Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week Fifteen

t's week 15 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: perpendicular, carpentry, garage, lute player, radishes, tin roof, wild flowers, stop light, gargantuan And for the Mini Challenge: gravy boat, cat carrier, Madison, Wisconsin, March Hare, gratitude

Here's my ten-word offering for this week.

Putting a tin roof on the garage was not exactly carpentry, but it was the first step in his plan. Once the roof was on, he would re-design the inside and it would be a garage no more but a haven from the world, even from Martha. It would be a place for meditation and creativity. He would hang the painting of the lute player that he loved so and she so hated. He would plant wild flowers all around the outside and string beans and cucumbers and radishes and he would wrap them in positive energy so that they would grow to be gargantuan and taste like love. He’d plant a large perpendicular board right in front and write peace in all the languages he could find. And since it had once been a garage, he’d paint a two-sided sign in the shape of a stop light. Red would declare no admittance and green would “give the go” to anyone who wanted to join him in meditation. As for Martha, she’d just have to find another place to park her car.

And here's my mini challenge:

George was returning to Madison, Wisconsin with more than a bit of dread in his heart. Thanksgiving with his family was a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party, his father playing the part of the Mad Hatter, Mother making appearances as the Queen of Hearts, and three of his four siblings taking turns as the March Hare. It would have been funny if it weren’t so damned scary. At the last family “tea party,” someone had dropped the gravy boat and the ensuing hysteria and filled him with profound gratitude that Madison was so far from his present home that he only had to make the dreadful pilgrimage once every three or four years. Looking over at his cat Alice who was sleeping peacefully in her cat carrier, he whispered, “Prepare yourself, Ali. You are about to enter Wonderland.”

And the mega challenge:

As lute player for a somewhat eccentric string quintet that called itself Alice and the March Hares (for reasons that were lost in the history of some forgotten joke), Miranda was somewhat uneasy about their current “gig” in Madison, Wisconsin. Sitting at the stop light she could not see any prospect of a warm welcome for the March Hares at the large garage-like building with the tin roof at which they had been booked to play. It looked rather more like a biker bar to her than a proper venue for a string quintet. Her dread increased when she was greeted by a gargantuan giant of a man holding what looked like a cat carrier. “Cat?” he had responded to her inquiry and then realizing her mistake had laughingly replied, “No cat. I do the carpentry around here. This is my tool kit…. Don’t tell me you March Hares were expecting the Cheshire cat to be here,” he chuckled opening the door for her... “or are you Alice?” he added as an afterthought? But she hardly heard him so great was her surprise at the sight that greeted her beyond the open door. Her dread washed away. The banquet hall was magnificent. Dozens of tables some perpendicular to one another in “L” shapes, were covered with rich white table cloths and decorated with gravy boats full of the most beautiful wild flowers she had ever seen. There were bowls of fruit and Crudites… carrot sticks, celery, and the radishes cut into the shapes of roses. From an unseen kitchen somewhere in the space, came aromas so rich and fine she felt she could taste the meal just by breathing in the rich scent. At the far end of the room, an elevated stage was already set up for the quintet. She could barely take it all in. “It’s awesome,” she murmured at last. Her giant companion chuckled at her with twinkling eyes. “Not quite what you expected, eh? The others all had the same reaction… as do most people who come here. Our little venue may not be so pretty on the outside, but we have inner beauty. The chef has a nice snack for you in the kitchen if you’d like to join your friends. Gratitude welled up within her. “Thank you so much,” she whispered and followed him to the kitchen, thinking that perhaps Alice and the March Hares had finally found their niche.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Some wordzzle trivia: In one of my unfulfilled fantasies, I took the wordzzles I did at various classes, created a bunch of new ones and compiled them into a book which I dreamed of seeing published, the idea being to have my sample exercise and leave a space for people to write their own using the same words, much as we do here. I still think it would make a great teaching tool for a college writing class, or (with different vocabulary) for grade school. The book's title, HOW THE HOWLING CAT AND THE TEDDY BEAR WOUND UP TOGETHER ON THE MOON came out of today’s vanity wordzzle.

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: Howling cat, Teddy bear, moon, entrepreneur, exuberance, similar, struggle, bedroom,

When Fred Johnson threw his daughter’s favorite teddy bear out the bedroom window at the howling cat, he had no idea that he would never see it again, because of course he had no way of knowing that Marigold – that was the cat’s name – was not howling out of some form of feline exuberance, but was actually in a fierce struggle to escape from the clutches of Zorph Zoglop, intrepid Martian explorer and entrepreneur. Zorph loved all things terran and made frequent explorations to earth. He did not usually venture into such populated areas and had not really intended to capture the cat – he just wanted to look at it. Then what with the howling and the Teddy bear attack, the usually unflappable Martian had simply panicked, shoved them both into his collecting sack, run as fast as he could back to his ship, and taken off immediately, convinced that he was about to be caught. It was only when he arrived back at Luna Loa (interestingly terran and Martian words for the moon seemed to have similar origins), that he remembered the cat. Cats take great pride in maintaining their dignity, so being shoved into a sack does not generally improve their dispositions. Marigold came out of the sack primed for battle, but instead floated helplessly toward the ceiling. This was too much even for as proud and independent a cat as Marigold and she docilely allowed Zorph to clutch her with his tentacles and place her gently in a small case with the aforementioned Teddy bear, who quickly became her dearest friend. In time, she actually became quite fond of Zorph and she and the Teddy bear ended their days happily on the moon. Fred Johnson, on the other hand, spent years trying to make up to his daughter for the loss of her beloved bear.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: spaghetti, larkspur, Prilosec, roaring lion, adamant, green green grass of home, paradox, filibuster, face cream, trout fishing

And for the Mini Challenge: jury of ones peers, barking dog, a wing and a prayer, liver, sprained ankle

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.
Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

The Price of Gas is WHAT?????

It's Friday and I'm tired and cranky and I didn't have anything to say that doesn't involve politics and outrage.... Then these came in my email so I thought that even though I don't have a car (perhaps BECAUSE I don't have a car), that they were pretty funny in a dreadfully painful kind of way... Anyway, I hope they make you laugh.

Poem of the Week: A Silly Poem Today

Well, I've been all grim and political of late, so I thought maybe I'd post something totally silly for today's poem of the week. I wrote this about 15 years ago, I guess while I was in therapy. There may be a few made-up dreams, but most of them I really had. I don't know why I haven't been carted away yet. I guess because I have locked myself up voluntarily....

Having a hard time making this look right. The lines are too long for the narrowness of the blog format and I can't think of a solution. Does anyone else have bizarre things happen in Preview? My type changes size and it never looks like it actually looks. Strange. Anyway... Hope this makes you giggle. Couldn't think of any good decorative art this morning either. I may add something later if I get a good idea.

The time has come her psyche said to talk of many things
Of toilets, birds and pregnant cats, of icky, wormy things
Of course, my dear, you can't expect the message to be clear
A psyche works quite subtly one's consciousness to steer
And so she sighed and dreamed again of toilets large and small
And once she almost fell from off a precipice quite tall
She dreamt of cats in closets, cats peeing in the hall
She dreamt of great big mansions and houses very small
She dreamt and she remembered, she dreamt and she forgot
Some images were vivid, some images were not
But the more that she remembered them, the stranger they appeared
Yet also she began to sense they were nothing to be feared
In fact, in time some symbols began to make clear sense
And she smiled and thought quite smugly, "I'm not so very dense."
And hearing this her psyche, from its vast creative plane
Drew forth some brand new symbols to befuddle her again
And now she dreamt of prisons and towns with funny names
And she dreamt of pigs and horses and playing silly games
She dreamt of feathered slippers and banking in the park
Some dreams were full of colors bright and some were very dark
She dreamt of popes and Chinamen, of ceilings falling down
She dreamt of being lost and scared, she dreamt that she might drown
She dreamt of taking buses, she dreamt of riding bikes
She dreamt of riding space ships, she dreamt of taking hikes
Sometimes she dreamed in series; some dreams were set apart
Some dreams seemed kind of foolish and some like works of art
Some dreams were full of mystery, in rich exotic places
Some dreams were very commonplace and she knew the people's faces
But few of them were boring, and she never, ever knew
What new peculiar happenings her psyche would bring through
And so each night she closed her eyes and journeyed deep inside
To the world of her unconscious where lost fears and hopes reside
And often in these travels, with sweet visions she was blest
That would help her in her day-life, would guide her on her quest
To heal and gird and strengthen her sometimes fainting soul
As she struggled first to find herself, then to touch the Greater Whole
But whether one is questing, or only in a doze,
The clever, witty, psyche, will keep you on your toes.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Wordless Wednesday: For the Birds and One Bee

Ok.... hardly any words.... I'm posting the bird flying out of the picture because I think the wing looks interesting even though only part of the bird is left in the picture. And the bumble bee isn't very clear, but it took me almost two months to get it and I think it's kind of cool even if it is sort of blurry. I'm still hoping to get a better one. I swear that bee is toying with me. It hangs in one spot until I finally find it and start to focus and then off it goes....

