Monkey

 

Rest in peace, Monkey.

17 years ago, during a heatwave, you found your way to my door.

Only a few months old, abandoned, you were surviving in the canyon dodging coyotes

 and eating lizards.

On the front porch I gave you milk, cereal and turkey.  You looked feral, fur matted, bones protruding.

You ate and went away.

The next day I heard your sweet meows as you wandered through the french doors.

The house became your kingdom.

You sized up everyone who came through the door.

At parties, you liked the spotlight

and would let me know if you weren't getting enough attention.

You followed me from room to room like a dog.

And yet you were incredibly independent

roaming the canyon for hours, sometimes days, before returning home with dirty paws.

You befriended the neighbors.

They would knock on the door and tell me stories.

One women who took daily walks past the house with her dog was particularly fond of you.

On the afternoon she returned home after putting her dog down she found you on her back porch.

She was devastated, and you came in and comforted her.

You would often come home smelling like perfume, and I knew others were feeding you.

I gave you your independence, and you gave me mine.

You seized my heart

with your little black nose and expressions.

You were never bashful asking for a little loving.

If you weren't getting enough

You would grab my hand with your paw.

Your favorite place to be scratched was under your neck.

You always made me laugh.

I didn't  always love your presents as much as you wanted me to,

especially when you brought them to me still alive

and I'd have to listen to you kill them.

This earned you the nick name Killer.

I will miss you standing on your hind legs, scratching on the glass doors to be let in.

I will miss you waking me up at 6am to be fed.

I will miss curling up next to you as I sleep.

I will miss you licking my dish after dinner.

I will miss you.

I'm sorry I wasn't with you when you died.

I always thought I'd be holding you, looking into your soulful eyes.

I can't imagine returning home and you not being there.

My little purr machine.

My Monkey doodle head.

My little puddy bear.

Windows

Atlanta in Black and White

Random Family's Christmas Card Photo

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Atlanta Beltline

I discovered my favorite place in Atlanta this weekend, the Beltline.

A former railway corridor around the core of of the city

being developed in stages as a multi-use trail connecting neighborhoods.

It's an amazing place for community and art.

I swooned for the industrial architecture, cool restaurants and shops

popping up along the path.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In honor of Garbriel Garcia Marquez,

 I'm posting a SHORT STORY he wrote in 1955,

 "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings".

Steeped in magical realism and symbolism, it is absolutely poetic.

Sets

I love having an entire new house to paint cool colors and decorate, and 100 hands to get it done.

Road Sign

Spotted on the way to work.

 

From Eight to Eighteen

In 1972, a family road trip to the battlefields in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was memorialized in a series of photos.  Only a crystal ball could have predicted  that ten years later I would return to this town to attend college.  Unintentionally, a picture of me of my parents during that long ago weekend was recreated in the battlefields during parents weekend my freshman year. 

Stormy Atlanta Weather

The Beginning of The End

Cabbagetown

Cabbage town is one of Atlanta's oldest industrial settlements, built for the South's first cotton processing mill in 1881, the narrow streets of small Victorians were home to poor white families from Apallacia who worked in the factory.  Since the 1970s when the mill shut down, the neighborhood has been in transformation. The factory has been converted to condos, and artists have moved into the colorful row houses.  I walked the streets in the late afternoon, children were playing, dogs barking, neighbors gathering.  Outside tables at the few restaurants on the main street were filling up with locals.  The vibe was cool and tight knit.