She then took her shoes off and threw them in the lake...

Singer Kate Bush receives her CBE for services to Music from The Queen during an Investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle, 10 April 2013.

" I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."

In case you fell down a well today and missed this:

JASON COLLINS IS GAY.

AND in much bigger news he lived with a freaking Kennedy at Stanford and did some major hanging with Chelsea. THIS we want to know from.

Here is the thing, as GREAT FANTASTIC WONDERFUL AWESOME as that is 

He is not , right now, technically on a team... but lets don't be popping any balloons!

dinner

A birthday dinner

 for 

 our pal and new Rochesterian 

David!

snacks!

 snacks 2 !

 Roasted Squash Soup 

w / pumpkin seed oil and pepitas

( this was so freaking good - Neil made fun of me for gobbling it down so quickly )

 Salmon

Rice w/ things

Roasted Fennel

Edamame

 Then there was this:

I tried to climb into this bowl.

Spinach and Cheese Souffle with just a hint of maple.

Crazy good.

Then there was a very sad lemon pie that did not merit a photo.

( almost ) May Flowers

Weekend

Our neighbor Karen ( not spelled right ) came over for supper last night,

brought Fletcher!

we had a very nice time

so fun that i forgot to take more pics!

Then today our first home game today,
after round two of Neil's St Johns workshop -
VERY nice day. Warm day , started out sunny ,
Wings lost, but fun never the less..
again was in the moment and not taking good photos.....

Magic

Watch this , eyes closed if you want - hear what I hear. Strange vowels that were almost gone by the time I was able to listen. The pure South of a pre-tv Georgia. Not the hills and valleys of my own piedmont/ mountain twang, but the soft red clay sound that comes from Atlanta and beyond, down to Savannah, west as far as it went.

This poem has been there for me for a very long time. During a recent unpleasantness I would make long absent Mark drink and read it to me.... ( and I wonder why is is gone...) It fit the time - longing for something lost, looking for something more, needing something.
 We came along at the very last breath of what was Buckhead, and even then you had to look so very hard to find anything at all. Creeky oiled floors and pawned silver, by then way way to many people, just like myself, pretending to be something we were not. A Blazer from Spencers, a pair of shoes from Muse's or a hair cut from a very old barber - who never could get it through his head that thirty year old me did not go to Ga Tech, and that the boy I was always with was much more than just " my friend " - but not even close to a real Buckhead boy.

Reading this in 1969, with twenty years before still as fresh as that very night -seen from 2013 is impossible. Atlanta burned many times over, rebuilt , built over , money, money, money, till Buckhead itself over reached and became a ghost town. Not better or worse , I stopped doing that, just different.

What a treasure to have found this.




and Monday August 4th , 2008 from the k+b.

Go look at Martha's Daffodils

THE DAFFODILS ARE BLOOMING 

From her blog : " The long daffodil border at my farm in Bedford has been in full bloom and I must say that it is spectacular!  Originally started in 2003, in the early years of my farm ownership, it was added onto and extends a great length down Maple Avenue.  Approximately thirty-six different varieties of narcissus were planted in this border.  Some have faded away and are being replaced with other varieties, while others flourish.  Please enjoy this gallery of cheerful spring flowers.  I have tried my best to identify them accurately, but some names may be incorrect.  If you find an error, please comment and let me know what you think the name is.

P-arty

 A lovely party over at our pals 

Don and Susan's tonight, no real reason, just a good time!

 I took this lemon - blueberry trifle 

using those Ikea ginger cracker/cookies( that they now sell at Wegmans ) and angle food cake whipped topping and lemon curd/blueberries

I made the lemon curd a different way, using a recipe of Ina's

Ingredients
3 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

It came out REALLY good and will be using this recipe from now on....I might cut back to only 1 cup of sugar ...

 On to the party where Neil and his old drinking buddies 

were knocking back the martinis!

 Welcome to western New York, THREE, count them - well one is in the other room , but trust me, there were THREE rye bowl things.....

 Had to stop at the Mothership on the way home where we ran into the entire University of California Santa Cruz Men's Volley ball team. The FIGHTING BANANA SLUGS !!!  were in town for the NCAA Nation Volleyball championships at Nazareth College.

YES! They really are the fighting BANANA SLUGS! 

drive

dinner

Steak

Arugula Salad

02 9282 2833

• Rosalynn Carter - 1927
• Barbara Bush - 1925
• Hillary Rodham Clinton - 1947
• Laura Bush - 1946
• Michele Obama - 1964

NOT PICTURED :

• Nancy Reagan - 1921

NO! Not THOSE rights....

dinner

Really good dinner over at our pals Jack and Linda, who were just all full of news tonight. The usual good time was had.

RHODE ISLAND

New England became one solid hunk of 

MARRIAGE EQUALITY 

this afternoon as the Rhode Island Senate busted out in a force of good and freedom. In the most Roman Catholic per capita state in these great United States the vote came down to a slam dunk of 26 -12 !

Bringing the number of states with full out equality to TEN! 1/5 of everyone with Cali and the land o Lincoln waiting in the wings! ( those being big states with some real numbers, but spunky little Delaware really is right around the corner from it ) 

SO, add the tiny little state that could, The Ocean State itself to this 

map of love! Color me Navy!