HAPPY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!!!

Countdown to Peace Blast 2008

Mimi Writes is having a Peace Blast on June 4th. I think this is an awesome idea. All you have to do is click on the link to her site, pick up a blank globe graphic, sign it and return it to her. She has detailed instructions. I've submitted mine and will post it again on June 4th.


I believe that peace is possible, that war and violence are the will of a very small minority to whom we have given too much power. I believe that more people in this world want peace than want war, that our true human instinct is towards peace. We have to be tricked into war. No matter what some may tell us, war is not our nature. Peace is.

It is past time to speak out. We need to vote. We need to nag and pester and insist that our lawmakers govern according to our wants and values and not according to bogus polls or political expediency. We need to stop listening to the voices of fear and hate and listen to the voices of reason and compassion. We need to stop seeing enemies and start seeing fellow beings. We need to meet anger with kindness, to offer a different mirror in which those who would hate to can see themselves. There's a Hawaiian saying that goes "energy flows where attention goes." In other words, we draw to us, what we focus on. If we focus on fear and hate, we draw fear and hate into our lives. If we focus on peace, likewise, we draw that to ourselves. I've said it before here, but it's worth repeating. There is more power in being FOR something than against something. Almost every esoteric philosophy teaches this in one way or another. Neither our minds nor the universe read the word "not." They react to where our attention is. If it is on war, the universe offers up more war. If our attention is on peace, the universe offers up peace. Let's be FOR peace.

I hope you'll visit Mimi Writes, pick up a banner and join the blast.

The Alphabet Backwards: N is for Nationalism

Well, on Memorial Day, it seemed to me like a good time to reflect on nationalism. I love the United States, which happens to be my country. I think we're a wonderful hodge-podge of creativity, generosity, greed, genius, stupidity.... as people we are both the best and worst of what it means to be human. As a nation, we are richly blessed with natural wealth and natural beauty. The range of this country's geographical wonders is astonishing and glorious. I love my country. I love the principles on which it was founded, even if it hasn't always lived up to them. Proud to be an Amuricin and all that. But...

Nationalism is sometimes a two-edged sword. Our current leadership (using that term loosely indeed) has used nationalism and patriotism to commit crimes - "we have to sack the Constitution in order to protect it." (Huh?) They have used nationalism to justify invading a nation which did not attack us and had no intention of doing so. Even if Iraq had been thinking about it, had been wanting to attack us... the road of pre-emption is the road to Hell. We should have known that before (some of us did, she said a bit crankily). Our own and others' history should have told us that it never works. There may once in a while be a kind of success in the short run, but seldom if ever in the long term. Except for the few brain-dead die-hards like the administration, McCain (who does not seem to be getting any wiser with age) and Republicans too proud to admit the error their ways, we certainly know it now. Still these old boys chant the old God and country and "saving our way of life" mantra for us, while they hack away at our values, savage our economy, and destroy the lives and spirits of the young people who joined our military, either for love of country or in hopes of bettering themselves.

When nationalism is used to justify illegal imprisonment of both American citizens and foreign nationals, what nation is being defended? When tricks and sophistry are used (see previous sentence) to distort the law of the land on the pretext of defending it, what nation is being defended? When nationalism is used to justify the torturing other human beings by a nation that has long stood for decency and against such activities - what nation is being defended?

Lastly, nationalism has been used by the Bush administration and the Republican Party to silence opposition to their criminal activities. To raise issue with them and their insane actions is - in their view - to be disloyal to the country, unpatriotic. Those who questioned entry into the war in Iraq had their patriotism questioned. They continue to use nationalism/patriotism as a way to try and silence the voices of those who oppose them. Even now those who question are accused of "betraying the troops." Sending them into an unnecessary war seems more of a betrayal to me. Sending them ill-equipped seems more of a betrayal to me. Bringing them home in body bags seems more of a betrayal to me. Sending them on endless, unbroken tours of duty seems more of a betrayal to me. Not providing adequate medical and psychological treatment seems more of a betrayal to me.

And Calling what our young men and women are engaged in a "war" seems like a betrayal to me. It was an invasion. We are occupiers. (Actually, I think we don't know what we are, which must be another form of nightmare for the young people patrolling angry streets so far from home.)

But I rant.

It seems odd to me that the people who speak loudest about so-called "Christian values," have no trouble waging war on others. I guess they didn't ask the "What Would Jesus Do" question on that one. I think Jesus was partial to "turning the other cheek," and "do unto others."

It seems odd to me that in the name of love of country, we spend billions to kill and die and destroy, while we begrudge medical care, housing, education at home. Some even begrudge medical treatment and education to the soldiers who want at least that small return on their suffering.

It is sad to me that the land of the free, the great melting-pot nation who used to open her arms in welcome (at least in theory) to other nations, now simmers with hate and fear of others. I don't advocate stupidity. It is possible to be open and wise at the same time.

I love my country. That doesn't mean that anything goes. I love peace and quiet too. Doesn't mean I have a right to shoot the neighbor's dog when he barks incessantly. Any more than he has a right to shoot me or burn my house down because my spirituality may express itself differently than his.... or even my patriotism.

Love of country - nationalism - is a fine thing. But the kind of blind love that looks the other way at wrong-doing and that justifies anything in the name of pride or loyalty, doesn't seem like love to me at all. Because we love our children, we teach them right from wrong and we let them know that wrong behavior carries consequences. True love isn't always comfortable, it isn't always "nice." True love doesn't watch the lover go off a cliff while muttering starry-eyed nothings. True love leaps into action to save the beloved's life. True love says, "Wait! You're wrong."

At the present moment in history, I'm ashamed of my country's actions, repulsed and embarrassed by the Bush administration, disappointed and angered with a Congress that seems to lack courage and integrity. I'll never stop loving my country, but right now, at this moment in time, my heart is breaking for her.

Today on Memorial Day (and not just today) - I mourn for those young men and women who have died loving their/my country in both just and foolish wars. I grieve for those families whose sons, daughters, husbands, wives, cousins, uncles, aunts will never return to them...

I hope that one day soon instead of waging war, we will start waging peace. I think we have a better chance of succeeding that way and of creating a better world for everyone. Peace.



*******

If you have the time, I hope you'll take a few minutes (about 15 actually, I think) to listen to the Bill Moyer's video clips I posted on Saturday.

One Single Impression: Reflecting

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "reflecting." Only able to cough out two haiku, one haiku-ish poem and one long one. Not sure how my attempts at graphic creativity work in terms of readability (or anything else), but I had to try.

