http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/040730/cx_peanuts_umedia/20043007&e=1

French for Cats

Sometimes I choose to play with my prey,
Tantot je choisis de jouer avec ma proie,

sometimes I decide to rip my prey to shreds,
tantot je decide de dechirer ma proie en petits morceaux,

and sometimes i just like to carry my prey around.
et tantot j'aime tout simplement porter ma proie ici et la.

Where do you want me to put it?
Ou voulex-vous que mette ca?


Taken From French For Cats: All the French Your Cat Will Ever Need by Henri De LA Barbe

Shadows of Our Childhood

Harvard Square, Cambridge: September 28th 1998

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations -
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

"The Journey," taken from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Sculpture In The Village by Ian Wong

Taken in New York City, July 8th 2004 

Faded Blue

I am too expensive for you, sir.
I am an antique french wine,
collecting dust on the rack.
Waiting to be uncorked,
Used and discarded in
a petit mort.

It is foggy outside today, I know.
And the streets,
The streets are deserted.
You cry to me,
You want to be lost
But you cannot afford what I cost.

There is a time for love,
But it is not today.
The screwdriver is on the shelf
Next to the wall with the faded blue wallpaper.
Can’t you understand, sir?
I am far too expensive
 
"Faded Blue," by Leopoldina DeWinter

A man and his pole

 
Ocean Beach, San Francisco: July 18th, 2004

A Modern Fairy Tale

This story begins like any other story, with a girl and with a boy. For any good story cannot exist without them. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For as important as a boy, or should I say boys, are to this story, in the end the boy is fundamentally missing in the telling of this tale.

In reality, the heroine's life as we begin this tale is amazingly reaching Perfection. She took a giant leap of faith by moving to a new town in a new country called California. "Go west, my child," she heard the wind say... and so westward she went until she hit the coast. In return for her faith, Serendipity awarded her a new flat with high Spanish ceilings, wood floors, and large French windows that looks out to a bay and a big red bridge, a job with a shiny name plaque on the door of her office, and her two bestest friends in the whole wide world within walking distance of it all. Yes, the heroine in this tale seems to have everything she always wanted and never thought she actually achieve,­ and yet she is missing the one small thing she wished for most, a boy. Or should I say “the boy.” For, like most of her life, she is surrounded by boys, but never the right one. Wendy and the lost boys they used to call her. But anyone who looked deep enough would have said that it was indeed Wendy who was lost.

And so it is here in the tale that we catch up with the heroine. You see, the heroine heard that to catch a prince first you must buy some bait and go to a fresh pond. So with a pair of nice new shiny shoes and a hot red dress, she decided to go dancing and once again she seemed to be awarded by Serendipity for she met a handsome young prince. He laughed at her jokes and complimented her eyes. They danced all night and as the sun was rising, he agreed to meet with the heroine again the next night to do it again. On the second night, the prince showered the heroine with kisses and declarations of love... and agreed to become friends. However, as the prince left he met his friends. His friends, scared of the quick attachment the heroine had with the prince, convinced the prince that the girl was not everything he thought she was and convinced him with their own jealous lies, to walk away from the heroine. And so with a feeble excuse, the prince excused himself from the heroine. However, the heroine was, as they say in cowboy country, a tough cookie and with a small bruise on her ego walked away happy to say at least that she thought she was beautiful where it counted.

So the heroine, with her new shiny shoes and hot red dress, went to a fresh new pond recommended to her by her best friend. On the way, she was introduced to a group of frogs. Yet, these frogs were intimidated by the heroine. "Look at her," they said to each other. "So nice and so sweet, and yet so independent and so powerful, there must be a motive to why she wants to befriend us..." And so these frogs attempted to tear her down to build themselves up, afraid that if they let down their guard they might actually begin to like the girl. The heroine saw all this, yet continued to be nice to them since they were becoming unavoidable. What, she thought to herself, could be the harm from a small group of uptight frogs?Of all these frogs, one frog stood out from the rest. He was everything she always found intimidating in the world. Tall, foreign, smart, sophisticated, and most of all snobby, she was intrigued by the frog named Hans. Bored by the other frogs, she found herself beginning to like this frog. At least, she thought to herself, he seemed sweet enough to put up with the croaking and bellowing of the other frogs. The frog named Hans took her out to her favorite meal and on a lovely boat ride, and she thought maybe he was not a frog at all. Maybe she had misjudged him. Maybe he was prince after all.

And so the heroine with her new shiny shoes and hot red dress planned a trip for her birthday to the beach... because as all heroines know, there is nothing as nice as going to the beach for your birthday. But when the day came around to go to the beach, no one came to take her. Curious, the heroine took a walk and ran into the group of frogs croaking in a corner. "Beach?" the frogs croaked in unison. "Why would we want to go to the beach when we can be miserable here whining about our work and hiding from the sun?" Frustrated, the heroine looked at the frog named Hans who was in the center of the group, and asked, "what about you Hans? I thought you said you take me to the beach?" To which the frog sheepishly looked at the other frogs, and croaked, "I am too busy... too too busy." And so the heroine sighed and walked away, for she indeed did misjudge the frog named Hans and his friends. For they were not frogs at all, but toads. And she swore to never attempt to catch a frog or a toad ever again.

Disappointed by her catchings, or lack thereof, the heroine kicked off her new shiny shoes and walked home. Ready to hang her hot red dress up for a while, she brushed off the dust of the road and changed into her daily rags and went to do her laundry. Barefoot and weary, she was unprepared for the disarmingly gentle smile that opened the door for her to the elevator in her apartment building. Could it be, she thought to herself? Was the prince hiding under her nose the whole time? But after a small conversation over their dirty laundry, it turned out that the boy with the smile worked in the stables. And as everyone knows, heroines no matter how pretty or funny or smart can never have a stable boy. Or should we say, stable boys would never have a heroine. But as time passed and the heroine found herself spending more time basking in the smile, she realized that she didn’t need her shiny new shoes or hot red dress for the stable boy.

Embracing the elevation of not needing to be anything but herself, she left the baiting of princes for another day and enjoyed time with the stable boy. She laughed with him in the early morning at a bad movie, licked the dew off roses in the rose garden, danced with him under the moon on a hot summer night, and blew smoke circles to the stars on the rooftop of their building. She allowed the stable boy to get under her skin to the point that she forgot about her new shiny shoes and hot red dress. She forgot about her pond skipping and the baiting of princes. She forgot about her dreams of being a princess. Until one morning she woke up and realized that she was dangerously close to falling for him. But even more so, she had almost forgotten what it was like to be without a stable boy. And she wondered how it happened and why he couldn’t be a prince. But alas, she realized it is unfair to expect the stable boy to be a prince. For to ask him to do so would destroy what she liked about him. In the end he was just the stable boy with a disarmingly gentle smile. And so she gave a hug to her new friend, changed back into her new shiny shoes and hot red dress, and walked away.

Now, my dear friends, where does this leave our pretty little heroine with her shiny new shoes and hot red dress? That is yet for time to tell, for the story is just beginning for our heroine. However, she is starting to realize that perhaps the journey to Perfection is not all it is cracked up to be and, perhaps, even a bit boring. Maybe one day she will find the mythical boy that makes her dreams come true. But in the meantime, she is laughing at herself as she tries to hitch hike a ride to the beach...

Wild Mustang in the Rockies

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs: June 6th 2004