Rushing to get ready to leave to drive to the coast, but want to post something, so HERE is a replay of a blog from long ago which makes use of the word Mellow.
The MVB prompt is mellow
Mellowing with Age!!
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Tag Archives: #MVB-PROMPT
Sidewalks for MVB, Jan 30, 2024
Sidewalks
Be it narrow, be it wide,
A sidewalk’s made for side-to-side.
Slab by slab and stone by stone,
I do not want to walk alone.
MVB’s prompt today is Sidewalk
To the Island, for MVB, Jan 2, 2024
Click on Photos to enlarge. What do you see in these beach finds?
To the Island
If I sent you to an island, it would be for your own good.
It wouldn’t be unwillingly, with chains and ropes and hood.
I’d lure you off to be with me, surrounded by the sea.
You wouldn’t have to talk or walk or be in love with me.
The objects that I’d give you are a camera, notepad, pen
and a computer with no wifi to connect to where you’ve been.
You’d live in the present with the details of your life,
examining where you have been without the daily strife.
With no Internet distraction, no ringing of the phone,
sometimes you find a part of you that you have never known.
There’s something that is lacking in what’s crowded in one’s brain.
It’s hard to find ourselves when we must live the whole world’s pain.
In the morning, you would walk the beach, move inward with the tide,
examining what treasures the waves conceal inside.
A stone shaped like a check mark or a continent or heart–
it’s hard to suspend looking, once you’ve made a start.
You may take photos of them or collect them in your pocket—
something to make art from, or a picture for your locket.
Another way to get inside is what you write about them.
If you have secrets, it’s inevitable that you’ll out them.
The sea’s part of something larger and each treasure is a clue
connecting the whole universe to something within you.
This is why each object plucked up from the sand
is part of you that you’ve reclaimed—there within your hand.
What you see in what you find is what you have inside.
Perhaps it’s something you don’t know or that you know and hide.
The very fact that it is here revealed for you to see
may mean that you are ready to finally set it free.
The sea with all its treasures and its recurring tide
is also found within you—safely tucked inside.
So look into a mirror—a metaphor, more or less;
if you are wondering if you’ve changed, you won’t have to guess.
You’ll look for things within yourself as closely as the sea
and find out more of who you are and who you want to be.
You’ll see the changes on your face that say you’ve become wise.
Deep worry lines around your mouth and laugh lines by your eyes.
And once that you have found yourself, you’ll find yourself again;
for you are always changing—refining what you’ve been.
Tucked off on an island like a wallflower on a shelf,
perhaps you’ll find the whole wide world there within yourself.
And when you see the world within, you’ll want to live in it,
for it’s a world that you have power to change as you see fit.
For MVB the prompt is Island
If I Were Marooned on An Island with Only Three Foods?
If I were marooned on an island with only three foods, what three foods would I choose?
Potatoes, Whole Milk, Oil.
What I could make from these three ingredients? Baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, French fries (alas, no ketchup), mashed potatoes with milk and butter, potato chips, scalloped potatoes, fried potatoes, VODKA!!!!!
What I’d miss most: Salt (but I figure I could obtain it from seawater), green vegetables, (Surely there are some edible greens on the island? More likely than wild potatoes.) As for meat, there must be some game on the island and fish in the ocean or lake around it.
The Prompt for My Vivid Blog is Potatoes. Can’t resist that one!
Found Poem
jdb photo
This is actually a true story. When I was at the beach a few years ago, I had a house right on the beach and it got so I never knew who I would find on my porch when I woke up in the morning.
I published this poem once before, three years ago, but here it is again:
Found Poem
One and two and three and four.
Four little music makers pounding on my door.
One beats a rhythm, one toots a horn––
wild and sweet––sort of forlorn.
One hums a tune behind his teeth––
a sort of descant underneath
the melody on the steel guitar.
The gulls reel in from near and far
to add their screams to the refrain,
then fan their wings, silent again.
Four musicians at my gate.
I wait for their music to abate.
Then I go and let them in
to add my music to the din.
I sing my lyrics fast and slow
first soft then loud, my lyrics go
up and over the drums and horn–
out into the sandy morn.
Over the rocks and out to sea,
setting all our music free.
When the drummer leaves my porch,
he leaves just three to loft the torch.
Too soon the horn, too, fades away
but the hummer’s here to stay,
and the steel guitar swells out to fill
the morning air until until
the morning fades into full sun
and our melody comes done.
Soon guitar and singer fade,
their morning share of music made,
and I fold my songs away.
I’ll bring them out some other day.
With music left behind I wind
only words around my mind.
They weave their spell with me along.
I lose myself in their noisy throng.
Wander aimless, round and round,
in getting lost, this poem is found.
My Sister Patti’s Stroganoff Pie. Yum.
1953: My sister Patti and I. I was 6, she was 10.
My Good Sister’s Stroganoff Shepherd’s Pie
Almost everything I know about how to cook came from one of four sources: my mother, my sister Patti, my Indonesian Cookbook, Pearl Buck’s Cookbook or my Australian friend Dierdre, who taught me how to make an authentic East Indian Curry. But the recipe that follows continues to be my favorite, and one of the easiest. It is my sister Patti’s recipe for shepherd’s pie, with a few alterations for my own taste. Patti, any contradictions may be noted in the comments section!
My Good Sister’s Stroganoff Shepherd’s Pie
6 white or red potatoes
milk, butter, salt or garlic salt and pepper to taste.
