a Camp Caswell Scrap Book for her Papa, I might clean up the poem and have her put it in the scrap book before she gives it to him. Happy Fathers Day to both my Daddy and that handsome man I married.

Camp Caswell: August 2007

I’m never there after the big melt, when
Daddy brings up the downed logs
felled by winter snow.

He tells me it is an old skill; preserving
the beauty of the log. He uses coarse
marine rope to tie off the 3-point harness.

He hauls the logs one at a time;
behind the four wheeler to the edge
of the woods back behind the cabin.

The secret is in letting the trees season. ‘Bout August,
when the salmon quit running ; when you visit
each summer. He sits on a crude stool he fashioned

from an old stump a few summers back;
with oil, flint and a sharpening stone he hones
the drawknife balanced between two knees.

Its sharp enough when he hollers Brenda Sue;
and yanks a single strand of my hair and draws
it across the edge. Both halves fall as I settle

on the porch. A large coffee mug nested in my hand;
he hums old Merle, Johnny, or George tunes under his breath.
Every now and again I sing the Tammy, June or Dolly parts.

Neither one us of can hold a tune worth shit;
I watch him slowly remove the bark, He sits, judges,
sometimes adjusting the pressure on either side until
the rich marbling of the log begins to reveal itself.

Lines

I am torn again between the color and the black and white photos. I was trying to capture the effects of all of the lines and shadows. I am happy with the general effect, except the tables are washed out and I am unsure how to compensate for them. I am weening myself off relying on the auto settings on my camera. Yesterday I learned that my camera had a in-between setting of P, which is how I took these photos. I also took some on pure auto, and these came out better. Victory dance for the learning photographer. I learned this a fellow photographer who gave me the gift of time when I started with my long list of questions. Thank-you. I have been thinking a lot about creativity and perhaps a bit about my goals ( or lack of goals) for both writing and photography. I am happiest when I feed my creative side, whether in the form of photography, writing, or doodle art. I also am happiest when I can manage to stay balanced between my roles of mother, wife, environmental scientist, friend and creativity. I am working on the right mix. Today I am going to see two of my oldest friends, Patty (35 years) and Haddy (29 years), and I believe it was this time last year that we were last able to get together and that makes me a bit sad. It seems we rush around and so often we don't find time to connect to those we love. I am excited. Patty has a menagerie of critters, I am taking my camera. I am mostly groovy. Hope the same for you.

From the Garden




Still mostly home wallowing, and still enjoying simply being home with my family. Last weekend a wedding of the son of one my oldest friends. A member of what I call My Pack or as my friend Bonnie says My Peoples, there is beauty and acceptance with those you have known for close to 30 years, a confirmation and celebration of shared triumphs and sorrows. Friendship is a gift and I have been damn lucky in mine. Jeff and Tuesdee had a beautiful wedding as individual as they are, the bride forgo the traditional wedding march for a country and western ballad, the recessional was done to " I am a Believer" and the reception was done elegantly in a local winery. At each place setting was a beautiful decorated box made by the bride that we were instructed to fill with candy. Perfect chocolate and wine. Congratulations to Jeff and Tuesdee. I am thinking maybe Mike and I need to throw a big party for our 25th next year, a chance to celebrate our love with those who have been part of our journey. Maybe even after Mike and I can take a 2nd Honeymoon.

Pond


I took this photo at a native prairie where one of the fantastic girls of Troop 1900 built a bridge for her girl scout gold award project. There were chiggers. Lots of chiggers. The itching stops after about 7 days. I found myself coming back to this small pond to take photos, to see the reflection of the prairie in the water depths. I love water. I also love benches. I could of sat on these benches forever, a friend recently commented on my eye for benches, and I wrote this in an note to him

Yes I love benches, there is an expectation about an unoccupied seat, an essence of all who have occupied them, a resonance of untold stories, almost as if our energies, both fragile and human have imprinted an inanimate object, when I see a bench, it is opportunity, it is refuge, a thread that loosely binds the occupants, past present and future, in the knowing of the feel of the bench, the view, that shared moment. So I photograph them, and I sit on them and simply absorb their stories. I worry that my pictures like my poetry at times becomes a bit redundant. I liked these benches because I was caught up in them being both singular and a set, much like us humans.

Perhaps at some point I might find a poem in these lines. I find that still my most favorite form of writing is letters. A lost art, the art of writing letters. I am groovy, I hope the same for you.

