Little Bang Theory

The Mother of All Roller Coasters is the Roller Coaster of All Mothers.

From the beauty of conception to the angst of watching a jet plane recede into a vast and pitiless sky with your grown child on it, from the radiant wonder of a chubby child clutching buttercups for Mommy in a dimpled fist to the turbulent indigos of teen meltdowns, from the holding of tiny, trusting hands to the letting go as their lives and choices become fully their own, there is no greater joy, no deeper sorrow and no higher calling than being a Mother.

Thank you, Gina, for twenty years and counting of doing that which only a mother can do.

Love Always,

Ralph

Last evening’s foray into the field for photos was well timed, but the thin, high clouds and thick bands of lower ones confused the light and confounded my efforts to capture the beauty of a high meadow being reclaimed by its surrounding forest.

Despite my frustration, and promising myself patience, I noodled around among the young hawthorns, cherries and dogwoods, collecting images of the small bits of poetry which comprised the scene - explosions of tiny flowers popping in and out of patches of diffused sunlight:

…and pussy willows and catkins extending their precious offerings of pollen to their neighbors, to the bees, to the evening breeze:

The air was turbulent, and while my subjects bobbed and danced I struggled to find the combination of camera settings which would get me enough depth of field in a brief enough exposure to not just be making abstracts for my recycle bin.

As I headed back to the car the light warmed suddenly, streaming from beneath its thick gray blanket, illuminating the scene with a brief gift of light. I snapped off this quick shot, still with my 50mm Sigma lens, which I’ve found to be faster than the 17-85 I’ve been using, and managed to freeze the breeze:

Once again, the totality of this natural place far exceeded the sum of its billions of individual parts.

Thank you, Mother Earth. Thank you, Father Sky.

…The blossom of a Tulip Tree, or Saucer Magnolia:

Now I’m off to fetch Ultimate Spawn from Boston.

Later, Taters!

In my food post yesterday I said something really thoughtless and stupid and base, and a dear friend let me know privately that they found it deeply offensive.

I’m sorry.  Really, truly, deeply sorry.

This isn’t the first time my attempts at humor have crossed the line into the Tasteless Zone.

But while I have a bent toward pushing the envelope and being some small bit shocking, I do know that some things just aren’t funny.

Like pedophilia.

I hope those of you who found my lame attempt at humor to be offensive can find a way to forgive my boundless stupidity, but I won’t hold it against you if you can’t.

Words have meaning, offenses offend, and actions have consequences.

And I’m deeply sorry for having expected you to let my words pass as “just a joke.”

I’m an Eatist.

A gourmand, an epicure, a pig.

I love to eat. And I especially love it when the food is fresh, local and FREE.

Which is as fine a reason as any to celebrate the full-throated arrival of Spring, when annuals send up tender shoots for the observant to pluck on their rides home from work, or on their joyous weekend mornings.

Here’s a pasta meal (yes, fresh, in-state made pasta) featuring a couple of items which I forraged on the way home from work today: ramps and fiddleheads!

Now you know, all fern “fiddleheads” are reputed to be edible, but some are much more edible than others. For instance, these tender shoots of interrupted ferns are “edible,”

…but gnoshing on them would doubtless be akin to mackin’ on an Italian’s back. So I Just Say No.

The real fiddleheads are the shoots of ostrich ferns, notable for their dark green color, with a deep groove in the inner surface of their stem. And they’re totally hairless.

So, trying as we all ought to be to get that Italian image out of our minds, here’s tonight’s dinner:

Pasta with roasted garlic, organic shitake mushrooms, fresh-picked wild ramps, some nice clean fiddleheads and a handful of thinly shredded hot capicola, sautéed in olive oil and tossed with grated parmesan cheese:

Enjoy!

So Jen over at A Few Choice Words had this up, and in case you’re in one of these Venn Diagram subsets which doesn’t intersect with Jen, here it is.

I expect to see a few astonished looks around here:

Just got a new toy, and I’m aching to use it.

I hope you’ll enjoy watching as I explore the ins and outs of it, probing ever more deeply into the intimate natural world, exploring moist places, seeing how things grow before your very eyes.

I’m in Love with a Sigma F2.8 DG MACRO.

Hope it titillates you too.

……………….

Solar Sex Panels unfold above an atmosphere of moss in a gambit for first dibs on The Light:

The Moss Strikes Back with a phalanx of moss-goslings:

…While above them, a columbine beneficently blesses the battle:

Yeah, I’m gonna like this toy a lot.

Oh, Happy Day, when someone squats in the tall grass, clutching resistant handfuls of the stuff, and with forceful, panting breaths, a mighty push, and a guttural proclamation, Puts Forth a Dense but Radiant Blogstone of his Own Design…

Angels sing, birds twitter, and the Sun Shines Down on the newly birthed GuitarGuy58’s Weblog, the likes of which, if life has been kind, you may never have seen before.

Hey, at this point I’m just makin’ this shit up.  He’s only posted like one thing.

But I really do know this guy, and if he tells half of what I know, this could get veeeery interesting…

…And as you read this, he’s headed Westward on a Two-Wheeled Tour of Somewhere Else, so hop on board and let’s cheer him on!!!

Something I saw today, on a ride after work. A solitary person, alone in their world, only marginally aware that I was watching:

Along the banks, periwinkle was in bloom, its dream-blue flowers scattered in a tangle of dark green trailers

And in the soft, low bottoms, an array of grasses, and with them the ferns, yawning and stretching and opening to the filtered light of the lowlands:

These are ostrich ferns, the kind I like to eat. They say all fern fiddleheads are edible, but not all fiddleheads are food.

…I thought I had a picture of some really hairy ones hanging around, but I’ll either have to find it or take another. My money’s on the latter - I never find pictures I misplace. And you deserve to see some really hairy fiddleheads, so I’m on it.

This place blows my mind. You all are so full of interesting thoughts and perceptions, and each one of you brings to the ‘Sphere your unique perspectives and predilections.

And from your various compass points, you bring your music, which is frequently stuff I’ve enjoyed over the years and haven’t thought about recently. I thank you for that, for keeping me in touch with things which might otherwise slip away from me. The Pagan Sphinx does that really well, as we have quite a few years of history in common, and she’s done a better job of archiving those memories than I have. And Phydeaux and I have disturbingly similar favorites, and I fear playlists in our heads - that’s part of how we became Siamese Cousins!

But there’s a particular pleasure which I value, and that’s being turned on to something new, and that happens here with a gleeful frequency.

Today’s “Oh-Yeaah!” moment came at konagod’s place, where he had a YouTube clip up on his sidebar of Bettye Lavette, whose name didn’t ring a bell.

Well, it was good enough to get me cruising her YouTube catalog, which netted me this soulful and passionate rendition of Sleep To Dream:

I hope that worked, ’cause this woman is channeling the love child of Tina Turner and Sarah Vaughan.

Thanks, kona.

P.S. - If the little “play arrow” doesn’t work, click on the picture itself - that always works for me, and brings one directly to the YouTube page, which provides a bit more information about what you’re watching.