a bit random for today, but it's been grey and dreary for days

small stone :: four

chickens pecking in the herb beds. a little half-grown grey cat stalks, doing the pre-launch wiggle of her haunches and then running straight for one little black hen. she aborts at the last minute, not daring after all. and the chicken gives her a good scolding.

small stone :: five

looking at a friend's photos of armenia on facebook. hearing the echoes of memories not my own in the beautiful, evocative images. feeling provoked to tears.

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vignettes of memories:

going to a bar in kazan with my russian (tatar?) girlfriends. it wasn't something they did often (or ever). all i really remember is their big, round eyes and the decor - which was faux cave, draped in plastic plants.

defying the last of winter in kazan (apparently my brain is in kazan) with long, cutoff jeans shorts on an april day. 

stuffing myself and my backpack onto a VERY busy tram (also in kazan) and at one point, being held up completely by the surrounding crowd, as my feet left the ground.

what is it about watching living daylights (the first bond with timothy dalton) that reminds me of kazan?

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is america in decline? and how much does it have in common with europe?
read more here.  

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i really like maria konnikova's thoughts on language.

while you're there, stay and read more of her blog posts, you won't regret it.

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have you read j.k. rowling's casual vacancy?
what did you think?

small stone :: three

working intensely. ideas flying. catching some, letting others slip away. scribbling frantically in a notebook. thinking in two languages. energizing. draining. creating. laughing. fika. hitting the wall. renewed by some bad (for someone else) news. not really feeling very guilty about that (let's just say that for troglodytes what goes around comes around). definitely not just another day at the office.

kitty nurble comes home

last summer, we met the fabulous kit lane in person (it was at lisa's house - they both live in minnesota). you may know her as the inventor of bobbaloos. (she is wonderful, by the way.) and as a little joke, we presented her with a hairball extracted from the outside (not one of the thrown-up variety) of our norwegian forest cat, lila. we also gave her real gifts, so we're not totally mental. today, this little creature arrived - our very own kitty nurble - composed largely of lila-hair. a little piece of our beloved (and aging (she's 14) cat).  it was getting a bit dark when i took this, so more proper photos of it tomorrow in good light. and this is not at all a very blurry shot of frankie trying to mangle welcoming it:

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small stone :: two

days shared.

laughter.

sumptuous plate of healthy salad.

laughter.

wine.

the unbearable lightness of being.

life.

small stone :: one

carpet of beech leaves. wet with rain. scattered bits of gold in a grey, soaked, winter world.

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this small stone is part of the mindful writing challenge. 

a month-long exercise in noticing things properly. 

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i can't tell you how hard it was NOT to take a photo of the glimmery gold beech leaves today.

practice run writing a small stone

i'm planning on participating in a january mindful writing project. i was alerted to it by a facebook friend. the way it's described sounds like an extension of the already daily mindful effort i make in taking a daily photograph. only instead of a photograph, it's a daily snippet of writing and the project initiators call these little bits of mindful writing small stones, and we know how i feel about stones. so anyway, i'm going to give it a whirl (despite being a little put off by the new ageyness of the site). but just because they're new agey doesn't mean i have to be, right? besides, i want to be more open in 2013 - open to other ways of thinking and looking at the world and open to new people, experiences and opportunities. (dang, that's sounding an awful lot like a new year's resolution.)

i thought i'd give it a little practice run here, based on a photo i took because i noticed the golden light and the shadows it cast.

small stone ~ golden light, the sweet scent of hyacinth, short winter days mean the light must be embraced when it comes. but the light also embraces - a bobbaloo, a special mushroom, a unicorn and a papier mache head - products of creativity from people i love, bathed in golden light.

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some spectacular photography.

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the r boards on pinterest: rainbows. raw. rest.