Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 6

"Mena, Until," by Patricia Russo

This flash tale is about hope in a world of hot rain and ashes. Hope in a cold bucket. Hope actuated by a bright, sharp trowel. A waitful silence.

And Mena’s walking faster than I would have thought she could. The soles of her shoes glint silver in the gray afternoon light.

It's about Billy Behind Me. Look after him, Mena says. But when he touches the narrator's hand, we can feel it's a mutual looking after.

Mena, Until , by Patricia Russo

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Asakiyume takes on ... Disco Elysium!

I have started playing a video game! After the healing angel (youngest kid) told me about Disco Elysium, I thought, heyyyyy, I could try that. That sounds like something I might like. (I can't remember what she said that made me interested, but it was probably something along the lines of what raven says in her entry here about playing and loving the game. In fact, it was reading Raven's entry that CONFIRMED me in my desire to try the game.)

For context, I have played approximately zero video gam...

Wednesday Reading: Deck the Halls with Secret Agents

A Christmas story by Aster Glenn Gray that I only got to reading now, in February--but just two days until Valentine's Day, and it's a romance, so that fits! And it's very wintery where I am right now, which fits in with the setting of the story, a snowed-in chateau.

George and Nikolai have been rivals (and secret lovers) in a US-Soviet game of spy-versus-spy for 20 years, but it's December 1991 now, and the jig is about to be up for those sorts of games ... but not before the two find themselve...

snowflakes

The snowflakes were very beautiful this morning (you can click through to see them larger)







(  one more--blurry, but I like the sparkle of it  )

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asa-no-ha moyō; a father's face

Asa-no-ha moyō

My third kid, Little Springtime, was born in Japan. Friends there gave us baby clothes for her that had this pattern on it. We were told that traditionally, this was a protective pattern that will keep babies safe.

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I thought I'd like to make a quilt with this pattern for my arriving-in-April grandchild, so I wanted to find it online so I'd be sure to get it right. But I didn't know the name for the pattern. Imagine my amusement when I found out it's 麻の葉文様, asa-no-ha moyō. "Moyō" me...

February Fancy

Here are three photos for you. Two I've shared elsewhere on the interwebs, so some of you will have seen them before, but the first one is making its world premiere right here, right now!

Dancing a cumbia with a candle.

Last month we went to see Yeison Landero and his band play cumbia in Amherst. ( Here's what his music is like --he throws his head back and goes into a beatific trance as he plays.) It was marvelous.



When we were last in Colombia, we had one very brief session of learning to dance ;-)...

Wild ice and confused stars

(  wild ice  )

(  confused stars  )

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How will you triumph?

This was my microfiction for yesterday (prompt was "by," of all words)

"How will you triumph?" the old man asked the opponents.

"By feats of arms," said the knight.
"By hook or by crook," said the con artist.
"By the grace of God," said the cleric.
"By logic," said the philosopher.
"By luck," said the gambler.
"By sleight of hand," said the stage magician.
"By attrition," said the field marshal.
"By default," said the loan shark.
"By consensus," said the negotiator.
"By acclamation," said the populist.

co...

Uso Kae (鷽替）

Sayuri Sasai is a Japanese artist who draws attractive, informative comics about daily life in Edo Period (1600–1868) Japan and shares them on Instagram.

The other day, she shared about a ceremony that originated in the Edo Period, Uso Kae--Bullfinch exchange. ( Here's a link to the original post , but below are screenshots of the images for those of you who can't access Instagram.)

Uso (Eurasian bullfinch, but in Japan it's the grey-bellied subspecies, with just a touch of rosiness on its throat i...

Frost and ice

It's cold here.

The water in the marsh froze clear--where it's deep, you can see all the growing things, the mud, the bubbles ... the tossed cans... frozen in it. In shallower places, you can see the marsh grass is frozen in it and on it, held down by hoarfrost stitchery.



On the paths in the woods, water in the soil has frozen in the formation known in Japan as 霜柱 (shimo bashira), frost pillars. Sometimes they look like ribbon candy, other times like tiny stalactite formations, and other times, a...