When in doubt...steal from others...but I don't think I'm going to get to 31 posts by the end of the day!

these mountains

   that you are

carrying, you were

  only supposed to

            climb.

Najwa Zebian

And in the same vein:
bumble fumble humble jumble mumble rumble stumble tumble symbol...symbol? Humm that one strays!

A pathetic rhyme: I'm not going to crumble but I am going to grumble! That's my mantra...My only complaint is that I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot fix the world. All the hand lotion in the world is futile...

I know...no snow...but I'm scrambling...I have insisted on others writing and I've got to catch up with my writing!

“I want to write a novel about Silence,” he said, “the things people don’t say.” Virginia Woolf

Alas there are times when one doesn't dare to give the answers...

It’s frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

I will be forever grateful to my grandmother for giving me the expression, blithering idiots, even though she often used it on me!

Yes...it is a different rendition of breakfast in bed! I am tempting the cat on the bed to eat. He has to been to the Vet for congestion...and the Vet's panacea is testing and testing and testing...and then...a thousand dollars later, antibiotics. I cut to the chase and started with the antibiotics. I think the Vet read me and didn't argue because the cat on the bed is named Liam Too...after Liam O'Leary who died much too young and very badly despite all the tests in the world...I think his condition was fatal. I think the Vet relied so heavily on testing that she missed the condition...The teacher in me would really like to talk with the Vet. The Irish in me has yet to subside enough to talk with the Vet. All one had to do was put the two symptoms of his condition on the internet, and the diagnosis was there. I know...that sounds simplistic...and that is the other reason why I am hesitant to talk to the Vet...she meant well and she has no understanding of costs...both emotional and financial...

Another stolen picture from a friend...this one of Alaska...I wouldn't mind going there save for the fact that most of the time it rains and the scenery is hidden in fog.

If I'm going to catch up with my December blogs before tomorrow, I have to do 11 a day...plus one...this I can do...I have the material...this picture is "stolen" - it's a friend's picture taken with an I-phone...and treated with the Prisma App...it makes me want to get an I-phone...so I can prisma my pictures!

How could one not steal this title to a poem:
I Have Not Come Here to Compare Notes But to Sit Together in the Stillness at the Edge of This Wound

It is such a lesson...

In fact it was stolen by a poet, David Kirby, to use as a title for his poem and now I steal it to use in my blog...

I stole this picture from Parvathi...I didn't ask her...it was an impulsive act...but she would understand. Today I was reminded of the following quote: Do not laugh at a youth for his affectations. He is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.

“Do you know,” Peter asked, “Why Swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.”

Nothing could be more of a contrast than what I see out my window at the moment! But since lions are the thread...

A Need for Gardens

When I got there they were burying the lion in the back yard again. As usual, it was a hastily dug grave, not really large enough to hold the lion and dug with a maximum of incompetence and they were trying to stuff the lion into a sloppy little hole.

The lion as usual took it quite stoically. Having been buried at least fifty times during the last two years, the lion had gotten used to being buried in the back yard.

I remember the first time they buried him. He didn’t know what was happening. He was a younger lion, then, and was frightened and confused, but now he knew what was happening because she was an older lion and had been buried so many times.

He looked vaguely bored as they folded his front paws across his chest and started throwing dirt in his face.

It was basically hopeless. The lion would never fit the hole. It had never fir a hole in the back yard before and it never would. They just couldn’t dig a hole big enough to bury that lion in.

“Hello,” I said. “That hole’s too small.”

“Hello,” they said. “No it isn’t.”

This had been our standard greeting now for two years.

I stood there and watched them for an hour or so struggling desperately to bury the lion, but they were only able to bury ¼ of him before they gave up in disgust and stood around trying to blame each other for not making the hole big enough.

“Why don’t you put a garden in next year?” I said. “This soil looks like it might grow some good carrots.”

They didn’t think that was very funny.

Richard Brautigan

In The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, there is a scene in which a rather seedy lion prowls down Saint Laurent and a 47-year-old woman has an asthma attack.

And it took me right back...to Auntie Gertrude...a larger than life grade one teacher who wasn’t my aunt really but she saw that my mother wasn’t doing well in small town life.

In the sixties, this woman realized that there was no place for children with “emotional needs” – the term was loose...so she started Harterre House, a private school located across from the Bnai Brith building on Peel...and she populated it with salty teachers and psychiatrists and psychologists and care workers and...it was quite something...and costly

And every summer, she rented a property in Old Orchard and ran a summer camp for epileptics and assorted children who couldn’t go home...

