Category Archives: Uncategorized

Share Your World, May 7, 2019

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QUESTIONS:

  1. Do you believe in soul mates? If so, do you think there is only one person meant to share that bond with you, out there in the world? I definitely believe in soul mates, but I don’t believe there is just one out there in the world for you. I have met and formed bonds with two in my lifetime but I’ve recognized others, although they didn’t recognize me.
  2. Ice cream cone, shake or other ice cream concoction? Ice cream cone, pistachio gelato or very very dark chocolate.  Ahhhhhh.
  3. What would be the hat to end all hats? What could you wear on your head that would make people stop what they are doing and stare in awe and amazement? My husband gave me this hat the first Christmas after we met. Is it any wonder that I had to marry him 15 months later? No, I’ve never worn it in public…
  4. What would be the worst “buy one get one free” sale of all time?  Swimming pools! It takes two of us working every day to keep mine up minimally. If I had two, I wouldn’t have time for anything else! (I live near a volcano, so my pool  is fed by naturally hot mineral springs so algae and white mineral deposits grow fast and chlorine evaporates within minutes, but ahhhhh. Is that water every luscious, and a fountain of youth. 

 

Thanks, Melanie and Cyranny, for the fun questions.  If you want to play along, go here: https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2019/05/06/share-your-world-5-6-19/

It Doesn’t Get any Better than This!!!

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Mac and Cheese

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I dedicate this poem to my ultimate chef friends Dolly
and Gordon, hard as it may be for them to bear.

Mac and Cheese

“Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat; stir in flour, salt, and pepper until smooth, about 5 minutes. Slowly pour milk into butter-flour mixture while continuously stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbling, about 5 minutes. Add Cheddar cheese to milk mixture and stir until cheese is melted, 2 to 4 minutes.”

I found the recipe on my Mac
for noodles swathed in creamy Jack.
I bought the cheese. Grated it up,
dreaming of when I would sup.
I was tenacious with the grater.
Nobody holds a cheese block straighter!
And I was forthright in each thrust,
for tiny cheese curls are a must.

I mixed the flour in melted butter,
watched the whole mess spit and sputter.
Added pepper, salt and flour.
Stirred for what seemed like an hour.
Added the milk in rapid whirls,
and then poured in the cheesy curls.
Round and and round and round it went.
Turned down the stove, turned on the vent.

Boiled the noodles until tender.
Then, when it was time to render
cheese to noodles, asked my crony
just to drain the macaroni.
But, as he was headed back,
his arm collided with my Mac,
flipping it into the cheese
with such artistry and ease

that for a moment it looked to me
as part of the whole recipe.
But cheese on Mac of Apple kind
is not quite what I had in mind.
My Mac expired in smoke and sparking.
Dogs ran in with joyful barking
to lap up congealing cheese
from counter, stove front, floor and knees.

Cheese, computer, pan and noodle—
I tossed the whole kit and kaboodle
out the window into the grass
where dogs and cats and ants en masse
ate their fill until they popped,
while I wiped and scoured and mopped.
(I doubt that you could find my match
at scrubbing up a cheesy patch.)

But if you need a recipe
for Mac and Cheese, don’t count on me.
Though boiling noodles I learned by heart,
I fear I flunked the whole “Mac” part.


Prompt words were match, forthright, tenacious and noodle. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/rdp-tuesday-match/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/07/fowc-with-fandango-forthright/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/your-daily-word-prompt-tenacious-may-7-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/noodle/

Anthurium: Flower of the Day, May 7, 2019

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For Cee’s FOTD

 

For Matt’s Broken Memories Prompt.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

There is a special beauty in the broken,
as though established beauty is being reordered–
the predictable broken apart
and presented to us again,
assembled by a different hand.

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In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Broken.”

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Watched

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to be serenaded by birds,

 

Watched

Up above us, the birds look down
surveying all within the town.
Impaling bugs, dive-bombing gnats,
pooping on the ladies’ hats.
At outside restaurants, they eye dishes,
and prematurely to my wishes,
long before I’ve finished up,
they swoop down and deign to sup!

 

For dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt: UP

Mums and Tamales: Flower of the Day, May 6, 2019

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For Cee’s FOTD

Traveler

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Traveler

I always took the long road home, hoping to take full measure
of all the things along the way in which I could take pleasure.
When life did all its best to make me speed along its road,
I simply switched to unpaved trails to find the mother lode.
My gains were not substantial when measured against gold.
Most of what I’ve acquired cannot be bought or sold,
but the bounty that I gathered will stand me in good stead
as I plan more journeys from my dying bed.
With all my riches gathered, with all my unseen gain,
I will have booked a ticket on the astral plane!

 

The prompts today are road, speed, substantial and astral. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/rdp-sunday-road/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/05/fowc-with-fandango-speed/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/your-daily-word-prompt-substantial-may-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/astral/

Lost

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Lost

Lost my dolly, don’t know where.
She’s got no clothes and got no hair.
She’s somewhere out there lost and bare,
thinking that I do not care.

I’d go out looking, but don’t dare.
That babysitter over there
(My mother calls her our au pair)
came by foot and ship and air
from a country named Zaire
to sit here on her derriere
and watch me with her icy stare.

I open up our Frigidaire. 
Could my dolly be in there?
I climb up on a bedroom chair
and go through Mommy’s underwear.
I do not think that she would care.
I find my brother’s whistle there,
hidden in that lacy lair,
and think it really isn’t fair.
It’s every mother’s cruel nightmare.
My dolly isn’t anywhere!

 

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I had to stop the car to take this photo. I wish I knew the true story behind it. I can’t imagine any little girl throwing out her doll, and the lot was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Someone must have tossed it in there. A mean boy? A jealous brother? Was it unwanted loot from a burglary? My mom and I once rode all the way back out to the dump from town to retrieve a doll’s head we’d thrown away. All the way home, we’d both been thinking about it, sitting there amidst coffee grounds and broken light bulbs. We had pulled into the garage when my mom turned to look at me and said, “Do you want to go back out and get that doll’s head?” I nodded. We did, and I have that head to this very day. If my mom had been with me, one or the other of us would have gotten through that barbed wire somehow. As it is, this image is the only part of the doll that I was able to rescue.

Oddball

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Oddball

You don’t follow instructions. You will do as you may.
No matter what the plan, you always had another way.
No one could ever force you to form an even line.
You’d veer this way or that way and say that it was fine.
You waged a constant battle and staged a constant fight,
as though causing dissension was your main delight.
But it the end, it turns out that the others were the fools,
for they’ve labeled you a genius and are following your rules!

 

The words of the day are may, battle, force and delight. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/rdp-saturday-may/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/04/fowc-with-fandango-battle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/your-daily-word-prompt-force-may-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/delight/