Blog-azic

 Can you spot the Heron? Taken at a pond across the street from the office at which I'm training.  I'm walking along the sidewalk from my hotel to the office, marveling at the palm trees and guzzling down a familiar scent, absolutely drinking the air as much as my lungs can take. What is it? Ah, yes, the moisture, salt, sand - it's tropical, and I have not smelled it in years. I remember long stretches of beach, the solitude, blessed sunshine, stiffling heat, and the feeling of poorness. Nothing at all was mine, save an old banjo and the beach full of sea glass, frosted green and white . So now, day dreaming in class, I'm already cherishing the moments I'll have this weekend, when back home in Raleigh, my lady and I will wrap up frosty glass memories with wire, and dangle them from pine boughs in the living room.

We're up and on the road north, over the piedmont. Some of the oak trees are holding onto leaves, deep red and crinkly brown. I remember the fire that burned this fall from sumac to creeper. It climbed up the hickory and set it to orange flames! Now I'm staring down a wall of mountain. It reminds me of a silky grey ribbon blowing in a breath of wind and slowed down so that i can follow each ripple. The ripples look frozen, solid, unmoving and unchangeable. After a moment of reflection, though, I realize that the mountains are moving. As I draw nearer, time begins to slow for me. Cars passing me become streaks of color and then disappear entirely. The sky is a pulsing strobe of night and day. Then, the mountain's face slowly comes alive. Gashes open in the rock, grow, and race along the mountain chain. Arms are thrust out and recoiled. Dirty flesh is shorn away showing grey bone. It dissolves itself into soil and is thrown away. The earth under my seat becomes like wate...

On my last job with Clearview Networks, I've been sent to midtown Manhattan to install wireless internet at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel. It's a grand hotel, if I've ever seen one: intricate paintings on the walls, vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, and elaborate plastered ornamentation. Beyond the building itself, the service here is four star, and the price is quite high. It has made me a little uneasy to be here - an Ohio boy with holes in his breeches - but I am acclimating. This evening I was looking up something sweet to take home to Susan. I stumbled upon a gourmet chocolate shop last night as I was searching for food after a very long day of travel. I can't decide yet: champagne truffles or swiss chocolates ? I'll plan to take a trip there on Thursday to decide upon a gift. As I sat perusing the web selection, I heard a knock at the door. When I answered a maid greeted me and asked if I'd like the bed turned down. I really had no idea what that mea...

Passiflora and compost... my two favorite things, right? Susan and I - mostly I - were vegging out on the downstairs futon, trying to stay cool, enjoying some L&O (Law and Order) and listening to Dre (I'll explain that in a later post). I was content, but Susan wanted to move. So she poked and prodded me until I fell off the futon. Then, she jumped on me and rolled me up stairs as if I were a barrel. On the way up, I grabbed a paint brush, not to paint a picture, but to pollinate! We've been trying to get the passiflora to produce fruit, and have had no luck with just our fingers. Perhaps this paint brush will help. Even better, the bumble bees have finally begun to notice the flowers. The vine is growing out of control! I'm so pleased to see that. This is our first fruit just a few days after pollination. After playing with the passion flower vine for a bit, I quickly switched gears to the compost. I had a couple buckets to empty into our comp...

Marsh Fern. The New York woods, upstate, are crannied, rocky and moist (in spite of an early summer drought). They abound with tumbled boulders, beech and oak, fen and fern, and I was downright taken aback, when I first ran through the old trees, the air buzzing with mosquitoes, through the lush shrub layer (witch hazel, jack-in-the-pulpit, wild ginger, blood root), to see the fern bounty. The community of ferns is lush and abundant. Christmas fern dots the wood edges, where the path runs straight under sweeping hemlock boughs. Where the path switches back and slowly climbs a hill, maiden-hair fern stands most delicate. In dappled sun of a wooded fen, marsh fern bursts from the muck. Sensitive fern parallels the Amtrak rails, where I sat one hot afternoon and keyed-out bracken fern, its leaf three feet across (its rhizome buried deep below the ground - impervious to the drought), and was awoken from my deep concentration by the loud whistle of a commuter train! My heart was poundi...

Near Times Square. In this past week, I've spent more time in the Big Apple than I have in the last five years. First, I met Susan, her sister and brother-in-law (almost, if domestic partners count as in-laws) near Penn Station after a train ride from Saratoga. We spent the weekend riding bikes through lower Manhattan, on the East River Ferry, and bar hopping at night. I heard a blues band playing a warehouse show. I was surrounded by hipsters, bikers and erotic dancers, and when they started playing an electric "Cross Roads" I couldn't help but tap out that off-beat. Then, today and yesterday, I made a stop to support a couple of hotels that were just brought online this past week. I worked like a fury, buzzed like a beehive, and still found time to hit Times Square at night, snap some pics, and get service by one of the best bartenders I've ever met. A burly man, from Ireland, who insisted on giving me a complimentary "splash of beer" to wash do...

A warm rainy day is all the company I require. It's an old friend, a warm blanket. "Reminds me of Ohio," I am fond of saying. So, I'll take a rainy day as a good omen to start my little adventure to New York city. The man at the Amtrak counter informed us - we, the passengers - that the train would be late to Saratoga "because of customs and immigration at the border." Of corse, I thought. I knew the trains ran late but couldn't imagine why. In fact, the train comes from Canada, snaking through the swampy Adirondacks - hills, mountains inundated with marsh fern and mosquitos; woods that whisper old words; ash, beech, oak, and gnarly sugar maples. Where I come from, cotton woods are king. Where I live, oaks are regal and massive. Where I am, sugar maples are healthy and refined, old and quite impressive. Today, it's the train to the city. I feel like I'm sneaking away from work at three in the afternoon, when in fact I have ea...