Nov 11
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Another patchy background.

I’m not entirely sure what kind of nut this is. Although after looking about on Google I think it is a black walnut. Beechnuts are small and triangular, maple keys are helicopters, hickory nuts are not visible and all the acorns are gone (but I have some caps that Aerin can whistle with – they shriek in a most amazing fashion). Plus there is a black walnut tree dying in the neighbors’ yard. The world’s fattest and sassiest squirrels bring the nuts onto my back porch and make loud noises of ownership while they peel off the heavy green outer covering, and crack these extremely knarly interiors to get at the meat. Then they throw the shells around. When they aren’t scheming on how to get in the house so they can eat whoopie pies and smartfood.

Yesterday nothing went as planned, so I gave up. Alice and a neighbor and I went to the Smith College Art Museum for their family fun day. The neighbor really is a cheerfulness pill. Even though I was aggravated and on the verge of tears when we started, I had cheered up by the fabric store where I stopped in and allowed as how I was going to completely miss the journaling class. From there we went for bagels for lunch and then hit the museum.

The theme for the the day was book art. We got to make our own books (star books, and accordion fold books) and then paint a book-shaped box with fabulous colors and stick things on it, then try to make a projected picture that looked bizarre until you looked at it in a cylinder. I realized on the way home that I had been taken out for an art date by a pair of 10 year olds. I made two great little books that I want to actually put things in instead of saving for some special project. I have a little booky-box that I want to make a dolly to go in. And then maybe write a story about her. So I thnked them very much and went to make my postcard.

Today I just went and sat in the coffee shop and pretended I was 25 again. I covered a postcard with triangles, invented two different ways of filling triangles with triangles, and wondered if there was a triangular coordinate system. Then I went home and resumed family life.