Winter Poem

I found this beautiful winter poem and thought it might be a comfort to you.
It was to me, and it's very well written.
ENJOY!


' WINTER 'a poem by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

F**k! It's cold!

Happy Valentine's Day

Just Happy Valentine's Day -- that's it.  Hope it's a lovely one for you all.  It's about to snow AGAIN here and in honor of that we will trek out to a wine social.  The snow won't start til later this evening.  We will eat drink and be merry until then.

Yes We Love Our Tom Brady

So I live here in New England and I guess you know what that means as far as football is concerned?  YES!!!  We WON!! and I don't want to hear any NY haters jump in here saying the obligatory Spygate Defllategate crapppppppp... Thank you.  Here's what I want to hear:

Yikes! Winter for sure

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Spring - It's out there. It Just Takes Time

So far so good.  No snow only rain and muck and occasional ice.  We only have 2 more months before the daffodils spring up.  The biggest problem with winter is the easy out I have to not walk.  I am too old and out of shape to blow off the exercise but winter gives me a hall pass.  We do have a community center nearby and there are treadmills and stair climbers and weight machines.  My conscience is nagging at me to go forth and sign up.  Luckily today is Sunday and they are not open, at least the sign up desk isn't.  You can see how lazy I am by the number of times I have written something new on this blog.

I do have a picture for you and it sings to me.  I yearn for the day I look out my window and see:

Rain and More Rain

Rainy Winter Day Here

Very Little Effort Here

I'm kind of liking this recycle thing....for one thing it lessens my anxiety.  I look back over the years and I can see how little things have changed, at least around here.  For another thing, it gives me something to put on this place without a lot of effort.  See?  Things haven't changed around here.  Here's one from January 2nd some years ago... 2009 to be precise.

Friday, January 02, 2009

A New Year - A New Beginning

And now for the rest of the story. Right now there isn't one. I am stuck in a too much time to do things so who wants to do them anymore kind of mood. You know? Here's how I always felt, I know you're dying to know this. I would be at work and all the time, in my head would be, "If I were home I would so be scrubbing the tiles in the shower, or the kitchen floor, or cleaning out those closets." I would be at home and my head would be all "If I were in the office I would get that presentation completed, finish that report, work on that lesson plan."

Here I am home, lots of time, my entire office function is here with me and yet . . . . here I am. I am only here, typing because the last thing I want to do is scrub the tiles or finish that report. What is my head to deal with now? It has no idea what to think. Happy New Year for heaven's sake.

Oh and by the way. . those Resolutions? I never did get to them so I have decided to accept myself as I am and see what happens. I mean, really, I have been working on change for decades and as I look back I can see that the changes I wish to make are the same, year after year after year. Therefore, I conclude that the changes I was making the efforts to accomplish are probably not very good for me. I will accept myself as I am and if a change should occur, why I will accept that as well. So I guess you could say that my resolution is to relax and - - now there I go....after I said there would be only that acceptance thing. I'm quitting now while I'm ahead.

I am meeting a new Primary Care physician today. It's January 1st, time for the annual change of health insurance thanks to the company I retired from. Actually, it's the 2nd but everything changes on the first. That means the next couple of months will be devoted to lining up the PCP, then the Cardiologist, the Dermatologist, the Eye people, the prescriptions all have to be re-done since whenever the year is up, the changes that are made are such that the group I lined up the year before don't accept the insurance I have for the coming year. I guess that former company of mine would prefer to have as few retirees as possible on the pension account so they figure ways to up the stress level and some of us are bound to succumb to it and honestly, when you have to spend hours dealing with the customer service people those insurance groups submit you too...a stroke isn't far away. Wish me luck.

Recycling

I'm nothing if not a recycler -- here's an old one from Thursday December 15, 2005

Ten Degrees

That's the temperature not the degrees of separation thing that hit Broadway. Yowzer it is COLD. But in the scheme of things it could be worse. My mother would always cringe when I tried to smooth over the bad event of the moment by saying that . "Don't worry", she'd say, "They'll get there." Yup, I come from a long line of optimists. We always were told that we weren't Irish on my mother's side. How all the other family members on that side were and we weren't never puzzled me. After all, they were all Catholic and we weren't so if that is possible, why not the Irish thing. My father's family was Scottish in every direction you looked so in my mother's view, so were we. That Irish surname and brogue of the older aunts could just as easily have been Scottish. As I get older and fall into what my aunt (on my mother's side) would call the blues, I realize that it's a gift from my Irish genes. The Irish do have that melancholy unlike any other group. It's deep and mystical as well as musical. They, or I should say I, weep without warning and go inside to uncover old hurts and pain. We sigh a lot and isolate to curl up, listen to maudlin music to blend with our thoughts. Then, it seems, equally without warning, we find something so startlingly funny about the worst thing imaginable that we laugh as inappropriately as we cry and back to level, life goes on.

So I go ----

God as Man

Nothing again but I was reading this and I can't get it out of my head so I thought I would share:

"God could, had he pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him.  Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities, who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane.  Otherwise we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any importance.  We should also have missed the all-important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin.  If He had been incarnate in a man of immense natural courage, that would have been for many of us almost the same as His not being incarnate at all."

