Christkindl Market
Christkindl Market
Shopping wooden angel chimes
lunch bowl of goulash
two different strudels
a cone of cinnamon nuts
German culture stroll
Christkindl Market
Connoisseurs of Fine Writing
Aidan with his new Moleskine journal
Connoisseurs of Fine Writing
On a recent visit, I learned that my 11-year old grandson Aidan likes a particular pencil – a Bic disposable 0.5, whereas all of his classmates only like 0.7 and no friend ever has the right-sized lead for him to bum a spike if his runs out. I asked him why he likes this kind specifically.
“Because my handwriting is better with this size lead, Nana, when I don’t have to press down so hard on the paper,” he passionately replied about his writing utensil, with the same fervor that a connoisseur of desserts knows that eggs and butter at room temperature make a richer cake.
There’s something in our genes. I like a blue ink Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen (more than any of my non-disposable variety with replaceable cartridges), and had given him one on his last visit, teaching him how to carefully position the silver shield at a slightly less than 45 degree angle – and making a forever fan out of him. My high-powered resort real estate salesman brother writes with a Tul mechanical pencil with 0.7 lead. Our father has had a lifelong affinity for boxed metal fountain pens and matching mechanical pencils – Cross, Stafford, you name it – if it has a little weight and flash, he wields it like a pro. Just yesterday, I learned that I’ve converted a locally famous musician to the Pilot! It’s a thing. Check out the articles linked below to learn more about the pen preferences of famous authors.
On this visit with Aidan, we moved to paper preferences. “You get it, Nana,” he told me. “No one else gets it that the paper has to absorb the lead or the ink,” he shared, emphasizing his words and throwing in his energetic hand gestures to show that getting it buys me membership into an exclusive club. I introduced him to my favorite Moleskine papers and gave him a stack of journals to encourage him to keep writing. I also gave him the story of the Moleskine journal insert because it’s as fascinating to read as the ads in a J. Peterman catalog. You know when you open a journal and there’s a quality control sticker that you have arrived at the pinnacle of paper snobdom
– and to be there is to savor a grand view of the journey looking back! We wrote Jenga poems and he narrated our day in journals “for different purposes,” he explained (spoken like a true writer). Ours is a family heritage of people particular about paper, pen, and pencil preferences. People who love to write – who feel the importance of capturing the stories of our lives in words using the best tools to enrich the honor and experience!
More Love of Pens
https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/pens-worlds-famous-authors/
My brother’s Tul
Aidan’s Bic with 0.5
My Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen
Moleskine Journals with the Legend of the Moleskine
Quality Control – the pinnacle of paper snobbery seal
Unfocused
Unfocused Haiku
Microsoft, please stop!
How am I supposed to stay
focused on my work?
Frames: A Family Portrait Pantoum
Frames: A Family Portrait Pantoum
frames on our parents’ bookshelf
not portraits of their children
we were replaced
by their dogs
not portraits of their children
in matching silver frames
but their dogs
much easier creatures to love
in matching silver frames
Mulligan and Georgia Girl
easier creatures to love
these two spoiled dogs
their dogs – not portraits of us
we were replaced
by easier creatures to love
frames on our parents’ bookshelf
Inked
Inked
Newish baby names
like tattoos on old people
aren’t so cute with age
Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting
Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting
They say it’s home for Christmas,
this 85 year old spruce from Maryland
sacrificed from its snug spot
in the northeastern woods
murdered with a saw blade and
hauled to Manhattan
for one single festive month
of Christmas celebration
I’m no Scrooge,
yet I silently weep for this tree –
rooted in its homeground
a great grandfather
in its circle among younger trees
in a peaceful thicket
where birds nest
woodland critters seek refuge
and snow falls
gently blanketing the night
“Most heralded tree of all at Christmas” announcers of the
Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting say
and in the same breath
“all trees should be celebrated –
the Arbor Day Foundation and NBC will partner to plant 25,000 trees.
Text TREES to 707070
to be part of the Global Climate
change” they urge.
And this is how we celebrate a tree?
We slaughter it and
dress it up in lights
and put its carcass on display
in New York City
for shopping-bag armed revelers
to stop
and rearrange their Coach purses
and take selfies
and lower their designer shades
and gawk at it?
And next, here came an original legend
to sing with off-key chump backups
They butchered Feliz
Navidad, Jose Feliciano in his nighttime sunglasses and this
little boy band of his did,
and in their misery an image
came vividly to mind:
boys going into a forest
(calling it tradition)
with chain saws, coming out carrying a legendary “live tree”
like a hog-tied pig,
strapping it down and lighting it up
as it stands there all sunglassless
and squinting-
not used to all this city glare-
in the name of Christmas
while past-their-prime musicians
try to sing at its feet
(calling it music)
as it finally fully appreciates the
solitude of its
forest
deeply wishing it were
home for Christmas
https://apple.news/A8B1qV-jtRCaxMyTtaNOfuA
Coming to My Senses
Coming to My Senses
When it’s time for the Schnoodles
to go to the groomers for the day,
we leave before the sun comes up – and it’s breathtaking because
in the early morning I see
the predawn Christmas lights still shining a fantasy of dazzling brilliance
festive wreaths hung from red velvet ribbons on rural hometown bank windows
jetliners drawing Etch-a-Sketch pictures on a daybreak sky
steam vapors swirling up off the ponds, summer fishing days a half-Earth rotation away
a heavenly greeting hawk on a wire in the median – from Mom, checking to be sure my doors are locked, I’m not speeding, and I’m wearing my seatbelt
a flurry of other more excited dogs arriving for grooming and daycare
in the early morning I smell
a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, flavoring the car with high-octane energy for the day ahead
diesel fumes from school buses,
like the red double decker buses of London – bringing flashback memories
still-lingering mineral soap scent inspired by the coast of Ireland, according to the box
in the early morning I hear
the silence of my car prayer chamber and God’s voice reminding me that there is both work to be done and life to be lived
in the early morning I feel
the comforting heat flooding my feet and hands as I drive
a frequent paw nudging my hand to turn the Rav around: “no grooming needed today, Mom….we’re good”
and in the early morning I taste
the frozen air, awakening my lungs with the chill of newness as I walk the boys before taking them in for their early-morning groomings because yes, grooming is happening today!
Common Threads 