Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

for Fibbing Friday, May 24, 2024

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For Fibbing Friday, today’s week’s questions are:

For Fibbing Friday

A Hibiscus for Cee: for FOTD May 26, 2024

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I hope you are soon well and pecking happily at the keys with that left hand, Cee!
And Chris, you did it just right! Thanks for keeping us informed.

For Cee’s FOTD.

Annie’s New Toy!!!

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One way to get cool in a heat wave.

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I mentioned in an earlier post that we are supposed to have another month of temps getting up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) here in Mexico. We all want it to cool off, but this is a bit too much of a solution.

Frisky Business: Annie, Day 2 1/2

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but evidently, I wasn’t moving fast enough, so the one mom calls Zoe decided to help me out a bit.
First she expressed her affection.
Mom thought this toy would entertain me, but she doesn’t really know my taste in toys.
I like rugs, for instance.
This Oaxacan rug was especially satisfying to chew on,
But she discovered my interest in her bathroom rug before I made inroads into it and put it up.
As she did the pumice from the shell on her bath shelf.
She found the cover to the toilet floor mount screws out on the terrace. She suspects me since I was the only one hiding out behind the toilet today.
I’m beginning to get it. Mom doesn’t pick me up while she’s polishing her nails!
So I might as well hide out for awhile. Bedroom door closed. This will have to do.

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions…Annie’s side of the story!

And now, my side of the story!!

I just looked for Annie for over 1/2 hour. She was miffed when I set her down to go let the plumbers in. They are here to fix an outside leaking broken pipe junction that is killing the plants it sprays  with hot water when water is running. Cats inside, dogs locked in the doggie domain where they won’t bother the plumbers,  Annie , however, is nowhere to be found. I worry that somehow she slipped out. Did she slip into the front yard and did the plumbers go out to get equipment and let her out into the street? No, I was sure she was securely inside when they came.  Finally I let the other dogs in and Morrie found her under the bed in my room. Always a new thrill.

Now I am trying to polish my nails–something I started attempting to do over an hour ago– and Annie insists on being held. When I opened the door to search for Annie, Ollie slipped into the  spare room where cats are not allowed because I am keeping it hypoallergenic for friends allergic to cats.. Plumbers just replaced a broken pipe join.This hot water can be a curse at junctions. Luis says he’s figured out one that will expand with hot water and not spring a leak. Crossed fingers. Annie has been begging to be picked up since she was located under bed, but wiggly puppies and nail polish just don’t mix. I wonder if she’ll ever understand that. She seems to be sulking how, her head buried under my desk skirt. She won’t even play with my favorite little toy made by the ladies of Operation Feed that I decided might distract her from less appropriate playthings.. She just must not be in a playful mood.

A Bouquet for Cee, FOTD May 25, 2024

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For Cee’s FOTD

Annie, Day Two

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As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.

Click on Photos to Enlarge

It is very difficult trying to manage three different groups  of animals: Coco and Morrie and Zoe, the cats and Annie. I  let Annie sleep with me because she cries if I am not within reach,  then this morning let other dogs in to my bedroom and they jumped up on bed with us and  were too frisky because they were hungry and wanted to be fed and she got scared so I had to put Coco and Zoe and Morrie out to feed them, then took Annie out front hoping she would pee but cats came in so I put cat food out and picked her up so she wouldn’t eat it, brought her in to the kitchen to feed her and afterwards took her for a walk which was a real adventure.

When we came in, I came into the bedroom to get my computer and the other doggies were at the south screen door to my room. Annie ran over to touch noses so I cracked the screen a bit to let her out . The others were gentler so she ran away to play with them, but five or ten minutes later she was crying at the screen and they were jumping about her.  I let her in and noticed wet footprints on the terrace and her legs and feet were sopping . Evidently she either stepped on the hot tub cover and then withdrew before sinking all the way in or stepped down one step into the pool, but if so more of her would be wet. At any rate, she is now sleeping by my side. It is tricky getting her acquainted with her new complicated environment.  While I had her out front, Coco was up on roof over the front door watching .Yolanda had left the outside gate to the upstairs open and the dogs can run up the stairs, jump up on the low wall and run over the top of the doggie domain (room I built on just for the dogs) and get onto the dome and run all the way around the roof of the house.  Only Coco does this at present, but the others can get up on the dome over my bedroom. See photo above as proof. I always keep the gate to the stairs closed for this reason.

No, I won’t Annie out on the back terrace around the pool unless I am near, but she has to learn about the pool. Yesterday the other dogs kept getting between her and water when she was near the pool. Diego and Morrie did this with Zoe, too.  Slowly, she will learn not to enter into the pool and  they will get used to each other. They are all very curious and not violent. Yesterday when I was in the hammock, Annie  kept checking up on me, then would run away to play with them. It  made me so happy, She has a babysitter this afternoon as I’m going to lunch at my friend Brad’s house and then out to an art show of my friend Isidro. Moms need to have some social life away from the kids!  Really does feel a bit like dealing with a newborn. This was not as much of a problem with any of the other puppies, but none seemed as damaged as Annie does. I think she is doing pretty well for as terrorized as she was just two days ago!

