Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 94

Mangroves and Everglades

I've returned from paddling among mangroves and exploring the Everglades. It's hard to know where to begin, so I'm going to just plunge in any which way, and probably intersperse Florida-related LJ entries with other entries.

Why the Everglades? Many reasons. But, most basically, how could I not love a place that is neither water nor land. It's interphase, neither solid nor liquid. The sky is under your feet; the water is in the air; it's a supremely liminal place.



Along the horizon, you could...

Away for a week

We're away for a week, hopefully exploring mangroves and Everglades but not tangling with crocogators or allodiles.

See you when we return!

Skunk crossing

Some skunks decided to bring their babies into the world behind a pizza place in town. I was so touched to see these signs. The response might have been "Ewww, smelly!" But instead it was these.

For your next story

I had an entry I'd planned to do, but I can't actually do it just yet, so have some pictures, instead. They're from a cafe a few towns over.

Here are the sacks of coffee and the roaster.


And here is a chest of drawers for putting (we think) Chinese medicines in--reminds me of the wall of drawers behind Kamaji in Spirited Away, that contained different healing bath additives. (Maybe now it's used to hold tea?)


(Here are Sen/Chihiro and Kamaji, with the wall of drawers--oh, and also Haku)


And here...

Everyone here was someone else before**

Having enjoyed a number of hits from Taylor Swift's 1989 album, I decided to buy the CD. And I enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) it very much! It's a rumination on the various ways you can feel and react during a love affair, how you can feel such intensely contradictory things at different moments (or in different relationships, but really, almost all of the emotional states could be reactions to the same relationship, but in different moods and states of self-perception).

I lent it to Wakanomo...

Walking in another's shoes

It's rare that you actually live out a metaphor, but that's what happened to me not yesterday, but last week at the jail. (I have stories stored up to tell you, LJ... I'm going to reach even further back for the next one)

One of the many many rules, when you're volunteering, is that you can't wear sandals or open-toed shoes. I don't know why. It's just a rule. My footgear in summer is rubber flip-flops, so I have to be very careful on Fridays that I remember to put on proper shoes. One time la...

What is green? What is grass?

Something gold, something fiery

Something gold, something fiery
slipping from a sky-cast net
peeking through pines
flaming, molten,
along the line of the hills

hummingbird courtship

I heard an unusual twittering outside yesterday, so went to see what bird it was making the odd noise, and it turned out to be hummingbirds. A male ruby-throated hummingbird (I can't remember when last I've seen a male before--not for ages), flashing that jewel throat, was swooping down in great parabolas on a bush with abundant, deep-throated pink flowers (weigela) in my neighbor's yard, where a female was feeding. I looked up this behavior and found out he was courting. Well--I was quite im...

Articles on a bouquet of topics

One of the day-job hats I've been wearing recently--one that's kept me busy--has been guest editor of a magazine on community development, mainly in New England. The first issue with me as guest editor is out! The cover story is "Growing Inequality in Life Expectancy and Benefits for the Elderly" --basically, protections that are in place to help people in their old age end up benefiting the wealthy more than the poor, because the wealthy live longer. Even taking into account their greater inp...