Category Archives: Uncategorized

A&Wsome Burgers

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Today dawned rainy and foggy with a prediction it would last all day, so instead of spending five hours on the Cabot Trail before heading southwards for another three hour journey to get my car returned to Hertz by 9 p.m., I decided to head immediately for the airport and my overnight stay at the very classy Alt hotel which is located right at the Halifax airport.  Very handy.  Enroute, I noticed an A&W Drive-in and had to stop. I thought they’d gone out of business years ago but here is proof that they are still alive and thriving in Nova Scotia. Thanks, WordPress, for the very timely prompt.  I didn’t even know what it was until I got to the wifi of my hotel in Halifax. Nice coincidence that I was already supplied with an illustration for today’s prompt of “Sandwich!”

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A&Wsome Burgers

The first drive-in I went to when I was just a kid
(before there was McDonalds or wax cups with a lid)
was an A&W sixty miles from home
with root beer served in frosty mugs and sporting heads of foam.
I haven’t seen another for years, so I believed
there weren’t any anymore—a fact that I have grieved.
So while driving into Halifax, imagine my elation
when I saw an A&W next to a filling station!

I had meant to fill my rental car before I turned it in,
‘cause the prices when Hertz fills them up are really quite a sin,
but all thoughts of filling up the car vanished in a blink
with thoughts of luscious burgers and foamy things to drink.
There’s mama burger, papa burger and even a teen,
but still no baby burgers, or anything between.
They have onion rings and French fries and something called poutine?
An addition to the menu? I found it most obscene.

Now it has been a long time since I have had the fun
of consuming family members stuffed into a bun,
but I am really very sure that poutine is a new one.
In all my life I’ve never before had the chance to chew one!
I asked the friendly sales girl for a bit of erudition
that could clue me in to this Canadian addition
to what I thought was sacrosanct—an act of pure sedition.
Just what has the world come to when franchises have permission

to add things to the menu? It simply is not right
that they can think up something new for us to bite!!!
She filled me in on what it was and said it was delicious.
French fries, cheese curd, gravy??? A mixture most pernicious.
What good are French fries served with cheese that’s certain to taste boggy,
topped off with gravy that no doubt would make the whole mess soggy?
I bought a teen burger and naked French fries at their best—
then left to eat them in my car—a sure sign of protest.

But in the end my protest was paid most dearly for.
For when I took my food to go, slamming shut the door
and roaring off to eat my food in another place,
I ended up with poutine all over my face.
For I forgot to buy my gas which would have cost a third
of what I had to pay to Hertz—a total most absurd.
Yet even though my protest in my budget put a crimp,
at least I did not stoop to eating French fries that were limp!!!

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Sedum: Flower of the Day, Sept. 9

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img_5336This is the fullest and most beautiful sedum I’ve ever seen.  I found it in the garden of the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Nova Scotia.

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/08/flower-of-the-day-roses/

Nova Scotia Doorways: Thursday Doors, Sept 8, 2016

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https://miscellaneousmusingsofamiddleagedmind.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/thursday-doors-august-11-2016/

Inelegant Obsession

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elegant/

Inelegant Obsession

I’d love to be elegant while I’m obsessing,
but if I told you how, I’d only be guessing.
The man at the counter said yoga’s the answer
to two hour waits, and smart cars and cancer.

I told him that yoga’s more easily done
in my pool or on mats spread out in the sun––
Not two hours before midnight when you’re feeling sad
’cause the car you pre-rented is not to be had

and instead you’re confronted with a Jeep Cherokee
with all bells and whistles included for free!
Yet each feature they’ve added is cryptic and puzzling.
Screen like a space ship and gasoline-guzzling.

I can’t find the lighter to plug in my Nuvi.
The radio screen is showing a movie,
but I can’t find a plug to plug in my phone
and I’m out in this parking lot, stressed and alone.

After one hour of standing and waiting to rent it
and one more in the parking lot, how I repent it!
I go on the road in the inky black dark
with no place to stop and no place to park.

My GPS empty of power and knowledge,
to find the right route would take training in college.
No route numbers have I, I can’t see the map.
My phone out of power sits limp on my lap.

The screen gives me options for stations galore,
but no arrow to choose them, just one button more
for feature after feature that I cannot use.
I wish I had knowledge.  I wish I had booze!!!

When I try to turn on the overhead light,
the moonroof zips open and try as I might,
I can’t get it closed but just open it more,
so the wind whips my hair with a terrible roar.

I’ve always loved traveling wild and free,
but it now seems travel’s evolved beyond me.
Where is my confidence and my elan?
That air of achievement, that air of “I can?”

When I get to the motel two hours in arrears,
when the clerk asks how are you, I explode in tears.
I tell him my story, like a silly old fool––
but he doesn’t snicker and he isn’t cruel.

“See that?” he said, waving a hand at my phone.
He shook his gray head and gave a small moan.
“Don’t know how to use one–not me nor my wife.
It seems like technology’s plaguing our life.”

He dished out a Kleenex and almost at once,
I found I was feeling much less of a dunce.
I may be a fool and an old one at that,
but it’s so reassuring to share that coned hat!

