Dear Heartland Credit Union,

Your logo says to me, "Come build a Monopoly house on top of a tree where the sun will get it when it consumes the earth in pixels."

No? Not what you were going for?

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Monona,

Thank you for being located so close to my laundromat. With a bike, I can zip over to your gently lapping shores while my clothes wash and dry, and I can enjoy the relaxing undulation of the floating dock, rising and falling like some large (stiff) creature breathing. What could be more pleasant than an hour of hard working laundry so pleasantly passed gazing over the water's surface, changing with each breeze like a fickle child. This is life: the smell of lake slime on the distant rack of canoes, the sound of ducks honking as they pass the time of day, the feel of sun on my neck and weathered dock wood on my legs.

And then a great blue heron glides across my vision, its overlong legs and neck so awkward, but its wings so graceful as it just skims the lake surface on the downbeat, crossing to land on the opposite shore.

It has been four months since I arrived here with a moving truck full of hope, and yet I remain in daily disbelief that this place is really my home.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear The Midwest,

Yesterday evening while I was walking west downtown into a brilliant orange sunset whose glowing center hovered just at eye level above the flat horizon and washed over the landscape like an overturned bucket of blinding paint, I had a great idea.

Have you ever considered mountains?

Hugs & kisses,

B