When Lou Carrera published a picture of two of his flower pots that bore human faces, I tried to send him photos of a couple of my own “face pots” but it didn’t work in comments, of course, duh…so here they are, Lou. One is new this week but looks like the tree I planted in it isn’t doing well, so I need to find a smaller plant for it. The other photo is os a pot I purchased years ago and it seems to have lost both its definition and its nose.
An October Horror Story: Hollow E’en
They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall.
One climbs a tree to peer within. I hope he doesn’t fall.
I cower here within my house and pray they’ll go away.
Though I am not religious, eventually I pray.
Their little voices raise a pitch. They start to bay and howl.
There’s a flutter in my heart region, a clutching in my bowel.
I purchased Reese’s Pieces and miniature Kit Kats
just for all these masked and costumed little brats.
My motives were unselfish. The candy was for them,
for I don’t eat much candy in efforts to grow slim.
And yet that bag of Reese’s, those small Kit Kats and such
called to me from where they were sequestered in my hutch.
It started with a whisper, hissing out their wish:
“We would look so pretty laid out on a dish!”
I knew that they were evil. I knew it was a trap.
I tried hard to resist them, my hands clenched in my lap.
I turned up my computer, listening to “The Voice.”
Those candy bars would not be seen till Halloween—my choice!
My willpower was solid. No candy ruled me.
(If that were true, no kids would now be climbing up my tree.)
Yes, it is true I weakened. I listened to their nags.
I took the candy from the shelf and opened up the bags.
Their wrappers looked so pretty put out for display
In one big bowl so colorful, lying this-a-way
and that-a-way, all mixed and jumbled up together.
No danger of their melting in this cooler weather.
I put them on the table, then put them on a shelf
so I would not be tempted to have one for myself.
When people came to visit, I put them by my bed.
Lest they misunderstand and eat them all instead.
Then when I was sleeping, one tumbled off the top.
I heard it landing with a rustle and a little “plop.”
I opened up one eye and saw it lying there
just one inch from where I lay, tangled in my hair.
Its wrapper was so pretty—foiled and multi-hued.
Some evil force took over as I opened it and chewed!
This started a small avalanche of wrappers on the floor
as I ripped and stuffed & chewed & swallowed more & more & more!
This story is not pretty but has to be confessed.
My only explanation is that I was possessed.
They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall,
but I have no candy for them. No treat for them at all.
Surrounded by the wrappers, bare bowl upon my lap,
I think I’ll just ignore them and take a little nap.
I hear them spilling o’er my wall and dropping down inside.
I try to think of what to do. Consider suicide.
They’re coming in to get me. Beating down my door.
They are intent on blood-letting—the Devil’s evil spore.
I guess it’s not the worst death a gal could ever get.
I’ve heard of much worse endings than death by chocolate!
The dVerse Poets prompt is “October.
Please show me your dance photos!
For some reason, I just love the photo of this rhinoceros beetle. It was crawling on my garage wall and I just liked the color mix as well as the holes in the surface of the wall that echo its spots.
I also loved this display in a beauty shop. Imagine doing anything at all with nails like these!!!!
And this is another favorite photo of mine. Taken at the Archaeological Museum in Mexico City. I took the photo from the back so it was reflected in the glass in the front which also reflected the wall behind. I love the effect.
For Lens Artists Challenge #367:Everyone should see this!
Nice lazy morning after painting the sculpture in the lot down below to lie in the hammock with a good book (and by the end with all three dogs) until……
Believe it or not, it took me 2 1/2 hours to paint the green scales on the other side of the neck, the snout and the gold coil. That said, I was able to finish before the sun came up over the house and trees and I met a neighbor, his grandchild and daughter-in-law as well as a passerby with pup! Here are their photos:
(I promise I didn’t paint the shoes!!!!)
For Cellpic Sunday
Click on photos to enlarge.
I have been painting my “Plumed Serpent” Sculpture in the lower garden in between bursts of rain and too-hot sunny periods. I hired someone to paint the body. I’ve been working on the head, which is still in process. I’ll do the plumed tail next. For some reason, I have identified with Quetzalcoatl since I first moved to Mexico. It is a sculpture of him that spews water into my pool and this huge sculpture winds its way across the lower lot. He was my project during the Covid isolation period. The head is of carved stone..purchased in Tonala. The tail I designed with Isidro and he carved it. The body I designed and Jose formed of concrete. I had a branding iron made to press the scales into the concrete. Once I’ve painted the head and tail, I’ll decide whether the body will stay as is or have another layer of paint added. May run out of energy by then…Forgottenman insisted wisely suggested¹ I share this “in process.”
Quetzalcoatl means “Feathered Serpent” in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The name combines “quetzal” (brightly colored bird) and “coatl” (snake), symbolizing the deity’s dual nature, which represents a connection between the earth and the sky. Quetzalcoatl was a major deity in many Mesoamerican cultures, including the Maya and Aztec, and was believed to have a role in the creation of the world and humanity. His image as a feathered serpent reflects a blend of the divine, celestial nature of the bird, and the grounded, earthly nature of the serpent, symbolizing wisdom, life, and fertility.
(From the World History Encyclopedia)
I’m going down to do some more painting before the sun comes up. I’ll be back with a post of what this lot looked like before I started this project…..
Go HERE to see the results of today’s painting.