Solemn reflection
Gives me reason to feel joy
I am deeply blessed
~~~~~~~~~~~

Reflected in your loving eyes
I see my own beauty
And I am caught by surprise

If you click on this one, you can see a larger, easier to read version. It's kind of stupid graphically, but I worked hard on it, so I refuse to give it up. Hmmm. Reflecting on good judgment, I seem to be lacking...

I was inspired by Nature Tales and Camera Trails post to add one more of my own. Hers is much better, but I even though this is a failed photo, I find it intriguing.

Memorial Day Weekend: Bill Moyers on Veterans and the War

I love Bill Moyers. I first fell in love with him years ago during the wonderful series of interviews he did with Joseph Campbell. Anyone who hasn't seen those interviews should run right out to the video store or netflix (if they have them) and make it a point to watch them. They are life-changing.

But back to Bill Moyers. He is such a gift in a news and media world barren of content and thoughtfulness. His shows are actually a source of genuine information. His commentaries reflect his decency and wisdom. I admire him, I adore him, I am grateful that he is out there doing the work he does and doing it so well. So, anyway, I really had to control myself to post just these few video clips.

While I was retrieving the first two videos I ran across this one. It's not about the war or veterans, but it is deeply disturbing and I thought I'd share it.



Ok.... I had to add one more, Jon Stewart being serious and brilliant ....

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week Fourteen

This is week 14 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: flamingo, monster trucks, Darth Vader, cucumbers, sugar-free, banking, determinate, thurible, sarcasm, drums And for the Mini Challenge: procrastinate, memory lane, alley cat, argument, Florida

I'm not at all happy with any of my contributions this week (except maybe the vanity one), but they are all I have to offer, so here's my ten-word offering for this week.

Frank Smith drove monster trucks for a living and made enough money doing so that he had bought his family a house in a pretty nice neighborhood. His front yard was the neighborhood nightmare, littered as it was with, empty sugar-free soda cans, toy drums, a variety of Darth Vader dolls in different sizes, not to mention the three hideous pink flamingoes. Despite this horror, Katherine (like others on the block) held her tongue, bit back complaints and controlled her sarcasm because she was banking on Frank’s generosity with his amazing garden. His extraordinary flowers ranged from roses that were size of oranges and smelled like heaven on earth, to peonies, gladioli, tulips… each more magnificent than the other. Then there were the vegetables: cucumbers so big and succulent you could make a meal out of them, string beans, determinate tomatoes (yes, there was such a thing as determinate tomatoes - she had learned this from another neighbor, Jay Simser, who was also an enthusiastic gardener). Anyway, nobody could figure out quite how Smith did it, though there were rumors that he paced the garden at night swinging a thurible, chanting prayers, singing and talking to the seeds and shoots. Whatever he did, the final results were magical – the flowers beyond beautiful and the fruits and vegetables so succulent and tasty that eating them was a religious experience. In the end, the vegetables were worth the eye sore of Smith’s front yard and even the potential decline in property value.

And here's my mini challenge:

Dealing with the yowling alley cat interrupted Hal and Sandra forcing them to procrastinate finishing the argument that had erupted during their trip down memory lane. She was positive that they had met in Florida, New York, while he was certain it was Alabama, New York. Truth was, it turned out, they had met in the town of Ohio, New York. “I knew it was a state,” she laughed. “I guess we both thought it was a southern state because it was so dreadfully hot that day. I remember that and I remember that I knew you were “the one” within minutes of meeting you. Glad to say I was right about that, at least.”

And the mega challenge:

Jimmy Martin was a fairly typical teenager. He loved monster trucks, played the drums, thought sugar-free soda was girly, and still had a great fondness for Darth Vader and all things Star Wars. His favorite band was a group called Determinate Sarcasm and he and the three hottest girls in school had formed a hip band that they called Three Flamingoes and an Alley Cat. He and the flamingoes were all applying to colleges in Florida not so much for the education, but so they could go on one of those wild Spring Break parties that they had heard so much about. Actually, Jimmy hoped college in Florida would be one continuing party. He was banking on his mother’s general cluelessness but was procrastinating telling her his plan in hopes of avoiding an argument. His mother was – to say the least – a bit flakey. She never made a meal which didn’t include cucumbers because she believed them to be a “perfect” food and a weight loss aid, she considered herself to be a vegetarian despite the fact that she consumed, eggs, milk, butter and fish, and she meditated for exactly an hour every day. Of course she had to make a big drama out of it. Every afternoon she filled an old thurible she had bought at a thrift shop and walked around chanting and swinging it back and forth to “cleanse the space.” Lights, music and computers had to be turned off in order not to disturb the “energy” of the house while she sat chanting or meditating in the lotus position. That was followed by dreadful, boring, cucumber-ridden dinners where conversation was almost exclusively his mother’s memory lane monologues… she rambled on and on about her youth, how perfect his father had been, and told dozens of dreadful humiliating stories about “cute” things he had done. It was a teenager’s nightmare. He could not wait for graduation, Florida, and wild times.

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: Godzilla, sneeze, torturous, Cool, Groovy, top hat, marshmallow, tyrant, gift, easy

Godzilla sneezed, not a gentle, easy sneeze, but a groaning, torturous heavy sneeze, made all the more disgusting for the thick white snot that dropped like perverted marshmallows from his huge nose. The tyrant who held him captive grinned malevolently. He was a man with a knack for cruelty and he had made the poor creature wear what he called “gifts”: a hideous chartreuse T-shirt with the words “Cool, Groovy! “ written across his chest in neon pink letters and a formal top hat which he was forced to wear at all times. The humiliation was overwhelming. No matter how fierce or disgusting poor Godzilla tried to be, tourists looked at his ridiculous outfit and burst out laughing. Now, to top it all off, he had a cold. The monster business was just not what it used to be.

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: perpendicular, carpentry, garage, lute player, radishes, tin roof, wild flowers, stop light, gargantuan

And for the Mini Challenge: gravy boat, cat carrier, Madison, Wisconsin, March Hare, gratitude

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

The Last Time You... - a Meme

Promised Akelamalu that I'd do this meme, so here goes:


The last time you...

laughed? Almost any other day, I'd say today because I laugh a lot, but so far this morning has had more to do with pain (back ache) than laughter. Well, I laughed as I typed that (my inner sadist is alive and well), so... just now.

cried? Day before yesterday. Sad movie.

felt guilty? Guilt is my life. I don't actually need anything to feel guilty about. I live with a kind of generalized numbing guilt on the theory that just by existing I have undoubtedly been annoying to someone.

shouted at the TV? Pretty regularly, I'm afraid. Certain commercials make me grumble and any mention of George W. Bush pretty much causes my blood to boil instantly. I watch the "talking heads" on Sunday, so my Sunday mornings involve a lot of yelling and some swearing.

had a hangover? Long, long, time ago. Don't drink much any more.

hugged someone? If kitties count, this morning.

couldn't sleep? I sleep pretty well these days. It's been a while since I had a sleepless night.

kissed someone? Again, if you count kitties and/or stuffed kitties - this morning.

exercised? Exercise? What's exercise?

ate something really unhealthy? You mean there's healthy food?

had a dance? Previous life

went on a shopping spree? I guess my camera counts as a shopping spree - so about 2 months ago.

spoke to your mom? She died on Feb. 3, 1991. I saw her the day before, I think.

said "I love you"? Every day to my cats and in emails to my nieces and nephew.

And your last word is? Yikes. Breakfast is burning!

I'm not going to tag anyone. If you feel like doing it, please do so and let me know. It turned out to be kind of fun. Have a nice weekend. Hope to see people at Wordzzles on Saturday.

Took the picture below late last evening. It was way too dark to be taking photos so I decided to just play with it and try to make it "artsy" or something. It's colorful, at least. I don't think of grackles as singing or talking birds, but this little guy seems to spend a lot of time on top of this post chatting away to someone or something. Reminds me of a wonderful children's book I read years ago, called WILLIE WAS DIFFERENT. It was illustrated by Norman Rockwell and was about a young bird who didn't like to sing the "traditional" songs of his species. Wonderful book.

Poem of the Week: The Answer is Believing

If you click on the picture, you can see a MUCH larger version that may be easier to read.

Quasi Wordless Wednesday: View from my Desk - Looking out my Front Window

As some of you know, I am profoundly agoraphobic. All my photos are taken from inside the house. In past weeks you've seen views from my back door. Here's a bit of what I see through the window from my desk. I included the squirrel even though he's a bit fuzzy, because he's so darned cute. This is because my windows REALLY need washing and anything taken into the sun looks like it's being seen through mist. Hoping to correct that soon. I am so lucky in my view from the front of the house. My neighbors' yard is like a beautiful park.... or at least I think so. Some of you may remember how the birch tree in back has perfect eyes - well does anybody else notice the face on the tree in the middle photo? And does anyone besides me think my blue jay has only one leg?

HAPPY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!!

Heads or Tails Tuesday: Peace

This week's prompt from Skittles' Heads or Tails Tuesday is Peace or Piece. I have chosen peace, though I am approaching it with a piece of poetry and two pieces of music.

So many ways to approach this subject. I don't understand war. I see no excuse for it. I don't understand violence. I don't think that meeting violence with violence solves anything. If people stopped insisting on being "right," and wanting all the power, we might have fewer deaths by violence in this world, fewer murders, fewer hate crimes, fewer Iraqs, fewer Darfurs, fewer terrorists and genocides. The idea that bombs work better than conversation is stunning to me. Bombs just kill people and increase fear and animosity. And they don't usually kill the right people (if there is such a thing as the right person to kill, which I don't actually think there is). Bombs and guns tend to kill children and women buying groceries; they tend to kill the innocent with at least as much frequency as the so-called "enemy."

One of my favorite poems ever is a poem by Wilfred Owens. I first read it during the time of the Vietnam War. It spoke to me then and it speaks to me now. It was written during World War I and it's author died young in that war. I may have posted it here before, but it is worth repeating. The last four lines of this poem speak a truth of such power... Even at it's noblest, war is obscene and ugly.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori*.

*Translation: It is sweet and good to die for one's country.

Then there is music. I've always thought of Blowing in the Wind as a peace song, though it only partly about war. Of all the versions available, I liked this one because it is so straight-forward and pure. I have always loved Peter Paul and Mary. About 25 years ago, before I started hiding from the world full time, I sang in the annual Christmas concert that Peter Paul and Mary put on at Carnegie Hall with the New York Choral Society every year. Alas, I was running a raging fever during the performance and missed the party afterwards, but it was still an awesome experience to sing in that place and with this trio. Ultimately, I think peace is about more than non-violence. It's about the things this song talks about. Real peace will some when we truly care about one another with compassion in our hearts and when we reach out to comfort the pain of every other being on the planet.

and then there's
Let There Be Peace On Earth
performed by the Tyler College Choir... don't know much about them, but of all the versions available on You-Tube, this was the one that seemed most willing to let the song speak for itself.

I should probably leave it there, but I have to add a few last words. In one of the wisdom books I read a while back, it was advised that there is more power in being FOR something than AGAINST something else. I have a hard time remembering this sometimes. But at least in this moment, I wish to let my love of peace outweigh my distaste for war. I want to be for peace and love and kindness in the world with all my heart and soul. I want to put my faith into what is good and kind in the human spirit, because ultimately, I know that is what is strongest.

The Alphabet Backwards: O is for Oooooooo, No!

ODE TO THE LETTER O

Oh, no!
O is the letter for Alphabet Backwards day
Oh, my! and
Ouch
Only wish I had something to say
Old age was one topic
Only I didn’t want to write about it
Organization another only I’m not
Organized
Oh, my
Ostriches, orioles, opossums seemed silly
Omelets made me hungry
