Attention Tucson Pet Owners!

This is the current sign at my vet's office - CUTE! And the truth is, they really DO give you an owner's manual. When I brought my puppy, Abby, in for her first check up, I left with a ton of info on what to expect. And it has been a great help. For instance, my "manual" says that at this age a puppy will go through the "terrible twos" and that is just what I have on my hands right now. (:

Drab to Fab - Part Two ~

A few months ago I posted photos of my wonderful custom totem poles that were installed on my sidewalk. Finally I completed replacing the last two poles on the patio. Here you can enjoy the before (regular old 4 x 4's) and the after (carved with flowers and accented with bright colors).  Oh - and that big blue thing in the background? It's a cement mixer! Every household should have one, right? It's for a job that was postponed because of the crazy RAIN that Tucson has been having. It is not often that work stops in Tucson due to rain. This too will pass. 

Beautiful Thoughts Worth Recycling ~

When I was thinking tonight of what to post next I remembered that I intended to post this poem on January 1st of this year and I totally forgot. Here it is again - 6 years later and even more powerful than the last time I read it. Please again enjoy the TDP post from January 1, 2010. 

The start of a new year inspires and motivates many of us to do better, be better, live better. This photo of Tucson's first dawn in 2010 - a soft pink & purple masterpiece - brought a poem to mind that I hope you enjoy. The concept is extraordinary. The poet is Lisel Mueller.

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolves
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air and change our bones,
skin, clothes to gases.

Doctor, if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

View from the Pit ~

 

Even though this is a New York City photo (not a Tucson photo) I think it is just too cool not to share! This is a view from the orchestra pit at Radio City Music Hall taken by a harpist I know who was performing in the Christmas shows. Up to the left is the closed stage curtain. On the right is her harp.  

Photo courtesy of Maria Banks. 

Fred, Tucson's Favorite Buffalo, says Goodbye!

An icon in Tucson for many years, Fred, the dapper and beloved buffalo perched atop Copper Country Antiques on Speedway, is leaving town. The store's owner, Phillip Gaillard, has closed the fun and funky antiques mall and will move to Dallas. Click here for a video clip of Phillip riding Fred as a crane lifts them from the store's roof to the parking lot. Goodbye, Fred! We will miss you and your fantastic costumes!

Birds of a Feather Ride Together ~

I spotted this flock of birds riding in the back of a pick up truck. At the red light I asked the driver what was up with this cargo. He told me the birds are his chain saw art and that he was on his way to sell his sculptures at a roadside stand on the road to Mt Lemmon. 

Rock in the New Year!

The wonderful Tucson classic rock band, 5 Way Street rocked in the New Year for revelers at Ventana Canyon's Cascade Lounge. The band specializes in music from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Great dance music! Happy New Year everyone and hope you have a great year!