trees and me, the montage







plant party

sometimes i put all my plants together on like a friday night or a saturday afternoon so they can visit and get all caught up on each others' lives.

lookie what i found

this delightfully creative, wonderfully whimsical comic blog!


when i read someone's made up story that they preface just so:

when i was young, i placed my baby teeth under my pillow and when i woke up i'd find a shiny new quarter. but whatever happened to those little teeth? where did they go? would i ever see them again? many years later, a little tooth was standing at my door. it looked familiar. its name was ickle. welcome home, my milk toof!

i want to grab jeremy, learn to drive, get in a car, and move in with them immediately so we can all of us live together in a house of dreamers.



may we all leap boldly from the cliff of creativity.

i have a great surprise for you!


but i can't tell you quite yet. but it's so exciting. hold on to your hats.

x

sweet, sunny sunroom


won't you carry us through winter?

nesting in the pillow chair, by the leafy potted pretties,
we'll remember together the sunshine we're missing.

and wait patiently, quietly, for her certain return.

oh yeah, i just did that.

just now i got so excited about life i thought i'd do that thing that gene kelly does in singing in the rain where he swings around the lamp pole only there isn't a lamp pole in our house so i tried to swing around the kitchen door frame but the floor was slippery from being freshly buffed so my legs went out from under me and i almost did a face plant into the radiator.

sometimes i think when jeremy's away i should just lock myself in a closet. with a helmut on.

my hair is deciduous.






bark bark.

let me preface what i'm about to say by letting you know that i don't hate dogs. in fact there lived one dog in particular with whom i shared the special bond that must drive people to become dog owners. he wasn't even my dog which makes our bond all the more real that he chose to love me and i chose to love him back and we shared some very special person/dog time together. i even wrote a little poem about him. with pictures.

too, i have some people in my life who are good dog owners and i see what that companionship adds to their life and for them i am happy and grateful. i cried when the kid had to shoot old yeller and i cried even harder when the yellow dog makes it over the hill and runs towards his owner in the last scene of homeward bound.

THAT BEING SAID, allow me to rant.

dear bad dog owner,

although i am glad you feel so much love for your dog that you would like to 'unleash' that love, pun intended, onto the unsuspecting world, don't. when your dog is off leash and it runs up to me to blow its nose on my leg or attempt to eat my ankles and i say to you 'your dog should be on a leash' i am not making a suggestion, i am reminding you of the law.

when your dog goes to the washroom on the trail and i remind you to pick up after it and you explain to me that 'we are outdoors', i wonder if the same logic would apply to me relieving myself on your lawn? dogs do not live outdoors. dogs live in houses and are domesticated animals and our small patches of nature within our SHARED city space have a hard enough time already, without having to accommodate for the unnatural occurrence of your dogs by-products.

with the exception of lily's dog, (that isn't even a dog, but a tiny person with a beard), your dog probably doesn't need to go into any stores. your dog won't mind waiting outside firstly because it probably doesn't have any money to spend and secondly because IT IS A DOG.

people have allergies. and fears. and feelings about their food and merchandise mingling with the hair/saliva/drippings of your dog.

my point, dear bad dog owner, is this. you live in a city of three million people. chances are, (i'm just throwin' it out there) the people you share this city with may have slightly different feelings about your pet than you do. imposing anything on people without their invitation is not only annoying, it's rude and inconsiderate.

please understand i don't hate your dog, i bet he's a very nice person. i just think i should be given the opportunity to express how i feel before he sniffs my crotch and takes a poo for me to step in.

sincerely,

me

firstly, owls. lastly, jeremy.

oh hi! i've been expecting you. why don't you make yourself comfortable while i show you around? there's been some updates since our last visit.

like this guy! who knew we needed more owls? besides me? although i feel he could pass for a rectangle man with a mustache. which will become its own kitschy craze i'm sure.

for the none of you who don't already know, i planted a succulent garden. steph was here when i got the plants and jeremy lives with me so they've already met the family. the containers are all second hand from etsy. i love the little green one best of all. but don't tell the bread pan that.

i like to leaf through the encyclopedia. it is such an enjoyable method of procuring information. i read the page, i turn the page, i flip to the index to find another page. i smell it (smells like library) and i see it and i hold it on my lap. i feel like an active participant in my learning.

when i went to school for journalism we had a crazy teacher who liked to rant about the importance of tangible printed pieces versus their electronic equivalents. i think about her often as i'm browsing through a musty volume of something or other. it's always the crazy ones eh? which says something. possibly about me.

i love jeremy. i didn't intend to take a photo of him here but i love that he's in the background. i love that he IS the background. whatever i do and whoever i am and whatever hair brained idea i'm dreaming up whilst standing on my head until i pass out - he's there. to catch me and love me and possibly revive me from unconsciousness.

i wish everyone could be so lucky. i also wish for an ice cream you could eat quickly without head trauma.

visitor

the moon came out at the wrong time of day,
confused by the cold she thought it was night.

the tree tops whispered the truth of the season but there she hung,
having already come so far.

and though she liked the clear blue sky,
she much preferred the night.

and on his farm he had a mom

my mom came to visit! and i took her to riverdale farm! she liked the pigs best. she dug their curly tails and round bottoms and laissez faire attitude toward personal hygiene.


it's a working farm, open year-round, free to the public and full of opportunities to see farm animals cared for the way farm animals should be. no 25 cent feed in an ice cream cone here! you're actually not even allowed to feed the animals. just watch them and take pictures of them and cluck at them in the case of these chickens.

i also scratched this guys ear which he liked a lot. i could tell because his pupils turned into little hearts.

hi mom! aw mom. what a wonderful lady. it's been a year since we've seen each other but as they say in the greeting card business, it was like no time had passed.


i like that mom knew me from the beginning. that she remembers me before even i can. she reminds me that the essence of myself has been the same since i was small.

which means i'm intrinsically youthful or really immature.


fall has been good to us this year. the leaves have been a treat to watch and walk through since early october. i'll think about them, underfoot, when the snow sets its blanket down for the winter.



the sides of the farmhouse were dotted with these brick shelves that extended out beyond the walls. excellent for mountain climbing practice or displaying family photos.

i love horses. they're one of my top five favourite animals. i think they quite obviously have souls or some type of similar knowingness which is a word that i made up that explains what i mean better than using a word that already exists.

they know stuff. like whether or not you're the sort of person who will let them get away with just eating the grass when you're attempting to ride them around.

and what sort of natural lighting they look best in.

good-bye riverdale farm! i'll bring jeremy with me next time. he's a hoot.