Tag Archives: coronavirus

High School Commencement, 2020 Style

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     muhammad-rizwan-VnydpKiCDaY-unsplash Used with permission

High School Commencement, 2020 Style

Here in Coyote Valley, we’ve had a small preview
of just what can happen when the world has gone askew.
High School Graduation might have gone without a hitch.
A certain senior’s choice of clothing was the only glitch.
When he approached the platform, parents nearly had a stroke.
His classmates simply had a laugh. They all enjoyed the joke.
His Hazmat suit was timely, though his mortarboard was tilted.
It beat the valedictory speech, which was a little stilted.
Thus Billy Jenkins pulled one over getting his diploma.
First the face mask and what with the principal’s glaucoma,
he missed the fact of who he had just handed an escape
from another year as senior without the dread red tape
of actually passing history, keyboarding or biology.
English, math or woodshop, PE or sociology.
Without opening a single book, Billy counted coup.
Add this to the statistics. COVID-19 got him through.

Prompts for today are coyote, valley, graduation, stroke and preview,

Empty Datebook

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Empty Datebook

Another lonely Saturday. The singles are all vexed—
a world of restless wallflowers, feeling they’re surely hexed.
If I may be candid, Corona’s not at fault.
You’re not some precious treasure, sealed up in a vault.
If we did our homework, we’d know the truth of it.
You didn’t have that many  dates  before the virus hit!

 

Prompts today are Saturday, Candid, Lonely, Vex and Homework.

Once more, Trump the Teflon President Opens Mouth and Causes More Deaths. Will There Be any Repercussions?

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Screen Shot 2020-04-23 at 9.02.54 AM

 

https://www.yahoo.com/now/hydroxychloroquine-expert-suggests-doctors-should-halt-prescriptions-for-covid-19-patients-after-concerning-study-203327701.html

Empty Spaces

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mathew-schwartz-4GXtM_XR5zo-unsplash

Empty Spaces

The world has stilled its hectic pace, although its clocks tick on.
We stand at windows peering out, imagining what’s gone.
Rapid passings night and day, our reachings and attainings
have made way for the meantime to leave us our remainings.
There is a little secret the Swiss learned long ago
that has to do with leaving space—the worth of going slow.
Their cheese that is the richest is full of empty spaces—
its flavor made the tangier by what nature erases.
The holes are not just emptiness, for factors that have made them
create a richer cheese than the cheeses that evade them.
The blocks with larger spaces have a better taste.
In short, the empty room they leave is anything but waste.
Perhaps it is the same with the new spaces in our lives.
Perhaps the empty spaces are where the meaning thrives.

Note: Holes in Swiss cheese are created by the bacteria which change milk to cheese. Propionibacterium uses the lactic acid which is produced by other bacteria, and produces carbon dioxide gas; the gas slowly forms bubbles which makes the holes. In general, Swiss cheeses with larger eyes have a better taste.

Prompts today are Swiss, hectic, attain, secret and clock. Image by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Rebuffing Human Nature

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Rebuffing Human Nature

Nature is overwhelmed by us, regretting what we’ve cost.
We’re clouding up her atmosphere and melting all her frost.
She’s showing she’s indignant now by arming every gun.
Before we even see them, I fear that they’ll have won.
Her armaments are minuscule, but nonetheless they’ll beat us.
Weapons need not be visible in order to defeat us.
Determining their actions, our leaders often stumbled.
They find it hard to face they’ve been outstrategized and humbled.
When this mess is over, one more mess will be presented.
Mother Nature will not quit ‘til mankind has repented––
cleaned up all its messes, ceased drilling for her oil,
stopped polluting water and messing with her soil.
If we do not listen and stubbornly persist
in annoying Mother Nature, we may cease to exist.

 

Prompts today are overwhelmed, indignant, now, determine and frost.

 

Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting

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So what happens when all the bans are lifted? Have we learned anything at all from this unprecedented event which has affected the entire world? Read on for some provoctive thoughts on the matter.

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-13 at 5.04.25 PM.pngScreen Shot 2020-04-13 at 5.04.59 PM.png
go HERE to read the rest of the article.

All News is not Bad News

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All News is Not Bad News

Would each person who reads this please post one kindness that one of your neighbors or even a stranger has done for you in this time of great national and world pain and link it to comments on this post? I have had three neighbors call me and say that they were going to Costco and Walmart and offer to shop for me. My housekeeper’s son came at 9 o’clock at night after getting off work to replace the battery in my car and then called the next day to see if there was anything else he could do. Next, please. Let’s show each other that we are not our president and that we are keeping caring and decency alive in the world by our actions.

 

Wake up Before it is Too Late!!!

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Federal Government knew about the Corona Virus breakout and what effect it would have on the U.S. as early as November. Read about it here. People, we need a head of government who knows what he is doing and who is not just a media star!  Open your eyes. Your life and the existence of the world is at stake in this and other matters. Research says that pollution helped to spread the virus. Listen to the scientists, not a reality “star.”

