photo taken June 7, 2007 • title thanks to Jonathan

Again, amazing entries!  Such fun, such sensitivity, such weirdness you ALL show.  Somehow I managed to narrow the 270+ entries down to a dozen ~ here are the ones that duked it out till the end:

Missed! Do it again! (You channelled Charlie with this one, RedWolf)
Thwarted at the Fort
Hard Growth
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
“Peek-a-caribou”
Preyground
“OK OK  I get the point!”
A blurry relationship
“…and Charlie’s down by seven points…”
From the Playocene period
I know what you’re thinking, Pup! You’re thinking “Has he been de-clawed or NOT?” Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is the swat of an orange tom cat, the most powerful feline swat in the cat world, it will bloody your nose right quick,  SO you’ve gotta ask yourself a question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk? (Eli as Dirty Harry?? Too perfect!)

And Jonathan: in the end yours rose to the top ~ not one but two puns???  Impressive.  And the title is true – this was a game of tag, a big game to both of them.  Your words in tandem with the image take me back to that moment so vividly, as I stood and laughed as they earnestly, playfully tried to tag eachother.  Thanks for that.  And thanks to all who entered!

• • • This photo is kind of a mess when you first look at it.  But then you notice there is much more going on than just a big mess on my floor.  Charlie ducks behind an enormous elk antler; Eli’s swat, from his perch on the steps to the loft, is a blur.  Fill in the blanks left by the chaos of this image, and leave your entry in the comment section of this post.

The prize this week is a manifestation of the poetry of chaos.  At first it looks like nothing, like less than nothing.  But upon further examination, it shows itself to be a miracle.  It is a piece of petrified bone, and it is amazing.  You can see the shape of the bone and the network of the marrow, and it is solid rock.  I have no idea how old this fossil is but would love to find out (if any of you know how this is done, leave me a comment or email, as I have a few pieces of it!).  It’s certainly older than any of us. Here it is:

I’ll also throw in some other fabulous stones from here ~
lepidolite, squid, etc.
Now show me whatcha got!

The most striking and surprising thing about Charlie is how delicate he is – delicate in his manner. He takes meat from my fingers with the tips of his teeth, and licks my face with the softest, most deliberate little licks. His movements and mannerisms are incredibly refined – aristocratic, really. Very opposite the common image of a snarling, slobbering wild thing.

Lots of deer pass by the cabin, and I noticed there is something so similar between the deer and Charlie, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t just the coloring, or the giant ears, or the long skinny legs. And then I realized that it’s their posture. These wild animals hold such alertness, such incredible elegance in their posture. It’s something people seem to have lost.