What made you smile today?

This picture made me smile. Still has me smiling. How adorable. Just as a dog is a man's best friend ......so isn't a man, a dog's best friend. And not a better shoulder for one to rest it's darling head on :wink:

Another heartheating concert of The Durgas, the coolest live band to see in Budapest. This time they played Sark's garden pub on the Margaret Island - after the game, of course (Togo-France). I'd gone from work to a (very low-key) expo opening with Esther (which was a bit dull) to hanging out with her and two friends of her in a pub (which was cool) to meeting up with Susannah for the first time in a long time & heading out to Margaret Island with her, so I was still in mid-day jeans and t-shirt, but it's hot and stays hot here now anyway.

Everyone was there, a ton of Susannah's mates, this Moroccan who plays cool African-reggea-type sounds in Nababe on Fridays but turned out to be proud of his implantates-producing day job (he showed me a photo of him at work, and carried around a bit of implant-shoulderbone), some friendly woman who joined us who should call later about a film club she goes to, one of the guys who was at our conference, a drunk Anglo whom I knew from somewhere and kept grinning and saying incoherencies, and the entire staff of cafe E., god knows who was holding the fort there.

The Durgas played an acoustic set this time, on an improvised stage-thingie ("does anyone have an extra chair?") - behind them, the Danube, a boat on the other shore glittering with lights, the odd airplane passing overhead like a floating star, and like a slow fire burning they gradually attracted more attention, then won the hearts of those listening, and playing on and on like they always do just because they love it so, riffing from rock to reggea sounds, rapping and West-African vibes, inevitably came again to where people started dancing in front of them, some salsa-like some just jumping around, where people were kissing, falling in love, the mic was passed to a Spaniard and an African or vice versa who could sing well too, the drunk with the communist glasses, potbelly and England shirt who'd earlier grabbed my hand and showed off the "10" of his shirt had now joined in dancing wildly too, and then the guy who'd been half of the happiest couple Ive seen in years (he's a regular in the pub where Susannah works, on my square), he took out his gear and started firespitting, right in front of the musicians, taking mouthfuls of whisky and blowing huge towering mushroomclouds of fire into the evening sky, the band improvising the song to go along with it ("he is the fire man"), and then he took out a basket of glass shards, sweeping a table empty of drinks and strewing them out, and as the band cranked up their sound a bit and more people gathered round, jumped on the table and laid down on the glass, asking his brandnew girlfriend (who works in that pub) to come up and stand on him - performance!

Out of the blue, just like always something happens when the Durgas play, they invite some 10-year old kid up who starts bellowing a chant in the mike they fit a rhythm to, or they have an Armenian hoboist virtuosally joining them or whatever - but still, this midnight open-sky acoustic set with people dancing and the guy firespitting like it was f*cking Burning Man, it was remarkable, and really cool. I cant put my finger on why I love them so particularly, but I think its just because they make people so completely happy, the good vibes emanating so irresistably, that eventually, everyone's just elatedly blissful (and drunk .

Watching Kung Fu Hustle

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Getting my computer up and running with not much missing from it's set-up.

So, I went to UGA yesterday. It appears that they are so impressed with the fact that I took two years of Spanish thirty years ago, they think I should be slapped into the Intermediate Conversation for Legitimate Spanish Speakers clase. I have remembered about ten words. They are uno, dos, tres...

So, I was feeling a bit sarcastic and bubbled in all of the A's on the Scantron sheet. I was in a hurry to check on my apartment. The thing is these two really precious gay guys were manning the Spanish Placement test suite of cubicles, and when More Feminine Gay Spanish Placement Test Guy saw my A's all bubbled in, he shrieked the most hilarious Waylon and Madam shriek of laughter I've ever heard. If he had been wearing a sequins leotard and Liza Minnelli wig, he could not have been more gay....he completed his gay ensemble with his hand thrown to his mouth, and residual giggle. I couldn't help it. It cracked me up, so I was shrieking and giggling, so his unambiguously gay Spanish Placement Test Co-hort added in his giggles and Zsa Zsa hand gestures.

That was a significantly bizarre moment in my life. I smiled half the way home.

and you're you again on a2k!

I was really liking lilk part deux, but you're ok, too.

I had another smile.

I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree yesterday. I've never seen that before.

Early in the morning, every morning, there is a calculated death-match --an ecological microcosm-- played out in my backyard. There is a lovely panoramic canopy of branches and leaves shading the back yard I share with a couple of other apartments. The Squirrels want the pecans that have fallen from the massive pecan trees, and use the canopy like some Studio 54 of Squirreldom, where they are running around like crazy, pimpin for that pecan fix. It is a nutty squirrel highway up there. The ones who aren't in on that are sitting on my porch.

Every morning at 6:30AM, when I step outside to walk to my car, there is a mad dash of five --sometimes eight or so squirrels, who have spent their morning sitting in a little row on my porch, eating their pecans. They leave their shells, like a melange of pothead teenagers. They were taking over the neighborhood, until the cats showed up.

The squirrel glut has beckoned a posse of impressively crafty cats, which recently took up residence in the bushes beyond the yard. Sometimes, walking my dog Jack for his morning constitutional, I've seen cats prowling around tree trunks, or crouched like tigers, and I've watched the occasional mad cat/squirrel chase to the tree.

The squirrel always wins.