Obligated (by my own strange set of rules) to write something
Opting for this silly “poem”
Over-the-top with “Os”
OZ, I could have done OZ, I guess
Or omnipresent or omega or obtuse
Obtuse is how I feel
Out of my mind, I am with ideas
Oddly, but no wish to order my thoughts
Or try to wax profound
Of course, it might be better to do nothing
Oh dear, oh dear
Out of the blue
Over the hill
Off the beaten path
Out of reach
Onward and upward
O is everywhere
Only I have nothing to say
Over and Out
On to the letter “n” next week.

-Katherine E. Rabenau

Just an editorial note: All the O's should be the same size. They are in draft, they just don't show up that way. Very frustrating.

One Single Impression: Bleeding

This week's prompt for One Single Impression was "bleeding." Afraid that took me to dark political places and not very good poetry. I hope I haven't broken any copyright laws with the second image which is the poster of Bush's face made up of a mosaic of faces of those who have died in his "war." Afraid the state of the nation, the state of the world makes my heart bleed but I wasn't able to put it into poems very well this week.

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week Thirteen

This is week 13 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Sorry to have posted so late. I wrote these at 3:00 am, so who knows what they say. I look forward to seeing what others have come up with.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: sergeant, lunatic, peanut butter and jelly, cyber space, flattery, musician, auspicious, cardinal, paprika, flowering plum tree

And for the Mini Challenge: sinister, magazine, American flag, rain storm, chess board

Here's my ten-word offering for this week.

The exquisite red cardinal sat singing in the flowering plum tree that was right outside her window and Mary hoped it was an auspicious sign. She made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, moved quickly to her desk and logged on as Paprika Pettifeather, her favorite cyber space identity. Maybe today would be the day she met her man, she mused.. She really had only three simple requirements that had to be met. Her man had to think Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club band was a great, if not the greatest album in history – and that the Beatles were incredible musicians whose genius remained unparalleled, he had to be able to flatter without it seeming like flattery, and he had he to – there was no way around this one, recognize that a criminal was currently playing the role of Commander in Chief and ought to have been impeached long ago. She might be willing to leave flattery and musical genius open to debate. But anyone who didn’t recognize that the lunatics were running the asylum was not for her.

And here's my mini challenge:

Joseph Woods, looked up from the magazine which had held him thoroughly absorbed, distracted first by the flapping sound of the American flag in the increasing wind. He then noticed that the chess boards at the nearby tables were being rapidly packed up as the players scurried to find shelter. And finally a glance at the sinister sky told him that there was something more than a rain storm pending. Lucky for him he was a sprinter and he made it to shelter just as the first golf-ball sized hail stones began to land.

And the mega challenge:

Quickly checking the magazine of his gun, the young sergeant looked at the American flag fluttering in the breeze and then at the sinister clouds on the horizon. Maybe the storm will put an end to the fighting he thought hopefully and then chuckled bitterly. Yeah, sure. War cancelled due to inclement weather. “Heavy rain storms,” the headline would read, “led to the end of hostilities today in Iraq. Both sides decided to pack up their guns and go home.” Lord how he missed home: he missed Monday evenings chatting across the chess board with his father, listening to his favorite musicians whenever he wanted to, spending all day Saturday and Sunday exploring cyber space on his computer. He missed peanut butter and jelly. He missed baked potatoes with paprika. He missed kissing Miranda under the flowering plum tree and her auspicious smile that foretold she would say “yes,” when he had asked her if she’d marry him. He missed the flattery she used on him to get her way. He missed peace and normalcy. He missed going to the Cardinals games at Busch stadium. Alas, that last thought reminded him of another Bush - the lunatic who stole the White House … and as if to punctuate that thought, the unhappy soldier was met with a storm of bullets instead of rain drops. There would be no truce today.

~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: Tiddleywinks, mauve, throbbing bass sound, fortuitous, barnacle, hoist, topiary, finicky, turtle

Sitting on a large mauve cushion next to the large turtle shaped topiary, Tiddleywinks, the very spoiled and finicky Pekinese belonging to Mrs. Blandersmythe stared disdainfully at the sautéed hamburger meat which had been placed in a crystal goblet at her feet. She had just decided to attack the unfortunate gardener who had been unlucky enough to get the job of feeding her when, fortuitously for him, she was distracted by a loud noise. The gardener spared, she now bared her teeth menacingly at the wildly dressed young man who had just entered the property with a large boom box hoisted high on his shoulder blasting at full volume. The throbbing bass sound was so loud that Tiddleywinks could feel the ground under her paws tremble and vibrate. She was outraged. She was a Blandersmythe, after all, and a Pekinese besides. This young man simply had to be dealt with. And she was about to lunge when the most delightful aroma seemed to emerge right from the direction of the aforesaid young man. “Here you go, dog,” he said, pulling a greasy bag labeled Barnacle Bill’s Good Eats from his backpack and laying it in front of Tiddleywinks astonished nose. “I will bite him later,” she thought to herself, and dug in with gusto.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: flamingo, monster trucks, Darth Vader, cucumbers, sugar-free, banking, determinate, thurible, sarcasm, drums

And for the Mini Challenge: procrastinate, memory lane, alley cat, argument, Florida

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Picture Fiction Challenge: Ladybug's Song

This is the fourth monthly Picture Fiction Challenge created by R.E.H. at Ramblings of a Madman and my third attempt at it. Each month, R.E.H. randomly chooses five photos over at Flickr.com for each of five assigned categories: Character, Setting, Objective, Random Object and an Item. Each photo must be included the story in accordance with its assigned role. I thought the last two were difficult to do, but this one just had me stumped for the longest time. I finally coughed out the feeble effort below, but even though I think I included all the photos, I'm not sure I was quite true to their assigned roles. I tried, though, she whined pitifully. I tried really hard.

I highly recommend that you check out Dianne's answer to this challenge. It's looking like she and I are the only participants this month, so I don't mind singling her out. She wrote an awesome story for the challenge. It's magnificent. And really good. Just found out that there was another PCF participant. Please check out Jill's story - in two languages (French and English), no less.

Here are the pictures R.E.H. gave us to work with and their assigned roles.

LADYBUG'S SONG: A Love Story

Lucy “Ladybug” Johnson had moved with her family to Manhattan’s Lower East Side when she was thirteen years old. She had grown up with the color, lush beauty and easy pace of Jamaica and at first city life had seemed overwhelming. But then her father had opened a small neighborhood store where he sold the fresh fruits and vegetables. To her eyes the stand was beautiful. It was full of color and smells and textures and it reminded her of Jamaica. She loved it and she loved helping her parents, meeting all the wonderful diverse people who came and went from day to day and week to week. But she had quickly adopted New York as her true home. Their neighborhood was diversity itself, with hundreds of restaurants offering all kinds of incredible foods: Greek, Indian, Lebanese, Chinese, Polish… anything you could think of, really. There was also soul food and all sorts of wonderful Jewish pastries and delights. Katz’ Delicatessen was probably the most famous place in the area… It was such a poor neighborhood in so many ways, but it was so rich in the textures, smells, sounds, and languages of its people that it was like living everywhere at once. Oh, it was true that there were drug dealers on almost every block and too many homeless men and bag ladies. It’s true that many of the buildings were run down, but she loved it. She loved the music of her mother’s deep lilting Jamaican English rising in counterpoint to Mr. Wyzowski’s Polish accent and the Martin brother’s thick New Yorkese. To her they wove a together in a kind of linguistic counterpoint that equaled the best Bach fugue.

Her second favorite place in her New York was Chinatown, which was a world in itself, with narrow streets and wonderful smells. Her best friend in the world was Martin Chow. It was Martin who had given her the name Ladybug. He had caught her one day at school – they both attended Stuyvesant High School for the gifted - rescuing a little red and black bug and quietly singing to it the ladybug song: “Lady, bug lady bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children are gone. Except little Nan, who sits in a pan, weaving gold laces as fast as she can.” He had thought it was cute, especially since she had been wearing black and red polka-dots that day.

“You look like a ladybug yourself,” he had chuckled. She had looked up from her task, embarrassed, to see the kindest most handsome face ever in the history of faces…. Or that was how she felt about it. Martin had gone on to ask her if she knew the history of the ladybug song. When she nodded, “no,” he had explained how in Medieval England when farmers would set torches to the old hop (used in flavoring beer) vines after the harvest as a way of clearing the fields for the next planting, they would sing this little verse as a warning to the ladybugs that were still crawling on the vines in search of aphids. The ladybugs' children (larvae) could get away from the flames, but the pupae, referred to as "Nan" in some versions, were fastened to the plants and thus could not escape.

“Cool,” she had whispered, smiling. “How did you know that?”

They had been 15 at the time, but she had loved Martin from the very first instant of seeing him. He had felt the same way. Later they decided that they had known each other in another life. At least one. They shared so many interests. But there was something more than that. They were connected. Even that first day, they had known they were friends, more than friends, from the first word. Maybe that was how love at first sight worked. Maybe it was just people meeting again across time and space. Whatever the reason, she and Martin had become instant friends and then they had become more than friends.

Tomorrow, with college now behind them, they were to be married. Twice actually. Both ceremonies were to take place in the elegant The Lotus Flower Restaurant that belonged to Martin’s family. Ladybug loved Martin’s parents. They were a complex mix of modern and traditional. And they were kind, like Martin. They had welcomed her into their lives with open arms. And they had welcomed her family as well. The weddings would take place in the Lotus Flower's huge banquet room. The whole restaurant was elegance itself, but rich and warm and embracing. The walls were squares of red, white and rich mahogany wood and the seating was likewise rich mahogany wood with red and gold bolsters of the finest silk. It was like walking into a Chinese Palace. And it was awash in magnificent art and flowers and the luscious aroma of the finest Chinese cooking in the city. For the weddings, though they would combine cultures and the wedding banquet was to be an amazing combination of Jamaican and Chinese delicacies. Her first wedding would be traditionally Chinese. She would wear a red dress onto which her mother-in-law had embroidered with her own hands somewhat non-traditional lady bugs. Lucy thought it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, until she saw the gown her own mother had made. Then she thought that she was perhaps the luckiest woman on earth to be wrapped in so much love, wearing not just one but the two most beautiful dresses on earth. Her mother too had added a ladybug to the wedding attire. In her case it was “something new” – the most magnificent little earrings in the shape of lady bugs, but crafted with such skill that they were elegance and beautiful.

Sitting on the edge of her bed in the apartment above the fruit stand that she loved so much, she felt profound peace mixed with a sense of nostalgia for the childhood she was about to leave. I am indeed the luckiest woman on earth, she thought. And as if to confirm that thought and give its blessing a ladybug landed oh, so softly on her window and then flew away.

The End
(And they lived Happily Ever After)

Poem(s) of the Week

I had an email conversation with my friend Joan this week. She said something along the lines of "I have no answers... only questions," which made me think of this first poem. I told her I'd try to find it and post it. So here it is. I added the second one because it seemed to sort of "go" with the first in some way. No idea why. They are both quite old. Unfortunately, I never had the good sense to date my poems, so I'm not sure when they were written. Before some of my readers were born, I suspect. God, I'm old.

It is not the knowing which matters
But the seeking after
The need to see the dark side of the moon
To touch the bottom of the sea
The answer always seems a little pale
A little disappointing
Beside the miracle of curiosity
But the riddle teases on and on
And we forget
That only the questions are real.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

