The bush is covered with these dinnerplate-sized yellow hibiscuses
and as you can see, buds promise more in the near future.
For Cee’s FOTD
Today’s Hibiscus, for FOTD Oct 13, 2024
3 Replies
Fraud!!!
My doorbell just rang and I asked who it was before I opened the door. A man answered that it was the post office and that he had a package for me. When I took the package he asked for my signature on two forms, then said I owed 500 pesos customs. I went to get the money and before I gave it to him asked to see the form that declared that I owed the money as the customs charge was for more than the stated value of the item and I had never had to pay a customs fee before in 23 years of receiving goods by delivery and mail. He stammered and tried to rip the address label off.. as though it would be under it. I asked him to tell me his name and he scribbled it so it was indecipherable. Then I asked him his name and he said it was Cesar Lopez but when I looked at the scribbled name, I saw there was no way it read Lopez…I told him I was going to go to the post office to see if there was indeed a charge and he said he would call them. He was supposedly talking to someone but I could hear that his phone was still ringing so it was impossible and I pointed this out. Then he made another phone call and a woman answered and seemed to be very angry so he hung up. I started across the road to ask a Mexican friend for help and to see what he thought. When I did the man went over to a man on a motorcycle around the corner who evidently had driven him there. They talked and he climbed on the motorcycle and said to forget the charge and they took off. Long story short. Do not believe everything you are told. Ask for proof. I almost pd. the 500 pesos without disputing it.
Before and After
I just spent a few early morning hours repainting the ledge on the wall. If you see the before and after photos below, you will see why it was necessary. It has been for a long time but the garden tour I’m participating in in a week (yikes) served as incentive to finally do so. There are plants and sculptures that go on the wall. I’ll take a photo when the paint dries and Pasiano is here to help me lift the heavy stones.
Actually, I completed this project hours ago but when i went out to take the “after ” photo, I spotted a Bird of Paradise clump that badly needed thinning out and that led to another and another and so….that led to having to come in to bandage all the cuts and pokes that could have been avoided if I’d just used gloves. Story of my life.
Newest Hibiscus, for FOTD, Oct 12, 2024
This is one of the three new hibiscus plants I’ve planted in my garden while spiffing it up for the garden tour.
For Cee’s FOTD
“Hairclip” for SOCS, Oct 11, 2024
Hairclip
He rolls over,
pinning her
by her long hair.
He sleeps on it.
She draws his dreams
through its long shafts,
works out his days
into her web.
Her hair,
black raven coal
falling down the chute
between his hands.
Her hair
to be pulled down.
Her hair
his fist
coiled
in each other.
Her hair
his mouth
the cave
a feast of hair.
Her hair side-winding on the ground.
Passion.
Her hair whips
his face until he weaves
a bridge of it
to cross the high crevasse.
Her hair
drying
with a baby
swinging from it.
Her hair woven
into bags and harnesses,
yet when a strand slips from behind her ear,
it makes necessary:
fire, bronze, iron, steel, rubber, factories, the assembly line
just to invent
the
hairclip.
For Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, “clip”
“The Devil Made Me Do It!” for Fibbin’ Friday, Oct 11, 2024
Don’t blame me! The Devil makes me do it!!!
Here we are again. Another ten words to practice my fibbin’ on:
1. Finifugal– a skeptical female fish.
2. Skirl–a denizen of the trees with a big fluffy tail.
3. Waesucks–the superlative form of sucks. He not only sucks, he waesucks!!!!
4. Popple– “cool” lingo for dad.
5. Gardyloo–an attendant in a public restroom.
6. Futz–What they called Fonzie when he was clumsy.
7. Frippery–What sidewalk ice is to a one-year-old just learning to walk.
8. Diphthong–underwear to swim in.
9. Wamble–what a one-year-old loves to do once he or she has mastered walking.
10. Phablet–a tiny lie.
For Fibbin’ Friday
Free E-book
My friend asked me to help spread the word of her new free e-book offering:
Free E-book, and a Good One!!
