For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: immerse.
My daughter loves the water. Here she is going into Lake Matinenda in Ontario. She swam across it, miles, with me in a small canoe.
immersive experience
Tag Archives: daughter
Mundane Monday #194: gull
For Mundane Monday #194, my prompt is gull.
Have you been gulled? Do you see gulls and photograph them? Are you gullible? Do you gull others?
Add your picture or store and tag it Mundane Monday. I will list entries next week. Have a wonderful week and don’t get gulled or fleeced! No one should pull the wool over your eyes!
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From last week, my theme was group.
kitchen window with cat
In the early morning before dawn
the orchids keep me company
cat and computer as I sit and write
I tried a desk but the sky doesn’t lighten
windows on three sides, the orchids and I
await the sun, cat now on my lap
this table was my grandmother’s
my mother loved flowers
my daughter says “The laptop’s in the way.”
Thank you orchids, cat and table
Thank you laptop, teacup, dawn
Thank you grandmother, mother, daughter
kitchen window blessing
water mom
My sister in 2005, watching while our daughters play in the slip and slide.
kitchen window
My mother had plants all over a shelf running the length of their kitchen. She did a pen and ink drawing of the riot of flowers and pots and leaves. She then did a second one but this time the snapdragons were dragons and there were elves and fairies and monsters in all the plants.
My orchid is blooming riotously right now, with abandon, to the point where the pot barely stays upright. I love orchids, how long the blooms last, and how they would rather not be watered too much, and a flower that perches up on tree branches in jungles: how delightful and romantic is that? This one is in my kitchen window and makes me think of my mother.
where sky and water meet
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: mystery.
ski trip
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dirt.
What worries a skier about the opening photograph?
Yesterday the introverted thinker and I went water skiing. On Mount Baker. It rained the whole time. Cold! And the introverted thinker’s knee hurt. We bagged it once I had ice puddles in my ski boots and could squeeze a stream out of my ski gloves.
On the very first lift ride, I realized that my wrist pocket was unzipped. Cash was still in there but the car key wasn’t. We skied down and I checked each place I’d been. No key. We got back on the lift and watched. There were a lot of small black specks. We discussed how much fun it would be to wait for AAA on the top of the mountain.
We skied down, going very slowly right under the lift.
FOUND IT!
Whew. After that neither of us whined. We skied until we were soaked. Her knee was being uncooperative and she was skiing warily. I couldn’t wear goggles because then my glasses fogged too much. Neither of us could see much through the rain. We went up a higher lift and then it was heavy wet slushy snowing. Then we really couldn’t see. Both nearly crashed skiing by proprioception, when a dip was invisible. I stopped at a sign and then fell backwards, visual cues just weren’t working for balance. Unhurt.
And what does this have to do with dirt? I started skiing at age 9 on the east coast, in upstate New York. We would go from Johnson City and meet my uncle and cousins at the small Labrador Mountain ski area. It was a family area. The snow was often awful. We skiied on ice, slush and dirt. Patches of dirt would show through and we learned to avoid them and avoid the rocks. The first time I skiied powder in Colorado I was mystified: I didn’t know how to ski it. But slush on top of hardpacked moguls? No problem.
So skiing Baker put me back to my tweens. The conditions were so familiar. My body was so comfortable with really crappy snow. The ungroomed parts had so much water on top that skis practically stopped. If I had been dressed in foul weather gear I could have skied most of the day.
But soaking wet is another matter. We turned in the skis and ate a late lunch. Happily used the car key to get dry clothes. Changed and drove back to Bellingham. We had a fabulous dinner looking out over the bay with a wonderful sunset.
Blessings all.
cottage
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cottage.
My family has cabins on Lake Matinenda in Ontario, currently in a trust and jointly owned.
In 2012 my sister died in March. In August my daughter and I went to the lake. No one could bear to stay in the cabin that she had used the most the last few years. My daughter and I spent a day facing the mice and clearing. The mice had made nests in anything they could use.
My daughter helped me and bless her. I was still feeling paralyzed with grief. We garbaged bagged the mouse nests, went through all the fabric, loaded the trash, recycling and empties into the boat and took them to the dump and to town. Then we bought half a dozen plastic containers and put every fabric thing and shoe that didn’t have a mouse nest into containers.
I went back this summer and a friend and I worked on the roof. The books and the glass containers are sad now, not doing well as no one has used that cabin since 2010. I didn’t think to box up the books, except for the log that my mother started.
This summer my daughter and I took four large containers in the boat and then by car to the laundromat. We washed everything and donated most of it to a local second hand shop. I put a wool blanket back in a container and moved some of the dishes my mother made in another container to a cabin that is in better shape.
Our cottages are full of memories.
childlike
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: persist.
Oh, children are the most brilliant of all at persisting! Think of learning to walk, learning to talk, being small in this adult world and trying to keep up! Think of figuring it out when at first you have to realize that you have hands and that the noises mean something! And they persist!
Mundane Monday 188: making a move
The theme for Mundane Monday 188 is making a move.
Do you have a photograph or series of shots about making a move?
Princess Mittens is contemplating her move in the first shot. Next:
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Mondane Munday 187’s theme was warm:
klallendorfer has lots of warm photographs.