~~~~~~~~~~

My reality is of my own making
But I forget, being human,
And wandering in vanished universes
Become confused
Succumb to moments
Instead of eternities
Believe in limits
Not limitlessness

My reality is of my own making
Moment by moment
I create my self
In shades of light and dark
Joy and sorrow -
But like an artist blindfolded
Refusing to concede her skill

My reality is of my own making
I sculpt my life
From thoughts and hopes and hidden fears
Molding and remolding
In search of some as yet unknown perfection

My reality is of my own making
A play continually in progress
Each actor working with a different script
Improvising as she goes along
To make the plot more interesting
Until some denouement can be achieved

My reality is of my own making
Although I close my eyes
And try to abnegate my power
It will not leave
But like a faithful lover
Awaits the ecstasy of mutual embrace.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

I added one of my favorite pictures of Angel here just because it seems in an indirect way, to go with the first poem. She is, after all, seeking answers.... seeking something, anyway...

Wordless Wednesday: Looking Out My Backdoor... Part 2

In case you are interested in seeing Looking Out My Back Door, Part 1, you can click here.

HAPPY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!!

Heads or Tails Tuesday: Any Tom, Dick or Harry

Well, I wasn't going to participate in Skittles' Heads or Tails Tuesday today. I thought about Harry Potter. I love the Harry Potter books. I wouldn't be surprised if J.K. Rowling had put an enchantment on them. They are just so darned magical and entertaining and wonderfully well written. But that's really about all I have to say on that subject and it hardly seems like a real post.

So I wasn't going to write anything. But Tuesday is Schwan's Day. As some of you know, I'm disabled and home-bound. There are many inconveniences to this, one of which is it makes grocery shopping complicated. When I first moved to Hancock, I was fortunate to find a very lovely woman who shopped for me every few weeks for a very modest cost. Eventually, though, she found a real job and I was forced to take advantage of one of my friends and combine that with shopping at Netgrocer.com. At first that meant only non-perishable foods, but they expanded to shipping frozen and refrigerated items. Problem with Netgrocer. Mega pricy way to live, especially when you have hardly any money. About 4 months ago, I discovered Schwan's. I love Schwan's. Their food, while not as cheap as going to a grocery store, is pretty reasonable and excellent quality. I can't get fresh fruit or Soysilk or items like that, but for someone like me it is wonderful to have the security of knowing that every other Tuesday - snow, rain or shine - a big yellow truck will drive up and deliver frozen food to me. Which brings me to Tom. Tom M is my Schwan's person. He moved to New York State recently from North Carolina. He's a kind man and brings not just groceries every two weeks, but a friendly face. He always makes an effort to get me the best deals possible on products, to make sure I'm able to take advantage of special sales. Angel and Tara Grace love him. I think Angel would run away with him if I'd let her. Today we had a "chat" about politics. We are on diametric opposite sides of the political universe, but it was still a friendly debate. Alas, I wasn't able to bring him into the political light, but I had a good time trying.

So I want to say here that I'm grateful for Tom M. who instead of just dumping off a load of groceries, conducts his role in my life - providing me with sustenance - with grace, humor and kindness.

The Alphabet Backwards: P is for Pain and Pretty

I guess even though I am feeling much better after my week and a half of being miserable, my mind is still veering toward the dark side so when I realized that today's letter was "P," I immediately thought of pain. It's something we all deal with in one way or another and to one degree or another. Pain is such a personal thing. Nobody else can know our unique experience of it, even if they have had their own and can have empathy. We all have different level of tolerance for pain. Lucky for me, mine is pretty high, since I live with pretty chronic physical pain. I guess my tolerance for emotional pain is pretty high too or I wouldn't have survived being my brother's sister, wouldn't have survived as much craziness as I did in my life. Of course since I'm holed up in my house and never go outside, whether I survived it or not may be open to considerable debate.

In terms of physical pain, although I think of myself as a wimp, I am pretty tolerant. Dentists used to marvel at my ability to remain still and unflinching as they poked and drilled. There is a downside to this. The experience during which I hurt my legs was one of agonizing pain. I was at a workshop to learn a healing technique. Since I was overweight and not in the best shape I had made it a point to talk to the man running the workshop before signing up. "You should be able to handle it fine," he said. "Everything is self-paced." What a LIE! There were 14 of us, as I recall. All of them were quite fit. Three of them had done the workshop once before. SEVEN of them were professional dancers. And self-paced? We were driven like military recruits. And being me, I tried to keep up. Because of my upbringing where I was always accused of being a baby or making illnesses up, I of course, accused myself of being weak and pathetic even as my body started screaming in pain and continued trying to keep pace with these mostly professional athletes. By the second day I could barely move and was in so much pain that I was literally seeing stars when I moved too much. Even the athletes were in pain, so they just heard my complaints as whining. (Nothing like revisiting your childhood with a bunch of unsympathetic strangers.) In the end, I think I had sprained or pulled every muscle in both legs and my hips and back. I was in such agony that I literally saw stars when I lay down at night to sleep and when I stood up. This happens when your neurological system is overwhelmed (or so I have been told). I could literally barely walk. Although I had traveled to the workshop by bus, the leaders had promised me a ride home. They decided it was inconvenient at the end so I was forced to travel home by bus - arriving in Grand Central Station, NYC late at night in agony and barely able to walk. These 5 days of hell - which also, oddly, introduced me to reiki, something that would become a huge and wonderful part of my life - left me permanently physically damaged and locked my already strong penchant for agoraphobia into the place of control it now holds over me.

I'm not sure why I have told the story above. A friend of mine who grew up around great physical as well as emotional violence also has a profoundly high tolerance for pain. I suspect many of us who have grown up around abuse do. There are studies which indicate that child abuse/neglect rewires our brains. I absolutely believe this. What does that have to do with pain? I personally think that may be one of the areas impacted. Both our capacity to deal with physical and emotional pain.

