Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Subtle Art of Love’s Debate

6 Replies

The Subtle Art of Love’s Debate

If you want true love to be your fate,
heed the advice I here relate:
the subtle art of love’s debate
requires words that resonate—
that tease and lure and serve as bait—
that charm as well as educate.

Many a lover learned too late
that loneliness would be his fate
because what he chose to relate
in one fell swoop on a first date
seemed only to exacerbate
or even worse to detonate.

Suitors, weigh your words inside
before you choose to rage or chide.
To stroll love’s pathway, walk the walk.
Take time to listen as well as talk.
Your questions will win you more hearts
than trying to display your smarts.

The greater part of conversation
lies not within one’s recitation.
Instead of gross bombacity,
express your curiosity.
Love plans require less machination.
Just greet her words with fascination.

 

 

The prompt today was detonate.

Hibiscus: Black and White Sunday and Cee’s Flower of the Day, May 28, 2017

10 Replies

 

Version 2IMG_5147 (2)

The prompt was to publish a photo in both color and black and white.  Luckily, I had just, on a whim, tried converting this hibiscus shot to black and white and was shocked to discover that I liked it better devoid of its gorgeous colors.  Here is the site if you’d like to play along: https://bopaula.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/black-white-sunday-after-and-before-y1-05/
I’m also using this for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.

Jungle: Sunday Trees, May 28, 2017

1 Reply

IMG_5148

My husband used to say that I wasn’t satisfied until people had to fight their way through the jungle to get to our house.  That was long ago and far away, but things haven’t changed much since then.  I love this wild tangle of Washingtonian palms, napa palms and hibiscus.

 

 

 

https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/sunday-trees-289/

Saying It with Flowers

6 Replies

“Violets contain ionone, which short-circuits our sense of smell.  The flower continues to exude its fragrance, but we lose the ability to smell it.  Wait a minute or two, and its smell will blare again. Then it will fade again, and so on.”
                                       — Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

“Violets” jdb photo 2017


Saying It with Flowers

A lovely gesture, the violets—
but their scent  vanished
before you walked out the door.
“It will come back,” you promised.
And so it did, that sweet aroma,
radiating from the deep heart of the flowers
for brief moments before
vanishing again—
coming and going with a greater regularity
than your coming and your going.

“There is a scientific cause for this,”
you noted, ” The fragrance is still there,
but we just lose our ability to smell it.
It will come back again.”
And you were right.  
I could count upon it’s reappearance—
the mystery of its coming
and its going solved,
unlike your final exit
or why, when I requested
forget me nots,
violets are what 
you gave.

“Forget Me Nots” image from internet

The prompt today was “radiate.”

“Golden Hour” A Photo a Week Challenge

12 Replies

On the west coast of Mexico, sunset is indeed a golden experience. I especially like the way the ocean tides reflect the colors of the sunsets.  You’ll need to click on the first photo to see these all in a larger size and in better detail.

For the A Photo a Week Challenge

For Dux: Cutters

5 Replies

DSCF1865 - Version 3DSCF1863Much as I hate seeing my plants stripped of leaves and flowers, I also love watching the precision of the leaf cutter ants.  Some go up into the plants to cut leaves.  Others wait below to carry them away.  I’ll take more photos tomorrow.

See also:  https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/09/21/pillage-and-warfare/

Flower of the Day: Garden Salad

7 Replies

DSCN1969.jpg

A few times a year the leaf-cutter ants make a salad table out of my garden, stripping the bougainvillea, especially.  Today they were busy outside my walls but so far they’ve left the new little bougainvillea bush alone.

 

https://ceenphotography.com/2017/05/27/flower-of-the-day-may-28-2017-rhododendron/

Caveat Emptor

2 Replies

on’tMy “new” rental car, in which I will sally forth to find a replacement for my dear Honda CRV.

How timely that  Christine Goodnough sent me this comment today:

O caveat emptor (or however that old phrase goes.) Anyway, the old guy meant well. Nice pun. 🙂

Being ignorant of that phrase, I turned, as usual, to Wikipedia, which clued me in:

ca·ve·at emp·tor ˌkavēˌät ˈem(p)ˌtôr/Submit noun the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.

I laughed when I read the definition, having just spent a good 20 minutes or more walking around the car I just rented as the man who delivered it pointed out every flyspeck-sized wound on the car so he could record them on our contract.  The point is that any further damage will be attributed to me.  At least half of them I couldn’t even see.  Now I am living in terror that a piece of gravel will nick the windshield or paint on the car. But, at last I have wheels again!!! Time to go car shopping. I won’t enjoy that task.

Can you see any flaw in this door?  The Rental Agent found at least five––not to mention the other 15 he found on various parts of the car that looked perfect to me.  I think I need new glasses.

 

Why am I looking for a new car?  The explanation, if you haven’t already read it is HERE.
 

 

No Reprieve

9 Replies

The prompt today was “reprieve.” Sometimes what seems to be a reprieve doesn’t quite live up to expectations.  Here’s a poem I wrote three years ago that tells the tale of such a time.


No Reprieve

Caught short by the rainy season, I should have known better.
Though I’d left home high and dry, I knew I’d soon be wetter.
Defenseless  in the downpour, I ducked into a store.
Just to get some shelter,  I rushed in through that door.

I felt that I was lucky as this store was full of stuff,
though finding what I needed might be sort of tough.
The store clerk shuffled up to me, though he could barely stand—
an umbrella just as old as him held up in his hand.

Lucky when I chanced upon this ancient wrinkled fella,
he happened to be carrying a really big umbrella!
I opened up my pocket book and located a fiver.
Now I wouldn’t spend this day wet as a scuba diver!

But when I left that thrift store with my practical new find,
I found that I was actually in the same old bind.
For opening up my parasol, I uttered “What the heck?”
As rivulets of water ran down my head and neck.

The purchase I’d just made, I found, would be no help at all.
I hadn’t noticed that the shop was St. Vincent de Paul.
The fault was no one else’s.  I know it was mine, solely.
I should have realized sooner that my purchase would be holy!

(Please note: St. Vincent de Paul is a secondhand store run by the Catholic Church.)

Subtropical Garden

14 Replies

Subtropical Garden

Since I live below the tropic of Cancer, the varieties of plants that not only survive but thrive in my garden are manifold.  Here are a few of the things that you would find in my garden if you came to visit, as well as the reasons why I love living here:

(Please click on any photo to enlarge all photos.)

For Cee’s garden prompt.