These are two of my older retablos–both pretty colorful! Although the retablos were sold many years ago, I found these photos on an old photo disk. The top one is about 5 inches wide, the bottom one probably about 15 inches high. Click on photos to enlarge.
I’ve taken to taking my camera with me into the pool during dragonfly season. I love watching these beautiful creatures and sometimes leave ugly bare branches poking out from above my planters just to attract them.
I moved from Boulder Creek, California to San Juan Cosala, Mexico fourteen years ago, trading one beautiful spot on Earth for another one.
For Six on Saturday
Although these birds are of different species, they have one thing in common, in that they are domesticated birds who also happen to live in restaurants. Who could order chicken with these handsome fellows in clear constant view? Click on the photos to enlarge and read their stories.
Missed Shot
He was not noted for his charm, much less for his amenity.
Although he had been praised a bit for success at serenity.
He found spectator sports to be relaxing and most riveting
those times when he was not intent on shooting hoops or divoting.
His interests were not widespread, his hobbies not eclectic.
He simply spent his time at hoops and golf—both actual and electric.
But because a dance or movie caused him great travail,
his attempts to woo fair maidens were to no avail.
And so he forfeited a life of conjugal felicity
for a single life of what was unrelieved simplicity.
And though he thought that chances for love had passed him by,
it wasn’t just a stroke of fate, but more a lapse of eye,
As he shot hoops with brothers on a public knoll,
a lady he’d admired before out on an aimless stroll,
paused to watch their antics, and especially to watch him
as he lofted up the ball and put it through the rim.
But when the lady winked, he traded one pass for the other
by simply pivoting to throw the ball on to his brother!
He thought that chance had passed him by. He had no luck at all,
when in fact the problem was he only watched the ball!
Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash. Used with permission. Prompt words for the day are serenity, riveting, eclectic, travail and simplicity.
These pots of succulents do well in the sunny location around the pool and serve as decorative holders for the solar lights
For Cee’s FOTD
This is a square from a memory box that I published photos of in June of this year. I promised to tell the story of any square people asked me about, and then welched on my promise, so here I am atoning, albeit a few months too late. If you want to see the entire memory box, go HERE, then return to this page to hear the story of this box.
The tin of quinine pills were in the box when my sister gave it to me, but she may have foreseen my trip through the Panama Canal forty–some years later, as quinine is a medication for malaria, which we had to be inoculated against–or perhaps she intuited all the times I would have to drink quinine water to rid myself of the arm and leg cramps that have frequently attacked me at night for my entire life. Come to think of it, I haven’t had so many attacks in the past year after I stopped drinking Diet Coke and using aspartame. If I drink even one Coke, however, I am plagued by cramps again—sometimes as many as four times a night and sometimes both arms and both legs at once. The water I drink instead of the Coke probably helps, as well.
As for the pins, the “Peace on Earth” pin was my grandma’s–one of the “prizes” she gave me whenever I went to visit her. Above it is my pledge pin for XO, my college sorority and below it is my Tasbureau pin from a trip to Tasmania. My friend and I left the bus tour part way through and rented a car and saw the rest of the country alone. All of the other members of the tour group were much older and although they were nice, they cramped our style a bit. They didn’t seem to hold it against us, though, for one of the men later came to visit my parents in Arizona! By then I was traveling through Southeast Asia or living in Africa. After a slow start growing up in a tiny town in South Dakota, I had an exciting life in my twenties and thirties.
When I lived in Australia in the early seventies, three friends and I drove from Sydney to Broken Hill to Adelaide in my tiny Morris mini car. In Australia, there were very strict rules about no women being allowed in the men’s bar of the Leagues Clubs. There was a lounge area women could go into, but when my friends and I went there for a meal, we were spied by the guys in the bar who invited us into the men’s bar and made us honorary members of the Broken Hill Leagues Cub. I still have the pin to prove it right here in my memory box in this square.
The material in the back was a large tablecloth I purchased in India and gave to my sister to make a robe for me. Instead, she made something for herself out of it and used a few pieces of the remnants to back up a few squares in this box. Sisters! I have to forgive her, though, because if it hadn’t been for her, we would have had no photos of our early life–including a number of the photos in this memory box.
Again, if you want to see the entire memory box, go HERE.
Delusions of Athleticism
Since I’m loyal by habit, it’s hard to explain
my quick burst of laughter in spite of the pain
you must have experienced in your hard fall
as you reached your foot out to kick back the ball
that had escaped the children at play,
rolling out of the street and into your way.
but my dear, you aren’t known for athletic ability—
your speed or your aim or your grace or stability.
Yet again, please excuse my unrestrained snicker
making light of your dreams of being a kicker.
Word prompts today are again, excuse, laughter, loyal and habit. Image by Afa Ah Loo on Unspash, used with permission.
Sadly, my neighbor Tomas passed away in his sleep a few days ago. When his wife Dolores left yesterday to go back to the states, she brought me the containers from a meal I’d taken over to them, as well as this beautiful yellow hibiscus. It was dinner-plate sized and more gorgeous than I was able to capture, probably because it was night before I thought to take a photo and no natural light was available. R.I.P. Tomas and safe travels, Dolores. Click on photos to enlarge.
