This is my third entry for the NPM Scavenger Hunt. I'll have to go back and look at the rules to see if I cheated. This is an original poem, but I wrote it several years ago and I've posted it a couple of times over the years. This poem uses prompt #3: Your favorite flower.

DITCH FLOWERS

If life is a garden and we are the flowers,
I want to be a ditch flower.
I have no pretensions to superior breeding,
no delusions of delicate beauty.
I am common.
I hope that, like the flowers that spring up behind the guard rail,
I am tough,
tenacious,
resilient;
Able to flourish wherever the wind takes me.
I want to be that splash of vibrant color around the curve
that causes people to pause on their journey
and marvel at the unexpectedness of me.

The prompt for today's National Poetry Month Scavenger Hunt entry was simple: #2. Your Favorite Animal. My favorite animal is a no-brainer, but still I decided to scroll through a list of many, many animals and... let's just say my fertile imagination got carried away and my poem kinda derailed, but I did manage to clumsily get things back on track by the end. I know murisopsis advises reading poetry aloud, but that's maybe not such a good idea with this one, unless you're someplace private. Oh dear.

There are so many animals

On this world that we live in,

And many of them seem to have

Been named by horny men.

Kirk’s dik dik could have been named

By William Shatner, who

May also be responsible

For long-billed cockatoo.

And with his predilection for

Females of wondrous color,

He may be quite familiar with

The lilac-breasted roller.

Some names are quite descriptive;

Southern screamer sounds unnerving,

While yellow-rumped siskin

Is out and out disturbing.

Let’s not forget the titmouse

And the bush baby, as well,

And hoary marmot, likely named

By men who couldn’t spell.

While woodcock and woodpecker

Were surely named by men,

I suspect nutcracker’s name

Has female origins.

White-faced rat I confess

Brings a certain man to mind,

And every woman’s known an ass

Of the two-legged kind.

I’m sure that there are women

Of every creed and culture

Who can put a face and name

To the white-rumped vulture.

All of this has been quite fun,

But hasn’t brought me near

To answering the question of

Which animal’s most dear.

Thanks to Mr. Henson,

I love to say g-nu,

But my favorite animal’s

A little dog named Boo.

It's National Poetry Month and murisopsis has posted a scavenger hunt! Woohoo - blogging inspiration! I'll be traveling at the end of this week and visiting family much of next week, so I'm not sure how much poetry writing and blogging I can accomplish, but today I had a lot of downtime while sitting at a park doing some math and sending a text, getting a long overdue pedicure and waiting for a very long time in a very hot examination room. Today's poem is brought to you by NPM Scavenger Hunt prompt #1 - Waking Up.

Soft brown blanket cast aside,

Clad in green asleep still lies

A slender maiden, soft and fair,

Lithe of limb and golden haired.

Awake! O, favored little one!

Lift shining head to feeble sun,

And chase away the winter chill.

Awake! Sweet golden daffodil!

The daffodils have been primed to bloom for two or three weeks now, but they're still curled up tightly in their green nightgowns and sleeping. I can't blame them - my phone said it was 18 degrees when I awoke this morning; I didn't want to get out of bed, either. They'll probably bloom while I'm down south visiting my mom.

The only thing consistent about the weather in Michigan is its utter fickleness. Just a few days ago, my heart was rejoicing at the sight of the first blooming daffodils and the first robin to appear in my backyard. The days were sunny and, while still chilly, a heavy sweater sufficed for warmth. I was smugly thinking about moving the snow shovels from the back porch to the shed, and the winter coats from the hooks near the backdoor to the coat closet near the front door. After 26 years, you’d think I’d know better. I DO know better, but after a long, cold winter, the first signs of spring go to my head and chase out rational thought. Who can be rational when the robins are singing and the daffodils are blooming?

Of course, the same thing happened that happens every year. It’s an old story and one I’ve poured out on social media since I started blogging in 2005; more snow. It’s kind of weird this time, though; the days are still sunny and not bitterly cold, but when the sun goes down, the snow begins to fall. It’s like living in a parable and I enjoy neither the reality nor the symbolism. But, as my Maltese sister-in-law says with a shrug, what are you going to do?

