My lot slants so much that when I’m in the pool I’m pretty much looking at the top of the plumeria tree, where most of the blooms are. Steady rains for the past three nights have certainly washed them free of any dust and brought out their colors.
This lovely door/window balcony combo is above the gallery of a friend in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico. So friendly!!!
Bearcat, Bentley and Patti, 1987. The only way you could tell them apart was by their tails. Their mother’s tail bent to the left, Patti’s bent to the right, Bentley’s was zigzag and Bearcat’s was just straightly expressive. Sweet babies. Bearcat is the one to your left.
Presently, I live with five cats. If you follow my blog, you’ve been seeing them off and on over the past year. The kittens unceremoniously dropped off by my garage door are now about a year old. They mainly reside outside in a sheltered garage in a cushy bed big enough to hold them all or a little cathouse I bought which once held them all but now mainly holds them one-by-one in an equally cushy bed.
My oldest cat is Annie, now 16 years old and a bit cranky as she rules the roost as an inside cat. She will allow the other cats inside only if they maintain their distance. About 6 times a day, she yowls her insistence at being served a small meal. I comply. She always gets a chin and ear rub first, then she returns to her cushy bed in the large bath/ shower of the bathroom of my bedroom. Her litter tray and dishes are also there. I’ve pretty much been relegated to the guest bathroom.
This poem, however, is for Bearcat–upon his death, the only surviving sibling of 4 Blue Burmese kittens that I was foster mother to from the time of their birth. Their mother, a wild cat, moved in with us long enough to give birth and stuck around until the kittens were well beyond weaning before she vanished again into the Redwood Forests of the San Lorenzo Valley near Santa Cruz, CA.
Only Bearcat was still alive when I moved to Mexico in 2001. Sadly, he drowned in my pool a few months later. I was devastated. This was his epitaph, written as a string of kennings for a NaPoWriMo prompt in 2014.
back lofter
tail wafter
gray bearer
drape tearer
ball loser
lap chooser
bunny slayer
shoelace player
sofa climber
sleep mimer
shadow springer
dragonfly bringer
lizard de-tailer
spider nailer
basement searcher
window ledge percher
tree dweller
mouse smeller
dog chaser
bug caser
door crack peeper
sunbeam sleeper
woods walker
squirrel stalker
rail balancer
prey glancer
shadow catcher
love hatcher
body spinner
heart winner
For the dVerse Poets open prompt.
For the two hours that we were in the plaza of the French Bakery, this little dog went from table to table for a friendly visit. When someone made the mistake of giving him a piece of bacon from their breakfast croissant, he became demanding, thrusting his head up into the lap of anyone still unfortunate enough to be eating. He would run to the table of a rather crabby couple with a dog of their own, barking at the other dog, bringing frowns on the faces of its owners. When I tried to call him away from them, they started frowning at me instead, thinking he belonged to me.
I couldn’t resist taking photos as he zigged here and there, trying to decide which way to go. When a new omelette or bacon croissant arrived at a table, it solved his dilemma and he came to semi-rest. Insistent and often vocal, he tracked the arrival of any food at any table. One by one, as people got up from their tables, they came over to my table to ask if this was my dog. No, it belonged to someone in the neighborhood, I told them. This is what the owner of the bakery had told me and I believed him, but I don’t think anyone really believed me.
Click on any photo and then on arrows to enlarge and view all.
For Cee’s Which Way Challenge.
Three years ago I published this poem with no ending, asking commenters to construct an ending. There were a number of excellent solutions, but unfairly, I never published one of my own, so I’m giving myself the additional assignment to finish the poem since it also makes use of today’s prompt word of “tide.” I’ve made many adjustments in the original poem and added the last stanza.
Neap Tide
Borne, then born.
Clothed, fed, shorn.
Housed and cuddled,
Brain filled and muddled,
schooled, polished, allowed to roam,
to make the world into a home.
In my third quarter, now sedate.
Content to let my life abate.
Find worlds inside and there abide,
to let what happens be my guide.
To try to live with less precision.
To fear less the world’s derision.
Why so hard to be oneself?
Easier when on the shelf.
Now as I pull my world around me,
memories and dreams surround me—
my solitude a crystal jar
that lets me ponder from afar.
The current of my life, its tide,
reaches without and pulls inside
the things that help me try to see
where my life has taken me.
I contemplate and sometimes share
the truths that I’ve discovered there.
You come to read and judge each word
as wise, amusing or absurd.
You give new insights to what I’ve said—
poems not completed until they’re read.
Less in the world, ironically,
more of the world’s discovered me.
If you’d like to see how others ended the poem three years ago, go HERE.
The prompt today was tide.
The thing about a midnight supper is that it’s gotta be good but it’s also gotta be fast. This means raiding the fridge to see what can be easily and quickly thrown together. Tonight it was a bowl of Mama Memorial Goulash and a Rootie Tootie Margarootie. As good as they are pretty. Lovely glass is courtesy of friend Patty who won a set along with a basket and bottle of tequila in a silent auction to benefit Operation Feed, a local charity that provides food, clothing and scholarships for about 500 people in our village.
If you want my slapdash recipes for the goulash and margarootie, you’ll have to beg. If I get 7 requests for them, I will comply. (A shameless bid for comments.)
At first I thought this was a different butterfly from yesterday’s, but upon close inspection, I think that the bottom side of the wings are just completely different from the top side. I do believe it is a different flower, though.
I had to pull off the road to snap this beauty. I’d passed it at least four times in the past week, thinking every time that I had to photograph it. This time I did so, shooting against the sun with my iPhone 6 as my beloved Canon is recently deceased and much-mourned. I actually got 4 or 5 views from different angles that I liked, but I think this is my favorite. The much larger Royal Poinciana Tree at the front of my house hasn’t come into full bloom so far, perhaps because the electric company had to take a machete to it since it was growing too close to the wires. I think the trees at lower elevations than mine are blooming early this year and very abundantly. I’ve seen several others I want to capture as well.
For Becca’s Sunday Trees, a bit late this week.
