%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  Impromptu writing, whatever comes...on writing or whatever the question of the day is. |
    I've been blogging all through my days without knowing that it was blogging; although, this isn't necessarily the only thing I do without knowing what I'm doing. Since I write on anything that's available around me, my life has been full of pieces of scribbled paper flying about like confetti. I'm so happy to finally have a permanent place to chew the fat.  So far my chewing the fat is on and off.  Maybe, I lack teeth. Feel free to comment, if you wish.  Thank you very much, Cindy, for this honor and the beautiful graphic.  This Blog Continues in "Everyday Canvas "    |
| What little wilderness was left in Florida we seem to be losing it. Migrating birds are the ones that are most taken aback by the civilization's attack on their rest stops. What we are losing to concrete and stone is irreplacable. The wilderness is not just a home for wildlife; it is a place where our sense of dependence on nature and its creator is fostered and reflected upon. Wilderness can be a metaphor for personal crises, confusion, and bafflement, but without the beauty and inspiration of forests, swamps, and deserts, won't we end up resorting to some kind of a fake and manufactured nature? We already have those fake gardens in big cities. They are better than nothing, for sure, but sitting in a man-made park or a tea house while the pollution from exhaust pipes and the noise of the traffic interfere with our mind's workings does not quite match up to our spiritual connection, meditation, and reflection in the nature's true garden of a wilderness. We used to get flocks and flocks of Sandhill Cranes around out community. Nowadays, these birds walk around singly or in pairs. Where there used to be a pathway with the sign "Sandhill Crane Passing" now is a throughfare where cars whiz by. The sign still stands there by the side of the road and sandhill cranes still try to cross the street, addled by all the changes that came about in the last decade or so. True wilderness heals and humbles the spirit. It is where we find silence, solitude, and awe for nature and the entire creation. Shouldn't we at least try to preserve one tiny part of it? |
| It is raining now. We needed it, too. Without rain, come warm weather, the famed Florida fires may start. First, one or two tiny drops fell from a few dark clouds that took over the sun; a few thunderheads, after a few suspended moments of trying to intimidate, growled and quieted down. Then, rain settled into its usual, innocent, life-giving, lyrical, rhythmic pattern. So much of my association with rain goes back to childhood memories. Running under the bursting clouds--while rain flattened our hair, dampened our skin, and ruined our game-playing--come back to me as if it were today. Yet, I remember us forming our own bonds with the weather, loving to get wet and splashing in the mud puddles. Rain always stirs poetic desires in me. I think rain is the most lyrical weather condition. It wets, it soaks, it floods, then it re-animates what it has destroyed. Rain is akin to a mystical dream that turns us to paper boats sailing on its magnum opus. Dripping or falling apart, we somehow manage to enjoy it...like life itself. |
| I was packing old books in a box to donate to the local library. I got hold of an oldie from 1976. It was one of those Time-Life Photo journals on Great Cities; this one said New York. I couldn't do it. I couldn't give it away; I just couldn't. I kept the book after leafing through it. It depicts a time when we were so "us."(I don't want to say innocent, as many do, so I'll say us.) Besides the city vistas, I gazed at the portraits of NewYorkers at work or at play all wrapped up in their worlds. NewYorkers are a distinct breed. To me, they have always represented life in its liveliest. Just when I was about to close the book, I got startled by the shocking photo of the twin towers taken from a slanting camera angle. Underneath were these words almost like a premonition, "One of the 110-storey towers of the World Trade Center slices a chunk out of its twin with its shadow." As shadows of both towers will forever shadow my heart. I'm keeping this book till eternity. |
