I Love the United States Post Office!

This morning, hunkered over my bookbag in the post office lobby, fanny to the front door, I heard, "Hello, Robley!"

"Hi, Harold," I said, without turning around.

Sewanee is that kind of place.  I knew from the sound of his voice that my mechanic had come in.

Upright, writing my card on a counter, I heard peeping, and turned to find Harold re-entering the lobby from the customer windows.  He held a box with multiple holes.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Twenty-five Rhode Island Red chicks," he said, beaming.

I stopped in the garage between the post office and The Lemon Fair, and there on the desk was the box, peeping away.

Who knew the post office delivered such precious cargo?  Not I!

"When I was a kid," Harold told me, "the mailman would bring them to the house.  Now you have to come into town for them."

And to think -- the post office may stop delivering to everyone on Saturdays and stop delivering altogether to hundreds of small towns in rural America.   

Then who'll bring the chicks? I wonder.

A Little Thoreau That Goes a Long Way

From Walden: "The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; . . . ."  

 

Dances with Wolves

has nothing on me,

Sits with Autumn Meadowhawks

in my own private Sewanee.

A Lake Cheston Stroll

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Ubiquitous Sign

Someone at the equestrian center has a sense of humor.

On a rainy day, I need one.

Wonders to Behold

Sometimes, a good walk is a good sit -- among wonders to behold.

What I Would Miss Were I Not Here

The light, and the way it filters through leaf and branch, and the way it fires stone, and the way it penetrates glass to distant walls and fixtures, and the way it throws patterns in and out, and the way it reflects off glass and makes it a solid plane, and the way it depicts trees and other buildings as if dreams of eternal forms in some Platonic world other than this one.

What I Miss Here

Authentic ethnic food.

Finger-licking good takes on new meaning in the presence of a noodle bowl of steamed greens and beef; a fiery plate of peppered chicken and peanuts; thick yogurt drizzled with fine olive oil and slathered on hot pita; shrimp swimming with lemongrass in a gingery coconut; melt-in-the-mouth-pork blackened and dripping with barbeque sauce; feathery flakiness of redfish and tomato; crack and snap of red shell revealing plump lobster meat; and powdered-sugar-dusted lumps of heavenly butter cookie.

Once, years ago in New Orleans, my doorbell rang, and I met a stranger speaking heavily Greek-accented English and holding a box.

She said, "Natalia has sent you a gift."

I thanked her, took the box, and watched her leave.

When I opened the bakery box, inside were dozens of kourambiethes, baked by a family friend of a former student living in Thessaloniki.

Tonight, when I finish my supper, I shall remember that gift and savor the memory for dessert.

Almost But Not Quite

The dragonflies and damselflies have almost reached their seasonal end.  I counted seven Autumn Meadowhawks, five Swamp Spreadings, one Eastern Pondhawk, and one Common Green Darner at Lake Cheston this morning.

I was despondent, until . . . I saw this:

A Matter of Perspective

Welcome rain lingered longer than I liked: the air wore moisture like a fraying gray overcoat, and through it the world blurred.

Today, sun pushed its way through clouds and lit up the sky in robin's egg blue, calling me outside to see through the veil and see things as they are.

I'm happy to report that things as they are are beautiful.

Why I Live Here

There are many reasons, but one of the most powerful is shown in Nate's video:

A Day of Cats

On Facebook, friends posted a plea for homes for cats discovered here on the Domain.

And in the mail, another card arrived from my friend Charley -- despite his cancer and opiate-induced forgetfulness -- with a photo of Bird, who, he writes, "arrived one spring morning several years ago, parking her tussock in a sycamore for several days.  She refused to come down until I sat reverentially in a yoga position offering friskies under the tree."

On a rainy day, I think of the cats and the humans who save them.