This morning I woke up with a zit in the middle of my forehead. For heaven’s sake, I’m sixty years old. If I must receive visitations from my youth, why not perky breasts or naturally blonde hair? Why a zit? It’s a beaut, too. The kind that builds for several days before volcanic eruption. Jeez.

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Elk reprieve! There’s a little more sun in the Blue Hole this morning … Sequim has decided not to “harvest” its elk herd. The State and the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe will create a plan to keep the beasties off the highway; all parties have decided a compromise is worth a try. Now if this same group could work on keeping our soldiers at home …

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Sundance took his first trip to the vet yesterday. I expected this might result in human carnage as I turned over a ball of orange, yellow and green fury. Doing an exam on 5.4 ounces of attitude takes enormous patience, I’m telling you. Anyway, he’s one healthy baby and no blood was shed in the examination room.

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Continuing the bird report, Sundance let out an ungodly squawk the other day, and I took a look out the window to see what had him so upset. I joined him in a good loud squawk, and my significant-other-in-law was able to catch this shot of a blue heron on the roof next door. It does my heart good to see something that can back down the crows.

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The Mister’s poetry: He mostly writes short verse that delivers swift kicks to administrative butts and blows raspberries at their rules. But this one, well, this one is simply lovely:

A Not Too Night

The moon comes by,
Arriving at its parking space in the Pacific sky.
Keeping a date,
Not a minute late,
That was made millions of years ago.
Soft gray clouds
Seek to wrap the moon in shrouds.
But sharp reflective light
Brilliant and white,
Cuts round holes in the mushy cloud cover,
Making tiny little tears drop
That, once started, do not stop;
The whole scene, made crisper
By a wind just a whisper.
A night not too dark,
A night not too dry,
A night not too damp, not too bright
A not too Northwest night.