Alert . . . offline

Just a note to say I'll be offline until April 15. We're leaving Buenos Aires in a few hours for that once-in-a-lifetime cruise around the horn and will land in Valparaiso, Chile, sometime around April 14. No computer access, and I'm not paying 40 cents a minute. But, I'll be busy trying to write a poem a day for April, National Poetry Month, and the challenge from NaPoWriMo. So, go ahead. Join in. Write a poem.


Can you identify this lovely mystery flower, all spikey and about the size of my hand? I offer a prize . . . Click on the image to see this flower (found in Puerto Iguazu) a little larger. Be well. Enjoy spring wherever you are!

Today was a travel day, up from Charlotte to Aberdeen, Maryland, just 82 miles outside of Philadelphia. We stopped in Madison, Virginia, at That Little Quilt Shop in a restored Presbyterian church. Richly detailed quilts hung from every open space. My wanderings through this beautiful shop inspired today's poem "For Rachel". My favorite quilt was the Broken Star pattern, perhaps adapted from the difficult Texas star wheel pattern. Maybe someday.

Just now I'm hand piecing from a older quilt book Allen found, Joyce M. Schlotzhauer’s The Curved Two Patch System (EPM Publications 1982), withdrawn from the New Orleans Public Library. She teaches how to use the simple square and block to create flowers, so I’m using batik fabric to build something, I’m not sure yet what, but I’m working square by square to master this. Today’s picture shows one block completed. Don’t look at the wrinkles; I’m traveling without an iron!

And we’re truly tired tonight, not just from watching the returns from Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary (and hoping for good news for Clinton), but also from driving through Washington suburbs at 70 plus miles per hour, with drivers talking on cell phones and not using turn signals (how much can one do, after all), and trucks barreling right along with the rest of us, 70 plus even in a 55-mph zone. I’m shocked, shocked to find speeders on these freeways. Tomorrow, home to Philadelphia!