HE'S BACK!

Oh glorious day, he came back! Skinnier, scragglier, and definitely hungry, but he’s here!

DH thought he saw tracks in the back yard shortly after he got back from printing up more LOST CAT posters, bringing me flowers to cheer me out of my gloom. Today I felt like giving up.

“I think I hear Mojo,” he yelled to me from the snowy back porch. “Come quick!”

I sailed over the furniture in my way. I was at the backdoor in a heartbeat.

“There are your shoes,” DH called, “Hurry!”

I ran out into snow in my pink cashmere socks. Sure enough, we could hear Mojo’s signature yowl. He was somewhere. It was faint. DH went out into the driveway, and I went back inside to get cat food.

“I think he’s by the front door,” DH yelled excitedly.

I could hardly move fast enough, pebbles of cat food raining down about my feet from the blue bowl.

And there he was.

He ate for about twenty minutes straight and is now cleaning his paws in his box on the radiator. I cannot quite get words around how happy I am to have him back. But let me say this: thank you to everyone who wrote with such touching stories and positive thoughts. You helped. A lot. And now excuse me while I go pet my cat.

Illustration Friday: E is for...

Equality

Working on this painting I thought of an exerpt from The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride. When I picked up the book, with paint still on my fingers, the first page I turned to contained the text I wanted. I love moments when the universe and I agree. "...One afternoon on the way home from church I asked her whether God was black or white.

A deep sigh. 'Oh boy...God's not black. He's not white. He's a spirit.'

'Does he like black or white people better?'

'He loves all people. He's a spirit.'

'What's a spirit?'

"A spirit's a spirit.'

'What color is God's sprit?'

'It doesn't have a color,' she said. 'God is the color of water.' "

Full Moon

The moon fills the sky with light. According to the weather station, the temperature feels like -15 with the windchill. Ice has formed hard and transparent below the gusting snow on the sidewalks and stoops.

When I was a teacher, full moon days were always the worst. The kids were wild and peevish, and the air would almost crackle with pent up energy.

Now I feel the same angst. All day Bean wanted to be near me, touching me, preferably ON TOP OF ME. And all day I kept going to the door, calling my cat.

Many of you have told such great stories of cats that returned. I hope this will be the case. But with the wild moon, and the plummiting temperatures, I can't help but fear the worse.

I try to remember that this is the way things happen in nature. Without any warning, things shift course. I'm trying to keep up.

Lost

He ran away on Friday and we were sure he would return. But he didn’t. The weather turned cold. It snowed inches last night and today I put posters up on telephone poles and contacted the Humane Society. He’s such a love of a cat. Totally dopy, but will tolerate even Bean’s aggressive affection. He’s not savvy at all though. He’s run into walls before, and has never seen snow. I’m not sure whether to keep hoping he’ll show up, or give up hope now before I spend any more time teary-eyed at the door yelling out into the winter air. Kind of how I feel about my writing right now also.

Pickup truck prose

Rain is falling today. The cat feels the change in temperature, and meows restlessly at the door. The snow is melting. The gutters are rife with slush and garbage. The clouds press close to the pavement, hugging the curves of the road and nestling into the valleys.

We spent the morning in the car, driving to the capitol check out a used pickup truck DH has been eyeing. Right now we’re a one-car family, but with the house closing coming up in a couple of days we’re going to start needing a truck to haul drywall and refuse. It makes sense up here, where the snow falls often in the winter and our driveway is long, to be able to plow it ourselves or haul wood.

Growing up my, my dad always had a truck. It was a 1969 Ford Ranger Camper Series Pickup with a long bed and a stick shift that was connected to the steering wheel. The seats were maroon, and the steering wheel wrapped with leather. I learned to drive in that truck—and steering it felt like maneuvering a boat. Whichever way you turned the wheel, ever-so-slightly, the whole truck went. In the winter we’d put concrete blocks in the back to improve traction.

My father was already sick when he sold it, though at the time he was still in denial about having cancer.

“I sold the pickup today,” he told me. “There were a number of calls, and the first man to come out made a deposit on it, and is bringing the rest of the money tomorrow morning.”

“Really?” I said with a smile, remembering countless adventures in the truck my mother had nick-named Bessie.

