Summer

Summer is almost here...I was sure of it Tuesday night. I was out at ten pm walking to the convenience store, wearing a jumper with a thin short-sleeved shirt under it. There was rain on my face--a fine cold pin-prick rain--but it wasn't cold enough for a jacket. As I came around a corner the breeze down the open street was a little chill, but not unpleasant. And I was out at that time of night because I wanted sunscreen for the following day! DS had a field trip to Wild Waves. Sunscreen and batteries.

DS is using a screen name of Discreet, and has set up his own blog Life with a Weird Mom. He will be posting here occasionally as well.

A Viable Third Party Candidate?

When I discovered this site, I enjoyed not just a chuckle, but a series of good laughs.

Mark Twain for President! It's all here--slogans, buttons, bumper stickers, interviews.

It is the work of Jim Zwick, who also publishes a more serious look at Mark Twain and a very large collection of articles and source documents on anti-imperialism in the early 20th century. Some of the material is eerie. If you substituted "Iraq" for "Cuba" or "the Phillipines," it might have been written this week.

By a house in the country, where I lived for several years, there was a willow, over 50 years old, planted by my landlady's mother. This is a shot looking up into the winter branches--I used it as the photo for my Themestream index page titled "A Tree by the Stream." And in fact, a little stream ran through the blackberry thickets a few yards downhill. We used to have a hammock slung under the tree.  

This is me with Dusty, an 8-month old Australian Shepherd puppy. She couldn't adapt to city life and had to go to a new home when we moved into town. This pic is a few years old. 

Introductions

I've been putting off starting a blog because I didn't feel that I had much to say. Today I feel I'm brimming over, but I'm tired and I have the sense not to follow all those bunny trails at once. I expect my blog to ramble around between the literary, the political, Christian life, and the mundane--what's happening in my home and my life. Right now I'm working on notes for a persuasive speech (for a speech class) and some of my thinking will probably spill over here as I work it out. General theme, but not yet a fully developed thesis: If you are outraged by the Abu Ghraib scandal, speak up--translate your outrage into democracy in action.

My blog title, "A Tree by the Stream," was also the title for my "index" page at Themestream, where I published some poetry a few years ago. An interesting adventure in literature and greed; but I write more and better when I have an attentive audience, and Themestream gave me that. Long-time net friends may also remember my home page "A Sparrow's Nest" with its diary "Garden and Wilderness Notes."

Blessings.