Webs



I found this industrious spider by my back door. He had spun a web from my deck floor to my roof overhang. When he first caught my eye he was busily encasing a bug into its threads. I watched him off and on as I watered the back yard and took a early morning swim. Eventually I came into the house to grab my cameras. I took about 20 photos between 2 cameras, and am unhappy with all of the photos. My favorite is one I took on macro settings, with a small light, it shows the web beautifully, yet the spider is a bit over exposed, this one the spider is perfect and the web a bit under exposed. I am still playing with them in Photoshop, this photo unedited. As it seems like most of the things in my life I have not yet achieved the right ratio of light and shadows, of balance. I am struggling these days in the roles of wife and mother. Perhaps it is simply more difficult to understand what a near grown woman needs. One day she is a mature young adult, seemingly aware, seemingly mature admittedly a bit quirky young woman. The next day she is a petulant child, demanding more of my time, angry for perceived injustices, and we become like oil and water, chalk on the blackboard. I go from being her beloved Mia to MOTHER in the heavy sigh that escapes through her lips. Parenting teenagers is very rough work and sometimes I wish simply to pound my head on cinder blocks. This week I have been both Mia and mother, and I am okay with that. I have been praying that this summer is the summer of transition for her, one where she decides to step up into her own life. To make the commitment to herself and her future. Once she decides that she will be a force of nature. She rocks, I only hope that she figures that out soon. This morning is mom and daughter breakfast with my best friend and her godmother. It is good karma. Today I will likely be Mia.

I started my day with dark french roast and this sky. It seemed to me a good omen after a very rough couple of weeks. I felt as if I had transferred my angst to this sky, allowing me a bit of respite. I have been a bit in turmoil between all of the roles in my life, and it seems I need to spend more time home, more time with Rachael and Michael, and more time simply with the earth. There is no one thing that grounds me more than my faith and my garden. The world makes me profoundly sad, and I look to the earth for signs of resilience, of hope and every time I put my hands in the dirt, my noisy self is stilled and I come away whole. My garden is suffering a bit from a late freeze and the early arrival of Texas's brutal sun. I am adjusting with hardy Texas natives, and perhaps a bit of pampering for those plants not suited for 100 degrees in June. Yet despite the interruption of seasons, the garden is thriving, and my perennials are like long lost friends, my lilies nearly a month behind bloomed this week. I found myself much like an mother, awaiting the birth of a longed for child. I of course had to take their "birth" photo. I am hopeless. Here is my baby.

I finally broke my submitting hiatus and submitted to 4 journals last week, so far two have accepted my work and I have not yet heard from the other two, I am going to try to submit a few more of my older work that is mostly polished. Last year I wrote only about 70 poems, of which I might like 7-10, I am going through those and seeing if any speak to me, and I am slowly beginning to write again. Not in the way I have in the past, and writing feels awkward and foreign to me. My work once again is evolving and changing, and I am unsure about its direction. I also writing environmental poems, which are part of my "Taboo" list, for now I am writing them, but not submitting them, a compromise of sorts on my part. The Dallas Poets Community is updating their website and I have a page on their site, which is way cool beans.

Have been wallowing in being home the last week or so, cleaning flower beds, laying mulch, planting here and there and enjoying splashing a bit in the pool. I am feeling recharged and focused. I found out I did not get the new job, and my biggest emotion was relief, and perhaps a bit of self-evaluation, asking myself what skills I need to work on, so when the job comes along that I want, I will be ready. Have simply been feeling thankful and grateful for my life. I started a 30 day poem challenge, again I made 3 days, but I am going to keep trying during the 30 days, I will likely have to start over at 1, 5 times or more, but if I make 3-4 days each time, I'll have 15-20 poems at the end of the month. I am okay with that. I have been writing environmental poems, something I joke about, as I always say I don't write environmental poems, thing is I do, often. It's an occupational hazard of being an environmental scientist/poet. These are poems I need to write for me. Of late I am still not submitting, and I am okay with that. This weekend I am going to take off Friday, so I can have a 4 day weekend, and I am simply going to wallow in being home and write. Yes, write.

Down Time

I took the day off to garden. My garden needs mulch before the fierce heat of summer and I need simply to wallow in the scent of being home. She smells good. The doodle, one I did during a 3-day class week before last. I like this one, so I kept it.

Caught Again





Looking Into the Sun

This week I had only my point and shoot Olympus, which I love but it is not my Nikon. There is no way to accommodate the fierceness of the sun, no polarizing lens, no light amber glass. It like me is unequipped to look directly into the sun and like me it could benefit from a few more filters. The photos an old tank battery. I will let them speak for themselves. I am mostly groovy; how damn cool beans is that.

