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

Another dream...a repeating dream...I'm back at John Rennie trying to resign but I can't find the office and...I don't know who the principal is...the building is rather like an Escher print...the one with the ladders...so far...I've woken up before I could actually quit! And of the course of the real irony is that I have been retired for 19 years...no wonder I don't know the principal! But...not one seems to know who the principal is!

This is a bit of a lie...it's last year's snow...it's too cold to get one today...but it's very pretty. I got a lesson in age today. I confessed to my neighbour that I was pretending that I had to move. This is a game I play when I panic...what if I had to move in a day? I've moved only once in my adulthood and it was just across the street...literally...we even rolled the piano across the street between buses! My neighbour has never moved! She has been in her apartment since the age of 22,,,some 40 years...and that's when I discovered my truth. I have been on this street for 55 years...no wonder I have angst!

I like trees and I like clouds...
I'm having a bit of stilted difficulty returning to this blog...which is why I have returned...I don't want to get stilted!

So...my post for today...at the age of 76...perhaps 77...I'm not sure...I have learned how to make rice...I wasn't sure what to do with it after I made it...so...I added salt and pepper and ate some of it...naturally I have enough for three weeks...

I colour my hair. There - it's not a confession...it is obvious...it is a fact. I'm not trying to hide my age...I just like the colour! Tomorrow I am going to my hairdresser to colour my hair and do my toenails. The latter is a product of doing Yoga. One does Yoga in bare feet...that is not pretty...

Yesterday a young, pregnant woman, gave me that look. I know it - "Miss Machin? You taught me!"
I have been out of the classroom for...5 years...no...make that 15...no 18 years! And yes, I got her name -it came to me! Jennie! (She was a red head - that helped.) I even remembered her writing. Sometimes I can't remember what I did the day before...but I remember my students' writing from twenty year's ago!

You haven't changed, Miss Machin! I knew you immediately.

And that is why I am going to thank my hair dresser tomorrow!

January 11

In my experience with students—talented students of writing — the most important thing for them to remember is that someone who is not them and cannot read their mind is going to have to read this. In order to write effectively, you don’t pretend it’s a letter to some individual you know, but you never forget that what you’re engaged in is a communication to another human being. The bromide associated with this is that the reader cannot read your mind. The reader cannot read your mind. That would be the biggest one.

Probably the second biggest one is learning to pay attention in different ways. Not just reading a lot, but paying attention to the way the sentences are put together, the clauses are joined, the way the sentences go to make up a paragraph.

One could do worse than returning to one`s blog with this:

It’s a serious thing

Just to be alive

On this fresh morning

In the broken world

Mary Oliver