THE CULT OF RONALD REAGAN

Now that I've finally resumed posting on Bloom and Rot, I'm going to temporarily make the blog secure, which means, I think, that you'll have to email me for the password if you would like to keep reading. This is not to track you, dear readers, but is because I am taking Spanish class, and for my class I must keep a Blog En Español, which I am sure will be riveting and complicated based on my level of complexity and advanced expression when using the Spanish language. And because I am using my google account, Bloom and Rot will appear alongside my new Blog En Español in my profile, and while I imagine I will adore all my new classmates, I have decided to keep Bloom and Rot under cover for the next two months. Soon you can be part of a top-secret club...





Once upon a time, in a month long since past (aka May), I bought some seedlings at a plant sale and lined them up on my mantle for a photo. Some of the plants then traveled to Esther's community garden plot where they are hopefully growing tall and strong, to someday gift us with tomatillos and thai eggplant and stripey tigerella tomatoes. Two plants stayed on my porch, where one died (the basil), and the other is growing into a giant tomato tree.


Then Tasha had a birthday, so of course she also had a party, which took place at Nate's house even though he and Michelle were out of town. Nate's famous mallard shirt served as an excellent blindfold for the piñata smashing.



Ames brought her bird, Kiwi, who was rather fond of the piñata shreds.



Matt, the responsible housesitter, collected the things that fell out of the piñata that were not snatched up by party guests, so the dogs would not eat them. Apparently people were more interesting in smashing the piñata, or in witnessing the smashing, than they were in collecting the goodies that fell out.

Tasha had stuffed the piñata with custom treasures, like Ronald Reagan and George W. condoms.

NOT YET THE ANGLE OF TOTALITY

In May it rained and snowed and rained some more. Still, there was this one afternoon when Matt and Robert and I walked in the hills above my neighborhood. I've been up there a few times since and it is green, and full of yellow flowers and mud.

WORDS OF WARNING

Matt and I took the TRAX to the antique mall to shop for birthday presents for Tasha and Catie. (And we were so successful. Matt got Tasha a picnic basket and a stoneware mug that reads "Some Girls are Ox-eyed. Some are Peroxide." I got her a picnic blanket. And for Catie, something silver and pounded (for rice), and glasses with astrological wisdom of the cataloging variety.)



Dawn passed her exams and Tim successfully defended his dissertation, a book of poems called The Goodbye Town, so they had a celebratory barbecue.

ONIONEATER, ONIONEATER

A few more backlogged projects from the visual poetry class...First, this book of and about onions. And for the record, some of the text here is stolen from the interwebs. And some of it I wrote from research.








And then there was the Sunday I spent walking from my house to the Languages and Communications building on campus, trailing yarn and making notes about my journey, which are now attached to the yarn ball, which you can see here in two pieces. It is 1.1 miles from my house to LNCO, which is 4.5 skeins of yarn, a little more than you'd need to knit a child's sweater.

GROCERY INTERVENTIONS

My friend Raphael asked for help with one of his projects for our visual poetry class, and I was more than happy to assist.