Monthly Archives: January 2023

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Peace Prompt

Today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt is prompt, because we need a seventh person. Sounds pretty easy, right? To pick a word once a week and post it and then watch the replies.

It is easy and it isn’t! That day sneaks up on me. Now I try to post the Tuesday prompt 5-7 days early and set it to post on Tuesday morning.

If another prompt is missing, I can check the Ragtag site. Sometimes a prompter is gone or has something happening in their life or has put 9 pm instead of 9 am! I can intervene and fix the last problem. We fill in for each other, too.

This is an international group and a prompt for peace! Peace us and join us! I love seeing photographs from all over the world. I am itching to go to Australia to see all the birds and to India and back to Alamosa, Colorado and in fact, I would go to any of the areas that people post from. With all of the stress from the pandemic and the ongoing war, this is a daily place that makes me hopeful that people can get along and that we will reach the point where the color of our skin matters no more than the color of our eyes. It is Martin Luther King Day in the US and I am celebrating peace and hope.

I heard a wonderful sermon yesterday from a man who works in our school system, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfmPjcEIbBA. I went to a music jam which had wonderful diversity of music. I went to hear Chicago Bob play and I have to say that I did not expect him to play Teddy Bear’s Picnic. A friend came to dinner too.

I hope that you too have pockets of peace and can peace someone today. And hooray for this musician as well: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230113-martin-luther-king-day-the-song-that-changed-the-us.

Blessings.

How many cats do you see in the photograph?

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Dance card

When we danced at Glen Echo in the 1980s, there was dance etiquette. We did not have dance cards. Instead, we would see someone we wanted to dance with, sometimes while we were dancing with someone else. One finger meant next dance, two meant the one after that. If both were taken, a head shake. No one could remember beyond two so the etiquette was not to make promises beyond two dances!

Dance card

We finally meet again at a live band dance. I have not seen him since August. It is January.

“Hello!” says T. “Where have you been?”

“That is a great question!” I say very cheerfully.

He is looking at me.

“Oh, what a great song!” as the next song starts. I tap my foot.

He narrows his eyes a little, but replies “Shall we dance?”

We dance really well together. We have danced off and on for nearly twenty years. I asked someone for his last name just a week ago. I may have known in the past, but I had forgotten. It doesn’t really sound familiar. I do know he worked for years in counseling.

The band is loud so not conducive to talking much. The dance ends and he twirls me to a close embrace. He walks me back to the tables.

“You have not been at dances much.”

I blink at him. “You said your dance card was full.” I say.

“What?”

I sigh, trying not to exaggerate too much. “You asked me personal questions. Then at the next dance you tell me that you have a woman for every night of the year.” I flutter my lashes down. “I do hope you mean dancing.”

He is silent, absorbing this.

I am channeling my Tidewater Belle mother-out-law. “Ah am sure you are very busy.” I look modestly down at my lap, glancing across his lap as I lower my eyes. .

“Hmmm.” he says.

“Ah was so amazed that you had a woman for every night of the year that I could hardly bear to go to dance.”

I look through my lashes. He is studying me.

I smile sweetly. “Perhaps you could let me know if your dance card clears a little. Mind you, dancing only. Ah can be a little old fashioned about some things.”

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The story is fiction. The photograph is from my wedding, 1989. He’s hamming for the audience again. I do not know who took this!

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Don’t shilly-shally! DANCE!

Ooooooo! Listening to Mitch Ryder and the Wheels Sock it to me baby, one of the songs here.

My muscles are BACK. Sometime in the last two weeks, while I was helping a friend in Michigan, my muscles came back. Three days ago I felt better than I have since before March of 2021. My normal energy level was back.

So what did I do? Overdid, of course. I did a beach walk on Thursday and then a local walk with a friend on Friday and then went to hear Johnathan Doyle on Saturday, fabulous! I had to dance!

Paid for it yesterday. The fast twitch muscles are back but it doesn’t mean they are strong. They are NOT strong. I have to be patient (I am not patient!). Yesterday I spent most of the day lying on the couch. Everything hurt and cramped. Ow.

BUT I can build those muscles up!

Here are some of my ex’es and my favorite bands and songs from jitterbug and lindyhop dance back in Washington, DC. I was delighted to see that Little Red and the Renegades is still playing. They played at the Kennedy Center early on New Year’s Eve. My spirit wanted to go but the body did not.

That is not a song they played back in the 1980s. We all get older!

And Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palms Orchestra! We danced to them and I know the gentleman lindy hopping at the start. Probably others there too. We loved the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo.

And this was one of my ex’s and my favorite recorded songs to dance to… gosh, how naughty but true right?

I am so happy to have my fast twitch muscles BACK. Now I just need to build them up!

The photograph is from 1989, at our wedding. We are doing a move that was called “New York Kicks”. I think the photographer is my ex’s uncle. The band was Darryl Davis who is also still playing and is a friend and have you seen any of his Ted Talks?

Don’t Shilly-Shally! Get your dance shoes on now!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: shilly-shally.

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Deleting spam

I still think of you occasionally
when I pay the bills, I think of you
when I clean the catbox, I think of you
when I clear the spam, I think of you
it’s the Get’a’super-sized’rod’ ones
that make me think of you and laugh
I want to send them to you every time
I still think of you occasionally
Get’a’super-sized’rod’ and poo and bills

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Clouds are my favorite blur

Clouds two days ago on the Fort Worden Beach. Washington State.

I was back east over the winter holidays. Nine days got added on for an ill friend. I was lucky to be able to change my flight and be able to help. This is the early morning holiday lights on the way to the hospital.

Clouds further blurred by water. Taken in Ontario, Canada in 2012.

Water blur study. Somewhere in Washington.

More water.

Sunrise, a new day, blurry but beautiful anyhow. Mount Tahoma, Washington State.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: blur.

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Stone flower

Actually I am not sure if this is a flower. It is a plant attached to a rock, from the Fort Worden beach yesterday. Do seaweeds flower? Some of them do change color at different times of year. This one is wearing fall and winter colors.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

NOAA’s What is Seaweed?

Wikipedia says yes, some seaweed flower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaweed.

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Home sky

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is limit, as in the sky’s the limit!

I was traveling for longer than I expected, 19 days, and got home this week. Yesterday was the first day I went for a beach walk in a month!

The sky was absolutely beautiful with the sun breaking through.

There was a pale delicate rainbow.

I did not find a clear agate, but there are wonderful rocks.

I think this is a juvenile bald eagle, just hanging in the air and enjoying the sky!