I have gotten in the habit of taking walks with my camera. There is an up and down side to this practice, the up side is I enjoy the walk more, the down side is that I am not moving as efficiently to maximize the calories burned. I have found as I hoof it around streets and alleys that I experience the neighborhood in a much different way than I do by car. I find myself stopping and exploring.

Driving I make mental notes of shots to capture, thinking I will come back with camera when a spare minute surfaces. Most of the time that minute gets lost in the accumulation of minutes that make the day finding at times that I become buried by these minutes that pile up around my feet like leaves in a yard. This weekend we went to the college graduation of my nephew Jeremy. Jeremy is the son of one of my sacred friend Bonnie.

Bonnie is one of my sisters, my people, my family, no questions asked. He and my nephews Shane and Justin(who died in 2004) were the first babies of our next generation, born when my sisters were little more than children themselves. It was still the 80's we had big hair, suits with shoulder pads, no money, sexy leg warmers, lace anklets and patent leather pumps, and each other. We would hang out most Friday nights at Bonnie's and David's each couple bringing part of dinner, cheap wine or beer; to share our week. We ate a lot of pasta, casseroles, french bread, salad, hamburgers and hot dogs, drank an awful lot of pink wine from a box and in the purest sense broke bread in fellowship. It was good karma.

Watching Jeremy graduate from college, his wife and his mother both at his side was powerful karma. I felt for a minute caught in the wave of time, a sense of moving forward, stepping back, as if I was on a precipice of understanding, and I smiled.

The photo one of the blackbirds in my neighborhood, I took a series of photos of this bird, and I sensed as I was photographing him, a shift in his awareness of me, with each shot he turned his head until he could see me, watching him. He did not fly away.

Interlude

I Stopped

To Photograph the Sky

Last night I was the featured reader at the First Friday Poetry read of the Dallas Poets Community. It was the first time I have been the featured poet, and I was very nervous. I read poems from my Chapbook mostly and an Ode to My Teddy Bear, Mr. Teddy. Later today I think I might take some photos of my bear and perhaps I will post bear and poem tomorrow. My reading seemed to be well received, I need to practice reading, to become a bit more of a performer. I am improving, I no longer rush through in one breath, but I love when someone reads with expression, and I would like to develop that skill. As they say practice makes perfect. So I am going to try to go to more open mics to gain experience. The Dallas Poets Community is sponsoring a chapbook contest, I encourage all to think about sending in a manuscript, the chapbooks that are produced are done professionally and are quite beautiful. You can check out the guidelines at http://www.dallaspoets.org/.

The photo one from my last road trip, I drove into the street leading into my hotel about 8:30 and glanced up and saw this magnificent sky. I pulled over, opened up my trunk, grabbed my camera and starting shooting. A women taking a smoke break at another hotel walked over and asked me if I was reporter or a private detective. No I said, look up. She did. So we stood out there me and this perfect stranger watching the sky. After she finished her smoke, she went back across the street into her hotel, and I got back in my car. Drove Away.

Im taking today off. Charging depleted batteries. Celebrating my anniversary. The photos, ducks. Simply.

After Man

I am becoming boring. I get that. In some ways I embrace it. I find myself morphing into that woman, the one who embraces Mom Jeans,Ked Sneakers, and banded tops that's cover my mid line girth. I draw the line at embroidered tops with gingham trim and holiday dressing. Most days I wear my anklet bracelet, I love how it feels against my ankle, how this one singular thing makes me feel young and vibrant, despite the signs of aging in the mirror.

This week I was in the field, I worked 70 hours in 5 days, and I was being observed all week. I had a continual string of eyes following us, film crews, reporters, activists, industry, community, and government. There is something about being watched, being on display that is mentally and physically exhausting. I found that I was able to neutralize my very noisy brain, as if I had installed a magic breaker switch, and put into place a temporary shield to filter the randomness of my self. It wasn't until I came home that I began to process, as if the noisy brain was running full-steam in the background, taking notes on napkins, scribbling in the margins of grey matter, and nearly 48 hours later, safe in my own space I am still there reprocessing the weeks events.

I find that despite age and experience I still like people, people who belong and believe in the sense of community, people who fish their ponds, grow their own vegetables and make chow-chow with 10 different varieties of peppers. Young college graduates that are committed to the environment, artists who build sculptures out of driftwood. I remember watching the camera man film a sample team leaving a residence, how he was waiting for me to follow the crew out , how instead I walked behind the house. This one thought I had in my head, no-way is my fat ass going to be on national TV.

