Bob's Grabbag

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Ridgeline Shelter Reached in Time - Harriman Park

Panting, you relax, enjoy that elemental comfort - sitting dry beneath a roof. The first of heavy raindrops spots the arid stones outside and puffs the dust that now begins to dervish through the heaving bracken, counterpoint to rolling rainclouds boiling from the south. The welcome breeze from... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Appalachian Trail Shelter: late dusk

Focus as you tent the twigs above the little beech leaves - only that and nothing more. Take off the gloves, tear loose one match and strike it, cup it till it flares, protect the flame until it grows, husbanding the tiny glow against the whiff of thready smoke that means you failed. Set it to the... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Reflections on a Full Life - a limerick

He sat and mulled it around: "76 isn't bad, I'll be bound! To this fact I've adjusted - I can still cut the mustard, I'm just too tired to spread it around!" - based on a song by Shel Silverstein and Waylon Jennings Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Creative Types, Take Note!

There may be one or two pure moments - The other times, you're merely trying. - Mikhail Barishnikov Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

A Reaction to the Previous Limerick

Your idea was a bit of a stretch but I tried it, you miserable wretch! I did what you said but to madness it led: tying bows from the inside's a bitch! Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, January 28, 2011

The Job I Hate: another limerick

Hanging wallpaper's a lot like the pox; I hate it right down to my sox! But I give it pizzazz if I think of it as gift-wrapping from inside the box. Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Summer

My window down, the AC up, my left arm baking in the sun, the shopping list clenched in my hand, I ease up to the red light, coasting to a stop. There rumbles up alongside close, a Chevy ragtop gleaming red. Two young guys, both wearing shades, laugh something to the girls in back. Rock music... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Mightier Than the Sword. Sort of. (Part II)

Unlovely are the words these days for how we write our thoughts. The merest mean mechanics of how we set them down have named them clumsily: "search engine" comes the first to mind, "word processor"'s next (the lexical equivalent of Cuisinart, I guess). To make a verb of "text" may be a happy... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Mightier Than the Sword. Sort of. (Part I)

Centuries of dip-and-write, and then there came that nobly-named device, the fountain pen. You bought one, filled and used it, and tried hard not to lose it. Then came the BIC. STICs bought in PACs (Costco sells them by the pound) because they walk and fail so fast, they are their own re-fill. No... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Come February

Our salt-bleached street, blizzard-narrowed, leads down between the snowplow-dented newly dusted drifts. Our tires churn the icy lumpy muck of wheel-ruts that by 5 tonight will turn again to ice, so hostile to an evening stroll. Once back safe within my driveway's cleared and hardwon space, I still... Sign in to see full entry.

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