Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 109

This is week 109 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Made it. Oddly, I had the hardest time with the mini this week. Fewer words don't necessarily make it easier, I guess. I resorted to poetry, always a sign that I'm truly desperate.

This week's 10 word challenge is: speeding ticket, pedestal, changeling, what we ache for, in demand, carrot soup, powder puff, improvement, shady deal, amplitude And for the mini: eggs over easy, lawn mower, forgiveness, cold shoulder, chipper

This week's mega:

Margaret couldn't understand why her husband was giving her the cold shoulder as he sat glumly eating his breakfast of eggs over easy. Charlie was usually so chipper and good natured. In fact, he kept her on a pedestal that was sometimes a bit uncomfortable. She had slowly learned that even though adoration may be what we ache for, it can wear thin at times. Still, the amplitude of this change was a bit disconcerting. "Charlie?" she asked after a few more moments of silence, "have I done something wrong?" "Not you," he mumbled... "me... I am unworthy of you, my beautiful powder puff.... I... I... I am unworthy of your perfection... I got a speeding ticket last week and then I tried to work a shady deal with Officer Changeling... I offered him a gallon of your amazing carrot soup that's always so in demand if he'd look the other way and... and... he agreed only then I realized that I didn't have your permission and that I was...." He stopped as Margaret collapsed in her chair laughing uncontrollably. "Carrot soup? You bribed him with carrot soup? And he accepted?" "I... uh, yes... does this mean you forgive me?" "I think I can muster up forgiveness for a carrot soup bribe and a speeding ticket, though your driving does leave room for improvement. If that's your idea of a shady deal, I guess I don't need to worry about your criminal tendencies. Now go atone for your sins and get out that lawn mower and make the yard look beautiful again... Silly man," she whispered and gave him a kiss as he headed out to do her bidding.

The 10-word:

What we ache for, Naomi Jones thought, isn't always what we need, but the Pedestal Carrot Soup (it deserved the name - it was beyond improvement) at Powder Puff Restaurant was one of those things you could ache for and not be ashamed. Naomi thought she could gladly move into the Powder Puff and live her days there eating everything in sight. The food was that awesomely good, despite the odd names they gave everything and the fact that it was all vegetarian... and she was not. Among her favorites treats were Amplitude Artichoke soup, In Demand Tofu and Turnip Pie, Speeding Ticket Faux Sausage and Eggs, Shady Deal Spinach Pie, and best of all, perhaps, Changeling Cherry Cheese Cake. Powder Puff is the wrong name for this place, she mused. It should be called Heaven on Earth instead. And so thinking dug into a slice of Lost Luggage Lemon Pie and felt like she had indeed found Paradise.

And the mini: eggs over easy, lawn mower, forgiveness, cold shoulder, chipper

Eggs over easy

She made them that morning

A peace offering

My favorite breakfast

But I was mad at her

I don't ever remember why, really

Something about the lawn mower

Or something equally absurd and foolish

I gave her the could shoulder

Spurned her love offering

No eggs and chipper smile would appease me

No, sir

Forgiveness was not that easily won

For a broken mower

A man has his pride, you know

How could I have known

That was the day a stupid drunk

Would mow her down?
How could I have known?
It seems so foolish now...

I hope she knew... in spite of me

How much I loved her

That there was nothing to forgive

Except my arrogant stupidity

And now it's me who needs forgiveness

But there's no one here to give it.

It would have been so simple

Such a small, big thing

To say thank you for the

Eggs over easy

But it's too late now, too late

***********

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: solar power, rooster, all God's children go to Heaven, prosperity, savage, cucumber salad, drizzle and fog, false teeth, library books, trench

For the mini: muscle spasms, charter boat, sunshine, microwave oven, ample bosoms

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!!!!!

Discerning Life and Death

Well, I am not back to blogging with quite the verve I had hoped for. I have no photos for Ruby Tuesday. I have three half-written poems for last week's One Single Impression and a couple of ideas in my head for this week's, but don't seem able or willing to move forward on them. I'm not sure why that is, but it is what it is. Maybe I'll get the poems posted at some point.

But this morning I wanted to share something awesome that happened last night. For some reason - and much to my delight - I've had a sudden spate of requests for reiki. I love doing reiki and it's nice to know that the process is helping people and animals to feel better. A few weeks back and then on and off, I've been reiki-ing my niece's kitty Gregory. He's an old boy now and he wasn't doing very well. Diana thought his time had come. Once I got over my own flu, I did some reiki for him and he has popped back quite a bit. He has off days still. He's old, but he's doing much better.

