PAUL MICHEL

I spent much of the morning at a lake quite near my house, in the rain, watching and photographing a baby flicker being coaxed from its nest--unsuccessfully so far--by its patient (again, so far) parents. I'd seen it yesterday, still being fed, the classic gaping, desperate pink mouth; More! More!, the parental back-and-forth. But today was strictly business, it seemed. I waited perhaps fifteen minutes for Junior to make his first tentative appearance, nudging his head out of the hole, scanning the skies for Mom and Dad. Eventually they appeared, but not with food. Their strategy seemed to be to perch just behind the nest snag and call out some Flicker equivalent (I presume) of " You eat when you fly up here on your own!" By the time the rain drove me back indoors Junior had managed to get almost his whole body out of the hole, twisting every which-way to try to see where they were. But whether it was nerves, the rain, my presence (I hope not) or that of a large menacing crow in a nearby maple who was watching the entire drama as carefully as I, he was still home-bound when I left. I'll go back later. Yes, I'm easily amused. Very easily. (more…)

I'm wrapping up week one of a mysterious ear infection--in my good ear of course--that has rendered me nearly deaf. (As well as being damned painful and messing up my balance.) The doctors are baffled--I seem to do that to doctors--and the prognosis is uncertain. Meet the new drugs, same as the old drugs.

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Nothing says summer in Seattle like a hearty bowl of stew. I read comments and posts of friends and acquaintances from around the country and globe--the summer sun streaming in California windows, pea-soup humidity swaddling the Midwest, sandy beach frolics on the east coast, and so on, and I try to feel smug about our upper-left-hand "otherness." "We don't need no stinking sunshine." It doesn't work. It's mid-June, for crying out loud, and the same coats and hats hang from the backs of chairs in my house as they did in February and March. Oh, there have been a few teaser days of blue and relative warmth--perhaps four?--but nothing to, you know, bloom about. And it doesn't take much in these parts to get the shorts and sunscreen out. (more…)

I'm spending a few days with my wife, younger (16) son and a friend of his in Grant County in Eastern Washington. Ad men call it "the other Washington," to distinguish it from the Puget Sound, Olympic Peninsula, Juan De Fuca wet side of tall conifers, snowy peaks, scattered islands, Microsoft, flying fish and steady rain. This is high desert country, as different from a rain forest as a landscape can hope to be. While the teens attend a mammoth music festival called Sasquatch (ironically, as the poor beast would wither in this climate) we have been hiking sagebrush country amidst buttes, mesas, deep ravines, oasis lakes, delicate wildflowers, peripatetic tumbleweed, rock scree hills, broad plains, potato fields and snakes. Snakes, snakes, snakes. They're rather a theme for me every time I come out here, particularly the Western Rattlesnake, a magnificent malevolence prevalent in this half of the state, and never far from a hiker's mind. (or feet.) (more…)

Indulge me in a moment of silly reflection: I walked my dog earlier this evening. He's a 6 year old miniature poodle, a full-fledged family member with rights and responsibilities and no concept that he and I are of different species, which I consider a great compliment. (I'm bigger. He gets that. He's smarter. I understand.) (more…)

Clearly this blogging thing eludes me. I can't shake the idea that an entry deserves a theme, an epiphany, a punch-line, whatever. When I roam the blogosphere I see how outdated and off-base such an attitude is. Apparently this is my outlet for regular (daily? goodness) ramblings on whatever crosses my addled mind So be it, then. (more…)

My mother was raised in a big Irish family, the Cullinans, in (mostly) Cambridge , Ohio in the 1920s and ‘30s. There were eleven children, one of whom died in infancy, leaving Mom the second oldest, younger only than my Aunt Evy, who died when I was ten. She was my “first death,” that is, the first person I’d known to die, as I couldn’t really include JFK, or even the kid in second grade who was absent one day and then the next and who never came back, and months later we were told that he’d died and gone straight to heaven with no stop in Purgatory, because he’d had the Stigmata in his last days. (more…)

Favorite Chine restaurant translation (so far):
"Giant clam with two tastes."

Yesterday was principally about the Met, (as in the art museum not the opera house); a full, foot-sore seven hours of mostly Middle Eastern, Egyptian and Cypriot art as it happened, though through no particular design, and a couple of surprises as well. Oh and a new Picasso exhibit, open in preview to members, which we became quickly when it was explained to us that an annual membership would be cheaper than admission for two. Seeing a Picasso exhibit is like going to a gallery of a half-dozen different twentieth century artists. His linocuts alone are worth the price of admission. And "The Blind Man's Meal." And... (more…)

My body thinks it's 4:30 am, but it's awake anyway, despite staying up as late as I could manage reading R. Boswell's American Made Love , and after a long walk around the Lower East Side, and, most importantly, a fabulous dinner at the Congee Kitchen on Allen Street, just a few blocks from our hotel on the edge of Chinatown. (more…)

Off to New York City tomorrow; a quick trip engendered by a wedding that wasn't; a long tale and a sad one with a silver lining (i.e., the wedding that wasn't a good idea). Tickets bought, hotel reserved, what the heck? It's been over a year since I was in the City, and I'd not gladly miss a chance to visit, especially with no agenda more complicated than eating, walking, eating, visiting museums and eating. (more…)