HERE: Enjoy a little RHODE ISLAND
houseporn!*
just a hop skip and a limo ride from THE BREAKERS

* make it yours for a paltry 17.9 mil....

Know Your Fauna

 Over night, really, as in was not there yesterday the 

MAY APPLES

 popped out, now it's still April and there are no apples, but here they are!

 Podophyllum peltatum, commonly called Mayapple, or May Apple,^[1] (or hogapple, Indian apple, mayflower, umbrella plant, wild lemon (flavor of the fruit), wild mandrake, American mandrake (shape of rhizomes) or "devil's apple" (used for Solanum linnaeanum elsewhere)), is a herbaceous perennial plant in the family Berberidaceae, native to deciduous forests in of eastern North America.^[2] Like many other spring ephemerals, it emerges from below ground before the canopy of the forest opens, and then slowly withers later in the summer; the foliage is, however, somewhat more long-lived than other spring emphemerals such as Trillium.

The stems grow to 30–40 cm tall, with 2 or occasionally 3 palmately lobed leaves up to 20–30 cm diameter with 5-9 deeply cut lobes on reproductive individuals, or one peltate (umbrella-like) leaf on sterile individuals. The singlesecund white flower 3–5 cm diameter, with six (rarely up to nine) petals, is produced at the axil of the two leaves (the upper two in a three-leaved plant); the flower matures into a yellow-greenish fruit 2–5 cm long.^[3] The plant is widespread and appears in clonal colonies in open mesic woodlands. Individual shoots are often connected by systems of thick rhizomes.^[1] As with many kinds of wild plants, the flower provides sexual reproduction while the rhizome provides asexual reproduction.^[4] The former provides long distance dispersal, while the latter allows the formation of dense circular clones. There are costs to producing flowers, since the production of a flower and fruit reduces the probability that the plant will survive, or flower, in following years.^[5]

Many species of plants have mycorrhizae to assist with nutrient uptake in infertile conditions.^[4] Mayapple plants are considered obligately dependent upon such mycorrhizae, although it may also be facultatively dependent upon rhizome age and soil nutrient levels.^[6] Plants are commonly found infected by the rust Puccinia podophylli, appearing as honeycomb-patterned orange colonies under the leaves, and yellowish lesions on the upper surface.^[7]

Though the common name is mayapple,^[8] it is the flower that appears in early May, not the "apple". The fruit or "apple" is produced early summer and ripens later in summer.

AND

 THE SKUNK CABBAGE IS HERE !

Eastern Skunk Cabbage, Clumpfoot Cabbage, Foetid Pothos, Meadow Cabbage, Polecat Weed, Skunk Cabbage, or Swamp Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), commonly known as simply Skunk Cabbage, is a low growing, foul smelling plant that prefers wetlands. Native to eastern North America, it ranges from Nova Scotia and southern Quebec west to Minnesota, and south to North Carolina and Tennessee. It is protected as endangered in Tennessee.^[1]

 Koda in the skunk cabbage.

not having a good day, so far.....

Fleetless.....

From NY1 via JMG : The United States Navy says it will not send any ships next month and no additional sailors or Marines will head to the city for the annual Fleet Week celebration.

Cuts to the defense budget under the sequester are being blamed.

But a spokesperson says any Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard members who happen to be in the city will be allowed to take part in any local events that still take place.

City officials say Fleet Week was expected to generate about $20 million.

In a statement, the city said, "We understand the Navy’s budgetary limitations and hope that the Fleet Week tradition can continue in 2014."

dinner

burgers and onion rings 

We are trying to do better, just failed today.

BIG GAY DAY

The French National Assembly has made a final vote approving marriage equality in a 331-225 vote!The vote went down shortly after a protest in the gallery. The Speaker ordered "get these enemies of democracy outside parliament!"
France joins New Zealand, Uruguay, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, and Denmark as the 14th nation to offer its citizens nationwide marriage equality.
Brazil, Mexico, and of course, the U.S. offer it in parts of the country.

THEN!

The Rhode Island Senate AND the Delaware House BOTH passed marriage equality!

It is getting hard for even me to keep up with our progress, with all eyes fixed on the prize that is June.....

Daily Koda

done

With the announcement of the ACC members collectively signing a “Grant of Rights” agreement – which essentially means the ACC member schools turn over their television rights to the conference – it’s widely assumed that the conference realignment game might have just ended (at least for the next decade or so).

It’s worth noting that most college football experts also assumed the ACC raising its exit fee to north of $50 million would end the realignment game as well and that didn’t stop Maryland from jumping ship. With that said, signing over television rights in theory should prevent anyone from leaving the ACC, at least in the near term.

With any potential 15th and 16th SEC members likely coming from ACC territory, it appears that the SEC is set to remain a 14-team league.

It’s rumored that this has been the preference all along by the leaders of the SEC as transitioning to 14 teams from the previous 12 brought a number of logistical challenges. Going from 14 to 16 would bring even more challenges. Notably, the issue of scheduling becomes increasingly complex as more teams are added.

