My latest piece on the literary website Vulpes Libris is an essay about nature identification books called "A Fondness for Field Guides". You can read it here
    Haven't downloaded the photos from last weekend yet, hopefully I'll be doing that within the next few days and will post some when I do. I also have a pic of the new drawing I finished a couple weeks ago that I need to show you.
    It's been snowing for the last 2 days, but there hasn't been much accumulation. Sometimes the snow flakes look like feathers floating in the air.Today it was cold, because of both low temperatures and occasional gusts that swooped by. As long as one stayed bundled up, it wasn't too bad.

  It was an emotional week for me, all my neon tetras died from a heater malfunction and I learned about Rigsby, the cute little dog who was kidnapped & killed in a horrible way, plus I always get depressed about Valentine's Day, no matter how hard I try not to.So I didn't feel like blogging  and even forgot to post the link to my review on Vulpes Libris which appeared last Monday. It was about an artist, Wafaa Balil, who did a month long performance-type exhibit protesting war and what it does to regular people, you can read about it here:Shoot An Iraqi 
   I went to an antique show this weekend & took a bunch of photos, some of which I'll post here later this week when i write about it. Watch this space....

     Happy Valentine's Day !

   I'm reading a book by chess champion Jennifer Shahade and finding it rather inspiring. She not only recounts games & opponents, but also talks about chess' place in various societies and the difference in mens' and womens' attitudes towards the game.The last part is what I'm finding most interesting, though I'm also surprised at some of the remote places tournaments are held.
   I play chess badly.
   When I was little, I didn't know anyone who could teach me how to play,though we had part of a chess set that was included in a box of games. I was especially enamored of the knight, because it was a horse. When I was a teenager, I did a pastel painting of it and a couple other pieces for a still life assignment in school. I finally learned how to play when I was about 20 years old. I used to attend church with a family who often invited me to their home afterwards & the father taught me how all the pieces moved one Sunday afternoon. Though I then taught my sister, she was always too busy to play, but did buy me one of those pre-PC battery operated chess boards, which I actually defeated once. After I got a computer & discovered online chess I was a goner.At one point I was on 5 different sites, playing the maximum number of games at each. Eventually, I realized I wasn't getting any painting done & scaled back, until presently I'm just on1 site, GameKnot (playing under the name jkhsquonk).
    The thing is, that after all these years of playing, I'm still terrible at it. How can I like something so much and still be so bad at it? Augh! It takes me longer to lose these days, so perhaps I've improved a bit. I've tried reading chess strategy books, but all the numbers confuse me.It reminds me of math, ick! However, this year I've resolved to play more aggressively in hopes that helps. I lose so many games anyways, so why not go down fighting?
    I'll let you know how that goes. *wink*

 When I was little, I used to call this Hedgehog Day, because I wanted to be a hedgehog. I found out later that one of the origins of the day in Europe was as a day celebrating hedgehogs. Either way, the idea of a holiday focusing on an animal has great appeal to me.

   As promised, here's the link to this week's book review. It's  the Anthony Hunt bio of Leigh Hunt, who was a writer & promoter of such luminaries as Byron, Shelly, Keats, Thackeray, etc. in addition to being a poet & playwright himself. My review of "The Wit in the Dungeon" is here .
    I'll write a proper xanga post another time.