Some would say I was indulging my pets when I built them their own little room onto my house, then steps down into the pool to aid in Morrie’s easy exit when he goes in to retrieve a ball I haven’t retrieved and thrown for him with sufficient speed, but in truth, I’m indulging myself as it means more space in my part of the house, less worry that Morrie will drown if he falls in the pool when it is half full, and more ease in feeding them since there is a little fridge and pull-out drawers for their dry food in their room so I don’t have to stoop over to scoop. Nor do I have to let them in and out on rainy nights, because it has its own entrance. No cruises or diamonds for me. Just give me a new doggie domain and steps down into the pool. Indulging us all.
The Ragtag prompt today is indulgence.
Now that we are recovered from and over the thrill of the Doggie Domainconstruction earlier this year, I have decided the pups needed a second indulgence. For 15 years, I’ve been entering and leaving my pool via a ladder really intended for a hot tub, which makes the first step a doozie and upper arm strength a must. Until Morrie arrived, I’ve never thought much about what would happen if one of the dogs fell in the pool. Although they all hate the water, probably because it is their super-sized doggy water dish and they even resent me immersing myself in it, I nonetheless have pulled them all into the pool enough times to know that when it is full, they can make it to the side and crawl out. The problem is that sometimes it is half full, because Pasiano empties it half way three mornings a week to allow…
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Coping with the Rainy Season
No kudos to the darkness.
No kudos to the rain.
No kudos to departed sun
until it comes again.
Kudos to my blankets
and kudos to my pillows.
So long as rain drips steadily
from eaves troughs and from willows,
I may never stir again. Bring me tea in bed.
No eggs, but English muffins, buttered, in their stead.
I want to stay all snuggled ’til rain has gone away.
Follow these same instructions on every rainy day!
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/cope/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/27/fowc-with-fandango-kudos/
The Ragtag prompt today is indulgence.
Tempering Anger
Temper has no reason. Temper has no rhyme.
Temper keeps us agitated. Restless all the time.
If it is abundant, we lose all control.
We can’t escape. It holds us firmly in its bowl.
Others give us wide berth, fearing what we’ll do.
They navigate around us as we rage and stew.
The only ones who’ll meet us are others of our ilk
for whom the brew of anger is like mother’s milk.
We draw on it and fester as it sours inside.
Ire is what carries us. We mount it and we ride
off to bloody encounters, thirsty for the fray,
intent that those who anger us will be the ones who’ll pay.
We do not stop and reason, for revenge is our goal.
We don’t consider it may be ourselves who’ll pay the toll.
For other angry people, on the other side,
may have an equal anger, as tall and deep and wide.
Some causes warrant anger. When liberty is sold,
to the highest bidder, we must be strong and bold.
We might use ire to drive us, but it’s reason that must lead.
It is more easily directed, yet draws a finer bead.
The prompts today are:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/ragtag-prompt-26-navigate/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/abundant/ (Mr. Linky)https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/26/fowc-with-fandango-temper/
I found this fellow just outside my gate. He was about an inch and a half long. I’ve seen them here before but I can’t remember the name. Rotated one turn to the right, it looks like an African mask.
Various photos of my Mom, Dad, sisters and me. (Poem follows)
Fact and Fiction
If I had met my parents when we all were sixty-seven,
(before she went on oxygen, before he went to heaven,)
would we have liked each other and found something to say?
As strangers, would we walk on by or pass the time of day?
My father liked to be the one spinning out the tale.
Beside his abundant stories, I think most of mine would pale.
He wasn’t a joke-teller or a purveyor of fictions.
It was true stories of his life that fueled his depictions.
And when his friends had heard them all, he’d tell them all again.
Though they stretched with every telling, still his tales never grew thin.
If fifteen wolves pursued him—a number that is plenty,
the next time that he told the tale, I’ll wager there’d be twenty!
When I returned from Africa with stories of my own,
I found that they weren’t good enough, for all of them had grown
with all my dad’s retellings, so the rhino I had snapped
a photo of, now chased me. (In reality, it napped.)
I think perhaps my mother would like my poems the best.
She’d like the rhyme and meter, the humor and the jest.
For I learned all of it from her when I was very small,
as she was doing rhyming before I learned to crawl.
I grew up with her diaries—all of them in rhyme.
She had them in a notebook and we read them all the time.
The tales of her friend Gussie, who wasn’t allowed beaus;
so they said they went to Bible study, though it was a pose.
Gussie’s mother baked two pies, (for coffee hour, they said.)
Her father said he’d pick them up. They said they’d walk instead.
They took one of her mother’s pies to those within the church,
then took the other with them as they left them in the lurch!
Their beaus were waiting for them in a car with motor running.
Instead of Bible reading, they preferred to do some funning.
To abscond with both the pies was something that they had debated,
but in the end they left one pie–an action that they hated.
Two sisters present were their foes. They were so prim and proper.
To steal one pie was lie enough—but two would be a whopper!
Mom’s entry in her journal is one I can still tell.
(Don’t know why it’s the only one that I remember well.)
Line for line, here’s what she said in metered verse and rhyme,
though it’s been sixty years since I heard it for the first time:
“We left that crowd of greedy Dirks to feast upon our pies.
We were so mad, like Gussie’s Dad—had pitchforks in our eyes!”
My mother burned this journal when I was just a kid.
I wish she hadn’t done so, but alas, it’s true, she did.
Perhaps she didn’t want to see us following her ways.
Instead of what she did, better to follow what she says.
But I am sure if she still lived we’d have a little fun,
sitting down together when every day was done
and writing all our exploits down, relaying all our slips—
saving for posterity the words that pass our lips.
And in the meantime, Dad would tell as long as he was able,
all those stories that he’s told at table after table.
In coffee shops and golf courses, at parties or a dance,
he would go on telling them, whenever there’s a chance.
And if we all were strangers, and none of us were kids,
we could relate our stories without putting on the skids.
Each would outdo the other as we passed around the bend,
with story after story till we all came to The End!!!
This year the rains came early, starting the day after the men came to begin stripping and resurfacing my roofs. The day after they were supposed to remove the skylight, hurricane-force winds and torrential rains made me glad for once, that they had been no-shows. A month later, the repairs are over and we’ve settled into the daily or nightly showers. I am snug in my house and the mountains behind me are covered with a vivid green. Soon water will be shooting in rivers down the arroyos and cobblestone roads that lead down to the lake from my house and every teja will serve as its own channel for individual rios streaming down from my roof into waterfalls that will arc down to the terrace tiles below.
The rainy season
breaks its usual habit.
A rude early guest.
For dVerse Poets.
Contrary to what you might think, not related to Lady Slippers. Technically not a flower, but couldn’t resist this shot from my friend Gloria’s low entrance wall along her front sidewalk.
