School Reunions

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School Reunions

Entangled in the distant past, we recall and illuminate
those fifty-year-old stories as we gather to ruminate.
Pranks, first loves and scandals so far back in our past,
it’s as though it was a movie in which we all were cast.

That thumbtack “someone” placed upon our history teacher’s chair.
Will the scoundrel confess at last? But no, he doesn’t dare.
And in our sixties, will we snitch? No, there is not one.
Not one of us reveals the answer to that smoking gun.

The raided slumber parties, the trips up England’s hill,
we tell the stories of our past until we’ve had our fill,
then jump to doleful stories of tragedies and sorrows—
the few of those lost in their youth, deprived of all their morrows.

Hayrides by the river, pep rallies and school dances,
boys passing girls in cars on Main, pondering their chances.
Wild Homecoming raids on barns where we were building floats,
whisperings in Civics class and furtively passed notes.

Both schools we passed those years in have been felled by wrecking crews,
replaced by newer buildings, erasing all the clues
of years we spent within them, the carvings on the desks,
all our various antics as we lived out youth’s burlesques.

Our memories getting dimmer, each five years, we choose to meet
to reminisce and chew the fat. To drink and dance and eat.
We don’t discuss the present. It’s as though it’s in a haze
as we go back to live our half-remembered yesterdays.

Prompt words today are entangle, doleful, ruminate and jump.

Succulent Series, FOTD Sept 21, 2020

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For Cee’s FOTD

Expats in Mexico

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Well, no one stopped me, so here is a lovely essay about American Expats in his native Mexico by Arturo Garcia, who is now a Mexican expat and wonderful artist and poet living in the U.S. I guess we traded places:

If there were Americans in Chapala, in Ajijic there were even more. They met at the Old Posada, at the Plaza, at the restaurants in La Montaña, and at the Lake Chapala Society. They had large houses in La Floresta, in Rancho del Oro and more in the heart of town where they felt part of the native community. Those who chose to live in town were not bothered by the cocks that began to crow in the corrals at five in the morning or by the dogs that barked all night at some opossum or some nagual soul that arrived in the shape of an owl. For them, the superstition of the people was ancestral mysticism and they saw it as part of our culture that they had learned in books and that the townspeople without knowing, lived by innate wisdom and by being direct heirs of the Indians who survived the conquests. People had that in their blood and Americans were attracted to it because everything was authentic.

Americans who were touched by the magic of the town left everything behind to stay. Many set aside their piece of land in the municipal cemetery because that was how great their love for the town was. Sometimes they used the politics of their country or the state of social decline as an excuse, but the real reason they did not return was not known to them. They were simply bewitched by the spirit of Ajijic and there was nothing to separate them, not even death.

They, the Ajijic Americans, stood out by their way of dressing, by the efforts they made to speak Spanish and did not judge the native ways of some inhabitants who refused progress, on the contrary, they went to the store with their huaraches and embroidered morral bags made by Huichol Indians while the women came out with their Oaxacan blouses looking and feeling like Frida Kahlo herself. It was nice to see them with their Mexican hearts blending with the locals, putting aside their cameras to hang Wixarika morrales on their shoulders when they decided to stop recording memories with the 35-millimeter camera roll to start storing them on the roll of memory living the experience permanently.

Photo: Pedro Loco. Inside Lakeside.

HERE is a link to Arturo’s website. Go here to see his art. 

Someone Stop Me Before I Blog Again!!! (New Pants)

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On September 12, I posted a photo of a pair of khaki pants hung on my towel rod in my bathroom to encourage me to stick to my diet. At that time, I couldn’t get them zipped up. A week or so later, I could get them zipped and buttoned but they were pretty uncomfortable. Well, today, good news! They zipped and buttoned easily and were wearable. So, they are being retired and a new pair going up in their place. These are even tighter than the khakis were, so may take longer. It’s a great incentive to see them every time I go into the bathroom, day or night. So, here goes. It is September 20 and I’m counting down. I hope.

The Deposed:

The Newest Denizen of the Towel Bar:

Incredible Leaf Cutouts

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These leaf cutouts are so wonderful that they defy description. Click on link below to see 30 of them:

https://www.boredpanda.com/japanese-artist-cute-leaf-cutouts-lito-leafart/

ON THE DIME or “ON THE NICKEL?”

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If F.D.R. was our 32nd president and Trump our 45th, what is the difference between? Good old unlucky #13.  Is it any coincidence that 13 presidents later, after one of our best presidents was elected, one who is definitely our worst was elected? Our culture needs to smarten up and start putting people first, money somewhere down the line. What good is a good economy if only the richest profit from it???? With our economy, our health and our morale at an all-time low, too many have gone “on the nickel” under Trump’s administration. Whereas FDR led us out of a depression, Trump has determinedly led us into the threat of one.

“On the Nickel” refers to 5th street in downtown Los Angeles, which is a location where many of the homeless hang out.  A mission on 5th street is known as “The Nickel,” taken from both the name of the street and the phrase “on the nickel” which describes someone homeless and perhaps begging for nickels.

