Words, Whims & Whatnot

New Stomping Grounds in St. Paul

5/31/2016

Dog Walk Discoveries (April and May, 2016)

In April 2016 I moved to St. Paul. Moving can make a person feel disoriented, but I felt a little more grounded after discovering these butterflies on the sidewalk outside Riverside Library. And there's a reason for that.

This blog by my friend Karen Henry Clark explains it all.

Years ago, someone decided that a little sapling in the lawn would be allowed to live.
It would NOT be pulled up or mowed down. That is one lucky, plucky tree.

I love the colors and textures here...seeds and stones.

Not sure if this is funny or creepy.

Real church for real "people." Hmmm...Those quotation marks make me a little nervous. What kind of people are we talking about here?

The best for last...I was walking along Winslow Avenue and was absolutely delighted to discover a short poem stamped in the sidewalk. And then I found some more! Turns out the poems are part of an ongoing public art project by the city of St. Paul. Here's a link to the Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk page.

She was steward
of the smallest things: pair of dead bees in the windows
Santa ring, cluster of elm seeds in their felted cells

I wanted to tell you the name of the street
where I crashed my bicycle, got my best scar
or how I went walking at sunrise
to see dawns' great evacuation of stars.
There must be some method, when two people meet
to explain to each other who we really are.

Success

Whippets love wombats and cheaters love rules
like canaries love cats and truants love school.
Earthworms drink tea from fine china cups
and ponies give birth to white black lab pups.
You can see from your ears and smell from your eyes
and you'll always succeed, you just never try.

A little less war
A little more peace
A little less poor
A little more eats.

I'm kind of glad I didn't know about this project beforehand. Coming across these poems totally out of the blue—what a surprise and a joy!

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"Sophistipups" and an unexpected horse

5/31/2016

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This is a Weird Revered post.

This from a magazine in a waiting room--
I don't remember which magazine, but it was mainstream. These "Sophistipups" aren't in the same league as Cerberus (the three-headed hound who guards the gates of Hades) but they still send a shiver down my spine. Would you want to wear that thing around your wrist?

I discovered this armless lady-dude cookie jar at the Good Will in West St. Paul. Was tempted to buy it, but $19.95 was too many cookies for me.

Don't you love this? How often do you see an "official" sign with a sense of humor? Found at a rest stop in Iowa along I-29.

Stick horses are still a thing in Nebraska, apparently! As well they should be. A toy that requires imagination AND movement.

Speaking of imagination and movement...Here we have a cat looming on its hind legs like Sasquatch, reaching for a ball of yarn on a bouncy spring. We have a plate of what looks to be cheese. We have a supine companion. And—what's this? Sasquatch Cat's tail is resting on a book. WHY???

This sign was on the wall at my dad's nursing home in Windom. So just who is this Positive Dog? Does it live inside us or among us? Maybe it doesn't matter. The sign definitely makes me want to smile real and laugh big, so mission accomplished.

Something about the tone of the Postive Dog sign reminded me of this soap wrapper at a hotel I stayed at last year. Imperative yet innocent, sincere yet a tad silly. Well done.

I found this in the Good Will Outlet in St. Paul. The outlets are crazy places—big bins overflowing with all the stuff that didn't sell at the regular Good Will stores. And yet, in all the shabbiness and chaos, little messages of hope are everywhere.

Proving yet again that you never know what awaits you when you open a door...This horse was in one of the classrooms (not mine) at the Rochester Technical College, site of the Young Author, Young Artist Conference I took part in recently. I later found out that the classroom was used for veterinary science, so the horse makes perfect sense. If I'd been a child in that room, though, I would have been sorely tempted to climb on top. Some of my happiest times as a kid were in our grove, pretending that an old fuel tank was my trusty steed.

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