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.

Miss Cleanjeans

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Miss Cleanjeans

I love I love I love I love my boyfriend’s laundromat.
My clothes go in so dirty and come out looking pat.
You might find it lamentable that I do not pay.
I promise that I’ve tried to, but he says “No way!”
I’m timid as a lemur, so I do not protest.
In all of these matters, I know that he knows best.
Part of my lovey-doveyness is that I must concur
with everything he says or does, for I am so demure
that I can’t launch objections to anything he does.
My very simple reason? I can’t do it “because.”

 

 

For this week’s prompt, the letter is “L.”
Place – laundromat
Emotion – lovey-doveyness
Adjective – lamentable
Verb – launch
Animal – lemur

For A Letter A Week Prompt

Pink Lights and Tequila

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Pink Lights and Tequila

She met him in a barroom. His first contact was a wink,
and their time of courtship was over in a blink.
She didn’t note his platitudes and chauvinistic thinking.
That’s what comes from being wooed when a girl’s been drinking.
The impact of tequila shots has done in more than one girl,
making one who’s ordinary seem to be a fun girl.

A current ran between them. Rainbows issued from the lights,
giving a pink glow to cheeks and lower sights.
Thus did soft lights and alcohol add to their delight.
She seemed to him a princess. He seemed to be her knight.
They wed just six months later and divorced within a year.
Sparks ignited in the tavern fizzle out in life, I fear.

Prompts today are rainbow, impact, platitude, current, chauvinist and pink.

Lobelia, FOTD June 18, 2022

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For Cee’s FOTD

The Old Ones Deign to Tweet

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I came across this post from seven years ago as I was looking for poems for a new book. Thought I’d repost it.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

The Old Ones Deign to Tweet
(With Character Counts)

Immanuel Kant
on the subject of building “platforms” for
blogs, websites, Twitter accounts or Facebook:

. . . the favor of the multitude is seldom got by honest and lawful means.
Seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. (140)
*

Charles Dickens
on the subject of tweeting, texting , e-mailing, or other social media:

Electric communication will never be a substitute
for the face of someone who with their soul
encourages another person to be brave and true. (140)
*

Mark Twain:
On the subject of those (like me) who resist
tweets, texts and ubiquitous handheld devices:

One who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80.
One who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young. (140)
*

Me:
And, a further comment about those tweets:

Mind without…

View original post 36 more words

Sad Story: FOTD June 17, 2021

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Yesterday I took this photo of the beautiful mushrooms growing out of its base of the huge Royal Poinciana tree in my front yard. Included in my gallery are some of the blooms of the tree that I published the other day. As beautiful as they are,  the mushrooms are growing there because the roots are decaying and unfortunately I have to cut it down, along with the huge cactus in my backyard. More about this later. Nature gives and takes away.

For Cee’s FOTD

Culinary Taboos

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Culinary Taboos

Hot dogs, tacos, ham on rye
are the ways that I get by.
I don’t like caviar on toast,
and what I really hate the most
are liver, tripe or heart or brains.
These are the things my taste disdains.
I cannot masticate and eat
These things that, think, digest or beat.
The height of what my mouth deplores,
they’re  what my stomach most deplores.
And it has never been my habit
to eat lamb or veal or rabbit,
possibly because it gets
me thinking about former pets
and liaisons with baby creatures
that were very frequent features
in a childhood wherein we
sheltered a menagerie
of magpies, bunnies, kittens, rabbits
that fulfilled my parents’ habits
to collect those orphaned things
that often life presents and brings
to those who notice what is needed
by those abandoned or defeated..
Zippy, Fluffy, Tiger, Poo
were the names of just a few
babies that became our peers
within our formative years,
which is  why I still dispute
eating things so young and cute.
But reasons that I do not eat
any fish or organ meat? 
The answer is succinct and easy.
They just simply make me queazy!

True story? Yes, we really did have a baby raccoon named Zippy and all of these other orphaned animals brought home from the ranch by my father and raised like her own kids by my mother.
And yes, this poem rambles a bit, but for Pete’s sake, look at the prompt words!! Not complaining, just explaining….And that is Zippy up there as an illustration not of a possible cuisine choice, but he was one of our orphaned animal adoptees.

Prompts today are zippy, possible, rye, liaison, height and shelter.

State of Zoe (Sunbonnet Girl)

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Oh man. I had the tree guys come at 10 who informed me I have to cut down my two largest trees, trim another and relocate a fourth. Then Pepe my massage guy was here from 1 to 2:30; then Luis the guy who came to help me in a battle with Amazon to try to get my book rights back and to finish the cover for my book that Sharon and I have been working on all week was due to arrive at 4, but at 3:30 I realized Zoe had chewed all her stitches out and was gaping open!!! So I called the vet but they were closing and said to bring her in at 9 tomorrow so I called my dog groomer and asked if he had a collar to keep her from chewing at herself. He arrived at same time as Luis and I sprayed antiseptic on her wound , we jerrybuilt a collar and I used a face mask, an ace bandage and duct tape to make a girdle for her to protect her wound. Luis said the poor little thing looked like someone from Little House on the Prairie. Then we worked until 9:30 on the book cover and trying to figure out how to get my book off Amazon which seems impossible. All in all I’m exhausted. Tomorrow I need to get Zoe to the vet by 9. I’m scheduled to read at the writer’s group at 11 and have an appointment to get my taxation number at 4, a complicated process the government here sprung on us, giving every expat in Mexico a month to complete the process. When it rains it pours. That said, Zoe is being a very good girl but wants to be held a lot. Even Luis, my tech guy, held her for an hour while executing very tricky maneuvers on the computer. If you laugh in spite of your sympathy for sweet Zoe, don’t feel guilty. We were guilty of quite a few guffaws whenever we caught sight of what my mother would call “that funny little outfit” that it took all three of us to assemble and install. And that, folks, is the current state of Zoe, who is now sound asleep at my side.

For an update on Zoe’s current health and wardrobe, go HERE.

Headline News

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Headline News

I think for a week or two that I will remain
tucked away within the walls of my own domain.
That I made the headlines was flattering, more or less,
but the fact that I’ve turned sexy was a misprint, you might guess.
Still, so many have indulged their need for jokes at my expense
that I have had to seize this means to come to my defense.
Though my physical condition is healthy, fit and agile,
I find my sense of humor is becoming rather fragile.

It is “sixty” I turned yesterday, not “sexy” as reported.
Years have passed since I was so venereally comported.
My past generosity in spreading love around
I left back in the sixties and since then I have found
that piety becomes me, so I’ve trod another path,
thus, you’ll understand my embarrassment and wrath
at what some find as funny and so I took the action
of insisting that the paper issue a retraction.

But the form of their retraction, I must say, I found unkind.
The headline I’m not sexy was not what I had in mind.

Prompts today are.: domain,  indulge, agile, misprint and  generous,   Image by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash.

Door Stops and Unslammed Doors–for RDP and Thursday Doors

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My grandmother’s antique flat iron makes a perfect door stop. It came with me to Mexico where it has stopped my bedroom door from slamming countless times when I make the mistake of opening sliders in two different parts of the house. It was so handy, that when I found another one in an antique store in Oaxaca, that I bought it to use on the bathroom door.

Click on photos to enlarge.

The Prompt for Ragtag Daily Prompt is door stop. Also for Thursday Doors.

Peace Lily: FOTD June 16, 2022

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For Cee’s FOTD