| I have an old game I play when alone. I take a newspaper section and pick either the headlines or parts of the sentences. Then, I finish them up my way or maybe react to them in not more than a sentence or two, without thinking and without having read what's written underneath, so I won't be influenced. I am now holding the A section of an old NY Times (March 11, Saturday, 2006). Let's go: "Arts Briefly" is not art. True art pays attention to detail, even if in a few lines. "Another Land Summer" will arrive, come June, bringing with it more hurricanes, Ozzfest and Warped. Ozzie Osbourne can't match up to a hurricane, or can he? "Survivor vs Idol" My husband is the idol. Everybody idolizes him and I survive everybody and the Idol. I laugh at the internal joke."Jackson's Ranch Closed" to be opened again by the scientologists as a concentration camp for psychiatrists. The camp commandant is rumored to be none other than the famed actor Tom Cruise. "Ambien in the Driver's Seat" Who took it out of the pillbox and gave it the keys?  This one was a movie ad, the title of the movie withheld by me. "A live-action. A treat to watch." Is there any such thing as dead action? If there were, that would really be a treat to watch. So much for playtime. I gotta go face the day and work. |
| I spent half an hour this morning writing down a dream, which was a full story with a twisting plot and well developed characters with the heroes and villains having good and bad traits. Usually, I have senseless, open-ended dreams that chew my life's fat. What a pleasant surprise this one was! I wasn't even thinking of writing a story lately. I don't know if I'll be able to get to really writing it soon, but at least I have its outlines written in my free-flow journal. Without realizing, by now, I must have trained my mind to have it produce stuff at random. They say Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his novels from his dreams. I am no RLS, but this whole thing aroused my curiosity as to the minds of other writers. I guess we have computers up there in our heads that, once programmed, produce on their own. I'll let the story sit for a while. I can't get to it anyhow, with everything going in my life nowadays. Yesterday I changed my bedroom around. I wonder if that's what triggered it. If so, I should move the furniture in the house every day. |
| I just read that deep-sea crabs have acute vision. In order to collect these crabs, deep-sea divers lure them into traps by using dimmed red lights. Like most deep-sea animals, they are extremely sensitive to a ship's or submarine's search lights, for bright flashing lights may blind them momentarily. In addition, their vision is extraordinary since they can see ultraviolet light. Who'd have thought! When I read all this, I mulled over us, the human animals on the surface of planet earth. If we look at the sun directly or to an eclipse, we are blinded like crabs. Like them, are we, also, endowed with sights other species lack? I hope so. It would be nice to be special, not to boast or gloat over other animals, but be really special. Then, maybe we are. To start with, the great majority of us loves food, a great variety of it, and sometimes in large amounts. My purchases from Publix today provide the proof. Better yet, one thing over other species is our parenting skills. Not that we are all so skilled, but we stay parents through life no matter how old or rotten our children get. Also, most of us are intelligent enough, playful, curious, artistic, graceful (though not me!), big-hearted, and with a sense of humor. I wonder if crabs laugh...if they do, how do they? Maybe crabs own more legs than us, but usually, we are not crabby, PMS excluded. We, too, may be blinded looking at the sun, but do the crabs know how to share, how to love, how to be accustomed to certain things? Can they be touchy, preoccupied, or alternately euphoric and desperate? Do they get traumatized when lifted from their home into a boat? The answer to this one remains open, I think. |
| My son's Siamese, Yoda, is with us for a few months. I think I am getting him spoiled. Yesterday he saw me feeding a Sandhill Crane and went bezerk. There's a Sandhill Crane that comes to our porch door and gently taps at the glass with his beak and waits for me to give him a few pieces of bread. Not to worry, I don't feed any birds with white bread but with the seven-grain natural one. Anyhow, as usual the bird was waiting for me and Yoda was curiously watching him. A Sandhill Crane is about 4.5 feet tall on toothpick-thin long legs and its body is probably three to four times that of the cat's. At the time, both animals were eyeing each other in a friendly manner, the bird standing at the door, the cat sprawled on an outdoor chair. Then, I spoiled it all. I brought out a few pieces of bread and gave it to the bird. Yoda's ears suddenly started to move back and forth. First, looking at me, he let out a wild meow as I entered back into the porch through the sliding door, as if saying, "How could you betray me like that?" As I went into the house, I glimpsed Yoda jumping from the chair, taking position under the table and taking his sleek hunting stance. Then, stealthily, the cat began crawling on bent legs (knees? Do cats have knees?) and neared the porch door. The bird was busy consuming his prize out on the cement pathway in the yard near the porch. Yoda suddenly leaped at the glass door. Luckily, there was that door