Note: that big dog on the roof is actually a statue of Frida. Her ashes are inside of it. Just had to put her up there in her favorite place where she spent most of every day surveying the neighborhood. This was pre-gate when she had full access.

Meet Annie

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Heeeeeere’s Annie!  Garbed in her new collar and i.d. tag. Today she learned not to be scared in a room with 5 people in it,  learned how to play with her sisters and brother, discovered she preferred cat food to the very expensive puppy food my vet sold me, discovered she liked chewing on the corners of rugs, and decided she is only secure when her new mom is in the room or in the yard with her. May create problems. Tomorrow I’ve hired her a babysitter. She’ll go stay with Yoli, Yolanda’s daughter, while I go to Brad’s for lunch and then to an art show at the new Riberas Art Center.

P.S. She looks big here, but she is really tiny. Less than 2 kilos. Here is a photo of her next to a 12 inch ruler. She prefers sleeping on the floor to sleeping in her cushy bed. Perhaps she smells Zoe on the cushion and wants her own?

What would you do?

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What would you do if you saw this puppy frantically rushing back and forth on an access road to a busy highway?  What I did was watch it in my rear vision mirror, then back up a block to try to  get it to come to me. Instead it ran under my car, crying and yipping loudly all the time. A man on a motorcycle stopped to help. Then a woman came out of a nearby place with her young son and a blanket in her arms to wrap the puppy in when and if we caught it. We finally did and I put it in the cooler I had brought along to take frozen food home in. I took the ice bags out and propped the lid open with one. The woman said it had been hit by a car, so I drove it immediately to the vet who Xrayed it, gave it shots and a bath. (The ice chest was covered in dirt from the puppy, who was filthy.) The tests showed parasites and malnutrition but no broken bones, so it was conjecture on the part of the woman who had helped me that it had been hit by a car. Long story short, “it” is a “she” and after a night at the vets, this sweetie was released to my arms. That is her being held by one of the vet’s assistants she had already bonded to. Once in the car, she insisted on nestling into one of my arms and settling on my lap where she still is now that we are home. Her sisters and brother are crying at the door, wanting to meet her, but for now we are just going to bond and get her accustomed to this new place.  What do you think? Do I have another dog? I’ll take votes. I promised a friend I’d advertise for a home for her, but you know how it goes.  Never met a dog or kitty I couldn’t bond to during a ride home!!!

Moving the Divan

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Moving the Divan

I don’t want to write a poem
using three of my five senses.
I want to move the large divan to a 45-degree angle
and throw away the love seat
to make room for another file cabinet
for my poetry.

It’s stacked all over,
stowed at least two times alphabetically
in boxes beneath my desk,
hidden in the custom headboard of my bed.
File cabinets fill the bottom of every closet.
I’ve come to cutting up poems to make collages
and selling them.
That’s how much I need another file cabinet.
So it’s either more poems in the future
or the love seat.

I don’t want to talk about
how the love seat smells.
It’s Jacaranda blooming time
and with my allergies,
nothing smells like anything.

I will concede, however, that it is grained
like the crepe of my father’s neck––
like cowhide or whatever that leather is
that has impressions
like thousands of small rivers forming a network.
I don’t want to look up
exactly which leather it is on Google.
That one action
could divert me for at least an hour.

And I don‘t want to tell you any more about
what the loveseat is “like.”
I want to tell you that I bought it
when I found a pee stain
on the fabric of my old couch
after the last party a friend attended
before he died.
I cleaned it, then sold it along with its larger brother
and bought a stain-proof leather sofa with matching loveseat.
I don’t want to worry about what friend sits where
or exclude anyone from my guest list on account of my divan.

This leather feels like hanging on to old friends for as long as I can.
This loveseat feels willing to be given up for poetry,
and I know exactly where it should go.
I want it to have a good life
in a coffee bar,
in the library section.

My loveseat will smell like espresso
and bear the crayon marks of children
who come to play there.
It will be made love on
by the young couple that
lives upstairs.
It will have her homemade cheesecake crumbs
fall into its crevasses.
Its very fibers will soak up the music
that is played there
and the poetry that’s read there.

It will be worn out by life
instead of time.
It will predecease its matching full-sized sofa,
but it will be full of smells, textures, tastes and
when people sink into it, you will hear its sound––
that sigh of comfort or grunt of momentary
discomfort as knees bend in penance
for the comfort that is to come.

The rivers in the leather
will be smoothed out
by the bottoms of those
drinking espresso
and frappuccinos
and red wine and cerveza,
growing wider with the cheesecake,
settling in comfortably for conversation
and music and refreshment. Oh, and poetry.

And that, my friend, is how thinking about
rearranging furniture became poetry,
and how that very poem
may find a home.

For SOCS: Move