The other day, as I wended my way from one building to another on my work campus, I noticed a robin flitting to a tree overhead with a long dangling oddment in its beak, and I was charmed to realize he was tending a twittering nest above me. Smiling, I continued on my way.

Later that same day, following the same path, I noticed something on the sidewalk ahead of me. My first thought was that it was, like the dessicated brown wafer here immortalized in verse, a dead frog. The pointy butt I seemed to perceive seemed to support the ranid portion of the theory, and the strange, pallid pink, covered with a sickly blue fuzz that could only be mold, went to the “deceased” portion of the proceedings. But, before I could think to wonder how an amphibian could be so long dead to be molded and be neither eaten nor before noted in the walkway, I came closer, and saw that the pointy little rear, the naked pink skin, and the light touches of pale blue down, belonged to a baby robin.

I cannot call it a ‘fledgeling’, for it was not yet fledged. Only a line of black and white striped pinfeathers adorned its half-folded wings. It was too young to have even tried to fly, and it must have fallen from the nest above. Its little head was turned to one side, as if it were sleeping with its cheek against the ground. There was no blood.

There are awful things that happen every day all around the world, but they are far away, and we have to force ourselves to believe in them, to feel. But little moments like that, the little, unimportant tragedies of the real world, are real and vivid and touch your heart. Is it a lack of perspective? I would say, rather, that it is a sign your heart still works, despite all the pain it’s had to ignore and distance.

The Grey City I
The Grey City II
The Grey City III
The Grey City IV
The Grey City V

Hucklebush Street led them away from the high (to their eyes) brick and half-timbered houses, and wound between small, humble houses in various shades of light-starved grey, shabby or lovingly kept by turns. They were in a district now which was too hilly, too poor, or too far from the water to have been much noticed by the hungry city, and it retained its small houses and little gardens as if it were still the meager partition between city and country, instead of a mote of land forgotten or scorned by the buyers, builders, and businessmen of the City.

Eirian liked it, Carys could tell. She held less tightly to her sister’s arm, and occasionally made a dart at a closing flower, before dutifully taking her place at Carys’s side and leaving the gardens unmolested. No one was out in such a sleepy place at night — or almost no one. As they turned a broad curve in the cobbled road and struggled upwards on the slick stones, they saw a very small, upright figure pacing towards them. By the skirts, it was a woman, though her face was too shadowed to tell much more, and Carys hastened to smooth down her light brown hair and compose herself to ask directions.

The figure came forward, taking no notice of the girls as yet, with an even, brisk pace that the questing, frisking, sniffing terrier she walked was hard put to match. She wore narrow, grey skirts of a simple cut, and an old but well-kept greatcoat made for a short man. Her curious ensemble was finished off with a knit tam of an almost shocking turquoise, which was centered on her grey head and cast her wrinkled face into darkness when she passed under the occasional streetlamp.

She drew near, the terrier in ecstasies over the excitement of new people and its driver oblivious to ecstasies and people alike. Carys cleared her throat to greet the old woman, but as a flash of lamplight sketched the tight, forbidding lines of her mouth, she shrank back, and passed her without a sound, pulling Eirian along despite her murmurs of admiration for the dog. She shivered, and shook her head at Eirian’s questions and protests. They walked on, and a clock in one of the sprucer houses rang a tinny and faltering ten.

Carys looked ahead and saw, as the shreds of fog blew in the mounting wind, another figure on the verge of the cobbles ahead. This area had no sidewalks, and the person moved back and forth, onto the road and back off of it, rushing and pausing and wandering in a most alarming manner. Carys hesitated, but it was this side of the street that boasted the occasional lamp, and so she continued cautiously.

As they neared the shape, Carys saw it was an old woman, hunched and muttering, pulling a shabby greatcoat ’round her. A bright wool cap hung loosely from her head, and she listed in one way, then another like a bit of cottonwood fluff on the wind. Carys was startled and frightened. What could have transformed the harsh old woman she had seen into this pathetic figure? And how could she be before them when she had passed so briskly in the other direction? Motioning Eirian to stay, she crept forward.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she murmured, “may I —”

The old woman shrieked in alarm, cloudy blue eyes focusing on her. “Oh no! I mustn’t, I mustn’t, go away!”

“Ma’am,” said Carys in very real concern, “I mean you no harm, but you appear to be in some distress. What has befallen you?”

