Something is odd in the universe when we lose Edward Said, George Plimpton (who it turns out, is not the father of Martha, as I had always assumed), and Robert Palmer all in the same day. I don’t know what it means, but it’s just weird.
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It took a little bit, but I got the archives moved over. I have to say, it’s nice to have some tech support people to help out. They were great and I’m thrilled to have the archives over here. Because I didn’t really have official blog-enty headers over at Blogspot, the headers are both redundant and a little odd, but oh well. Things here in Montana are good — I had a wonderful dinner last night with some new and old friends, one of whom came in and gave me a big hug and told me how much he loved…
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This is still just a test, but I’m moving the weblog over to Typepad. I wanted comments, and easier ways to update the blogs and reading lists than over at Blogspot. So, check into the comments and let me know what you think of the new design …
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Busy Busy Busy My day job is in one of those crunch cycles, so no blogging for a little bit because my head is cluttered with the technical details of running telephones over the internet. Back next week …
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The End of the Garden I pulled up the tomatoes this afternoon. All day it looked like it was going to snow, and there I was out there in the backyard in a sweater and my down vest. I figure, if you’ve got a down vest on, it’s time to harvest all those green tomatoes. (Plus, I have to go to San Jose for business next week, and my brother was afraid he’d kill them all and I’d be mad.) As I was working out there, the weather got even worse, and I had to go put on my gore-tex…
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Johnny’s gone home to June Oh — Johnny Cash is dead — it feels like a loss that should be met with wailing, with rending of garments, with church bells tolling. While I’m happy for him, because he seemed so bereft without June, I am so so sad for the rest of us. That voice, that gravity, that deep sense that absolute ruin was just a moment away. I think that’s what I loved most about Cash, his music doesn’t just acknowledge that we can all fuck up our lives beyond repair, but that we are always just a few…
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Ordering a Lamb Well, I ordered a lamb yesterday. It “won’t be ready” for a couple of more weeks, which means it’s still out there at the Schilling’s ranch, eating and growing and being a lamb. Which not only doesn’t bother me, it reassures me. It’s a happy lamb. It lives in my neighborhood. It’s being raised by responsible ranchers. And it’s a meat animal — that’s its purpose, so I’m not sad it’s going to die. I’m just relieved to know how it lived. When it’s big enough, about 60 pounds, it’ll go off to Big Timber to the…
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Box of Fish Yesterday I bought 25 pounds of salmon from a guy on the other side of town. He fished for it himself, in Alaska, and then had it processed, boxed, and shipped home where he sells it out of his house. I love buying food from the person who actually produced it. I paid six bucks a pound, which seems like a bargain to have one of your neighbors go to Alaska and catch wild salmon. So in my basement freezer is now enough fish for a year. Clean, wild, sustainably harvested salmon — salmon that never lived…
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Summer is really over I finally spent some time on the Yellowstone River this weekend — went boating both days, actually. Unfortunately, summer is most definitely over — We got rained on both days. Saturday was just sort of gloomy weather, with little sprinkles, and Sunday was gorgeous until the thunderstorm blew up. Oh well — next year I’ll have to try a little harder to get on the river in that short season between the time the floodwaters recede and the weather turns cold. Saturday my friend Wendy-the-Buddhist, who has just returned from a year’s exile in California (they…
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Brother Al has Died When I first moved to Telluride in 1988, Brother Al was still shovelling walks on Main Street. He was an old man, wearing raggedy clothes, with wild hair and a beard to match. He looked like an Old Testament hippie, and I was, frankly a little afraid of him. Plus, I was young and mostly interested in skiing, finding a boyfriend, and taking care of the kids for whom I was a nanny. I didn’t really pay much attention to the slighly scary old man who shovelled walks. But then, like most things of importance, Brother…