I'm leaving the old intro here, but adding this- it appears the doves have taken over my blog for their fiction. Just as well, I was doing a piss poor job of updating. They're doing much better.

This blog is infrequently updated, full of incorrect spellings, misused words, and general bad grammar. It started when I was trying to use google+ (which I've since given up on) and discovered there was no character limit for posts. If you've known me a long time, a lot of these stories will be old hat. If you plan to know me for a long time, you'll no doubt hear many of them in person. But, folks seemed to enjoy them, so here they are.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Seventy Ninth Story

There's a spot in town where the sidewalk is made of brick, and someone, years ago, planted petunias. They've inched there way into all the cracks, and now, come the right season, every year, the flowers sneak out and cover the sidewalk.

Monday, March 18, 2013

the Seventy Eight Story

A conversation I had yesterday with my mother, as overheard by
Caitlin, just for amusement:

"I don't know what you're going to do with the stump,
either...standing that thing up might be harder than getting rid of
it...yes, that would be wonderful... oh, even better!...like the
throne up in cambridge?... I love it... even if they can't stand it
up, maybe they could carve it into a low bench... what?!... I've never
even used a chainsaw...yes,yes...I know you have, but cutting limbs
off a tree is entirely different than a plunge cut... mum, this is a
terrible idea... mum, wait, mum... no, MUM! we will lose limbs...I
can't think of a way to do it without a plunge cut... I'll look at it
when I come visit."

Caitlin's reaction: "It's so great that your mother has so much confidence in you!"

Friday, March 1, 2013

the Seventy Seventh story


 
 
We had planned to spend our remaining four days in Djenne, but... we didn't. Instead, after one full day, we made our way back to the Carrefour and hopped another bus, this one going south. We got as far as Sikasso, jumped out, and asked folks what to go see. Unanimously, everyone I managed to communicate with agreed on this place, who's name translates to something like "Mosque of the Grotto". We hired ourselves a cab for the day, and headed out, expecting to see a mosque much like the rest of the ones we had seen.
But no. There are no photos of the wonder of this place, because it was too beautiful, and I too tired, to muck around with the camera. There's this one snapshot, and that's all. These rocks were worn with centuries of worship, prayer carpets made simply by so many knees kneeling in the same spot. There were droplets falling from this, the skylight, making a thin, sparkling, glowing veil. Mum and I, an agnostic and a raging athiest, looked at each other, and agreed that this was the right place to worship god.