I had 6,343 views so far today- A good portion of them are from Germany. Can anyone explain to me why? If you are in Germany reading this blog, can you tell me what prompted your reading it?
Help Solve a Mystery?
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Tag Archives: Mystery
“Outpost” for Word of the Day, June 20, 2025
photo by Judy Dykstra-Brown
Outpost
Who cares
if I swim naked in my pool?
All other human occupants
have left this neighborhood behind,
leaving more room
for possums, skunks,
birds, scorpions, spiders
and me.
I keep a closer company with them
than I do with any human these days.
This week, I talk to the large caterpillar
who seems to sprout two crystals from his crown
as he deserts his usual branch
on the Virginia Creeper vine
to sit for a day on the Olmec head
that guards my swimming pool.
Back and forth, back and forth I pass,
adding a look at him to my lap routine.
For one long afternoon,
he sits still—like Alice’s caterpillar,
but hookah-less,
meditating on his stone perch.
If he were on my Virginia Creeper,
I’d be repositioning him
to the empty lot next door, but here
he seems to be a guest; and so some etiquette
keeps me from altering his placement
as he sits on his stone outpost, moving his suction cups in sequence
now and then, only to alter his direction, not his territory.
Perhaps I’ve stayed too long
in this one place.
That wandering poet within me
may have somewhere it thinks I need to go.
If it creates a good alternative,
I might follow in much the same way
that I have come to this point
in my poem.
Blindly, in a maze of words,
open to what comes next.
The Word of the Day is Outpost. Both the story behind this poem and the photo itself are factual. I’ve never been able to figure out those crystals growing out of this hummingbird moth caterpillar’s head. I’ve removed and repositioned hundreds of them out of my vine over the years and never seen another one sporting this phenomenon. Nor have I ever seen one stray from the vines on their own volition. Why this one came to be sitting on the large Olmec stone carving at the end of my pool is a further mystery. It is the only time that I’ve ever transported a caterpillar back to the vine instead of removing it and taking it down to the lot below my house.
Mystery
I just discovered a very strange thing. Here are three photos of the rustic bench that my friend Lach “saved” for me by infusing the rotted wood with epoxy . The first is a photo of just the bench, the second of Lach with the bench. The third has Lach sitting on the bench and me behind, but where has the bench gone? He seems to be sitting on air!!! How could this have happened????? Has AI taken over my photo file and started pulling jokes on me?
I swear, I did not alter the photo..and would not have had the skill to have done so.
A Curious Happening
A Curious Happening
This is a reprint of something that happened eight years ago, and I swear it is true. I came in, tossed some change down on the desk and opened my computer. After working for a few minutes, I looked down and this is what I saw. Luckily my camera was handy just a few steps away. What are the chances that the coin would balance itself on edge like this???? Curious, I tried at least a dozen times to balance a coint on its edge and couldn’t balance it. Finally, I decided my friendly desk poltergeists must have had a hand in it.
Then, the next day, I’d been at my desk for about an hour, off and on, running to the kitchen, doing little things around the house, and when I finally sat down to type, I happened to glance at my desk and this is what I saw:
There had been no one else in the house. I don’t know what happened to the larger ten peso piece from the day before, but I do know I was clicking the flashlight off and on last night. I did not, however, place this smaller coin next to it or upright!.
To test out a theory, I just now lifted up the flashlight and knocked the coin over, then put the flashlight next to it, thinking perhaps one or the other had been magnetized, but the coin stayed in place flat on the desk and did not rise to the occasion. Then I tried placing the coin on edge several times, to no avail.When I sat the coin on edge propped up against the flashlight and moved the flashlight, however, the coin stayed on its edge. When I tried tossing it on the desk or dropping it, never once has it landed on its edge. Very very strange. I know it is just a coincidence, but I’m curious about how I could have moved the coins without being aware of it and it is a huge coincidence that the small coin should wind up on edge twice in a row when in 68 years of life, I’ve never had this happen before.
Little Mysteries
Little Mysteries
The essence of attachment is discovery,
but there’s also much allure in a mystery.
So sometimes when an answer seems definitely certain,
it might behoove us just this once to sagely pull a curtain.
Word prompts today are curtains, essence, discovery, attachment.
FOTD–Do You Know What This Is? Mar 16, 2019
Click on any photo to enlarge all.
Please tell me your guess as to what this is in comments. Yes, I do know what it is. HERE is a further hint and closeup of the seeds.
For Cee’s FOTD
Solution to the Mystery
What I photographed a few days ago was this clear balloon lit up with L.E.D. lights. I think it was a leftover from the Rave they held across the bay which had just closed down. Afterwards, they brought them over to La Manzanilla to sell to the rodeo crowd! A man approached me in the street in front of my house and offered it at 180 pesos, then 150. Finally, at 100 pesos, I put him out of his misery. A friend said she bought one for 280 pesos! I really wasn’t bargaining. Just didn’t think it necessary until it was so cheap that I couldn’t resist.
Here it is two days later. The balloon is deflating and the LED strands aren’t. When it is almost totally deflated, I’ll try to figure out a way to blow it up again. It has replaceable batteries, so if I can keep the air in it, it should last for a long time.