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This control board of the plane I flew from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia on is slightly less daunting than the dashboard of the Jeep Cherokee they pawned off on me as a replacement for the simple economy car I requested. The flight took one half hour. Renting the car (even though I’d filled out all the paperwork on the internet) and figuring out how to operate the monstrosity they gave me took two hours!!!

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The beast!!! I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the radio and tremble at the thought of mistakenly turning on the four wheel drive.

I later snapped a photo that better illustrates the size of this car.  See that photo HERE.

The prompt word today was “Elegant.” This was stretching the prompt, but I had my own agenda.

Blueberry Bloom: Flower of the Day, Sept 8, 2016

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My friend Dianne actually went out of her (our) way to take me into this commercial blueberry field to see how blueberries grow:  low to the ground and sporting these lovely red blooms.  Yes, I picked this one to have a taste.  Sweet and much tinier than it looks here.  Then we fled before the blueberry farmer  could grab his shotgun!

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Just remember that I have a blueberry poem to go with this photo.  Remember it?  If not, you can see it HERE.

 

 

To see more flowers from other bloggers, go HERE.

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Larry and Betty’s Monarch Adventure

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I just have to share this email I got from my friends Larry Kolczak and Betty Peterson in Ajijic, Mexico. I published photos of one of these caterpillars a few weeks ago.  Here is the end of the story, told by Larry:

Since we live only a few hour’s drive from the mountains in Central Mexico where the Monarch butterflies from Eastern Canada and the U.S. migrate to spend the winter, we figured we’d better give them a helping hand by planting some milkweed in our garden. It is actually a more attractive plant than I imagined. And, it is the only plant on which Monarch butterflies lay their eggs.

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After just a week or two, Monarch’s found our plants and began laying their tiny white pearl-like eggs. Here is one right where the sunlit and shadowed parts of the leaf meet.monarch-02
The eggs hatch about 4 days later. This little guy is busily munching on milkweed.monarch-03
Milkweed contains some toxic chemicals that don’t affect the Monarch, but will sicken any predator that eats either the caterpillar or the butterfly. As a result, neither has to have camouflaged coloration. Their bright colors serve as a reminder to any predator who ever tried to eat one.

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About 15 days after hatching, the caterpillars have grown to this size. That’s when they stop eating and wander off the milkweed plant looking for a bush or tree on which to begin their metamorphosis into an adult butterfly. At this stage, we usually lose track of where they went, so we collected one and raised it in a screened container.

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After a day or two in the enclosure, the caterpillar hung by it’s tail and shed it’s caterpillar skin, replacing it with this shell like coating. In butterflies, this stage is called a chrysalis. Only moths make cocoons, which involve wrapping themselves in silk. The Monarch chrysalis is not much bigger than a Lima bean, and it has shiny gold dots around one part, called a necklace.
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After about 11-12 days, the chrysalis begins to darken and become translucent. You can actually see the butterfly’s orange and black wings squished into the lower portion.
Our little guy emerged on the 12th day and crawled onto a stick to hang while blood was pumped into it’s shriveled wings.
About two hours later, the wings were fully expanded. But he wasn’t actually flapping them, or trying to fly.
We watched him for another hour or so until he decided to climb out of the container. Using a stick, I helped him climb out. He showed no reluctance to climb up the stick and onto my thumb. You may have noticed, I’m calling it a “him.” That’s because male Monarchs can be identified by the two little black dots in the orange part of their lower wings. These are scent glands that will help him attract mates.
I carefully carried our Monarch out to the garden and put him on a milkweed flower. By now, we had named him Marty after my wife’s son who, years ago had lived in Santa Cruz, CA which has it’s own colony of Monarchs during the winter. Every year, the State Park puts on a Monarch festival. One year, Marty had volunteered to play the part of “Captain Monarch” who dressed in a butterfly costume and slid down a zip line to entertain the kids.
He sat there quietly for about an hour, and then fluttered off to begin his new life.
Live long and prosper, Marty.

Butterfly Perch (Hydrangea 2) : Flower of the Day, Sept 6, 2016

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https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/05/flower-of-the-day-dahlia-8/

Midnight Minuet

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Midnight Minuet

Sneaking down the unlit hall,
we take turns answering nature’s call,
awaiting our own turn to sneak
to the john to have a leak.

In the darkness, we repeat
this rather tricky hourly feat.
Him, then her, then me at last.
So are our nightly ramblings cast.

It is not choice that brings us here
to void ourselves of pop or beer.
In fact, a full night’s sleep we seek—
our intentions strong, but bladders weak.

At eleven, twelve and one and two,
sleeping is what we’d rather do.
Instead, we do-si-do—just missing
the next sojourner bent on pissing!

 

This poem is dedicated to all of those over sixty who find themselves taking more nightly journeys down the hall than in the past. Perhaps, like me, you are a houseguest. If so, there is no avoiding the nocturnal shuffle if your hosts, like you, are of a certain age.

Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge , Week 34 (Odd Finds on the Beach)

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Odd Finds on the Beach

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https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/02/reminder-cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2016-week-34/