Go Slugs, Go!

It's been a Zoological Morning in our little woodland home. John found his first Banana Slug (proud mascot of UC Santa Cruz) on our property; and a confused bird flew into his Studio as he was working with the door open. The slug moved on (slowly) but John says it really looked like a wiggly banana, very bright and shiny yellow (eewwwhh).  The bird was stunned (but not nailed to a perch) and then it shook its little feathers and flew back out again. I only thank God it wasn't me in that Studio!

In other news, I will also go (faster than the slug) – to Ann Arbor, home town of Fran and the University of Michigan – in mid-September! I reserved my ticket this week, and am getting very excited about Recherchezing Les Temps Perdus in preparation for writing my memoirs. My high-school buddy, Diane, still lives in Michigan and will come over to spend a day with me while I am there – it will be a great help to have two minds digging into our respective memory banks for juicy stories, and it will be a lot of fun to get together again with her after all these years.

In preparation for the trip and the writing task, I am working on a couple of teaching tools for writers of autobiography:  Natalie Goldberg's "Old Friend From Far Away," and "Courage and Craft" by Barbara Abercrombie. Both full of excellent exercises for waking up memories and learning to write them down.

As soon as we're really done with our Spring Turnout of this house (by the end of June, we hope) I will buckle down again to daily writing and discipline.  Meanwhile, the house is still in a bit of an uproar, but we're working on it every day and ought to have it ready for a "before an after" photo album soon!