A Selfportrait

In 2008 it will be 40 years since I left Denmark for USA, and there to meet Chuck and spend the better part of those years with him.
This portrait was painted while I was still in school and I barely recognize me.
So many, many years ago.
Well, this is the end of this year and the beginning of a new and better one.
And I am still here.

ps
Albin just told me, since the original is hanging in his home, that the date on it is 1961.
Much more than 40 years, as he points out.
We should all have cousins like Albin.

In Loving Memory

On this day five years ago at eleven at night, Chuck died.
I still find things of his, little notes left in books or forgotten in drawers.
And I love the idea that he still is around.
What a beautiful person.
And I am thankful for the time we had together.

Callipygian

I found this photo in a Danish newspaper and I fell in love with it.
It is a boxer weighing in before the fight, but being 50 gr. over the limit, he shed his shorts and made it.
Good thing it was the boxer who shed his shorts. I shudder to think, to imagine the old farts in their birthday rather than business suits.
The boxer lost the fight, but who cares. He has given me, and countless others, the pleasure of his near perfect backside.

Gosh and Golly

Gosh, I thought
Gosh and Golly, I said as I stumbled from the computer to the kitchen with an empty glass in my hand.
This is not my best afternoon, I thought, what with Priscilla and The Brown One returning from a trip to the woods all covered in dried blood.
What to do, what to do ?
Well, first check and see if the blood is theirs and if not, clean it up. And if it is, clean it up anyway.Then take some deep breaths, relax, and open a new box of cheap wine.
Which I did.
Now after a few glasses of wine I can cope a little better, sending my thoughts and anxieties into cyberspace where they will wither and die from lack of attention.
But I got it out of my system.
That must count for something.
Now back to that newly opened box of cheap wine.

The fragility of beauty

The Bougainvillea must be one of the most beautiful flowers here and I enjoy them immensely. The big one we had in front of the house that was cut by the electric company because it threatened to reach the wires, is making a come back. It will never, I don't think, be as spectacular as before, but it, like I, is still here.
I cut some of the new branches of it recently to ease the access to the light meter and gathered the cuttings of flowers in to a bouquet that I placed under my clock. With joy I discovered that between 9:15 and 9:30 in the morning, the sun would hit it as if it had its very own spotlight.
I grabbed my camera to take a pic of this sight, only to discover yet again, that the battery had run down.
The next morning with a newly charged battery the Bougainvillea had fainted. For all its beauty it is a very shortlived cut flower. But what a life, what beauty.
I was truly thankful for the time I had to enjoy it.

The Case Of The Missing Skivvies

I was folding and putting away the laundry and got to the skivvies and counted one...two.
and counted again...one ..two.. there was supposed to be three of my favorite, blue and white striped boxers. Three.
Ah well, thought I. Probably dropped them in the bodega...no. Then maybe upstairs, taking them down from the line.....no. Ah, but then surely I dropped them going down the stairs....no. In the spare room...? No. Under the bed ? No. Nowhere in the house did I encounter my skivvies, and the problem is that I can blame nobody. There is only this person here in the house, aside from the Worthless Mutts, but even as worthless as they are, not even they would abscond with my undies.
So now I have to wait to the missing garment miraculously appear again and till then, this will remain the case of The Missing Skivvies.

Maybe there is a mischievous skivvy fairy in the house.

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I will learn to drive with my windows down and my left arm hanging out and totally disregard the turn signals.
When I grow up I will wait till I am inside the bus, standing next to the driver, making the people behind me wait outside before I start looking for change for the fare.
When I grow up I shall wait for the last item I purchased in the supermarket to be scanned and packed before I will start getting out my wallet and search for my money to pay. I might even consider paying with a card or, maybe not.
When I grow up I shall do all the things that so irritate me now, so that future generations of Alan's will have something to complain about.
When I grow up.