Shadows

Thinking lately about shadows, and noticing them everywhere. Today at work, the sunlight through the miniblinds crossed a leaf axil of my schefflera tree, and the shadow it cast on a lower leaf was a perfect eight-spoked wheel. You don't have to be pagan to read a sign in that one.

In the garden, about a month ago, we noticed a gorgeous black-and-yellow argiope spider. I have been hoping for three years that one would show up. I check in on it every afternoon and have resisted the urge to try to feed it. Until today: moved the hose bucket (the big plastic bucket where we keep the water hose coiled) and caught a fat black cricket. Carried it quickly to Madame's web, my resolve eroding: aren't crickets good luck? Isn't it wrong (in so many ways) to interfere like this? Mehhh, I flung it at the web. It passed right through, landing on a sandpapery leaf of echinacea. Madame Spider bobbed on her vertical trampoline. Miz Cricket calmly preened. I'll probably dream of creeping bugs tonight.

We ate a late dinner of sushi rice, kim chee, and mung bean pancakes. It was spectacular. I am the luckiest queer in Pennsylvania, to have a husband who can cook like this. Yuu-uuum.

[photo: R & R at Harrisburg train station, 2004]