These two orioles that were weaving, double-helix style, around each other in flight, right past my car window.

And while I was walking, the orioles in the tops of all the trees, which still just have ferny, lacy foliage, still not all unfurled.

The sun was so warm (my eyes are so tired! I closed my eyes and the sun felt so good on my eyelids.) I thought how orioles are something like monarch butterflies but brighter, more golden-orange than red-orange.

I thought, I'd like to have orioles fly all around me, so I could hear their wings and feel the breeze they make and practically touch their feathers. I'd like to be in a cloud of orioles the way trees can be in clouds of monarch butterflies. And then I remembered getting horse kisses the other day. I never knew horses were so lovey dovey! This one kept coming up and kissing my cheek and pressing her head against my chest and sniffing my sweater. Perhaps I smelled like something tasty? Or maybe she just was feeling affectionate.

Current Mood: tired

Друзья, знает ли кто-нибудь из вас линк на учебник японского языка в сети? самый начальный уровень.

Спасибо.

I am at work on the third draft, now, of "The Oracle." Very many apologies to jmeadows, who got stuck with the first draft. You can trash that! It has changed....

How many things and people, real, almost real, and more than real, can I be in love with at once? So many, so very many. And that's "in love"--doesn't even take into account the things I just plain love. This intoxication!

Current Mood: intoxicated

A waka poem:


Delicate fragrance
drifts across the woodblock--
carving with lilacs ...
my studio is filled with
the essence of your garden.

b'oki.

It is official, Stephen Bor siulongbao is moving to Corpus. ( Read more... ) Welcome in town, Stephen, and I hope you will like my breakfast.

long before dawn
the dog sniffs snoring
coming through the guest room door

Some pictures I took yesterday riding my bicycle.

And first of all - white wisteria for Origa:


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endlessly painting..
this dream overflows my lungs
with honeysuckles
saturates morning air with
drownings of a thousand blossoms

Oh my gawd, watching this overly perky woman wears me out. Plus, I do not cook in a skimpy mini, bra top, and CFM shoes. Sheesh. I am definitely a WOLFGANG PUCK type.

Rachael Ray You scored 60% Experience, 80% Charisma, 60% Flair, and 85% Popularity!

You are Rachael Ray, host of '30 Minute Meals'.

This test tracked 4 variables. How the score compared to the other people's:

	Higher than 20% on Experience
	Higher than 72% on Charisma
	Higher than 82% on Flair
	Higher than 76% on Popularity

it makes me feel good
to see her chasing loons*
even this rainy day

rain in our faces
my dog's tail melts into
white line of the surf

one thing about this morning
bird's shit
on the windshield

slow springtime
a lazy carp floating
up to the surface

yorukamome




pond's edge
new seedlings peek through
fallen lotus pods

b_oki

Thanks to sartorias, I have some wonderful ideas for how to improve this story. Now if I can just live through my hours of work, and try to *concentrate* on that work, and not on what I'm going to do to the story's most unpleasant character or how I'm going to improve the fortunes of the POV character, I'll be all set.

Thanks again, sartorias!

Current Mood: jubilant

.

сегодня - кто бы мог подумать? - у нас был мамский день. День матери т.е.))

никак мы его не праздновали - занимались насущными делами... однако и старшая, и младшая детки, независимо друг от друга, в разное время и по абсолютно разным поводам заявили в порыве откровения:

МАМА, ТЫ - ЛУЧШАЯ!!!

а я что... да ничего. мама как мама. чеширская - вот - немножко :)



Mum's Day...
nothing new. the same, daily
"MUM, YOU ARE THE BEST!!!"

:)

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___

I'm definitely going to use this, or something based on it, in a story one day:

(From Wikipedia's entry "Rhododendron")

Some species are poisonous to grazing animals. These Rhododendrons have a toxin called grayanotoxin in their pollen and nectar. People have been known to become ill from eating honey made by bees feeding on rhododendron and azalea flowers. Xenophon described the odd behavior of Greek soldiers after having consumed honey in a village surrounded by rhododendrons. Later, it was recognized that honey resulting from these plants have a slightly hallucinogenic and laxative effect.

Traveling through the links (God bless the Internet), I come to this, from Pliny the Elder, on "Maddening Honey":

In the country of the Sanni, in the same part of Pontus, there is another kind of honey, which, from the madness it produces, has received the name of "mænomenon." This evil effect is generally attributed to the flowers of the rhododendron, with which the woods there abound; and that people, though it pays a tribute to the Romans in wax, derives no profit whatever from its honey, in consequence of these dangerous properties ... What can we suppose to have possibly been the intention of Nature in thus laying these traps in our way, giving us honey that is poisonous in some years and good in others, poisonous in some parts of the combs and not in others, and that, too, the produce in all cases of the self-same bees? It was not enough, forsooth, to have produced a substance in which poison might be administered without the slightest difficulty, but must she herself administer it as well in the honey, to fall in the way of so many animated beings?

(I didn't update for three days, so I have lots of entries stored up...prepare for Asakiyume spam... my apologies in advance)

"Do you think there's something between them?" "Nothing will ever come between us."

Isn't it interesting that in the first sentence, having something between is a good thing--a tie, a connection--and in the second case, having something between is a bad thing--a barrier.

In the throes of full cheek-burning, heart-racing passion, isn't the goal to close the space between, to be so close, so very close that electrons and protons forget what they are?

And then, that experience becomes the "something between them" ... and having shared it, the lovers promise "nothing will ever come between us."

...What happens after is another story, but as for stories, their number is infinite... or more than I can count, anyway.

Current Mood: passionate

Solomon's Seal at night, originally uploaded by Bet'sWoodblocks.

St. Mary's Seal
the children gather under
her green umbrella

b'oki.


Hope everyone has a lovely day of sharing Love and Light. We are traveling to Ohio to be with my husband's mother, sister, and family. This is a photo of my Solomon's Seal plant in our front yard. It grows at the base of one of our Alberta Spruce trees. It loves it there, tucked nicely in partial shade. I took this photo a couple of days ago after a light rain. Today, on this Mother's Day, it is raining here in Kentucky. We won't be able to have lunch outside, but we will be sheltered under the 'umbrella' of our Love and Togetherness today.

Here is a link about the plant, Solomon's Seal. St. Mary's Seal is another older name for the plant. I chose to use that name in my haiku for Mother's Day. http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/solsea63.html

Love to you all,
Bette.

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一茶　1803年　41歳
二軒前干菜かけたり草の雨
ni ken mae hoshi na kaketari kusa no ame

David’s English
vegetables hung to dry
at two houses...
thatch dripping rain

by Issa, 1803
In the same year Issa writes another version of this haiku, ending with "little houses" (ko ie kana). Literally, the vegetables are hung "in front of two houses" (ni ken mae). In this haiku I assume that kusa no ame ("grass's rain") refers to rain dripping from the thatched roofs, as it seems to in a later poem (1814): sasa no ya ya hiina no kao e kusa no ame thatched house-- on the doll's face dripping rain
http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

sakuo comment
at two houses= at two houses before his friend.
dry vegetable=used for winter food.
thatch dripping rain= spring rain that makes grass grow..
Issa has come at the near of his friend. Even winter remains but spring
surely has come.

sakuo renku
気分は春　友の家近し
kibun wa haru tomo no ie tikashi

in the mood of spring
soon at friend’s house.



I'm singing in the rain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkEvy-9yVyQ

Current Mood: pleased