“Oooooh, nothing, nothing,” shook the woman, glancing from side to side, “I just thought to sought Ferdie, only little Ferdie, that I took away. He was mine before, you know! But I mustn’t talk to you, I mustn’t talk to anyone,” she stared at Carys with fear fading her whimsical, twisted smile, “or I’ll know, and I won’t have it! It’s never happened, I’ve never dared, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I talk — oh no! I’m doing it, aren’t I! We’re having a conversation, and I’ll be sure to find out!”

Carys, shaken, assured the terrified old woman that they were having no conversation at all. “I am only seeking help in interpreting this direction,” she said, producing the envelope with some trepidation. “Does this read, ‘Hucklebush’?”

The old woman frowned and snatched, and drew the paper close to and far from her eyes, as if all her motions naturally assumed the oscillations of some inner tide. “It’s…hmmm. There’s a number here, and some letters, and I would know, I’m much better at all this, I know everything,” she said with an odd gulp, looking away from the paper.

Carys complimented her on this extraordinary feat of knowledge, and asked about the envelope.

“Oh! Yes, er, uh, no, it’s not Hucklebush — this is Hucklebush Hill, you know, was long ago, before it was City. There were huckleberries when I was small, before I came, and they were tart and — oh yes, the letters. They’re very faint, aren’t they, and they swim — Ferdie can swim, he’s very clever, though not so clever as me, but much more comfortable. Oh, yes,” she said, her focus following the swaying scrap, “Hardock. Hardock Street.” She returned the envelope to Carys’s hand with an air of accomplishment. “Haven’t you a place to sleep, little ones? I’d let you, but I wouldn’t have it, and though there is a very nice lilac that I slept under when I was your age, I would know about it and I wouldn’t know what I’d do. I’d know perhaps, if I didn’t know Ferdie can’t be set on anything but squirrels.” She shuddered, and her eyes rolled around again, searching the edges of vision. “Now go, you little squirrels, go and hide, find somewhere, I’m coming, I’m sure, I feel it, now run! Run! Or I’ll see you, and I’ll pay for it!”

Her wild manner quite alarmed the children, and Carys leapt for Eirian’s hand, pulling her into a clumsy half-trot up the slick street almost as quickly as the old woman ran for her own tidy picket gate and galloped up the stairs of the little violet-grey house. As they ran, Eirian looked over her shoulder and saw a straight, dark figure hastening up the hill towards the house, breaking the last remnants of fog as if she were a night wind.

The Grey City VII

I was quite resolved that I would remember the anniversary of my website, and be sure to mark it with some glurgy post or other. However, between the fact that I don’t generally blog on weekends and the fact that my work computer had gone kaplooey just before, May 29 passed unmarked.

So, there it is. I’ve managed to keep a-bloggin’ for over a year, posting fresh nonsense almost every weekday. When I started, I lived in an apartment and had a lousy job. Now I have a job I enjoy and a real, grown-up house. I got my first rejection letter for a short story I wrote, I’ve read more books, I’ve learned new words. Other than that, the landmarks mostly consist of things like Kenny the Drider-American, my run-ins with wildlife, and the imaginary doings of many imaginary people (as opposed to Kenny, who lives down the street from a friend of mine.) I hope you are amused, o nebulous public, and that perhaps I even have a few readers that don’t know me personally, which would make me feel like a small, gleaming internet star.

The Grey City I
The Grey City II
The Grey City III
The Grey City IV

Carys stepped from the ringing hollow of the Ironbridge to the grimy cobblestones of the square, her heart slowly throbbing down to its normal pace. Eirian perched on the trunk, holding obediently to the hitching post, and looking like nothing so much as a small but ardently loyal dog that has languished in chains while its master embarked on a parlous journey. As Carys stepped from the fog, clearly unhurt and trailing a small boot, her little sister’s form lost its spring-taut poise and its severe little frown.

Eirian shuffled off the suitcase as her sister approached, and hugged
her ferociously, hiding a sniffle of fear or relief in the rustling
embrace. Carys smiled over her bonneted head, and looked cautiously
around the square. The lights were mostly out here, only soft flickering
nightlights wavering through upper windows, as far away as the stars.
Only the street lamp in the center yielded much illumination, but Carys
could see another lamp, glowing with promise from the corner where a
street branched off the square and slowly climbed a gentle hill,
disappearing into a sea of shrouded, angular shadows that might be low roofs. Carys
softly disentangled Eirian and fished in her own pocket for the letter
with its flowing, enigmatic script. Freezing Eirian with a bright smile,
she said, “Stay right here and put on your boot, I’m only going ’round the square there.”
Eirian nodded, and Carys hurried to the mouth of the little rising
street.