“Yes,” he said with a little laugh. “It will almost be like having one of our daughters leaving home. I’ve had that old girl longer than any of you girls!”

“It’s true,” I said. Then waited, as his pain interrupted us, and his voice grew taught and shallow.

“That’s all I can do now,” he said.

The truck we looked at today is also a Ford. Dark red, with all the plushness of modernity: power lock windows, airbags, antilock breaks. We make a plan to come back to haggle over the price after we've research its blue book costs, and then drive back along the rain-slick highway.

I notice a lone crow on the high branches of a bare tree. The road is often obscured with fog. I grow pensive. Right now my life is abundant with firsts. Each day Bean makes another discovery: yesterday he took his first wild wobbling steps towards me away from the couch he’d been holding on to. Now there is a lump in my throat and I catch myself wondering what it is like to be at the end of one’s life, to have each day filled with lasts.

I wonder if my father thought about the last time he drove. About the last time he walked. And then there were those days where each time he awoke, he must have contemplated the awe of waking, and wondered when he would not.

It always catches me off guard when I find memories of my father occupying my mind in the vivid way that they are today. I’ve grown used to not having him around, and recently my life has been so abundant with other things I don’t stop to contemplate the emptiness I sometimes feel.

***

Even in great sorrow your eyes are like a pair of darting bluebirds, across a stormy summer sky. Two bright flecks of all that has come before and will return, to the eternal clockwork of the earth.

Right now you seem like the edges of a lake in early spring, ice turning black and hollow waiting for the shuddering crush of a turtle’s first foot print; the rising of water levels; the tug of vernal currents; life that surely follows winter’s shallow death.

Napping

Bean and I just awoke from a nap. I’m still recovering from being sick so I gratefully accepted the opportunity to nap this morning. He’s so funny when he wakes. His eyes open, and then boing! he’s up, his body still rocking with the velocity of his sudden movement.

His eyes are always wide. His cheeks flushed with the roses of sleep. Then a grin spreads out to the corners of his face and he clambers over my body to look out the window. He drags his monkey with him, and then starts playing the peek-a-boo game I showed him: where we put the monkey’s paw over his eyes and then Bean removes it and I say “PEEK-A-BOO” and then I make the monkey dance. Bean giggles then, and starts dancing too, his little bootie bopping about amongst the pillows.

I love our moments together in bed, still drenched with sleep. While he tumbles about, I sift through my blurry sleep-scented thoughts, gathering the fragments of my dreams like a beachcomber picking shells. It is time where everything is present: before the lists crowd in, before I am scattered back over the surface of the day.

Some days feel like the top of the mountain is always just a little farther

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat and spent the day mostly trying to sleep with an almost-toddler who wanted to mostly NOT SLEEP. This involved several low points in parenting, including DH and I getting on each other's last nerve, while Bean pulled CD after CD of the shelf and let it go shattering onto the floor. We did manage to resuscitate the evening somewhat, with a trip to Barns & Noble where we drank tea and leafed through the most recent celeb gossip magazines. (Yes, I do that. Shamelessly.) We also poked through a tile store with the most exquisite handmade tile, and I grabbed several leaflets showcasing exotic glazes and mosaics—thinking I might use them as ephemera for collages.

But last night was mostly like an extension of the more tedious moments of yesterday---with Bean nuzzling up against my face, as if he needed very air I exhaled on his cheek to believe I was there. The minute I got up to pee he began wailing so fiercely, you'd believe that I had left him in the woods surrounded by a pack of wild dogs, rather than in DH's big strong arms.

Now I’ve got him occupied with various kitchen containers and blocks, but this was only after a meltdown of mammoth proportions that involved the proverbial river of snot and much gnashing of teeth. It’s sure to last all of five minutes before he makes his way back to directly underfoot. Where he’ll stand clenching my leg and whining plaintively, before he melts entirely into a little angry puddle on the floor. I’m such a fuzzy headed wimp when I’m sick. I have two deadlines I’ve been procrastinating on and I suddenly can’t imagine meeting them. I can’t imagine staying awake or thinking anything cogent long enough to meet them.

