Monthly Archives: December 2024

The Numbers Game #53, Dec 23, 2024. Please Play Along!

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Welcome to “The Numbers Game #53.”  Today’s number is 174. To play along, go to your photos file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and  post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title.This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.

Click on photos to enlarge.

I saw this guy inspecting the water from the malecon at the very beginning of my walk.
Dad duded up

Piñata Party Prep

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Pinata stuffed and ready for hanging.
Rubber duckies ready for action.
Car out of garage
Rope hung over the beam
Tree lit
Candles lit.
Cookies bought
Santa lit and lined up with friends.
Some munchies out for adults who don’t need to swing a cane for theirs.
Beer and Sangria cooling for Moms and Dads and Grandparents.

Chicken salad sandwiches, enchiladas and fruit punch for kiddies on its way. Doggies will go next door before the first arrivals at 4.

This party is just for kids from San Juan Cosala and their folks. Fingers crossed that all goes smoothly..More photos later.

Succulent Still Life for FOTD

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A bit of green to go with all your red Christmas poinsettias, Cee.

For Cee’s FOTD. Dec 22, 2024

Free Saturday, (For Cee) For FOTD Dec 21, 2024

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Free Saturday

Today’s the day I get to do
exactly what I want to do.
To prowl my yard both up and down
clad only in my sleeping gown.
(The air so brisk, I guess I better
also choose to wear a sweater.)
Drink my morning coffee cold,
do not one thing that I’ve been told
to do. Make not one new appointment,
no sunscreen worn or other ointment.
Merely hang out in the shade,
leave home with no arrangements made.
Perhaps I’ll shop the Christmas fair
or simply walk to get some air.
Run into friends and have some lunch
or simply choose to skip the bunch
and have a sandwich on my own,
to drift wherever I am blown
like the dandelion I tore
out of my planter. Like its spore
I’ll fly off free to create more
adventures than I’d counted on
until my day is finally done.
Unplanned, unplotted and unlisted.
My former behavior resisted.
But first, there is this prompt to do.
I simply have to take a few
photos of new flowers for Cee,
(Well, some for her and some for me.)
An hour ago, I had not any,
but now it seems I have too many.
But, unable to make the call,
I guess I’ll have to post them all!

( I really did take all these photos this morning..yes, in my nightgown. If you look closely, you can see that my plants, too, grow where they want to.  Can you find them growing out of nose, eye and ear? Click on photos to enlarge and see detail.)

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Cee!!!!

For Cee’s FOTD

“The Wish” for SOCS, Dec 20, 2024

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Wish Wagon

Hear the clanging pots, the squeaky wheels?
Over the rise comes the peddler’s cart––
horse with head down, pulling the load,
the jolly man just dangling the whip over her flanks.

Pitchers, fry pans, mops and brooms,
a doll for sis and kites for the boys
who run to greet this week’s happening,
hoping that Pa has spare bills in his wallet this time.

Now hear the “Whoa, Nell!” and see Zeke, the peddler,
swing his bent frame down from his high perch,
Ma drying her hands as she emerges from the kitchen door,
sis attached to her skirts, shy but drawn irresistibly from safety

to see the wonders that the peddler draws from his wagon:
penny candies by the jar and safety pins.
Needles, spoons and dime novels.
Cloth for Ma of calico and new boots for Pa.

Rag rugs made by Ma and traded for a bucket
and a wash pan his last trip here
that haven’t sold and so he won’t need more.
Jangly bracelets like the city women wear.

Her brief laugh scoffs at them.
The very idea. But one finger runs them round
before it draws away. And in her eyes
there is a wistfulness we will not see again

for thirty more years, until another wagon
crests the hill and drives away with her,
that look again frozen on her face
for eternity.

The SOCS prompt is “wish.” Image from Unsplash.

More Fibbin’, Dec 20, 2024

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For Fibbing Friday, the brain teasers this week are:

1. Why is a Pantomime thus called? Because one of her suit cuffs got caught in the lawnmower and pulled off but she still performs her act with one leg bare!
2. Why was the White Rabbit late? Pregnant.
3. What happened when Aladdin rubbed the lamp for the first time? He was double-tasking and ordering a pizza online at the same time so totally wasted his first wish on a pepperoni pizza!! It was, however, an extremely fast delivery.
4. How many ugly sisters were there? No one knew because  their habits were veiled back then.
5. What did Jack exchange for the magic beans? Bitcoin.
6. Why do they always shout ‘It’s behind you!!’ Because try as you will, you still can never remember where you keep your wallet!!
7. What was the house in the woods made of that Hansel and Gretel found?  S’witches.
8. Who owned The Mirror Mirror on the wall? A stutterer.
9. What was the name of Dick Whittington’s cat? Penileope.
10. Who was Tinkerbell? The town handyman’s girlfriend.

Oh, how I love this prompt!!!!

Photo thanks to Google.

 

My Body, for the Writer’s Workshop, Dec 19, 2024

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!!!Fragile!!!

Just as I’m becoming less agile,
all of me is turning fragile.

Flesh on flesh and bone on bone,
Nature won’t leave me alone.

Bruise more easily, skin tears easier.
Looking up now makes me queasier.

Can’t be trusted on a ladder.
Larger hips but smaller bladder.

Lips are thinner, bones are brittler.
And suddenly, I’m two inches littler.

If Nature’s bound to fold and shrink me,
Really, now, wouldn’t you think she

could leave me with my height and lips
and do her shrinking around my hips?

 

The prompt for the Writer’s Workshop was to write about my body as it grows old.

Baby Sun Rose, Jade Plant and Fountain, For FOTD Dec 20, 2024

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There is a little floating disk in my pool that is a solar-powered fountain.  Here it is floating in front of the bank of succulents beside my pool. I was in the pool, taking the photo.

For Cee’s FOTD, Dec 20, 2024

“Bright” for Ragtag Daily Prompt, Dec 19, 2024

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Bright

Why do all our memories fade out to pastels?
The dulling of the colors, the muffling of the bells?
Often we discover that a happening once dated
becomes a strain of music half-remembered, mostly faded,
and we labor to remember a life so full and vast
that fades down to a shadow relegated to the past.
Better to infuse the present with such light
that all its various colors shine out vividly and bright.

 

For RDP prompt: Bright

Story Songs for MVB, Dec 19, 2024

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 Story Songs

The Andrews Sisters, Les Brown and his Band of Renown, Spike Jones.  These are the only records I can remember from my parents’ collection.  When I got older, I listened to my 4 years older sister’s records: Pat Boone, Elvis–jitterbug music. When I got to record collecting age it was the era of the sad story:  Johnny Get Angry, girls killed in car wrecks, My Boyfriend’s Back (and he’s comin’ after you-ooo.,) Red Roses for a Blue Lady. The songs were narrative and told pretty basic stories of love, death and teenage angst.

I think they did have an effect because I still want a song with a strong narrative.  For this reason I like the Avett Brothers, Gillian Welch, Brett Dennen, Chris Smither, Joe Purdy, Townes Van Zandt, Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Earle, Tom Waits…oh, lots of others–who tell stories and interpret them in their own distinctive way.  I love harmony ala the Andrews Sisters–A modern equivalent is the Wailin’ Jennys. When I was small, in the days before TV, we had an big Victrola cabinet radio/record player that had a record changer so you could put a stack on.  I still associate those songs of the forties and fifties with my parents.

Today’s MVB prompt is song.