With Our Two Hands

Waging Aging in the Kitchen (while talking to self)

What are you fixing for supper? 

Boiled eggs

What else?

Open up a package of Trader Joe Krisp Bread.

The eggs go on those?

Yup.

Doesn't sound balanced yet. What else?

I'll split open a ripe avocado.

Now you're talkin'. Anything else?

Yup.

What?

Slice of red, ripe, local tomato "grown in dirt."

How ya gonna eat that?

With two hands.
You added salt and pepper, huh?
Yup.
(Toby, I miss you.)

***

For the Art Part, Aidan and I sat on the back porch at the farm and drew the barn on our iPads. First a 10 sec, then a 30 sec one, a minute, 5 minutes, and at last did a 15-minute sketch.

Aidan's.

JM's.

                       ***
And another birthday for me rolled around. Aidan was here visiting at the farm and made a delicious dinner for his mom and dad and me. Here he's putting it together...

...and he made a cake for me from scratch. Yes, that's real strawberry icing on it...

...then we piled in the car and headed to a showing of The Odyssey. That was a winner, too! Don't miss it!

Keoni and housemate Nick orchestrated an instrumental Happy Birthday on 

an instrument of which I can't remember the name, and a ukulele...

How good it was hearing from friends and family all over our country and right here where I live, too. The remembrances and messages were endearing...every single one. Thank you again, one and all.

***

Two mama ducks came back again to hatch their ducklings in the large courtyard here at my complex. I saw them out one morning and manage to get a little bit of them on video...

And, Wendy sent one more photo of the Queen Anne's Lace growing in her round pen at the farm...

What's not to love?!

***

Ode to a Pothole

First, there was a deer track

to a creek running fresh water

for deer, fish, and birds

and beavers and wildlife.

Then it became a cowpath

to move cattle to market.

Next, it became a rutty dirt road

leading people with

mules and wagons to the market.

Soon, it was surfaced

with asphalt and a bridge 

was built over the creek, 

so cars and trucks

could get to the market.

After a while, the road

started to wear out.

So it was repaved

and as it wore out again

it was again repaved.

Some years went by

but no one wanted to pay 

to take care of the road anymore

So when the rain came

water seeped into worn cracks

and the snow and ice

froze and thawed

thawed and froze

so the cracks got worse

then bumpety-bump,

wheels broke this piece

and that chunk

until whump, whumpety, bang!

A tire broke in a huge pothole 

So the pothole was patched 

with asphalt

and the freezing and thawing

and thawing and freezing

made a new pothole

on the old pothole patch

but people stopped caring

about fixing the road

and it began to crumble.

Years went by

and no one used the old jagged

crumbly asphalt and dirt road

Instead, people made

a bigger road a mile or so away.

The old road grew grasses

from seeds blown across it

and pretty soon, it was hidden

among grasses and bushes,

even a tree grew 

where the pothole had been,

The deer found their way

among the weeds and asphalt crumbles

to get to the water in the creek

where the sagging, broken bridge 

helped the beavers

to make a new dam

for their home

where the fish swim

and the birds and deer and wildlife 

drink water.

JM 2026-06-25

Machines

We invented machines

to do our work for us.

Then we invented machines

to exercise our bodies

that became weak

because we invented machines

to work for us.

        --JM 6-24-2026

El Caballero Ingenioso de la Mancha

 

***

Oh my! I've fallen behind. I am not finished with my posting for Wednesday. But here's a place-holder from last Friday's Art Show here where I live. 

I rummaged around my art stuff and found these, plus some recents.  These are prepped for the show...

At the show...

And here's Sally, who leads our weekly art class where I live. She is standing by her watercolors. Thank you, Sally...

***

Pencil and Ink

Today, we'll visit the Art Part...

Pencil Sketch.

Ink Sketch.

It's a slow day here. All good, though. Just sleepy/tired from yesterday's Covid booster. 

Hope your Cinco de Mayo was grand.

***

No Kings #3

It was a cold, windy day, but even more folks showed up at our local, third No Kings protest. Sylvia picked me up, and we brought our seating along with our signs. 

A  friend took our picture. 
JM and Sylvia.

The following is just a snippet of the gathering. People occupied both sides of a quarter mile of roadway. Lots and lots of enthusiastic honking...

Our friend Susan was helping out, leading the chants up and down the roadway...

_______

Advice that Abigail Adams gave to her 11-year-old son, John Quincy, in the midst of the Revolution:

“These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.”

***