• Remember fondly all of the warm places I’ve ever lived: Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, California, Hawaii.
• Dream of all the warm places I’d like to visit: Malta, Australia, the Cote d’Azur, Greece.
• Plan a trip south to see my mom if I can ever shake whatever keeps laying me low, and if my daughter ever gets her new well dug (because I’m dog-sitting for her whenever it happens).
• Heave a deep sigh, put on my big girl pants and my parka and go shove the snow off my van so I can run some errands.

In honor of International Women's Day, here's a repost of one of my favorite posts about my mom. It was originally posted in 2011.

Whenever my mom has to face a new challenge in life, she responds with a defiant look - pinched mouth and squinty eyes that would make Clint Eastwood back down - and the battle cry, “I’m a tough old broad!” I’ve been thinking about her and that look and those words a lot lately.

Those of us who lack the means for cosmetic surgery may be better off giving in gracefully to the ravages of advancing age instead of wearing ourselves out fighting the inevitable, but it’s not in my nature to yield peacefully. Mom saw to that. “If somebody starts something with you, you finish it!” she’d tell me, notwithstanding the fact that I was a sickly, scrawny girl with legs so stick thin I could encircle my knees with the fingers on one hand. That’s pretty hard to believe if you know me now, but it’s true. I was the runt of the litter and if I hadn’t been good at making myself scarce whenever it appeared that somebody might be considering the possibility of starting something with me, I’d have been snapped in two like a dried up twig.

Somewhere along the road of life, between the twig-girl I was and the Rubenesque woman I’ve become, Mom’s fighting spirit finally began to take hold. I think it was the day I got my first gray hair and Brett plucked it out and taped it into his diary. No, it was earlier than that. Perhaps getting a glimmer of what was in store for me the day my four-year-old daughter ran into the house with a policeman hot on her trail is what stiffened my spine. Or even earlier than that when I learned how lying, cheating, backstabbing, gossiping, downright mean women could be when they got together in “support groups.” Whatever it was, I’m sure I hated it at the time, but I’m grateful to have that “spit in your eye” attitude now.

I’ve fought back against those few gray hairs. I always wanted to be a redhead anyway, so I was happy for the excuse. I’ve fought back against arthritis with drugs for the swelling, drugs for the side effects caused by the drugs for the swelling, willingly jumping into cold water twice a week and having my retinas seared by naked old women showering afterward. I’ve fought back against drying, wrinkling skin with every moisturizer known to man. I spread my legs and bare my breasts for smears and scrapes and x-rays. I allow spots on my back and chest (that have no reason for existence other than confirming the fact that I'm getting older) to be doused in liquid nitrogen. I change my diet for first one thing and then another. I EVEN GAVE UP CHOCOLATE!!! Well, mostly.

As visits to my doctor have gone from once in a blue moon, to once a year,  to three or four times a year, I am beginning to feel the urge to squint my eyes and pinch my mouth, stare my doctor in the eye and spit the words, “I’m a tough old broad” at her. How hard can it be? She’s about four feet tall and 80 pounds; I could squash her with one arthritic hand tied behind my back. She's a scrappy fighter, though; threatening me with the C-word whenever I start feeling tough, forcing me to back down and negotiate a compromise (even though we both know I will probably never follow through). I'm back to twig-girl avoidance tactics, only this time the bullies want to force me to drink caustic chemicals the night before they stick a mile of hose up my ass. Save that stuff for Gitmo, I am outta here.

So I’m not as tough as my mom - sue me. Nobody is as tough as my mom, not even Chuck Norris. When the boogeyman goes to sleep each night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

I haven’t earned T.O.B. (Tough Old Broad) status yet. “I’m a semi-tough middle-aged woman with a tendency to run away” just doesn’t do it; if Chuck Norris wasn't afraid of my mom, he would roundhouse kick the crap out of me. Maybe that will be the next big thing in colonoscopy purging.

I felt like a walking disaster today. Nothing went wrong at home this morning, other than the usual fifty trips upstairs to get things I forgot to bring down, and take things up that I forgot to grab on the last trip. The trouble started a block away, when I stopped at the post office to mail a few things. When I walked in the door, I was immediately struck by the smell of something burning. I thought maybe the baseboard heaters were set too high, or a box or envelope had fallen on top of them. The postmaster was in the lobby pulling things away from the wall and cleaning behind them. She had called the fire department and somebody had come over and inspected the building. She told me he'd gone back to the station a couple of blocks away to get a thermal imager and when I was pulling out of the parking area, one of the village fire engines was pulling up with red lights flashing.

