Linnie Red's LitDotOrg Blog

Sunshine on Snow

This isn’t really much of anything other than: I love it after a big snow when the sun finally comes out! The big snow we got Friday/Saturday started out very wet and thus coated the branches of the trees.  (We’re a bit concerned about one particular branch of our beloved front yard tulip tree and about our little “Charlie Brown shrub,” also in the front yard, sagging under the weight.) For a few brief shining (literally) moments yesterday, the sun came out, and I was able to get this shot of a neighbor’s tree with blue sky behind it!

Irony Detector *BEEP* of the Week

When a U.S. employer hires someone, they are required to fill out an I-9 form, what I like to call the “Yes-I’m-Allowed-to-Work-in-This-Country” form. Below is the sum total of what appears on page 3 of this 5-page form:

Yes, the white space goes all the way down to here. Your tax dollars at work.

In Defense of Indolence & Sloth

Today I’m making a point of doing very little that could be described as useful or productive. Last Saturday was essentially an extension of the holidays because we had my sisters and brother-in-law over for our belated “Christmas” together. (Hubby and I had done actual Christmas with his family out of state.) Thus, last Saturday was devoted to preparing plenty of food (mainly tortellini soup! Yum!), a bit of house tidying (but not too much!) and last-minute gift wrapping, and the evening was given over to the actual visit. Furthermore, next Saturday we have a gig, the preparations for which usually begin mid- to late afternoon. Therefore, THIS Saturday is consciously devoted to indolence and sloth!

One of the few concessions I made to productive behavior was to take the lights off the Christmas tree. I did NOT, however,  put them away or take down the tree! All in good time!

As I write this, the pregame show for the first televised NFL playoff game has just begun, and I’m planning to indulge in couch-potatodom and watch football for the rest of the afternoon and evening!

I was all set to write a reasoned, philosophical case for allowing oneself to do nothing from time to time, but suddenly that seems like too much work. Screw it. I’m going to post this and watch TV!

Spiny Norman at the BRDHouse

This is the closest thing I have to home movies: Recently a couple of friends starting taking videos of my hubby and me playing at our favorite venue, The BRDHouse in Englewood, Ohio. It’s a combination musical instrument store (complete with private lesson studios,) art gallery, coffeeshop and performance space. We play there about once a month. Here we are covering a song written back in the early ’60s by Syvia Tyson and most famously covered by a band called “We Five.”

Lily in my Back Yard

Tranquility Base

For the past few weeks, I’ve been indulging in a new morning ritual. For lack of a better term, I call it “microcamping.” Each day when I awaken, I get the de rigueur cup of coffee, sling my laptop bag over one shoulder and my digital SLR camera bag over the other, tuck a lap desk under my arm, then awkwardly maneuver my Wide Load through the very squeaky screen door from the kitchen into the garage and through the very sticky door from the garage out to our back porch. We call it Tranquility Base.

The back of our house. Tranquility Base is the back porch on the left.

Even though our house is just a couple of doors down from Main Street in a township just outside the city limits, the only detectable evidence of that from the back porch is some distant traffic noise – nothing particularly obnoxious unless it’s an ambulance en route to the nearby hospital. Some traffic and the quarter-hourly chiming of the nearby church. Otherwise, Tranquility Base is all about trees, fast-growing shrubs, squirrels and birds.

I set up camp on the chaise-lounge style futon with the indoor-outdoor cover, laptop on my lap and camera beside me (just in case!) To my right are the aforementioned fast-growing shrubs (not honeysuckle – those are in the back of the yard – but something similarly hardy and seemingly impossible to keep trimmed, much less kill) and the neighbor’s intimidatingly large droopy evergreen tree. From there I’m regularly subjected to a vehement tongue-lashing – complete with menacingly twitching tail – from a squirrel incensed at my audacity in being in his line of sight.

One of the few glimpses of the outside world is afforded through a gap in the shrubs. I can see the neighbor’s little red yard barn and a glimpse of one of the cars from the old four-unit rental on the street behind. Occasionally a young tabby cat from one of these apartments stalks through our territory – usually across the back but sometimes creeping past the porch, freezing and staring when she spots me. I greet her, assuring her that I love kitties very much, but, unconvinced, she skitters away.

Across the back is the rear neighbors’ chain link fence with the plastic slats woven through. That affords a fair degree of privacy with only occasional childish squealing and stray wiffle balls wafting over from time to time. In the far corner are our own evergreen tree and a giant honeysuckle bush, hollow underneath to form a grotto of sorts. Advancing stealthily from that alcove is ivy that I really must pull up soon…

At the far left side of the yard, a tricky-to-mow slope drops down to our other next-door neighbors’ yard. The sun typically peeks through the trees beyond in the early morning. For a brief interlude, after the sun rises over the trees but before it passes the edge of the porch roof, it gets a bit uncomfortable to sit in my accustomed spot. I shade my eyes with my left hand and continue computing with my right, squinting to make out what’s on the laptop’s screen. I will not be deterred, nor will I be moved!

Hanging from the edge of the porch roof are a prolific fuchsia plant and a bright red glass hummingbird feeder. In past years, we’ve witnessed hummingbird turf wars over the two sources of nectar, but so far this year we seem to have achieved peaceful accommodation.

Most mornings, I can only linger a short time before I have to pack up and go inside to get ready for the ol’ day job. Even on weekends, there’s a Farmers’ Market to raid for produce and pie or other errands to be run. My perfect vacation would be to spend a whole week just hanging out on my own back porch. Come to think of it, I still have some paid time off coming. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather spend it than here.