Pancake Thursday

My Morning

 



Every Thursday I cook pancakes for the people at the shelter in Northampton. I was taught in rehab that service to others was the best way to recover from addiction, because you can't focus on your own problems when you are focusing on the needs of others. It works. Sometimes I wake up with all these crazy thought loops circling in my head, but when I have to pay attention to what someone else wants then it breaks the cycle and frees my mind to be clear and calm.

The cold last night melted my neighbor's plant into a yellow pile.

But I had no time to rest on my neighbor's bench. 

Instead I nodded to the pumpkin guarding my neighbor's bike.

 



It is always very early when I arrive at the shelter.

Outside the shelter I saw this strange message stuck to the curb.

When I left a few hours later I passed the nearby Woodstar Cafe, which has this pile of pumpkins out front. 

A warning on a Herrel's Ice Cream delivery van. 

While waiting for the bus into Amherst, I saw someone had put this pumpkin with a Grateful Dead lightning bolt carved in it atop the monument in Pulaski Park.

Cutting through UMass on my way to the Amherst Survival Center, it was so sunny and nice out that a professor brought his English class outside.

 



At the Amherst Survival Center, where I help serve lunch, a farmer dropped off a gigantic squash. Or is it an alien egg? In any case it took both Kelsey and Ben to hold it.

 



And that was my very fine morning. 

City of Crime

Having a less nice day was John Lysak's grandmother, who had to abandon her car when it broke down in Springfield. This is what she returned to find.

Today's Video

Northampton singer/songwriter Stephen Kellogg and his band The Sixers made this awesome high energy video with the help of the UMass Marching Band. It was filmed entirely at UMass.