between them and I am glad it is tempered outdoor glass. The bird startled, flapped its wide wings and jumped back a few feet, but didn't fly away. One doesn't fly away from someone deemed as a friend with only one gesture, does one? I went out and told Yoda to stay away, not that he would listen, but at least, I'd feel right. I came back inside the house. Leaving the bread pieces alone, the bird came tapping at the porch door again, his head turned toward where Yoda was. I bet the poor thing thought it was a game of sorts. I stood at the house door and told Yoda to not dare move. The bird went back to eating and Yoda sat on the porch floor. I went in. Not even two seconds later, Yoda started moving toward the glass porch door like a slinky toy. He suddenly leaped again. The bird backed up. This time I didn't interfere. Who am I to dare butt in with Nature's rules? The huge bird and the small cat, one inside the porch the other out in the yard, stood eyeing each other with the glass door in between them for at least an hour. Neither moved. In the meantime, I went in the house to answer the phone. When I looked from the window again, the bird had left and the cat was pulling at his hair on his front legs. Yoda always does that when he is nervous. The story didn't finish there. Entire day yesterday, Yoda avoided me. No more rubbing against my legs, begging for treats and attention. If anything, if he saw me coming towards him, he changed his route. This morning, however, the entire incident is forgotten, thanks to a chunk of chicken meat that served as the peacemaker between us. Maybe someday, in some place, cats and birds will get along and the deer and antelope will play together. |
| Whenever I feel I want some fresh air, I open up a page in Thoreau's Journal and breathe. Here's one: "Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature,—if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you,—know that the morning and the spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse." Well, where I live there are no bluebirds, but white ibises and a family of sandhill cranes that come looking through my porch door. As to the early morning walk, I stay in bed a few minutes more and imagine I am taking my early morning walk. Imagining comes easier since I am into writing and poetry. The only things that get me moving is either the force of going to work or the curiosity over "what's going on in Writing.com?" I don't know about the spring of my life, but I consider my life a spring. Yes, a spring from which undetected and sudden surprises keep springing up. Thus is my pulse. Good thing, I live with a sense of humor, and the morning is about seven hours later. Sorry, Mr.Thoreau. |
| In my life, I suspect, a new fashion of writing in the dark is emerging. After taking care of two sick people in my house for the last 12 days, one with a bladder infection, the other recuperating from major surgery, I started to think poetry again. Since they are both well enough now, I can fool around with words. On the same vein, though I don't know why, last night after going to bed, my mind kept coming up with haikus. Since I didn't want to turn on the light and wake my husband up, I wrote a few of those in a pad with a pencil, in the dark. In the morning, I laughed out loud. The lines were wavy, with a lot of white space in between, and even the handwriting didn't resemble my own. Lol! For whatever they are worth, here are four of those haikus: In adolescence, I judged with the borrowed tools of high scorers’ minds. Gloats her jewelry, teardrop diamonds, blue gems, loneliness, the queen. The hole in the heart, if the relationship failed, buried emptiness. My only support, you, the one remaining wall of a bombed-out life. |
| "Where do I begin to tell the story of how ...." In times like these, some old song attaches itself to my mind and annoys me to no end. Also in times like these, I revert to my youth and that's why I went and bought a paperback copy of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Probably I won't read it, though probably my husband will, but it feels good to possess and gaze into an old friend of a book that had mesmerized me in my teens during the fifties. Why do I say "in times like these"? "Times like these" first started with the hurricane season. It still didn't feel too bad until hurricane Wilma threatened to come charging on us. Before Wilma we only felt the suspense with each developing storm and commiserated with its victims. For Wilma, I made all the preparations and got ready to hunker down; however, my husband insisted he wouldn't stay through another hurricane. I wish we had. It would have been easier. All the flights from Palm Beaches were filled, and since my son and his wife were here and were about to drive back to Gainsville where their home is, we accepted their offer to leave us in Orlando