I’ll leave you on a high note though. The Artist’s Way this week asks you to think about five lives you would live if you were not living your own. At first I had a very hard time answering this, because I LIKE living my life. Most days (when I’m not sniveling and sick) I like who I am becoming and love who I’ve decided to travel this road of becoming with. I’m passionate about the things I’ve chosen—writing, and art and teaching, even on the days when I feel like I’ll never really amount to anything in any one of those fields. But, if I had to pick, here is what I’d be—or whose life I would live:

• A homeopathic OBGYN/Family Practice Doctor • A photographer for National Geographic • Barbara Kingsolver • Scarlett Johansson • Mary Oliver

Of course, the AW also tells you to figure out some way to do something that lives out even the very smallest part of one of those lives, but I'm too blurry to think creatively at the moment. Instead, I'll put it on you: What would you be? Or who?

The texture of moments on a winter hike

Bright winter sunlight like a pitcher of lemonade spread across the morning sky. Today was one of those days where each moment was saturated with goodness. A long nap with Bean curled in the nook of my arm, my nose pressed into the softness of his hair. Pad thai at the local noodle shop with painted paper umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and pink plastic chopsticks. A hike up a small mountain in late afternoon. The land around rubbed flat ages ago by a glacier. Tall black pine silhouettes and the sun setting into a ragged cloud line, like someone’s white laundry hung out to dry after being washed with a lone red sock.

We passed two old men sitting on mono skis, taking a rest shooting the breeze in the middle of the trail while their dogs sniffed the tell tale yellow signatures that marked snow banks. A dad and his son on a sled shot by us like a rocket, the grin on his kid’s face spreading out into the whizzing air around his head.

The moon was so milky and almost full on our way back down the trail that our figures cast pale shadows on the ground, our bodies backlit. Bean in the backpack sang the whole time and stuck his tongue out inquisitively into the cold air. His cheeks like cherry stains, ruddy and round, tucked into the hood of his snowsuit.

Heading towards home we stopped at a coffee shop to eat nutty carrot cake and cappuccinos, and the warmth of the cup made my hands tingle.

setting sun

me & the Bean

moon tree

underbrush

twilight over the valley

Total self-absorption (in the best way possible)

First:)I want to do a little giddy dance and say THANK YOU a zillion times to all you exquisite people who nominated me for the BOBS best Art/Photo blog! I am blown away every single day by the generocity and encouragement and positive feedback I get from the people who come here often.

Second:) Krystyn is sooo super spiffy with her web design skills. Check out the absolutely rockin' desktops she created at MamaSaysOm using some of my art. Heart her!

Third:) I'm officially jumping on the de-lurking bandwagon. I totally check my blog stats (ah-hem, on ocasion.) I know you're out there. If you're reading this and you don't usually comment, now is you're time to say hi. It would make my day!

Finding what it takes

Running along the lake in yak tracks, the late sun on the horizon above the lake looked like someone spread apricot jam across a rent in the clouds. Snowflakes hit my face. Ice below the snow along the path was slick and see-through. The lake waves cut up onto the cold pebbles of the shore, like a thousand icy tongues. The air was cold when I sucked it in, and each exhalation left a cloud of heat and moisture hovering just behind me for a second in the winter air.

It was the first time I’ve run along the bike path since snow has fallen, and it felt just like running in sand. It took more effort and balance than running on macadam, but there was also a certain new thrill to having the terrain be constantly changing. Today I realized that I’ve gotten to a new place about running in my head: my mind wants to run now and my body follows.

This didn’t happen accidentally or suddenly. It’s taken six months of repeated motion to get my brain in the habit of running—to form a groove in my being where my mind slips now with ease. And I know that if I stopped, given a couple of weeks—no more than a month—it would be gone. But today I sort of marveled at the capacity my mind has to move beyond the immediate intense pain of shin splints (the product of new shoes or the crazy jackrabbit sprint I’ve been doing) and for a few moments at least allow me to feel like I can do anything.

I know this is why the Juila Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way that it is vital to do morning pages and to go on ‘artist dates’ with oneself. Because it is exactly this inner freedom that gradually develops, creating momentum. I would never have imagined I’d be on the brink of committing to start training for a marathon (!), and yet here I am, wanting to test my outer limits. Wanting to do more than just run a couple miles. And I know that after if I can stick with writing every morning, taking time for myself to fuel my artistic soul, I will develop a similar kind of creative momentum.

