Monthly Archives: November 2017

The Good Thing about “Meh” Posts

Posted on by
3

Yesterday was a “meh” post day for me – a cute puppy and an attempt at a witty daily word prompt.

The good thing about a “meh” post is thinking about it.

So, today, learning the new prompt, I thought more about puppies and remembered something. Something I was told and continue to love.

A few weeks after a friend’s beloved dog died, he had a dream. In the dream, “Max,” Ethan’s Cocker Spaniel, came to visit and spoke to him.

Ethan said, “Max, I didn’t know you could talk.”

“Of course we can,” he said. “We’re just not supposed to show it.”

“Well, what do you do all day?” Ethan asked.

“Oh, I sit at the feet of God.”

Ethan said, “What does that feel like?”

“Well, you know how when you yawn and, when the yawn’s over, how good it feels? It’s like that.”

 

I love this dream.

So I wonder if the God in Ethan’s dream is surrounded by a zoo of deceased and beloved pets, all yawning with contentment. I hope so. It’s a beautiful image.

Thinking of you sweet Lizzy and Luther.

via Zoo

The Puzzler

Posted on by
Reply

She puzzled and puzzled till her puzzler was sore

She walked down the hallway and opened the door

And to her amazement guess what she saw?

The sky? The trees? No, not that at all!

But pieces of colors all shades and all hues

obstructing her vision but changing her views.

For the pieces together were so snuggly fit

that the light in her brain was instantly lit.

Nothing to ponder and nothing to question

No one’s advice and no ones’ suggestions.

The pieces together had finished their quest

so now she could sit down and quietly rest.

the puzzler 3

Art and poem by CD-W (thanks for the inspiration, Dr. Seuss)

 

 

Proceed with Caution

Posted on by
4

“Always pay attention to your surroundings,” Dad always told my sister and I.

Perhaps he said this because he grew up in West Texas during the Depression  – a place and time with caution at every turn of a dirt road.

Ike and Cono.jpg

(Dad on right)

And, perhaps he remembered this piece of advice from his stint as one of the original deputies for the county Sheriff’s Department.

(I do remember, though, that toward the end of his life, he stopped needing the advantage point of sitting with his back up against a wall.)

Perhaps Dad was covering his ass – literally.

His maternal grandfather, my great- grandfather, used to tell him”

“Always pay attention ta what’s around ya. ‘Cuz if ya don’t, something’ll come up and bite ya on the butt.” 

And perhaps, my great-grandfather said this because he himself didn’t have any teeth.

Screenshot 2017-11-28 08.35.02

 

via Bite

What are they talking about?

Posted on by
Reply

This makes no sense to me. I have no experience with such things:

“Get inside the vehicle and depress the clutch to shift the car into “Neutral.” Insert the key into the ignition and turn it to the “On” position. This is the place the key would be after a normal turn of the ignition switch for starting. Instead, with a clutch pop, the ignition will already need to be on so that when the engine is turned over, the key is in the On position.Move the car in position to be pushed from behind or sent down a slope for the starting procedure. Check to see that the brakes will …”

What? Huh?

To me, this is what happens when you pop the clutch:

Unknown-3

photo credit

via Clutch

Sisters of Mercy

Posted on by
Reply

 

Oh the sisters of mercy,

they are not departed or gone.

They were waiting for me

when I thought that I just can’t go on.

And they brought me their comfort

and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them,

you who’ve been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything

that you cannot control.
It begins with your family,

but soon it comes around to your soul.

Well I’ve been where you’re hanging,

I think I can see how you’re pinned:

When you’re not feeling holy,

your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.

Well they lay down beside me,

I made my confession to them.

They touched both my eyes

and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf

that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love

that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping,

I hope you run into them soon.
Don’t turn on the lights,

you can read their address by the moon.
And you won’t make me jealous

if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren’t lovers like that

and besides it would still be all right,
We weren’t lovers like that

and besides it would still be all right.

–beautifully written by Leonard Cohen

3210A-GenerousMthrTeresa8x10

via Mercy

What Grown-ups Forget

Posted on by
8

Unknown-10

Sad, isn’t it?

Unknown

What?

They’ve forgotten.

Yes. Very sad. Because they’re not elephants.

Huh?

Elephants never forget. They even teach their babies how to play in the mud. Elephant babies are lucky.

2B841B9800000578-0-image-a-80_1440066667563

My parents always tell me to stop playing in sludge. I tell them that mud is not sludge. I tell them it’s magic fudge.

I like that, magic fudge. How could grown-ups forget how good it feels when it squishes between your toes and oozes between your fingers?

It’s like The Little Prince said – “All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

Yes. And “only children know what they are looking for.”

Will we be like them when we grow up?

Who’s growing up?

 

anigif_enhanced-buzz-15868-1363628369-21

 

 

daily word prompt-  Sludge

 

Photo one credit

Photo two credit

Photo three credit

 

 

Toothless in a Fur Coat

Posted on by
4

Unknown-4

Hardly Saddler’s rolled up his wagon, pitched a tent and started up his Medicine Show. He told us about his elixirs and about how, if we bought them, they could treat most of our ailments. If he had an elixir for meanness, I would have bought a bottle right then and there, mixed it into a Pearl beer and taken it straight home to Dad.

Hardley Saddler had all kinds of shows to see and games to play. One of them was a contest to see who could hammer their one big nail the fastest into the wooden board. This contest was only open to girls, since there were other contests open for boys.

“Hey, look who’s enterin’ the contest,” Dorothy says , spitting a watermelon seed at my face. I spit one back and see Aunt Nolie and Genevieve, Dorothy’s sister, step up to the boards.

Besides Aunt Nolie and Genevieve, there were five other ladies lined up at the board. The whistle blew and there they were, those gals pounding their nails in such a hurry you would have thought they were putting up a church roof to keep Jesus dry before a storm. We were all cheering and a hollering for our favorite girl and wouldn’t you know it? I was still picturing Freezer’s eyeballs twitching and Aunt Nolie hammering something else.

Aunt Nolie got real close to winning, her face just dripping with girl sweat. But Genevieve slammed that nail in quicker than a racehorse coming out the gate.

After Genevieve was declared the winner, I couldn’t believe what the first prize was. Genevieve had won herself a brand new, over-the-knee fur coat. Even the folks who had rooted for someone else to win were hooting and clapping that at least one person in Rotan owned a new fur coat.

The next morning  peeked out the window and saw Lottie, Genevieve’s mother, standing outside her cabin, a cigarette dangling from her bottom lip, her bare feet in the snow. She looked over and waved to me like she does every morning. But on this particular day, she waved like she was the Queen of England except she was wearing nothing but a toothless grin and a brand new over-the-knee fur coat.

Ain’t that a pisser?

 

A true story from No Hill for a Stepper.

 

photo credit

via Particular