via www.flickr.com

Another fossil from the ones people gave me for Christmas last year.

The whirl of the spiral, and the shine of the shell are hypnotic.

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I studied geology as an undergraduate, lo these many many years ago. I liked life, but blood and guts made me queasy, so clearly what was required was ossified life! Fossils were the perfect form of life for me to study; not squishy, not smelly, mostly rock, and yet still retaining the flourishes that life is famous for. It all made me very happy, until I graduated into the Reagan budget cuts, and only oil companies were hiring geologists. So I went to grad school and studied maps instead, and had another, different happy life instead. But fossils still make me absurdly happy.

Trilobites are entirely extinct, even though pill bugs look like them. It was a great parenting moment when Alice looked at the scuttling pillbugs under the climbing thing in the backyard and asked if they were trilobites. Sadly, no, but good guess.

Yesterday's circle was made but flickr was misbehaving, so you'll have to look for it there.

via www.flickr.com

A wild turkey, for the day after Thanksgiving. I made a circle yesterday too, but it was small and silly, and if you want to see it you have to go find it on Flickr.

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I like moths in the abstract, and out of doors. I like their feathery antenna, and the soft and discreet colors many of them sport, and I sympathize with their summer night yearning at the moon and various lightbulbs. When they eat my yarn, or nest in the flour I get upset. But mostly I like them. They are the insect version of owls.

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I seem to have slipped sideways from things that are known psychopomps, beings that escort souls after death, to things that make me feel lucky or happy.

There are eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism. I'm closer to being Buddhist than anything else, but I found I needed different symbols.

When Alice could just barely talk, we were walking in town and playing at the playground when a ladybug landed on her hand. She stared at it, transfixed as it crawled across her palm, and then flew away. When we got home, she sat on her father and told him, with hand gestures:

Ladybug! Tickle my hand. Flew away! Outside.

So ladybugs are favorites of mine.

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Friday I finished the little cephalopod (octopus).

Then I took two other people's children to MIT to go to a weekend full of classes. Students and grad students at MIT were offering classes in everything joyfully geeky. There were a dozen different programming language classes, philosophy, Calvinball, making chain mail (above), global finance, voting systems and another dozen languages. Each class went on for one or two hours. The kids were exhausted at the end, but cheerful. For the adults it is fine if the kids can be left on their own to find food and friends in between classes. If one has to wait around, it strongly resembles waiting in an airport, except the Wifi is amazing. This year I spent less airport time, and got to putter around Harvard Square catching up with a friend from High School that I hadn't seen since, well, high school.

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I realized some of these are my own personal psychopomps – the red efts are preludes of spring. Finding one always makes me happy – they are such good colors, and so elegant.

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I know the little bird looks really odd – it had an odd history. At Family Camp several years ago, someone else's child drew this bird, and I loved it. So in woodshop, I made a wooden model of it. I've kept it on the windowsill for the last several years, and every time I look at it, I feel slightly off balance, figuring out which legs it is standing on. It helps me think a little bit sideways.

In Korea and China a three legged bird represents the sun and power.

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I worked hard today. I finished a small piece, and mounted and framed four pieces. Mum – I trimmed the edges of the two I brought home from your house, and stitched the edges so they are a little tidier. I think I owe you one big lovely piece, that is all yours that I will not ever, ever take away.

I'm not sure why I work harder or longer in rainy weather. I think it is the ongoing feeling that the horses deserve time off when the weather is ugly, and it helps me focus on things inside.

Today's circle is more owls. I like that they are a shape that can be so easily stylized or made more realistic. So I made three very stylized owls.

via www.flickr.com

Epona is associated with horses, and (possibly only in my mind) with white horses. Probably because I think of the Connemara ponies as being important in that part of the world, and all of my favorite Connemara ponies are gray.

It was an exciting weekend. On Saturday I met some people who only existed online, and then ate out and then went to see the Valley Light Opera version of Patience. I have a deep and inexplicable affection for Gilbert and Sullivan, particularly local versions of it. This version of it was costumed from the 1960's with some very vibrant color combinations, but the rest of the production was solidly and joyfully recognizable.

On Sunday we celebrated Pre-Thanksgiving. Originally designed as an excuse to eat turkey with our family of choice, and feed starving graduate students, it has evolved over the years to the closest thing I'll get to longitudinal survey. We've been doing this since 1981. Since then there have a been far too many post-graduate degrees, a lot of marriages and only a few divorces, and many babies, the earliest of whom have graduated college and started their lives. None of us are grandparents yet (which is good – we are all MUCH too young!!)

So today was dedicated to sleeping late and running errands and returning Aerin to school.