Photos of an abandoned church and road, the fog an effect of me breathing on the lens.

I am glad to be home, this morning I ordered three pair of pants from Lane Bryant, khaki, navy, and black and three Bohemian blouses. Perhaps a more palpable version of Mom Jeans, but no way am I getting rid of my Keds or my ankle bracelet.

Skyline from White Rock Lake

Here the ground cracks from over-exposure to the caressing rays of the sun. Water afraid of the stages of matter refuses God and the ground hungers for violent release, the flash of lighting, the harsh pelting sting of rain. After, only after. The arroyos swell with pride; courses through expectant beds water transforms. A scouring agent. After. I found a child's perfect plastic heart. I imagine unruly hair the color of the raven plaited into submission, tennis shoes scuffed from placing one foot atop the next, her body rocks gently, her strategy in minding Momma's edict to Be Still. In her hand she clutches a bracelet she strung from beads, all by herself.

Got Cliche?

I torture (it's my wicked and unruly sense of humor) a dear friend of mine (who will remain nameless and who has a physical aversion to cliche) with a steady dialogue of poetic cliches. Perhaps it is the southern vernacular that makes it so easy to drop bombs from my tongue, or perhaps it is simply that I have the gift of cliche or more likely it is that my own work suffers a bit from recyclable bits of obvious. In honor of the over-worn I am looking to compile a list of favorite poetic cliches. I am not sure what I will do with the list, perhaps a cento for my dear friend.

National Poetry Month: Open for Suggestions




April is National Poetry Month, and many of my friends and fellow poets are participating in a NaPoWri (which means write a poem a day for the month of April)' as has been my record of late, I started writing on April 1st, and dropped out on April 5th. Many of my friends are posting over at The Academy of American Poets Site and others on their blogs or via email or on-line poetry forums. The Dallas Poets Community is having a 20 year birthday-celebration and 14 hour poetry-thon Saturday April 10th from 9:00 am to 11:00 pm at Half Price Books (Northwest Highway and Central). I read for 15 minutes from 10:45-11:00 and host from 11:00 to 12:00, I am a bit nervous but likely will bluster through. I have decided to read a mix of established poets with a few of my own thrown in, so far I have picked two poems. Mark Strand's Eating Poetry, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's What the Heart of a Young Man Said to the Psalmist (One of my personal favorite poems, perhaps the first adult poem I --circa 7th grade); I am thinking I might read Mark Doty, Billy Collins, Marge Piercy, and Jack Gilbert--still deciding which ones, and I am open for suggestions. Of my own I will likely read Marrow, Red Planet, and What Breaks the Human Heart. We will see if I change my mind. Wishing everyone a wonderful month of Poetry.

Singularity

Just a picture and my signature noise. Random, chaotic and rather loosely connected (more likely unconnected-but allow me this small concession). I am writing again, unfamiliar and tentative, new shoes, unbroken leather, missing my telltale heel to toe scuffs. Nervous feet in perpetual motion.

Perspective

Desert Oasis

I find myself drawn to black and white images. The mystery in the not knowing, how my mind takes the images and colors it according to the emotion the image evokes. I become part of that image. Yet as I process photos I often find myself reluctant to commit to either media. I of the fickle heart. These photos taken along a desert stream, this location a natural oasis, the pond partially fed by a spring of ground water that wells up to the surface to grace the earth with life. Here in the deep south we would call this a "watering-hole" or a "swimming hole" a place to dip our feet and immerse our bodies, a reprieve from the long days of a hot summer. I learned the Pueblo name for water, their language is a oral language, communication colored with a myriad of sound/resonance/accent/consonance and the precise emphasis on syllable often changes meaning. My southern ear ignorant and my tongue unable to reproduce the subtleties and cadence of their beautiful language. I stood in the stream my boots temporarily changing the flow of the water and inhaled the breath of the desert. It sings. I listen. It is glorious.

