'fruit' flies, not 'hot sauce' flies.

I've fallen into the habit of placing a little morsel of food, whatever it is I might be snacking on at home, into an upturned kombucha bottle cap placed outside, just so, on the window sill. I do it as an offering of thanks, acknowledgment of abundance, appeasement of the insect gods, because I think it's kinda fun.

This evening (ed. note: this was a few days ago), while I supped on my beans and rice, the fruit flies would not let me be. ah yes, I had forgotten to dish them out a serving. silly me! but then, even after mounding their bottle cap bowl with half a dozen grains of rice, a bean and an ear of corn, they still hovered. what gives? – oh, I see. perhaps there is something to serving them first. before the way liberal application of tabasco sauce. the flies, it would seem, have not the same tolerance for spice as I do. my apologies. next time, bugs first, human last.

Happy Belated Bastille Day to you, er, vous.

at work the other day, wednesday the 14^th of july to be exact, I was a little careless in wiping the dust off the sill and toppled over one of the 5 small Buddah figurines. it landed on the counter with little to do. well, almost, I realized as I picked up the now headless little Buddah body. I studied the clean break to figure out my next move and to contemplate how much, if any at all, negative karmic value this accident had versus what I wanted to do: place the Buddah and it's little severed head on the registration table with a post it note exclaiming 'Happy Bastille Day!' My boss humored me for a minute but her laughter ended with a decisive veto. sigh. I guess bloody French revolutions and pranayama are not the most compatible. somebody point me to the super glue.

I is hung over.

kinda. I was lying in bed this am trying to figure out why I was so groggy and why my head hurt. ah yes, I vividly recall drinking half a glass of red wine with my cousin Carol while choppiong veggies dinner last night. oh Idaho, you're really bringing out the wild in me.
I'm sitting in the living room with my great aunt and great uncle. uncle Ralph is talking about hooking up the trailer to the pickup. I can hear his belly gurgling from across the room. he's on his way to 90 (a capricorn! I love capricorns!). aunt Phyllis is absentmindedly sushing her little dog, looking away at times from the tv at the door to the upstairs where her grandkids are audibly up and getting ready.
there are giant mirrors all over the house, hung at a precarious forward tilt. one dangles directly above the computer. what's up with that? I thought when I first got in. but now I get it, they see better than they hear. from this chair I can see the road outside, the tv to my left, the door the the upstairs, the tomatoes in the kitchen window sill with a view to Carol and Randy's house. the clouds are lazy in the sky. the microwave is in high gear. aunt Phyllis is offering chocolate soy milk to the kids. the black kitten has chased some birds up the tree in front. cousin Randy is drinking tea, talking about weedwacking.
my tea is all out, and my attention is being drawn back to the three pacing dogs, the tv on mute, my aunt retelling a story from yesterday, the smell of microwaved bacon. time for some folgers.

oh, what have I signed up for.

my sister signed up for a marathon. she preceded this news with a 'I just did something crazy.' I braced myself for the news and tried not to imagine her atop some high precipice with an elastic cable strapped to her body. (yes, bungee=crazy). I sighed at the thought of running many miles and wished her luck. before my brain could even thought bubble the words 'yeah, no thanks,' she asked me to be her running buddy. dead in my tracks I stopped. uh, I will think about it, was my reply.
and I did. but my past peripheral experience with marathons has left me with the pretty sound opinion that that is really not for me. a 5k thru the woods with 5 friends is a good time. 41.85(ish)k on concrete with a ton of sweat wicking tank tops and mesh lined shorts wearing strangers? not so much for this one. I will be supporting my sis in other ways, monetarily, nutritionally, cheerleaderily.
but, in the spirit of things done in excess. I have signed myself up for my own sort of crazy. a literary feat of endurance in the form of WRITING 575 HAIKUS. (why 575? cuz that's the 3 line syllabic formula for a haiku.) I got started/inspired in April, Month of Poetry, and cranked out over 50 of them. so why not just write 525 more? and so I shall. originally, I was giving myself till October, which is when the marathon is. but I have not been able to sustain the pace of writing that I started at, so I'm giving myself one year from this past April. and to monitor my progress, I have started another blog:
FIVEHUNDREDSEVENTYFIVE.blogspot.com
five seven five was taken. and I didn't, until just now, think of using numbers instead of spelling it out, but no matter. it has begun. and ok, so far, as of this posting, there are only 5 haikus listed, but I'm just getting warmed up. many more to come. . . I just spent a few solid minutes debating on turning that last sentence into a haiku but thought better of it. . .
if you want to support me in this endeavour, check out my haikus and comment should you feel moved.
and if you want to support my sis, check out her link:
http://afc.aidschicago.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=906&frsid=12657