Summertime & the livin is Patagucci & sparkling shiraz!
Happy summer solstice!
This is the day when the sun is the highest over head, shines the longest, and the dark is the shortest! Today, here, the sun rose at 5:43am and sets at 807pm. This year, the night sky is also graced with a moon just past full; tonight it rises at 10p or so (mountain dependent). When we wake in the morning, we’ll look out to watch it set into the sea. At my house it means the sun arcs through the northern windows in the morning and the moon shines through the southern windows at night. For ten years now, I have lived here and traced the sun and moon’s seasonal passage across my house and my life.
To celebrate summer solstice, we’re packing up for a weekend at the beach north of Malibu. We don’t have any specific rituals or plans like we do for winter–except I think I have been camping SOMEWHERE solstice for most of my adult life.
The weather is predicted to be PERFECT and I found the most fantabulous summer outfit at Great Pacific Iron Works, the original Patagonia store, which is just down the street here in Ventucky. This light brown shirt, made of organic cotton, is so soft, and cut so well that I have only taken it off this week for a job interview (no, I wasn’t barechested–but I did wear a different Patagonia t-shirt, a light blue one also of organic cotton–with a suit!!)
Not only is it the most comfy cutest t-shirt ever (those are little blue birds singing happiness in the trees and the roots are key words for sustainablity), but it’s part of Patagonia’s Vote the Environment campaign:
Common Roots T-Shirt
$30.00
Men’s | Women’s
$5 from the sale of each Common Roots T-shirt will go to HeadCount, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization devoted to voter registration and increasing participation in democracy.
I’ve been wearing it with this Patagonia skirt:
Summertime and the livin is Patagucci and sparkling shiraz!! See you by the water, at sunset!
Majella’s sparkling shiraz & taxes: perfect for a picnic
But we’re making progress! In fact, thanks to Annie, we should have all of our numbers squared away in their little boxes by Monday when Charles will help us use his Turbo Tax program.
And so, to say thanks to Annie, to celebrate the near completion of our taxes, and because it’s a beautiful, shimmery solstice eve here on the California coast, we popped the cork on a bottle of 2004 Majella sparkling shiraz.
What in the world is a sparkling shiraz, you ask?
Until a few months ago, that was my question too. A red sparkling wine? Good? At the idea, at the very suggestion, my mind immediately flew back in time to my high school prom, and having my date pop the plastic cork of the cold duck–red sparkling wine spilled all over my cream colored dress. We left the beach for a nearby McDonald’s where I washed my dress in the sink and used the hand dryer to dry it off enough for us to head to the prom just in time to get our pictures taken. (If I had a scanner, I would post the picture!)
The suggestion to try a sparkling shiraz came to me at the Grateful Palate Warehouse sale last April, and I thought I might as well give it a go. I bought two bottles, one by Trevor Jones (?) and one by Majella. The first we tried right after we bought it–I was just too curious and we had friends coming over for a tritip barbeque and I thought it would be fun. With serious trepidation, I let the cork fly to the delight of the gathered children, and poured. I hesitated at first, but Borbala and the Big Monkey went for it and came up for air with big, surprised smiles on their faces. “This is good, really good!” said Borbala happily. It’s bright, cheerful, bubbly nature was a perfect cheerleader for our evening BBQ on the deck, with the candles lit, and the evening coming in.
So when Annie offered to come over and run tape on some numbers for my taxes, I put the Majella in the frig and told the Big Monkey to pick up a larger piece of fresh wild Alaskan sockeye salmon at the store. Once we had the numbers done, I grabbed some glasses and the bottle, unwrapped the foil, and carefully carefully eased the cork cork out of the bottle. Eerie fog escaped out of the top of the dark bottle, and I gently poured the deep ruby liquid into our glasses. Much more beautiful than white sparkling wine!
“Cheers! To death and taxes, or to the death of taxes, to summer, to friends, to sparkling shiraz!”
This is a wine that makes you smile. Really! Maybe it’s a newbie grin. But it is so good, so surprising, such an unexpected pleasure.
“Earthy!” proclaimed Annie, and I agreed–earthy in the way that the peat influences and infuses a good Scotch, earthy in a way like the breath of the land at the end of a warm day…and then the fruit floods your tongue–blackberries, I thought, a bit tart and sweet at the same time but not too sweet–the sweetness a bit like plums grown in my grandpa’s yard in Bakersfield, the sweet fruit inside the tart skin. The bubbles floated up like tangy ocean spray. This tasted nothing like Read more…
the best pancakes: lemon/rosemary or blueberry; pumpkin spice; banana/raspberry or blueberry
As the warm almost summer moon air slips in the open orifaces of my house, I am thinking about pancakes and about sending out my pancake recipe to my dear friend poet and Burner nila northSun.
Among my family and friends, I am most famous for my chocolate frosting, my salads, my pancakes, my muffins, my scones, my ability to detect the most subtle onions, and my pancakes.
Pancakes, yes, pancakes, a bane of my youth since I always hated pancakes. Read more…
3:15 experiment: furniture for-nature poem
Mad Kane prompts us to write about furniture and furnishings which reminded me of this 3:15 experiment poem from 2004 (the 3:15 experiment, in case you are new to this blog, is where participating poets awake every night at 3:15am during August to write verse which they then post unedited at the 3:15 experiment wesbite. I’ve been doing the experiment since 2001–maybe you’ll join us in 2008!)
