“Immortality” for The Three Things Challenge

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Immortality

In no way am I ready for meeting the Grim Reaper.
If it were up to me, I’d rather he be a Grim Creeper.
In all ways, I repel the thought that he’s advancing fast,
for when it comes to living, I wish that it would last.
In short, I’m not in readiness but rather in denial,
for I’m simply not in shape to walk that final mile.
I’ve dug my heels in. I’m not ready for that journey in the sky.
I’m going to go on living. I’m not ever going to die!!!

For the Three Things Challenge the prompt words were: REPEL READINESS REAPER

(When we had my sister’s grave marker made, they offered us a “deal” so my other sister and I had our own markers made at the same time. I did not realize that they’d actually install the stones in our family plot!  So, as you can see above…my eternal resting place awaits me. Strangely enough, one childhood friend has told me he mows around it monthly and another sent me this photo of flowers he’d placed on it for memorial day. As you can see, there is no reason for me to actually give up the ghost as I’m getting enough attention without doing the actual deed.)

The Awakening, for RDP “Novels” Prompt

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The Awakening

She stretched luxuriously, reaching her arm up to hit against the silk of her padded headboard, but strangely, hit instead against wood. Curious.  She opened her eyes. Light leaked into the room from between bent venetian blinds. Where was she? On the edge of the bed, a slightly paunchy old man with a day’s stubble on his cheeks sat studying the center foldout of a magazine he held at arm’s length. As she stirred, he looked up from it, his eyes widening in surprise. “Essie?”

She looked down at her own wrinkled hands, extending from the sleeve of a cheap pair of pajamas. She stroked her cheeks, dry and wrinkled , and wiped a small line of drool from the corner of her mouth. “Where am I?” Her voice felt as flaky and dry as her skin, her throat almost choking with the words.

“Yer here in Elm Gap,” he said, “where we’ve always been. Essie, do you remember what happened, yer slipping on the ice and falling sideways against the water tank?  Do you remember anythin’, Essie, of the twenty years since then?”

“Twenty years? I’ve been asleep for twenty years? What of Lorenzo and Francesca and Sebastian? Where are they?”

“They’re right here, Ma, waiting for you as usual,” a straw-haired woman said from the corner of the room. She, like her father, was rounded and nondescript—a thirtyish childlike frumpy creature much like the girl Essie had been. She was patting a tall pile of romance novels. “I been reading them to you for twenty years, Ma. You woke up just in time, cuz Ladonna LaRue, their author, just died and there won’t be any more.  But now you won’t be needing her life any more, because you’ve returned to your own. We always knew you’d return to us, Ma. This is your lucky day. And ours.

 

For RDP the prompt is “Novels.”

A Walk up the Mountain With My Dogs During Wildflower Season, Oct 3, 2021

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Pulled by my dogs, I ventured off the gravel road onto the tire tracks that forged a path up the mountain.  Lifting the hatch to a metal gate that granted access to the sloping meadows behind the high fence that otherwise would impede our progress, we ventured off the tire tracks onto a path worn only by previous feet. The heavy rains this year had created wildflowers so high that they formed an arch over our heads, belying the fact that the rains, long over, have left the hills so dry, so dense the underbrush, that where I pushed my way the giant hush was changed to soft explosion. The dogs, however, venturing farther into the great banks of flowers, found greener grass that they grazed upon like sheep, impeding my progress as I gave into their needs and let them determine our pace.

for dVerse Poets, we were to write a prosery piece of just 144 words, ithat included the line of poetry from a poem by Yver Winters that I have put in italics.

Below is a video I took during that walk!           

     HERE  is the dVerse prompt and the entire poem by Yver Winters.

Jellybelly Saturday Night

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Jellybelly Saturday Night

The only right place to put jelly
is on toast and then into your belly..
Then when you are sated
and fully elated,
 go sit it in front of the telly!

for the Limerick Challenge, the prompt was Jelly

Welcome to “The Numbers Game #128.” Come play along. Today’s number is 745

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Welcome to “The Numbers Game #128.” Come play along. Today’s number is 745
Beach Madonna 2
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Remember this photo from a few months ago?