airport to take a flight to Chicago or New York where our families are. I don't know how it came to that, but during the ride, we ended accepting to go to Gainsville with them to wait out the hurricane. My son and his wife are about to move to Orlando. So everything in their home is packed or is in the process of getting packed. Since we didn't want to add to their misery, we said we'd stay in a hotel, although they insisted we stay with them. We went to a hotel and got a room but the next day the hotel people told us we had to leave because the room was only for one night. We called practically all the hotels in Gainsville. Nobody had room since Florida Gators had their annual family week and every place was jampacked. So, our son and daughter in-law came and took us to their home. They were very gracious and they made us feel very welcome. What got to me was worrying about what happened at home and getting no news of it from the local news media. I know our town officials are not the sharpest tools in the governing shed, but their impotence never fails to shock me. First, during and after the hurricanes, why do they send out notices to the local TV news when they know practically nobody has access to TV since the cables are down and the electricity is out? Second, for those of us who evacuated, why don't they have a way of telling us what to expect? For example, during the hurricanes each town has a different curfew that those returning know nothing about. They could at least maintain a webpage to update the residents. In this day and age that shouldn't be so difficult. There are computers with several hours of batteries or they could maintain a computer or two on a generator, and not all wireless towers fall down either. If they had a webpage serving the residents they could let us know if the ground water is decent, if the streets are flooded, if they are impassable, or if the residents had to boil water or not. They could also let us know that there are gaslines and practically no gas down south. If we knew that, we'd have filled the tank of our rented car before we came to Fort Drum Service Station on the turnpike and we wouldn't have added to the shockingly long lines. Not that they don't have a webpage. They do and amazingly so. That webpage, however, only serves to attract tourists and to make sure the incumbents look good for the next election. What a pity! |
| A friend from Long Island phoned and told me that, yesterday, a woman of about 40 years of age called the police to report her child missing. The child had some kind of an illness or a developmental problem, I am not sure which, and the mother sounded frantic during the 9-1-1 call. This caused a serious search and police time, but the call was a hoax and the child was home safe all through the frenzy. There some things that stun me when I hear them because they are so trite. This is definitely one of them. I have been thinking why would this woman, obviously not a teenager, want to attract so much attention. Is she mentally ill? Did she become overwhelmed with the care of a sick child, and as a result, lost it? If this is a prank, it has no sense. A person should never take valuable police time, because she is taking away from those who really need it. Anyway I look at it, I can't seem to find a good answer. My reasoning, however, tilts toward the overwhelmed mother syndrome. In any case, this mother is an enigmatic character. the whys of her behavior should be explored further, I think.
|
| Once in a while, I treat myself to a music CD. Today, I came home with two CDs that were packaged so tightly, that to open them, I had to cut the wrapping with cuticle scissors (any other knife, scissor, or contraption is just too blunt). This happens all the time, not just today. Once I manage to do away with the outer cellophane covering, the CD box is still shut tight, because somebody thought of gluing a bar code strip on one side, all along the length of the rim. It is difficult to edge the scissors' tip through that because of the strength of the glue. They made it so strong, even a hurricane wouldn't open it easily. Not just that, several days ago, I got a gift of two CD's in one box. Usually, the middle part has a loose flap and one can get to both CDs. Not that time. They had one side of the middle flap stuck--I suspect glued--to the bottom lid. I had to ask my son to take it out. Even he couldn't manage to do it without breaking the box, and he has CDs galore. He should know. If these people are so concerned about shoplifting, why don't they have the cashier hand the CDs to the customer? At least, they wouldn't discourage eager customers away. Well, the silver lining is, the boxes and the packaging may be rotten, but the music is great. Just for the wild beast. Already, it is calming me down, since I have been playing my new CDs as I was writing this entry.
