...cinnamon crisps

or at least, that's what I call them. 

Place one 8" flour tortilla on a cookie sheet.  Spread upon it about 1 T. of butter, then clump another 1/2 T. on for good measure (make sure there are a few mounds).  Dust thoroughly with cinnamon-sugar (think dust storm).  Broil in oven on high until butter and sugar have caramelized (some portions of the tortilla may be slightly slightly burned)--about 3-5 minutes, but keep an eye on it!  Remove delicacy from oven and leave to cool (and butter-sugar to harden slightly) about 3-5 minutes.  Enjoy/Savor/Devour/Inhale/Etc..

No picture due to the short lifespan of above-described deliciousness.  

...rain, snow, and hail in april

are not beautiful.  nor do i love them. 

...turning over

rich, dark earth to find the worms have been enjoying the compost we've been putting out for them. 

...the smell of sunshine

is coconut sunscreen and wet hair evenings.  newly pinkened skin radiates the heat of the day into the cool of the evening.  wet bathing suits hang in the shower. 

...FLASH!

Gordon, that is.  And Rock Men (can you spot them in the picture below?).  And Sci-fi Friday night public television.  From this evening's episode, "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe":

Above: Prince Barin 's aide Roka (Lee Powell), Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), Dale Arden (Carol Hughes), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon), flanked by the Rock Men, prepare for action in FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (Universal, 1940), the last of the Flash Gordon serials. 

..."Keeping Things Whole"

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

--Mark Strand

...mom's cranberry tea

on a cold spring morning, sipping from the cup grandmother gave me when i was a little girl.  the sweet, citrus-y warmth gently shoos away the gloomy-day blues.

...twirly

dancing in the kitchen with giggles and sways and stomps and claps.  waiting for dinner to cook and daddy to come home.

...blue

Ross Bleckner "Falling Bird II"

"[As] we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it." --Goethe

...witchy harlibut

...carnivorously, furtively

gnawing on a chocolate bunny in the dark kitchen, hunched over.  bite after bite.  when i really just wanted a nibble. 

...a walk from the park

with a tall man to hold my hand and a small boy to scooter alongside us and an almost-toddler to ride on his daddy's shoulders.  We stick to the sunny side of the street, wood chips hitch-hiking in the cuffs of my jeans. 

...finding

a purple plastic child's exercise bike at the local mega-thrift store.  Like a toy kitchen--except an exercise bike.

...found art

...a clean kitchen floor

and the fresh, clean smell of mopping solution mingling with open-window air breathing through our house.

...finding frozen moments

in other peoples' lives.  This picture was in a collection of old family photos on my father's side.  We don't know who the children are, or if they're even related to us.  The only notation we have is "Children in Lucern."  It's a compelling photograph, though, in the way of most old pictures.  These children grew up and perhaps were known to others as parents and grandparents.  Yet all we have of them is this one moment, preserved forever in youth.

When I glance at it from a distance, I have to admit it's a little creepy.  But as I look more closely, I'm struck by how intimate it is to be able to examine someone's face: the droop of an eyelid, curve of the lips, brush of hair upon forehead.  I wonder what the photographer's ratty old carpet smelled like, what color the backdrop was, who else was there, and what scene existed beyond the camera's window back through time. 

...high tea

with sisters.

...yes

this is a swimming cap with a cluster of plastic dollar-store grapes affixed.  Homage to Esther.  Tonight we were blessed to witness a church talent show in which seven lovely ladies brought together synchronized stage swimming and Michael Jackson's Thriller.  Poetry in motion.

...fragrant strawrburries

...Easter lilies,

especially white star-gazer lilies--I love them.  Last year in late winter we bought bulbs and planted them in pots to grow in our home where they would breathe the freshness of spring into each day.  My hope was that they would be in full bloom when we brought home our new baby in June--and that lilies blooming on his birthday would be a tradition throughout his life.  They were beautiful.  Absolutely.  When they died, I cut down the stems and put the pots down in the basement to winter.  This year, I have brought them upstairs and started watering them once again in hopes of more spring beauty.  However, my flower pots are inhabited by a different white creature.  Each morning, I shuffle to the dining room east window where we keep our seedlings and plants, and each morning I am greeted by little white mushrooms in my lily beds.  I open the blinds to let in the glorious sunlight, and within an hour those little fun guys are withered down to the dust.  But I know they'll be back again tomorrow.

...the baby giraffe

at the zoo decided to fold up its legs to have a rest upon the ground.  The process involved something akin to the challenge of folding a road map, the undoing of which must have been just as complicated because he didn't get up again.

...putting off

my muddling a bread recipe of the unfamiliar-complicated-scary-gluten-free variety to giggle chat with a dear friend.  With potato starch fluffed across the recipe book and seventeen other flours and starches and meals standing in stiff crinkly packages around my work bowl, I half-heartedly tried to find the tapioca flour that I'm certain I bought because I can plainly see the packaging in my mind--and finally gave up to the happy moment of enjoying friendship and sharing.

...family

game nights where the games are secondary to the conversation.

...baby grows head

...spring-lings

...ignorance + self-expression

...gradual mornings

when feeble morning light filters through the blinds pointing down upon our rumpled sheets and the soft warm forms under them, steeping the room in thin cool blue--a blue that seeps into skin, cloth, metal, wood. and my son's deep-throated giggles at discovering the skin just under his chin is ticklish as I do a spidery finger dance across it. lying in our bed, the light slowly growing around us.

...onomatopoeia