Tel

  First two letters missng i.e., burnt out bulbs, leaving the tel in motel.  ESPN on QB substitution: we think you’re good enough. Just be yourself. Cambridge book on creativity. Operating from the cockpit. Muscle milk left stnding on piece of the architecture at the top of the library steps. Rain is making drops while the sun shines somewhere. Working nine days a week. Stellar. Telephone. Don;t tell on me.

PKGZ

Packages and more packages and a heart shaped smiley face on the mirror at the park. Today is for relationships and wisdom, enlightenment and secret plotting. A compass, with strokes and Evergreen, 99 and Geib on the roadway.  Two hawks flew in the vicinity of trees that have grown bare with the beginning of November. They have limbs to perch to peer and prey. One was especially large and plump as a pumpkin, a meaty sort. No heron to report other than an internet icon. beautiful morning with sunshine and sundance. We hours of morning featured moonlight shadows that seemed patterned with Venetian blind lines. I have covered two miles and processed these things.

Dixie Rich

Dixie Rich 8.22.11 by Allison Huyett

Three light green pattern paper compostable drinking cups, crimped and thrown onto the ground, remind me an organized running event took place at the park yesterday. One blue and white paper cup is found along the trail, which has been washed almost completely clean from Sunday rain.

I find a few locust fronds – my favorite to-do list prompt – and an abundance of sycamore bark on the gravel screenings. Other people on the path wear citrus colors – lime and orange laces and clothing. These are to ward off Lyme disease and scurvy.

A heron perches about two heron heights above the creek, on a broken bare branch, overlooking the water. The bird performs preening and cleaning tasks and therefore is not a combustion engine in repose. The low humidity helps make today pleasant; a high degree of atmospheric clarity, wealth of warm sunshine and bonus breeze add interest. This is divine.

Navajo Merchant

The name of a freight hauler flashes above the overpass as the Navajo truck takes a bend to the west. I drive to the park for a  Monday morning walk. The brown duck swims near the far shore of the creek. Its back looks like yellow leaves have fallen on it. All the noise is quiet.

An AVIA label dots the path. A heron with light-colored fluffed feathers crouches on a limestone rock in the creek, 30 yards downstream from the red covered bridge.  Further on, the names MCKENZIE + HEIDI have been hand drawn in the fine stone screening s of the path. The large letters are like miniature track portions with lanes, four lanes, formed by the fingers on one hand. I can imagine some track and field entrants running dashes and distances inside.

There is a series of x markings and a kind of open eye formed by bowing an x outward. The name JENNA, done with the smooth stroke leaving no trace of fingers, has been spelled out in fifteen inch tall letters near the 10 marker. Members of the Wilson high school cross-country team train in the rain. They account for 90% of the foot traffic. Solitary metallic mylar shreds thread through the grass edge to the path in a few spots like benign girlish garter snakes. Some are magenta and some are pink.

A heron struts in the process of fishing activity between there and the locks. At the locks several invisible bullfrogs bellow and twang as if strumming and plucking big rubber bands.

The rain is light  – not a mist – not a drenching downpour – so light it makes me think of The rain as being the quality of mercy and I mentally rehearse Portia’s speech from the Merchant of Venice The quality of mercy is not strain’d. It droppeth like a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

A few shirts tossed onto the diamond-shaped park sign are now in a condition damp to soaked. I have come home with my list and a sketch of some leaves + pieces of sycamore bark. Some have the angles of Navajo blanket geometric designs and some have irregular undulating shapes. The surface of the creek showed similar irregular patches as the rain increased and speckled it. I stop at the World’s Cleanest Grocery Store to buy six cans of cat food, two boxes of pasta, a bag of dry cat food and a box of cereal stamped with a best by date of May 05 12 K 8:22 on the way home, startling the janitor, who has never seen me this wet. The coupons save $1.50, keeping my total at lane six under ten dollars. It is a six-day – I wear the Six of Cups shirt. I have to sell it.

