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.

The Numbers Game #71, May 5, 2025. Come Play Along!!

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The Numbers Game #71, May 5, 2025. Come Play Along!!

Welcome to “The Numbers Game #71”  Today’s number is 192. 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.

Guanajuato

 

Santiago, Yolanda and Friends, For Cellpic Sunday, May 4, 2025

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For CellPic Sunday

Cloudburst, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 705

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Cloudburst

Distant sirens justify our sloshing through the mud
to put the chains on tires that are filthy from the crud
of water mixed with father’s choice of topsoil for the garden
that crows have picked and worked at, so it couldn’t harden.
So when the rain comes, clattering the eaves troughs and the shutters,
sending muddy water swirling down the gutters,
there’s a short answer to the puzzle: that necessary bite
of the metal on the tires that will bring us through the night.
Raw courage and pure valor will guide us through the storm
back to our place of solace––safe and dry and warm.

For The Sunday Whirl 705 Wordle, the prompt words are: chain justify sloshing works clatters choice sirens distant crows puzzle short

More Name-Dropping Confessions #3

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The challenge was to tell us about an unusual meeting with a famous person—giving as many details as possible!
35m ago My Blog

Ooh — I didn’t think of Sir Edmund Hillary. My dad took our family to LA when I was about high school age to hear him talk about his ascent of Mt. Everest. After the talk, my dad took us on stage to meet Hillary. My dad, a pediatrician, asked him if they needed a pediatrician on their next ascent!

Several years later I was on a tour of the island of Hawaii. Our tour stopped at a the Rockefeller hotel for a buffet lunch. We arrived at the buffet line just as Happy Rockefeller was taking her plate to her table. She was very gracious and greeted everybody who was oohing and ahhing at her!

  1. VJ
    Well, I once encountered Will Smith in an airport – much shorter than I had thought. But the most exciting encounter happened a year or more ago. It was a Saturday, and hubby and I were relaxing when the phone rang. “I’m in the neighbourhood, can I drop by?” the caller asked. I yelled at my husband to quick get dressed. Loreena McKennet was dropping by. A huge fan, I almost fainted. She’d heard about our work with Ukrainians fleeing war and wondered how she could help. Our relationship continues.

    1. ghostmmnc
      Natalie Maines, singer with the Dixie Chicks (now just Chicks).Her extended family, grandparents, father, uncles, etc. are old family friends of ours. My husband’s dad worked with her grandfather in his mechanic’s business. His mom was good friends with the grandmother. Their children and my husband and his siblings all knew each other. Natalie’s father and his brothers and father were/are in a band, the Maines Brothers Band locally. Natalie was just a little kid when my girls were little kids, so they played together. We’d visit and even spent the night at their house once. Later the grandmother moved closer to where we live now, instead of just out of the city limits, and she’d come over to visit here at our house, too. Sadly she’s passed a couple of years ago. Anyway, I’m sure Natalie doesn’t remember us, as she was just little when we knew her. But still, it was very good to know this wonderful extended family all these years.

Name-Dropping Confessions #2–By Ann O’Neal Garcia

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My challenge was to tell us about an unusual meeting with a famous person. This is my friend Ann O’neal Garcia’s description of her meeting with Ursula K. Le Guin:

I met Ursula leGuinn at a garden party maybe 7 yrs ago hosted by a mutual friend who was in Ursula’s book club. So we were introduced and my mutual friend said, “Ursula, Ann is a fantastic writer. Perhaps you could read something she’s written ” Ursula’s little tiny old face hardened. Her lips became a skinny red dash, her eyes shut tightly for a moment. She didn’t answer. She walked away and talked with a mutual acquaintance. I was hurt and embarrassed but I knew it was my friend who sounded the death knell. You don’t ask a famous writer who’s living out her last years on earth if she’d like to read another damned hopeful writer’s efforts! I felt how this must have felt. I probably would do the same thing if I were old and famous. I’m old now but not the other. But still .. I forgive her with all my heart.

