theowlunderground

[theowlunderground]

Independence Day

Independence Day Willie Bear had business to take care of.  Places to go. Things to do.  He was a busy man, was Willie Bear, albeit at 14 months a very young one, with a whole wide world to explore, and time was a-wasting.  He’d set his sites on a destination — and bulldoze his way toward it.   He’d been in the park before, but never when it was full of so many strange legs and shoes (most of…

[theowlunderground]

The Day The Fish Swam Over the House

The Day The Fish Swam Over the House

It was the Gúríí who started it all.  He was the one who had been out walking in the forest early in the morning, thinking a thought that wanted thinking.  He was the one who had come across the bit of dead branch with the odd little serpentation in it.  He was the one who had picked it up and had seen a fish inside it that wanted carving out; so he did.

How wise the little bit of branch had…

[theowlunderground]

Seascape

  It was only a little drekkar, barely 25 feet in length; its dark oaken hull was scarcely  distinguishable from the black rock behind it and the glistening inky water that rocked it.  The year had turned and spring was well on its way, but the wind that came skirling out of the north Atlantic had ice on its breath and there was a fair amount of chop.  They would not feel the full brunt of it…

[theowlunderground]

Maire Popkin

  She wasn’t Cockney, she was Irish, so that was wrong, but she did have the large black umbrella with the ivory handle carved into a macaw’s head, which had come down to her from her grandmamá.  (It was mastodon ivory and her grandmamá and great grandmamá had eaten off its former owner for a month, but that was neither here nor there.)  She had simply shown up shortly after the coroner’s…

[theowlunderground]

Dagnar and the Raven

Dagnar and the Raven

He was a tall young man, was Dagnar Halfdan, sky-eyed and straw-haired, with wide shoulders he still hadn’t quite managed to grow all the way into and a long-legged loose-limbed stride. He’d been walking southward along the beach since sunup making for the Languyard ley that would lead him inland. He was also supposed to be on the lookout for a bird. “You’ll know it when you see it,” was all his…

[theowlunderground]

The Crystal Stars

“Wake.”

Gianni passed from deep, dreamless sleep to wakefulness in the twinkling of a star. The darkness was as still, as deep, and as silent as stone.

“Come.”

Without thought, he rolled out of the cocoon of warmth within the heavy woolen covers, off the thick felt pallet where he slept, and onto the cold stone floor.  He put out his hand, found his robe and shrugged its fleecy softness over his…

[theowlunderground]

By The Light of a Torch Song

By The Light of a Torch Song

  It was a little hole-in-the-wall joint tucked away in an unfashionable part of the East Village. Dexter stumbled upon it by chance one evening. The entrance was down in a basement well with the door set at a right angle to the street. He must have walked right by it a hundred times and never noticed it. The only inkling of its existence was a small squiggle of a sign set above the door that…

[theowlunderground]

All Sorted

  The bleary sky had been meditating all morning on whether it would snow or not; in the meantime, Edinburgh was up to its knees in damp, muzzy air that was piercingly cold and without a breath of wind. Jehanne sat beside her mother on the settee before the fire and was content to be inside.

The two heads bent over their work were both crowned with the same, almost colorless blonde hair, pulled…

[theowlunderground]

Tea For Three

27 October, 1937 was rainy and cold.  Clivenden had taken refuge from the weather in a tearoom off Charing Cross Road.  He had finished the list of errands Smithers had handed him but was unwilling to return to the office just yet.

They were both attractive women in a patrician sort of way.  The hostess had shown them to the table behind him.  Neither was in the first blush of youth, but neither…

[theowlunderground]

Wrestling the Angel

The top edge of the sun would just be visible above the horizon, but the fog is too close in and thick to see it, even more impenetrable now that daylight is diffusing through it. The barge comes belching out of the fog, a heavy breathing behemoth, chuffing steam. Its lantern eyes are beady and baleful athwart its stubby prow, glimmering across the leaden water. The underside of the bridge…

[theowlunderground]

A Matter of Image

A Matter of Image

Neveon stood back and looked at the graphic wall, tweaked it until the image covered the entire wall, floor to ceiling, corner to corner, making it essentially life-size.  He’d found the image by accident, looking for something else, and it fascinated him.  He’d wikied the name of its creator, ‘Andrew Wyeth,’ found some bio info on him, and had discovered in the process that this particular…

[theowlunderground]

Vivaldi and Memories

Vivaldi and Memories

Catha smiles at her reflection in the mirror.  Today she is in her late 20’s, although tomorrow and for the rest of the week, she’ll be a woman in her 50’s, old-money-dowdy in tweeds and sensible shoes.  But tonight, the Coutts people are having a chamber music concert with drinks and hors d’oeuvres for the survivors, and she’s wearing a sleeveless black sheath dress with…

[theowlunderground]

Books Read in 2020

Books Read in 2020

84. *Lifelode, Walton, Jo 83. *Slippery Creatures, Charles, K. J. 82. *Souls to Heal, Wallace, Tilly 81 *Layers to Peal, Wallace, Tilly 80. *Kisses to Steal, Wallace, Tilly 79. *Secrets to Reveal, Wallace, Tilly 78. *Sweep with Me, Andrews Ilona 77 *Sweep of the Blade, Andrews Ilona 76. *One Fell Sweep, Andrews Ilona 75. *The Secretary and the Ghost, St. Kevern, Gillian 74. Howl’s Moving Castle,…

[theowlunderground]

The End of This Era

The End of This Era

This is now the second archive for The Owl Underground.  It includes all posts from 01/01/2012 to 07/31/2017. Archive I covers all the posts from the beginning of the blog on Blogger to its migration to WordPress, i.e., all posts before 01/01/2012 back to the foundation of The Owl Underground blog on 12/23/2005.

[theowlunderground]

Done Adulting For The Week -- Maybe

Done Adulting For The Week — Maybe

My friend LB has two more chemo sessions left.  However, they are going to be pretty rough.  She starts the next to last one today.  We are all heartened by the information that her blood work seems to indicate she has a shot at remission.  It is fervently to be hoped for.  Her daughter A is a professor in theater arts at our big University, but she has taken a semester’s sabbatical to help get…

[theowlunderground]

Dreams of Blue Rooms

Dreams of Blue Rooms

Woke up from one of my epic saga dreams, and the image that surfaced with me was of a room in a house probably in Morocco — tall ceiling, dark, cool, tiled floor,with plastered walls painted this wonderful shade of light azure and there were carved floral motif wooden grills made from Atlas cedar. I tend to feel an affinity with Morocco.  I like their traditional style of housing with the…

[theowlunderground]

Things, Stuff, and Monmouth Hats,

Things, Stuff, and Monmouth Hats,

My blog friend Shoreacres sent me a link to a poll being taken to see what people called those kind of hats I make and where they live. That got me sidetracked onto Monmouth caps — you know how that happens.  In pursuit of more information on these historical hats, I turned up this website which details one knitter’s version of how you make them. The Monmouth caps (at left) were interesting to me…