Woman In The Mirror Oil on canvas. 18"x24"
“A friend is one who feels thus and excites these feelings in return: those who think they feel thus towards each other think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows that your friend is the sort of man who shares your pleasures in what is good and your pain in what is unpleasant, for your sake and for no other reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of his good wishes for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we wished for, pained at getting what we do not. Those, then are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who are moreover, friendly or unfriendly, to the same people; for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves, each other’s friends.” Aristotle, RHETORIC
I had a rather lengthy essay following my above quote of Aristotle but then there was a power surge. Word recovered my document and as I reread it, it dawned on me that the power surge was such an appropriate message.
The blogs is a strange place. It offers connections unheard of in the past. A blogger may have hundreds of visits and followers, thousands of friends, and hundreds of comments. Then there’s a power failure. The blogger finds herself cut off from those connections, and is in a serious case of withdrawal from the instant discourse.
Except at that very short moment of power failure, as I leaned back on my chair, and longing for solitude that I so love, I found myself thinking of two bloggers who for a short period of time turned my world inside out, upside down and cart wheeling. They are connected in terms of how they came into my life. This blogger, who one day came to visit my blog, left a comment that caught my attention. It was thoughtful, intelligent, gentle and witty. It made me smile. So I tracked her name back to her blog and found myself in a state of excited disbelief. There on her blog are fantastic and beautiful illustrations of children so adorable but the details oozed with wit, creativity and masterful lines. I followed this blogger who turned out to be a brilliant dilettante and an accomplished academe before she decided to focus on rearing her two beautiful daughters. Bella Sinclair blogs with one whose avatar is Alice facing a classroom full of animals. I politely turned away from their blog conversation but found myself turning my head ever so slowly in that exchange characterized by the wittiest, kindest, gentlest and seemingly honest exchange of admiration, caring and yes, love for one another. How possible is that to love someone without a body to embrace, arms to hold and eyes to see? But this blogger, there is nothing in this blogger that restrained her from expressing and sharing love and injecting her zest for life. So I followed her avatar and to my shock and dismay discovered she is fighting a battle against cancer.
There was a long silence and a lot of contemplation. I found myself ill at ease, do I address the cancer? Do I respond to her post about how she wants her funeral to be conducted? Surprisingly the words came flowing out of me so easily.
My days are filled with appointments for meetings, call duties, dinners, dressing up, matching shoes and purses, running after Daisy our family dog. At the very slight disruption of my routine, I complain. I get angry. I express indignation. I read Renee's posts and comments and I burst out laughing, get warmed over, feel cuddled, strengthened, inspired and let my heart go wildly loving, loving my daughter, my son, my husband, my dog, our rabbit and feel horrible that I forgot we had a goldfish, thank God, he is still alive. Life! I cannot be mad at the dust on my desk, wipe it then. Supper is late because I am on call, then have a late supper or skip dinner altogether. I laugh and smile as I always do and after a frenzy of activities I withdraw into a state of satisfied exhaustion. I think of Renee and I am filled with loving energy. One day I wrote this on Renee’s blog:
"There are people, no matter what their station or economic situation in life may be, who strive for the best and even in times of distress, pain and suffering there is a certain regal air, one that inspires great novels and artists. Someday when I die, I want to be remembered as someone who loved deeply, felt intensely, thought keenly, touched tenderly, suffered beautifully, expressed outrageously or otherwise did not give one shit when she chose not to care."
Renee told me I described her to a tee with the above phrase. You can have it Renee and this award too, the one I requested Bella to illustrate because mine looked so sterile, it is in honor of you. Your blog is evidence and your words that have touched so many hearts is the source for this Little Renee, the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns…This award goes to you first…
…and since this is a chain award may I please have the honor of linking another chain and give this award to Bella Sinclair too. Gotcha! :)
New Master Of This Domain
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Attention! All of you! If you are looking for Ces, she is not here. I banished her to a remote island without computers, cellular phones, oil paints, pigment ink, Bristol boards, superfloss, shoe stores, mirrors, perfumes, pearl necklaces, matching shoes and purses and shirts with matching Fiesta coffee mugs and all other crap that she considered necessary in life. Worst of all it is an island without trees, books and toilet paper. Bwahh hahhaha!.
Otherwise, there won't be a Ces. Instead you will have me! You thought Ces was mean and ugly, you have not seen nothin' yet baby!
Signed,
Bata Batuta
I did the drawing of Tilia americana, below, last year while in the Carolinas and later gave it to my Father-in-law as a present, while I did the above drawing in the car and finished it in the kitchen at home. 
