Tag Archives: Ragtag Daily Prompt

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Names

Last night I go to the Cowboy Ball, replete with cupcakes. It is the kick off of our local county fair, which is in two weeks. There is an hour two-step lesson and then a really fun band. The crowd is very mixed. There are some people who can two step, though not very many. There are some people faking it. After a while there are people dancing six count swing or tango or salsa, but everyone waltzes when they play the waltzes. It’s not quite a polka.

One dance partner asks, “Are you the poet doctor?” I blink. “Yes,” I say, pleased. “Which open mike were you at?” “Disco Bay.” I have done four there in the last three months, three at the poetry open mike and one at a music open mike. I was assured that they want poets too at the latter. Ok, then. “And what do you play?” I ask, because it must have been the music open mike. “Drums.” He is with a band that I know. “When do you play again?” He wrinkles his forehead. “I’d have to check my calendar.” “Get back to me!” I say and he says, “Thanks.” All this while dancing. We are doing some two step, falling into swing whenever one of us messes up a step.

I am nicknamed the dancing doctor by the coffee stand at the Farmer’s Market. She writes that on my cup. They are right next to the outdoor “stage”. I try to lure small children out to dance, solo since they don’t know me. They are wonderfully free and fun when they do come out.

I am pretty thrilled to be the poet doctor! We will see if that sticks in this community.

The photograph is Simon Lynge and Janna Marit two weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market. And here is the coffee stand.


And look! The poster for the Cowboy Dance in the lower left!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: community.

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Child memories

This photograph is from a box sent by my cousin. My sister Chris and my mother Helen. On the back it says “pear tree”. My mother would try to assemble the parts of the Twelve Days of Christmas. When I was in my teens, she would hang glittery pears on her avocado tree that she had grown from a seed. One partridge, two calling birds. She had seven tiny glass swans that she would set swimming on a mirror lake, with white fluff around it for snow. I don’t think she got past seven. My mother had wonderful traditions that she developed for Christmas. She loved the old carols and wouldn’t sing the modern ones at all.

I think my grandfather or grandmother took this photograph. I thought, why isn’t it square? But it isn’t: it was cut from a page and is a bit of a trapezoid.

My sister is about four, so this would be from around 1968.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: children.

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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.”

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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.

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Wrought iron man

I know a man from an iron dale.
Stiff and creaky, he won’t change.
Rust flakes off as he hunts his grail:
the perfect woman, but he has aged.
She’ll let him do just what he wills,
drink and sing and run and hide.
A plastic doll might fit the bill.
While his joints freeze, dudettes abide.
He could do with rustoleum, a coat of paint.
He doesn’t see that he leaves a trail.
His friends cringe at his rusted taint.
I note that now they are all male.
He’s proud as hell of his iron will.
He’ll soon wake frozen, rusted still.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wrought iron.

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The path forward

Today I attended this zoom, the Schmidt Initiative for Long Covid Global Echo Webinar Series:

https://hsc.unm.edu/echo/partner-portal/echos-initiatives/long-covid-global-echo.html

Today’s topic is Cardiac Complications of Long Covid.

Whew, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees! It’s complicated! The first distinction is lungs or heart or both. The next is worsened or new measurable heart disease, which is distinguished from heart symptoms without testable heart disease.

Heart disease can include inflammatory heart disease, ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias or clotting disorders. These are called PASC-CVD. PASC-CVD stands for Post Acute Sequelae of Covid-19 – CardioVascular Disease.

If those are ruled out, there are three major categories of PASC-CVS – CVS is CardioVascular Symptoms. One is postexertional malaise, a second is POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and the third is exercise intolerance. They are all different and treated differently. The formal test for POTS is a tilt table, but for places that don’t have access, they recommended the BatemanHorne NASA 10-Minute Lean test, here. That is hugely useful! This is the international conference, in English with simultaneous translation into French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Very impressive!

I will write more about today’s lecture, but I am still trying to sort out the trees in this complex forest.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: forest.

I took the photograph this month hiking Mount Zion with my daughter.

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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.

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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.