Pig flew over the moon

...and the story blew up like a balloon.

As the news of the swine flu broke last weekend, Ian and I were on another planet. Planet Langham of the Luxury star system, in the galaxy of Lavish. The New York Times is delivered on this planet. It's actually one of the last places in the universe where delivery of printed news still exists. That's how we found out about the fear of pandemic on Earth.

Planet Langham, on the other hand, was quiet and serene. Creatures roaming there were healthy, relaxed and well fed. The sun shone on flowers and cocktails, and had it not been for that paper and the TV broadcasting Earth stories, we might never have known there was anything wrong at all. At least not until we checked out that afternoon and flew home on the 101 North in our Mercedes spaceship.

Click here to see more images from Planet Langham...

What's that you say?

It's Saturday!

Goodbye. I'm going out to play... 

and listen to Harry Belafonte.

lookin' at it

I was so looking forward to a sunshine Friday. Instead I awoke to gloom.

"Finally, a day without a schedule," I thought, "and there're gray clouds all over the sky. No hot, sandy beach adventure for me."

Then I thought, "but I do love the color gray..." and I tilted my head a little to the left. There was a little bit of sunshine after all.

a toast to Saturday

Here's to cocktails the color of spring sunshine and details of a front porch garden.

Ooooh, I just love a tea party!

While I am usually a coffee drinker, I do very much like tea, and really, coffee party just doesn't sound as fun. And then there are those large scale and famous tea parties like that one they threw in Boston several years back, though I heard the tea left much to be desired (far too salty).

I was so surprised to hear about the huge tea party held on Wednesday. No one thought to invite me and it in fact wasn't even until yesterday that I heard about this nationwide event. There were giant tea parties in every state they say, even one right here in Ventura. These parties sound from the news reports to have been very exciting, almost Wonderlandesque, with people described as "mad" and carrying signs that make no sense like "We are Obummed Out" and "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" and "Our granddaughter is not born yet. But she is already broke." How can an unborn child be broke? None of the babies I know have much cash at all. Had I known this was going on, and had I not been working, I might have attended one of these tea parties. I would have even brought my own sign, something like "More Earl Gray! With Cream and Sugar!"

Well, it's sounds like a wild event and I'm sorry to have missed the spectacle. I really didn't even notice that anything out of the ordinary was going on Wednesday. I was far too busy working and then rushing to file my tax extension.

by any other name

I always skip the first page of a sketchbook because of all the pressure. Instead of staring at that blank and beautiful first chance to create a masterpiece, I turn to the second and just create. So it is when I come to naming things. There are beautiful names, books of them. Mothers and fathers pour over the options. There are titles in the passing phrases of writers who've put words together more eloquently than... 

So, I've waited until now to create a blog because I always got stuck at the part where I had to create a name. Without a second page to skip to, I just left the first one blank for a long long time. After all this, I have finally decided to name this blog for an association with which I have long been acquainted, The Board of Lucys. There are many of us, my mom and dad and brother of course. There's also most of my father's side of the family including those relatives that remain in Italy. While we are many, we are not commonly known. Only once in a great while does one of us receive a letter addressed to "So & So (insert first name here) from The Board of Lucys."