This is really just a test of how tolerant the platform is to resized pictures...but I'm leaving it because it is very funny! It is the second in a series...I leave the first to your imagination.

Gotta walk...gotta find me some dead trees to photograph

I wonder how many of us are finding our other selves as we sort through our closets...so far I am facing it with amusement...and coping.

People are good...I knew it already but it has been confirmed after three phone calls to ask if I needed anything.

I find it profoundly unfair that every time I wash my hands I have to sing happy birthday to myself twice in a month which is my birthday and which I will not be able to celebrate! By then all the chocolate cake will probably be gone!

I am in isolation! And so...I am tidying up...I found this password: Whatever123. I was obviously irritated...trouble is I don't know what it is a password for! It's rather good when I come to think of it.

My father was a minister; my mother was the music director. There were moments when they did not agree! One Sunday I was sitting in church and from the choir pit at collection came the sound of Danny Boy with tremolo…big time tremolo. Now that was not in fashion! I cringed. The woman beside me was more expressive. She swore. I won’t use the language. I looked at her in surprise and she said: “Every time she does that, I cry.” The funny part was that I don’t think she knew that the woman doing that was my mother. And she would have no idea that she was doing that to bug my father! Tales from the pulpit twenty years later. That’s what we should do…start collecting story fragments.

I am back...I guess I have more stuff to say...or to post and always the pictures

This is a stunning video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DKDNV-6Dxk

A reluctant poser! You have to imagine the owner, a tiny Chinese lady with a baseball cap and a huge visor and a face mask standing beside encouraging her dog...and when the deed is done, insisting on a high-five!

There is never a dull moment. At six-thirty in the morning the bank calls to tell me my Visa has been compromised on line. It's a robot...it asks me to press two to cancel and when I do, India arrives in all his glory. He asks how he may help and I say you can't. I'm calling the bank. Which I do...and I'm on hold because there is an unusually high incidence...and of course it was a scam but I had to remember my mother's maiden name...
And then a friend who lives in Norway writes to ask if her cat's vomit is normal...

I definitely am up!

I am surrounded by virgin marys….the lack of capitals is intentional...sweet, innocent, well-intentioned people that make my Irish blood boil!

So I stepped out of my car this morning and lost two cards immediately. Why do I not close purses? Why do I not close doors? Why do I not close drawers? I don't like to finish...I guess that's it...but thank goodness I saw the cards dropping.

Turning 80 should make one consider one's mortality.
Turning 80 should make one consider what is undone.
Turning 80 should make one want to go for walks
Turning 80 should cause one to propound on something...anything.
So far none of this has happened and I am reduced to stealing neat stuff from facebook.

Don't look back. You're not going that way anymore. 

Lie some dead flowers on a piece of black paper and voila!


...but it is the drawn-together life we are muted by.

I know that real photographers do not do this to their pictures...but I love playing...and the original was a bit out of focus anyway!

The word of the day...
bouche-trou
Personne, objet n'ayant pas d'autre utilité que de combler une place vide.
I used to be a bouche-trou for my mother's choir when everyone was away...I would put on a gown but I had to swear not to actually sing! There was good reason for that.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just 
Begins to live
That day.

Emily Dickinson

 Affectionate Light Bulb

I have a 75 watt, glare free, long life

Harmony House light bulb in my toilet.

I have been living in the same apartment

for over two years now

and that bulb just keeps burning away.

I believe that it is fond of me.

Richard Brautigan

A thousand years ago when I was a teacher I had a ritual of Friday Fluff...it was a bit of nonsense...a bit of playing with ideas...a bit of writing...a bit of show and tell. Fridays were always testing days...I chose to lighten the load...but I have to admit that it was also a bit of me and perhaps a bit of my father who loved the children's stories aspect of ministry. I'm still playing Friday Fluff...with adults. I have taken up bridge and love it...but...I also love the cards. This is a set of Keith Herring cards. Alas, my co-players are not as sold...they protested that they were tempted to bid by colour rather than by suit!

Now this is a wonderful example of consonance!

    So lovely
was the loneliness
    of the wild lake

Now the question is: Is this art or is this a doodle? I don't know but I find it very pleasing...I suppose it isn't art because I didn't spend much time on it...and there's no meaning...save for the fact that it pleases me!