Category Archives: home

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Excelsior!

I thought Excelsior! was something that you shout! Onwards! Upwards! Apparently Henry Wadsworth Longfellow thought so too. Perhaps the youth in the poem really needed packing material. And then the State of New York adopted it as a motto, meaning higher rather than packing material. Though the wood shavings to pack things were named Excelsior after the poem was written.

Now that I have confused myself and you, I will just say Excelsior when I see all the goldfinches at the feeder. Higher! Wood shavings! Birds!

I took this at my feeder in June 2022.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: excelsior!

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Breathe

I was trying to think of a debacle. Oh. Getting my fourth pneumonia, March 21, 2021, Covid-19. This is the first pneumonia that put me on oxygen. The fast heart rate, dropping ten pounds, and feeling anxious were familiar from the other three. This photograph was from December 2021, visiting Maryland. We did a bike ride. I was pretty happy that I was able to do it, though the last mile had a sloping uphill that made me think I was not very strong. Oxygen helped.

And Covid-19 is a debacle that we are still trying to understand and absorb and avoid and heal and recover from. I am reading an article that entirely denies viruses existing. I guess it’s like porn on the internet: they say if there is a story, there is a porn version. Every possible idea of what has happened over the last three years is out there, though this article doesn’t make any sense at all.

I don’t remember who took the photograph of me. It may be a steathie. I needed oxygen at night and whenever I was being active, but not at rest. Ok, at rest talking.

Things and people were lost and found and lost during Covid-19. I spent a lot of time on our beaches. I am so grateful for the beaches.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: debacle.

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Betty Boop

I love this rose! Now I have to be very careful to close the front gate or the deer will come in and eat every flower and bud.

And tomato leaves are poisonous, but the deer do not seem to care. I left this in the back yard for one night and the deer have eaten nearly every leaf!

For Cee’s Flower of the Day. And in memory of all of our dead.

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Naps

Naps are for the very young, then we forget
or scorn naps for years. We think of those who nap
as old when we are 8 or 10 or 20, still wet
behind the ears. Once we climb down from the laps
of those who try to teach us about the whirled
and we’ve mastered running free, we fight the time for bed.
My son would cry right before the pearled
evening would close his eyes, fighting sleep with dread.
He might miss a fun filled happening. We run
fast and learn until we reach an age or illness where we tire
and fall asleep in day on a couch in spite of sun.
Wake climbing out of sleep like from the ocean or swampy mire. Our children now make fun of us, they fill the gaps,
as we have reached the age where we once again need naps.

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I took the photograph from a train in 2017, going from Edmonds, Washington, to Chicago.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: nap.

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Untie

Untie my heart and go find
I am not looking anymore
I am playing for the summer
Back to work in the fall
but my heart is untied
and has escaped control.
It might be wild or quiet
or silly or angry. It might
like this today and that tomorrow.
It might wail with sorrow
and then laugh and laugh.

Heart untied and

Gone.

The white furry object is not a tie. It is a Barbie stole made of rabbit fur and lined with pink fabric. Both cats are enjoying carrying it around the house and shaking it and pretending that it is a live rabbit. That stole has to be nearly 50 years old, so I am letting the cats choose it as a toy. Good that I have great ancient cat toys.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ties.