Then there's this wonderful blind dog up in Maine. Her name is Tiera. I love working on animals because they don't second guess their experiences. Tiera is a rescue. She was abused when she was a puppy and is quite nervous around people she doesn't know and in certain situations. I wasn't sure reiki would help her, but she has been miraculous in her open and intelligent response. She is much more open with people other than her own person and has willingly done some things she was not keen on in the past. That makes me feel so happy.

Then there was a kitty names Scout who was gravely ill, bleeding internally and near death. She's home now and making a good recovery. And a friend of mine who is struggling with a lot of stress.

And in the last few days there's been a run on left feet. First a woman with a damaged ligament and swelling and pain in her foot. I've done two sessions for her and she said the foot is much better, both the swelling and the pain are less. The other is an old friend who's partner I reiki-ed years ago as he battled cancer. D. got a cut in his toe which led to blood poisoning. He's in a lot of pain and if he stands or walks gets massive swelling. For him too, the reiki is making a difference. It still awes me that I can sit here in Hancock and be of service to someone far away.

This brings me to the last reiki session - and the inspiration for this post. D. wrote to me yesterday afternoon that a friend of his was dying. She had been battling cancer and seemed to be doing well but had had a sudden agonizing blockage in her stomach. This was not reiki to save her life, although I always hope it will be, even though I believe that death is a kind of healing too. Well actually I know it.... which is why I'm writing this.

I've been doing reiki for over 20 years now. How I work has changed. I stay more detached when I work than I did when I was younger. But I still have a pretty good sense of how the energy is being received. It's an amazing process. Some people slurp it up, some people sip it in delicately, some do a mixture of both. And the same person may respond differently on different days. But I digress.

Three times in my life I have been working on someone as they were dying. It's a profound experience and each time I have gotten it wrong.... because it feels like dramatic healing.... and of course it is... Death is as much healing - perhaps more - than anything else. I find it embarrassing that after all this time, though, I still can't discern it when it is happening. Maybe that's in part because I've experienced it so rarely, but I think it's also that even though I believe in reincarnation, in life after death.... I'm still not 100% comfortable with the process or with the idea of not being any more.

My first at-death reiki was on my younger niece's father-in-law. It was a very long time ago. I was not brand new to reiki, but I was still pretty much a newbie. And I was much younger than I am now. That experience was one of the most beautiful and profound I will ever have. There was an ebullience to it and a releasing of painful connections... It was amazing. In my ignorance, I thought it was a "recovery," because that's what I wanted it to be. Good reiki practice disconnects as much as possible from worrying about outcomes. But I was young and I wanted my niece and her husband to be happy. I'm still young in that way. I want people to get better. I can't help it. Anyway, I got it wrong on that occasion and I felt foolish. How could I not know the difference? I suppose in part it's because I want the living not to lose those they love. That's selfish but it's the way it is. Lucky for me, my job isn't to decide people's fates, just to let Unconditional Love work through me. God, All-That-Is, knows what he/she/it is doing. The soul knows it's own path. Neither one needs my opinion or advice.

Last night, I was sending reiki to D's friend BJ as she died. I am earth-bound and I think in earth bound terms, so when D's friend BJ soaked the energy in last night with radiant lightness, I thought... "well, maybe she's NOT dying." Of course the radiant lightness IS dying.

And that's why I wanted to write about my experience today. Many of us have such a fear of death. BJ was suffering on this last day of her life, but reiki-ing her, I could literally feel the falling away of that suffering. Death isn't a healing in just some philosophical, theoretical way. It IS healing. I have felt it twice in my life. I have only just now gotten the message viscerally. I have known it in abstraction for a long time. Last night, it started to seep through to me in a new way. I can't discern because in some ways - in the greater Universe, from the perspective of the Divine - death is simply part of the healing spectrum... perhaps the truest healing. I don't know that I'm there with that yet, but I do know what I have experienced when given the profound gift of being energetically present through reiki as someone lets go of physical life. It's awesome. Maybe one day, I'll be able to recognize it for what it is, while I'm experiencing it, but whether I do or not, it's comforting to know that whatever the physical reality of death, there is a whole other experience going on that is profoundly beautiful.

