My friend Gloria sent me this link which I just had to share with you. If you can top these photos, I’d like to see what you have in your arsenal. I am constantly amazed by the creativity in our world!!! https://docs.google.com/ presentation/d/ 1IHNgzJC6n3u7WePDtD2v61e4XapYx SB4DJyEwjEIdDo/embed?hl=en_GB& size=m&slide=id.p3https://docs.google.com/ presentation/d/ 1IHNgzJC6n3u7WePDtD2v61e4XapYx SB4DJyEwjEIdDo/embed?hl=en_GB& size=m&slide=id.p3
More ladies photographed at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Nova Scotia.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/10/flower-of-the-day-september-11-2016-wildflowers/
In spite of the fact that I got into St. Louis two hours late (after three changes of gates in Toronto, a delay to change a tire on the plane and then an entire change of planes) I still had a healthy welcome to St. Louis contingent. First Forgottenman, then this familiar face waiting for me in the car:
Then when we stopped to get gas on the way home, Forgottenman found this little guy clinging to the rear hatch of the car!!!
He was well-lit-up by the overhead lights of the filling station where we were gassing up. Hard to tell how long he’d been there, and I was tempted to bring him back to Morehouse, thinking he might have jumped up on the car before Forgottenman left to come get me, but the driver voted for me to leave him in the grass by the filling station, so I did.
To my great regret, for when we got home an hour or so later, this is what we found clinging to the porch railing:
It made me so sad, as it was the exact same variety of frog. He/she looks darker because of the lack of light here, but was a duplicate of the one we found clinging to the car 80 miles away, and I am quite sure it is a mate just waiting for the return of the little frog we left behind in the grass an hour and a half earlier!
I arrived at the Halifax airport two and a half hours before my departure time for Toronto; but as you can see below, have had no problem figuring out how to pass the time:
Air Port
I must recharge my Apple. I must post my blog.
Finding a place to do so was like rolling off a log,
but connecting to the wifi was by no means easy.
After five attempts I was feeling flushed and queasy.
Two hours before my flight would leave. I had the time to do it.
If only my computer had the wifi to imbue it!
The man who said he’d help threw up his hands and walked away.
“Oh, a Mac!!” was all that it seems he had to say
when two more tries and shutting off my Mac had no effect.
Yet still I do not rue the day I joined the Apple sect.
Their air ports may be iffy but they’ve other saving graces.
Somehow my mind just clicks with how they put me through my paces.
Once more I clicked “restart” and crossed my fingers and one eye.
Such rituals are Mac-like and might just serve to buy
admission to the Internet, along with one small oath
without which often my Mac Air, I must admit, is loath
to do what I direct it to. It has a stubborn bent.
But somehow sometimes it complies when I choose to vent.
Getting through security was navigated with ease.
And getting to my gate, again, was really quite a breeze.
But though I finally got online. (I’m talking to you now.)
Please do not inquire about precisely how.
Macs are a fraternity with secrets we can’t tell;
but if you are an owner, I’m sure you know them well!!!
The prompt word today was “Recharge.”Thanks, WordPress, for once again fitting the prompt right into my life experience.
The car on the left was the one I requested. The car on the right was the one I got!!!!
When I was still trying to make it up to the Cabot trail in Nova Scotia in the black beast pictured above, I stopped at a big red barn restaurant—the only place close to the motel where I stayed for the night. The meal was not memorable and was accompanied by the agony of a girl child in the next booth who SCREAMED in a high shrill voice for at least half of the time to the accompaniment of a mother who occasionally ineffectively tried to shush her. It occurred to me that I could move, but at that point she started running up and down the length of the restaurant, piping “Ring around the rosy” in her irritatingly shrill and LOUD voice. Since I hesitated to turn to fix her with my own shaming glare, I never laid eyes on her until they finally left half way through my meal. By her behavior, I had thought she must be three or so, but was amazed to see when they finally left that she was more like five or six.
It was an incredible relief until another man came in with what looked like the same child. They blessedly sat a few booths beyond me as she seemed to possess the same voice and irritating behavior. At least, however, she stayed in her own booth—a bit further from my unappreciative ear than the last child. The meal was forgettable. The experience wasn’t. But, when I left, I at least snapped this photo which illustrates well the difference between the car I wanted and the gas-guzzling technologically puzzling beast that Hertz actually issued me. We parted company last night. Such a relief to hand it back to its rightful owners.
I couldn’t decide which of these two very similar shots I liked best, so I’m posting both of them. If you have a favorite, let me know.
I photographed these Cosmos along the walkway to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. A man asked me to identify several of the flowers and said he, too, had photographed them. I asked if the museum was interesting and he said, “About as interesting as watching paint dry!” He turned around and walked back toward the museum with me, but I veered off to take photos of a little boy flying a kite he’d made in a kite making workshop in the museum. Wish I’d been there for that!! In the end, I left without going into the museum. I decided with so little time left here that I’d rather drive along the bay and then go back to my motel and sit by the water in an Adirondack chair to write my blog.
