Tag Archives: home

by

Keeper

Here is my lovely momento.

I write a poem called “In my parents’ house”.

In 1995 my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, makes teapots with the poem on the pot. She gives me one for Christmas.

She dies of cancer in 2000. My sister chooses my poem to read at her memorial.

A friend then reads the poem at my sister’s memorial in 2012 (also cancer), because I missed the California memorial. I was sick at home with pneumonia #2.

After she dies, I am sent a box of a few things from her house. Yarn and a second teapot. My sister had one.

I give the teapot to my niece, my sister’s daughter, telling her her grandmother made it.

My mother signed things with an H inside an O.

Here is the poem:

In my parents’ house
love is dispensed in teacups

When they notice you
Pacing in some empty mood
Or with that blank deserted face
Eyes shutters into an empty mind
They say, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

The warmth of the cup in your hands
And the hot liquid, sweet and milky
On your tongue works wonders
And binds your soul to your body

When my sister is twelve
She embroiders a patch for a quilt
In yellow flosses, a cup
with steam curling upwards
And the words, “Such a comfort. TEA.”

____________________

I think my maternal family still has the quilt, with jeans patches. My grandmother Katy B handed out squares to everyone at the cabins in Ontario and we all made squares. She and my cousin sewed them together and tied the quilt.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: momento.

by

Welcome rain

We are having a little light rain this morning. It has been weeks. The grass is very brown, as you can see. I don’t water in the summer and my grass comes back and it has lots of weeds as well. I am encouraging herbs to take over. I have parsley, spicy oregano, pineapple sage and thyme all competing with the grass/weed ground cover.

The climate news has been fairly appalling. The sinkhole in Russia, people falling in Texas and ending up in the burn unit because the sidewalk and asphalt temperature reaches 130, and the northern Atlantic Ocean breaking temperature records. I have two friends who are moving from Portland, Oregon to New Mexico. They have health issues that do better in heat than rain, rain, rain, but I worry. My daughter wants me to travel with her and I would like a destination that is not on fire. We are negotiating.

I did water the roses yesterday. Most of my plants are used to there being a couple month dry spell in the summer. Perhaps they steal water from the morning mist. A rhododendron died this year. I think the temperature of over 100 was too much for it last summer.

Elwha in the dry grass.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: climate.

by

Sol Duc sploot

Here is Sol Duc splooting as a kitten, in October 2021. It was not very hot, but she did like to lie that way.

She also did the opposite of splooting. Is there an unsploot?

Elwha is more of a “rub my belly” type. He means it and will not ambush you. He doesn’t bite but just does full throttle purring for belly rubs. He also is not supposed to be on the table.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: splooting.