I feel like I haven't said this in a way that conveys what I want to say, but I don't know how to do so and I'm forced to leave it here and hope that it will mean something to the two or three people who still check in from time to time to see if I'm alive.

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 108

This is week 108 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Not to happy with my results this week, but so it goes.

This week's 10 word challenge is: samples, argumentative, tragic, bagels and lox, osprey, bank balance, dream a little dream of me, providence, bride and groom, the flowers are in bloom again For the mini: over the top, preposterous, sing, cantaloupe, creepy

My mega:

The bride and groom (John and Margaret Samples) sit quietly eating their bagels and lox along with some cantaloupe and watching an osprey circle over the water outside their hotel room window. The TV is on and someone is singing a preposterously creepy version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me," but they are not laughing or even smiling. Despite the fact that the setting here in Providence, Rhode Island, is as beautiful as can be, the honeymoon is not off to a good start. They are in fact feeling rather argumentative. It seems that she (he is glaring moodily out the window) went on a pre-wedding shopping spree (well it's a once-in-a-life-time special event.... she mutters) which has produced a bank balance which he considers shocking and unacceptable. Although she concedes that she went a bit overboard, she thinks his reaction is way over the top considering the nature of her crime. It is hardly as tragic as he is pretending. They still have money in the bank and she has promised that she will pay it back if that will make him happy. She is crying now, quietly, and he is feeling guilty and ashamed. He begrudges her nothing; it's just that he has been planning a special surprise and now he can't afford it. He's more disappointed than angry and now he has hurt her feelings and doesn't know how to fix it. Finally he leans over and whispers, "I'm sorry. You are perfect and I love you. I was just planning a surprise for you and I got disappointed but it was meant to make you happy and if you are happy with what you bought yourself, then I will be happy too and surprise you another time.... and... " But he can get no more out because she has thrown her arms around his neck. The sun has come out and the flowers are in bloom again. "I love you, husband," she whispers, "we will be happy forever."

My 10-word:

Dream a Little Dream of Me wedding planners, George and Martha Osprey, believed that in the preparations for tying the knot, as they liked to call it - nothing (and they literally meant nothing) - should or could be left to the whims of providence. Using their services required a pretty massive bank balance and infinite patience. The Ospreys were firm believers in samples. Samples, samples and more samples.... from cakes, flowers, meals (even breakfast options like bagels and lox), to gowns and tuxes to rings to... well everything. The average bride and groom were forced to choose between literally thousands of options. They remained astoundingly oblivious to the tragic fact that many couples became increasingly unhappy and argumentative after only a few weeks of their planning assistance. Many bolted after a very short time and found their way to the Osprey's biggest competitors, Fred and Nora Flowers, whose business had improved greatly since the Osprey's went into business. Nora - who loved a good play on words - had been heard to say with some frequency that, "thanks to the Ospreys, the Flowers are in bloom again."

And my mini:

Preposterous! Over the top! Wilma Wandabe, former child star, was outraged by the creepy campy performance that dreadful Charlotte Cantaloupe was giving in what should have been HER role. The girl couldn't sing either, but critics seemed to be enthralled by her. "Just goes to show," she muttered loudly to her companion, "that talent isn't everything." "You can say that again," someone in the crowd shouted in a way that made Wilma think perhaps she should keep her thoughts to herself.

***********

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: speeding ticket, pedestal, changeling, what we ache for, in demand, carrot soup, powder puff, improvement, shady deal, amplitude

For the mini: eggs over easy, lawn mower, forgiveness, cold shoulder, chipper

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!!!!!

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 107

This is week 107 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I don't know that what I've written is any good, but I kind of had a good time with these words. Hope the rest of you did too.

This week's 10-word challenge is: salacious, charity, spoof, t-shirt, magical mystery tour, observation, book club, sneezing, street lamp, raining cats and dogs And for the mini: operatic, a better start to a better day, gorilla, spinach, global warming

My mega:

It was raining cats and dogs and Margaret, achy, sneezing and sporting a runny nose, was tempted to stay home and skip the charity book club gathering. This month's book had a truly salacious looking cover with a scantily clad woman standing under a street lamp. The cover seemed totally out of keeping with the title, which was A Better Start to a Better Day: Gorilla Johnson Takes a Magical Mystery Tour of Global Warming. It was a spoof in novel form on the politics surrounding the future of the planet and the author's observations on the operatic, often arcane nuttiness on both sides of the debate were as cogent as they were hilarious. She sighed. She'd been looking forward to the discussion for weeks and she was darned if she would let a cold and a little torrential rain stop her. And Cafe Roma, where this month's gathering was to take place did make the best spinach salad in the city... and the best whiskey sour's too. And there was no dress code so she could wear jeans and a t-shirt and not feel out of place. Cold or no cold, she was going to have a good time... and maybe that George would be there.