|
| Yesterday I got a flu shot at the local Publix, since I don't trust my doctor's office getting the vaccine on time. Usually, his office gets it a month later than everybody, and last year, they didn't have it at all. This shot, however, is only against the regular flu, not the one threatening the world's health by passing from live poultry to humans and mutating in the process to become a killer disease. If there will be a plague of the modern times, this will be it. The worst thing is, in the US, we are not ready for it. In the beginning, when this news was blown open, I didn't pay much attention to it. Yesterday, however, I watched on TV, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt telling the reporters that he lost sleep at nights over what might happen. Accordingly, there is only one company in France that manufactures the avian flu vaccine. They are overloaded with all the requests and the USA is not even on line with a request. Since vaccine development is costly without monetary gain and there are too many malpractice suits against the companies, nobody wants to develop the vaccine. Very humanitarian those companies, aren't they! Worst yet, a pandemic flu outbreak would likely reach the US within a few months or even weeks. The Secretary of Health, regarding this problem, said, it is not a matter of if but when. So far, H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing 60. Even if the spread of the flu would last only a few months, it will likely kill millions. I am not really anxious about it, at least not yet. Probably because I am inside the initial disbelief period with the "Is this really happening? No, it can't be happening" mentality. Yet, the idea of not being prepared, hurts my American pride, as it did when we lost the city of New Orleans to hurricane Katrina and flood waters because the officials were dumb enough not to listen to the Army Corps of Engineers, when for several years before and ever since, they were alerted to the condition of the levees. |
| I can't believe what has been happening to the world within the last year and a half. Fire, floods, pestilence, earthquakes, hurricane... During the last several decades, I don't remember having heard so numerous a disaster news, plus experiencing two major hurricanes myself last summer. Now the two major subcontinent plates have crashed into each other, destroying a good portion of the towns and cities in Asia. The news was: A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building. The toll, which can rise to tens of thousands, included 250 girls who died when their school in northwestern Pakistan collapsed. Such a tragedy! I am sure humanity will rise again and give a hand to those who were hurt so badly. Maybe all this will show us, once more, how dependent we are on each other on this planet, since I believe there is always a good side to the worst of things. |
| Everyday, I mean to write in my blog book. Each time I get to it, something happens. I even had lights go off on me a few times. I guess if it's not to be, it's not to be. My intention is, once more, to keep writing in here, since the technology for our thoughts to be immediately pasted into the blog books isn't invented yet. Wouldn't a technology like that be great? Even if such a technology would involve wearing brain chips, I would welcome it. Maybe those chips would improve the tired, aging gray matter. I better get off before the lights go off again, since I hear the thunder in the distance. |
| Today's paper informs, "Dust storm from Africa may arrive Monday or Tuesday." It seems that some reddish dust--due to iron content--is traveling on a tropical wave to grant us a fantastic sunset, in a couple of days. Great! Now, we are the beneficiaries of sand from the Sahara, on top of the hurricanes. This time, the dust cloud looks huge, as big as the USA, but Florida will get only the western edge. If the dust is concentrated, it could cause health problems. Out comes my inhaler! The good news is tropical storm development will be hindered. Hurricane or choking, take your pick, Sunshine State. Lol! Never a dull moment! |
| I missed blogging. I've been away for a while and couldn't get my act together; even though I have been logging into the site every now and then, the contraption I used didn't let me stay long. No, it wasn't a vacation (I wish) but a series of work related trips, during which I wrote some inside a notebook, which I am too lazy to re-type. If I am going to type anything, I may as well write something anew. Well, tomorrow is another day. |