 

“Capitol Hill” for The Sunday Whirl

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Capitol Hill

He tolls the bell, this liar son
saying that the war he’s won.
He casts his spell, pretending that
the tricks he pulls out of his hat
are gospel truth as he finds fault
with saner men who try to halt
his lies and tricks and machinations
with news reports and protestations
that find him guilty of heinous acts
while he hits back with money’s power
as all around him succumb and cower
fearing their own loss of station,
fortune, job, or reputation.
“It’s fine,” they sigh, “and meant to be
so long as it advances me!”

For The Sunday Whirl #760 the prompt words are:
tolls spell inclined mind find sigh hit guilty fine fault liar 

Revelation for “What Do You See?”

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Revelation

That person who was the past me–
that person that you may not see,
indeed, is still somewhere inside
where all the other-of–me’s hide.
In my dreams, we all collect––
our chatter what you might expect––
a hodgepodge of past gains and ills,
both lollipops and bitter pills.
But good or bad, they add up to
what puts me here in touch with you.
Where I reveal the all of me
and put it out for you to see––
one thing leading to the next––
trustingly exposed as text.

 

Avove is the image that served as a prompt for What Do You See:? The poem above is how it inspired me.

Coincidence? for SOCS

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1967,Setting out from NYC, World Campus Afloat

My sister Patti in the first photo. The second is me, with friends, setting off from New York on the S.S. Ryndam.

Coincidence?

For my junior year in college, I set out upon a trip around the world on the S.S. Ryndam. I was enrolled in World Campus Afloat––a semester abroad.  It was no disappointment to me that prior to setting off, they closed the Suez Canal, so instead we had to sail around the coast of Africa and through the Cape of Good Cope. Our African stops turned out to be my favorite and would eventually lead to other visits and even a year and a half stay, but that is not the story I’m telling today. My story happened in Beijing, where Indira Ghandi threw a reception where Ravi Shankar played for us.  Amazing.  Afterwards, different University students took us to a number of activities around the city and my friend and I wound up at a party in an apartment where I ended up sitting on the sofa next to a student who had just returned from a visit to the States. Where was I from in the states? he asked, and I answered that I’d grown up in South Dakota but that previous to World Campus Afloat, I’d attended two years at the University of Wyoming. He found this interesting as what a coincidence…when in the states, he had visited a friend in Newhall, Wyoming. Had I ever been there, he asked? Yes, my roommate my Freshman year had been from there, I answered, and also, my sister’s roommate and good friend was from there. And what was my sister’s name, he asked? Patti Dykstra, I said, and his eyes grew huge as he seized both of my hands in his and revealed that he had talked to her for hours at a party he’d gone to at her friend’s house in Newhall just four days before.  It had been over four months since I’d seen my sister, but he’d seen her four days before at a party half way around the world. What are the chances? True story.

for SOCS the prompt is  “coincidence.”

How Many Tablecloths are Too Many Tablecloths? for RDP

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Be they decorative, protective or both, tablecloths are just background to the good times that go on around them.

“Tablecloth” is the prompt for the Ragtag Daily Prompt

Fibbing Friday

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Hell’s a Poppin

This week’s fibs below!

1. What is the difference between Biweekly and a Fortnight? One is a periodical for pansexuals, the other a military periodical.
2. How much oil would your lantern need to last a fortnight? None. It will last with or without oil. How much oil would your lantern need to stay lit for a fortnight is a different thing entirely.
3. If you spent a fortnight in Paris, what would you see? Lots of soldiers.
4. What’s the difference between a microchip and a micro chip? One hit on the space bar.
5. What’s brown, shiny and sizzles? Dog poopies on a hot sidewalk.
6. How is the best way to make lemonade? With lemons.
7. How many types of coke are there? Two. Liquid and Powder.
8. Why was a sundae glass so named? All the other days of the week were taken.
9. What is hellsapoppin? Headline of the Inferno Gazette the day Orville Redenbacher arrived.
10.What did the Knights of the Round Table do during the day? Catch up on their sleep.

For Fibbing Friday.