Tag Archives: play

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More dance

Now, here is some tricky twirling. The photograph was taken by Terry, in April 2023 at the Bishop Hotel. Tom had an injured ankle but we danced anyhow! I was very careful twirling because his balance was tricky, his foot was sticking out and I did not want to knock him over! I didn’t, and we both had a good time anyhow.

This is from March 31, 2023, right before the Swinging on the Sound dance weekend. Live band and lots of dancers warming up for the dance weekend.

My daughter called home from college at one point and said, “Mom! I love to TWIRL!” She was contra dancing and soon started swing dance and shag and other styles. I bought her dance shoes for her next back to school supplies. We bring shoes that we don’t wear outside, to protect the floors of old 1930s dance halls. We need leather or suede soles often so that we can twirl and slide!

Here is the band that Tom and I were dancing with: Jonathan Doyle and friend.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: twirl.

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Low fog

I took this on New Year’s Eve on a walk with my kids and old friends in Maryland. We fooled around in a park. I like the low fog hanging in the trees, always further away when we walked to it.

Seesaw, Margery Daw, Jackie shall have a new master
He shall have but a penny a day, because he can’t work any faster.

That is the version of an old nursery rhyme that I learned from my mother. There is more about it here.

I am going through and starting to delete old blog posts and photographs to make room for the new ones. Not one of my stronger talents!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: seesaw.

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Letters

I went to the post office Monday. I am in a rental house, and get packages every so often for the previous renter. This time I realized at the post office that one was misdelivered and was to the house next door. Ooops. But the post office said they would redeliver it.

I love snail mail letters. I have colored pens and stickers and stamps. The whole thing makes my inner child very happy. Once I got a letter from my mother-in-law saying that my letters are national treasures! I kept that letter.

I haven’t written myself a letter, but maybe I should. What would I write?

I sent the envelope above out, but it came back. I will be driving home soon and wrote to a friend on the way, but I must have the wrong address. I bought the stamps here. The stamp pads were expensive, though, so I only got two!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: post office.

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Goals

Are they called goals in cornhole?

Sol Duc has a goal.

Warm belly fur. I am not sure she is going to like going home. When we first drove up the Olympic Penisula, my daughter was two. It was three pm on New Year’s Eve, getting dark, and we were on 101 with the very tall trees blocking most of the light. “Where sun, mom? Me no can see sun.” Sol Duc will probably ask the same thing: Where did the sun go?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: goal.

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Silhouettes

I went to the store last weekend to get things like soap and a travel iron. I looked for pens too. I love colored ink pens for my journal. The pens and back to school things are right by the kids’ section. I bought an inexpensive kit. It is a sun print kit. It contains treated paper and plastic silhouette cutouts. I choose the cutouts and put them on the paper, put plastic on top to hold it, and expose it to the sun for 10-15 minutes. Rinse, dry, and voila!

The lower creature is from cutouts. The other I found cleaning the house: I thought it was a deceased large cricket, but no, it’s a praying mantis. I think praying mantis are wonderful creatures. I do not know if Sol Duc brought it in or it wandered in to the house on it’s own. At any rate, I am honoring it’s memory with this silhouette. I am also eyeing other small household objects and thinking about what would expose well. My grandmother’s ring, with a moss agate, that might let light through on to the paper. Paperclips, earrings, flowers, grasses. This paper is quite fun. I will use it as stationary and get to share it!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: butterflies.

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Favorites

Let’s see: I am going with two favorite writers.

My favorite female author is Laura Ingalls Wilder. My favorite male author is Walt Kelly.

Louis Carreas wrote about how descriptions can be cages, here. WordPress won’t let me comment on his blog (Hi, Lou!), saying that I have to be logged in. Even when I AM logged in. Ah well, maybe the AI has a sense of humor and is messing with me. Anyhow, his comments make me think of the DSM V, the list of behavioral health symptoms defining them into disorders, fifth version. We humans make them up, these lists. My daughter pointed out years ago, “We make up all the words.” It’s all an effort to communicate and we make it all up.

Walt Kelly is my favorite master of playing with words and word silliness. One time Howland Owl and Churchy are trying to make a bomb. They need a certain material. They have a small yew tree and a geranium. They both fall over and CROSS! Owl and Churchy dive for the floor. There is no explosion. Howland Owl says, “The natural born reason we didn’t git no yew-ranium when we crosses the li’l yew tree and the gee-ranium is on account of cause we didn’t have no geiger counter.” They decide against an A-bomb and put a honey bee hive in a shoebox, making a quite effective B-bomb.

Laura Ingalls Wilder starts the book about her youngest years explaining that she tries to be good but she just can’t be as good as her sister Mary. There are ways they are supposed to behave and she fights with her sister and misbehaves on Sunday and runs around. They are also not supposed to talk about certain feelings, but the feelings show through the events. When I read the books to my son and daughter, I found myself a bit appalled and editing the bits about the blackface minstrel show that they do and about Laura’s Ma talking about “dirty Indians”. Mrs. Wilder edited her life quite severely for those books, but I too chafed under the cage of society’s rules and what feeling I was and was not allowed to express.

Now there are series based on Laura’s mother, grandmother and great grandmother. I like them though the feelings aren’t as authentic to me. Not quite. My daughter loved the books about Laura’s mother and I think is like her. My daughter objects to Anne’s behavior in the first book of the Anne of Green Gables series. “No one is like that!” she says. I mention a classmates name, who is very very extroverted. “Hmmm,” says my daughter, “Ok, she is like that.”

The photograph is from 1965. My maternal grandmother, me and my sister. I do not know who took it.

And a favorite carol:

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: favorite writer.