Home, Sweet Home

My wonderful friend's house feels like it is in a forest. The back deck is in the midst of big fir trees and some other tree I could not identify. Katie feeds the birds, so they were everywhere. Begin loudly singing before sunrise, darting around the deck. I fed them lots of scraps, mostly bread, which the Stellar Jays took over. Stellar Jays, Chickadees, Juncos, Flicker, Robins, Finches, Woodpecker ... to name a few. They was fun to watch. 

Her house is a mid-century modern showcase, floor to ceiling windows throughout the house. But I froze my toes off as she told me that all the windows were single pane. My hands and feet were blocks of ice. I think the temperature is at least 15 degrees warmer over here in Edmonds, and definitely sunnier. Funny how 40 miles can make so much difference. I watched hours and hours of trashy TV on the ID channel. Jesus, the sh*t we do to each other is unspeakable. 

My most fun moments are listening to David Sedaris' A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020). He is so dry and funny, I find myself laughing out loud while walking around the grocery store.  

"If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leap­ing to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party—lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs. 

These diaries remind you that you once really hated George W. Bush, and that not too long ago, Donald Trump was just a harmless laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in hotel dining rooms and odd Japanese inns, records it. The entries here reflect an ever-changing background—new administrations, new restrictions on speech and conduct. What you can say at the start of the book, you can’t by the end. At its best, A Carnival of Snackery is a sort of sampler: the bitter and the sweet. Some entries are just what you wanted. Others you might want to spit discreetly into a napkin."

I discovered compendium of color-illustrated ichthyological studies of Louis Renard.  More images here and here