| For a person who has traveled some, I can say that, in most any country, address numbers were visibly written. True, sometimes, their numbering didn’t follow a logical sequence, but they were easily seen nevertheless. Not so here. I think there’s a conspiracy to hide the address numbers in our country. Today on US1, I drove north to south, then south to north to find 7151 (a government office) but the only two numbers truly visible were the numbers 9181 on a surgical office and 6815 on a small store. Why were all the numbers in between hidden? I have a suspicion that some people or agencies or stores do not wish to be found by serious clientele. Instead, they want to lure people haphazardly, the thrill of their game resembling a climb on an unknown mountain. Look around you when you shop. How many buildings really have visible numbers on them? Surely, they advertise--in block letters or neon lights--their names, their phone numbers, and whatever it is they want to say to lure you inside, but do you see any address numbers? If you do, what is the percentage of the businesses with visible address numbers versus those without them? Address numbers, whether they are residential or commercial, come in cast aluminum, cast bronze, and stainless steel. They can be put up by professionals or laymen. They are easy to install. Some just stick on; others can be nailed in. Some can be electrical. They can even be painted by hand or written with permanent markers. Address numbers are important because they are indicators. They do have a commercial purpose for stores, for people in business, and their rationale is the ease of being found by prospective visitors and customers. Why then, I ask myself, whenever I am looking for any place, I have such a difficult time? Let’s get those numbers out in the open. They are very useful, believe me. |
| We don’t get much traffic on our street, which is a quiet residential loop with inhabitants consisting mostly of senior citizens. Except for a family with teens where the loop takes a sharp curve, there aren’t any children and noise, so each passing vehicle is heard and noted easily. Early in the morning and late in the evening, however, we have quite a bit of pedestrian action with elderly walkers on aspirin therapy and pet owners walking their dogs. I am one of those walkers, although unfortunately, sans dog. A specific thing one notices about each house as one walks by is its mailbox. I have observed this: the showier the house, the fancier is its mailbox. Our mailboxes stand guard, with varied colors and shapes, in front of each house on varied poles, some firmly grounded in cement, others just stuck through the sod to sway in the wind. My husband and I had never paid any attention to our humble black metal mailbox that came with the house when we moved in during 1993; although at one point, I felt that the box on top of the pole needed changing since the bottom of its metal had corroded and some rusty holes had formed, but because we couldn’t figure out how to fit a new box on the old stand, and because of our clumsiness, we didn't dare to attempt to put in a new pole, we gave up on that project and received a refund on a new box that had made a needless trip from the store to our house. After the hurricanes of last year, we temporarily lost our trusty old mailbox on account of a queen palm falling over it and the wind carrying it away; the next day, however, our son found it on a neighborhood lawn a few blocks away, wounded though still usable. He brought it back and just stuck, haphazardly, inside the soggy ground, its crooked metal legs as far as they would go, which seriously shortened the height. I still wouldn’t have comprehended the size of the problem this created for our mailman, if--one day when I was weeding a flower bed--I hadn’t witnessed the anguish on his face when he tried to place the mail in the box. When I ran to his aid, he complained--and rightfully so--, “This is lower than the regulation height.” It was time for a new box. Right that day, my son and I went to Home Depot and bought a mailbox with a stand. My objective was to get this unpleasant task over with as soon as possible, and my son’s aim was to choose an easy-to-put-in pole. He chose a thin plastic pole and I chose the biggest mailbox. Wrong combination! Now, as our white brand-new mailbox tilts its deferential head toward the street’s gravity and sways from side to side with the slightest of wind, I watch it to find solace in the fact that, at least, we have complied with the mailbox-height regulation. |
| A new development in the business channels: As soon as a viewer names a stock, the host, as if playing Russian Roulette, screams the answer, with little or no thinking and fast, really fast; immediately after he does that, he goes to the next caller. The callers are asked on air (by the host) to cut to the question fast and avoid pleasantries, such as "Hi, I enjoy your show," although the callers do it anyway. I suspect they may be told to do this when the callers are screened beforehand. This part of the show where the host answers viewer questions fast is called a "Lightning Round," or some such name like it. What makes highly-educated people (some ivy-league graduates from Harvard, Yale, etc.) to act like used car salesmen? Crazy Eddie comes to mind from decades ago when I lived on Long Island, NY. "Ratings I guess and ratings it must be," I answer myself. Ratings, since I like to watch them and their theatrics with enthusiasm, even though I dislike listening to stock market news. Maybe with such great acting, these hosts will make a convert out of me. Maybe I'll end up watching the ticker tape as enthusiastically as one of those CNBC and FNN people. You can never tell with ivy-leaguers. Some of them become presidents and CEOs, some of them uni-bombers, and then, some of them shape-shift and perform miracles. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
for this lovely sig.
