The Rose Garden

The Rose Garden Early Childhood Center. Bookplate.

Neither here nor there.

At the mouth of Purgatorio stands Queen Rat. Give her a bow and your shoes. Climb on her back and ride the whorls of her tail until she parts you from your senses and pitches you. And then stand in line, barefoot, wordless and without memory, until tea is served.

More.

Hair on the A string.

(cont.)

Put your money where your mouse is.

Hide and Peek.

The first of the Horde. Figured I'd do a little spring cleaning and start airing out the bestiary. Sweep out the old straw, dump the pellets, straighten the spools that serve as chairs. Mice are hoarders and it's dirty work, but nothing compared to the recent business of clearing the Hertel Side. There will be chaff in my hair and dust in my teeth for damn days.

Take Two.

Buffalo re-use in Amherst, NH. A multipurpose pic.

Aubergine.

All Wild Woods touch at some point.

Psyche amidst the brambles.

Possessive owners. Crabbed thickets. Questing sons of minor gods. Teary eyed maidens with dull shears. Flaking skin conditions.

They were rumored to eat human flesh, but if I was a golden fleeced sheep, I'd be hot-tempered too.

Little Candles.

Started out as a racy birthday Victorian, but come hither turned quickly into get thee hence. Seems there's only a breath of difference in shading between the two.

Full of Grace.

My answer to a day of imprisonment under Auntie ESPN. I get fanciful in the face of football.

All our dark deeeelight.

Sigur Ros and Snorri Sturluson are making pretty pictures in my brain. Residual effects: ice cream headache.

"Neither weaker nor less firm."

At the coming of Ragnarok, the maidens will burn when the Rhine runs with flame, the gold will be found anew, and the Helm of Dread will be worn by one far greater than Hreidmar's son.

Halve nots.

For the Aurora Waldorf School's Winterfest poster. There were some surgical repairs to be done with this scan, but grafting is easy when the cold slows sap to an ooze. It's the folk who tend to be the problematic--dwarves are traditionally prickly about their beards, and brownies have the tendency of crawling through even the most carefully knit seams.

"Octavius!"

But for short, we'll call him 'Gus'.

Aubergine in Kensington Gardens.

Or the Punjab equivalent.

Warp and Woof.

Greetings from American Dogthic. These two got lost in bucolia on the way to the poolhall, but if the cat's away and the calico fits, set up residence.

Blush and Bashful.

It's time to bring back bloggery.

Mus-ings.

Starting to dream in fuzzy ears and whiskers.

Chemistry 101.

And it was done. He broke her from the earth, and breathed warmth onto her tiny leaves, and he swore a brahmin's promise under an immediate sky. Under the watchful eyes of her netherworld nannies.

But they swore promises too. To take her back when the need arose. And it would. Because the evil wives of lovelorn kings tend to be women of science, and flowers tend to wilt in the lab.

Go figure.

A sketchling.

I've only seen a mouse in a house once, but I can seriously say that the voices of a screaming female and a squeaking rodent will combine to achieve a certain gestalt that can turn reality on its head. We're talking about the ability to twist time and send planets careening into each other at the slightest change in pitch.

That being said, the small brownish pellets I found on the counter this morning were only burnt pizza crumbs.