Well, no flights out of northern Europe until probably tomorrow now. The Frenchie, who was supposed arrive here this afternoon, managed to get a flight for next Tuesday. Given how the cloud's moving and how, organizationally speaking, stuff is in chaos, I have serious doubts on his getting here next week (or at all).

Given that things could be much, much worse*, I really shouldn't be so sad or disappointed. Still, am.

Hopefully he'll get a nice sunset or two out of this all.

***

* We were actually talking about the last time volcano ash affected an airplane, maybe 20 some odd years ago. The Frenchie said that, at least he's home and not 12 km in the air with all engines failing.

Ooh! Some folks sleep walk, others eat, I actually write while asleep.* See it as a sort of 'exquisite corpse' between the hand and the brain, and often I have a hard time trying to figure out what was filtering its way through the consciousness to the paper/keyboard/etc.

Anyway, a bit editing of the last post for clarification: Took a look at the sidebar links and noted that one friend was a bit unhappy for a couple reasons - lost a friend and sold an instrument.
Neither is catastrophic, but can be upsetting, I understand. Anyway, had a couple solutions to offer:

1.) On the lost friend, maybe not lost, just misplaced. As he's done a bit of song writing before, maybe should consider writing a song (or a poem - next month's Poetry month in the US; in the UK, I think poetry month falls in May.) about the experience. That or (and this is a bit radical) contact the friend and try to hash things out.

2.) Instrument-wise - that can be bought back or replaced. I recently lost some no longer published sheet music and some pretty valuable books in the recent bad weather. Am still kind of sick about this, but will get over it. If he played and I could afford the shipping, would gladly send him one of the two pianos in my life, as only need one and don't rightly what to do with the other.

Life has a way of throwing us for a loop sometimes. I'm in a couple serious pickles right now and am having a hard time seeing past the bad. I think, or at least hope that things will get better; that hope is kind of all that I have right now.

***


*Interestingly enough, when was a kid, used to talk a lot, too - apparently my brother and I could carry on entire conversations while asleep and have no recollection of what we talked about.

Just because we absolutely had to get out of the house, decided to take a drive out to Concord today.



This was Alewife Brook, between Somerville and Cambridge (just before the turn off to route 2). Was pretty darn swollen. When we got to that turn off to Route 2 (just before the Alewife T station), noted that Route 16 was closed due to flooding.

As we went further west, saw all sorts of high water street closures like this one near Concord Center:



Basement flooding and the loss of whatever fencing in the yard was still standing after the last northeaster (the one that one didn't hear much about due to the freak snows further south) aside, I guess we got off lucky.

(Am trying to keep a positive outlook on this, anyway. A good bit of my life is in the basement and am just not up to seeing just how much of it's gone. A vein in the temple started throbbing when I saw a couple pretty much irreplaceable partitions buckled, moldy and soaking. Will deal with it later. At least rain's going to stop tomorrow and we have a dehumidifier.)

Heavens.

Because we all know that folks in the chastiser's neck of the woods are such proponents of Free Trade.

Almost Forgot:

Modular Lace using Short Rows.

What this means, essentially, is that you treat the circle like a pie and you treat the spokes like individual, but attached, pie pieces:



Knit from Lion's lovely organic cotton string. I think I used almond here. The doily didn't turn out as I'd wanted - meaning, there were a couple too many rows, so it looked like a princess with a cleft palate or something. Ended up giving it away to someone who seemed pretty happy with it, though more for the time spent on knitting it than anything else, I think.

Couple things came to mind while I was knitting this one. First, that favorite verse from the Tao Te Ching that I'm always quoting. Second, Sunshine:



How much are the guitar's arpeggios and arabesques like the above's knits/purls/yarn overs/k2togs?

Trapped.

Flight's already delayed for three hours - will be delayed for an undetermined further length, according to the folks in charge of taking care of us / penning us in at CDG. As much as I'm feeling sorry for myself, I feel worse for them. No breaks, constant individual searches and patdowns if we go to the toilet or to get a coffee...dealing calmly with our frustrations.

Maybe I'll get home tonight; we'll see.

Pavel's on day three of cleaning out the kitchen; I just completed one of the bedrooms. Really, really strange. I'm not depressed over anything personal, just how the situation devolved so. It appears as though I've got the affairs of not one, but three people to take care of now.

Oh, the rosaries, too. Have found at least two dozen, probably more. Those and lots of mass books, both in Polish and English.

Yesterday, the Zen cleaning wave that I'm pretty sure most Polish females of strong body and sound enough mind can generally catch a ride on when they need to was broken with a sinister laugh from the kitchen:

"Come and Bake with us, Joanie. Come and Bake with us forever...and ever...and ever..."



