“Is it that he’s molting making all the fur stand up, or are his hips a bit more prominent than usual?” my husband asked me a few weeks ago, when looking at our cat with his tail up and nose down in his food bowl. I didn’t know it then, but that turned out to…
I am a history buff. Have been for years. I’m not exactly sure how it’s started, though I suspect a particular European history teacher in Exeter had a hand in it, making it interesting and all that (how dare he?) by somehow finding the ridiculous and the sublime in every era, every conflict, every revolution we…
I had no scheduled classes on 11 September 2001. I was sleeping in, and was woken up by my boyfriend, ringing me from Ireland, more precisely, from a train somewhere between Dublin and Sligo. Being five hours ahead of us, they were well into their day already when his mother first rang him to say…
People love rituals. We’re really good at them. Rituals have in fact been a feature of society since… well… pretty much since the beginning of society I imagine. Whether it’s swearing in a new president or sacrificing a virgin for a better harvest, humanity simply loves to mark events. Marking events has a definite sort of…
The tree is beautiful. The lights are warm. The couch makes for a cozy corner under the shaded icicle lights in the window. There’s a colourful knitted stocking hanging from the mantle waiting for chocolate treats to be hidden inside. The presents are starting to pile up under the tree and more are waiting to…
As the weather starts to slowly get colder, the rain more prevalent, and the evenings darker, it’s obvious that I’m saying a small goodbye to the summer each day at a time. This is, of course, perfectly normal and cyclical. I am not a fan of colder weather and darker days, but I love the…
You might recall my sort-of-eulogy on Day #131 about the owner of the garden I pass on a daily basis on my way to and from my son’s creche. Since then I have posted a smattering of photographs documenting the giant daisies as they slowly come into bloom. Now, finally, the garden is in full…
Monday 29 May is Memorial Day in the United States. These photos were taken by my sister-in-law in Boston Common over the Memorial Day weekend, where volunteers put up 37,000 flags to represent every service member from Massachusetts who has lost his life in service since the Revolutionary War. Such sacrifice rises above politics. It deserves…
Today’s post is not about being happy. I did say, when I started this blog and called it “Infinite #100happydays” that no one can (or should) be happy all the time. We cannot appreciate happiness if we don’t have something to balance it out, to remind us why happiness is so important. So today’s post…
The Feathered Rose 