HERE is my initial post entitled “Cosmic Self-Portrait” in which I asked you to identify what it was. It was taken on my terrace at night and you could look through it into the inside of my rental house but also see me reflected in it as I took the photo–plus surrounding lights.
Three Stories Miraculously Bonded into One
Click on the first photo to enlarge all photos and read the captions. You must do this first to reveal the mystery. What do all of these things have in common? Can you guess before reading the complete story printed after the photos and captions? Do you even want to?
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A broken jar of fingernail polish
Air freshener and special cat odor cleanser and a bottle of nail polish. What can they possibly have in common?
A just cleaned kitty litter box,
more Brussels sprouts,
a pristine bathroom floor,
a “saved” new rug,
Annie just peed in my shower––I mean a man-sized stream that arced up from where she was standing on the floor in front of the shower, over the 6 inch ledge and into the shower, where it ran from a couple of feet away right down the drain. I shouted, “No, no,” but she finished and ran away. Then I remembered that I’d cleaned out her box this morning in the location where it is located in the guest room shower and had to empty all the sand and wash out the box and under it because there was pee all over the shower floor, probably because all the cats were in yesterday and had used it and it was not pleasant to enter, so she just peed in the shower, or they did.
Anyway, I had sprayed ammonia over all the floor and box, scrubbed them both and then sprayed again with an odor eradicator and stood the box on end to dry while the shower floor dried. Then I closed the door so she didn’t go in there while it was drying. Unfortunately, I then left to drive Yolanda home, do a bit of shopping and stop by the fraccionamiento office to see if I’d paid my special assessment. I then stopped by a couple of neighbor’s houses to apologize for Diego’s barking while I was gone–another story–forgetting that I hadn’t opened the door to her guest room bathroom and set up her litter box again, so she had nowhere to pee. She did it in the easiest place to clean. Good girl.
Phew. Telling about it took as much effort as doing the two cleanups, but now the plot thickens.
Yesterday I knocked a bottle of dark rose-colored nail polish off the counter of my master bedroom bathroom and it dropped and broke on the eggshell-colored ceramic tile of my bathroom, spraying across 8 feet of floor, over the new rug I had just bought in the states, and a bit up the wall. Rapidly drying pools of bright polish and splatters mixed in with shards of glass and tiny pieces of glass made passing through the bathroom to the tub nearly impossible! Damn! How to clean it up without walking through it and cutting my fingers to shreds? I ended up wadding Kleenex and toilet paper and picking up what shards were big enough to see, then used nail polish remover pads to tackle the polish, removing big gobs with Kleenex, then carefully scrubbing with the pads. When I ran out of pads, I put polish remover on wads of Kleenex, but it was a big job.
When I had cleared away most of the bigger puddles and largest shards and removed most of the polish off the wall and rug, I had just the decorative splashes left—about 3 feet of them—it occurred to me then that the first thing forgottenman would say when I told him the story was, “Did you take pictures?” No, I hadn’t. So, now that most of the mess was already cleaned up, I did. Secondly, it occurred to me that I should just pour the rest of the bottle of polish remover over the floor and use my foot in my Croc to rub Kleenex over them. I wouldn’t have to worry about glass and could apply more pressure. I finally got it all up and then put more remover down and rubbed over larger areas to remove the stain, as that porous area now sported an overall pinkish glow.
Finally, coming up to the present and Annie’s peeing in the shower, when I was mopping up her urine with toilet paper so I could flush it, I found a pretty good sized clear shard of glass from the top part of the jar which had no polish on it to make it obvious, jagged end facing up, in the shower just where I would have stepped when I took my next shower. It had flown up and over the edge and into the shower when the nail polish bottle broke! Good Annie! Her foresight (or hindsight?) in peeing in my shower probably saved me a serious injury.
But! Did I really say finally? As I was writing this post, the plot thickened again. Just before I started writing this post and taking the photos to accompany it, I had put a small pan of Brussels sprouts on to steam. Since there were only seven largish sprouts, I used a steamer basket in a small covered saucepan with water up to the bottom of the steamer bottom. I had cut the tops of each sprout almost through to the bottom in an X pattern, and as I sprinkled them with “No Salt,” pepper, garlic powder and a bit of balsamic vinegar, I was remembering the last Brussels sprouts I’d had when I first got to Sheridan two months ago. They were served as an appetizer in a restaurant and since both my sister and Jim, her husband, hate them, it was up to my friend Patty, her boyfriend Duffy and me to polish off the whole batch. That was no problem. They were delicious—piquant and a bit charred with a wonderful smoky flavor. I was wondering how I could duplicate that recipe. Would I steam them first, then char them? What were the spices? For years I’d been using a friend’s recipe which I loved but I liked these even better.
