Karen Holbø, I hardly knew ye!

K Holbø, it reads on the cup.
As I recall--never a reliable source--
her name is Karen Holbø,
and she had an art exhibition
in Lillehammer, Norway,
the year we lived there in '92-'93,
just before the Winter Olympiad.

I bought a cup to remember the occasion.

Let me tell you why else I love that cup:
I love coffee, but not too much of it,
and the cup is just the right size.
The inside of the cup is white, providing
a satisfying contrast to life-giving coffee.

And it has indelible evidence
for what I do almost every morning of my life:
the handle is stained with printers ink
from the newspapers that open each day,
almost without fail. Wherever we have lived
for the last sixty years or so, I have trudged
out to the driveway for the newspapers
and brought them into the house for Matins.

For much of that time--
since it became available in one form or another
on the West Coast--
the New York Times has been one of those papers,
together with one or two local newspapers.
It is still so, even though it seems to me
that the print used to be larger
and the news better, or saner, or not so moronic.

I love that thumbprint stain!
It is a reminder of a life lived well.

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