Category Archives: home

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On The Edge of Humanity Magazine

Huge thanks to The Edge of Humanity Magazine, for publishing two essays.

The first one on May 9, 2022, that abortion must remain legal for women’s health:

An Abortion Story

The second today, about behavioral health in a pandemic and war. As caring humans, how could we NOT respond with distress to the suffering and deaths from both Covid-19 and disasters and wars?

Current Events And Mental Health

I am so delighted to be featured on this platform. I enjoy so many of the artists and writers and poets who are featured there and I am very happy to contribute!

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Tulip 3

For Cee’s FOTD.

I pay for a whole 9 months of CSA, community supported agriculture, from Red Dog Farm. Early in the season my box has vegetables and tulips! I love the tulips, they are gorgeous.

I have been in a CSA for most of the last 22 years. People say, but you do not pick what you get. I say, I know, but I hate throwing food out so I end up eating MORE vegetables then if I bought them.

Red Dog Farm: https://reddogfarm.net/.

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tube cat

Do you know the song? Tube Snake Boogie?

My cats LOVE the tube. But it’s a little disquieting at times. I don’t have a photograph yet, but when there is one cat head first in at one end and another cat sticking out at one of the side holes or the other end… well, it’s a tube cat. A bit worrisome. Kind of a cat/snake cross. It doesn’t help that the tube really matches Elwha’s coloring. I am learning to step over the tube quite carefully because sometimes there are hidden paws.

Elwha barely fits in the side entrances. Cats can do that snakey thing of going through a space that really looks too small for them.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: disquieting.

A disquieting half a cat.
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do without

In a recession we learn how to do without.
We tighten our belts. We drive less.
I am glad that I’ve paid for the CSA for the season
Vegetables until late September. The money is gone.
I like the computer. I could do without.
I have songs and instruments and many books.
I wish my children lived closer. On the other hand
maybe they have a better chance of survival scattered
around these United States when it comes to war.
The war has already started. The war has been beating women down
for centuries. I am tired of it. Women are tough. I am tough.
I know how to do without. Right now I am glad each time
I turn the tap and there is clean water. There are many many people
without clean water. I have filter systems. They won’t last forever.
I am loved by my children and friends. I can do without.
I am sad but I can do without. I am preparing to do without
you.

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sciatica

Gnomes have dermatomes
call me on their cell phones
inflammed neurons fire moans
after lifting heavy stones

gnomes with grumpy dermatomes
stop riding on your spotted roans
ice your backs, lie down at home
gnomes complain and curse and moan

gnomes with calming dermatomes
glad they iced them there at home
families help, they’re not alone
healing gnomes pained dermatomes

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dermatome.

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April A to Z reflection

April was a very interesting month! I went to Europe for the first time since 1988 and got covid, so had to stay an extra 8 days. The version I got was a mild cold and my lungs did not get worse. Traveling on oxygen is really challenging. I was anxious to get home because my son and daughter-in-law got married after postponing in 2020 and 2021, so they married on April 30th! It was a wonderful wedding!

So, I had to do some planning for the A to Z, writing about women artists, mostly Helen Burling Ottaway, my mother. I took a number of my mother’s etchings to give to friends in Europe and used those because they were what I had. In typing up her resume, I learned more about her! She was a prolific artist and I want to get more of her art out there. I had originally planned to set up an on line shop of her work, but the Europe trip, covid and the wedding derailed that idea! I still want to do that, but I am a bit slow about it. I need to catalog and photograph her work, after I recover from the wedding extravaganza.

When I got home from my trip on April 12, I started doing two posts a day. I did the present letter and then worked from the end of the alphabet, setting up Z for Zarathustra to go live on April 30th. By the last week of April, I had it all set to go live day by day. This is good, because there was no way I would have posted from the last Wednesday on!

I did not get to surf other writers blogs as much as I had planned. Too busy in Europe and too busy with wedding. This week I mostly want to do not very much. I am sorting wedding photographs, the ones I took, and sending them to the new bride and groom.

The picture is of my two aunts at the music rehearsal. I was cantor and led the two hymns. Both of my father’s sisters are church organists. They played four hands for the processional and the recessional and were wonderful! With both my parents gone I was very very grateful to have them present.