For more photos, look here: https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/09/flower-of-the-day-dahlia-11/
Today dawned rainy and foggy with a prediction it would last all day, so instead of spending five hours on the Cabot Trail before heading southwards for another three hour journey to get my car returned to Hertz by 9 p.m., I decided to head immediately for the airport and my overnight stay at the very classy Alt hotel which is located right at the Halifax airport. Very handy. Enroute, I noticed an A&W Drive-in and had to stop. I thought they’d gone out of business years ago but here is proof that they are still alive and thriving in Nova Scotia. Thanks, WordPress, for the very timely prompt. I didn’t even know what it was until I got to the wifi of my hotel in Halifax. Nice coincidence that I was already supplied with an illustration for today’s prompt of “Sandwich!”
A&Wsome Burgers
The first drive-in I went to when I was just a kid
(before there was McDonalds or wax cups with a lid)
was an A&W sixty miles from home
with root beer served in frosty mugs and sporting heads of foam.
I haven’t seen another for years, so I believed
there weren’t any anymore—a fact that I have grieved.
So while driving into Halifax, imagine my elation
when I saw an A&W next to a filling station!
I had meant to fill my rental car before I turned it in,
‘cause the prices when Hertz fills them up are really quite a sin,
but all thoughts of filling up the car vanished in a blink
with thoughts of luscious burgers and foamy things to drink.
There’s mama burger, papa burger and even a teen,
but still no baby burgers, or anything between.
They have onion rings and French fries and something called poutine?
An addition to the menu? I found it most obscene.
Now it has been a long time since I have had the fun
of consuming family members stuffed into a bun,
but I am really very sure that poutine is a new one.
In all my life I’ve never before had the chance to chew one!
I asked the friendly sales girl for a bit of erudition
that could clue me in to this Canadian addition
to what I thought was sacrosanct—an act of pure sedition.
Just what has the world come to when franchises have permission
to add things to the menu? It simply is not right
that they can think up something new for us to bite!!!
She filled me in on what it was and said it was delicious.
French fries, cheese curd, gravy??? A mixture most pernicious.
What good are French fries served with cheese that’s certain to taste boggy,
topped off with gravy that no doubt would make the whole mess soggy?
I bought a teen burger and naked French fries at their best—
then left to eat them in my car—a sure sign of protest.
But in the end my protest was paid most dearly for.
For when I took my food to go, slamming shut the door
and roaring off to eat my food in another place,
I ended up with poutine all over my face.
For I forgot to buy my gas which would have cost a third
of what I had to pay to Hertz—a total most absurd.
Yet even though my protest in my budget put a crimp,
at least I did not stoop to eating French fries that were limp!!!
This is the fullest and most beautiful sedum I’ve ever seen. I found it in the garden of the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Nova Scotia.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/08/flower-of-the-day-roses/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elegant/
Inelegant Obsession
I’d love to be elegant while I’m obsessing,
but if I told you how, I’d only be guessing.
The man at the counter said yoga’s the answer
to two hour waits, and smart cars and cancer.
I told him that yoga’s more easily done
in my pool or on mats spread out in the sun––
Not two hours before midnight when you’re feeling sad
’cause the car you pre-rented is not to be had
and instead you’re confronted with a Jeep Cherokee
with all bells and whistles included for free!
Yet each feature they’ve added is cryptic and puzzling.
Screen like a space ship and gasoline-guzzling.
I can’t find the lighter to plug in my Nuvi.
The radio screen is showing a movie,
but I can’t find a plug to plug in my phone
and I’m out in this parking lot, stressed and alone.
After one hour of standing and waiting to rent it
and one more in the parking lot, how I repent it!
I go on the road in the inky black dark
with no place to stop and no place to park.
My GPS empty of power and knowledge,
to find the right route would take training in college.
No route numbers have I, I can’t see the map.
My phone out of power sits limp on my lap.
The screen gives me options for stations galore,
but no arrow to choose them, just one button more
for feature after feature that I cannot use.
I wish I had knowledge. I wish I had booze!!!
When I try to turn on the overhead light,
the moonroof zips open and try as I might,
I can’t get it closed but just open it more,
so the wind whips my hair with a terrible roar.
I’ve always loved traveling wild and free,
but it now seems travel’s evolved beyond me.
Where is my confidence and my elan?
That air of achievement, that air of “I can?”
When I get to the motel two hours in arrears,
when the clerk asks how are you, I explode in tears.
I tell him my story, like a silly old fool––
but he doesn’t snicker and he isn’t cruel.
“See that?” he said, waving a hand at my phone.
He shook his gray head and gave a small moan.
“Don’t know how to use one–not me nor my wife.
It seems like technology’s plaguing our life.”
He dished out a Kleenex and almost at once,
I found I was feeling much less of a dunce.
I may be a fool and an old one at that,
but it’s so reassuring to share that coned hat!
This control board of the plane I flew from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia on is slightly less daunting than the dashboard of the Jeep Cherokee they pawned off on me as a replacement for the simple economy car I requested. The flight took one half hour. Renting the car (even though I’d filled out all the paperwork on the internet) and figuring out how to operate the monstrosity they gave me took two hours!!!
The beast!!! I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the radio and tremble at the thought of mistakenly turning on the four wheel drive.
I later snapped a photo that better illustrates the size of this car. See that photo HERE.
The prompt word today was “Elegant.” This was stretching the prompt, but I had my own agenda.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 