karen, it was just luck to be on that street in providence. anyone else would have just walked by. i walked in. that is the difference. i did not know of this shop. it was complete chance. i definitely plan on seeing arminio again sometime. the big nazo funk band is going to be playing at a party in providence on my birthday. i have tickets to cirque du soleil in hartford, ct for that night, but if my date bails i will give the tickets to my son and go to rock out to big nazo in providence. i don't know how i walk into these things. i just always love it when i do. i am off to memphis tomorrow. i hope i get the room with bobbie whitlock's piano in it. i will be playing the blues on it if i do- trying to touch greatness. otherwise it will just be blues, booze, and bbq out on beale street. you know i do work on these trips. sleeping is extraneous.

check out http://www.bignazo.com/resume/video/vid05.php i laughed my ass off with the big kahuna of this group.

it is early to tell, but i think it worked. thanks. i visited a friend who is struggling and maybe things are getting better. i hope so. then i touched down in providence and walked the city. walked and walked. i guess it is my own form of bikini bootcamp. yeah, feeling tight in the cheeks now. nice. well i knew that magic had struck when i saw plate glass windows lined with giant outrageous puppets. i was on a side street downtown. the door to this first floor studio was open so i walked in. i spent the next three hours sitting, talking, trying out puppets, and laughing my (tight) ass off with the puppet master who owns the shop. he told me where to get the hippest buritto in town and that is where i went for dinner. i walked back to the b&b where i am staying and all is well. love, r

Tomorrow you can tell us if our finger-crossing worked--if you got what you wanted. I hope it works.

Whatever you need Richard, we're on your side. - pat

I'm sure we'll all keep our fingers crossed for you today, Richard.....good luck in whatever it is you need it for!

hi. cross your fingers for me on thursday. thanks, i just need a little extra luck. richard

Those turkeys are around all the time now...when I came home at 5:30, they were about 20 feet from my garage. Males with their ruffled feathers strutting around..so I stood there making turkey noises at them and one male, really fluffed up, stared and started walking my way. He must be the protector....I was either saying the right thing to him and he was checking me out...or I was annoying him....wonder which. I didn't stay out to see. I'm actually hoping that they go away pretty soon so they don't rage havoc on the garden..... I remember Arlene coming as a visiting author a long time ago...she has more then one book. Cute stories. Our school is going to the movie Horton Hears A Who tomorrow, down to the movie theatre. Exciting fieldtrip walking down for the 10:00 showing...I'll give you a review ....haha.

We have possums walking around our neighborhood, and my sister-in-law said she saw a coyote, but definitely no deer or turkeys. Richard, you carry us all away on your adventures.

kathi, i am big on turkeys and i like your story. i can't say that i am a turkey porn dog, but i like ruffled feathers more than most. i am lucky to see three squirrels in my backyard. i suppose that my cat may have something to do with that, although the wildlife here does not seem too intimidated by him. on the subject of less than intimidating cats, do you remember tim dubanivich in our class. he has an older sister named arlene. (years and years ago) she wrote a great childrens book called- tom's tale. it is a about a cat that loses his piss and vinegar as he ages. eventually, he sleeps most of each day and mice actually start to taunt him while he sleeps. talking about great literature, i have to tell you that the mouse in 'tom's tale' who stands on the toilet seat yelling, "flush it again, sam!" is an all time favorite of mine. it seems much more eloquent than kafka's neighbor turning into a cockroach (talk about a wildlife story, please).

Richard, you weave quite the tale! Much more intriging then the turkeys in my backyard!

hi karen and travel lovers. i don't know how my last trip will come across. it was a lot of work and only moments of exuberant play. i flew to calgary about two weeks ago and moved in with a great guy that i work with for the next four days. we made sales calls on friday and then headed for the canadian rockies on saturday morning. we went snowboarding at lake louise, which is actually a bunch of mountains that have a view of the lake. it is a gorgeous place. my friend had the whole fam along so it was not wild back country snowboarding until later in the day. the largest peaks that i saw up until then were when the waitress bent over at lunch. they obviously do not have the same parental controls that are applied in the presque isle school system. i am only trying to point out cultural differences here. well lunch left me with a board that was ready to go straight down hill and we headed for the high terrain. after going up on some leisurely chairlifts, the last leg is done on a poma lift. let me tell you that riding a disk on a pole while you are latched into a snowboard is no small feat. this one has the added benefit of going up a 45 degree section where the poma just about pulls your knees out. after that, we hiked for about half an hour along ridges that led to really remote headwalls of snow. it was so steep that i had to put my back foot under my board to jack it up toward a level position that i could latch my front foot into. we sat and waited for the sun to light up the slope and then we jumped in. the views and the boarding were spectacular. i was completely whipped by the end of the run. it really was special. we did the apres ski thing and then i had my friend drop me off in banff. i spent the night and the next day there. there are sulphur springs in a cave that you can check out and there is a 102 degree swimming pool at about 1500 feet above the village that you can hang out in. i floated around listening to young canadian mothers (how could you not, they have loud crass voices that throw out the f-bomb every other word) talking about how they would be going to bikini boot camp to get their asses to tighten up. i am not sure that there asses are the only part that is effected by this protocol. maybe they should release the full nelson that has been placed on the intelligent parts of their brains. whatever. from there, i was on a non-stop schedule of meetings, plane rides and hotel rooms. it went from calgary, to vancouver, to portland, to san jose, to newport beach, to phoenix. in phoenix, i met my friend richard loveless for art, dinner, drinks, and a runway fashion show. we met in scottsdale at a lowrider car show. wow, talk about the extreme application of passion to a silly car that has been made oddly spectacular. you sure don't see that in vermont. after that we went into a cool place for drinks and dinner. i love talking to him. he has seen so much that is so great and his mind wraps itself around it all and takes it further. we met a young couple who are friends of his and the guy in the couple could not believe that there was a second richard loveless. he publishes a local magazine and shot a picture of us together. then an amazing sean connery impersonator joined our conversation. i swear you would not know he is not the man, himself. well, that meant more pictures and the possibility that a richard-sean-richard photo may show up in the "who is out partying" section of this guy's magazine. how funny would that be? after that we all headed to the lowrider bikini fashion show being held at the museum next door. i will spare you the descriptions of that one. it would be too much culture for one blogger post. the next night, i got stuck in detroit. i went to the henry ford museum to kill some time last saturday. that was nice. i made it home saturday night and that is the end of the story. richard

28 turkeys and 11 deer in one day? That's amazing! Will they be at your wedding celebration?!