At any rate, the present day Brussels sprouts went on the gas stovetop to steam and I went to the bathroom to survey the scene and to write this story, then to my desk in the bedroom to finish it. One thing led to another and a half hour had passed before I finished typing the story. When I came back to the living room to plug in my computer, edit photos and post, I heard a sizzling and rapid rocking sound and smelled a burning smell. Damn! The Brussels sprouts! I quickly turned off the gas under the completely waterless smoking saucepan, removed the sprouts with tongs and took the pan to the sink, running hot water over the charred black inside of the pan. Yes. More hissing and steam, but then, mindlessly, I turned the pan over and ran cold water over the burning hot pan. Instantly, an explosion of steam so intense that it removed the color from the outside of the enamel pan that was nearest to its bottom.
Luckily, I had a huge box of baking soda and two partially full bottles of cider vinegar. Into the pan they went with the expected chemical reaction: rapidly swelling foam and more hissing. I did a rigorous scrubbing with a scrubber sponge and Spongedaddy, using lots of muscle power as well as more soda and vinegar. Scrub scrub scrub. Although I got some of the char off the sides, I made little progress with the bottom of the inside of the pan.
As I left the pan in the sink to soak, I spied the Brussels sprouts neglected on the counter. I mixed up a bit of stevia in balsamic vinegar and sprinkled it over the sprouts. Swirled them a bit, then decided to taste. I think you’ve guessed the ending. Yup. They tasted exactly like the Brussels sprouts appetizer in the restaurant in Sheridan, Wyoming. So, again, thanks Annie. I’ll think twice before scolding you for any future misdeeds. But I’m going to have to buy a new pan. xoxoxo
The Clew of the “Tapa Rojo.”
The Mystery of the Vanishing Red Tennis Ball Lids!!!!
My small dog is a fetcher, but oh, at what a cost.
I swear for every twenty balls I throw, one shows up lost.
I’ve been buying tubes of tennis balls for many years,
yet within a few months, our supply is in arrears.
I go to buy another lot that vanishes the same.
Where are these balls? What eats them? What ambitious tree’s to blame
for hoarding them like fruit up high in assorted branches
where they are invisible, thwarting all our chances
to retrieve the orbs that are so vital for my throwing,
and in his pursuit of them, for Morrie’s come and going?
There is another mystery surrounding this adventure—
one that is more serious, occasioning my censure.
These tubes of tennis balls that come packaged in neat threes
so I can loft them from the pool to reside in trees,
happen to have covers that I find indispensible
and when you know the reason why, I’ll think you’ll find it sensible
that I hoard them like diamonds, a utilitarian treasure—
for it just so happens that they fit, measure for measure
my cans of open cat food, and dog food, too, precisely.
No tops bought for this purpose can seal the cans so nicely.
Since I feed seven animals two times every day,
there are always half-full cans I have to put away.
They have four different diets, and for every one I feed
I need a different can of food, so you can see my need
for those red tops that seal them up, free from any smell
that makes a fridge with human food smell like cat food Hell!
For my odor-free fridges, I’m fast in Wilson’s debt,
for I’ve had Morrie for four years and in that time, I bet
I’ve purchased 15 tubes of balls for him to chase and chew.
So I should have 15 red tops. Still, I have only two!
Where can these tops be going? Is my dog-walker purloining them
to sell on the black market? And have tennis balls been joining them?
Are they being used as Frisbees by some child of a friend
who snatches them when I am not there to apprehend
this purloiner of cat food lids, this wily thief of tops,
knowing that no sane person would dare to call the cops
over a piece of plastic, no matter how securely
it hugs the tops of dog food cans–so snuggly and so purely?
Are dogs stealing and chewing them and burying them after?
Have the cats purloined them and stowed them in some rafter?
I’ve questioned sweet Yolanda who must think that I am crazy.
She only shakes her head at me, looking somewhat hazy.
“Donde estan mis tapas rojas?” Pasiano, on a breather,
does not seem to have a single clue of what I’m saying, either.
They point out other pet food lids. I’ve purchased quite a few,
but not one fits securely. Only tennis ball lids will do.
Each life contains its mysteries—mundane or scintillating—
concerning who put dents in cars or whom our kids are dating.
Things break, get lost or vanish by means less than pernicious,
and yet the regularity of my thefts is suspicious!
These valueless little objects to me are indispensible
and so I find the loss of them especially reprehensible!
Roll on the floor and laugh at me. Deride me if you must,
but I still view these petty thefts to be vile and unjust.
I’d like to solve the mystery. Stop the crime spree. Put the skids on it,
so I can solve the crime and literally put the lids on it!
Ragtag’s word of the day is clew.
Fandango’s word of the day is scintillating.
And, the Daily Addiction’s prompt is ambition.
Hidden Treasure
Hidden Treasure
What we keep hidden from each other
forms the mystery that keeps us coming back for more.
Like the relish that enhances the main course.
Like the dessert at the end of the meal,
not the real nourishment, but rather
a reward for putting up with the day-to-day
ragtag repetitions, irritations, boredoms
of knowing each other so well.
The loyalties, down to the heart honesties,
those passions held in common, those trials shared
are the meals we feed each other day-by-day.
But what person does not need, as well,
the thrill of the unopened package,
the darkness hidden under the stairs?
FOWC’s prompt for the day is Hidden.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 