For more about Navajo, fast safe and reliable transportation for 75 years, and to see what I have seen please go to: http://www.navajo.com/

Vitality

Vital Puzzle Piece

The Squawk Box measuring and presaging market turmoil,  many pundits putting a finger to the wind and opening up and offering opinions. Pic of the Litter: Unopened tea packet for Yogi tea Ginseng Vitality, done in mauve and purple hues. Walk includes finding two small squished amphibians, frogs and or toads, blue jay and hawk feathers and a partly erased frog decal or sticker. The air is sticky and  a heron squawked along the creek but it was in a blind spot made by the trees and undergrowth. Friends are gold and silver and priceless at a time gold is $1700 an ounce and silver hovering around $40. What is a barrel of oil?

The Endurance of William Morris

A day away from my regular employer affords me the opportunity to walk outside. These are the things that turned up along the way, in order of their appearance:

1.  A cardboard carton, flipped upside-down, juts into the lane, resting one corner on the curb of Broadcasting road.
2.  A work truck marked Li2 exits a commercial driveway as the Sleepymobile makes a two-block circle.
3. Mike and Mike, on ESPN Radio, continue a discussion of T.O. mystery ACL injury that may affect his NFL career ending never ending story. Greenie invents the term “mindless broodery.”
4. The box is a BLEACH box if all the flaps have anything to reveal. The box top botox bears a tracking label for Friday’s Wyomissing location and the factory date stamp: (still in the car). TGI Wednesday.
5. Outdoor sign lettering at an Italian restaurant announces ROAST BEEF CULB [sic] sandwich as a special. Orpah! Oynx! Typo!
6.  One train runs. Trainspotting: *The word PIES,* the phrase “This car excess height” * The weight of freight cars containing two tiers of automobiles with four or five cars per level presses heavily on the tracks. * color blocks on another car with a metal mesh of holes. * SOLVE is written large in classic graffiti style on the side of another car.
7. Note to higher self: go to Sleepy’s to photograph the Sleepymobile with store background for an extra $5 of mattress money if posted on Facebook, thanks be to Advercar and www.advercar.com.
8. A BK Trucking rig, number 4027 in descending numerals placed in a vertical column, passes Sleepymobile on #422.
9. Sun is in plenty of rich spokes along the creek, upon approach to park, as if God holds many flashlights in one fist.
10. Heron and man fishing downstream of the mill bridge.
11. Pathlings and Pick of the Litter: Survivors 8W. Took photogaffes and photographs of tender things and sycamore slings.
12. Tree limb snaps and falls into the creek 8:11 a.m.
13. Jogger breaks into concentration with sad story.
14. Upper parking area trash pictured.
15. Walker reveals Naproxen [sic] prescribed. That’s what they use on racehorses.
16. Concentrating on Industrial Revolution plus Arts and Crafts movement, one of my favorite periods in history and how it relates to Information age and A is for App.
17. Heron near pipeline 9:04, flies away when human spotting.
18. What is the value of 8/9 when converted to a percentage?
19. Fishing licence of man on bridge tantalizes me with its numeral 11 parallel strokes and an erect fish outline, dangling in the open space.
20. Abundance of barn red paint on road near Penn State erks entrance, some bloody accident.
21. Grocery store Pride and Produce section, aisles 2 and 11, cashier 11. Peppermints, carrots, cat food and English muffies with original nooks and crannies.
22. If pies were any richer, they would be pLiés.
23. Number 13, Synthesis could be PostSecret. $)@& over and outsider. Unbridled Moodery.

Parallax

   All is well, but enough about me. Began reading Enduring Love Saturday, admiring the writing of the opening, the first two pages, Chapter One. Sunday returned to the book and, in reading another chapter and another, no longer wished to endure it.

   What comes after the novel? A book, “Pocket Gardens” introduced a recycled glass garden, an aluminum garden and flower gardens, among others, including a path to a writer’s studio. The back yard at idea house reminds me of the outdoor stretch Jackson Pollack used to roam back and forth and around his works in progress.

