Never Fool Around with Your Blog While Drinking Wine with A Cat on Your Lap

So, I fucked up the layout of my blog. Can't fix it after hours of googling and trying. HTML this and that, and margins, and reset, blah, blah. I've tried it. Can't do it. So the blog looks hideously stoooopid.

I might be done here cuz the layout is just too unbearable to behold. Dang.

Bird of the Day: California Least Tern or There is a Season....

I missed August in Margaritaville last summer. Instead of hobnobbing with the terns, I was hanging out with the goldfinches in my brother's backyard in Iowa. There really isn't much bird activity in the marina right now compared to wintertime when the migratory birds arrive. Oh, there are regular visits from great blue herons, but they're solitary types. They don't bring their friends. The same goes for the occasional egret or black-crowned night heron. Every now and then, there are a couple of cormorants, or a grebe, or a few coots, but they're more numerous in winter, too. It was pretty dull around here until the terns began fishing. The California least tern is not a large bird, so the fishing acrobatics are nothing like the pelican dives of last February, but it's pleasant enough to watch a pretty white bird snap up a silver fish even if it's not exactly breathtaking.

The tern scene at the ocean is more dramatic. I first noticed the terns on the beach a couple of mornings ago. I heard them before I saw them. The chorus of peeping came from the sand as well as overhead. The flying terns had little fish dangling from their beaks, and instead of gobbling them up, they were delivering them to the birds on the sand which must have hatched somewhere nearby--though I can't quite imagine where since the beach is not exactly untrammeled. These birds on the sand appeared to be adolescent birds. Somewhat downy, but half-grown and conveniently a speckled sandy brown instead of the brilliant black and white of their parents, they sat peeping enthusiastically for fish, tucked into the footprints left by walkers and joggers. They could fly, though not expertly--which explains why their parents have to feed them. Terns--millenial generation of the bird world. Not like the snowy plover chicks who hop over to the seaweed and start devouring sand fleas almost immediately. But then I guess eating a sand flea is a bit less risky than diving for a fish. So perhaps those of us with adult children doing some human version of peeping for fish would do well to keep in mind that learning to fish is probably better than eating fleas even if it takes longer to learn.

Kicking in the Wall

I have a lot of books about writing. 

Last night at Vroman's books in Pasadena, one of the the most amazing book stores on the planet, I got to read from Kicking in the Wall by Barbara Abercrombie because a few snippets of my writing are in it. Kicking in the Wall and Barbara's previous book A Year of Writing Dangerously are full of writing prompts that will keep you in your chair. She also has a book called "Courage and Craft." Barbara's books, Abigail Thomas's book, "Thinking About Memoir,"and Anne LaMott's Book "Bird by Bird" keep me going.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some writing to do.

Do you have a favorite book about writing? Or about creativity in general?

Photographer Tom Hussey's series "Reflections"... and some of my own

I walk after dinner. My mom sips what's left of her martini and cleans up the dinner dishes. She insists on doing her part. She loves helping out, she says. Earning her keep. It can get noisy this dinner clean-up. One of the aspects of being hard of hearing that I didn't think much about prior to my mom moving in with me is that the almost-deaf person cannot hear the racket they are making. I walk to escape the bedlam of china and pots and pans, the din of silverware and glass.

There's a house on my street with a better-than-average display of flowers in its front yard. Well tended and colorful, it's sometimes presided over by its owner who sits alone at a tall table for two in the alcove outside his front door. Last night his glass of white wine looked like liquid gold in the evening light. Cool jazz wafted out from the house."Good-evening, "I said (as I always do whenever I see him.) Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome returned my greeting (as he always does.)

"You know, you're one of the coolest people I've ever seen," he said then. I laughed. I admit I was taken aback. "You are," he said. "I can tell." I laughed again. Smiled and gave a goofy wave. Despite the fact that I found this a tad bit creepy (not to mention objectifying,) for a minute, in my mind's eye, I looked like this.

Or maybe like this.

Two vastly different versions of cool. Neither of them me. In those earlier angsty phases of my life, I longed to be cool in a way I couldn't be. I think getting older creates a longing for something equally unattainable. My almost 89-year-old mom comments frequently on her wrinkles. She says her hair is thinning. She abhors the fact that she's shrunk in stature. My mother-in-law, who's now in her 90s, once told me her reflection in the mirror always surprised her. She expected to see a younger self, she said. Not that old face looking back

These photographs by TomHussey have been making their way around the web. If you haven't already seen them, take a look. I found myself studying each one.