My Mother was obsessed with him. Why? He was cute, I guess. She had a tee shirt that further explained that he smiled a lot and was "rolling in dough."

The refrigerator was full of packaged cookie dough and dinner rolls; the cupboard had six or seven different cake/baked good mixes. Kept the dry mixes, but had to toss the refrigerated stuff as it was starting to sprout.

Oh, and the collectors items: ornaments, wallpaper borders, kitchen linens, a cookie jar to name a few. I think there's something like three crates full of knicknacks. Most all of it's smoke damaged, so it's not like one could flog any of it on e-Bay, either.

Wish I could just toss it. Doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to, though. The thought of doing that makes me incredibly sad.

Salt Peanuts.



A little mood music.

The Frenchie's gotten me into the habit of having a little something before dinner, an aperitif. Generally it's something simple like some cucumbers and smoked fish, some pickles and olives. Maybe a nice tomato if they can be found. If oysters weren't so expensive and the housemate wasn't so grossed out by them, I'd happily start each evening with two or three.

Wandered over to the dollar store the other day to take a look around and was pleased to find a newly-stocked favorite - salted, in-the-shell peanuts at a dollar a bag. The same thing costs $3 or $4 a bag at the neighborhood grocery stores. Of course I got a few bags for the larder.

Tonight, enjoyed a handful before dinner with a bit of fizzy water and some Khatchaturian on the radio. Felt for all the world like the old cocktail hour back in Eastie.

So,

If I'm not a regular consumer of Twitter or Facebook Media, how am I to know what the hell's going on?

Just read that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary passed away the other day. Remembered hearing this song as a kid and wanting to learn how to sing (and dance, laugh, have fun...all while keeping the beat):

I dig rock n roll music
Uploaded by dcck105. - See the latest featured music videos.

(Sad.)

The problem with goals is that, once one is achieved, another one needs to be set.

Unfortunately, this usually entails a couple things I'm not good at: choosing and committing.

(I know I go on a lot in this vein, but am at a juncture and am struggling a bit.)

Well, I've been back for about a week now, but really wasn't much up for writing. The house was a disaster, for one thing. Also, I always feel a bit blue when I return from a trip Over There. Aussi, il faut admettre that I've been cheating on the blog a bit with Facebook. Facebook's kind of nice in some aspects; am happy to have gotten in touch with some folks I'd lost track with over the years. On the other hand, it's not really made for much beyond quick, off-the-cuff things.

Anyway, if you're interested, here's the latest round of pictures. If you decide to look for me on Facebook, just follow the wherever the little button on the right takes you.



Left-behind wedding flowers, Granville. August, 2009. Before anyone asks, no: not my wedding. Plan on being single for some time.

Stress.

Relatives who want to visit have changed plans on short notice and are coming much earlier than I had suggested they do. As much as I don't like to have to turn people away, it's looking like someone might need to get a hotel room. Heck, I'd get a hotel room if I could leave.

Stress.

The bureaucratic boondoggle is not much closer to being resolved and I can't get a hold of people I need to talk to to finish up. Kind of have a time frame, too, for getting stuff done.

It's actually turning up a lot of old, unpleasant memories of past dealings with the same folks*. That in and of itself is tough, because I'm not the best glued-together person in the world, emotionally speaking.

***


*(See, Be, it's *not* you doesn't help much, either.)

Since am solo for now, decided to try out the new Vietnamese place that just opened up nearby. Had a bowl of fisherman's soup, a crepe and a papaya salad - standard stuff, but nicely done. Was particularly impressed with the crepe, as it was neither too greasy nor soggy in spite of my showing up late to pick it up. Loved the filling, too. The sprouts were perfect.

Figured that I'd just eat, then turn in with a book (long day, plus the floor guys are coming early tomorrow). That was before I noted that someone put Baisers Volés up on Youtube. (Missed the entire series of Antoine Doinel stories at the Brattle last month, could have kicked myself for that.) Charming, but a little sad. Doesn't help when one recognizes more than a few of the locations and starts feeling the Sehnsucht welling up as a result.

Still, not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

Quelqu'un me manque beaucoup maintenant.

Just love it when Flickr greets me in Latvian.

Labdien right back at cha, photo editor.

Apparently there was a bad ice storm this winter that caused an awful lot of damage. One trail that I like, Birchtoft, was closed for cleanup. Did note a lot of bowed white and felled yellow birches on Cascade:



Gateway to the South.



(Of course it got me thinking of Robert Frost. Are you kidding? How couldn't it.)

Alright, back to the salt mines (or, more to the point, the coal mines and textile factories of early 19th century Britain).

Happy Easter.