Monthly Archives: May 2015

A Night Out in the West

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Tomorrow my sister and I will start out to drive to Minnesota to see our older sister.  Tonight was our last night out on the town, so thought I’d bring you along with us to see a bit of how Sheridan, Wyomingites do things.

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Dinner at the Rib and Chop House. Cowboy sort of chow, for sure, as was evidenced by the well-hatted diners at the next table. Jim, minus cowboy hat, failed to fit the pattern as he (obviously) enjoyed his Long Island Iced Tea!

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This surreal scene was actually a kid’s meal served in an automobile at the next table.

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After dinner, a ride in the city park, where one local has started altering dead trees with a chain saw.

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New playground equipment makes me wish to be a kid again for just one slide down that tube side on a sheet of waxed paper!

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Something a stranger might drop jaw at is the herd of buffalo. The barn  below is where they seek shelter during snow storms and other inclement weather. Cushy life on the range. There is actually a huge fenced-in  hilltop a few city blocks in size where they are free to roam along with a herd of elk.

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Driving home, we saw this young deer dining on newly sprouted leaves of a neighbor’s trees. His herd of five had been at my sister’s house earlier this morning. Tonight, however, we didn’t see the pheasant I saw crossing the road yesterday.

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The Window

opens onto an empty lot.
Guamuchil trees and wild castor beans
rise from its slope to lift toward
where I sit above, hands engaged
in taking me away to a place
far beyond ideas.
It is that destination dreams only point us to–
that place where, perhaps, I’ll float
after the feared moment
when I’ll leave this world for good.

I dread it so, that zone,
and yet if what my fingers have just told is right,
it’s where I choose to go again and again,
escaping to that little house
down in my garden
where I keep my tools and paint
and ten thousand small objects
all of which have a particular place they want to be fastened.

I am just here to help them go where they want to go.
Where they have, perhaps, been created to go–
taking me with them to the zone,

all of us
headed toward
the inevitable.

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“The little house” is my studio, here seen from the garden. The earlier view was of the wild lot next door, seen from the window of my studio.

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A message from the zone. Click to enlarge, then hover over objects and click again to see more detail..

The Prompt: Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in  “The Zone?”

There is a special beauty in the broken,
as though established beauty is being reordered–
the predictable broken apart
and presented to us again,
assembled by a different hand.

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In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Broken.”

The World in a Nutshell

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The World in a Nutshell

The prompt today asks us to recommend one book that explains what humans are all about.  I would recommend The Story of Civilization, by  Will and Ariel Durant. It is an eleven-volume set of books (published between 1935 and 1975) covering Western history.  Unfortunately, they died before they could complete the series, but the history of future civilizations was in fact forecast in quotes from various volumes:

–(From Volume 1, The Near East: “For barbarism is always around civilization, amid it and beneath it, ready to engulf it by arms, or mass migration, or unchecked fertility. Barbarism is like the jungle; it never admits its defeat; it waits patiently for centuries to recover the territory it has lost.” (page 265)

–(From Volume 2, The Life of Greece: ”We have tried to show that the essential cause of the Roman conquest of Greece was the disintegration of Greek civilization from within. No great nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself.” (page 659)

–(From Volume 3. Caesar and Christ: ”If Rome had not engulfed so many men of alien blood in so brief a time, if she had passed all these newcomers through her schools instead of her slums, if she had treated them as men with a hundred potential excellences, if she had occasionally closed her gates to let assimilation catch up with infiltration, she might have gained new racial and literary vitality from the infusion, and might have remained a Roman Rome, the voice and citadel of the West.” (p. 366)

(Facts and quotes gleaned from Wikipedia, which gives a more comprehensive listing of volumes, themes and quotes.)

The Prompt: The friendly, English-speaking extraterrestrial you run into outside your house is asking you to recommend the one book, movie, or song that explains what humans are all about. What do you pick?https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/worldly-encounters/

Beautiful Faces: Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Heads or Facial Features

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http://ceenphotography.com/2015/05/21/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-heads-or-facial-features/

Incredible Wyoming

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Remarkable scenery and my friend Patty (accompanied by sister Patti in the backseat driver’s seat) pulled over at least once for me to snap a picture as she drove me from Billings to Sheridan after my flight from California. Good thing, however, that we didn’t LINGER long–

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The skies were spectacular but frightening as we could see the storm building up in front of us.

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Can you see the tension in my friend Patty’s fists gripping the wheel as we try to outrun the storm?

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Although we didn’t entirely miss the storm, we did escape the worst of it.  Minutes after we passed, this area was deluged by hail.  Patty’s new car would not have fared well. She at least speculated that she wouldn’t have to water her garden when she got home, but alas….


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When we got closer to Sheridan, we learned that in fact no rain had fallen there.

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In lieu of rain, We saw this good boy patiently waiting for his master to come back to his big rig.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/linger/

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: More Pairs

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I have been struggling with Apple’s “new and improved?” photo app to replace iPhoto.  Whine, whine.  I’m getting a bit used to it but could not figure out how to transfer pictures to my blog.  Finally discovered that they’ve added one more step to that process and that I have to download pics to my desktop instead of dragging them to WordPress directly from the photo app.  How is this an improvement, Apple?  I’ve finally found where they’ve hidden away all the old editing features so I’m not quite as crabby as I was last night when I discovered that this had happened when I updated.  Why don’t they tell us what these updates are going to do?  At any rate, I just had to show off my newest skills so will add two more “pairs” photos to Cee’s challenge.  I loved the reflection of my sister’s chandelier in wine glasses on her dining room table, so will share a couple of the shots with you here.  More grist for your mill, Cee.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/05/19/cees-fun-foto-challenge-pairs/

Linger

It is those times
over dinner
when we have lifted a glass
or two–

those times
without husbands, who are home
watching a game
or out with gun and skeet–

those times
with long-ago college schemes
or scandals
remembered–

when, although no longer hungry,
we nonetheless order a dessert
with three forks
as an excuse to linger.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Linger.” 

One Word Photo Challenge: Hot

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Can’t get any hotter than this globo (hot air balloon) falling from the sky over Ajijic, Mexico.


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The admittedly augmented hot lamp was in Morehouse, Missouri.  Can’t blame a girl for cheating to meet a prompt.


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                                    These may not be the hottest chilis on your plate,

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http://jennifernicholewells.com/2015/05/19/one-word-photo-challenge-hot/

A Placebo Is Not Enough.

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Placebo Effect,” If you could create a painless, inexpensive cure for a single ailment, what would you cure and why?

Without a doubt, I’d choose ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  It is such an insidious disease, and one of my greatest fears is not being able to breathe or swallow. When I was in my twenties, I had an older friend who contracted it.  He was a lovely, warm, funny man who was a teacher in the same school I taught in.  I think it was probably the first time I’d heard of the disease.  Probably the first time I’d heard of Lou Gehrig, as well, as I’ve never been a sports fan.  It was so painful to see how quickly my friend Bill deteriorated and since then it seems as though the disease has become much more widespread.  It would tie with Alzheimer’s as my most feared disease, but since I’ve already written two posts on my sister’s Alzheimer’s, (Read one HERE,) I guess this fear wins out this time.

This is one of those topics where there is no possibility of a humorous or lighthearted answer. Rhyming wouldn’t help and the subject seems too grim for even poetry.  My answer is as straightforward as I wish a cure could be.  I’m sure there will always be diseases.  When one is tackled, nature seems to think up another to take its place; but it is hard to conceive of one more heartbreaking than ALS.