Tilia americana, American Basswood, may reach a height of 60 to 100 feet and a diameter of 2 to 3 feet. It is a large tree with long trunk and a dense crown of many small often drooping branches and large leaves. The tree frequently has two or more trunks and sprout in a circle from a stump. The leaves turn pale yellow or brown in the autumn. American basswood the northernmost species and Carolina basswood the southernmost species found in low altitudes both attract bees when flowering and are called Honey Tree.
...cobwebs, please kill the spider, why not?!
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She thought she was awake. Wake up! Aaargh!
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Last attempt to paint and it was trashed, I wish the stretched canvases don't cost so much, I feel guilty about throwing these failures...
Ces, Linda, Bella and Bjornik, all insufficiently dressed for a flight to Winnipeg.
I love trees. They have come to symbolize a lot of my observations in life. There are those that nurture and provide nourishment (fruit trees), those that don't do anything - the punks - they are inferior in terms of utility and beauty but call so much attention to themselves by causing allergies (that stupid tree in the corner of our street), the adaptable ones - those that sway and bend with the breeze (bamboo, okay it's a grass), the touchy ones - those that get riled with the gentlest breeze (quaking aspens), those that are not pretty enough, won't last long but work hard like maids providing shade (ash), the seasonal flashers (Bradford pears), the untouchables (redwoods), the gifted (quercus), those that are good for only one party then pass out (Christmas trees), the elders (ginkgo), the pretty faces (birches), the tortured ones (bonsai)...you get my drift. 
Winnipeg also boasts having a lady whose blog, like the elm tree, provides shade and is a gathering place for many talented and interesting bloggers - Renee. When Renee addresses each one of them, they are transformed into someone special, because Renee treats everyone special. It takes a lot of courage and strength to overcome adversity and it takes someone special to do it with grace, dignity, so much love and in the process give so much. Like trees, there are those you pass by and ignore and there are those that make you stop to admire it and then you linger a little bit more to savor in its beauty and for spiritual rejuvenation. That's Renee. The next time I see an elm, I'll smile as I touch my chest in the hope of gently stopping my heart from skipping.
Populus tremuloides, also known as American Aspen, Quaking Aspen, Trembling Aspen, Quakies, Quakers, Popple, Golden Aspen, Mountain Aspen, Poplar, Trembling Poplar, Álamo Blanco, and Álamo Temblón, is a widely distributed deciduous tree in North America. The leaves are shiny green above, and duller below, nearly round with a short pointed tip, about 1 1/2 to 3" long and about as wide, turning gold in Autumn. Each leaf grows on a long flattened stalk or petiole and the passing of even the gentlest breeze will set the leaves in motion. Other species of Populus have petioles flattened partially along their length, while the Quaking Aspen's are flattened from side to side along the entire length of the petiole. The quaking of the leaves have led to sexist identification of this tree. In France it is called "langue de femme" and in Wales they are called "coed tafod merched". Both names mean "woman's tongue" an allusion to the incessant movement of the leaves which is a hallmark of the Quaking Aspen.
Quercus virginianus. black and green pigment pen and India ink brush pen on Bristol board. Click to enlarge.
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It just occurred to me that I do not know the term for "trunk" in my birth language, Hiligaynon, in fact I never knew what it was. We always used the English term. There are so many words that I have forgotten because we conveniently used the English word. Today, I visited our mail clerk at work who is a good friend. She also immigrated from the Philippines. She spoke Tagalog and used a word I have not heard for over 26 years. I already forgot what it was.
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On a separate note, I did the above drawing last week during our Spring Break vacation. I did not do 200 trunk drawings, I just wanted to sound impressive.
Sunset in Louisiana
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About my vacation. We visited my FIL. I tried to catch up on my sleep but who needs sleep when there are a lot of fun things to do. That's why we are all exhausted. Oh by the way, my son let the 32 pound catfish go (it actually weighed more than 34 pounds in the scale). It was a female catfish full of eggs and was much older than him so he was being a gentle fisherman and a good sport. 
Clemson University Women's Rowing Team provided an attractive distraction according to my son who also photographed the black tree for me and later related with great enthusiasm his experience in catching the catfish to his grandfather while my daughter played her guitar. I like to go fishing but only on a pontoon boat with a nice bathroom.
The Epsilons - then rapidly vanishing small quantities, last week, walking along downtown Greenville. Do you know that there are at least 44 cities and towns in the USA named Greenville? The first four days were rainy, cloudy and foggy but we managed to squeeze in some sightseeing and shopping. Cityscape below. Left: rainy downtown Houston and buildings in downtown Atlanta obscured by clouds.
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