Oddly, I think it gives us an abnormal tolerance on the one hand, in our early years. I was in many ways a wonder of the world in my capacity to deal with both physical and emotional stress. The problem is that when I eventually hit the breaking point, the mechanisms to repair what was broken seem to not be there, particularly on the emotional plane. Physical pain I endure. After all, what choice is there? And my physical pain is not that intense, just a touch too relentless for my taste. But I can still walk to get around the house at least, so what's to complain about. I think pain scares me more than it used to. These days I'm more prone to go to "what if," places. But I'm still standing and most days I'm relatively "what if" free.

I'm just wandering around here without much direction. I apologize for that, but I'm going to let myself do it and not look back. One of the odd things about pain is that even though we all experience it we all experience it so differently that it's hard at times to communicate it to others, particularly when we have confusion ourselves. Back to when I injured my legs. It was a devastating time. Because I myself had such confusion and judgment about my pain ("you're just being a big baby") friends and others didn't really seem to understand. How could they? I didn't. I was giving very mixed messages. Even if I hadn't been, though, I'm not sure that we ever really are capable of comprending another's pain, especially because the physical - as in this case - often also carries an emotional component. Everyone around me, myself included - was re-enacting a childhood wound. I was surrounded by younger, newer versions of my mother, all discounting the reality of my literal physical agony. But of course, I was too. Thank God for my therapist. He looked at me as I hobbled into his office and saw how much pain I was in. He listened. He helped me work through my own denial. He sent me to the doctor. That wasn't such a success, but I've never had much luck with doctors. This one talked to me about being fat and said there was no way to figure out what was wrong with my legs. If I had been smarter I would have argued with him or gone to another doctor. But I wasn't.

Oddly, my therapist called just as I was typing that paragraph. He said it wasn't hard for him to see the kind of agony I was in. Strange how others couldn't see it. I'm so grateful he was there to help me through that and to help me process the psychological pain, which was, if possible, worse than the physical.

But I don't mean to turn this into a whining session. Pain is such a universal experience - even though we experience it differently and relate to it differently - that it puzzles me sometimes how we can as a species be so willing to ignore or negate others' suffering, whether it be personal pain or psychological/spiritual suffering. If the Israelis and the Palestinians could take a deep breath and connect to one another's pain, maybe they would stop killing each other. If Republicans (sorry, my bias is showing) could stop worrying about big government and their own wallets for a few minutes and look at the pain their policies are causing, maybe we would have better medical care, less poverty and better housing and education.

I wish for all of us that we have at least one - hopefully more than one - person like my therapist who can look at us and see and acknowledge our pain. I don't know that we need anybody to fix it for us, just to recognize it. Maybe that is a way of fixing it.

There's so much more to be said about this subject, but this is already kind of long, so I'll leave it here for now and move on to happier things.

I thought maybe pain should have a counter part, so I'm adding a couple of pictures that I think are pretty, just to ease the pain, so to speak. I know the top of the little bird's head is out of frame, but I still think he's pretty. And I love spring flowers.

Happy Monday.

One SIngle Impression: Warm

Today's OSI prompt was warm.... By the way... I use the Mozilla Foxfire browser instead of Explorer for most things. I recently discovered that what I post here looks different in Explorer than it does on Foxfire. I had to add a whole lot of returns to have the text appear below photo on the Explorer browser today even though it was easily below the photo on my Foxfire browser. I'm sure a lot of my older posts have looked all kaflooey and I apologize for that.

Winter has moved on

Pushed aside by warm Spring air

Flowers and new life

Memory warms my heart

Baby snuggled in my arms

Sleeping peacefully

Playing hide and seek

"Warm, warm, warmer," he professed

But his heart was cold

Humiliation

Racing heart, red face, dry mouth

Is it warm in here?

Art of healing touch

Warm hands channel reiki* love

My awe never ends

*pronounced ray-key

Thinking of Carole

My sister’s smile was so warm

It radiated love

Rumbling kitty purrs

Warm my lonely arms and heart

Let me know I’m loved

The Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week Twelve

This is week 12 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: florist, grave yard, sausage, magnificent, soap opera, linguist, columns, volume, French, canvas And for the Mini Challenge: suspension bridge, veracity, lunch, multi-faceted, house of ill repute

Here's my ten-word offering for this week.

Sandra sat contentedly savoring a lavish lunch of sausage and eggs, her favorite soap opera, Columns of Corinthia, playing on the TV. Armand, the magnificently handsome French linguist (who was actually an evil spy) was trying to seduce Amanda at the local florist where she was buying flowers to bring to her late beloved fiancée Jeremy, at the grave yard. Little did she suspect that Jeremy was not really dead but suffering from amnesia and that the linguist/spy trying to seduce her was actually canvassing for information on the not-so-late loved one. I could write volumes, she mused, on how incredibly stupid, illogical and annoying soap operas are, but instead, I watch them religiously.

And here's my mini challenge:

Veracity Jones was a multi-faceted entrepreneur. She was a published writer and singer/songwriter who ran a house of ill repute and also worked as a short-order cook for the lunch shift at her best friend’s diner – called The Suspension Bridge Bistro because it was – you guessed it – right off the exit from the big suspension bridge.

And the mega challenge:

Driving across the long suspension bridge Barbara glanced in the rear view mirror where Sausage, their little daschund was – mercifully - sleeping peacefully. The seat next to her was piled high with magnificent lilacs. He would have hated something formal from the florist and the last canvas he had painted was her leaning against a huge stone column with lilacs in purple and white filling up the whole rest of the scene. Thinking of that made her feel better, somehow and she put her favorite CD – Anne Murray singing “You Needed Me” - into the slot and turned volume as high as it would go. What a soap opera their life together had been. When he had rescued her from Veracity’s House of Ill Repute all those years ago, she could hardly believe that someone so multi-faceted, so talented had chosen to love her. Painter, writer, linguist – he had fallen in love with her (her!) and had been forever after, not just her husband but her hero. Today at the grave yard she would have her last lunch with him – a bottle of wine, a round of cheese and a loaf of French bread. She would plant the lilacs in hopes that they would wrap him in sweetness until the end of time and then she would say good-bye and abandon her rescuer - as he had abandoned her - to the grave forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: woman, hut, uttering, dense, spew, gusts of wind, wanderer, fields, forest, angels, songs

The bent old woman squatting in the doorway of the dank, ugly hut looked to be a thousand years old. Her liquid dark eyes fixed on me with such intensity that I was pinned to the spot. The words she was uttering in her dense, guttural language were unknown to me. They spewed out of her like gusts of wind circling the wanderer. At first the sound was so strange to me, I thought they were curses being hurled against me, but as she went on, I was swept away to rich green forests and fields of blossoming flowers. And around me were angels in all shapes and sizes, and as I looked again I knew that I was privileged because this wise old woman was singing me their songs.

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: sergeant, lunatic, peanut butter and jelly, cyber space, flattery, musician, auspicious, cardinal, paprika, flowering plum tree

And for the Mini Challenge: sinister, magazine, American flag, rain storm, chess board

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Fable of the Month: Gloria's Dei

Well, I'm still feeling miserable with the flu and I haven't got a coherent thought in my head, so I've decided to post this month's Fable of the Month early. If I can think of something to do for a graphic, I'll add it later.

GLORIA'S DEI

by Katherine E. Rabenau

Gloria Sampson could hardly believe that she had just become the first woman Cardinal in the Anglican Church -- or any church for that matter. Apostolic succession was irrevocably altered. The Church was irrevocably altered. But, of course, that had happened earlier, long before today's ceremony.


Most people thought the stories about her were apocryphal, works of fiction to make her seem extraordinary. Few really believed (although it was true) that the serene, elegant woman standing before them, had, just eight years earlier, been a filthy, homeless hag, roaming the streets filled with rage and despair. Crawling with lice, she had smelled so bad that you could sense her approach from a block away. It was not that she didn't care. She cared desperately. But she had had no idea of how to fend for herself. She was so terribly ashamed. The more dirty and hungry she became, the deeper her shame, so that she did not dare seek out those things which could alleviate her distress. What kept her alive in those early months she would never know, but what had saved her, that was something else.

Was it the hand of God? No. That would make a good story, but she liked the truth better. For what had saved her was a simple act of human kindness. Was it a priest, then? That would make a nice story too, but the priests, offended by her smell, had been only too glad to see her scurry away, had kept their hands clean, doing their "good deed" (bags of food) from a convenient, sanitized distance.

The act of kindness had come from a threadbare old woman in her late seventies. She was painfully thin, her clothes were ragged, her shoes just barely holding together. She moved arthritically and was clearly more than a little concerned for her safety, yet, seeing Gloria huddled next to the garbage cans, she had looked at her squarely and said: "What's your name? Mine's Rose."

Stunned at being spoken to as though she was human, Gloria had told her.

"You smell awful, honey. How can you stand it?"

And Gloria had wept. Before she could stop herself, all the pain and grief and fear of her months on the street had flowed out of her.

"Well, they should lock me up for crazy and throw away the key, but come on with me, girl. I ain't got much, but I do got soap and water. You got lice?"

Gloria had nodded yes.

