Practicing drawing foxes, because pen and ink is not very forgiving... (sketch for an illustration of a few years back)

I send out Christmas cards, yearly. When I have time, I do an illustration. When I don't have time, they become... New Year's cards, or even Valentine's Day cards. I have lots of reasons for sending them, many of which have changed as the years go by. At this point in my life, having reliably updated mailing for my friends and the people I care about are definitely a big part of it. An "Addressee Unknown/Returned to Sender" rubber-stamped envelope is a pretty good way to be sure you've lost track of someone you once had much love for!

This year, with our late (U.S.) Thanksgiving, I am doomed. Lots of New Year's cards, for sure.

 My mother took this photograph of me and my Dad in 2016. We were visiting the William Merritt Chase exhibition at the Boston MFA.

We got a wheelchair for my mom, so she wouldn't have to walk. She was extremely nervous about the outing. In her last years (my mother passed in 2018), she had diminished lung capacity owing to a severely dysfunctional diaphragm. We had a big argument in the car before we got to the museum.

*At* the museum, we had a wonderful, wonderful time. WMC may not have been the most original painter of the 19th century, but he is a painter's painter, with luscious brushstrokes and a sensualist's love of color. And he's one of those 19th century artists who got to spend a lot of time on beautiful beaches, and in lovely country homes, shaded by old trees. I'm glad I have this picture, to remember.

William Merritt Chase could have been another John Singer Sargent, but--he isn't. Sargent. Had something bigger or more complex going on. This said--I'd be happy to have a good WMC at home on one of my walls!

I accept that the world is changing, but this change, this closing of my used bookshop--it's a bad one.

I wish Carlson all the best as she works her way through this painful episode. Hope she makes it to the other side & back to joy.

I am currently going through a French language obsession. Or, more precisely, a French word obsession. In trying to understand why, I'm seeing myself loitering (with great pleasure) at the building blocks stage of things.

I'm very much enjoying these Sicklemoon decks on Tinycards (that's a vocabulary App, a subsidiary of the language learning Duolingo program, and a log in is probably needed to see them). Each of these decks, like a sort of "sonnet plus one," has fifteen entries, each on a closely related theme. I think that's related to the way the program is set up, but to me, they are like fifteen word poems, introducing me, almost from a child's point of view, to snippets of French life: "Les Animaux de L'Étang." "Les Animaux de la Plage." "Les Fruits de la Forêt."

The pond one is a particular favorite (also the berries). Who needs to know the French words for waterstrider and whirlygig beetle? Evidently... me.

They're words--they are names--in an Ursula K. Le Guin sort of sense. Knowing the names... I think that still bestows real power--even if only a brief flare of it.

And... drat. The formatting has cropped off the accent aigu from the capital "E" of étang.

Actually, I was tidying something boring and this sketchbook turned out to have been shoved in there by mistake.

I'm pleased that it turned up, and really like what I'd forgotten I had drawn.

I'm going to try something new... I'm reconfiguring my social media use.
When you've maintained (in a general, if not in a organized, ongoing sense) a website since 1995, you periodically realize that what you are doing with your site isn't working.
Facebook has been a part of that--it's so easy to share my ideas there, that I haven't taken the time to share them here.
But today... I have a new App installed today, and I am going to see how this goes.