I don’t know what this was all about, but we found this hat of distinction residing above a dry fountain in a little plaza outside the restrooms when we stopped for gas in Mexico on our way up to the States!
And now, more hats–which really are just a reflections of the people who wear them. (Seems like I’ve done this prompt before, but at least the images above are new, and the folks below warrant a second view if I’ve posted them before.)
It’s become tradition to pin dollar bills to the ceiling of Washoe House—a northern California roadhouse established in 1859. After a burglar broke in and stole a good deal of the money a few years ago and the insurance company put a limit to what they would recompense them, the owner took a rake to the ceiling of the back room and in just a section of it, collected $5,000 to give to charity. Now every so often he “harvests” the ceiling. We stopped there for lunch on our way home from Sea Ranch.
Hive
I know the day has started. I hear them stir around.
Yet here I am sealed in my room, making not a sound.
I rarely sleep eight hours, but usually six or four.
Yet this guest room has no window. It only has a door.
With no bird songs to waken me, no sunlight and no dog,
I have gone on slumbering, sleeping like a log.
It’s a deprivation chamber—a cell, a cave, a den;
so I’ll just go on sleeping, perhaps ‘til nine or ten.
All in all, I am the perfect kind of guest.
No need to entertain me. I’ve only come to rest.
In two more days please crack the door of my little hive.
Perhaps just flip me over to see if I’m alive.
Certainly as hostess, my sister is the best,
and I am sure she has some plans for her newest guest;
but for today to leave me be is my sincere request.
After weeks of traveling, Sunday’s my day of rest!
Note: Today marks my twenty-eighth day of travel since I left home and yesterday it was thirteen hours of travel from the time I left for the airport at 3 a.m. to the time I arrived at my sister’s house. When I awoke this Sunday morning after seven and a half hours sleep—the most sleep I’ve had since I left home—I still couldn’t stir before I’d written my daily poem.
When my sister and brother-in-law built their house and made their guest room windowless, the joke was that no guest would want to stay for very long. Suffice it to say that I know how to turn the broadest hint to my favor!!! Thus, this poem.This one’s for you, Patti. Please put the coffee on. I’m about to make an appearance.
Glamour Travel
My carry-on’s too heavy to lift above my seat;
so I had to put it under, now there’s no room for my feet.
I request some water (though I’ve been twice rebuffed,)
to take an antihistamine, for my eyes are puffed
from the perfume of my seatmate, which also made me cough.
So I’m already hurting long before lift off.
I’ve squeeze marks from the narrow seats, I’m shivering from the draft,
and when this ride is over, I must board another craft!
Two hours later, two states up, I face another battle
trying to find a decent airport meal here in Seattle.
On my muffuletta sandwich (priced $15.93),
I look in vain for olives, which there don’t seem to be.
My Tim’s potato chips are stale, the sodas are all flat.
The Wifi that they advertise does not know where I’m at.
Air travel’s an adventure but not the one I sought.
I forget this lesson once again, refusing to be taught.
One hour left ‘til I lift off to wing my way on east,
I buy a drink and steel myself to board the winged beast.
I hope this time my seatmate fits in her own seat
so I don’t have to deal again with the impossible feat
of leaning out into the aisle, avoiding every ass
of passengers and stewards that brush me as they pass.
I bitch, I whine, I grouse, I cry, complain and moan and sigh.
‘Til by now I’m sure you wonder why I even fly.
I must admit I’ve asked myself the same as I’ve been talking.
The only reason I have found is that it sure beats walking.
(Written in the Seattle Airport, enroute to Billings, Montana–then on to Sheridan, Wyoming by car, chauffeured by Patti and accompanied by Patty. Yes, I have a plethora of P’s in my life.)
The Prompt: Singular Sensation– if you could have a guarantee that one, specific person was reading your blog, who would you want that person to be? Why? What do you want to say to them?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/singular-sensation-2/
If you had been a fly on the wall at Linda and Steve’s house last week when Dan and Laurie and I came for dinner, this is some of the silly (or not so silly) discussion you might have overheard.
About the ridiculous amount spent on political campaigns in an attempt to “buy” the election or slur the other candidate:
Judy says, “No candidate should be able to spend any money on campaigns. Radio and TV stations should provide an equal amount of time for each candidate to state their beliefs and platforms and that is it!”
