Tag Archives: RDP

by

Sol Duc

Mom walked Elwha first today. There is fine mist from the sky. Mother slipped outside with Elwha early. I did not hear the click of the harness until after the door had closed. I had to wait.

Mother came back in and makes coffee before taking me out! Sometimes she and Elwha and I go out together. She is taking us out early today. Yesterday she slept in until 7:00, which is annoying. I prefer that my breakfast is ready at 4:00.

I lead Mother to the wild part of the back yard today, when she won’t let me dig in the neighbor’s garden. I am heading through the yard and realize: one of the four foots is there! A big one!

Black cat and buck meeting.

I go closer and he is quite big. I think it is best if I lead Mother away. I can handle him, of course, but Mother is more vulnerable and after all, she brings me food.

Black cat and buck 2.

Mother backs out of the yard and around the garage. I go further into the yard and there is a lady four foot. She and I exchange greetings. Mother comes around between our garage and the neighbors. She waits until the lady four foot and I are done and the lady four foot goes to the apple tree. Then Mother and I go inside.

I would like more food now, but Mother can be stubborn.

I am Sol Duc and I like the four foots.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cat.

by

Bucking trends

Terrible photograph, right? But look for the deer. Two can be seen, and there was a third, another fawn.

First I see the buck in my yard.

Buck eating apples in a driveway.

Then I see him across the street with two fawns. I didn’t get a good picture of all three. But he did that deer thing where they tell the fawns to stay put. I go over to that neighbor’s house for coffee and here are the fawns.

Fawn lying under an apple tree on a lawn.

This is the second year that I have seen a buck with fawns. This time two fawns. The fawns are still spotted but about twice the size of newborns.

I don’t know if the buck is babysitting for the day or if something happened to mom. The fawns don’t move when I walk past and go in the house. I only see the second one because I am looking for it. This is a busy street, but the deer are pretty safe as long as they don’t get hit by a car. We have to pay attention in the early morning and twilight. The deer do teach the fawns to cross at crosswalks too, at least, the moms with fawns are. I think the big bucks have decided they can cross where ever they want.

“White-tailed deer mate in the fall (October – December). The male deer (buck) plays no role in raising fawns.” from here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/plants_wildlife/Deer_Fawn_FAQ.aspx. That is a different species. Ok, try information on Washington deer: “Adult bucks take no part in raising fawns, and generally remain solitary or form bachelor groups throughout the summer.” from here: https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/species-facts/deer#. Apparently our deer have not read the manual. Or maybe those two spotted ones are males, but I can’t really tell yet.

Our deer are bucking the trend, aren’t they? Deershines instead of monkeyshines?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: monkeyshines.

by

Lipssss

Vermilion makes me think of lips. Why lips? Oh, the vermilion border, as it’s called.

Ok, trigger warning, medical stuff: if some gets a cut on their face involving the lips, we have to match the edges of the vermilion border very carefully. Because if it’s not matched, it’s very obvious.

This is me singing at the mirror, with vermilion lip liner and black lipstick. It still looks vermilion, doesn’t it?

Of course I have black lipstick. Don’t you?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: vermilion.

by

Purple weather

Walt Kelly was the master of bargleflooping and he could play with language in such fabulous ways! Once Howland Owl and Churchy were trying to make an A-bomb. They had a yew tree and a geranium and crossed them — by them falling over, two small plants in pots, to make Yew-ranium! Which did not explode, thankfully!

My sister and I grew up reading Pogo comics, old books at my grandparents, and memorizing bits and pieces. I still notice when Friday the thirteenth falls on a different day. This poem is one of my favorite bits.

Many happy returns

Once you were two,
dear birthday friend.
In spite of purple weather:

But now you are three
And near the end
As we grew some together.

How fourthful thou,
forsooth for you
For soon you will be more!

But β€” β€˜fore one can be three
be two;
Before be five be four!

_________________________ by Walt Kelly

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: barglefloop. Walt Kelly already is bargleflooping the internet, because I did not remember the correct name of this poem and found it by searching purple weather!

I took the photograph from Marrowstone Island. It’s a bunch of terns enjoying the tern towards purple weather.

by

The DSM Stew

Pyschosis
Neurosis
Babeiosis
Psittacosis

Medicine shifts
out the old, in the new
neurosis is gone
from the DSM stew

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/understanding-psychosis

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosis/

https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/psittacosis/index.html

The DSM V is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, volume V. The DSM III was published in 1980, DSM-IV in 1994 and the DSM-V in 2013. Some disorders are dropped or combined with others or the criteria are changed. In the DSM-V, tolerance and overuse (formerly addiction) were combined from two disorders into one spectrum.

Medicine is always changing and updating. Before h. pylori was recognized as a cause of stomach ulcers, there was much more ulcer surgery and ulcer bleeding deaths.

I don’t know what will come out of Covid-19, but the research on the immune system and Long Covid (now called PASC) is formidable.

The DSM-V and the ICD-10 are humans categorizing things, defining diseases. They will continue to change.