Letters of C.S. Lewis
23rd February 1947

What could be cuter?

I know - it's been almost a month and where have I been?  What have I been doing?  I got nuthin'!  so here's a beautiful picture to while away the last of the month and bring us into the Augustus of the year.

Happy Birthday America the Beautiful!!!!

Hooray for the Red White and Blue

Grateful for my dilemma

June is here and halfway gone already.  Weather's better - warm and humid and sunny when it isn't raining.  I have been busy doing nothing and wondering how I gained this weight?  Can't be that I have been doing nothing and eating everything could it?  Naw.  Didn't think so.

Have to go clean the bathroom now since we might have company later.  Heaven forbid that anyone should catch a glimpse of how we really live around here.  When said company arrives we will be feeding him and I am searching for just the right thing.  He loves seafood and where better for seafood than Cape Cod?    I would love to do the lobster and steamers thing but it's not easy, believe it or not, to find a place that has the portions we would serve at home.  I don't want to do this at home.  There is my dilemma.  I thank God that my dilemmas have been so reduced.  Several years ago I had a list, a very long list, of dilemmas and each were life altering.  Thank you God for my life today.

Here is what I see when I drive in and out of my driveway to solve the mundane problems here.  You can see one reason for my gratitude.  Life is good!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend.  This is so confusing since it's earlier than Memorial the actual Day.  Oh well.  It's a long weekend and our summer area is coming alive with the sounds of people.  My walk to the beach is no longer lonely and calm.  There are cars in abundance in driveways and yards and on the street.  Lots of clean up after winter activities are going on as I walk.  My dog is thrilled to have people she can wag at and attempt to sit with for hugs and pats.  I like it but I don't.

Traffic is heavy and I have to wait and wait and wait to cross the street.  Forget the supermarket especially the deli section since the lines are endless.  The smell of grilled food is everywhere and the square is alive with strollers and window shoppers and the shops are actually open.  Until the 1st of July the weekends will be like this and then?  Stand Back!  It's like this all week long.  I love it for the town since this is when the money can be made.  I love the action - sort of.  Check back here in September and see if I'm still feeling the love.

Happy Memorial Day - we know it's not happy but a time to remember.  Thank you to all of those who served so that we can smell the grills and hear the laughter ringing in the summer season.

Happy Mother's Day Mom

My mother would always tell the story of going to church on Mother's Day when she was a child and getting a carnation. White carnations would be given to the children who had lost their mother and pink carnations would be given to the children who still had their mother. She would tell us how glad she was that she had a pink carnation and how sorry she felt for the children who had white carnations and I guess we were being give a push to say how grateful we were to have our mother with us. I'm not sure we took the hint and responded they way she wanted but I do know that we were glad to have her.

Miss you Mom and wish I had a pink carnation for sure.

Daffodils Indeed!

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils. 

William Wordsworth

Antigonish

This has been going through my head all day :  As I was going down the stair, I passed a man who was not there.

So I had to look it up and found so much more, the name of the poem is Antigonish and the author is Hughes Mearns.  He wrote it in 1899 and it was inspired by reports of a ghost in a house in Antigonish Nova Scotia.  I count this as something new I learned today.  Quite a while ago I started a notebook and that's what I devoted it to, new things I learned each day.  I wonder where that notebook went?  Probably turned into a calorie counter or Weight Watchers points journal. Oh well, here's the poem in its entirety and as you can see, the part that was running through my head?  It was running in the wrong direction.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away..

 I would have put a picture of that guy here but . . . . . . he wasn't there!!

From the Annals of Time

I'm finding all these old rants that I filed away in my documents file.... how great that I can unearth them and how sad that all these years later - - - they're true. Don't have a date one this one but I think it was 2008. Wow and wow . How crazy is this??? Six years later it's here and it's bad.

From time to time I read current events on the various blogs available on the net. Actually, I must admit, I am obsessed. I cannot start the day without a zoom through the various places I always visit. I’ve written about this before and so let me reiterate, I have news blogs, plain old blogs, blogs of the soap opera type, blogs by shrinks, health blogs and religious type blogs. I am a blog nut. In order to shorten my morning fix I have a must see folder and today they are all abuzz with the John Doe amendment in some bill that the Dems voted overwhelmingly to cut. The amendment protected whistleblowers actually. When you see something suspicious you say something and it’s checked out and if it’s nothing the person or people you reported go on their way. Some go on their way to sue the whistleblower. This amendment protected the snitchers from those lawsuits which would probably whine that they were picked on due to their size, shape, color, religion etc. Never would the snitching be based on legitimate cause for concern such as the Fabulous Flying Imams and the actions they were taking to draw attention to themselves, get that report in and get a huge publicity campaign and lawsuit cooking.

