Mandy, I love this poem

*Mandy showed me this poem a year or so ago and I'll never forget about it. I love it. Thank you Mandy Madson.

INSTRUMENT OF CHOICE

She was a girl
no one ever chose
for teams or clubs,
dances or dates,

so she chose the instrument
no one else wanted:
the tuba. Big as herself,
heavy as her heart,

its golden tubes
and coils encircled her
like a lovers embrace.
Its body pressed on hers.

Into its mouthpiece she blew
life, its deep-throated
oompahs, oompahs sounding,
almost, like mating cries.

---Robert Phillips

thank you Charlie Brown

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

Charlie Brown

and now, just like Rory Gilmore, I'm ready to wallow.

Grandiose Canyon

I didn't know it was possible either until the day came when, well, when I was tricked into it. Not really that someone fed me false information, or even that the trick was contemplated and played out with great accuracy. I actually like to think that nature dealt me this trick as a little shove into the outer boundaries of hard core I didn't know I had.
It actually came as a plan B. Originally me and a group of friends had intended on going to Havasupai for a few days but in the last mile of the 10 hour drive we were stopped by two Indians who told us it was closed because of swine flu. Not that THEY had swine flu, but that they thought WE had swine flu. So, we needed another plan and the grand canyon passed as the place to go.

Before this little rendezvous, I didn't even know a decent to the VERY bottom of the grand canyon was possible unless you were a Buffalo Bill or a Jim Bridger type of character, but alas you can do it as a not so notable figure like Bryan Brown. And we did it in 9 hours. It was a 6,000 foot decent, 16 1/2 miles and in the middle of the day. It was hard, but so worth it. I'm not doing it again though.

Disclaimer on the picture....this was BEFORE we did the hike. I guarantee we did not look that pleased afterwords.

oh but isn't it breathtaking!