fifi’s grafitti

“How strange! Some kid has been sticking their orange M&Ms in an old seed pod. What a perfect waste of chocolate.” These were my thoughts as I bent to collect the pod on the sidewalk. “No, not M&Ms. Tiny alien creatures camouflaged in a hostile environment, biding their time until their fearless leader sounds the […]

I met a one-eyed caterpillar on the way to town yesterday. He was a fierce looking creature, and carried many scars of past encounters with steel beams, concrete chunks, and other industrial birds who’d thought their feathered appendages would allow them to swoop off with an easy meal. Sometimes a cumbersome bulk can work to […]

There are a lot of nice front porches in my neighborhood decked out with red, white, and blue bunting. The colors usually blossom in the spring and last until the leaves fall in autumn. It doesn’t feel like the “patriotism” that gets tossed around the political pulpits over the wearing of a flag lapel pin. […]

When did Mother’s Day become a time to immerse your mom in material burdens like jewelry, new cars, or Manolo pumps?
Someone just turned me on to this beautiful short film. You don’t have to be a mom for it to rend your heart.
Please watch Mother’s Day for Peace.
More about the women who participated in the […]

This is “Gertrude Jekyll”, an old English rose from David Austin, one of the latest additions to our back yard. It smells wonderful! I’m posting this for the oh, so creative Hanna to help her celebrate the fourth birthday of her blog. I know she loves pink!

yeah, I know it’s a boring picture. We spent the last two weeks of exile in a local motel. Our window looked out onto a Jeep dealership and we spent a lot of time watching cars coming in and out of a service bay, and employees taking smoke breaks next to it. This was accompanied […]

This is the front door of a bed-and-breakfast, still in halloween regalia, lace-mistakethat’s up for sale about six blocks from our house. I love the front door of this house, probably because the back door to my house has some of the very same detailing that dates it to about 1890. The details include the […]

….anyway, I thought it was a birdhouse, but it’s not; it’s just a planter. Still, it looked pretty with its mini-pumpkins.
I finally got out for a brisk ten-minute walk this morning. My “health counselor”, a nurse attached to some company in Arizona which has contracted with my employer to call people to assist them with […]

Yesterday I took a day off from all chores to just drive around and explore Collin County. I’ve been here for almost ten months and haven’t really got to know the county that well. Seems like I have too much to do or it’s pouring down rain or the thermometer’s sweating at a hundred degrees […]

I really like living in the historic district of McKinney. When I take Phoebe for a walk I can take a different route every time and almost always see something new. I have been leaving my camera at home, but here’s a fairly recent shot of one of the gingerbread gables. Many of these […]