Monthly Archives: September 2021

A Textural Appreciation

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I almost threw away the center photo, considering it a mistake, but then I realized it was a good representation of contrast of textures. The zipper on the cobblestones was a lucky find on my way home from a beach walk. Looks like someone just finished zipping up a crack between the stones. The Lirio photo was taken on that same walk.  Then I came home to relax in the hammock and accidentally took the center one. Oh the lucky texture of our lives. I am so grateful for it. 

Hitching a ride on Carol Cormier’s Tuesdays of Texture.

May-December Marriage

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May-December Marriage

Your insistence that I swallow three times between each bite
is just one small example of directives that incite.
All your protective rules that others find adorable,
on the receiving side of them quickly turns deplorable.

Whatever you may label them by your own nomenclature,
your “loving” rules are symptoms of extreme controlling nature.
So I’m galvanized to action. Since I’m tired of your caring,
I’m making a decision that’s both personal and daring.

I’m going out without you for a little drive alone
and I’m not taking my pager and I’m not taking my phone.
I might drive without a seatbelt and who knows what else I’ll do.
If I see some flowers by the road, I’ll stop and pick a few

without worrying about the fact a passerby might see
and park his car behind me and decide to kidnap me.
I will talk to every stranger and eat in greasy spoons,
drive out to the ocean and walk barefoot in the dunes

forgetting the sharp objects that might lurk beneath the sand,
neglecting to wear sunscreen and if I get deeply tanned,
I won’t worry about wrinkles or cancer or a burn.
All your careful rules for once I’m going to spurn.

I’m going to eat sugar and perhaps get round and fat,
enjoying all the broken rules involved in doing that!
If you treat me like a kid, then guess I’ll be a teen
and when you tell me what to do, I’ll stage a little scene.

I’ll get home when I want to and go out with whom I wish.
I’ll dine alone on Szechwan food and order every dish.
When you ask when I’ll get home, I’ll shrug and say “Whenever!”
And if you do not change your ways, the answer will be “Never!”

 

Prompts for the day are swallow, between, symptomatic, galvanize and adorable.

Lirio, (Water Hyacinth) FOTD, at 5:55:55 A.M., Sept 18, 2021

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For the past year, I have frequently looked at the clock at 1:11 or 5:55 or checked out views and found them at 444. This repetition of numbers happens countless times a day to the point where it has become eerie. But this is the first time it has gone to six digits! Here is proof:

Don’t know what it means.  I also realized yesterday that today would be the 20th anniversary of my husband Bob’s death, so Bob, these lirio flowers are for you!

The lake is filling up with lirio (water hyacinth) again. They’ve had to dredge or poison it a number of times since I moved here 20 years ago as in time it inhibits the passage of fishing boats and numerous people have drowned because they got trapped underneath it. Just last year a man drowned when he went into the water to reclaim a ball his children had mistakenly kicked into the water. Sad.  

Bob, too, lies in this lake as when he died, his kids all came down and one of his sons took the remainder of Bob’s ashes out in his kayak that he had hoped to use in this lake. Sadly, he died before we could move down so I brought his ashes down in the toe of his kayak lashed to the top of our van.  R.I.P. Bob. 

For Cee’s FOTD

Cold Snap

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Cold Snap

When Autumn winds its avant course and takes its paint box out,
Winter with its probity pursues another route.
Freezing all connections between the leaves and limbs,
it snaps off all Fall’s paintings crisply at the stems.

It is as though the bourgeoisie has seized the reins at last
and expunged the riffraff artist with a single blast.
If Autumn’s the iconoclast, Winter must seal the norm
by covering its statements with a winter storm.

When Spring speaks out its message through the meadow lark,
stodgy frigid Winter ceases making its mark.
Then after Summer pales Spring’s green and dries the colors out,
it is the turn of Autumn to throw pigment about.

Season after season, the colors build and fade,
every new stage cancelling progress the last one made,
then building up its opposite thinking it might win,
not seeing life’s a painting that all of them are in.

 

Prompt words for today are autumn, course, bourgeoisie, probity and speaker.

Breaking In

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Breaking In

Last night I was with two talkative friends who just wouldn’t stop talking. I had a very interesting anecdote that had happened to me that I wanted to tell but I could not find a break in the conversation. I kept even trying to interrupt but no matter what I did, they just kept on talking, talking, talking, talking. It was so frustrating and finally I just said, “Stop! I have a really interesting thing to tell you but you need to stop long enough for me to tell it!!!!!”

It was at that point that I woke up and realized the book I’d been listening to as I fell asleep had been playing all night and it was unlikely that any of the characters were going to stop talking long enough for me to join in the conversation. I shut the lid on my computer and fell back asleep and by the time I woke up to the kitty’s pleas for breakfast, I could no longer remember the interesting story I was so anxious to share!!!!!

Hibiscus, Sept 17, 2021

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Click on photos to enlarge.

 

For Cee’s FOTD. See her gorgeous shot HERE.

FOTD Sept 16, 2021

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For Cee’s FOTD

Hallofourthofvalenmas: How It Came to Be.

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Okay! Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence. What in the world would you do with a combination of words like that? Think of that before you  judge me for this:

Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas

This festival’s the weirdest of any that I’ve seen—
a crazy combination of Christmas and Halloween.
The hire-a-Santa in the mall wears bear paws on his feet
and when the kids climb on his lap, they mutter, “Trick or Treat!”
Below the Christmas wreaths above, door knockers are kept busy
as grandmas baking Yule logs are kept in a fine tizzy 
by swarms of little carolers who can barely reach
the door knockers, who gather with arms up to beseech
the homeowners for candy after every song,
then stuff it in the Christmas stockings that they brought along.

Scores of scavengers dressed  up like shepherds or like kings
as well as Virgin Marys or angels sporting wings
abandon Christmas pageants to Trick-or-Treat instead.
You might ask me by what edict the world was made to wed
Halloween and Christmas? What legislative body
chose two celebrations equally over-gaudy
and mixed them both together to try to regulate
the number of occasions  on which we celebrate?

I think it was the W-H-O that thought up this solution
to try to deal with Covid and to try to curb pollution,
then issued this weird sentence and made us all comply
to celebrate all holidays on the fourth of July!
And so in combination with the skeletons and holly,
as witches and small ghosts are enjoined to act more  jolly,
fireworks are exploding in the sky far up above,
and as they trick-and-treat they also express love
by handing out their valentines—kill two birds with one stone
by trading hearts for Hershey bars with a ghostly moan.
And that’s how Hallo-fourthof-valen-mas has come to be
the only time when we’re allowed a group festivity.
And since part of it’s Halloween, without being asked
every guest, no matter what their politics, comes fully masked!!!

Prompt words for the day are knockers, combination, festival, beseech and sentence.

A Dream, A Wastepaper Basket and Glenn Yarbrough: The Power of Intuition

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A Dream, A Wastepaper Basket and Glenn Yarbrough: The Power of Intuition

Today I was looking for a YouTube video of Morrie playing basketball and stumbled upon this talk on “The Power of Intuition” that I gave years ago at an Open Circle Lecture Series in Ajijic. There is some introductory material, so if you jump ahead to the 6 minute 30 second mark, you will start viewing at the introduction for my talk: “The Power of Intuition.”  Hope you enjoy it.  Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yYVmLDttDM&t=390s

Hibiscus: FOTD Sept 15, 2021

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For Cee’s FOTD prompt