"Crazy, I must be crazy. Try not to touch anything. Johnson kids had lice. Mrs. J. will know what to do. Stop snivelling and come along."

And that was how it began.

Rose bathed her, deloused her, took her in and shared her frugal fare with her.

And daily, over and over, Rose had told her: "You been touched by God, child. Dirty and smelly as you was, I could see God's mark on you. He got a purpose for you. I see it."

And though she did not believe it at first, she had tried to make it true, so that she would deserve Rose's kindness, as a kind of thank you. In Gloria's eyes, it was Rose who was touched by God, who saw the beauty and goodness in everyone. And whether by magic or contagion or the hand of God, she had begun to see things that way too, even herself. As the music of the recessional vibrated around her, the new Cardinal whispered quietly: "Thank you, Rose. Even if God hasn't touched me, you have, and that seems to me to be pretty much the same thing.

The End

Poem of the Week: Magnetic Coffee Mug Poem

Centuries ago, before I had turned into the old fart I am today, my nieces and nephew gave me one of those magnetic coffee mugs with all the little magnetized words in it. I wrote two poems with it. (Not as easy a you might think, by the way.) I somehow lost track of the second one, which adorned my refrigerator for a while, but I still have this one. Since Paint Shop Pro has not been raised from the dead yet, I borrowed today's graphic from the foodnetwork and hope they won't notice or care. If they do, I'll remove it.

Shake me awake

Invigorate and fill my life

I need to taste sacred desire's

Magic, full-flavored brew

Pour vital power, like hot liquid cream --

Steaming, calming, strong.

I drink in the fresh smell of you

Weak as mud, I give ground

Black ice breaks up

And morning is fueled

With love's delicious, potent aroma

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Wordless Wednesday: Kitties and Other Critters

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Heads or Tails Tuesday: Mother

Skittles Heads or Tails Tuesday prompt this week was "Mother." I'm going to keep this short and bitter sweet this morning. I'm not feeling well at all, so I will probably be late visiting others. Heading back to bed covered in Vicks in hopes that sleep will help fix me.

Mother
aching with love
my outstretched arms
remember catching
only your pain

- Katherine E. Rabenau

The Alphabet Backwards: "Q" is for Questions

Well, it's alphabet backwards day, one of my worst ever ideas but I'm sticking with it anyway. I guess there were a lot of other things I could have done with the letter Q, but I'm think this is an important one. Here's my question:

Why don't people question things more?

When did we become a society that just swallowed any pap the media handed out to us as though it were truth, without thinking about it? Why don't we question the motives behind incendiary and hate-mongering talk? Why don't we question whether "no new taxes" actually serves our highest good? Why don't we question whether our President is lying about things? Why don't we question those stupid emails that come into our mailboxes that make absolutely no sense if you stop and think for even 20 seconds. If the world was really coming to an end, if there was some new virus destroying every computer in America, if X detergent was really killing babies, don't you think you'd have heard about it in the news? Why don't people stop and think?

My primary vote was cast a long time ago for Dennis Kucinich. It bothers me that people didn't question the media's motives for silencing a great man. One reason, I think is because Dennis K asks questions about important issues. He asked questions (and offered answers) about universal health care, about peace, about impeachment... all things that the forces currently running this country into the ground don't want asked. Questions move the world forward. They are the foundation for all scientific advancement. We know that. But they are also the basis for intellectual, social and spiritual growth.

I've never understood the idea of "unquestioning faith." To me that isn't faith at all. How can one have a true relationship with the Divine if you have never questioned the who and what and how of what you profess to believe? How can one understand the tenets of one's faith if one doesn't question them? I find that mind boggling. But I digress

Questions are important, whether they are trivial or deep. Children know this. They question everything. It's how they figure out who they are and how the world works. When we stop asking questions, stop looking beneath the surface, we rob ourselves and our lives of a richness that is what makes it worth living. We rob ourselves of the opportunity to find the truth and we put ourselves at the mercy of those who would control us.

I've been saddened by the whole Rev. Wright debacle that is playing out in the media right now. I don't agree with all this man says, but I'm not black and I haven't lived my life with the shadow of racism hanging over me. Still, when I heard the clips being played over and over in the news, I wondered why nobody was asking about the context in which these sentences were offered? What was really being said? What was their intent? When I asked those questions, I came to a very different conclusion than what the media was implying. I also asked the question? Do I agree with everything every pastor I ever listened to has said? Did I leave the church when they said something I didn't like? Is it possible to love someone and disagree with what they preach? Aren't people profoundly complex and multi-faceted?

I'm going to stop here and let Bill Moyers - one of my favorite people on earth - ask some questions and suggest some answers on the subject of the Rev. Wright.

That's it for the letter "Q." I'm sick with a touch of the flu today. If I am even less coherent than usual, I apologize. Hopefully, Bill Moyers will make up for my failings.

One Single Impression: Desert/Deserted

Today OSI
Prompts Desert or Deserted
Alas, this is hard

Deserted by muse
I am so dissatisfied
With today's haikus

Computer crashing
Leaves me with no paint shop pro
Sorrow rules the day

Youth deserted me
I shuffle along alone
Wishing she’d return

~~~~~

Ravaged earth, starving hordes
God and values deserted
For gas, greed, power

~~~~~

Battling depression
I feel deserted by hope
But gratitude wins

~~~~~

Skinny gray kitty
Hearts deserted by kindness
Dumped you like garbage