Right now when it comes to writing that tricky shadow side of myself (that is quick to sabotage the best of my intentions) prickles up every time I sit down to write. I chicken out, write only first drafts, balk at following through. But I’m starting to realize that just as this side of myself exist, so does the fiery side that enables me to burn through my own resistance. This is why I’ve jumped in.

Someone said, "batten down the hatches"

Is this what they were refering to?

Bean did the standing thing several more times today for 10-15 seconds at a go. AND he started taking bold and daring risks---moving between cruising surfaces without hands, or, as pictured here, CLIMBING WILLY NILLY onto surfaces previously entirely off his radar screen. DH took this picture when he came running after hearing low moans and squeals of delight coming simultaneously from the direction of my office. I'm starting to understand that this is the beginning of all things terrifying and wonderful and that my life is officially over as I know it. Isn't it?

Noticing right now

Tonight Bean stood. STOOD. On his how two little feet. For long enough that DH could come through the door from the kitchen into my office and see him standing, not aware of his own miraculous feat—or feet! Stood long enough for us both to stare at him and gasp. Longer than any previous wobbly attempts. And then finally he realized he wasn’t holding on, and quickly reached out for me, grinning.

I am not sure how to explain how this made me feel. The constant rushing forward of time leaves me breathless. His GROWING leaves me breathless. I remember as a kid waiting for what felt like FOREVER for my birthday to come. A year felt like as long as my whole life. One weekend to the next stretched on indefinitely. Don’t you remember that? That blurry sense of time? As an adult I experience it so differently, and especially now watching my son, whose inner and outer growth is so immediate and exponential.

The amazing thing about him standing was that he was so concentrated on the new container I’d given him to look at—so wholly absorbed in observation—that he was completely unaware of his body. His little muscles, his skeleton, and his cerebellum took over. Auto pilot. For the first time.

As adults we do so much on auto pilot. Walking is something most of us are rarely aware of. We eat, drive, make dinner, take a crap, have entire conversations, even---all with our minds elsewhere. Of course there is a certain necessity to all this absentmindedness—multitasking makes the world run (any woman can attest to this). And there is definitely something to be said for being able to read the entire issue of People cover to cover while completing one’s business on the loo. But watching Bean in those freeze-frame slow-motion seconds of time when his body took over and his mind was wholly somewhere else made me contemplate the what it means to be truly present.

Walking downtown tonight crystalline snow was falling around us. Each snowflake individuated and big enough for you to see it’s magnificent hexagonal construction. Bean kept looking up at them swirling in the light of the street lamps, and then he’d look over at me and smile these huge brand-new tooth smiles that said more about his happiness and wonder than words ever will, and a part of me wanted to slow time down again to that dreamy pace of childhood—when everything is NOW and FOREVER both at the same time.

Of green beans and vacuum love

This kid is cracking me up lately. He’s starting to be his own little person, and often puts on a silly show just for our benifit. Witness the green bean pictures. He took great joy in alternately blowing loud raspberries and then making funny sucking noises, holding the green bean in place hands free. And, clearly delighted that he was making us giggle, he sweetly offered his Daddy a drag.

He also has an obsessive love for any and all vacuums. (I used to vacuum with him in a sling when he was very small and wouldn’t stop crying. The loud constant noise and the rocking works wonders. Usually he’d be asleep in minutes. This may be the cause of his undying devotion.) The minute the vacuum comes out he scampers over as fast as one can scamper on all fours (which is a heck of a lot faster than you’d think.) He helps me push the vacuum from room to room, trundling after it with increasingly confident steps. Then he thrills to help me push the cord retractor, grinning so wide you can see his spanking new teeth all in a gleaming row. Other times I leave the vacuum out for a while just for his amusment, and he lovingly lies atop it, humming a litttle tune to himself.

But the best was Bean's encounter with the vacuum at the grandparents house, which STANDS UP rather than rolls. He was in AWE, and promptly began worshipping it.

Say Yes

Think about all the lists that have been made in the past few days. Enough words, put back to back, to travel to the moon on. Our hope for the New Year hanging on each syllable.

For the past few days I've been trying to articulate what I want truly for this year. What the deepest, pomegranate red portion of my heart longs for. What my soul asks for thirstily, standing by the river of my dreams. And I’ve come up with this: I want this year to be rich in experience. I want to say yes to each moment as it happens.