I am home for the next month and then May will be road-warrior hell. June I hope to take a long vacation with my husband, and then I think I will be mostly home for the summer, and for that I am thankful. I want to swim in our "cement pond" and plant flowers in my garden, and hear the sound of teenagers as they sift through our home, and simply savor the life that we as a family have created. The good, the bad and the in-between. I applied for a new job this week. I am unsure how I feel about it as I love my current job, it is a good fit for me. The job would be a new challenge for me and would allow to spend more time with one project, instead of 5-10 that I shuffle continuously in my current position. The thing I love and hate about my current job is that it is constantly in flux, it changes from day to day, and is full of surprise. It was a good exercise for me to apply, as my resume was dated 1996 and it forced me to entertain the thought of taking on new challenges. Competition will be tough and I may not be the best person for the position and today I am unsure if I would take it if it was offered to me. I suspect tomorrow or the next day the pendulum will shift back and forth. This weekend is relax and garden. How damn cool beans is that.

Subtle Hues

I am feeling recharged and almost ready to tackle the next crazy three months. Perhaps by Monday I will be there, I am also feeling empowered about being able to meet the demanding schedule that will continue through the middle of May. I found that I am going to take a card from my husbands bag of tricks, I am already planning my next vacation, actually my next two vacations, one in mid-June when my daughter goes on mission trip and one with my daughter and Kim to New York City in August. It seems to make the crazy times a bit easier to handle when they are finite. I suspect I will accrue more comp time between now and June and perhaps that will allow me to take a few more weeks before the year is up. Perhaps I need to work into my planning a week off every 3 months for mental health. I started going through my poems this week, and it seems even in hibernation I wrote 62 poems from March to March, I am dusting them off. I am also dusting off my story, and my blog archives, compiling them into a book-for me. I realized as I went through them that this blog is as much a journal as a blog, and I think I would like my daughter to have a copy, so I am printing them out and putting them in a binder, there is nearly 400 pages. Imagine that. This photo of a tree in New Mexico, a tree that I am told that is hundreds of years old, one that has it's own oral history. I took about 20 photos of these tree, all from different vantages, this is just one of them, likely more to follow. I am groovy, I hope the same for you.

Down-Time



We took the week off. It is Thursday and today is the first day I did not check my work email-it seems I had to wean myself from my day-job. Mike and I took a mini vacation to Winstar World Casino (the house won) and puttered around the house, exploring places around town and coupledom. Our daughter has two more years before she goes to college (knock-wood, cross your fingers, all prayers taken) and this was our first glimpse of empty-nest. It was wonderful-though I began to miss her just about the time she came home (5-days). I am not yet ready for the empty-nest but I am no longer afraid that Mike and I will not have anything left to talk about when Rach is no longer the main focus of our daily life. We, I believe will transition beautifully to talking about our cats, our garden and our lives. Perhaps even be able to take little trips here and there; and simply enjoy each other. I drug Mike out to several stores looking for the perfect pens for my doodles. I am still having difficulty in finding the right tool, this doodle a combination of a calligraphy pen set (0.8 and 1.3 mm) and a refillable gel rollerball(0.7 mm); neither is perfect. I like the fluidity of the calligraphy pen and the control of the rollerball. I also find I like the thinner lines but have issues when needing to color in large areas with the pens beginning to tear the paper. I am using drawing paper; however the caligraphy pens tend to cause it to lint, so next trip to Michael's I am going to spend some time on the paper aisle.

This week marked a year long hiatus in submitting poetry for publication (other than my chapbook); a hiatus that evolved out of a busy schedule and a conscious decision to refocus my energies on my family and job. Initially it was not intentional it was coincidental; however as the months rolled on and I tried and failed to break out of my poetic hibernation I decided to embrace this hiatus. To take a step back and to re-evaluate. Even though I did not actively pursue publication, I did write a bit here and there and I am in the process of pulling all of my poems together from the last year to actually see what I have of any merit. Once it is dusted off, I shall see what if anything I will do with it. I am feeling a need to reconnect with my words. I have a draft novel started and not finished that haunts my dreams, the characters still vibrant and alive in the recesses of my gray matter. I have two draft chapbooks and an outline for full-length collection buried somewhere in my archived Word files. I am officially breaking my hiatus but for now I am unsure in what shape and form it will evolve, perhaps a bit like my doodles, a series of the loosely connected or more likely in the largely unconnected.

I spent the weekend hunkered in enjoying my daughter and husband, simply being immersed in the fabric of my own time and place. It was exactly what was needed. I am still behind in all things on most all fronts and beyond swamped at work. I spent the week in New Mexico and found myself out in the middle of the desert one night at 11:00 pm and was gifted with the most incredible view of the heavens undistorted by light. The stars brilliant against the fabric of night as if each star was personally hung for my eyes alone. I wish somehow I could capture with my camera these prisms-- strewn against the black. I found myself searching for Big and Little Bear, connecting the dippers seeking Polaris. On-top of the Mesa I felt I could simply reach out and gather the stars to me and for that instant I was connected in the stream of what I perceive as universe. I find that the desert grounds me in a way few places do, perhaps it is the sense of openness, the resilience of life that manifests itself despite the harsh environment.