   This morning on my walk it seemed an excellent day for herons to be fishing: the water level is normal there is cloud cover and few people are out to disturb them. What I saw instead were flying herons, one in the vicinity of the metal bridge that is now become a three-dimensional canvas for persons who have access to spray paints and make their marks in public park areas. They may find the natural world too dull! The first sighting was 8:46. I thought about ballet dancers, grace and the awkward pictures of The Black Swan. It looped around at 8:52. Shortly thereafter I found a Skoal can lid, grunged to perfection. That reminded me of the news that Major League baseball rules soon may drive smokeless tobacco use out of the park, which is a shame. Then I found a yellow flicker wing and a beige piece of paper torn on all four sides and a clean Marlboro box sleeve, containing the printed advertising: THROW A WIDE LOOP/ PLAY THE ROPE SLINGER. 

   A glance at the fuel level indicator on the dashboard prompted me to stop at WaWa Hiawatha, where I asked the cashier for $3 in gas now that a gallon is $3.57 or $3.65. In the ladies’ room, I noticed the corporate logo of the flying goose is celebrated in the white, brown and black tile design uppermost on the walls, near the ceiling. I washed my hands and the Skoal lid.

   Spring Township mapping truck 49 is in the development.

  I have returned to the library a copy of the DVD of the French film “Time to Leave” without having viewed it, since my computer died. A heron flew over the tall pines at Meridian and Commerce, heading east, at 9:26 a.m. The dictionary is open to pages 1282-1283. Particle physics/Parturient head the left-hand page.

Cowboy Junkies

   4:03 pm EDT Paper Mill Road. A heron flew over the yellow-orange crayon school bus at After it had dropped a lad off in the rain. It wasn’t directly above the school bus. It just seemed that way from where my car idled and I sat still in relation to the bird, the everlasting sky and Wilson School District Bus 26. I could also spot raindrops on the windshield. The heron did not see a sentence fragment, it was directed due east. It is a professional bird. I have Cowboy Junkies OPEN playing from the d——-d. Idea House soon will be open for business. I forgot to note earlier today, evidence of someone having tossed orange peel fragments onto Broadcasting Road near Keiser. There were two hemispheres of unequal shape and size, so they may not have been hemispheres, just two large sections, roughly yet neatly torn, and they looked like flowers, big orange-petal flowers in the street, one on the yellow center line, the other left of center. It reminded me of the baseball flower idea I saw in a magazine and that on ESPN this morning, Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig says ticket sales are up five to eight per cent this year. That is good news. As if playing with your food and forget your tense

Money Tips

    “Do you know the Three Envelope system?” a server said to me recently.

    ”I wish I did,” I said. “What is it?”

  “You take three envelopes and mark them,” the young economic advisor said. “One is for rent, one is to save, one is to spend. You put your money in there and keep it in those envelopes!”

   This reminder was a little wake up call that many people keep their cash on hand and not in bank accounts, for various reasons e.g., liquidity, legitimacy, poverty, illiteracy, and economic infancy.

    The Three Envelope system is a basic and simple “cash” accounting system that translates quickly to internet banking: use one account, ING Direct, for example, for savings; a checking account for rent, and a discretionary account for frills. I like her idea.

Budgetary Crisis

   “Are there any free resources to help you plan a budget?” asked a man in the audience.

   Yes, and this was one of them:  a free Budgeting and Financial Planning talk at the Muhlenberg Community library. The event began at 6 p.m. Five people, including a library staff member and myself, were there. This was a near tragedy.

    The presenter, Christopher Farah, a certified public accountant who has at least a dozen initials to credential his name at Farah Financial, gave sound advice, complete with handouts and a pen to make notes and write questions.

  His talk emphasized you must identify your priorities, know them and adhere to them. Impulse spending gets in the way of delayed gratification, often to one’s financial detriment. It is wise to consult a CPA for estate and tax planning matters. It is equally wise and completely doable for each individual to make a record of their spending habits, analyze it to find out where their money goes and what patterns exist. Those are basic starting points.

   Farah drew from a specific source for his presentation and gave links to the PAICPA state organization of accountants.

http://www.picpa.org/content/home.aspx

    I would also refer readers to the U.S. Government Printing Office, which supplies publications on budgeting, saving money and financial planning. Those publications are free and paid for by our tax dollars. A list of some of the publications is available inside the door at Muhlenberg, where the library maintains an array of useful publications.