In the light of the gaslamp, with her back to Eirian, she
drew out the envelope and puzzled over the direction again. It was faded,
of course, the pencil light from much handling and folding — but the
direction was still clear enough, if only she understood it. She could
guess the large squiggle followed by a cross, at the end of the line. The
cross could only be a ‘t’, despite its strange flowing skirts, and that made
the squiggle some mysterious form of ‘S’, and the whole a short word for
“Street”. That much she had guessed before. But what came before? Could that
be an ‘H’? It had two uprights with a bridge between, like an ‘H’. But it
was overhung with furbelows, loops like pears dangling from the tops, and the
bridge itself was a flourishing oval. She peered around for a street sign,
a metal plaque painted wth the easy, blocky letters she knew, like those she had seen on the other side of the river.

It was there! Soot-blackened, and almost lost in the withered ivy on a
brick wall, but a sign for all that, and written in letters she could
read. ‘Hucklebush Street’, she spelled out at length. It began with an
‘H’. Perhaps a little too long to be the word on the envelope…but if
‘Street’ could be reduced to two letters, what abbreviation might not
befall ‘Hucklebush’? She was resolved, and returned to Eirian to shoulder
the suitcase and start with every air of certainty down this next step of
their road.

The night had well and truly fallen while they crept through
the twilit fog, and even that thick substance could not entirely block out
the darkness, or hide every single star. As they trudged along to
Hucklebush Street, a star or two would peek out like the glow of the
rush-candle through its pierced tin flute at home, the light Mother
had left for them every evening. Silently, the two girls watched the
feeble stars, and remembered the patterns of light dancing softly on the
ceiling, and felt with renewed yearning the wish for home.

The Grey City VI

It is a lovely day in the neighborhood. My computer has NOT returned, but I’ve been allowed to copy my files over to a network drive, and I’ve become resigned enough to my fate to install a ssh client and make myself at home at the communal computer. The competition has bowed to my superior need, prior claim, and, probably, the fact that I let them into the building when they forget their ID badges.

I have been alerted to the presence of BABY SQUIRRELS in the immediate vicinity, and of course shall investigate this alarming intelligence at the first available opportunity. Baby squirrels are, of course, quite alarming, and require judicious attention.

In other news, I today opened the door cautiously for an unknown individual. He appeared to be wearing a name-badge indicating he was a seller of some description. They are always haunting the building, handing out candy to the right people and ignoring the rest of us. This one was dragging a hefty sort of case behind him, which looked like some sort of industrial cooler. I assumed, of course, that this contained samples, or freebies of something biological and boring. Imagine my surprise, then, when he paused by my desk and said, “I hope you aren’t on a diet!” and opened the lid of the case to reveal a panoply of ice-cream bars and treats on ice.

Now, I am, in fact, monitoring my caloric intake (‘diet’ is not the word), but there are temptations which are too much for a girl to bear—just as occasionally someone shoves a plate of fresh, glistening strawberries directly at my mouth and I heartily ignore my food allergies for one delicious irresponsible splurge. A lovely great Good Humor ice cream sammich, all for ME! The lowly administrative assistant! But you see, I have since learned that this fellow’s company is not the largest lab supplier to my employer, and so he works a bit harder at all aspects of his ingratiation and persuasion. Therefore it is due to the free market that I am sitting in a state of feline post-canary-prandial bliss, purring inaudibly as I bask in the reflected sun from the skylights and tippety-type away at my commandeered computer. Tra la!

June 2, in the year of our Lord 2004, the fourth day of our expedition into the wastes of Nocomputerland.

The ordeal is beginning to wear on our forces. The men haven’t had a decent browse in all this time, and they are beginning to forget the faces of their webcomics. They have adopted quaint local customs to pass the time, hammering away on typewriters until the very din draws the sanity from the others, and they turn upon each other. There is one computer, a hollow, communal thing, but competition is high, especially when plagues running through the computer world banish others to these badlands.

Filing has been our one aid and mainstay against the gathering madness, and the poignant familiarity of the keyboard of the labelmaker as we bring order from the chaos helps us to cling to the dream—someday, someday again, the computer will return. The files and shortcuts we know and love will again leap into glowing life before our eyes, and we will breathe deep the well-loved air that now seems so far away.

June 2, afternoon

Morale received a major blow when the labelmaker use was curtailed for office supply budget reasons, and that was only the beginning of the bad news. Our escape from Nocomputerland was scheduled for today, but has been postponed, with no definite date given. We have hunkered down, driving off competition for the communal computer with primal grunts. What have we been reduced to?

Today is a rainbow day. I haven’t seen one yet, but the sky is heavy with potential, striped over time with blue and grey, clear puffs and rain-blurred shadows. Everything seems poised on the point of change. The boughs stir as if nervous, the clouds swirl and diffuse as the wind tears them. Everything seems bright and clean after a few rain-washes. I watch the skies.

