Monthly Archives: January 2018

Late Night Hunger: Nothing in the House to Eat

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Nothing in the House to Eat

I pined, I whined, I opined I’d nothing here to eat.
No soup or chips or waffles. No ham or other meat.
I’d used up all my popcorn. I never buy baloney.
But looking in the freezer, I found some pepperoni!
When I went searching through the fridge, hidden back so far
that I could barely see it, I found a little jar.
Hidden behind the pickles, some pizza sauce that I
surmised was just enough to make a little pizza pie!
Some frozen cheese to top it, and some pita for the crust.
It seems that it was fated that a pizza was a must.
The toaster oven was just right for melding it together.
I dived once more into the fridge, intent on seeing whether
I had stuff for a salad, and I found some veggies shredded.
Fresh carrots and fresh cabbage—which were most swiftly wedded.
Balsamic and some blue cheese and olives from a jar
made a so-so salad only slightly below par.
The pizza cooked so quickly that I was quickly fed.
And now that I am sated, I think I’ll go to bed!

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Forgottenman made me post this! I need to learn not to tell him anything this late at night. He always decides it would make a good blog post!!!

Toys: Cee’s Black and White Challenge

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(Please click on first photo to enlarge all.)

For Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Toys

Achoo

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Different Thanks

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Family Thanks Giving

Three dogs, paws up on the gate to the garage whenever I get home. The little one leaps up and down like some ballerina at the bar, the biggest with his irritating barks–loud and harsh and insistent—for whatever reason, be it mom’s arrival home or a dog who dares to pass by in the street. All of them escorting me to the door, attempting to help me with my bags and bundles.

The big dog sneaking into my room at night when she thinks I haven’t noticed. Wanting to be even closer than within eye-shot down the hall, she sleeps on the cold floor in lieu of her warm padded bed, perhaps because she wants to remind me that although the second dog is cleverer and handsomer and the newest dog is the littlest and most pleasant to have jump up on the bed with me, she was the very first and has known me for the longest. She has put up with intruders—both these two canine upstarts and the one human one who entered my house and stole my house guest’s laptop years ago when she was my one and only!

And although I am allergic to them, I wash off the licks of thanks that Morrie gives for a few cuddles on the bed before he sinks down to the foot to curl at a more hypoallergenic distance. Wash off my hands and arms after I’ve pulled off clumps of Frida’s thick undercoat. Dress the wounds that Diego’s claws have left on my legs and arms when he just can’t resist jumping up for closer contact. All of these wounds and welts and sneezes and wheezes just the aftermath of the constant thanks these kids adopted from the streets offer every day, as often as I will allow them.

This is a reblog from three years ago when we were a three-dog one-cat family instead of a two-dog five-cat family!  R.I.P. Frida. The prompt today is allergic.

Kalanchoe: Flower of the Day, Jan 5, 2018

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I think the mystery is solved concerning how one plant could have such a variety of blooms on it. See clues below.

(Click on first photo to enlarge all.)

After a few days, it became clear that there were actually three different colors of kalanchoe planted in each pot! Tres por uno. So much for the variety of buds and blooms on one plant.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Candy Crush

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Okay, Forgottenman is making me post this story I just told him.

Remember a few months ago when I wrote the poem making use of the names of candy bars and different sorts of candy?  Actually, one of the musicians at Open Mike has set it to music, but before that, I just read it as a poem at Open Mike.  Tonight I went back and read three other poems, and afterwards a woman came up to me and said,  “Remember when you read the poem about candy bars and I asked for a copy and you gave me yours?” I said yes and she continued. “Well, I went back to Canada and threw a party based on it. I filled a bowl with as many of the candies as I could find, then read the poem and whenever someone heard the name of a type of candy and was the first to raise their hand, they got to go to the bowl and take that candy bar or type of candy.” She said, “People loved it but said I didn’t read with enough feeling, so they made me read it again with feeling!” She was so excited to tell me this. Cool, huh?

Here is the candy bar poem:

The Ballad of Henry and Ruth

Before she met him at the candy store,
her days were empty and her life was a bore;
but when he offered her his Jujyfruits,
in just a moment they were in cahoots.
He was the drummer in a R&R band.
Down all 5th Avenue, he held her hand.
She felt his pulse beat pump a sweet love tune
and knew he’d be her Sugar Daddy soon.

Chorus:

Yes she met him at the candy store,
between the sucker rack and front screen door.
He nearly tripped over her Mary Janes
and crashed into a rack of Candy Canes.
The Double Bubble and the Tootsie Roll Pops
collided with the mints and lemon drops.
Their love was written in the moon and stars,
but realized beneath the Hershey Bars!


Oh Henry, she was crooning, and much more.
He loved this Bit O’ Honey down to the core.
Shifted his Firestick and they went for a ride
his Baby Ruth snuggled right up to his side.
She cried, “Oh, Henry!” as they hit the Mounds,
poppin’ wheelies as they did the rounds.
He was no Slo-Poke, tell you here and now,
so as he swerved to miss a big Black Cow,


The car rolled over on its Rollo Bars
crashing into six  more hot rod cars.
“Atomic Fireball” said the words on his car.
Now how appropriate those two words are.
100 Grand it costs him on Payday
so he’ll be working every night and day—
his Red Hot mama working by his side,
for now his Sweet Tart is his blushing bride.


