- a full moon
- an untimely winter chill
- indifferent, overcast sky
- magenta camelias and yellow daffodils - sad and dull in the grey afternoon
- naked trees
- cardinals and finches chirping happily
- the path in the woods that led to sweeten creek drive
- giant colored easter eggs strewn about the lawn of the big white house on the corner
- talking with Betty, aged 102 - her parents were Jews who came from Russia - her dad from Kiev, her mom from somewhere that is now Turkey. She talked about how she abhorred orthodox Jews, how close minded she thought they were - not being allowed to look at women and all that. She had a sharp mind to be sure, but she was just about deaf, so it was extremely hard to talk to her. She asked me about my interests and where I liked to travel. She seemed so genuinely happy to have met me.
- barbecue pork, hush puppies, corn on the cob and coleslaw and pecan pie
- the parakeets - Bluebell and Fuji
- the harshness of street lamps on frigid nights
- Franklin Street - getting interviewed for the Daily Tar Heel by a very tall, lanky, and handsome young man
- eating at Sage cafe, a vegetarian place, for lunch - Persian soup, green tea, and goat cheese salad
- Earth and Spirit, the shop with all the crystals and minerals, the shopkeeper telling us about her upbringing in the Appalachian foothills where her daddy was the biggest gun-owner in the county. She learned how to shoot a gun as soon as she could walk, but she hates guns now and is a vegetarian - spends her time with crystals and candles and good energy.
- The Frank art gallery on Franklin street - Sudie's gentle, sing-songy voice, as she told us about the gallery pieces, including her beautiful, strange, magical papier-mache birds hanging from the ceiling. She has four great danes. She wrote a book about one of them - Savannah Blue, and she has another one called Fiona Fig.
- The arboretum on campus - the grape vine tunnel, redwood tree, wild hyacinth
- beautiful unc campus - older architecture, nice furniture, absolutely a 'southern' feel about the place - studying at caribou with green tea lemonade and lemon poppyseed bread
- getting on the wrong bus - chatting with the bus drivers, watching the trees and trailer parks in the slanted afternoon sun
- porridge, toast, marmalade, poached eggs, and tea for breakfast
- the warm yellow sun at little creek farm - tiny fungus, cedar wood, wild ginger, magnolias, tall pines, ironwoods, wood violets, and a running creek
- a pileated woodpecker
- the sound of a singing frog in the woods
- haybales in the late afternoon on the drive to little creek
- fern fort had all but disappeared
- the trails were all gone, even toad road
- the footbridge we built so many years ago - looked about ready to fall into the creek
- chatting with hannah and the thomases in their living room
- watching the office uk version
- reading i capture the castle
- the hammer dulcimer concert - magical, magical the way Helen played the dulcimer and the way Eric played his guitar and smiled at her with so much love
- talking with the cousins - ashlyn about school - how she likes math best, hates cell phones and technology because they rot your brain, and she loves pandas, and cameron smells bad
- celeste is exactly like I was at her age - passive, sighing, horrible
- cameron is tall and gangly and awkward, he seems to think he is a ladies man, he kept talking to me a lot
- going to get frozen yogurt at night - coffee and cake batter
- the natural history museum in raleigh - all the specimens in glass cases, the dinosaurs, the snakes
- the city of raleigh - not much to see - lots of buildings but rather boring, empty - sun was high (but i was not)
- playing scrabble in the social lounge at carol woods - betsy and i won by a landslide, stabu lestu - ima stab you lestah!, and later playing ping pong
- botanical gardens at duke - warm sun, tulips, flowers, lilacs, cacti, ducks and koi in the pond
- spaghetti on the porch for lunch
- that evening - smelled like grass, summery, pear blossoms, mild air, perfect paradise
- the next morning - grey, comfortable, rain - scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast - just a steady, gentle rain
- it really wasn't too terrible aside from the fact that the richters are the most inefficient group of humans on the planet
feb 16 2013 ∞
apr 1 2013 +
apr 1 2013 +