notes from my birthday month

[elisem]

 Today I opened the front door to see if the mail had arrived, and found that the clump of sunflowers at the bottom of the first section of front steps was full of goldfinches, who exploded upward. They we unutterably beautiful, and so bright they seemed to shine with inner light. 

It was a wonderful thing.

Seen anything wonderful lately?

Comments

[madgastronomer]

Oh, how lovely!

[madgastronomer]

...actually, you might like this.

Every month, I attend an (online) Death Cafe. It's a discussion group about "death, dying and life". It's a terrific one, I've been going for ten years or more, I'm so glad it made the transition to online during the pandemic -- so glad I pushed for that and made it happen, really. But I couldn't have done it alone.

Tonight, I brought up death in fiction as a topic. And possibly because I've been thinking about my own father a lot lately, and I have Feelings about Miles and Aral (though Aral is a much, much better human being than my father)... what I brought up was the end of Cryoburn, and "Count Vorkosigan, sir" and the drabbles. I don't think I properly communicated anything about it to the group, but that's okay. I went back and read just those bits, and cried good tears, and that's a moment of beauty for me for today.

I know Lois is a friend of yours, so I thought you'd like that.

[davidgoldfarb]

Well, I went to see a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. I probably wouldn't have heard of it, except that my cousin's girlfriend was in it. The fairy costumes were all individualized and very wild; I gather that is not customary for Iolanthe but I thought it worked well here. The original lyrics of the show make a reference to "Captain Shaw", the founder of London's fire brigade; this was updated to local Houston entrepreneur "Mattress Mack". I was at the first performance, where they brought Mack himself on stage for a cameo, to great audience approval. (I'm told that later performances used a cardboard cutout.)

[mrissa]

Does your group know about the online magazine The Deadlands as a locus for death fiction? If not, may I commend it to you all? https://psychopomp.com/deadlands/

[mrissa]

Our garden is raised beds, and right now I have to walk under an arched branch that is thick with green tomatoes in order to get to all the tomatoes.

[madgastronomer]

I hadnt heard of that before, no. I'm all excited to read it now! Thanks!

[skibbley]

Lovely

[jenett]

On the topic of beautiful and bright, and also a simple pleasure, I grew a nasturtium! It is sitting right outside my door being very orange.

(It's my first time trying to grow them, and this has involved a pot, a starter, and occasionally peering at it and going 'you look a little dry' and adding some water. It's next to my herb garden box, which is being effusive about basil right now.)

[ellen_fremedon]

I heard the raven! I saw a pair of them, last fall, eating out of dumpsters behind the medical offices near my house, and I've been hoping to see them again ever since--I thought I caught a glimpse a few weeks ago, but I wasn't sure. But two weeks ago I heard one calling from a stand of trees on the edge of my neighborhood! I fired up Merlin and confirmed it--Common Raven, a rare sighting for my zip code.

[ceb]

I had the same happen to me with sparrows on our giant hollyhock, which, while less yellow, was equally delightful :-)