Molly Goatwax

Bedstead by the Side of The Road

A Clue

While we are on the subject of boxes in which dry foods are packaged, it is interesting to note what is written on them. The farfel box suggested that pasta for salads and baking be rinsed in cold water after boiling. I discovered that the noodles don't get all flabular and soggy in my lemon artichoke pasta salad when I took the direction. How many years have I wasted on inferior pasta salad?

Spring

This morning I will festoon the cereal boxes with moustaches and slogans.

Nu Mex

Last week I went to visit my friend Janet at her studio to drink beer and talk about art. Her paintings have iconic and landscape influences from the time she's spent  in the American Southwest, so of course we have another common interest; in peppers. She pulled out a two quart bag of dried New Mexican giants that are so common there. I saw seeds at the bottom of the bag...

 
Shown sprouting next to a Nu-Mex Big Jim, a New-Mex Big Janet.

The Weber Family

 

I think they are going to be busy this weekend.

Memories

We were eating at a restaurant at the Beltway Motel because we had a coupon. Our order took a long time. The dinner was cold, with frozen spots. Then we noticed the smoke. Although the diner was on fire, they insisted we pay our bill and did not want to honor our coupon. We have never gone back.

Down The Rabbit Hole

I have been finding some compelling landscapes in Google's Street View, such as this one of the last (then) occupied house in Fairfield. Fairfield was a nice neighborhood on a point sticking into the Patapsco River until the Allied Chemical Plant moved in.

And, with the touch screen on my fruity pocket device, I can turn around, look down or up at the sky. It's almost as if I'm really there. My friend Science Boy showed me how to capture these landscapes to my camera roll by holding the on/off button and the home button at the same time. Some day when I'm painting large pictures again, I may turn to these as a source of inspiration.

starting early

Clockwise from the turquoise saucer, upper left: Ghost, Cocoa Habenero, Kung Pao, Nu Mex Big Jim and Serrano.

misplaced muzzles

Dapper in his Monday suit
the neighbor walks his matching white dogs
obediently harnessed

As he meets my glance
jaw muscles ripple
hostility betrayed
.

Time goes by

As I collect planters and sprout seeds, I remind myself of my father, except he grew tomatoes, not peppers. I don't talk much of my father. He did not talk much to me. He was a taciturn man. A survivor of The Great Depression, he enjoyed looking for spare change in the gravel parking lot by the beer store on the corner even though he wore Brooks Brothers suits with the sterling tie chains I bought him every Fathers Day. He also brewed beer in the basement. I don't think I will take that up any time soon. There were too many explosions.