My 10-word:

Fred thought his wife Charity looked salaciously alluring in her Magical Mystery Tour t-shirt, but maybe that had more to do with his memory of when he had first seen her wearing it 10 years earlier in the dim, mystical glow of a street lamp outside Spoof, his favorite book store, where he had been planning to attend the weekly book club meeting that was held there. It had been raining cats and dogs and she was alternately sneezing and crying. It had been his observation, he recalled, that despite her wet and bedraggled state, that she was possibly the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and he could not stand to see her crying. He had ridden to the rescue, so to speak, and taken her for a cup of coffee and a meal and like a movie romance, it had been love at first sight for both of them. Ten years later, he still thought she was the most beautiful woman on earth - inside and out. His life with her and their 2 beautiful children was a magical mystery tour every day. Her beauty he knew would never fade in his eyes and he would always love that t-shirt.

And the mini:

Her Broadway musical - A Better Start to a Better Day - was Sandra Amberson's contribution to the global warming debate. So far, unfortunately, it had been rather a dismal failure. One critic had somewhat mockingly called it "rather operatic, with aspirations to be the musical Gorillas in the Mist of climate change..." Another somewhat kinder reviewer had opined that, "Although there are a number of lovely songs, the play is painfully lacking in plot; its dialog consisting almost entirely of ecofriendly slogans. The crusading hero of the show," he had continued, "is a sort of modern day Pop-eye without the spinach, who is such a priggish know-it-all, that even though I agreed with him, I found myself wanting to run out of the theater and pollute something. Ms. Amberson's has aimed high and fallen short. With a better play to accompany the music, she might just be onto something." After her original devastation, she had taken those last words to heart and was hoping to find a writer worthy of the task of creating what she liked to think of as "a better end to a better play."

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

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: samples, argumentative, tragic, bagels and lox, osprey, bank balance, dream a little dream of me, providence, bride and groom, the flowers are in bloom again

For the mini: over the top, preposterous, sing, cantaloupe, creepy

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!!!!!

Ruby Tuesday: Red, You Say?

>

Ok... I don't want to lose momentum trying to get back into blogging, but I don't really have much red to offer, so I'm kind of pushing it..... There is some red... It's all kind of cheaty, but.... I'm posting... two weeks in a row.... doesn't that count for something?

I don't have much to offer, so I thought I'd do a Care2

commercial because it's a really good cause. You

can go to Care2.com every day and in a matter of about

a minute and a half, donate (free) to all sorts of good

causes from conserving wildlife to feeding children

to preventing violence to women. Free and easy way

to do some good in the world.

Stretching it here... if you look closely, there are

reddish leaves on the stuff growing around this stump....

More of my pretty flowering quince (posted last week)

which is really more pink than red, but....

Then at the last minute, I found these berries from

the end of last summer.... don't think I posted them before.

HAPPY RUBY TUESDAY!

In Memorium: West Virginia Coal Miners

I'm sitting here listening to the memorial service for the miners who died in West Virgnina on April 5th. It's profoundly moving. Profoundly real despite the presence of Presidents and Vice Presidents and Congressmen and Governors. There's a beauty in the deep faith and community of people who live daily with the possibility of death. There's a beauty in the realness of their pain and their grief and their love for one another.

I don't often think much about mining, except to wish that we would shift away from coal as an energy source to solar or wind. I take fuel that warms my house and powers my lights pretty much for granted except to whine about how high the bills are. Or to think about the old time movies about miners who were at the heart of the union movement, who risked much to secure even minimal levels of safety and decent wages in return for lives risked daily. It's much better now, but accidents like this one are a reminder that greed still outweighs the lives of brave men for some people, that they will cut corners to increase their profits and hope that nobody dies as a consequence. Only people do die.