And, more from Ann: I saw Roy Rogers and Dale Evans perform at Cheyenne frontier days in the 80’s? Not sure of date. It was just embarrassing. They sang a bit and mostly talked about Christianity. The sparse crowd slipped out, little by little.

Now…tell us yours!!! Once I’ve heard enough of yours to be satisfied, I’ll tell you mine.

Name-Dropping Confessions #1, May 4, 2025

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:The challenge was to tell us about an unusual meeting with a famous person—giving as many details as possible!  Here are a few answers given in the comments section of the blog I published the prompt in. If you have a longer story to tell, please put it in a blog and send me a link in comments. Once my appetite for stories has been partially sated, I’ll tell you mine. It just awaits telling.  Here are a few early answers to the prompt;

3h ago I Walk with My Dogs

I consider my entire life to be a bizarre circumstance. I met Sir Edmund Hillary at Arapaho Basin. We were in line for hamburgers being grilled over a woodfire halfway down the mountain.

……………….

3h ago serial monography: forgottenman’s ruminations

I’ve only met one – Duncan Renaldo! Who, you ask? Better known to my generation as The Cisco Kid. I even did a lil blog about my encounter. (Read about Forgottenman’s interesting encounter, with a picture, by clicking on the link below:

https://okcforgottenman.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/the-day-the-cisco-kid-rode-into-town/

………………

Tiffany Arp-Daleo has a very interesting twist at the end of her story:

I’ve met a few, but maybe the most bizarre is Greg Douglas, the guitarist for the Steve Miller Band. My ex was the sound guy for USO shows, he befriended Greg so we all hung out a bit, he was all set to play guitar at our wedding, but I called off the wedding the day before, never saw  Greg again!
Now, tell us yours!!!!

Name Dropping! (Tell us about your most interesting encounter with a famous person.)

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A chance encounter with a name led me to memories of bizarre encounters with two famous figures from the sixties and seventies–one who was notorious and the other who was a legend.   Who were they? I’ll tell you my story if you’ll tell me yours. 

To participate, tell us the name of the most famous person you have ever met under bizarre circumstances. Then tell us your story.

“Sing” for SOCS If Only I Could Play Guitar, May 3, 2025

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The bromeliads looked perfect in the Oriental lacquer cup in front of the guitar,

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to sing and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

For SOCS the prompt is “sing.”

“In The Pink” for the Weekly Prompts Color Challenge, May 3, 2025

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I admit, I was married in hot pink suede cowboy boots!  The two gals on the right standing behind me came out to California from Wyoming for the wedding.  We went to school together from 1st through 12th grade~

The Weekly Prompts Color Challenge  is pink.

Mystery Solved. Thanks, Google

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I figured out what my strange night visitor was.  It was a cacomistle!!! This is exactly what it sounded like and if you hear it, you’ll see why i was so mistified!!!! Go HERE to hear it. Isn’t this the oddest animal sound you’ve ever heard? It is also called a Mexican ring-tailed cat, but it is related to a raccoon, not a cat. I found a web discussion from 2018 where a resident of Chapala had seen and photographed a cacomistle in a tree near their home, so I guess they have been seen here, albeit rarely as they are more common to Central America. Fascinating. I hope the one I heard stays safe and high up in the tree away from the dogs. Perhaps it will move on. I’ll continue to put them in for a few nights until I hear no nore midnight clicks and squeals.

To see my original post leading up to this one, go HERE.

But…now a further solution to the mystery.  It seems coatimundis make similar sounds.  Go HERE to hear them.

Procyonidae – cacomistle, coatis, raccoons, ringtails

White-nosed CoatiThere are 18 species of small to medium-sized species in this family. They are found in North, Central, and South America. They have medium to long tails, brown to gray fur, pointed noses, and rounded or pointed ears. Many species have masked faces and ringed tails. The species in this order are omnivores. They eat a fruit, berries, seeds, small mammals, birds, eggs, fish, insects, reptiles, and amphibians. All of the species in this family can climb trees. Some species are social and live in groups, other species are solitary and live alone.