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.

Abstemious?

Cat lover or not, you won’t want to miss this hilarious piece by Lou Carreras.

Lou Carreras's avatarLouis N. Carreras, Woodcarver

Clancy J. Bümps – The Grey Menace. This cat never met a chili con carne that he did not like. His taste in steak ran to filet mignon, and a favorite repast was a half of a roast beef sub with extra hots. Abstemious? Never. Moderation was for pussy cats, not a giant twenty-plus pound behemoth engaged in blood sports against weakling humans. If you refused to share with him, he’d label you an ingrate, censor you with a paw full of claws, lick off the blood, and assure you that his skillful intervention had improved the decor.
Attempts to mitigate his behavior by behavioral modification got met with disdain. My first wife, Georgia, sought to teach him not to claw with a squirt bottle. He sat there, let her squirt, and walked calmly away. Then, he seemed to say, “Ahhh, that was bracing. Let’s do that again…

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Gazanias: FOTD, Sept 1, 2021

 

For Cee’s FOTD
This also happens to be my last photo in August for Bushboy’s Last on the Card prompt.

Simian Payback


Simian Payback

In more ways than one, my new roommate is simious.
Eating bananas, he’s hardly abstemious.
His arms are so long that his fists scrape the ground
and when I am gone, he monkeys around!

When we go out in public, the people all gape.
It doesn’t take science to declare him an ape.
He swings on the curtains and ruins my decor

by pulling the drapes from their rod to the floor.

If you said he’s an ingrate, you wouldn’t be wrong.
When I go to the dentist and he comes along,
he mimes for a freebie—a checkup and cleaning,
then stands at the mirror, inspecting and preening,

never imagining he’s out of line
as I dole out the cash for his cleaning and mine.
Just one thing might mitigate his crazy acts,
so I ask that you temper your scorn with the facts.

He was raised in the jungle, then put in a cage
and only let out when he reached middle age.
So how could I help but assist in his exit
with no one around to thwart it or hex it?

With the key in the lock, I just gave a twist
and gave his jailbreak a needed assist.
But now I admit I was way less than clever,
for I have acquired the worst roommate ever!

What prompted my action? Was I less than smart
 when I saw his great need, in playing my part?
I felt that I owed him a really big debt,
 for an ape is way more than merely a pet.

If you studied your science and paid good attention,
you could not have missed this pertinent mention:
if there hadn’t been apes, then there wouldn’t be
any of you and there wouldn’t be me!

 

Prompts today are decor, ingrate, mitigate, abstemious and science. Image by Suzanne Schwartz on Unsplash.

Da Judge Is Playin’ Doctor Now!

Okay.. I thought it had gotten as crazy as it could get, but this story takes the cake.

jilldennison's avatarFilosofa's Word

This one came straight out of my local news channel and my jaw dropped to the floor.

A local man, Jeffrey Smith, is in the hospital fighting for his life against Covid.  He refused to be vaccinated, refused to wear a mask, and so this is where all his naysaying got him.  His wife, Julie, asked the hospital to treat him with Ivermectin, the horse de-worming medicine, the latest quack theory among the uneducated.  Doctors and the FDA have issued strong warnings against humans taking this drug, for it is made for animals who have a different system than ours and who often weigh more than five times as much as a human.  Needless to say, the docs at West Chester Hospital refused the woman’s request to give her hubby this unqualified drug.  Funny, he didn’t want the approved vaccine in his body, but he wants this crap that isn’t…

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False Endings

False Endings

His paranoia is one for the books.

He finds disease wherever he looks.
He anguishes over the slightest small sneeze
and the tiniest bump brings him down to his knees.

When his girl left him, the heartbreak he felt
was myocarditis, and the smallest welt
on his neck or his face is cancer for sure,
so he’s off to  to Mayo Clinic to look for a cure.

His fixation’s macabre and his acts supercilious
every damn time that he feels a bit bilious,
for he knows better than all of his friends
that he’ll soon meet his maker, so he makes amends

for all his ill deeds and his slights and his snits,
seeing the light when he’s down in the pits.
He should have done better and eaten less pie,
and now he’ll pay for it, for he’s going to die.

And when he gets better, you can bet he’ll be sure
that repentance has brought a miraculous cure.
So goes the story, and though it’s not his ending,
you can be sure that a new plague is pending!

(Note: I know I’ve used this photo at least a few (?) times before but it’s just so appropriate to this poem that I can’t help using it again. )

Prompt words today are: myocarditis, macabre, anguish, supercilious and paranoia.

Portulaca (Moss Rose) FOTD, Aug 31, 2021

For Cee’s FOTD

Looking for Signs

Click on photos to enlarge.

For Marsha’s PPAC#11: Signs

Arete (Fuchsia) Flowers: FOTD. Aug 30, 2021

Yolanda calls my fuchsia vine flowers “aretes” or earrings, so this is what I call them, too.

For Cee’s FOTD

Network

Network

One who lives in isolation is only half alive.
We must generate a union if we’re going to survive.
Though it is true the fanciful may take this to extremes
and gallivant to excess, nonetheless it surely seems
that excellence in socializing might extend one’s life,
for nothing gets us through in a time of pain and strife
like family and friends. Perhaps one reason for our being
includes being seen as much as in our seeing.

Prompt words are fanciful, generate, excellence, gallivant and union.

Aretes Flower: FOTD, Aug 29, 2021

 

For Cee’s FOTD