For a history of the DSM, read here: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/about-dsm/history-of-the-dsm.

____________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: neuroses.

The photograph is taken in September 2021, with my camera. Hypoxia and a fast heart rate makes me really anxious, but neither is considered a psychiatric disorder.

by

Not weird

This is not weird in Port Townsend during the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race. This is normal. It’s coming in nine weeks, get your feathers and costumes and bright colors, build your sculpture and practice the mud bog and the water race! Most mediocre wins! Check your breaks, load a teddy bear, bribes for the judges and practice your moves for the Kinetic Ball.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: weird.

by

In deep

Time to return
again

Human, pfaugh
I give up
I don’t want to be one
I can be anything I want to be
I want to be a mermaid
again

I sink into the sea
and down to the depths
scales and tail and breathe the sea
the water cools the burns
my charred burnt skin
and lungs

Such a fail again
every time I try
to be human
yes, legs, I can do that
it always makes my voice hurt
but those damn wings
come with the legs

It’s hard to hide the wings.

I don’t know how
but they sense them
even when I hide them

It really pisses me off.
It’s the broken ones that show up
though now I think maybe
they are all broken
they all wander around
pretending they are ok
using lies to try to appear nice
hating parts of themselves
calling those parts unclean spirits
and casting them out
DEMON! DEVIL!
over and over

I try to pretend they aren’t there
the cast out
and I am human too
but the demons kneel and lay their monstrous heads
in my lap
crying
cluster round me
begging for my help

I always fail.

I try to stay present
with the person and the cast out
but eventually I can’t stand it
and I say something wrong
and the stupid human thinks I am the demon
and casts me out too.

I wait and hope.

I wait and hope with the monsters
with the rough beasts.
“You have wings,” say the demons, “Help us!”
“I can’t.” I say, “The humans must help themselves.”
The monsters weep and wail.
Finally I am sick of it again.
I send them home
and I go home too.
I have failed again
and must endure falling through the atmosphere
my feathers and skin a burning star

I am sick of it.
I give up, Beloved.
I am a failure.
I can’t do this.
I must go to the sea again.

Here is the trench, the deepest part of the ocean
I stop swimming and let myself sink
Slowly the light disappears
I am in the ink black

Slowly the others appear
glowing
in the deep

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: liquid.

by

Indiana Jones is a terrible archeologist

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: a 2023 action/adventure film, the last gasp of the Raiders of the Lost Ark series. At least, I hope so.

I saw this with my daughter. I think it is awful, though if you want to see people blown up and killed, well, ok. SPOILERS.

Harrison Ford plays an awful person. A horrible archeologist, since he destroys tombs with no regard for history. A thief. A killer. A bad father, a bad friend, a bad God-father, a terrible husband. He goes to friends for help and barely notices when they are killed, though he is happy to point out to his God-daughter that SHE is not compassionate either.

It’s all justified by saving the world from the Dial of Destiny, only this time we don’t see this supposedly world changing item filed in a warehouse. It’s left sitting on a bedside table at the end. Yeah, maybe in the next movie one of the kids will play with it.

Indiana Jones is so awful that he wants to get away from himself, by staying in the time displacement. The Dial of Destiny is mathematical so it is not magic. Really. Science. Thank goodness it’s not a mathematical anti-aging device so Indy would live on.

They make him younger in the earlier scenes, ok, that’s sort of cool from a technical perspective. Just wait until everyone has that technology for Facebook and dating sites. Running atop the speeding train? Yeah, my suspension of disbelief already done failed, sorry. Tons of people killed in the first ten minutes, but since they are Nazis, we ought to be good with that. Except I am not. And he and his friend walk off with half of the precious potentially world changing power object? Which makes the friend crazy and so Indy ends up with it. Filed on a shelf at a college. Indy can’t keep a promise to a friend, either.

What about the romance? Give me a break. Ick, frankly. So he has to have the perfect female who turns a blind eye to all his destruction and killing and theft and very very bad archeology? Because “he is saving the world”? Ok, maybe she has dementia by now so she’s down with it. The perfect female for this scumbag: I think that search is really the about the anima. The search for the perfect partner is within, and we project that on a person who has some aspects of that internal perfection. That is falling in love. Really loving someone is withdrawing the projection and loving them anyhow. Indy’s movies represent much of our cultural disrespect and scorn for women. He has an undeveloped anima who is a sexy figure who will let him do anything he wants. And welcome him home. First thing I would do is destroy the “mathematical” dial, give him a good kick and leave. My work is done, out of here.

My ending for the movie would have Indy and his God-daughter hauled off to jail and fight in court for the next decade over who killed the people at the university, and all the things that he’s stolen and destroyed catch up with him. Mirror the ending of Raiders by having him carted into a gigantic jail with thousands of cells, to disappear forever. His wife finishes the divorce and she absconds with the young thief. The young thief decides that court and jail really don’t look like much fun and straightens up. Now, that’s a satisfying ending!

________________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: movie.