I didn't think too much of it other than to hope the post office was not on fire because then I'd just wasted the time, effort and money to write and mail a couple of letters, forward a packet of mail, and send a gift. From the post office I went to Lowe's to pick up some moving supplies for my daughter. Nothing bad happened there except that they didn't have what I was looking for.

From Lowe's I went to Kohl's to see if something I've had my eye on was on sale. It wasn't, but I did grab a couple of dog sweaters that were on clearance. As I was checking out, the fire alarm above the door went off. It was loud and piercing and the strobe light was flashing. I clapped my hands over my ears, as did the cashier and my brain immediately went into panic mode and I couldn't think coherently enough to swipe my card until the noise finally stopped. There were no announcements and no efforts to evacuate the store, so I thought it must be either a test or a malfunction.

I walked out of Kohl's and just as I stepped into the crosswalk, a fire alarm on the end of the strip mall started blaring. Hm... sounds like some weird electronic malfunction going on, right? I got in my car and was busy plugging in my phone and adjusting my seatbelt while waiting for the elderly couple parked beside me to pull out when the alarm in the pickup truck behind me started honking and flashing. It was at this point I realized that I was the common denominator in all of these odd incidents.

I'm happy to report that nothing untoward occurred when I dropped off the packing supplies at my daughter's apartment and walked her dog. However, when I got to my own house, Boo kept backing away from me and barking at me. I'll be staying home the rest of the day.

2017 was not a good year for me; in fact, it supplanted 2007 as my shittiest year so far. There were, however, a few bright spots. In this post I’ll list the books I most enjoyed reading and the “ticket stub reviews” of movies I saw in 2017. I may eventually get around to sorting through the photos I took and pick out some favorites, but not today.

First, the books. Each year, I list the books I read in the back pages of my journal and give them a star rating from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). I don’t think I’ve ever had a one-star book on the list, mainly because if it’s that bad, I most likely didn’t read more than two or three chapters before giving up on it. Sometimes I finish a book and forget to add it to the list, so it’s probable that I’ve read three or four more books than listed. I have 33 books on the 2017 list. I won’t type the titles of all 33 books, but will tell you the ones I enjoyed most.

I did not rate any book with five stars.

Four star books:

Star Trek: The First 50 Years, Volume 1

Star Trek: The First 50 Years, Volume 2

Hidden Figures

Jim Henson: The Biography

 I usually enjoy reading fiction more than non-fiction, so it’s interesting to me that the four best books I read last year were all non-fiction.

I saw twelve movies and one stage play in 2017. I save the ticket stubs and write tiny reviews on them, then stuff them in an envelope in the back of my journal. Here are the movies – and stage play – I saw, in chronological order, and the ticket stub reviews I wrote:

Hidden Figures – Excellent! Oscar contender.

Lego Batman Movie – Non-stop laughs.

Beauty and the Beast – Enchanting

Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 – Good, but 1^st was better.

Wonder Woman – Empowering

Despicable Me 3 – Funny & sweet

Spider Man Homecoming – Light & fun

Leap! – Cute

*The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) – First time I really laughed in a month.

Victoria and Abdul – Judy Dench rules!

Thor: Ragnarok – Thumping good time!

Murder On the Orient Express – Murder of the 1974 movie.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Good, not great. Not as fun as the originals.

*stage play

The best movie I saw last year was Hidden Figures. I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to read the real story of these remarkable women and the book was one of the four best books I read in 2017.

What was your favorite book and/or movie of 2017?

Sixty-five years ago today, my parents got married. Dad has been gone for ten years and Mom has lost most of her memories to that blight on humanity, Alzheimer's Disease. But every December 16th I remember their anniversary and the commitment they had to each other. This is an old post I first published nine or ten years ago and is usually the first one I think about on this date.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

They met and married in 1952.

He was a fire control technician in the Navy who saw action off the coast of Korea. After they got married, she went to live with his parents in Kansas while he finished his tour of duty. Her new mother-in-law was a bit overbearing and a difficult person for a young bride to live with, but she stuck it out. She was relieved when he got out of the Navy and they moved west, first to Arizona where most of her family was living, and then to California where he got a job with the Woolworth Company. Over the next two decades he was transferred all over the country and she, and eventually five children, followed him wherever he went. For love of this man, she uprooted kids from friends and schools and started over time and again in a new town, a new state, a new job. He was a workaholic. He didn't even make it home the night the photographer she'd hired made a house call in order to take a family portrait.