2 lbs. hamburger
1 large chopped white onion
1 cup coarsely grated raw carrots
1 finely diced green pepper
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
*Clean and cut up potatoes and boil until tender in lightly salted water. No need to peel potatoes.
*Brown hamburger, green pepper and onion in skillet, chopping up the hamburger into loose meat.
*Add grated carrots for the last 5 minutes or so.
*When meat is completely browned and green pepper is tender, stir in the soup and sour cream.
*When thoroughly mixed and all ingredients are hot, place in a large cake pan.
*Mash potatoes, adding butter and salt or garlic salt and pepper to taste.
*Spread potatoes over the meat mixture and place in 250-300 degree Fahrenheit oven for 1/2 hour or until ready to serve, covering with aluminum foil and lowering oven if more time is necessary before serving.
*If you wish, you can place daubs of butter and/or grated cheddar cheese over top of potatoes and sprinkle with paprika to garnish.
(Patti’s recipe did not include carrots, green pepper, garlic or cheese.)
All amounts are arbitrary. I never use set amounts, so I’m guessing–as is usual in most oft-repeated recipes. Vary the amount of ingredients to your taste. The pieces hold together a bit better if it is allowed to cool slightly before serving.
I always think of my sister when I serve this dish, and those two years when I was still in college and she moved back to a house just a few blocks from my dorm. I remember many home-cooked meals and that she made the best Vodka Collins that I’ve ever had. Hers was the only place I could drink in college without being carded! Ha. I thank her for all the comforts of family and home provided during those years and afterwards when I came back from Africa and she again gave me a home base for a year until I got settled on my own.
For. MVB Sister prompt
Teenie Weenies: For MVB
From skating on thick ice
To everyday tales of domesticity
The closest to modern day Teenie Weenies are these model railroad figures.
They are meant to grace the scenery alongside the tracks.
You can see how many stories they tell.
Rehearsal Reblog for #MVB
I’m reblogging this blog from years ago as it seemed so perfect for the prompt today!!
Credo
Credo
It’s the opposite of sinecure, this writing of a blog,
but it’s my distinctive effort and my chosen cog
infrangible and constant in the spinning wheel of life,
it is my way to join the world with minimum pain and strife.
There may be repercussions, for you may not agree.
You may not shelter thoughts that coincide with me.
For sure, great fame and fortune are not slated to be mine,
but spending hours a day at this seems to suit me fine!!!!
That’s Ollie and Roo, a few years ago. They thought I didn’t know they were hanging out back there until I pulled the computer screen down to see why it was shaking back and forth as they wrestled.
This time I did something different and wrote a line in sequence for each prompt word before seeing any of the other prompt words. It is a fun game. I challenge you to do the same and link to this blog. The best way to do this is to favorite the six websites below. They all give daily words and you can click on the site, establish the link, write the line and go on to the next. It’s easier than you think once you establish the favorites. Or, just use the words below but look at one at a time and write your line before looking at the next. With my memory, it is easy. I could write down all six and look at the first and immediately forget the others if I don’t concentrate on them.
Prompts for the day are sinecure, distinctive, infrangible, repercussion, shelter and fame.
Prescient
When he wasn’t ranching or farming or drinking coffee in Mack’s Cafe, this is where my father could normally be found, reading or napping. Here he is dreaming his own dream. Hopefully a happy one.
Prescient
My prescient experiences happened long ago,
shedding vivid spotlights on events I could not know.
Sporadic and unplanned-for, they came to me at night,
employing dreams to bring future happenings to light.
Once, thick in dreams, I woke to the ringing of the phone
and got up to answer its insistent tone.
“Miss Dykstra, this is Ludwig’s. You can come pick up your prints!”
Ready two days early? It didn’t make much sense.
I said I’d be there shortly, but then went back to bed,
hoping to fall back to sleep, but, alas, instead,
the phone began to ring again, so I got out of bed,
“Miss Dykstra? We are calling to say your dad is dead!”
In shock, I dropped the receiver, and as it hit the floor,
it began to ring again. How could it have rung more?
Puzzled, I woke up in bed. The whole time I’d been sleeping!
So I got up in the real world to stem the phone’s loud beeping.
“Miss Dykstra? This is Ludwigs.” The voice was calm and steady.
“We just called to say that your color prints are ready!”
That summer morning, a cold chill rendered me unsteady.
Again, I though it should have been two days ’til they were ready!
I drove uptown to get my prints and when I got back home,
I could hear the ringing of my telephone.
I struggled then with key in lock, but the ringing died
before I even managed to get myself inside.
I couldn’t tell who called me, for I had no means
in those days before cellphones or answering machines.
I went into the bathroom to draw myself a bath.
It would take some soaking to dispel the aftermath
of these weird occurrences. A good half hour or more
had passed before I heard the opening of my kitchen door.
It was my Mom and Sister, both of them in tears.
My dad had had a heart attack, echoing my fears.
In time, it was the end of him, though he lived four more years—
a time in which he had to learn how to shift his gears.
A large man, hale and hearty, and active his whole life,
for those four years he had to depend upon his wife
to open doors and lift things heavier than a phone,
belligerently accepting help for things once done alone.
“We tried to call you earlier, they said. Where did you go?
I’d had two calls to pick up photos, and so I told them so.”
This really did happen, exactly as described. Two sets of phone calls, the words exactly the same in the first set—one a dream, the other reality, although in the second set, I received only the first one in a dream and when I missed the second phonecall, my sister had to deliver the message herself.
Word prompts today are thick, sporadic, prescient, employ, summer and bellligerent.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 