For Cellpic Sunday
¹ Unauthorized edit by ForgottenMan
As you can see, my iPhone was far above my head and not in easy reach from my hand or any part of my body.
Okay… it has happened. Technology has taken over the world, at least at my house. Two nights in a row, I have been awakened by my cell phone pinging and reached for it––over my head and behind me on the top of my table/headboard–– to find it has called a friend. In each case, I was given an option to press 2 to disconnect and 3 to talk. I pressed 2, but a few minutest later, at 1:30 in the morning, the friend called me thinking I had an emergency as the phone woke them up twice and when they answered no one answered but they saw I had been the one to call. Then another friend was called at 5 a.m. the next day.
I did not have earbuds in…which some have said is how this can happen, although I don’t know how. Neither of the friends my phone called were emergency contacts, although I had called them both within the past 24 hours.
The phone was far out of my reach and does not have sound activation other than for Siri. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, Sep 29, 2025
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) left a meeting with President Donald J. Trump this afternoon without a deal to keep the government open past the last day of the fiscal year, which is tomorrow: Tuesday. The president and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to consider opening up negotiations over extending the premium tax subsidies for healthcare insurance that will expire at the end of 2025 because of the budget reconciliation bill the Republicans passed in July, but they insisted the Democrats must fund the government before talks begin.
“We think when they say ‘later,’ they mean ‘never,” Schumer told reporters. He noted that Democrats had asked repeatedly for meetings about the measure and the Republicans refused, so Democrats had no input on the continuing resolution. Jeffries pointed out that far from being willing to work with Democrats, House Republicans have left town. “House Democrats are here,” he said. “Senate Democrats are here. The Senate is ready to act. House Republicans [are] on vacation right now…. They’re not serious about actually reaching a bipartisan agreement that meets the needs of the American people. If House Republicans were serious, they’d be here right now.”
Schumer told reporters that in their discussions, Trump did not appear to be aware that Americans are facing huge increases in their healthcare insurance payments because of the budget reconciliation bill.
Tonight, Trump’s social media account posted a deepfake video of Schumer and Jeffries speaking to reporters. In the doctored video, Schumer talks with Mexican music playing in the background, while Jeffries stands beside him wearing what appears to be a colorful Mexican sombrero and sporting a mustache with the ends waxed and turned up.
In the video, Schumer’s image is made to say: “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bullsh*t. Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore, even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of sh*t, you know? At least for a while, until they learn English and they realize they hate us too.”
When Lawrence O’Donnell asked Jeffries to comment on the video, he responded: “It’s a disgusting video and we’re going to continue to make clear: bigotry will get you nowhere.”
Jeffries continued: “We are fighting to protect the healthcare of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault. On all the things, Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are closing our hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health clinics, and have effectively shut down medical research in the United States of America. Clearly, Donald Trump and Republicans know that they have a very weak position, because they are hurting everyday Americans while continuing to reward their billionaire donors, just like they did in that one big, ugly bill with massive tax breaks. Democrats are united in the House and the Senate, and the point that we’ve made will continue to be clear. We are fighting to lower the high cost of healthcare, prevent these dramatically increased premiums, copays, and deductibles that will take place in a matter of days unless Republicans are willing to act in terms of renewing the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported today that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has been leading the administration’s strikes on boats that the White House claims were smuggling drugs to the U.S., although it has offered no evidence of that claim either to lawmakers or to the public. Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times reported that “[i]n an interview, one woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the dead men said that her husband was a fisherman with four children who left one day for work and never came back.”
Tomorrow is not only the last day of the fiscal year, it is also the date Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth set for what was to be his own highly unusual meeting with more than 800 military leaders and their senior enlisted advisors. Hegseth did not specify the purpose of the meeting. Since he called it hastily last week, news reports have suggested that he intended to talk to the generals and admirals about “soldier ethos.” Now Trump says he intends to go to the meeting himself and give the military leaders a pep talk.
We’ll see.
Noah Robertson, Tara Copp, Alex Horton, and Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post reported today that eight current and former officials have told them there is a deep rift between the political appointees at the Pentagon and the military leaders there.
The journalists report that in a reordering of U.S. military priorities, Hegseth is withdrawing forces from Europe, reducing the concentration of power and consolidating commands abroad while focusing on using the military in the U.S. and neighboring countries. According to the reporters, General Dan Caine, Trump’s hand-picked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shares others’ concerns about the reworking of U.S. priorities.
Also tomorrow, as Michael Sainato of The Guardian reports, the resignations of more than 100,000 federal workers will take effect as part of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce. Those leaving say they were forced out through fear and pressure from administration officials, reminding Sainato of the comment from Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, who wants to destroy the modern government. Last October he said of federal workers: “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down.… We want to put them in trauma.”
This year’s cuts to the government workforce will mean the loss of at least 275,000 workers, the largest decline in civilian federal employment in a single year since World War II.
—
Notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/29/stephen-miller-venezuela-drug-boat-strike
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/world/americas/venezuela-mood.html
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/hegseth-generals-meeting-warrior-ethos
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/29/president-trump-administration-news-updates-today
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/28/us-mass-resignation-federal-workers
Bluesky:
onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3lzzerqujmk25
Here is Heather Cox Richardson’s substack sit:
To vote from outside the U.S., go to https://www.votefromabroad.org/
Request your ballot by email or fax if you are abroad, as the international mail can be slow…especially in Mexico. Xmas cards have taken up to 3 months to arrive from the states!!!
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 