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.

Wrecking My Ping

 

Image (This is the actual result of my speed test after I turned off the VPN.)

Wrecking My Ping

“I don’t know what to make of ping,”
he told me, simply answering
my question of the difference
and, in truth, my inference
that he would know the answer and
as usual would take a hand
in clarifying one time more
what a speed test measures for
and what they had to do with “ping”
and downloading and uploading
and whether one point twenty three
was enough download for me
and whether zero point six seven
would get me into upload heaven
and what this ping stuff had to do
with starts and stops that ruined my view
of films that I had hoped to stream
that only made me want to scream
because they came in fits and starts,
ruining all my favorite parts!

Are they adequate, I asked?
His scorn was only partly masked
as he admitted they weren’t at all.
“And ping?” I asked him this last thing.
and he was quick in answering,
“I don’t know what to make of ping,”

Ping Fact (Addendum)

These numbers are the actual,
although they aren’t the factual
upload feeds
nor download speeds,
for I forgot to disconnect
the VPN and so I wrecked
results of loading speed and ping,
but I was apt in my rhyming
which only goes to show a poet
is not a techie, so now you knowet!

 

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt, the word is Wreck

My “Favorite Get Away and Go To” Places

for the Lens Artist Challenge, these are my “Go To” Places.

Click on photos to enlarge and see as a series.

A Perfect Example of Irony

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s Bag, With Security Badge, passport, keys  and $3,000, Is Stolen on Sunday night at a Washington restaurant.

woman in red looking forward at a hearing.
Ms. Noem also confirmed the theft at the White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday morning.The department did not give specifics, but said it could confirm the details of a CNN article, which said that Ms. Noem’s bag also contained her driver’s license, medication, apartment keys and blank checks.

“Underworld” for dVerse Poets Magical Realism Prompt, Apr 20, 2025

 

Underworld

Under the sand are palaces. I’ve seen them in my dreams:
vast halls and empty chambers smoothly rounded at their seams.
Every wall is made of sand. Each ceiling, archway, floor––
as though carved by master craftsmen, digging at its core––
is so magnificent, you’d think they were the stuff of lore.
You may also see them, but you must provide the door.

Though the chambers are filled in, they’re there without a doubt.
You are the one creating them by what you will scoop out.
The beauty’s hidden in the sand, waiting in your sleep
for you to dig the castles out from where they’re buried deep.
All your day’s exhaustion your dream labor will abort,
for what you build in slumber is work of a different sort.

Sand brought to the surface is what you get to keep
of subterranean palaces dug out in your sleep.
As you build aboveground castles in the world that we all know,
you reveal the outward structure of the inner rooms below,
furnishing the magic that the world will see through you,
showing what’s inside of you by what you bring to view.

for dVerse Poets: Magic Realism
Image:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_Paulette

To see more poems go HERE

Videos From The Easter Egg Hunt 2025

These videos are sorta wonky due to the inexpertise of the camerawoman!  Click on the first video twice and it will enlarge and play, but at its end, Youtube will take you to a screen with a bunch of other Youtube videos on it.  Just double click on it and then double click on the next egg hunting screen on my blog and the same thing will happen all the way through. Wish I knew editing so I could edit them all together and also take the shots of my feet walking along in pursuit out of the one video. Perhaps one of these years I’ll learn how to do so. In the meantime, if you have patience, go ahead and try to watch these frenzied little videos.  Happy Easter!!! And thanks to Forgottenman for all his patience in getting these videos from Youtube to you.

 

You can see more still photos of the hunt HERE and HERE.

The Numbers Game #69, Apr 21, 2025. Come Play Along!!

Welcome to “The Numbers Game #69”  Today’s number is 190. 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.

 

“The Capture” For Cellpic Sunday

 

What was Bruce so intent on capturing on camera?

For Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday

“Revolution” For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 703

Revolution

You’ve staged a friendly takeover of my willing heart,
and now you hold the power to upset the apple cart.
You are the despot of my dreams, plotter of all my hopes.
You share that flashy facade of other misanthropes.
By accepting without judgment all your base instruction,
I complied with your deception and shared in my destruction.
You are the low point of my life and now I must be free
to leave that life you cast me in to see what I can be.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 703 the words are:
flashy facades free takeover destruction power despots low hope heart hold how

Easter Egg Hunt (Post #2)

This is only about 1/3 of the photos I took. Can’t resist showing them. I have movies of the egg hunt I’ll publish in another blog. The kids will enjoy seeing their photos. We had so much fun.  The adults are Isidro, one of the first friends I made when I came to Mexico. He is an amazing artist.  The tattoo is actually of a painting he did of himself. His son Wayan tattooed it onto his sister Paloma’s arm!  The children around her and Isidro are her and her sister’s. Isidro has 6 grandchildren who are all in these photos.  The youngest searcher is Alejandra’s baby. She is the niece of Yolanda(my housekeepr and friend of 24 years) and I first knew her as a student in the kid’s camp I used to assist with. Paloma, Isidro’s daughter and mom of four of his grandchildren, I knew as a small girl. She won an art competition I sponsored for kids to make posters to encourage people to clean up the lake..So I’ve made it through one generation in Mexico.

I’m going to post this. I’ll post a link to the videos later if you haven’t had your fill of Easter revelries. They are not professional level videos, as a matter of fact the last one I mistakenly recorded in slow motion .  I don’t even know how to do that! It did it itself.  I kind of like the effect, though.  At any rate, here are the stills.

Half Hour to Go Until the Easter Egg Hunt!!!! (Easter #1)

In one half hour ten children and parents will descend on my yard for an Easter Egg hunt. Yoli and Marie Jose came to help me hide the eggs–110 in all. The dogs are at the neighbors, the Easter Egg hunters’ pretty bags with one egg the color and pattern of the ones they have to find, two rubber duckies and a plastic bag of gummy worms await their selection and then the hunt is on!!!

More to follow !!!!!