Today I arrived at the office, carrying a two-liter jug of Talking Rain like a small warhead under my arm, and jiggled my mouse. I called into the timekeeping system (the slightly more reliable and white-collar way of ‘punching in’), and sat down in front of my…blank monitor. After a great deal of power-button pushing and connection-checking, I was quite certain that my computer had, overnight, become simply a white-noise generator with an orange light. I called the IT people, filed and fidgeted for a few hours, and eventually they took it away, later calling with a diagnosis of motherboard-frying. (this means I won’t be picking up my faerye net e-mail during the day for a while.) This has, as one of my scientists mildly put it, “changed my work schedule”. It’s been a little frustrating - the forms I had shortcutted and filed in a way that made sense to my particular brain are gone, and I am back to threading my way through the wilderness of internal websites and shared drives whenever anyone asks for anything. On the other hand, I’ve gotten a lot of paper-related activities done, and my desk needs to be dusted anyway.

On the triumph note, we have my bridesmaid dress for sister sledge’s wedding. For those of you not in the know, ‘sister’ sledge is not just a clever name. Well, the ‘sister’ part isn’t. Heaven only knows what the ‘sledge’ part is, but it probably is in fact a clever name. I am matroning, honoring, and singing at her upcoming wedding (in the wake of my recent cold, I’ve had a few bad dreams that the wedding has arrived and I’ve left my voice behind.)

Today when I made my way over to the admin building to collect the mail, there was a Large and Interesting Box for me, addressed in my sister’s handwriting. It contained my bridesmaid dress. Now, also for those of you not in the know, I am the yo-yo on the finger of body weight management. The teal silk confection in the box was made according to measurements taken when I was, in all probability, 4 pounds lighter. This was a matter of some worry to me as I crept back to my desk and faced once more the blankly staring face of my monitor. I fiddled around a bit, recycled some papers, and stared at the box. Finally, I decided that it would only take five minutes to stop myself from worreting all day about it, and I ran to the restroom, which includes a dressing room (hey now, no complaints - I’ve seen the blueprints, and the guys have one too!) So I tried it on, and you know what? It fit! I am not condemned to spend the next two weeks in Cathy-style last-minute exercise! I am not going to ruin the wedding by not fitting in my custom-made frock! I am very happy.

Boring little details of my day they may be, but they’re all that has happened, so far!

‘The Green Heron’ has been removed in hopes that it may someday be published. I apologize to my loyal online readers, but my less naîve friends in the literary community inform me that online self-publishing like this could interfere with my little stories’ chances. Sadly, this means my best stories are the ones most likely to leave the site.

Things like serials will always be here to waste your time.

One of the myriad charms of our wee abode is its proximity to the Beaverton City Library, a rather large and airy affair only recently constructed in what Beaverton affectionately calls a ‘downtown’. It is my habit to borrow recorded books - sometimes of an edifying nature, but more often goodish murder mysteries or the occasional P.G. Wodehouse (though I would argue that P.G. Wodehouse is, if not edifying, at least healthy for the brain and spirit. And isn’t laughter good for the cardiovascular system?). I listen to these books whilst cooking, cleaning, sewing, jogging, or anything else that fails to amuse my spoiled brain. Unfortunately, until recently I was dreadful about returning them on time (thank goodness for maximum $2.50 per item fine!). I like to call this “supporting my local library monetarily.”

My dear husband does not support my monetary support of the local library. Not to say that he is against libraries, but he is against my persisting in overdueness. He rolls his eyes, and points out that the library system allows one to renew one’s books online. I toss my head, and say ‘I don’t know how’ and ‘Wouldn’t I need to go through some account set-up?’ I think the real reason for my irrational dread of the WILI (Washington County Interlibrary Information) website was memories of having to dial in to the library system with telnet, in years of lore. Vast ASCII screens of greetings and instructions, staring out in mesmerizing profusion from my father’s amber monitor. But finally, today, my desire to have a back-up set of tapes on hand and my desire to know what next transpires in the life of William Monk, amnesiac Victorian police inspector, conspired to drive me upon the WILInet.

And lo, it’s easy! It’s DREADFULLY easy! The account was already set up with a default password. I changed my password, placed two holds, renewed the tapes I’m listening to at present, and put a few history tomes I wish to peruse on my booklist. I command the library gnomes! They fly hither and yon to wreak my will!

And, most charming of all? The patron info includes the date I first got a library card - Halloween, 1986.