For college football traditionalists, an end to the conference realignment game is welcomed with open arms. With the five major conferences on firm footing, work can be done to repair damaged rivalries (e.g. Texas A&M vs Texas).

dinner

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

Rice

Sunday

reason to keep passing the open windows # 647

Not for Sissies

( NOT that there is anything wrong with being a sissy!  )

Elaine Stritch : Shoot Me

Whew.

•

The week that was , topped off by the night that would not end. The internet was all boisterous and teenagey Thursday night/ Friday morning with me being way to right there in the mix - so sleep is all messed up.
 Real horror, not on tv or the big screen acted out in the most real time ever. Getting it oh- so -terribly- wrong a lot, but still, there in the wee hours of Friday, we were all Boston, we were all Watertown, we were all on the street corner, we were all the scared students posting bullet holes on you tube - there were times when we were getting facts that ALL the media was not, or were just checking, doing their job.

I / we could get The Boston Globes very on target tweets just as well as the poor sleepless exhausted CNN face/hair. The first BIG story that was totally plugged in - the revolution may not be televised, but it will be on the web. Such a scary night and thankfully no one had to be alone, you and your mother box and a zillion or so of your closest pals waiting out the sleepless , pop filled night. Monsters in the alleyway - We have your back.

I crashed a little after 4, JUST as the MSM was checking all the rumors that were going like wild fire on crack that night, Neil woke me up early, sevenish as I think  - I can't even remember now - something dramatic was happening. All over less that 24 hours later - again played out in such live time -  Jetson's / Star Trek live time:

Here is the boat on bing maps - just like it was out house....

It all just , still so fresh, seems like such a horrible horrible waste. Four Innocent people dead, the older brother dead and the 19 year old boy, just as gone - his life every bit as wasted as his brothers. 

The Texas explosion, the Senate gun debacle, two horrible earth quakes... Bad things were coming at us faster than we could process! Let this week be gone from us.

Some Pretty

The "S" Word

 It's not June yet, so we are not really surprised.

A blustery Amtrak Station this morning.

I don't think you can even see them, 

just pesky little flurries all day long, with some rain early this 

morning in Rochester

Nothing stuck or anything, it was not even 32º , 

but chilly, back to walking in hats and coats....

War Damn Eagle

AUBURN, Ala. -- Auburn fans said goodbye to the two oak trees at Toomer's Corner with one more toilet paper celebration following the spring game on Saturday.

[+] Enlarge

AP Photo/Dave MartinFans roll the poisoned oak trees at Toomer's Corner one final time following Auburn's spring game on Saturday.

An A-day-record crowd of 83,401 watched the Orange team defeat the Blue squad 35-14 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Gus Malzahn's first spring game since he was hired to coach the Tigers. Thousands of fans then made their way over to drape toilet paper over the two frail, poison-infested oaks in a tribute that was more celebratory than somber.

"There's more to Auburn than two oak trees, revered and sturdy as they are," retired athletic director David Housel said. "These oak trees are but an outward visible symbol of the Auburn heart. ... This is a day of celebration and remembrance." ( the rest )

April Showers brought :

 The full bright yellow of Spring is here!

Neil has planted lots of bulbs in his gardens

Pretty cold tonight, lets hope for the best.

The Greatest News Ever in the History of the World

A Taco Bell opened up in Victor, 

right down the road.

We will be judicious.

The Beach Boys - God only knows

OOPSIE-DAISY HOMOPHOBE

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

same sex hobbit love

( I fear for the search engines I will be showing up in after that title )

Marriage Equality goes down under !

( again with the search engines...)

From AP :

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Hundreds of jubilant gay-rights advocates celebrated at New Zealand's Parliament as the country became the 13th in the world and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage.

Lawmakers voted 77 to 44 in favor of the gay-marriage bill on its third and final reading Wednesday night. People watching from the public gallery and some lawmakers immediately broke into song after the result was announced, singing the New Zealand love song "Pokarekare Ana" in the indigenous Maori language.

RIGHT Thinking

A Drudge headline right now  - and as always he is just a clearing house for other  tin foil hat sites, but he is the only one I check  -

Gallup : Only 4% of Americans Think Gun Control is an Important Issue 

Well, red white and blue you see this and don't read the story , because you know it to be true, AND the one under it is all about how the Black Muslim Kenyan Communist Gay Usurper in the White House wants to put anyone wearing a cross in  prison for ever, but if you had you would have come across this In its poll from Apr. 4-7,  Gallup surveyed 1,005 adults by telephone and asked, “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?”

Respondents answered in the following order:

Economy in general                                      24%

Unemployment/Jobs                                     18%

Dissatisfaction with Government                16%

Federal budget deficit/Federal debt             11%

Healthcare                                                     6%

Ethical/Moral/Family decline                            5%

Immigration/Illegal aliens                                4%

Education                                                       4%

Guns/Gun control                                            4%

Situation with North Korea                              4%

Lack of Money                                                  3%

Welfare                                                            2%

Lack of respect for each other                         2%

Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness                        2%

Foreign aid/Focus overseas                              2%

Taxes                                                                 2%