She was always there for him, handling all the health and household crises, cooking late night dinners for him long after the children were in bed. As the years passed, prosperity gave way to a difficult financial situation. She began working full-time jobs, sometimes night shifts, to make ends meet. Some bitterness began to creep into their relationship, but still she stayed. When he developed heart problems, she bullied him into doctor appointments. When he broke his leg, she became his chauffeur. When he refused to slow down and follow doctors' advice, she organized his medications and made sure he took them, bought recliners and ottomans and made him elevate his legs. When his skin got so sensitive he could no longer tolerate laundry detergents or softeners, she experimented until finding a combination of products that would clean his clothes and kill germs without irritating him. Always, she looked out for him because he was too busy to take care of himself.

And suddenly fifty years had passed.

And they were still together.

And her love and commitment was an example to their children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends. When it became clear that his time on this earth was growing short, one son moved back home and helped her care for him. The other son, knowing he could afford only one trip, traveled from overseas to see him while he lived, sacrificing his presence at the funeral everyone knew would come soon.

The two daughters who lived locally both did all they could to help their mother and bring joy and comfort to their father in his last weeks. The daughter who lived far away came home twice in one month to see him. Sons and daughters-in-law came to visit him. Nieces, nephews, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings and cousins came or called or wrote.When he died, she put on her best dress and wore the pearls he'd given her so many years before.  For love of them both, their son-in-law conducted the funeral service with a cell phone sitting upon the pulpit and an open line to London where their son and his family listened.

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous. ...[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I am taking a temporary break from social media. I'll still check in on your blogs and on Facebook. I might even leave a comment here and there. I won't be posting for a while, though. See you when I come back.

My tale of woe begins with two spoiled dogs.

A few weeks ago, I spent several days baking and refilling my vintage mason jars with homemade dog treats. In the process, I used up the last of my nasty Kale powder, which goes into the homemade dental treats. (The recipe calls for spinach powder, but in this day of kale worship, spinach powder is nowhere to be found on the shelves of the local health food stores.) I wrote “kale powder” on my shopping list and didn’t rush out immediately to buy it since the treats I’d just made would last for several weeks.

Fast forward to yesterday. I haven’t been feeling well, but I was trying hard yesterday to overcome. I picked a few blackberries from our backyard vine, baked homemade biscuits for breakfast, checked on Krysten (who picked up a fun bacteria in her last couple of days in Santo Domingo), and headed out for my hair appointment. A stop at the post office brought me a fun surprise from one of my sisters.

Mickey Mouse leggings! I adore Mickey Mouse, so these brought a huge smile to my face even as I struggled to picture myself wearing leggings. Mickey Mouse takes me right back to the seventies and makes me feel about twelve years old again.

I drove on to the village east of us and got my hair trimmed and the tasteful shade of warm brownish-red renewed. Getting my hair cut and colored makes me feel at least ten years younger. Maybe even twenty.

I drove a different way out of that village and found myself passing the Seventh Day Adventist grocery and health food store. Since I was right there, I decided to stop and get the kale powder so I’d have it on hand the next time I needed to refill the mason jars. I found it and gulped at the price, but it lasts a couple of years, so really, $19.79 isn’t so bad.

The cashier was, according to my receipt anyway, named Natalia, and her accent was very Swedish. She asked me something about a discount that I didn’t quite catch with her heavy accent, but I had no coupons and no value card, so I merely answered, “No.” She rang me up and the total came to $18.80. “Cool!” I thought, “It’s on sale!” I happily scanned my debit card and took my purchase out to my van. It had been a good day; Mickey Mouse leggings, red hair, and an unexpected discount!

And then I pulled out the receipt to jot the total in my checkbook register. (Yes, I’m old fashioned and still carry a checkbook.) As I looked at the total, I noticed something. I did a double-take.

Little Miss Swedish Natalia had given me my very first Senior Discount. It was as if the Mickey Mouse leggings and red hair had never happened. Suddenly, I felt older than my years. I began to feel all the pain that an unexpected gift and a little pampering had temporarily pushed away. I returned home a broken old woman.

I’m seriously considering dying my hair purple and, once the weather cools off, I will find a way to wear those Mickey Mouse leggings. I will not go down gracefully.

And I will never go to Sweden.