north-east sky in summer, 2004, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

didja ever see such a summer sky?

i still miss 39th terrace a little, except for the shootings and attempted break-ins.

note the center of the world, the kcpt tower.

on the back porch on 39th terrace, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

impressively enough, gas prices continue to edge up at national highs here in the nondescript non-driving month of april. $3.386 a gallon regular today, and, more dangerously, $4.119 a gallon for diesel. california’s above $3.80 regular–wonder what leno’s saying about that? gas prices are a favorite riff of his, but i never get to stay up that late anymore–just wake up that late.

kansas city prices are still mysteriously “low”, around $3.17, and missouri’s, though something of a hodge-podge now, are generally lowish also, except for st louis, which is starting to look like high-priced illinois.

sunday’s star had three front page articles about energy, fuel, and food, and monday’s focused on food as well. it’s beginning to smell like trouble out in the wide world. not that trouble will come this time. but every time energy costs spike the last three or four years, they never quit go down to previous levels . . . and the next time the spike is noticeably higher.

i’m getting just a little nervous, not about 70s-style gas crises here, although that’s always just a hurricane or a saudi coup away, but about famine, instability, and finger-pointing in the third world . . .

LOUNGE, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

bonnie and hazel, at 39th terrace.

all milling around stuffing themselves, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

sometimes when you have four cats, it’s just as easy to feed them all from a fricking trough.

mikhail, chachi, hazel, cracker, way back in 2004.

white and sleepy, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

it’s hard to imagine cracker is five years old, but he is. you couldn’t ask for a gentler, more mild-mannered cat to run herd over the other three paranoid, jumpy, argumentative felines we have.

Bonnie and Pepper, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

oh, those were the days!

long ago, when we lived on thirty-ninth terrace next to the half-way house for the criminally insane, and up the street from the sunfresh where everyone these days keeps getting shot or stabbed.

how could we leave that all behind?