What is the thinking behind the vote that was just taken? We’ll never know the truth so we are left to speculate and naturally, human nature being human, we think the worst. I have to go pray and read the Gospel of Mark. I am going all the way through start to finish and obsess about the Good News rather than the state of affairs in Washington DC. Bless you all. God is still on His throne.

Just read a blurb on NRO by Kevin D. Williamson. He referenced a news report as follows:

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba has ordered jailed punk rocker Gorki Aguila, an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro and the communist government, to stand trial on Friday for "social dangerousness," a charge that could carry up to four years in prison.

This was preceded by the statement that All You Punks in Your Che T-Shirts ... should have a look at what your heroes do when they have the opportunity:

I had an epiphany. Of course! What has taken me so long? These advocates of brutal killers and dictators are merely showing us what they want our world to be like. Any one who dares to disagree or think differently than the Che lovers will be arrested and beaten and - - -whatever it takes. The devotees of those petty and brutal tyrants would never see themselves as outside the circle of power. They would be wielding the whips and rods as they stride through the streets. They would be wiping that smug self satisfied smile off of the faces of those others who think they are better than ... well, you get it. They are merely playground bullies who have never had the support of anyone around them to allow them to bully without consequence.

We live with our own potential Taliban. That curtain of civility that separates us from barbaric behaviour is getting thinner and thinner. Take a look at Canada and what they have done with their hate speech nonsense. There are boards empowered to hold hearings based on a complaint brought by anyone. The accused must hire legal defense although the board is under no legal restraints or held to any rule of law. The accuser doesn't have to spend a penny to ruin someone because that person has a stray thought about whatever the accuser says offends him or her.

No criticism allowed! Or else! The Obama followers are thrilled! Finally they glimpse that power seat they have wanted forever as being within reach. Bill Ayers is more than likely frothing at the mouth anticipating finally reaching the goal he set for himself way back in the 60's.

OK it's a conspiracy theory but there is some truth to it...especially that idol worship of dictator thing. I really do think that

Spring is bustin' out all over

March came in like a lion.... a whippin up the water in the bay.  Then April tried and stepped aside

Just Poking Around

Just browsing through my computer to see what can be cleaned up and sent away and found this.  Don't know when I wrote it but in my extreme laziness I thought I would use it instead of doing the hard work.  That's just me all over.

I quit smoking many years ago. I loved it. I smoked my first cigarette the summer after I graduated from high school, yes, I was a late bloomer. I felt so mature as soon as I held that cigarette between my fingers. I was immediately a grown woman. Of course I couldn't go down alone so I encouraged all my girlfriends to join me and they did. There were about six of us and we sat in the parking lot of the A&W (which by the way had car service at the time) puffing away. It was midweek and we knew our fathers were in the city working and our mothers had no cars...my mother didn't have her license at that time so we knew no one of consequence would spot us.

I went away to college and smoked as if I had never not done so. My mother told me she knew I smoked in her unique way..she never said a word, she gave me a cigarette case and lighter for Christmas. Nuff said. It was red (at the time and from time to time my favorite color) the lighter was silver - in color only - and I loved them. Talk about Hollywood happy. I felt like Katherine Hepburn (well shorter and plumper but every bit as elegant) as I opened that case, removed a Tareyton and lit up with my gleaming lighter. Even better was the ashtray set for my bedroom. Odd to have it in my bedreoom since I was never to smoke there and don't recall doing so but the ashtray set had a glass container for cigarettes that I had only seen in movies at that time. Lift the cover and offer a cigarette to a guest...you talk about sophisticated.

Well time moves on and common sense prevails and by the time you know you really can't smoke any more, the habit has taken such a hold on you that the struggle is one of the largest you have ever faced in your life. I won but still recall those elegant moments, those Hollywood sophisticated moves of removing the cigarette from the case or the holder on the coffee table, the feel of the cigarette between my fingers and the leaning back and exhaling the first puff........

You know that poem that says when I'm whatever age I shall wear purple? The hell with purple....I'm buying a carton of cigarettes, a red leather holder for the pack and a silver lighter. That's my plan......how old should I be do you think? I'll deal with that later..

S-S-S-Spring

Spring is making a stuttering entrance in these parts. One day of sun and then some flurries, 50 degree day followed by 10 degree nights. It's going to get here sooner or later but what a roller coaster we're riding in the meanwhile. My crocus made an appearance the day before a snow storm. They're hardy little creatures however, like pansies, they just keep pushing through.

My husband has suffered a minor (we hope) setback in the surgery recovery issue. He thinks he slipped in the bathroom. No fall occurred but a slip and that was enough to cause severe pain and the mobility he was gaining in the turning of his head has been wiped away. X-rays have been taken and now we wait. Hopefully it's just a minor speed bump. I'm the driver again and we both hate that!

Since I can't go too far with him on heavy duty muscle relaxers and all I am back to Dr Phil and the girls buying wedding gowns. Those muscle relaxers cause serious brain fog I think. He gets the dog's dinner ready and leaves it on the counter. Clothes go in the dryer but it never gets turned on. Thus the reason I am sticking close to home.

Here are my crocus - pushing on and teaching me a lesson in perseverence.