Tonight at the gym, whirring away on the ellipse machine my in new running shoes, I started reading a dog-eared copy of Oprah. Somehow it was not by chance that I turned to a review of the book, Goal Free Living: Have the Life You Want Now!, which posits the brilliant, wild, possible truth that the happiest people in the world are those who life richly in the moment, following their passions. Goals, the author says, limit the outcome. Success is possible with goals, but narrowly. MORE is possible than your goals. I’m game for that.

But I also there is a certain magic in the superhero way of looking at things. Put the unsayable secret dreams of your heart down in writing. Say yes to the things you wish for yourself if you dared. And then say yes to this very moment.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Personal History # 1

We were camping. I was ten or eleven years old. I’m not sure where we were, but the memory I have attached to this photo is very specific. My dad and I were playing on the grass. I’d throw my body onto his feet and he’d bring me up over his head. Then I’d land, and walk myself forward on my hands, giggling, imagining I was in the circus.

It is the only memory I have of playing with my father like this. We played often with words and sometimes with chess, but rarely just the rough and tumble kind of play that kids love best. Somersaulting head over heals, giddy with laughter, climbing up, rolling, wrestling. Both of my parents were intellectuals. To have fun was to read a good book together or maybe play a board game. I have dozens of memories curled up on the couch with one or both of my parents laughing ‘till my sides ached over a good story, and I recall a handful of times sitting at the table learning strategies for playing chess or scrabble and loving it.

But there is a empty place in my being where I remember my child self longing to play ball with my dad, to ride piggy back, chase, or hide and seek. I’m not sure if my parents chose to avoid these things purposely, or simply didn’t think of them—neither being drawn to play or sports themselves. What I do know is that every single day I get down on the floor with my son and let him turn my body into a jungle gym. We dance together. We shimmy. He rides on my shoulders and twirls in my arms. He giggles. And his laughter is balm to that child part of myself that clings to the memory in this photo.

You can find other self portrait bloggers here

A year goes quickly by

It’s New Year’s Eve, and like nearly everyone else who has lived since the time when the calendar we use today first was implemented, I find myself taking pause, making lists, and feeling a bit dumbfounded at how quickly and suddenly the year has come to completion. This year was one of beginnings and endings for me. One of monumental changes. A job ended. Motherhood began. My entire sense of self has shifted deeply this year.

I want to write profound things, or at least meaningful ones, but my head aches from too little sleep. Yesterday we played. Today we drove home: seven hours in the car with Bean, starting at 4a.m. Tiredness saturates my body. We didn’t leave the house clean, and came back to find it had not cleaned itself. The plants---almost dead, the laundry—still not done. But it feels good to be home again in this tiny place where Bean is safe in every room (all hazards have already been cleared) and I can scoot from the bathroom to the bedroom in barely a towel without worrying I’ll offend someone.

I sit with my feet on DH’s thigh, my laptop in my lap, and the cat curled close to my toes. Our shared silence and closeness fills me with contentment. And then I think, CRAP. We’re acting like OLD FOLKS. We had dinner with friends, babies in tow, at five. Watched fireworks over the water by 7:30, and by 8 p.m. were home running a bath for Bean. But oddly, it’s been the best New Year’s Eve I can remember in a long time. So much to look forward to. So much to be greatful for. And absolutely zero expectations of a glamorous night out somewhere in uncomfortably pretty shoes and a slinky dress.

So here are my lists (I love lists):

Do: The Artist’s Way creative workshop. The Breadloaf Writer’s workshop Get to know the neighbors in our new home Learn to make authentic chai tea Plant a vegetable garden Apprentice at an apiary Complete a triathlon

Be: Present in the moment Patient with my son and husband Open to new possibilities Flexible in the face of change Generous with the resources I have Brave enough to take risks Disciplined enough to follow through

Dream: Of having a life rich in experiences Of traveling abroad with my family Of teaching writing Of making a home, HOME Of growing new friendships Of becoming involved in the local community Of making a difference

New Jersey landscape on the day before the last day of the year

Yesterday afternoon we walked through the fields where George Washington and his troops once faught. We watched thousands of birds fly pell mell through the sky, alighting in a swirling vortex of black wings on the stubble of mowed-under corn. We walked hand in hand with the setting sun on our faces, staring in wonder at the tall old trees that have grown since the time when America was just earning it's independence. I treasure these moments of us outdoors laughing in the twilight like pieces of prized seaglass. What a way to end a year.