An e-book of best-selling author Laurie Devine’s latest standalone novel “Crescent,” a gripping family saga set in Lebanon, will be free to those who ask for it on Amazon beginning at 12:01 AM Friday, October 11 and ending at 11:59 PM on Saturday, Oct. 12. The link to get your copy is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D99FX69X\ (After this 48 hours, the book is still available free to Kindle Unlimited participants or for a very modest fee to everyone else.)
Laurie Devine is an award-winning author from Pennsylvania who writes family sagas featuring strong and memorable women of the developing world. Crescent, a sweeping multi-generational saga set in Lebanon, celebrates indomitable women from different sectors and classes.
The action of the book opens in 1958 and captures the pulsating sweep of war-torn
Beirut—the riveting loves, thrills, losses and triumphs that have kept Lebanon in the headlines for decades. Captured here are the endearing stories of four brave and lively young women friends–a Lebanese Christian, a Lebanese Shia Muslim, a Palestinian Sunni Muslim and an American of Jewish heritage—who come of age and learn to transcend fate. Over the next 25 years of this novel, they struggle to survive in the chaos of war, bombings, and kidnappings. But “Crescent” is not just about war; it’s also about friendship, marriage, love and family. These women are resilient and they somehow manage to grow into brave survivors of their crumbling world.
Their tales show the hopes, fears, and dreams of strong women caught in the crux of history. Their lives, riven by violence yet redeemed by enduring love, unlock the mysteries of one of the world’s most troubled and fascinating regions.
First launched in 1988 in London, this new Amazon Kindle edition is its first publication in the United States. The three other Devine Sagas already launched in 2024 and available on Amazon Kindle are Nile, Saudi and Kronos. All were #1 Amazon bestsellers originally written and published between 1979 and 1994––some by Simon & Schuster in New York and all by Andre Deutsch in London.
About the Author: Laurie Devine lived in Europe for nearly twenty years, where she indulged in her own thirst for adventure. Her base was in London, but she also lived in Egypt, Switzerland and Greece and traveled extensively in Africa and Asia. She still has wanderlust and is now living in Mexico.
“Walk this Way, Please,” for CWWC. Oct 10, 2024
For Cee’s CWWC Challenge.
Is That All There Is?
Adventure’s End
“Holy smoke!” the young man cries, pulling on the reins,
his heartbeats quickened, sending blood surging through his veins.
This glorious adventure—this quest across the plains,
fording raging waters, swollen by the rains,
seems to have turned against him as the arrow whizzes by,
shaving off his hat brim just inches from his eye.
He cradles fear, as weeping, he whips the plodding team,
prodding them to frenzy as though within a dream.
The bitter taste of panic, one brief surge of regret,
causes him to finally accept his sobriquet.
When his mother named him Chauncey which his dad shortened to “Chance,”
it signaled wild adventure and dangerous romance,
and as he set out on his travels to find fortune and fame,
not once did he consider the two sides to his name.
Now he rests forever beside that lonely road
that in his youth he thought would lead him to the mother lode.
For https://chellebcom2.wordpress.com/2024/10/10/song-title-story-is-that-all-there-is/
Hide and Go Seek
Yesterday when Pasiano and I were madly carrying plants and planting them, I asked Yolanda to clean off the ledge of the wall between my neighbors and me that usually holds pots of plants as well as stone sculptures. When I came up from the garden to collect yet another plant to plant, I noticed that just one slab of slate was still on the ledge, so I removed it and set it on the slate deck below. I had only gone a couple of steps when Yolanda called out for me to come back. When I turned to do so, I saw her pointing at what I thought was a leaf stuck to the side of the wall, but as I got closer, I saw exactly what it was!
Click on photos to enlarge.
It was a tiny gray tree frog no more than 2 inches long, clinging to the side of the wall behind the piece of slate. I quickly replaced the slate but an hour or so later came out to photograph him/her, then quickly replaced the slate. That evening, I check again and this is what I saw:
So sad to lose my little neighbor.
This experience, however, put me in mind of another experience Forgottenman and I had when he picked me up iat the airport n St. Louis to drive me to Morehouse, where he lives. For that frog adventure, go HERE
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 