Yesterday morning, my car engine hiccuping and pausing when I started it, I drove to the car repair place. The service fellow told me they could check it out at 4. So, I left to do some errands, the car running pretty good. I spent a few minutes at the computer repair place, then got back into the car. It wouldn't start, quiet as a doornail. The noonday sun was hot when a pop-a-lock guy arrived half an hour later. He started the engine with jumper cables, and agreed to follow me to the repair shop. Every light turned red as I approached, so it took a while. I frequently glanced up at the rearview mirror, comforted to see the little pop-a-lock vehicle behind me. About a mile from the destination, I noticed the needle of the gas gauge was WAY below EMPTY. For the first time, I felt a bit of panic. Had someone emptied my tank? It was over half full the day before. Then I saw NONE of the gauges were working, the speedometer on zero, the engine temperature gauge drooping down to colder than cold. The car was hot, the air conditioner silent as well. I was is a rush of traffic, and so pulled to the right lane to slow a bit.

Up ahead was the left turn into the service shop. The pop-a-lock guy beeped his horn and sped on his way. I changed lanes, rolled up into the driveway, started to shift into reverse to park when I realized the engine was now completely dead. Struggling with the frozen steering wheel, I pointed it forward to the nearest spot. We rolled almost all the way in before coming to a complete and silent stop.

I counted my blessings, checked in with the service guy, and walked home. They outfitted the car with a new alternator and a battery. I walked back to the shop, paid the bill, retrieved the doctored vehicle, drove home with a pizza, and all is good.

in praise of sticks -

Perhaps we don't think of sticks as living, but they can be.

Old sticks may be alive in the sense of what life forms their decomposing matter is supporting. There may be lichens on the bark, mites or insect eggs in the inner tissue. An old stick can be a small ecosystem of its own!

New sticks can be living in and of themselves, apart from the parent tree or shrub, with the capacity to reproduce. A twig laying on the earth among moist leaves and debris may shoot out roots to create a new plant.

Neither boring nor trashy, sticks are treasure!

Not necessarily true in real life, but oddly, in the game of chess, one could do worse than be a pawn. One could be king.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

tossed to the street
curled one into the other
they glisten with raindrops
light shifts across their nooks and curves
the shyness of leaves

bowls of candlelight
in the daylight
magnolia blooms
float on the tree

The first sentence of the Wiki article for 'smoke signal' is this: The smoke signal is one of the oldest forms of long-distance communication.



( Image of a 1905 painting by Frederic Remington, via Wikimedia Commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frederic_Remington_smoke_signal.jpg )

Native American Indians come to mind with the term 'smoke signal', but communicating this way has been used by other cultures, too. I like the thought of the Chinese on The Great Wall passing messages at night some 400 or so miles along the wall, station to station. You gotta wonder though, if, like with kids playing telephone, the message that reaches the end of the wall isn't a lot different from the one that was started at the beginning!

This is an image of a nature print of a fern by Alois Auer, created in the mid-1800s, offered via Wikimedia Commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nature_print,_Alois_Auer_.jpg




This is an image of nature printed North American currency by Benjamin Franklin, offered via Wikimedia Commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Franklin_nature_printed_currency_sheet_1779.jpg

The process of nature printing uses the desired subject itself (for example: leaves, flowers) to create a pressure imprint on a surface then used to make prints.