This is the last week of work before we go on vacation, our vacation largely unplanned other than we are going to simply enjoy each other and spend time alone. I think we are going to head out see what evolves. I told Michael my only requirement was that I want to see stars. Easy.

This is Persia. Persia makes me smile. I felt like smiling today.

It is the unseen worlds that fascinate, the world that breathes outside my linited perception. I celebrate these prisms of color that reveal themselves through my ingnorance of shutter speed the absence of an appropriate filter.

Enough Said

Solitude




I am delinquent in all things, in all phases in my life, work has been pushed to the top of my priority list, for now for at least a little bit longer, it is simply how it is. The work has been good, actually the work has been fantastic, a real sense of being able to make a small difference, the ability to work on projects that have meaning, and a fantastic group of peers working together in a collaborative spirit. It has however has me traveling more than I would like, travel seems to be feast and famine in the work that I do, I am either in the field constantly ( the parking shuttle driver knows my name) or stuck in the office for months ( a twilight zone sort of place a cross between the Office and Just Shoot Me). Ideally I would like to travel a couple of days a couple times a month, every month-but of late it has been travel part of every week, I am looking forward to the long dry spell. I miss my husband and daughter when I am gone, a sense of not being connected in the day to day mechanics of our life. Yet I often enjoy the quiet down time I carve out at the end of a travel day, the time where it is just me, myself and I. By nature I am an extrovert and find great energy and purpose in being with people, but as I age I find that I also need a bit of Brenda time. I am learning to carve out quiet time at home, to find time to enjoy the noise of my own mind. Last week we had record snow here in Texas, 12 inches in 24 hours, our world was covered in a thick blanket. I laid down in my front yard and made a snow angel, make snow ice cream for my daughter and her friends and I took a long walk with camera. The photo taken at the edge of a Frisbee golf field. With God's grace I find myself mostly groovy.

Doodle Art and the Art of Balance



It seems a long time since I did anything purely creative, wrote a poem, took time to photograph the world, or simply do one of my doodles. This one a true doodle as I was in a 3hr training class that was a near postal experience, a new computer orientation class about being a mobile workforce and introducing new increased security protocols (roughly translated means all advanced controls locked making the term "mobile workforce" a oxymoron for us road warriors). Score one this week for the marriage between the Art of Bureaucracy and Technology. Brenda zero. I spent the first three days of the week in Orlando and can honestly say after two trips to Orlando I have not yet seen any of Florida, my first trip was spent entirely in the surreal world of Disney and this week in a conference center with faux lagoons and a row of palm trees. And rain, don't forget the rain. I did however get to see my friends from other offices and the inside of the hotel bar, where the bartender had come up with a whole series of Environmental Themed Drinks the Global Warming and the Climate Change-I stuck to glass of wine, however several of my group imbibed in the Global Warming. The rest of us used our imaginative skills to come up with ideas for other possible environmentally themed drinks, such as the Oil Spill (perhaps something with fruit that would form globules in the drink and be almost impossible to get off the glass) and the LNAPL (something with perhaps Grand Marnier that floats to the top like gasoline) and the DNAPL (here we became stuck-trying to think of a liquor that would sink to the bottom).

The City of Richardson photo contest closed and none of my photos placed, I was really disappointed, as I thought that one of mine had a real chance. I am going to lick my wounds and perhaps enter a few of my photos in the work yearly contest. Work has been hectic but fantastic, I was accepted in a leadership development program, the jury is still out if this is a good thing. I have been doing the same sort of work for nearly 25 years. It has evolved through many changes, re-inventions and initiatives. The basic premise remains the same and honestly some of the initiatives feel a bit like deja'vu ( this may be because I am somewhat a cynic), but after 25 years I still love what I do and for that I feel eternally grateful. I started a 30 day poetry challenge yesterday (which means if I make 10 days I will call it a win) as I am finding it harder and harder to get to the place where the poetry grows. Perhaps it is because I am out of practice, or perhaps it is because work has been so hectic that at the end of the day my brain is a bit mushy and I simply want to vegetate. I am trying to recalibrate my scale, so that I can find time for all of the pieces in my life. I am groovy and happy, but still I miss the words, we shall see how I do.