first goldenrod this season i guess --- an early portent of fall --- the weather today and the rest of this week is great, with below normal temps --- 65 will feel fine tonight ---

after an abortive trip to the river with dog, we dropped him back at the condo and checked out wilburn farm at arabia mountain natl heritage area ---

thoroughly wasted in front of the QT on peachtree as 6:30 pm --- i'm wondering if the phone will still be in his hand when he wakes up --- and will he still have a watch --- although if you're gonna pass out in public in broad daylight, that's as safe a place as any i guess

grrrrrr

i've been in an ill mood all day over the whole transgender thing --- especially finding out trump is throwing the thousands of transgender people in the military under the bus in a trade-off to get votes to fund his stupid border wall --- and at the same time the attorney gen'l is filing amicus briefs supporting a denial of LGBT civil rights --- 

yeah, let me take this opportunity to personally thank family, especially, and friends who by voting for republicans have made possible this renewed fervor to put queers back in their place --- making amurica great again, doncha know --- 

big sky

and out of the blue, this afternoon, came a call from the person that hired me for the coochee project, then left not long after i started --- she's got some proposal for melding art and history on the beltline --- if it's not a time-suck it might be interesting --- more anon

big sky is rare in this part of the planet, what with all the trees and what not --- it is the best feature of residency on the thirteenth floor

finis

i'm sitting here printing out the final draft of the coochee history --- in the next few days i'll journey to coochee, deliver it and a variety of digital files, and consider the project complete --- i'm very glad i did it, very plzd with the product, and very glad it's done

hot summer red

swamp weather is here --- smothery hot and sticky humid --- so a good time to finish the purge by going through the office closet --- gave all my lp records to brian and threw away another ton of redundant paper, and now both closets are full, but not fibber mcgee full --- and i know what i have and where it is located ---

miserable trip to the dentist, long overdue, eased somewhat by a dose of xanax

the annual metropolis summer pool party was a hot mess --- at one point, there was thunder and pouring rain, but the pool never emptied and the dance music never stopped --- somebody called the police three times, probably for obnoxious drunkeness somewhere in the bldg

we waste a lot of food, some of us more than others 

milestone/mill stone

we've had some great skies of late, and sunsets that just set me down on the veranda to stare and fergit to post

but i didn't fergit to get my mortgage paid off today --- for the first time in 40 years, there is no mortgage anywhere with my name on it

i am a lucky man

unsettled weather

das leben ist eine ewige wiederentdeckung --- i've always thought of that as goethe, but maybe not --- whatever --- 

 

rebuilding a city

the purge of useless items from my personal effects has been an excellent exercise and i've now turned attention to what were over 16,000 digital images that i've taken over the last twelve years, all unsorted beyond being dumped into monthly folder --- i'm down to 11,500 unsorted images --- i hope that i will have a decent chronicle of the spectacular re-construction of midtown that i have witnessed over the last twelve years

missing moon

 we were hoping to observe the rising of the thunder moon, the name i think most appropriate for july --- but clouds --- the moon was purty great last night

flowers make you forget

a warm, semi-humid, but very pleasant visit to the atl bot gdn this morning --- the pink bananas were excellent --- tried out the garden restaurant for brunch, which was quite serviceable, imho

more stuff

my decennial purge is mostly complete --- perhaps 10 cubic feet of stuff out of the house, half of it paper, and most of it entirely worthless, even to me --- there were a few things, however, of which i wish i had taken better care --- the entire exercise has enhanced my understanding of why people feel compelled to write memoirs

Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
And rivers that ran through every day
I must have been mad
I never knew what I had
Until I threw it all away

unfocused

books i have started in the last few months but not yet completed:

Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc, Hugh Aldersley-Williams

First Migrants: Ancient Migration in Global Perspective, Peter Bellwood

Middlemarch, George Eliot

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648, Mark Greenhouse

Berlin: Portrait of a City through the Centuries, Rory Maclean

A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain, Marc Morris

The Village: Four Hundred Years of Beats and Bohemian, Radicals, and Rogues, John Strausburg

The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization, Daniel K. Richter

The Worlds the Shawnee Made: Migration and Violence in Early America, Stephen Warren

the oncidium alliance

this little unit over my desk started opening yesterday --- i will be getting whiffs of chocolate off it for the next few weeks --- meanwhile big urnge is done and i chopped the mealy bug infested stem this morning---

and the aliens continue to show --- one stem is winding down on the unit in the living room, but there's already another sprouting --- in addition, its twin in the office has two stems on the way as well, one of which will probably open next week --- these two plants ensure that i am almost never without blossoms

"in small things forgotten"

this little image of some poor nameless child was part of the debris i've been sifting through -- less than 1" diameter, made for a locket, which is now missing --- he's probably a distant lee cousin, ca. 1880, and maybe i will be able to match him to someone when i get around to sorting a big box of lee family images --- the whole exercise has made me think of deetz's in small things forgotten: an archaeology of early american life

i am no longer the rent man

we closed on the sale of 3578 e main st in college park this afternoon --- it remains an excellent house, but what a glorious release it is to be out from under it, especially since my name was the only one on the mortgage --- it was, and will remain, the last of my rental property

the new owner was the first to look at it when it went on the market in early spring but his then-agent discouraged him --- came back later, without agent, and here we are --- he seems to be the best and will not be an absentee landlord, but will live there and am purty sure he will do right by the house --- if i were his age, i would be jazzed about it too