Author Archives: beth

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About beth

Ann Arbor-ite writes about enjoying life with all of its ironies and surprises.

like a holiday.

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Paul Klee, Forest Architecture, 1925, pen and watercolour on paper mounted on card

swiss painter, draftsman, and printmaker 1879-1940

 

“art should be like a holiday;

something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently, 

and to change his point of view.”

-paul klee

good things happen.

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 yet another

delightful encounter

with a stranger

at trader joe’s

when checking out

my cashier

put the chocolate i was buying

into my hand

 ‘i know this isn’t going far.’

 spot on.

working there a long time

knows what chocolate means to some people

  rarely looks them in the eye

 the chocolate gave him a reason to do so

i told him to

have a good day

he told me to

have a good life.

‘good things happen when you meet strangers’

-yo-yo ma

with feathers.

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i’ve had a feathered visitor

a robin

courting me for the last two days

 wonder what he wants to tell me?

will he return today?

hope that i’m home if he calls.

* robin symbolism means different things in different cultures and the message robin brings has different meanings at different times. A robin brings hope, renewal, and rebirth. Robin symbolizes new beginnings, new projects, and a sign of good things to come. – bring it.

“hope” is the thing with feathers –
that perches in the soul –
and sings the tune without the words –
and never stops – at all –
-emily dickinson

 

‘all good ideas arrive by chance.’ – max ernst

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kayak vending machine

easy peasy

now if this isn’t a brilliant idea, i don’t know what is-

 
 Independence Oaks County Park now has a brand new kayak vending machine.
The cost to rent a kayak from the machine is $25 for the first 2 hours,
then $10 an hour after that. We’ll see you on the water!
“i want to make a vending machine that sells vending machines. it’d have to be real big.”
-mitch hedberg
Clarkston, Michigan, USA
To see more fun things to do at Independence Oaks or our other parks, visit OaklandCountyParks.com.

kinder-garden.

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jane

today the kinder saw the space where they will create their garden.

 

“why try to explain miracles to your children when you can have them plant a garden?”

-*janet kilburn phillips

*Janet is a gardener who found that she had to employ a growth mindset when she moved to the United States from England. She had previously been creating English cottage gardens but encountered challenges when she tried to grow them in a drastically different climate and in heavy clay soil. After experimenting with her gardens she created a CD called English Cottage Gardening — American Style. She adapted and persevered and found a new way to succeed at something that she loved.

 

 

a noble thing.

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the dandelions have returned, and i couldn’t be happier.

“Every year,” said Grandfather. “They run amuck; I let them.

Pride of lions in the yard. Stare, and they burn a hole in your retina.

A common flower, a weed that no one sees, yes.

But for us, a noble thing, the dandelion.”

-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

 

 

art credit: garth williams, (the rabbit’s wedding) –  rabbit basking in the moonlight

dipped in words and art.

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a beautiful, beautiful book

 what is a poem, really, and what exactly is its use?

Every once in a while, you stumble upon something so lovely, so unpretentiously beautiful and quietly profound, that you feel like the lungs of your soul have been pumped with a mighty gasp of Alpine air. This is a Poem That Heals Fish  is one such vitalizing gasp of loveliness — a lyrical picture-book that offers a playful and penetrating answer to the question of what a poem is and what it does. And as it does that, it shines a sidewise gleam on the larger question of what we most hunger for in life and how we give shape to those deepest longings.

Written by the French poet, novelist, and dramatist Jean-Pierre Simeón, translated into English by Enchabnted Lion Books founder Claudia Zoe Bedrick (the feat of translation which the Nobel-winning Polish poet Wislawa Syymborska had in mind when she spoke of “that rare miracle when a translation stops being a translation and becomes … a second original”), and illustrated by the inimitable Olivier Tallec, this poetic and philosophical tale follows young Arthur as he tries to salve his beloved red fish Leon’s affliction of boredom.

i read the above review by maria popova, and simply had to find it

i read it three times and looked closely at the details

i so agree with her.

in honor of national poetry month

and every day of every month

read a poem. 

“great children’s books are wisdom dipped in words and art.”

-peter h. reynolds

 

 

 

credits: maria popova, marginalian, enchanted lion books

eclipsed.

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“what’s the sense in having an eclipse if you can’t look at it? somebody in production sure slipped up this time!”
-charles m. schulz, the complete peanuts, volume 7
image credit: d.d. mcinnes, astrolabio and bunny

mo, mo, spaghetto.

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If you go into an italian restaurant and order spaghetto, chances are you’ll leave hungry. That’s because “spaghetto” refers to just a lone pasta strand; it’s the singular form of the plural “spaghetti.” Other beloved Italian foods share this same disinction— one cannoli is a “cannolo,” and it’s a single cheese-filled “raviolo” or “panino” sandwich. Italian language rules state that a word ending in -i means it’s plural, whereas an -o or -a suffix, denotes singularity.  As for the term for the beloved pasta dish itself, “spaghetti” was inspired by the Italian word ‘spago,’ which means “twine” or “string.”

 i highly doubt that i will ever be using this term, as i would have to order many spaghetto to be happy, so it’s back to spaghetti for me.

“everything you see i owe to spaghetti.”

-sophia loren

 

 

 

 

credits: interesting facts, google image

here we go!

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“april hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”

-william shakespeare