The Drive, The Ferry, Meppin, IL, and TinkerBelle.

A couple of colorful drives to Meppen, IL in October.
I crossed a ferry on the Mississippi to Calhoun County and wondered what century it was. I mean, a ferry!?
I realized I had been singing, Over the River and Through the Woods.
I met TinkerBelle (yes, that Belle honors Bellie) a couple of weeks ago. I allowed another two weeks to puppy proof our house and yard while taking some October day trips to Pist's Beaumont Antire house.
She had a bath before leaving. The man who bathed her Allowed me to help bathe her. He had been caring for her and the other puppies there. He loved her. He cried as he placed her in my car. My heart broke for him.
Within 4 hours of being here she learned to climb up the steps.
She's 30 pounds.
She smells Bellie's presence and requested to snooze in her former place on the sofa.

Dream. 2013

The dawn light was a dazzling naplam bright on a planet armed to the peaks.
Pist toasted me with a glass of sparkling wine in the kitchen. Bombs away, baby, he said.
I woke, choking.

I vant to suck your blood!

Happy Halloween! Beau. RIP.

The Big River, The Fall

I met some characters!
I heard a lot of birds!
The only sane person I met was Jordan. They whittled a needle for me while we talked along the shore of the Big River.

Our last Conversation. Two paintings.

Kevin Shea. You were heard.
Rest in power.

Coffee for the Ammosexual

When I spotted these on the shelf it gave me pause and then a belly laugh. A right wing grifter found a niche market. I saw a tattooed dude coming in the aisle with his kid in the cart. He paused to look at the bags and I almost said to me, Believe this shit?
He was asking his child which bag to get and the kid picked the bag with the bear.
I skedaddled.

Shawl

Pearl is modeling a shawl I made of wool and upcycled doilies. It sold (for 8 hundred) to a woman in FL who "will use it in my dolls stroller."

St Louis Noir #230

All Dogs go to Heaven

My Office

The Crow

The crow slams into the window, drops to the sill, glances at me with embarrassment, then hops onto the mantle.
I've had a bad day, loaded with physical pain but otherwise void of content.
Tears crash to my chest. The crow is watching my reflection in the mantle mirror. I can't stop crying. I am thinking of being in the ER today and the woman in the room next to me who wouldn't stop sobbing. I listened to understand her pain and realized she was crying about a loss.
At first I was annoyed since I was trying to read. When I became aware of my selfishness, I was very ashamed.
Now I am crying with frustration about all I won't be able to fix.
Your eyelashes are sparkling, the crow says, There's glass dancing in your eyes.
I don't have any eyelashes he says, looking in the mirror.
He sighs.
He does a soft shoe in the dust, a small sweeping of tiny steps, a hissing really, then he stops and takes a bow.
The bow is more of a harsh jerk, graceless. The crow blinks at me, but just the once. He wobbles like he's drunk.
I laugh.
Clean up the glass, he says, wake up and smell the coffee!

Char on Stucco

The Crow

The crow, both pilot and craft, drops to my desk with a thump and flicks a rain drop off a wing. I can tell by the way he moves that he's annoyed.
I glance at him without turning my head. I know how much he enjoys watching my eyes move together while his are independent. He thinks it's a trick.
He giggles with glee.
Do hawks bother you, I ask.
Nah, we're cool, we have an understanding, he says. Sounding doubtful.
I don't understand the word Luncheon, he adds.
Did someone ask you to luncheon, I wonder.
Of course not, he says, I'm a crow but I can read.
He does his nervous three step hop, comes closer and stares at me with solid black eyes. I love his eyes. They are shiny like wet but matte.
Matte, I say to him.
Luncheonette, he says. I saw one a long time ago.
I'm no longer frightened by his raspy voice.
He is beautiful.
He is the end of beauty.

The Cotton Belt Railway Depot. St. Louis

Photo by STL street photographer extraordinaire, Matthew Smith. AKA Brick Dawg. Posted with premission.

Alley Find

I actually did a triple take.

Progress

Telephone pole shadow beneath a cell tower.

St Louis Noir #360

For the Brick Dawg.

Wow, I thought when I saw this photo, Cheap Sleeps!

Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting. 1967. Kenzo Tange. Photo by Foto_momo.
A close variation on this building appeared in my dreams years ago. It was called 'hotel' Cheap Sleeps.
The structures on its sides were sleeping chambers in my post nuclear landscape dream.
It was a recurring nightmare.
I owned the business with Johnny Depp who I pretty much hated and thought of as a slacker because he only worked the office while I had to maintain the building.
In my dream it was a corten steel structure shaped like a cigar.
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

A hybrid Canna fell over in the garden

and this is the puddle it created.

One week. October 2014.

One week of being in her new home. 37 pounds and bald. Her fur was beginning to grow. Due to stress, malnutrition, and a tape worm I didn't as yet know she had.
She was stretched on the floor in trust.

The Crow

One of the windows is cracked causing fractured sunlight to bounce into the room. The crow is coldly sunning his toes.
In this light I expect a flash of indigo from him but he is truly a matte black.
How old are you, I asked him.
He shudders and won't look at me.
I remember the plague, he said.
I'm so sorry for your kind, I tell him, I missed all of you very much. I didn't know if you would come back. I watched for you. It was 25 years ago. I used to see crows as big as footballs.
He shrugged and said, I don't know years just cold. Heat.
I admire that you can shrug, I said.
I wish it on you, he said, this understanding. You watch time, you want to hold it. You refer to it and don't know how to move away from it.
I winced with a raw confusion but this was typical of me.
The crow looked at me and rolled an eye. He could do that, roll one eye. It made me giggle.
In light, he said rattling both wings, I still don't know you.