Overpacking
Where is it that a cat belongs? She’ll be the judge of that.
Wherever I am going, I am sure to need a cat.
She’ll help me with my packing and be my memory
so I don’t forget to take her when I set out to sea.
She can’t see how her company could go against my wishes.
A cat goes well with boats and anywhere where there are fishes.
Each morning she repacks herself and each night in the dark
she asks herself once more just when we’ll finally embark.
After a week of packing, my case is finally full.
I shut the lid, secure the lock, pick up the strap and pull.
I’m off to catch the red eye that will fly me off to Rome
to catch the boat that for one week will make do as my home.
I have packed so carefully, checking off my list
that I’m sure there’s nothing that I could have missed.
But I know that Annie, sleeping curled up on her mat,
when she wakes up and finds me gone, will not agree with that.
In spite of her best efforts, alas, she’s left behind.
It seems that human planning isn’t always kind
to cats who have spun fantasies of travel and romance.
Did human plans concur with hers? Poor Annie. Not a chance.
It’s a wonderful coincidence that the dVerse Poets prompt today is “Felines,” since just this morning I found this photo taken three weeks ago as I packed for my Mediterranean cruise with my sister. I meant to publish it back then but forgot and was wondering when it would be appropriate to use it as an illustration. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Slow Motion
After the fuss and bother, the acquiring and attaining,
somehow life seems better without the extra straining.
Now observing takes the place of doing and of showing.
Tranquility has won out over partying and going,
with “Hold your partner” filling in for former “do-si-doing.”
Having Friends Over for Dinner
I very nearly missed out on her graceful zigzag gig
beneath my bougainvillea, suspended from a twig.
Behold the nimble spider, spinning out her floss
determined that no insect will turn out to be her loss.
See her web’s tenacity, holding fast her prey—
those delicious visitors who rarely get away.
She sucks out their elixirs with minimal delay,
having guests for dinner every single day.
Prompt words today are web, tenacity, nearly, nimble and delicious.
First cut taxes for the very rich, then cut social security and medicare? Sounds like a great way to take care of population growth. Just kill off all but the wealthiest!! Read more here: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tells-republicans-may-begin-162457862.html?.tsrc=fauxdal
For Cee’s FOTD
A friendly pat,
Testing Affection
When I booked a sea adventure with a lover, I confess
that traveling together put our passion to the test.
It’s true I grate on people. I’ll attest to this one fact,
but it’s also true at times that my guy could use more tact.
When he kept daily tallies of the cookies on my plate—
a definite statistic I preferred he not relate—
he meant it as a joke, but I considered it as snide.
Comments about my appetite are ones hard to abide.
He maintained a steady pace and told me not to dawdle,
and even though his rapid steps made him sort of waddle,
I should have kept that to myself, but I fear I did not;
and that is why things got as heated as they finally got.
I said I’d zero tolerance for what was going on
and before he knew it, I was off that ship and gone.
And this is often how it goes when new love goes out traveling.
It’s often hard to face new climes without romance unraveling.
Full disclosure: Although the imagery in this poem reflects a recent sea voyage taken with my sister, the content is purely fictional. Well, except for the cookies harvested from the abundant buffets, which we both consumed in rather embarrassing numbers, but really, no one took a tally and no one waddled!! Nor did it put sisterhood to the test.
The fact that traveling together can put friendship or romance to the test, however, can be all too true. The first European driving vacation I took with a certain lover, I couldn’t wait to get home so I never had to see the jerk again, and at one point I really did tell him to pull over and I got out of the car and vanished into a forested tract for awhile. Thankfully, he waited patiently and I eventually emerged and got back into the car. Things evened out when we got home and within a year, we were married. Nonetheless, there is a reason for the old adage that “true love (and traveling together) never did run smooth.”
Guided by the needs of these prompts, I have combined the two stories and the frictional lovers’ driving misadventure has been transformed into a cruise.
Prompt words for Aug 25, 2019 are friendship, excursion, snide, attest and zero.
The air was filled with the fuzz from these flowers on our trip up into the mountains above Montenegro.
For Cee’s FOTD
Chicago O’Hare at 3 a.m.
Patti and I took separate flights from Athens to Chicago but since we both had to overnight, we shared a room at the Hilton O’Hare Hotel at the airport. We’d set the alarm for 2:30 as my plane started boarding at 4:40 and I needed to dress, finish packing and make my way to terminal 3 at Chicago O’Hare Airport. The alarm went off and I managed to get up and into the bathroom without awakening Patti. I dressed, put on makeup and only then checked my computer… only to discover it was just 1:15. I had dreamed having the alarm go off! No wonder she hadn’t heard it. I took my blouse off and climbed back into bed half-clothed and slept for another hour.
At the airport, I couldn’t find an open security line and found most airline employees to be rather surly at the inconvenient hour of 3 a.m. I got three different instructions about where to go but finally found my place at the end of an extremely long line located in the opposite direction of where I’d been instructed to go formerly. Half an hour later, I’d made my way to the walk-through, only to be stopped by a TSA agent saying I registered as having metal wrapped entirely around my body in the hip area! Very strange. Did I want to go to a private area? No. Pat away. She patted and patted.. until finally the mystery was solved. I had on a blouse with a seed bead fringe around the bottom. Evidently the beads were lead crystal—thus registered as a bomb of sorts wrapped around my middle regions. Every time I think I have this security thing worked out, a new surprise! Now 4:10 a.m. 34 minutes until boarding..then Dallas Ft. Worth bound. Hate that airport!! Almost home.
You caught me. This is not the excellent photo of sleepy wayfarers in the Chicago AA waiting room. My computer refuses to accept my SD Card, so it will have to do.
