Blogroll cleanup

Just a note that I went through my blogroll today and deleted links to blogs that were inactive. If your blog was among the deleted and you go back to active posting, please let me know.

Rumi

Rumi was born September 30, 1207. The anniversary of his birth is coming up on Sunday. Since I don’t always post on Sunday, I’m celebrating his life today with this poem by Rumi.

A Star Without a Name

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.

That’s how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic Rumi.

A new CD

A new CD is a celebration. A new CD is a slow-down and listen carefully party. A new CD is a chance to discover something wonderful.

Discovering something wonderful is what happened when I bought The New Bossa Nova by Luciana Souza after hearing a few bars of one of the tunes on the radio.

Luciana Souza’s voice is exquisite. (It reminds me of Jane Monheit.) The songs are all American pop tunes done as bossa novas, except for the one requisite track from Antonio Carlos Jobim.

I especially like her version of Sting’s “When We Dance,” and . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on “a new CD.”

The mail

When I opened my sister’s door there was an unopened pile of mail on the entry table. The place had a deserted feel, which explained why she wasn’t answering my phone calls. I looked at the mail and saw that the piece on top had a recent postmark.

Who was bringing it in her for her? I thought I had the only spare key. And where was she? Why would she go off somewhere without telling me?

“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” I cooed. I wandered from room to room looking for the cat. Everything was dusty. How long had she been gone? . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “the mail.”

I Love It When

I love it when the weather is in that open window phase. When you don’t need store-bought energy to cool or heat your house to make it comfortable. The morning chill is stimulating, the afternoon warmth is perfectly suited to outdoor living. I love a day when the walkers and runners and bikers mob the trails as thick as mosquitos by a pond.

Can we still depend on the predictability of weather? We had some strange, extreme, record-setting weather events where I live last year, and I fear more are coming. I hate the thought of losing the autumn, the spring, and having some new and unusual weather that brings too much summer or too much winter . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “I love it when.”

Favorite Sunday Things

What are your favorite Sunday things to do? Just asking the question reminded me of a high school date I had. The boy later owned up to being gay, but at this time he was still in denial. We parked in front of my house at the end of a Saturday night date. He was determined to kiss me goodnight, but it was a hilarously awful and completely sexless kiss. And to top off the evening, he sighed longingly, “Well, at least tomorrow is Sunday. We have the comics to look forward to.”

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “favorite Sunday things.”

Fog

Even as the sun rose and the looming fog moisture that coated the ground began to evaporate away, the moisture remained on the mountain, stuck. It fell into the canyons and remained there, a white wisp across the dark mass of granite and pines that filled our eastern sky.

You could see wet tendrils reaching up to the sky, droplets scattering into the dry desert air and hiding. The show was brief, but …

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “fog.”

Slow moving

Gosh, I feel like a slow-moving river these days. Think it could be the barometric pressure or the phase of the moon? If I was once white water, I am now a boggy, silt filled cul de sac of eddies.

How many joints do you have in your foot? When I climb out of bed, I have to take the time for each and every one of the damn joints in my feet to snap loose (painfully, I might add) from the bones they are supposed to allow to move. Once that is accomplished, hobbling can be attempted.

Now hobbling is an art form that . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “slow moving.”

The Dollar Store

Shelley signed the papers in the lawyers office that started her divorce in progress. She drove to the apartment complex nearest her office and rented a one bedroom apartment. Then she drove to the Dollar Store and bought enough dishes, pans, silverware and linens to sleep and eat in her new home. She drove to her old house and emptied her closet and dresser of all her clothing. As she was leaving, she wrote a note and left in on the kitchen counter: “I’m divorcing you.”

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “the dollar store.”

Ants

The nightmare was suitable material for a horror movie. The plot line needed work, but the ants were scary as hell. Moving, surging, undulating, waves of ants covering the ground, scaling the trees, making the tall grass shudder with their passage. A blanket of black, creeping like mold over everything in its path. It had internal motion: a pulse or a heartbeat like a single organism.

When I sat up in my bed screaming, I was drenched in fear-laced sweat and convinced my skin was coated with a thick layer of wriggling black ants.

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “ants.”