I’m short cutting the story.

There was a ritual at the end of the summer. Aunty Gertrude, and Donald, her son, would drive to Boston to Phylenes...a very well-known store...the idea was to buy it out and then bring everything home with the campers...no duties...the schizophrenics signed for the televisions!

(Ok...I’m playing!)

What has this to do with lions?

One summer, Donald was hesitant. There was a hurricane warning.

Aunty Gertrude said nonsense and off they went.

She had an excellent shopping spree. Phylene’s was empty.

Her only issue was that her asthma was acting up.

When they exited the building, there was in fact a full blown hurricane and Donald had to hold on to the telephone poles and Aunty Gertrude.

And when they got back to Old Orchard, the news story of the day was the fact that in the chaos, a lion had escaped from the petting zoo at Phylenes and was wandering the store.

Ah, said Aunty Gertrude, I knew there was a cat loose somewhere!

So Heather O'Neill's scene was dead on!”

"A parade of young girls who had just been confirmed walked by in lace dresses. They had been up all night, collecting moths in a jar to make those dresses."

Heather O'Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

                                    Water Women

                                    We do not want

to rock the boat,

you say, mistaking

our new poise

for something safe.

We smile secretly

at each other,

sharing the reality

that for some time

we have not been

in the boat.

We jumped

or were pushed

or fell

and some leaped

overboard.

Our bodies form

a freedom fleet

our dolphin grace

in power.

We learn and teach

and as we go

each woman sings;

each woman’s hands

are water wings.

Some of us have become

mermaids or Amazon whales

and are swimming for our lives.

Some of us do not know how to swim.

We walk on water.

Alla Bazarth-Campbell

Old Lady Teeth

I met a friend in the park. She as on her way to the dentist...she was taken aback a bit when I said that she was taking her old lady teeth in for a check up...and then she laughed. We all walk in terror of our old lady teeth giving up before we do. At one time it was easy,,,they just made dentures...but now...they insist on implants - thousands of dollars of implants. Now...I'm not really considering my mortality but do I need thousands and thousands of dollars of implants for my time that is left? Can my implants be a address in a codicil of my will? On the other hand, I'm immortal enough that I don't want a gap...then I would be an old lady with a gap...and coloured hair!!

I also can't get it out of my head that I'm not slim...another reason to avoid pictures...

I can't get it out of my head that I'm not forty! If I don't look at any photos...then...I'm fine with forty..

I may have used this one before but it is worth repeating.

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

Yes...there's nothing like a trip to Scotland to fill the photo bank! And...a bank of quotes..."I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned."

"Don’t insult the alligator until you’ve crossed the river."

"All right, who let the bag of idiots loose?"

Five days...how does that happen? Have I been busy for five days? Ok...I have five quotes and five pictures and I may repeat myself but I will catch up!
"A friend told me I was delusional. I almost fell off of my unicorn."

Ah...at last I have an inspiration. This blog is not about petunias...it is about...patchouli oil! Last night a visitor commented on the smell of weed in the hall...I didn't smell weed...
Today I mentioned it to my neighbour and she said that yes...there had been a strong smell since new people moved in...and that when I discovered that weed does not smell of patchouli oil! Weed smells of weed! the patchouli oil is just a cover up...I taught all through the 60's and 70's and I could recognize a kid who was stoned...but...I didn't recognize the smell...
And I was reminded of yet another learning curve. At ten when kids were being silly and cute, someone asked me if my belly button was an insy or outsy and I replied, "An insy of course!" She moved on but what she didn't realize was that it wasn't until I was eleven that I discovered through literature handed out to me by mother without comment that...intercourse does not take place through the navel...I will be forever grateful for the creative gene pool inherited through my parents but in day to day matters they were really quite inept...although they obviously knew how intercourse took place...they just didn't think it was necessary to tell me. There was no Puritanical base...they were just..."artists!.

 You are expected to forget words or names, and you do. You may look up at the ceiling. People don’t like this. They may say, “Oh come on, you’re not listening.” You’re actually trying to remember their names. While he could still make explanations, my father explained to me that the little brain twigs, along with other damp parts of the body, dry up, but that there is still an infinity of synaptic opportunities in the brain. If you forget the word for peach (“A wonderful fruit,” he said), you can make other pathways for the peach picture. You can attach it to another word or context, which will then return you to the word “peach,” such as “What a peachy friend,” or springtime and peach blossoms. This is valuable advice, by the way. It works. Even if you’re only thirty, write it down for later. – Grace Paley

1.      

