Blue Moon

If the moon's not blue for you, you bring blue for the moon.

I took this tonight on the second full moon of the month. Photoshop helped sadden things.

Nanci Griffith has a really nice song about the blue moon. I'm not usually a folk/country music guy, but if you don't know about Nanci, you should. She's awesome.

Hillsboro Lighthouse

Just before I left my mother’s home in Missouri this week I asked if I could have this painting I remember from my childhood — and she said yes!

It’s a scene of the 1907 lighthouse at Hillsboro Beach, Florida, along the beach where I grew up, just south of my grandfather’s apartment building he constructed around 1965. We lived there for a while after I was born when my dad managed the building, and later again after we sold our house. Every morning the sun would rise over the water and glare in my bedroom window to wake me for middle school.

My grandfather lived on the entire top penthouse floor of the building. His home was like a museum of paintings and marble statues, books, fancy furniture and rugs. From his top floor view you could watch the lighthouse revolve all night to beckon boats back into Hillsboro Inlet.

My mom painted this probably in the late 1960s, and I love that one-of-a-kind aspect of it, and that it’s her work. When I visit my aunt’s and uncles’ homes I see her paintings displayed all over, and this is my first one. What I also love is the rough wilderness of the beach it shows from the time we lived there. It’s the Florida I remember, before all the high rises, mansions and development.

Unfinished Business

This week at Cub Scouts for our Citizen pin we created collages about America. I decided to do one, too.

I used a 10th grade geometry trick to lay down 13 stripes, and eyeballed the rest. There were only Kindergarten safety scissors to use; I think it added to my piece. It was time to end before I could do more stars and start on the white stripes — it will remain unfinished, but I was happy enough with how it turned out.

I’m a big fan of shapes as art: I’ve got a great Matisse print from the Dallas Museum of Art hanging in my place, and my favorite library books in the kids section come from Eric Carle, Lois Ehlert, and Leo Lionni. Someday I'm going to illustrate a children's book.

My boys can learn first aid and camping in Boy Scouts. For now in Cubs we’re going to have fun.

Power Out? Dessert Party, My Place

I know I've talked here and there about why it's great to live in New York state, but it's time to give the topic its own tag.

Stewart's is this corner store around the Albany region which has the absolute best milk and ice cream. You can get scoops in cones, sundaes and milkshakes old school, or buy it in cartons, which they still sell it in actual half gallons, not these ripoff 1.5 quart containers.

I used to think "plain vanilla" was an oxymoron, but Stewart's Philly Vanilla got me straightened out. It's got specks of vanilla bean that remind you vanilla is a flavor. It's so good on its own, or with Hershey's syrup, or with strawberries, but it also pairs well with any other dessert. When it's one of the 3 flavors of the week on sale I stock up — I bought 5 the other day.

Stewart's other flavors are good, too, but they're just passing flings. I've found true love.