Purity’s post

The root word for Katherine is pure, so Purity will write today’s post. Purity read about illeism in this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230411-illeism-the-ancient-trick-to-help-you-think-more-wisely. Purity admits that it feels a bit embarrassing to write in the third person here on the blog, very egotistical, but that is not what the article is about. It is about writing that way in one’s journal. Purity has been trying it and it is interesting. It sets events at a distance and quiets and muffles the emotions related to events. How very curious.

Purity does not plan to keep writing this way on the blog nor does she plan to start speaking with a royal we. However, the United States appears to be in a state of chaotic stupidity and it is affecting everyone. Not just in the United States, but the rest of the world as well. Purity thinks of the United States as a teenage country, struggling with hormones, while the old countries stand back, watch and sigh. “At some point he will mature,” they say to each other. “Or destroy himself.” And yes, a male teenage country, stupid and boastful with testosterone. Purity thinks it will take the United States another 200 years to live down President #47 and his minions, if we survive.

At any rate, Purity hopes that the prompt of illeism might be more light hearted and be a new word to some people and tickle their fancies. Apparently our fancies mostly lie in our cats. Cats certainly seem to be experts in illeism. May you each feel as wonderful today as a cat when they own the world.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: illiesm.

Unweighted

Words behind my back
damaging
hurtful
gossip and lies
I forgive
I wait

I wait

I wait, wait, weight

Weighted 13 years
For them to speak to me
Instead of about me
At last waiting makes me angry
I have forgiven
tried to connect
some of them say they love me
this is not love
waiting
weight of hurt and anger

And I let go
of the wait
of the weight

I forgive myself
I am free
I rise
I let them go
they are forgiven
but they may not enter my life
again
not ever

I forgive myself
I am free
I rise

unweighted

________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompts: weight and chopper. My heart is what is chopped, and the abandoning friends and family wielded the choppers.

Incomparable courage

I’ve chosen incomparable for today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt. Yesterday I posted one version of the song Waterbound. Rhiannon Giddens does the traditional version, but then I come across this song. Wow. And yes, such courage in people enslaved and there is still slavery in the world.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: incomparable.

My Monday is Tuesday

I am a slacker on Tuesday’s Ragtag Daily Prompt! Not really, it’s just that that is my back to work day and I am getting ready in the morning and I think, “I will do it later.” Last night I cooked a pork tenderloin with peaches, kale and green beans, but then afterwards I fell asleep by 7:30. I guess Tuesday particularly tires me out. I met the new doctor yesterday and I had two patients who took nearly an hour each.

I found another farm stand this weekend and bought tons of vegetables and some fruit. I am still trying to do half vegetables at each meal. It takes time. I bought more pattypan squash to roast, it turns sweet and delicious. Quick, while the summer squash is available!

I also took four books to the library and took out eight more. I switched cookbooks because I did not like the one I had. This one looks much better. And a smattering of nonfiction, science fiction and fiction and silly romances or fantasy romance for when my brain is tired. I avoid the horror aisle, there’s enough of that in the news.

Shelves with many library books

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: science fiction.

Teamwork

The plaque for this pollinator, the yucca moth, says that it and the yucca plant have evolved to be dependent on each other. Dependent sounds a bit worrisome. If I reframe it as teamwork, all of a sudden it sounds much better! And this is intentional pollination, which the author says is rare.

This is from the Holiday Exhibit, complete with train, at the US Botanic Gardens.

Does dependent sound more worrisome than teamwork? If so, why?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pollinator.

One part

I don’t think it is easy to do two parts with straight hair. Now, if I had one of those rather awful perms I had in the 1970s, I could do two parts and tiny braids. At least, I could do the front. I would need help with the back.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Part Two.

I took this photograph when I was picking up mail for a neighbor. I said he’d better come home soon or I would be buried. And gosh, we can’t see any parts.

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 — ‘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.

Dream travel

I time travel in dreams.

Two dreams last night. In one I am in a hospital and trying to finish up and go home, but there are two babies. I check and one is my daughter. I check the other and it is a boy. He has a label saying “Call police.” The story is that he is sent from a smaller hospital for some testing that I am not sure about and that the mother was supposed to pick him up. She has been discharged but has not picked him up. I feed him and my daughter, feeling anxious. Where are the nurses? Why is my daughter here? I will take her home, but I have to make provision for the boy first. I feel sorry for him, abandoned. Both babies are clean and alert and swaddled, but the nurses are not around. I wake up.

In the second dream, I am still married to my first husband/but it’s a more recent gentleman friend at the same time. We are in southeast asia. I want to go home but for some reason we have stuff, including skis. My daughter is in her 20s in this dream. We take the skis to a house. Right before we reach it, there are police nearby, having a shootout with someone. Gangsters. This worries me and my daughter/friend. My husband/the guy meet us there and he boasts that a rich friend lets him use the room in the house. “I can have it for a whole month.” I am unimpressed and don’t care. I want to go home. My daughter/or it’s a woman friend and I go back. I think that my husband/guy is getting the car, but I hear his voice. He is singing in a karaoke bar. It is a very trashy glittery place and he loves it. I do not like the lounge style of singing and I decide to get the car myself and with my daughter/friend, get out of there. I hear my husband/guy making excuses and calling after us, but I am leaving. He lies to me and he excludes me, he wants to be the center of attention with his rich friends and when he sings, he’s afraid I would take attention away from him.

My daughter/friend and I retrace towards the building where the skis are. We have to walk on the edge of a massive fountain, with a cliff on one side. We are in a city. I think that we are retracing but then we come out into an open area. There is a police car parked there. I know we are visible, with a full moon reflecting off the fountain pool, so I wave with no concern. Just tourists here. I study the edge of the fountain to see if we could go in the water and climb to the next section, but it is not safe. I can’t tell how deep it is nor how fast the current. We will have to backtrack. The city is beautiful, with a giant lion building on the skyline and buildings with the Thai curved rooftops stacked up. It is gorgeous. Suddenly the other person is my friend and I worry: where is my daughter, where is the baby? I wake up.

My daughter is in her twenties now, not a baby, but in the dream she was a baby and then later in her twenties. When I wake I think, who cares about the stupid skis? Get out of there and leave the stuff. The babies are most important.

The first dream has three people. The second has four, because I can see the policeman. All the people are aspects of myself. My husband who is my ex now/a recent gentleman friend and then a male southeast asian policeman, though the police car is one of the large blue SUV style ones that I see at home. All of these complicate elements. Both my children have been to Thailand but I have not. Dreams are definitely time travel for me.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: time travel.

nap buddies

I go out to take a nap in the yard one afternoon. I realize that I am not alone. A mother deer and two fawns are already napping under the magnolia. I reassure them that I am not a threat and lie down. I go right to sleep. They are still lying down when I fall asleep and are gone when I wake up.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: juvenile.