Linda added, more entertainingly: “I think that they should make every election into a reality series. What American could resist watching Obama and Romney swap wives? I would have loved to have seen Michelle chew Mitt’s ass in twenty different ways. Or, determine the election by means of duels. Every single election, you’d get rid of 50 percent of the politicians.”
Judy: “What about survivor? You put them all together, naked, on an island with only the amount of health care they support for the masses to come to their aid in case of snake bite, sunburn or heart attack.
Dan and Laurie: “Or make it an amazing race. Put “I support gay marriage” on their bumper sticker and send them through the deep south. Or “The Earth is Flat” through California.
I lost track of who said this: “Or, create a bumper sticker that would make them all face a similar risk no matter where they go: Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus–and see how adept they are at getting out of difficult situations.”
Okay viewers, a challenge. What sort of reality show would you like to suggest for political candidates to prove their mettle?
*
I’m about to hit the road to drive back to Berkeley and then will fly on to Wyoming day after tomorrow. The Prompt today is to write an anonymous letter to someone you’re jealous of. This is a prompt I’ve already written about, please see my response HERE*
It’s been foggy all day. This evening as it began to lift, I caught this wonderful still life:
Minutes later, this little fellow made an appearance. He was the tiniest fawn any of us had ever seen–so newly born that he was still wobbly. His mother never did appear in the ten minutes we watched him.
This happens to be the door of ZaSu Pitts’ house…right next to the Nickelodeon theater in Santa Cruz, Ca. It is as colorful as she was.
https://miscellaneousmusingsofamiddleagedmind.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/thursday-doors-may-14-2015/
Today the gifts have all be opened, the pizza is gone, the cake is half-eaten, but the decorations are still hanging, something I noticed when returning from a swift walk to the beach to watch a wonderful sight.
I gave up first, Peggy followed soon after, but Sabina is still trying to catch a last look. Of what?
You can perhaps guess.
Three whales who frolicked right off coast for ten minutes or so. There were better photo opportunities, but I missed out on them.
When I returned, I was able to capture this shot of Sharon through the glass of the dining room window.
And we returned to making beads and other elements of fimo and fashioning them into necklaces, bracelets, earrings,
Sabina worked on her wonderful mirror fashioned of fimo, stamps and paint.
And Peggy worked on her quilt . . .
Until the fog rolled in and suddenly through that fog, I spied it:
Incredible, the Great Blue Heron stayed, standing silent, moving slowly as we stood silent, walking one way and another until we approached too close. Unprepared, I caught only a ghost shot, like a watercolor, as it flew away:
Which could not help but remind me of one of my favorite poems “The Great Blue Heron,” by Carolyn Kizer, which you may read HERE.
Here is one more view of the heron:
This one looks more like a painting but is in fact a photo I took today with more saturated color–the way it would have looked if the fog had not entered our lives for the rest of the afternoon.
Clothes Make the Man but Women Make the Clothes
In matters of both clothes and hair
we profit from the use of flair.
A scarf, a pin, a tilted hat
reveal that we are more than that
we choose to put up our heads
or bodies–for our hats or threads
too often conceal our forms or hair,
not showing what is under there.
Sometimes it’s an improvement, true:
our hair dyed an unfortunate hue
or bodies altered by midnight trips
kitchenward that spread our hips.
This gown I wear is brilliant red,
It spreads around me in my bed–
ankle-length and numinous,
free-flowing and voluminous .
I obscure my trunk and limbs in it.
My zaftig form just swims in it.
It makes me feel petite and small.
Inside, I’m hardly there at all!
When I awaken, I’m not alert,
throw off the covers, unwind the skirt
from where it’s twisted around my legs,
I yawn and blink to expunge the dregs
of sleep from everywhere it tries
to prolong my dreams and clot my eyes.
It’s in the bathroom where I see
how I’ve made this gown uniquely me.
My reflection in the bathroom glass
shows its brilliant red en masse.
Its designer’s plan I clearly flout,
for I wear it inside out.
The Prompt: The Clothes (May) Make the (Wo)man–How important are clothes to you? Describe your style, if you have one, and tell us how appearance impacts how you feel about yourself.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-clothes-may-make-the-woman/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 