~~~~~

Strange desert beauty
Lonely giants raise their arms
To a blazing sky

~~~~~

The desert is stark
But when the cactus blossoms
There’s nothing like it

Tagged: Getting to Know you Meme

Maryt, aka The Teach tagged me for this meme. The theme is "Getting to Know You." You were probably better of NOT knowing me, but a deal's a deal, so, here goes...

The Rules:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 or more people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago would be 1998, I guess. Alas, I wasn't doing much. I was still living in New York City, but my agoraphobia and my walking problems had trapped me in my apartment pretty much full time. I was still having panic attacks back then and depression had pretty much made me into a deteriorating vegetable. My cats and my computer and a few good friends kept me going. That and one of the gifts of living in a big city - delivery. I do miss that here in the middle of nowhere.

2. What are 5 Things on my To-Do List for today:

1. Do this meme. 2. Keep track of the Wordzzle entries. 3. Take a nap. 4. Reiki a kitty up in Maine 5. Watch my netflix movie for today which is Charlie Wilson's War.

3. Snacks I Enjoy:

Oh, Lord... there's almost nothing I don't like. Chocolate, chips, cookies, ice cream, cheese & crackers, grapes, cherries. I have to confess that I am, unfortunately, more likely to eat the first items than the healthier ones.

4. Things I would do if I were a Billionaire:

On the personal level, I'd fix up the front steps of the house so it's easier to get in and out and I'd close in the back porch and put a washer dryer in the kitchen. Oh - and a new TV and a piano. I'd pay off my mortgage and donate funds to help others get similar mortgages from the state. It would be a fund to help people who are not quite able to qualify for HOYO to bridge the gap. And I'd set aside enough money to live modestly until I kick the bucket. I'd pay off the mortgages on everyone's houses - relatives and friends. My nieces and nephews would each get at least a million plus there'd be trust funds for my great niece and great nephew. Friends without houses would get them and nobody in my circle of friends would have any more credit card debt to deal with. I'd pay for college for my friend three friends who all desperately want to go to school but can't afford it. I'd pay for college for my friend K's children too. I'd help my friend E. establish here lifes' dream animal welfare organization and invest in producing and distributing her music. I'd invest in my nephew's restaurant. I'd publish my own writing and see about marketing it. There's probably lots of other stuff I'd do too. That's on the personal level. On a grander scale, I'd donate a lot of money to Habitat for Humanity and to various wildlife organizations. And to Amnesty International, One and other organizations dedicated to world peace and the elimination of poverty and cruelty. I'd establish a free spay neuter program for Delaware and Sullivan Counties - maybe even NY State. (I've got billions, right?) I'd contribute to arts programs for schools in these poor communities where I live... providing musical instruments, cameras, books, art supplies. Oh, I could go on and on and on. I think about this a lot. One more thing.... I'd solarize anything anybody would let me solarize and I'd invest in developing solar energy.


5. Three Of My Bad Habits:

I eat too much and I don't eat healthy. I stay up too late and sleep too late. I check my blog constantly and compulsively in case somebody has posted a comment.

6. 5 Places I have Lived:

1. Born in the Bronx, NY ( to age 5) 2. Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York. (into my 20s) 3. 18th Street and 1st Avenue in New York City (for 33 years) 4. Mesa, Arizona (18 months) 5. Various locations in upstate New York - Lake Huntington, Narrowsburg, Callicoon, ending up in Hancock.

7. Jobs I Have Had:

Administrative Assistant at various places, including The Council on Social Work Education in NYC, Macy's, The American Museum of Natural History, K&W (manufacturers of fine wallpaper... awful job). I was also the Assistant Director of Admissions for a while at The School of Visual Arts. Was an administrative assistant and editorial assistant for the Department for Ecumenical Relations of the Lutheran Church in America.

I do reiki for money sometimes. Not quite a job, really, but something I love. I've done writing/editing at almost all my jobs, just didn't get pay or credit for it very often. When I was on the road in 1978, I temped at banks. At the bank in Seattle, one of my jobs was sorting through bonds. I had a chance to steal about $100,000 in un-cancelled bonds. I was too honest/cowardly to do that. I probably would have been caught anyway. Oh, boy, I almost forgot my two nightmare years working as a writer for the Human Resources Department of the City of New York.

8. 5 People I Want To Know More About:I Am Tagging:

1. Dianne at Forks off the Moment
2. Linda at These are the Days
3. Kim at Ramblings of a 40 Something Empty Nester
4. Akelamalu at Everything and Nothing
5. Richard at Mr. Richard's Bloggerhood

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week Eleven

This is week 11 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: cranberry sauce, amber, laundry list, coffin, morning glory, shalom, mystery, sparrow hawk, pumpernickle, stained glass And for the Mini Challenge: margarita, gum wrapper, spring fever, Darfur, lace

Here's my ten-word offering for this week.

Sarah sat in a daze of grief. She barely heard or registered the “shaloms” and hushed conversations of the other mourners gentle efforts at comfort. She barely registered the coffin sitting at the front of the temple bathed in the beautiful rays of green and rose and amber light that filtered down from the stained glass window. It was so beautiful she thought – but odd, too with morning glories and what looked like a sparrow hawk flying. A mystery to her why they chose those symbols for a temple window – but then it was beautiful and comforting – so maybe that was all it needed to be. It was so different from the doves and and lambs and pretty Jesus figures she had grown up with before marrying Solomon and converting to Judaism. Now he was gone and she felt herself a stranger in a strange land, though she had known these kind people now for years and knew them to be friends and knew that wasn’t really true. But it was what she felt. Empty and alone. Lost. Reaching into her purse for a Kleenex, she found the laundry list of chores and groceries he had written out just a day ago…. Pumpernickel bread, cranberry sauce… Suddenly she saw his smiling face at breakfast, and it was followed by a flood of other images of the beautiful man who had for the 40 years of their marriage made the sun rise in her heart every time he walked into a room. And the dam of sorrow she had been holding back burst at last.

And here's my mini challenge:

Watching the lace curtain blow gently in the soft April breeze, Annabelle felt her raging Spring Fever pulse even more strongly through her veins. She laid aside the paper with its grim headlines about Darfur and the infuriating news stories about the President un-elected, feeling restless and frustrated and torn between anger at the state of the world and a desire to run out into the garden and revel in the newly opened flowers. Both options left her restless and almost too full of emotion to bear. In the end she opted to celebrate beauty. Picking up an empty gum wrapper, she placed her used gum into it and then into the garbage. Then she made herself a margarita, picked up a bag of chips and her camera and settled into the weathered old rocker on the back porch. I will focus on beauty, she thought and be grateful for my blessings.

And the mega challenge:

For Jeremy and his wife Anna, food was a profoundly sensual experience. Foods were not just about taste, they were about texture and color and beauty: the dark amber color of the roasting turkey and the rich red and the complex texture of home-made cranberry sauce. Jeremy breathed in the rich aroma of his special pumpernickel bread stuffing and the sweet spicy scent of his special mashed yams. Today was Anna’s day and things had to be perfect. He straightened the drape of the linen table cloth to even perfection and noticing one of the tall white candles tilting slightly, quickly slipped the contents of a gum wrapper into his mouth, chewed it and used it to right the offending taper. Better. The fresh morning glories that filled the low-lying vases along the table were not quite what he would have wished, but he had managed to mask their flaws with tulips and Queen Anne’s Lace. "Morning Glories and tulips are the stuff of spring fever," Anna always said, "and Spring was God’s way of kissing the earth." He thought she would have liked his arrangements. He hoped so. He quickly ran down the laundry list of what needed to be done. Wine was chilling and the makings for margaritas were on the side-bar. It seemed everything was in order. As if to confirm that the afternoon light began to peek through the stained glass window Anna had crafted with such skill and love. “Shalom,” it would soon write in rich blue letters on the soft cream of the wall. It was a mystery to him how she had been able to design it that way. If he had timed it right, that glow would be at its peak as they sat down to dinner and this last celebration of his beautiful, gifted wife. For now, he would not think about the reality of her precious ravaged body that was coming back to him from Darfur in an unadorned coffin. He would not think about how all the love and goodness that was this precious woman had been snuffed out by people she had wanted to help. Even with oceans between them, he had felt it in his heart as the life left her body. As if to confirm the truth of it to him, a sparrow hawk had circled the house that day – that hour – then landed not three feet from him, as though her spirit was seeking him out to say good-bye. Even as he felt her gone, he also felt her with him. Tonight was the gathering she herself had planned to celebrate her life/death should she go first. Her favorite foods, favorite people were to gather, to feast and to rejoice. As the sound of voices announced the arrival of their first guests, he hoped she would approve his efforts. As if to assure him that she did, as he opened the door to their arriving friends, the sparrow hawk circled again and swooping low, seemed to call out his name.

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: aardvark, continuity, railroad, serene, keyboard, teacup, ruler, bulletin board, newspaper, gravel driveway.

Martha sat in front of the computer keyboard stumped, words stuck in her fingers, clogging her mind, trying to sort themselves out into some coherent continuity of thoughts and ideas. She looked up at the bulletin board hoping it would supply the key. Nothing there but an out-dated railroad schedule, pictures of the kids, and a few yellowing old newspaper clippings from better days. "Damn." She tried wiggling her fingers to see if any words would come loose. Nothing. Maybe if she pulled on them - one finger at a time - starting with the pinky and moving inward towards the thumb. Still nothing. Any time now she knew it would be too late. Jack's tires would sound the alarm of his return on the gravel driveway and her writing time would be over. He would approach her, serene and loving, concern and devotion etched onto his face. "Hi, Hon! How'd the writing go?" And then, when she confessed her failure, he would carefully hide his disappointment, so carefully that she flinched from it, that she felt its power like a ruler slapped across the palms of her word-congested hands. She was not sure she could stand much more of his suffocating devotion. The teacup rattled against its saucer as she picked it up with shaking hands. "Oh, God! Look at me! He'll see and it will be even worse." She looked at the clock. "I've got to do something. Anything. Where's the dictionary?" She heard the whining engine of Jack's car at the end of the street. "Oh, God," she muttered. "There must be something." The dictionary shook in her lap. "Aardvark. No, that's no good. Butterfly? No. Deception! That's it! Yes." Slamming the dictionary shut, she quickly typed: "Today I will begin to explore the uses and benefits of deception in American society." Quickly she pressed "Save," turned the computer off and rose smiling to greet her husband as he came through the kitchen door. "Hi darling," she beamed. You wouldn't believe what a great day I've had."

*************************

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: florist, grave yard, sausage, magnificent, soap opera, linguist, columns, volume, French, canvas And for the Mini Challenge: suspension bridge, veracity, lunch, multi-faceted, house of ill repute

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Friday at the Movies: More about Reiki

I'm still a touch down in the dumps today. The sky is gray and dreary and it's cold out even though it should be balmy and spring-like and I'm tired and cranky... So, I thought I'd let someone else do the talking. And since some people expressed curiosity to learn more about reiki than what I shared in my post on Monday, I thought these videos might be of interest.

There's quite a lot of video here. The first is fairly short and I just thought it was pretty. The next six seemed to me to be a pretty good basic pragmatic discussion about reiki so I decided to share it here.

In the second series, they quite a bit about "release forms." I thought that was a touch disingenuous. When I was doing a lot of hands-0n reiki in NYC, I used to have people sign a release form because I was advised to do so simply as a way to protect myself from the unlikely but still possible risk of being sued by some unhappy or unstable person. Reiki doesn't fall under the parameters of therapy or medicine, so the release form is really a way of protecting yourself legally, because there are crazy people out there who will sometimes want to blame you for everything that's wrong in their life. Reiki offers miracles, but practitioners aren't god and we don't control what the miracles or non-miracles a person experiences will be. We're just channels or facilitators. What happens is not in our hands. It just comes through our hands.

I hope this has added a little depth to your understanding of reiki. I love reiki so much. It has changed my life and brought much joy into it. I hope some of you will explore it for yourselves.

Poem of the Week: My Grandfather's Shadow

My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
Some I have never seen
Loom darkly
In tales of times before my life was formed
Rage and rail at inner foes
Strike out at children he may have loved
But did not understand

My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
Which never smile
Which carry sadness in their eyes
For something lost or unremembered

My Grandfather's shadow
Would have cried, maybe, in other days
And not compressed his sorrow into balls of rage
Nor flung them indiscriminately at those he loved

My Grandfather's shadow has many faces
One of which loved me
As I him

- Katherine E. Rabenau