1.       Another day is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing. Arundati Roy

Yesterday was one of those days in which no one made sense or...perhaps I did not make sense...I'll have to think about it! Whichever it was, it was a dumb day!

Today's topic is that of story thieves. I have people in my life who in all innocence want to steal my stories. Or rather they want to steal the subject of my stories. All I need to is open the discussion with: Today, I met a hippopotamus on my walk...and that's it. They pick up my story and tell their own story about an encounter with a hippopotamus. Because of my age, by the time they have finished their story, I no longer can remember mine. I don't think that is fair.

So it was pointed out to me that I had better look at the super moon because I wouldn't be around for the next one- it won't be until 2046, I won't be around...but I have to admit, I've seen better moons...huge moons...orange moons...it wasn't that big. I took a picture anyway. It looks like the setting of a movie...Not really a good picture but then, it wasn't a good moon...My mortality is assured.

Yes, we saw deer in Scotland and this wonderful stag who was in rut...a stag in rut...what more could one ask for. He performed nobly for us with a sound that echoed through the hills and left knowing full well that his women were safe. But that's not what I want to write about. I want to ask why people keep having to tell me that electing Donald Trump was a bad idea...I must send out vibes to suggest I am a blithering idiot. The Scots had it right. When he came to open one of his gold courses, they greeted him with a Mariachi Band. The Americans have made their decision. Half of them decided not to vote. They will have four years to consider whether or not that was a good idea.

I returned to this blog after reading my entries over the years and realizing that it was an interesting record of my thinking/life. I haven't been thinking for at least a week...or at least thinking of something I could write about...but if I don't keep coming back...I won't...think? Does it work that way? All I'm thinking now is that I didn't win the lottery on Friday which I deem to be most unfair..I should win sometime.

I can't resist reporting on what people are saying about Trump's wall...Does he not realize that most of the drug trafficking and unwanted immigration between Mexico and the States comes through tunneling...they will tunnel under the wall...no one seems to have considered this!

This summer I was invited to someone's back yard to view this blossoming...and it was the perfect picture when I was looking for something to accompany the Leonard Cohen quote:

1.       There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

I think I stopped blogging because I became uninteresting...but there is always an old file or two!

Nine emotions that people feel but cannot explain.

       

       Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

       Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place 

      

      Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat. 

      

             Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

5    

      Vemodalen: The frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.

      Anecdiche: a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening.   

       Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone. 

       Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.

      Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.

I’m sorry

I was thinking about cats

Again

I still exist but I'm thinking of volunteering for a trip to Mars

I've been reviewing my blog and I feel guilty...It is the record of my life and I have to return to it...so here I am, returned from Scotland and searching for profound moments...

You can't plant carrots and pray for melons.

There...I've started!

I feel guilty about my blog but the truth is that I haven't been taking pictures and I haven't been thinking...I've been caught up in doing...good doing and bad doing...more good than bad...thank goodness...but I think think I should return. I need to do more thinking and less doing! So I am stumbling back in and perhaps this is a good quote to use"


You are not required to set yourself on fire in order to keep others warm.

Years of living longer has made me look worse.
Carrie Fisher

I like pictures; I like doors...but normally I don't close the door.

I've become a bit fond of black and white...
I feel safe in black...It's not that I feel colourless...it's just that with black...there are no decisions...

I am a relatively shallow person. If I really wanted to play with my pictures, I would use photo shop. I am satisfied with simple Picassa!

Let me introduce you to Balthazar and Casper...two cats sitting in waiting...but here is the astonishing point. Their owner has bought an automatic electronic cat feeder on Amazon (naturally). They are patiently waiting until it is time to line up for the next feeding at which point with accompanying noise, said feeder will spew forth a measured amount of crunchies!

On the first round, Balthazar had front seat whilst Casper uses the paw and snatch method. On the second round fifteen minutes later Casper positioned himself in such a way as to be hit by said crunchies...

Note: Need I say who is Balthazar and who is Casper?

All I do is walk out my friend's door...and...I play...

Although I wouldn't call myself religious, I like the following:

God's Three Answers to One's Prayers
1. Yes.
2. Not yet.
3. I have something better in mind.

I guess I believe sort of...

This is an "ooof" experience...a photographer with his doors - I just stood and stared...they were so beautiful and so touchable.
He wrote poetry:

How comforting
that each goes his own way.

 A rose, a tulip

and the snow mounded tree

have burst into bloom

and faded

Sandra