Say Yes

He sits on the lawn amidst heaps of brown oak leaves giggling wildly at the dog. Tomorrow we leave before the sun comes up. Today, his Nonna scoops him up, and carries him off for a nap. Such sweetness. Such sheer delight. It's been good to be here where the December sun is mellow and warm, and someone's always ready with open arms to play with Bean. But we're ready to go home to a house waiting with late-arrival packages, tivoed Project Runway shows, and the simple routine of just us.

Yesterday, after many phone calls, it was confirmed: the house will close---later rather than sooner---but it will. The mortgage rate will stay the same for another month (big exhale), and in the meantime we'll have a chance to ski a couple times, gather paint samples, and visit kitchen showrooms.

Yesterday Marilyn reminded me to visualize the positive, and last night I read this post, and decided simply to say YES. To trust, to breathe, to be thankful. Looking at Bean, his entire face dancing with grins, how can I not?

Illustration Friday: Flavor

I use Indian ink waterproof pens in my notebook, following the contours my hand chooses randomly, letting the day’s weight fall away from me. I let crazy whirling color happen. A mosaic of possibilities is always waiting to unfold. Every possible outcome awaits.

Bittersweet market

The bitter sweetness of the day began while parking the car in at the Italian market in Philadelphia. DH got a call from the real estate agent. The house closing which was slated for next week has been put off—for weeks possibly---because the sellers don’t want to be inconvenienced. I tried to let the news settle as I looked out the window at people passing: a lady with strawberry blonde hair and a boy in a baby stroller; an old black woman with beautiful eyes, burgundy lipstick and misconfigured teeth; two Italian men both wearing dark wool coats and laughing. And it all seemed suddenly bland. A hard pit of disappointment pressed up against my solar plexus. I unbuckled Bean and scooped him out of his car seat. I walked a block back and forth waiting for DH to call the sellers to try and renegotiate the date, but came back negative. The seller said she doesn’t want to be inconvenienced. SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE INCONVENIENCED. Really. Who says that when they’re trying to sell a house? Who? Tense and deflated I snapped at DH in front of the in laws right inside the door of a bustling café where everyone was ordering up lattes and cannolis. With even poorer form, I passed Bean to DH and walked out of the café. I hate it when I’m like that. But sometimes all the racket of this little clan of concerned family makes this worse, not better.

Again I walked up and down the block, past pigs heads hanging in the window with their eyeballs stuck open, the upside down pheasants with their feathers still intact, and the crates full of chard and tomatoes and fava beans. I couldn’t quite get a grip on myself. I wanted to be angry at DH for being tense—but I knew I was being just as tense. I wanted to be angry at DH for having a strained interaction in front of his parents, but I knew I’d caused the interaction. Feeling belly up and angry I sat outside the café with my camera trying to find the color and vibrancy I had expected from the day. Within minutes joined me, and after batting words around for awhile I was able to articulate my fear: what if we loose the house entirely? He heard me and cupped his fingers over mine.

Trying to soak up a city in a leisurely manner with seven people is a ludicrous expectation. Just finding a restaurant took walking back and forth the length of the same block several times and much hemming and hawing. Finally we ate at bistro where the waiter also seemed to be the cook and the host. The pepper and sausage sandwiches were fair at best, but the mood loosened as Bean sucked down linguini and rubbed sauce onto the tablecloth. After the meal we walked the length of the market, poking into spice shops and cheese shops, laughing with shopkeepers and eating aged balsamic vinegar with ricotta salata cheese, and espresso.

On the way back the sky broke open just above the city, gold against gray. So beautiful it took my breath away. And yet I couldn’t get a picture through the rearview window because Bean kept grabbing at my lens. I’m still trying to get the hang of this photography stuff. Sometimes the lens picks up something more exquisite than I notice with my bare eye, and other times the image that I see—the whirling of school children playing in a park, or the fire of the sun melting down around the dark silhouettes of buildings—looks washed-out and brittle compared with the way they really are.

Girl on bike.

Looking for upbeat.

Phasants in the window.

Mural of a faroff place.

Self portrait in the car.

Click here for a flickr slideshow of more pictures from today.