Category Archives: humour
I’m Back :)
Dear Readers, I apologize for my absence from the page. It has been a revelation adapting and adjusting to retirement. I continue to write regularly (believe it or not!) and I continue to learn cello. I’m not sure where the rest of my time goes…
In October I started noticing posts for a seven day challenge: Seven black and white photos of your life. No people, no pets, no explanations. I was immediately intrigued and started taking photos. What I didn’t do was go the extra step and post them. Therefore you will see I begin with some Hallowe’en themed photos. For the next while (more than seven days) I will be posting my pictures. I hope you enjoy glimpses into my neighborhood!
Fond du Lac, Saskatchewan
We paddled 175km over nine days in northern Saskatchewan, sharing food, laughter, mosquitoes, and tons of fun with friends to inspire the following poem 🙂
I wait on a beach in Northern Saskatchewan
for aurora borealis to arrive.
My friends, modern nomads, tuck in
to yellow, blue, orange and green domes.
Sandstone hills and evergreen trees rise
above marshy grass.
Beneath a still surface
river current slides north toward Arctic,
mirror images of its shoreline
reaching for heaven.
Night hawks shoot skyward
torpedo down
wings bugling a haunting tune.
Therma-rests rustle
mosquitoes attack my ears
the world settles into a bedtime routine.
I think about waking up the others
with bear bangers on the beach.
Enkhuizen, Netherlands
We are getting closer to home 😄
More of the Dolomites
This gallery contains 9 photos.
Farewell to Barcelona
This gallery contains 16 photos.
What Are The Odds
Through our journey we have found there are opportunities for experiences you don’t expect and cannot prepare for. Encounters that leave you marvelling at life. We had two of such occurrences on our longest day of travel. (1) We left Nerja under hazy skies heavy with Mediterranean moisture. Clouds stacked liked cotton balls witnessed our departure. (Natalie Matsui, the sky reminded me of your Popcorn Cloud portrayal in the Alberta Skies project.) Imagine our conversation as we settled ourselves for the impending six hour drive. “Hey look, there’s another greenhouse.” We had seen a few earlier throughout Portugal and Spain. The landscape we were driving through was arid, desert reminding us of Nevada or Arizona. Soon we began to see more greenhouses and thought they must be effective for growing fruits and vegetables in this unforgiving environment. As we saw more greenhouses we joked about someone getting rich by convincing his neighbors to buy plastic for greenhouses. Soon the horizon was completely plastic – WTF! We felt like we had stumbled upon some sort of dystopian science experiment. Google informed us we were viewing the greenhouses of Almeria. Apparently this is one of the most recognizable places on the planet when viewed from a satellite lens. It seemed like a good idea may have gone terribly wrong – or not. I’m sure there are many points of view about this but as we observed a valley without a single square inch of green or rock visible, only the steeple of a church and rooftops of a village rising above the sea of plastic, our conversation faded to silence….
(2)still reeling from what we had inadvertently witnessed, I received an email that made me laugh out loud. I hope I can convey the uncanny events that lead to this outburst. Three couples unknown to each other are travelling in Spain in May of 2017. Couple #1, Janet and Bryan, meet couple #2, Chris and Nonie, in Seville. Several days later couple #1 meets couple #3, John and Mary, in Arcos. Couple #3 meets couple #2 in Tangier and again in Gibraltar. Several days later couple #2 chance upon couple #1 in Granada. They determine that they each met couple #3 and Janet sends Mary an email. I feel like it’s an episode from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “what are the odds?!”
Ebb and Flow
Seven days ago I ran alongside the river
that has flowed through our city
before it was a city.
Water that never stands still,
passes people, cultures, politics, technology
without a second glance.
She keeps flowing a graceful flow
sometimes slow and lazy
sometimes turbid and raging,
always moving.
Two days ago I stepped away
from my workplace
after thirty-two years
of coming and going.
Thirty-two years with a wonderful dentist,
Dr Brian Sacks, who was by my side
through the ebb and flow
of my life.
Over the years a wonderful dentist, yes,
but a wonderful friend, too.
I have had the pleasure of working with great staff
and of course, the best patients ever!
I am grateful for the opportunity
to have shared many stories
with many people
and to have had the opportunity to have been taught
so much by my patients over the course of my career.
I will miss the conversations and laughter.
I will miss the security of knowing
“where I am supposed to be” every morning
but I look forward to this new phase of my life-
flowing beside water that never stands still.
Winter Respite
We have been experiencing arctic cold temperatures and record snowfall. Yesterday the sun graced us with her glorious presence again and sent the thermometer and moods rising. We are expecting the warm weather to continue for the rest of the week – yay!
As I looked out my office window this morning I was met with a beautiful pink sky reflecting off a long, pointy icicle hanging precariously from an eave – thus the inspiration for today’s submission 🙂
morning sun provokes
nature’s dangling dagger
disarms icicle
Onions by Lorna Crozier
The onion loves the onion.
It hugs its many layers,
saying, O, O, O,
each vowel smaller
than the last.
Some say it has no heart.
It doesn’t need one.
It surrounds itself,
feels whole. Primordial.
First among vegetables.
If Eve had bitten it
instead of the apple,
how different
Paradise.
Lorna Crozier
From: Sex Lives of Vegetables.
ScribbleDartsfromtheHeart 