damn good garden grape jelly!!!

apparently my grapes make good jelly

i wouldn't have thought so

but

mom made it

we put it to the emily test

and she loves it

damn good garden grape jelly

thanks mom

a beautiful day made better

brooke and alley pull into the driveway on their bikes

just as bre and i are going out

"mom's bringing you something" they say

OMG!!! panic seizes my gut

"how's yer head alley" i ask nervously

we took the gurls with us to the drive-in last night

which is really another story for another time

however

there was one particularly noteworthy incident

when alley was catapulted off the teeter totter

and onto her cute little head

there was no visible damage - but maybe she's emotionally scarred

damn that jill i thought

out of her sickbed and marching up here

to serve me with legal papers

for damaging her child

and suddenly there she was

and the moment consumed me

watching her walk up the street

seeing her a little stronger each time we've met lately

after seeing her get so weak during that dirty trip they call treatment

i coulda just scooped her up

and swung her around and round singing joy to the world

like jeremiah bullfrog

and then

she greets me with:

"whoa i think i'm gonna be sick

what was i thinking

i need to sit down on that rock"

it's a damn hot day

and it's uphill to casa de swinghammer from jewelgurl place

distracted by the excitement

i've forgotten about the impending legal action between us

she sits down and hands me some papers

take that card to work for me? she says

it's a thank-you card for our coworkers - with a note

and i'm awkwardly relieved

it wasn't long

before we both regained our composure

and we were talkin shit

like any other time

no really - we were talkin' shit

it was like this

they asked where we were going

and breanna let everyone touch the snake's shedded skin we were taking to the pet store

to find out if it's big enough to eat the larger cuter baby mice

and then

somehow the conversation went from

garth offering to show us "his snakeskin"

(with that unsettling sincere look he uses

to compliment his subtly insincere intonation)

to a graphic conversation about

jill's enema night

garth was trying to "jam it in there"

while the gurls were coaching

"it goes in there? isn't that where poo comes from"

and then the dog jumped up on the bed to join them

it was a family affair jill says

and there we were

like i said- talking shit

you just can't make up stories like that

you really can't

so we laughed

and then she got up to leave

i offered to drive her home

or follow her with the 4ways on like they did with terry fox

she said no and i knew she meant it

she told me about the importance of exercise post rx

encouraged me to do the TERRY FOX run for cancer research

and with a pleasant air of determination

headed for home

the long way

garth at her side

and the gurls right behind her

beautiful made better

thanks for the visit

jewelgurl

a thousand pictures

oliver wendell holmes wrote that words are "the skin of living ideas"

playful

powerful

a complicated code of intimations

imaginations

observations

and

sometimes a word

is worth a thousand pictures

outta this world?

sweet jimmy swing-alien

-

alley-fisheyes

gone fishin'

bre an i hooked up with our friends

brooke and alley

and we went fishing at our secret fishing hole

brooke stream fish - i don't know - i've never seen anything like it

brooke caught a fish

and another

and another
and

another

and

another

and

another

and

another

-

none of the rest of us caught anything

until finally

just before we left

alley caught one

it was brooke's day for sure but we all had fun

fishin' movie

had my ass handed to me

playing crazy 8's countdown

in the backyard on a beautiful afternoon with the bre

it was all fun and games

until

i was officially abused - raped - beaten - shown the door

and handed my ass on the way out

9 games and she won 8 in a row

-

she is

unforgiving and unrepentant

-

backyard shopping

do you know anybody with a vegetable garden

they're always trying to send you home with something

i've been neglecting the vegetable garden this year

while i frolick in a garden of another kind

nevertheless

despite the neglect and arid season

the vegetable garden still grows

so

i sent mom home with some backyard booty

cause that's what people with gardens do

she says she's gonna make jelly out of our sour ass fish eye grapes

they look grape - but they're sour

as sour as any of that crazy sour candy crap the 7-11 is selling to the ADD demographic these days

-

-

we'll see what she can do

sour assed fish eye jelly

would be good for

screwin' up yer face

and making you close one eye

but not much else

i wouldn't eat it on toast

-

-

sent home tomatos

and a squash too

the mystery squash

loblaws had a 2 for 1

on this funky green squash

i only ate one

we tossed the other

into the garden to compost

that was in march

-

-

by may there were seedlings exploding from that spot

so we cultivate two of them

and grew our own squashes?

squeesh? squai?

gaggle of squash?

no matter

it's good squash grown by god

- no charge -

no additives preservatives fertilizers or pesticides

just yummy

makin' pretty music

just like momma

peaches are sexy

fuzzy

smooth

fleshy

juicy wet

and so very tasty

i could eat a peach

for hours

sweet jimmy swinghammer's backyard bum peach

a monkey among men

it is well known that monkeys do not speak

and thus

are not obliged to work

and so i consider

a world without words

with only a language of gestures, postures and intimations

and from that imagination

came others

of a world without memory

without time

and how easily we accept "reality"

the irregular shadow of those walls

real and perceived

that form the labyrinth through which we trace our lives

carelessly

but with good intentions

all the while complexly senseless in our acceptance

of what we can not and should not do

these thoughts from those thoughts

cultivate desire

for that world

without words

without time

without memory

a desire to exist now and then

unencumbered by enlightened ways

indulging a simple madness without worry

to live as a monkey

among men

camping at algonquin park - rock lake

blueberry island + beautiful day + sexy gurl

you do the math

-

just some pics for now

but if you're good

when i'm feeling more cogent and articulate

i might tell you a story or two

"DAD!!! they're dropping sticks on my tent - MAKE THEM GO AWAY!!!"

-