Twenty-nine people died three weeks ago so that I can have electricity. That's pretty stunning to think about. It's worse to think that it could have been avoided, that they could have continued living - living dangerous lives, but living - had better care been taken by government overseers and mining companies.

In any case, at least for the present, when I give thanks for the power that keeps light and warmth coming on gray chilly days like today, I will give thanks for the sacrifice of families who live daily with the threat of death to provide it to me. I will hold them in my prayers.

The service also reminded me for some reason of the service when my sister died, though I suspect it's very different. I felt moved by the presence of many, many people who came to mourn her passing, many who didn't know her, but came because of the tragedy of her murder, because "it could have been them." There was a community in mourning and not just a family. But that communal process - for me - took something away. It turned my grief into public theater. It took pain that was private and made it into something else. But perhaps that isn't true for these families. This is a close-knit community, mourning a true communal loss, and as I understand it, they had private funerals before this mass public memorial. There were numerous pastors who spoke, local clergy who have sat with the families, held vigil during the rescue efforts and held hands to solace grief. Joe Biden spoke. He said - and he's right - that the worst time will come when life goes back to normal for the rest of us, but that in time grief would diminish. He prayed for them that the time when life felt normal again, when happy memories begin to replace grief would come sooner than later. A good prayer. I second his wish. May God and their community comfort them in the days to come and may time ease their pain.

Guess that's all I have to say, except maybe thank you for the courage and sacrifice that these people live with daily so that my life is more comfortable. The President in his speech pointed out that the song Lean on Me was written by someone from the mining community. I thought I'd share it here.

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 106

This is week 106 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

This week's10-word challenge was: salamander, lawyer, prank, flaccid, spurious, angst, flowers, once upon a time, genesis, spark and for the mini: largesse, salad dressing, flying purple people eater, priest, Spanish

My 10 word:

Once upon a time, Fredrick James Salamander had entered law school sparked by idealism and a desire to make the world a better place. And at the genesis of his career, he had tried to live up to that dream, but financial necessity had led him to take the occasional spurious law suit, cases that were more like legal pranks than anything else. He had proven to be good at them... to be a winner and the temptation to "play the courtroom game" again and again had proven too much to resist. Now, aging and world weary, his flaccid muscles reflected the flaccid spirit, the angst of one who had lost his way and knew it. But all was not lost. Meeting the beautiful Amanda Flowers had reawakened something in him and he had hope that maybe, if he could find his way, if he could become the lawyer he had originally meant to be - even if he was late doing so - that he could also win her heart. Even thinking about it made him feel more alive than he had in years and that alone was a gift he hoped he could become worthy of.

The mini:

Unfortunately, the young priest, Padre Juan Largesse, spoke only Spanish and was unable to make the police understand that he had tipped over the cart of salad dressing accidentally because he had been started by seeing a large flying purple people eater fly past the window of the restaurant.

The mega:

It was the case that Frederick Salamander had been hoping for, and would be the genesis for turning his life around and winning the heart of the beautiful Amanda Flowers. His client was a Spanish speaking priest named Juan Largesse who had been arrested for disorderly conduct when he accidentally upset a cart of salad dressing in a well known local restaurant called the Once Upon a Time Cafe. Because the father was Hispanic, the police had presumed he was either committing a prank or that he was an illegal alien. In other words, because he was Hispanic, he must be guilty of something. These spurious charges, along with disturbingly rough treatment at the hands of the cops, had caused great such great angst in the poor priest - who was already deeply traumatized because he believed he had seen a flying purple people eater - that it had sparked a mild heart attack. It might not be the case of the century, but it was a chance, Fredrick thought, to become the lawyer he had meant to become. He felt his flaccid spirits, his flaccid muscles awakening with enthusiasm. There was injustice out there and a victim needing a champion. He would get justice for the poor priest and Amanda would see his true heart. Everyone would win.

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

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: salacious, charity, spoof, t-shirt, magical mystery tour, observation, book club, sneezing, street lamp, raining cats and dogs

For the mini: operatic, a better start to a better day, gorilla, spinach, global warming

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!!!!!

Aggggghhhh!

How do these guys get elected? And how do they sleep at night? And how do they say the crap they say with a straight face? Agggggghhh! I think Anderson Cooper did a good job calling him on it. He let up to the interview with clear photos of the certificate, the signature and the embossed stamp. So many crazy, creepy, self-serving people with nothing to do but stir the hate pot. Sad.