Repeat Chorus:

 

To enjoy the candy in more detail, click on any photo.

Pick a Word in January

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Candescent

Auricomous

Love these feahers in my friend Patricia’s golden locks.  (I didn’t know what auricomous meant before I looked it up, either.)

 

Algid

Angular

Festive

 

 

Pick a Word in January prompt

Kalanchoe Study 3: Flower of the Day, Jan 4, 2018

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Rose Blush: Third in a series of the remarkable diversity of buds and flowers on one kalanchoe plant. To see earlier shots, look HERE and HERE.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.

Premature Viability

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Premature Viability

It was a viable solution to a major tragedy.
She had it all planned out, and she confided it to me:
how she might overcome her fears of dating and romance
by going on a dating site and giving love a chance.

First she lost a pound or two and got a stylish cut,
then purloined her sister’s Spanx  that nipped in thighs and butt.
Had a makeup session and bought a new blouse that
showed off a bit of shoulder as well as a new hat.

Set at a rakish angle, it polished off her wiles—
made her eyes more come-on and accented her smiles.
When she was ready for battle, she turned her webcam on,
signed up for OkCupid, and when her family were gone,

tried out her Skype and FaceTime to see how good she looked,
only to discover than her goose was surely cooked;
for no matter what the lighting or the camera angle,
there was little chance that a boyfriend she would wrangle.

She turned off her webcam and decided she would wait
another year or two before vying for a date.
Her stars were not aligned now. Her prospects were not fine.
She’d put off looking for a boyfriend at least until she’s nine!

The prompt today is viable.

Help!!! I need help in identifying a movie.

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Recently, when I mentioned an anecdote about how when I was a little girl, we’d given some of my outgrown clothes to a schoolmate, my mom told me not to tell anyone they were my old dresses, thinking it would embarrass the other little girl.  Therefore, when a friend asked me if that was my dress the girl was wearing, I said no. “Liar!” she cried, “She told me it was yours!!!”

My friend Mary responded with an anecdote about her mother and her. Here is the conversation between us:

Mary Francis McNinchI had a very good friend when I was barely in school. She had lots of brothers and sisters and a kind, sweet mother. Their house had dirt floors. Mom never said a word when I talked about Sandra until she saw her mother walking down the street with her kids in tow and Sandra’s mother was wearing a skirt Kitty Reynolds had made for Mom, and that was the end of that.

lifelessons: How had she gotten the skirt, Mary?

Mary Francis McNinch: I gave Sandra Mom’s Kitty Reynolds original. I had one like it that was too small, so we couldn’t be twinsies, anyway.

lifelessons: That reminds me of the plot of a movie I just saw the other night. 
She of course is now interested in seeing the movie but I can’t remember the name. I went through all the Netflix movies and all the Amazon Prime movies one can see from abroad (Practically none) and can’t find it. Does anyone recognize the film plot given here? If you do, I’ll gift the first responder with the right answer with any of my books available on Amazon–print or Kindle. Here is the plot. Warning: spoilers!!! Mary, don’t read this description of the movie if you intend on seeing it!

A teenager’s parents find her having sex with her boyfriend in their house and tell her she has to go to church with them every Sunday. She ends up going, grudgingly, working in their soup kitchen, and giving the church her college money–$29,000!!! to help the needy. She then brings street people in and gives away all her parents’ clothes. It is hard to tell whether this is sincere or revenge. Certainly, it begins as a way to get back at her parents and reveal their hypocrisy in not following all the edicts of the Bible that she is learning in her Bible class. Okay, big spoiler now: the climax comes when the priest uses the money to buy a new marble altar!
Can anyone tell me the name of the movie from this info? I can’t remember the names of any of the actors, but it is an American movie set in contemporary times.  It was impossible to tell how old it was, but within the past ten years, I’d say, given the content material.

Rich Harvest

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© Sharon Knight
I saw this photo by Sharon Knight on Sascha Darlington’s blog and knew it was the perfect photo for this poem as well.  Thanks to both Sharon Knight and Sascha as well as dVerse poets, who sponsored this prompt. Like Sharon Knight, I grew up in the midwest and this photo could easily have been taken in my home state of South Dakota, a bit before the harvest time described in my poem.

Details from retablo “The Gleaners.” Painting by Anna O’Neglia, retablo and photo by jdb (Click on any photo to enlarge all)

Rich Harvest

The night that we brought in the wheat,
our weeks of labor now complete,
we raised our voices, beat our feet,
and in that stifling prairie heat,
weary and arm-sore, yet replete
with satisfaction for jobs well-done
earned in the dust and chaff and sun,
we ceased our labors and had some fun.

Hank gave the prim schoolteacher a treat
by lifting her from her safe seat
to move her to the fiddler’s beat.
Soon, her hairpins met defeat,
her wild hair anything but neat,
 and Hank was heard to woo the miss
and then to plant a tender kiss.
She remembers all of this

now that their family’s complete
with Rita, Sarah, and little Pete.
Now every harvest, when you greet
each townsperson you chance to meet,
chances are they will repeat
how Hank brought in the wheat that year
and afterwards, conquered his fear
and dared to call the school marm, “dear.”

The prompt today is treat.