They have a victory dance, which involves shaking their fluffy tails, as they scramble out of the cat's reach. I'm sure the cat is humiliated. However, the jig is up for the squirrels.

There were about ten or so squirrels running across the canopy of trees above us, when suddenly, I saw one fall! I didn't know they COULD fall. He landed on his feet/tummy not too far from us, took a second to collect himself, and ran off. I looked up again, and saw what had freaked the squirrel out--there were three cats, having taken up three strategic positions in the tree tops. A wiry black cat had been poised at the end of the branch the squirrel had been happily running toward her at the speed of light. (LOL) I can imagine what it must have thought, seeing a grinning cat, waiting at the end of the branch.

The cats have organized.

<big grin>

Lash, you are herewith officially anointed the poster with the most awesome anecdote prose writing since Anastasia.

Stick around.

<purses lips>

<head grows astronomically>

<villagers begin to chase nimh>

Had a Yard Sale. I don't know if I was just feeling sort of cereally (surreally, in dys-speak) observant...or detached or what. I had a few lingering impressions.

So, Vignettes at a Yard Sale

I am throwing ballast over the rail, and planning to tread water until financial aid comes in--in August. My apartment in Athens is teeny. Tiny. The smallest dwelling I've actually ever seen. So, I had a Yard Sale Saturday. My former life was well-furnished.

Todas los mexicanos tiene my stuff-o. Statistically speaking, 80% my shoppers were Mexicanos. Late in the morning, a van pulled up, and a neatly dressed Mexican man emerged and hurried around the van to open the door for his wife. The two little children were so clean and neat and lovely. You can tell by children's appearances how they are loved, unless they've had time to screw it up. The husband and wife, though... I felt like such a spectator, like I was an errant imperfection on a beautiful, intimate greeting card. You could feel his adoration for her.

She was no more than 20, exotically beautiful, and had the most dramatic make-up on. Any other time, I think heavy, ornate eyeliner designs are garish and unattractive. In truth, any other time, I'd have chuckled derisively to myself over the whole spangly, tight pink ensemble and overdone face, tortured curls... Her seriously thick, tall stack shoes laced up her calf with sparkly pink ribbon... Fodder for Fashion Crucifixion any other day. But, I thought she was glorious, because I only got the one glimpse of her, really. The rest of the time, I surrepticiously watched her husband, watching her.

There's a song by Sting that has the line~ "When we dance, angels will run and hide their wings"~ It conjures an image of such a powerfully intimate love that it breaks the foundations of everything else you believe. I've never seen such unspoken love flow between people before, or maybe it's just been a long time. He held the smaller child, and never let go of his toddler's hand as they walked through my apartment, looking at my furniture. Saddled down with the burden of the two small children, he never lost the open, tender smile from his face, and never took his eyes from her, except to speak to me for her. He spoke to me in English, and translated softly to her.

Her pink, sparkly top stretched tightly across child #3, who could arrive at any minute. "She wants white, a white dresser."

"For the baby?" I asked. He looked at her, his smile softened, and he absently repeated, "...for the baby." I was disappointed for them, and said I didn't have anything white. He said a few words to her, and quickly they were filing out the door, precious, clean children and their young parents. I caught myself watching them for a moment, through the screen door.

watching a sugar art competition on the food network.

Received a postcard from my friend, actor Sab Shimono, because he's in a play, Good End, in San Francisco, so I made reservations for my wife and I to go see him on July 2.

I developed a little town house project on some of my land. The contractor put up the mailboxes; the bulky mailboxes that are common in rural areas of the US. Bulky things that when someone, not me of course, was a teenager provided a perfect target for drive-by swattings with a baseball bat from the shotgun seat.
For the sake of symmetry I guess, eight mailboxes were installed for the seven addresses. Hanging from the latch of mailbox #8 is a necklace.
It consists of a cheap metal chain with a little medallion depicting two hands clasped in prayer. It has been hanging there for a week now, unclaimed by its owner and not taken by anyone else.

Bitch slapped statistics and threw it out of my universe.

Decided I'd jumped through enough hoops, dropped the Eng Edu prog, and am comfortably lounging in the Eng AB prog, with a MAT chaser.

Ah, yes. Feel more relaxed already.

A happy, contented it's-my-world smile.

This is old news, but I had lunch with eight members from the 2003-2004 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury. Everybody looked pretty good, considered what some had been through. One of the members that carried over to the next grand jury was on the committee that investigated the Mayor of San Jose on the "under the table $11.5 million contract" that he was indicted on last week by the District Attorney. It's been front page news in the San Jose Merc for several days now, and many are calling for his resignation including the majority in the city council.

This is old news, but I had lunch with eight members from the 2003-2004 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury. Everybody looked pretty good, considered what some had gone through. One of the members that carried over to the next grand jury was on the committee that investigated the Mayor of San Jose on the "under the table $11.5 million contract" that he was indicted on last week by the District Attorney. It's been front page news in the San Jose Merc for several days now, and many are calling for his resignation including the majority in the city council.

i'm on the cover of provincetown journal. well, with other four people, frollicking in a swimming pool. you can't tell it's me, but hey, i know it's me. i was there! whee!

We have that magazine, here! I just happened to see it.... hey! There's Dasha!

Scan it, post it!

That is FABulous.

We must see!!!