Isabella Bird Miscellany

“On the road again…I just can’t wait to get on the road again…” Cold, wet winter months are not my fave!  You see, I get stuck in the garage until spring’s sunny skies.  Mind you, I am thankful that I’m not out in the muck; after all I’m pretty cute. I have graceful citrus-yellow curves with just-shy-of-neon green wheels and, naturally, jaunty tulips tatted on my sides – I just scream, “Cruise me down to the coffee shop!”  I must have garage-fever right now, being cooped up doesn’t really suit my playfulness. Oh, I remember tripping along the bumpy path with my trusty passenger pedaling away at a lighthearted pace.  She chatted freely with her beau, sigh…those were the days.  I think she feels it too; wandering out and looking wistfully at me, recalling blue skies, trilling birds and rides to the park. Was this all a lovely, surreal dream or did it actually occur in the distant sun-drenched past?  Only the marching on of the seasons wil...

Dirt on the floor was not picking up, in fact, my vacuum cleaner seemed to be spitting stuff back out.   What the stink was going on?   Then I rounded the corner and saw it sitting on the kitchen counter – the filter - that ingeniously useful little contraption that catches the yuck. I had spent my time merrily (well that could be an exaggeration) cleaning away, only to find that my effort had been in vain.  Instead of accomplishing my task, I was simply blowing grit and grime back into the air…puffs of fragments and trash. After having wondered at my very blonde moment, I replaced the filter and continued the process, with much better results.    In the middle of laughing at myself, I thought “ I should write about this. ”  Why?  No one wants to know about vacuuming without a filter, or do they? Think about it:  it is a quirky, I-can’t-believe-I-could-have-been-that-lame kind of story.   We all have those type o...

Little boxes on the hillside... Last week I shared a poem in my writing class where I used the term “ticky-tacky.”  An interesting conversation took place regarding the usage and history of the lingo.  One of the younger writers wasn’t even familiar with the word, inquiring about the definition.  Since the language was in my piece, I offered to do a bit of sleuthing.  I was familiar with the song, Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds, which was a political anthology on suburbia in the 1960’s.  She penned the poem, come song after having observed the sprawl of cookie cutter houses and the cloned people who resided in them while driving near Daly City, California. ticky-tacky By definition, ticky-tacky refers to the use of shoddy, cheap materials especially in the construction of look-alike tract houses.  However, digging deeper, I found it is also connected to something uninspiring and monotonous, marked by mediocre uniformity.    Smac...

Without a recipe: Root Vegetable and Sausage Stew

Write a story about someone who is distracted…well, today, this distracted person is me.  Case in point, I wrote that statement December 31 st and now I’m back to writing on January 1 st and finishing the post on January 5 th .  I sit down to read and instantly my mind is spiraling in countless directions.  I’d like to think that this is the ultimate in multi-tasking, but it’s actually commotion and lack of concentration. dis.trac.tion - something that makes it difficult to think or pay attention Distraction in and of itself isn’t bad; it just is.  At times being interrupted is a much needed break from whatever has had our attention.  Often, I come up with very creative or soul searchingly deep thoughts while being distracted.  Have you ever found yourself rummaging through a box, actually looking for something specific, only to find unexpected treasure like long forgotten photos or letters?  Some of these absent-minded finds lead to...