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources-080111894–abc-news-topstories.html

The Lonely Artist Arts Challenge

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 The cache. Think we can make anything out of it?

About the third day of my isolation, when I had to cancel a visit by a friend who has in the past been a fun art playmate, I came up with a plan whereby we could sorta do art together without breathing on each other. The idea was to find a couple of other artist friends and for each of us to contribute a bag of “stuff” to each of the others. No rules except that the same stuff needed to be contributed to each of us. As it turned out, the participants were my friend Brad, my friend Candace, Candace’s friend Jean and yours truly.

After a week or so to collect the stuff, I said I would go collect Brad’s stuff in Ajijic, drive to Chapala to give our stuff to Candace and she could give me the bags from Jean and her, then I could take all of our stuff back to Brad, Now, you might have noticed  that we live in three different towns ,and since I haven’t been out of my house  for two weeks except once two days ago to drive less than a mile down the mountain to the tiny grocery store at its bottom., this was a big expedition! And I was going to see people! Albeit from at least 6 feet away.

I showered, washed my hair, put on makeup and clothes for the first time in two weeks, and compiled a list of things to do and buy in town: i.e. visit bank, paint store, pharmacy, Walmart and Super Lake–the best miracle all-and-everything-American edibles store in Mexico–and disperse the art supplies. All ready to go, I went out to my car to find the battery dead!  Now I have an electric battery charger, but I also have a very small garage, so once the car is parked inside it, the front bumper is just about one inch from the door of the cupboard that the battery charger resides within.  And, without juice in the battery, I can’t shift the car into neutral to roll it back to get the cupboard door open or to get the engine in a position so jumper cables can reach from it to another car. Luckily, my gardener Pasiano was there and we finally jerry-rigged three separate sets of battery cables end-to-end and using the car of a friend who just happened to start painting a mural on the outside wall of my house that very day, we tried to charge the battery but alas.it was dead as a, well, dead battery!

Suffice it to say that my big plans were changed and my self-enhancement procedures all in vain. I called my friends, cancelled my plans and st 9 at night, Yolanda’s son, who just happens to both be a mechanic and to work in an automotive supply store, came with a new battery, installed it, and finally today I was off again. (This time I didn’t bother with makeup but I did again don clothing.) The plan was that I would put on my mask and collect Brad’s bags in Ajijic, take our material to Candace’s house in Chapala, and when I arrived, call her on my cell phone. She would open the gate from her upstairs apartment and I’d set our bags inside the gate and collect the bags of Jean and Candace.

When I got there, however, Candace had a more creative exchange in mind. Taking isolation to its furthest extreme, she was on the roof of her house letting down an incredible pulley-fueled bucket within which to put our bags. She then pushed a button and up they went. Her and Jean’s MUCH larger bags were hanging on a hook on the wall. I took them and was off to Brad’s and then homeward. The last time Brad came to my house, he brought me an ECHO, to which I immediately became addicted. “Alexa, play John Prine.”  This time when I put on my mask and called to let him know I was waiting in my car outside his house, he arrived with art bags and an ice cream bar! Some men just know what women like!  Thanks, Brad.

So. I was off with a car fully-laden not just with art materials but with 5 liters of paint, groceries, appliances and animal food from Walmart, food from Super Lake and business taken care of at the bank, and when I got unpacked and the former”stuff” swept to one side on my dining room table, I opened the four bags to reveal the items that were to become the materials for my next art project. A mighty heap, to say the least. Hmmm. I think I’m going to change the rules to say you don’t have to use all of the material. Perhaps at least one of each category of things? Upcoming, I hope, will be photos of our projects.. perhaps at different stages.

So, if you are an artist, or if you aren’t—why not mount a similar project with your friends and show us your contents of bags and final results? It’s a Challenge!  Or, choose your own media. Want to bake a Lonely Artist Covid cake? Great. Write a poem? Paint a painting? Do a mural? Make an intriguing mask? Snap a photo? Do a video? Sing a song? Do a dance? All are welcome. Just link your contribution via a link to this blog.You can go HERE to see my answer to the challenge,  HERE to see Candace Spence’s piece and HERE to see Jean Mulleneaux’s contribution. We’d love to see your answer to the challenge.

That’s Candace waaaay up there and the metal cable of the pulley.
The cache. Think we can make anything out of it?

Click on photos to enlarge.

Earth Slaps Back

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“As more is learned about the recurrence of Covid-19, the study also could have far-reaching implications for clean-air regulations, which the Trump administration has worked to roll back over the past three years on the grounds that they have been onerous to industry.

“The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the Covid-19 crisis,” the study said.

Last week, the Trump administration announced a plan to weaken Obama-era regulations on automobile tailpipe emissions, asserting the rollback would save lives because Americans would buy newer, safer vehicles. But the administration’s own analysis also found that there would be even more premature deaths from increased air pollution.”  (Click on the link above to read more. . . .)