8/1/04 3:15am Ventucky CA
it’s not quite 315 and the
blue moon draws me across the empty living room
and waltzes me back
it’s not quite 315 and time to
write again
it’s not quite 315 and time to
bed again to lie sweet and warm
between my husband and my baby
<><><><>
it’s not quite 315am
blue moon fills up the empty living room
bounces off the shiny floor
trees pattern the walls
my furniture dances in the front yard
having escaped domesticity
couch pillows nestle against each other in the corner
hats off the hall tree
snuggle together in another
dining room table legs reach skyward
its table top kissing the ground
rolled Persian sprawls across it drunkenly
chairs do a two step
armoirs doors spill open
moon shows off
brown leather fringed jacket
dull against the bright white button down shirt
old family washstand liberated leans back against the armoir
big brown leather chair swathed in plastic against errant seagulls
it’s an inside out house waiting to be rightside in
it’s an upside down world waiting to be turned right side up
doors: a poem for mothers
My downstairs neighbor was giving me a key to his place
so I could come over and watch TV cuz my ex took his with him.
That’s Mother, said my neighbor.
I was looking at a young woman’s graduation picture,
his daughter i thought,
she resembled him–
fullness in her hair,
something about the eyes
the mixed smile
open to the world but cautious.
Behind the photo rested an urn.
Mother died on New Year’s Day,
he continued.
The young woman had crooked teeth,
a shining face, promise, dreams:
was she his daughter? niece?
My brother, he never did anything for her–
never visited her, he said.
He was the last one to see her–
he dropped her off after Christmas dinner–
she had a heart attack–
no one knew
til my sister went to check on her after Christmas dinner
when she didn’t answer the phone.
Mother was lying on the floor–
she was in the hospital a week–
she never…
Mother died on New Year’s–
she lasted that long–
but if she’d quit smoking after the first one…
well she quit last year but i guess it wasn’t…
I’m sorry, I said.
I got some coffee, ya want some? I’m gonna have some, he said.
No, that’s ok, I said.
I followed him down the hall
past a prosthesis–
a leg, a women’s leg
serving as a doorstop.
I wondered if it was Mother
holding the door open for him
for the girl in the picture
for me.
I published this poem as a broadside for ArtLife Limited Editions May 1997 copying an old family photograph in brown ink sepia like onto brown paper, then copying the text on top in blue, finally numbering and signing it in an edition of 200. I gave 105 to ArtLife and kept the rest to sell. If you are interested in one, let me know!
for other stories, go to readwritepoem…for other poems, take a ride on the poetry train
poem for my grandfather
my grandfather the deep sea diver
wore a heavy helmut he made
from a water heater
he kept it in his wine cellar
my aunt stole it from my mother
many years ago one day under sea
he walked around and around a rock
he heard my grandmother call and call
impatient he returned to her
gasping for air on the dock
he went to the Galapagos
diver on the first scientific expeditions
their eyes their ears undersea
he brought up creatures of interest
told stories of where how he found them
they put his name on the paper
a graduate of eighth grade
manny paquette
my grandfather
deep sea diver
undersea story teller
i knew you best frail
you taught me how to grow
your tomatoes for you
to work smart not hard
you dreamt of me once
taking care of your land
i am here still
doing your work
(It’s Fathers Day here and after seeing this image from my cat lulu I’m feeling nostaligic. For what I’m not sure. For other poem narratives, go to readwritepoem; for other poems take a ride on the poetry train. To get a copy of this image on a card, or for other cool handmade cards, check out my cat lulu’s esty shop!)
found poem: windy smart freecycle
1.Fit for life
2.Treat your own back
3.winning the Losing battle, Why I will never be fat again
4. 501 reasons why grandparents know best
5.Toilets of the world
6. Communicating with your dog
7. A new way of eating
8. The doctor’s quick inches-off diet
Conceptual Poetry Conference: now on-line
from the U of AZ Poetry Center:
Caught on Tape. Conceptual Poetry and Its Others
Conceptual Poetry and Its Others was a smashing success with poets coming from all over the map to explore and define the conceptual modes of some of our sharpest writers in English today. “This symposium is going to be remembered for a very long time,” one survey respondent remarks, “a major literary event!” (The animated graphic to the left is a take-off version of Caroline Bergvall’s Ampersand.)
THE ART PREDATOR’S PICKS: Read more…
Green Man: Burning Man 2007
We all knew that last year’s Black Rock Arts Festival aka Burning Man dubbed “Green Man” was not too green. We all asked: How can an event which centers around building and burning and traveling from the far reaches of the earth to an obscure desert playa in the middle of more or less nowhere Nevada be green in any way shape or form?? But hey, let ’em try. Reduce reuse recycle–sure why not.
While I was in Tucson, Laynie Browne recycled some Scientific Americans my way (thanks Laynie!) The blue ad on the back of the September 2007 issue was reused as note paper (11am Leon–we all walked over to the river thru the campground). The cover story is “Feast or Famine: The Global Paradox of Obesity and Malnutrition” and I unloaded it from the westie to the reading room where later I found these Burning Man 2007 predictions: Read more…
art predator 