Five Senses Friday Number 12

See:
• This interesting, fossil-like rock laying in the driveway. A gift from the earth!

• Thick white clouds undulating up from the horizon, changing shape as the sun faded today.
• Speaking of which, I actually saw THE SUN today, whoo-hoo!
• A baby woodpecker sticking his head out of a hole in a rotted apple tree in our field. I would have never known he was in there had he not been squeaking away like a rusty wheel.
• A family of gorgeous black crows in North Adams.
• Baby raccoons whining across the street. I heard (and noted) the adults screaming back in April, around the same spot.

Hear:
• As I type this, a pack of coyote are howling on the edge of the woods and Vixen is barking and howling back at them from the living room. J suspects it's not coyote but a giant "werewoodchuck."
• Lots of classic MJ. I'll get over it, but right now "Pretty Young Thing" is on heavy rotation, and I was shocked by how pretty "Human Nature" still sounds after all these years.
• Baby flickers crying in a maple tree on the edge of the woods. I continue to be surprised by the variety of birds around here this year.
• Iron & Wine on vinyl, drifting down from J's upstairs studio.
• On the sidewalk in Northampton today one man said to another, "If you can't be nice, be quiet." Amen!

Taste:
• Strawberry banana pancakes. If you look closely at the photo above you can see them cooking away on the stove behind us. Pancakes are our Sunday morning ritual.
• Fresh black pepper fettucini with basil pesto.
• A chocolate-covered coconut macaroon.
• Chilled Pinot Grigio.
• Grilled panini with turkey, local bacon, and perfectly ripe avocado.

Feel:
• My eyebrows being threaded. This was a first for me, and I was excited to see the service finally being offered locally — at the mall of all places. Not only at the mall, but at a small kiosk right out in the open by the elevator. Because it's new and unusual here, a small crowd gathered to watch the proceedings, but for all I cared, they could have been doing it on a stage in the parking lot or filming it for the nightly news. It was $10 well spent.
• The ultra soft, thin cotton of a new Gap Body hooded tee shirt. I wore my last one until all the elasticity in the fabric dissolved, and only when it finally sagged down to my knees in a threadbare, shapeless wreck could I bring myself to part with it.

Smell:
• Car exhaust drifting in the bedroom window.
• Flowering milkweed, cotton-candy sweet.
• Samsara perfume that accidentally spritzed in the car. I'm a one-scent kind of person and this was my scent for a decade — oriental and woody with notes of amber, iris, rose, violet, vanilla, and sandalwood. To me it also smells of vodka martini. Heavy perfumes aren't popular around here, and I began to feel self-conscious about wearing a scent with so much personality. Years ago I switched to a spritz of Thymes Eucalyptus — clean and light.