Here's our Saturday.
here

Here are the nine ways in which my long fingernails come in handy, in no particular order:

1. Wonderful for scratching backs (humans) and chins & behind-the-ear-regions (dogs)
2. They make my fingers appear to be longer than they really are
3. In a pinch, I can use them as tiny standard screwdrivers
4. Scratch-n-sniff all day long, baby!
5. For lightweight but toasty dishes, my nails function as teensy hot pads at the ends of my fingers
6. Available for use as lethal pointy talons or claws, provided I have a pair of nail clippers and two minutes lead time
7. They make a fun clicky sound when I type
8. When I need to dead-head the marigolds, and I can't find my special marigold-dead-headding shears, my nails neatly snip off the wilty blooms
9. My nails slice right into banana skins, enabling me to open and begin peeling the banana without squishing the end into a gross mess of mushiness

I got a Transmogrifier XC for my birthday. The XC is a remake of the original from 1988.
If you see me with it, or even think I might have it on me (i carry it almost everywhere) watch out.  If you provoke me and I take aim, your only hope may be to shout a fun suggestion just before I pull the trigger.

Here's the video companion to yesterday's post.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bwahahahahahahahahahah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blatherty blah. Ha.

Kyle says I don't have to post. But I don't think he minds if I do go ahead and post. He's smiling. Well, now he's scratching his ear. And messing with plastic bags. Oh, he's folding them. He does a really good job at this (and many many other things). I've told him that I, too, can fold plastic bags. Haven't shown him yet, but I will. Most of our plastic bags are from Pete's Market, and we use them to clean up after Roxanne on walks (she has well-working digestive & excretory systems). Now he's reading... he does things faster than I can type them all. And we just learned about haptic-- inspired by the minimalism book he's reading, and aided & abetted by Google & Wikipedia. Roxanne barked at passersby, Kyle shushed her, he read some more, and as he reads he twiddles the Polaroid picture he uses as a bookmark. And we're listening to Leonard Cohen sing, and now I'm gonna go fold a plastic bag and show it to Kyle.

I finally figured out how to scan the negatives from a roll I shot on a Holga a couple months ago when we were visiting my parents.  Here they are with captions because you can't tell much by looking at them.

my brother and Rusty in the backyard:

skateboarding:

another day of skateboarding:

Double exposure:
1: Me falling off the skateboard
2: Roxanne giving Shannon a skateboard ride down the street

My dad holding up a pot or bowl that said something that I liked but because I'm so great at shooting out of focus with this camera we'll never know what it was:

My mom and Shannon walking toward church:

People walking out to the shed to see the newborn kittens:

Happy birthday to Kyle,
You always make me smile,
Plus I'm madly in love with you,
Happy birthday, dear Kyle!





P.S. Thanks to our niece, Rory, for the drawing of Kyle & me

The one cleanish spot in our apartment (you can see the mess in the mirror).

A week ago we went to the Printer's Ball.  We saw some buttons on chairs...

a working letterpress (i got to run a sheet through the machine once the inebriated loud girl finally got out of the way so others could print), bookmaking, lots of local small press books and magazines (including scores of journals and anthologies filled with lame poetry), had some great peach beer from Missouri, and saw the IcyDemons.

You can only see the back of his head in this picture, but Shannon says that the lead singer has a lot of teeth.

On the way home from Michigan we stopped at the Arts Center in Buchanan.  The old ladies who run the place talked to us for over an hour about horses and ceramics and roxanne (who was allowed to come inside when one of the ladies saw us tying her to a tree outside) and horses and sculpture and other dogs and horses.  These bugs were done by local kids in a weekend workshop thing.

Another cafe, this one in Niles, MI

some cafe in Berrien Springs, MI

I had a pecan waffle.  Our waitress said the pecans were fresh, whatever that means.  It was also her birthday so I arranged all our dishes and the table condiments in a nice pattern that she would find after we left.  Sadly I didn't take a picture of my masterpiece.

A week ago we spent a couple days at a cabin in SW MIchigan.

The road to the cabin:

The cabin:

The swing in the front yard:

The fire pit:

A turkey:

The Roxanne ride:

doorstops

Today Kyle has been taking doorstops to fantastic new heights and riffing on books (some of them doorstops of a sort, some great, most somewhere in between).  You should see what he's been up to.  Once he adds some photos, you can. 



P. S.  This is really me (Shannon) posting again.  So those who were worrying that Kyle had become rather big-headed and was referring to himself in the third person, stop worrying.  He's fine.  Well, I think he's amazing, actually.

Ode to picking peaches in Michigan

We pick fine peaches, we pick very fine peaches,
We stretches our arms to pick the peaches we reaches,
For our arms are all long and the peaches hang low,
So we reach heaps of flaming-fine peaches, you know,
And we takes the peaches we reaches to fine Michigan beaches...
Then we eat them.