In the song “On the Nickel” (Heart Attack and Vine) Tom Waits sings: “And what becomes of all the little boys who never comb their hair? They’re lined up all around the block on the nickel over there.” This is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs. Listen to it here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCKEi0cAFo

 

FROM C.S. LEWIS, A QUOTE TO PONDER ON GOOD AND EVIL IN THESE MODERN DAYS

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If you only read one thing today, read this–a reblog of an exceptional and scary blog by Marilyn Armstrong.

Marilyn Armstrong's avatarSerendipity - Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

A remarkable quote from C.S. Lewis, the author of many remarkable quotes that never seem to get old or lack current veracity in the real world — even a hundred years after their original publication:

“To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism (Meaning: baseness, dishonesty, double-dealing) will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colors…. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still–just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naive or a prig–the hint will come. It will be the hint of something, which is not quite…

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A Way Out

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A Way Out

He thinks he is inexorable, but he’s only temporary.
His expiration date reveals that he is just contemporary.
He’ll go down as a buffoon in the annals of our nation,
and his exit from the White House will bring great jubilation.
When greed combines with vanity and thirst for power and fame,
then achieves the oval office, the whole nation is to blame.
Would that he’s vivified our populace from living room to coffice
to get their butts out and to vote this charlatan from office!
May justice thus be vivified and liberty brought home,
and a sense of the rational be restored to the dome.

I’VE VOTED. HAVE YOU, OR WILL YOU????

Word prompts today are exit, inexorable, collide, vivify and temporary.

Hoja Santa: Yes, It’s a Flower! FOTD, Sept 20, 2020

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This flowering  Hoja Santa plant covers a huge expanse of the wall between my house and my neighbor’s. All photos may be enlarged by clicking on them. 

The huge leaves of this plant are used to wrap meat, fish and other food in to cook it. One leaf could wrap an entire fish. The flowers are those long white extensions that eventually thicken, change color, fall to the ground and look exactly like snakes! Mine grew from a small plant Paciano brought me years ago and it is now at least 30 feet wide and 15 feet high.

“Piper auritum is sometimes referred to as pepperleaf, sacred pepper, or root beer plant. Its holy name alludes to a Mexican legend that the Virgin Mary dried the young Messiah’s clean diapers on its branches, which seems unlikely considering the plant’s Mesoamerican origins.

The herb’s unusual flavor is hard to pin down, but it has been compared to licorice, sassafras, mint, tarragon, and eucalyptus. . . .Salsa strengthener: Hoja santa is widely used in traditional Central and South American recipes, both savory and sweet. The Aztecs likely included it in their unsweetened chocolate beverages. It is often sliced and added to pozole or egg dishes, though it is most commonly used as an ingredient in mole Amarillo and mole verde in Oaxaca. In Veracruz, Chiapas, and Tobasco, the broad heart-shaped leaves are used to wrap meat, fish, and occasionally even tamales before cooking. “

The above quotes are taken from THISwebsite. Go there for more information about this interesting plant.

Hoja Santa flowers about to fall to the ground to become snakes.

See the entire wall of Hoja Santa to the left of the pool? This is just about 1/2  of the plant, which towers over the rest of the greenery. Only the palm trees are higher.

for Cee’s FOTD

Getting Atten”tion”

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Write a “tion” poem? Okay, hold onto your hat!

Exhortation

Discussing a good book can improve any conversation,
while other books just serve us as a means of rumination.
Books come in many forms from poetry to exhortation.
Some use them to improve their minds, others as decoration.

Books furnish everyone a chance to get an education
as writers entertain us and provide elucidation.
Ghost stories and horror books give rise to palpitation.
Action and adventure lead to heights of exultation.

Comics lead to laughter and beyond—to jubilation.
Histories tell tales of conquerors and usurpation—
deprivation due to wars, like bombing raids and rations,
slaughter, mayhem, battle strategies and amputations.

Some books furnish thrills while some serve only as sedation.
Some books read as sermons, others bombastic oration.
Preachers read from Bibles to provide their congregation
with words that furnish some with hope, others with trepidation.

Some dread books they feel may raise their “lessers” to their station.
Some fear the joy they rouse in us and label our elation
as the hands of Satan, which they’ll cure with amputation,
labeling their action as an act of “God’s creation.”

Driven to destroy the means of all our excitation,
having few words of their own, a zealot’s main “quotation”
is burning books they fear in a colossal conflagration
that gives another meaning to the word “illumination!”

Whatever you might like to read, a certain exultation
waits for you when reading is your favorite vocation.
A torrid romance may work best while on a beach vacation,
(the heat a good excuse for your excessive perspiration.)

Mysteries serve for planes and trains—all forms of transportation—
either while you’re riding or just waiting in the station.
Books are everywhere. They form a great accumulation.
They bore us, reassure us, or provide great inspiration.

Information in most books serves as a vaccination
against hate and bigotry and all discrimination.
For those trapped by fate, they make a good means of migration,
as reading has no borders as to neighborhood or nation.

For Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Sunday prompt: “tion.”