I’m sorry I was late for work the day I spotted this bumper sticker. Might have liked to stick around to meet the owner. Perhaps Bop the mean cat should pose this question to herself. (Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
Bumper sticker parked outside neighborhood Starbuck’s.
I am not sure how to interpret this advisory sign:
Beware of …?
Am I to understand that they lack cyclists there?
Or do they only care about one of the cyclists?
Should I watch out because one of the cyclists (and apparently all the hikers) are dangerous?
Or is the takeaway message if the hikers don’t get you, the cyclist will?
(Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
I love to dig in my garden. My neighborhood lies in the foothills of a mountain range, so all the yards are full of rocks of many sizes which were shed from the mountains in ancient landslides.
When I dig a hole for a new plant, I am a rock archaeologist, discovering buried artifacts. Except I don’t have to be careful where I slam my shovel. Sometimes the rock is so weathered that I can pull it apart with my hands, exposing fresh glittering crystals in the local granite (technically a granodiorite, for other rock nerds).
When the shovel catches and bends, I know I’ve caught a big one. A boulder. Then I dig from many angles, eventually on my knees with my hands, to excavate it. Often a rock is lodged in place against several other rocks, still locked and buried. I have to use my fingers deep inside the hole to figure out which rock to move next in order to release my target. So removing a lodged-in-place rock requires working a 3D puzzle with your eyes closed.
And when I finish the puzzle, I have a hole for my plant and new borders for my garden.
The undug.
This post topic comes from The Daily Prompt.
We could debate whether silver linings exist in reality or in attitude but the answer may not matter. Either way, from my perspective, the ability to perceive silver linings is essential to happiness, contentment, and peace of mind. Silver linings are all about the ability to hope, to get past the inevitable bad and ugly times with the belief it gets better. Many other people have thought about this, too, that’s why we have anonymous sayings like
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
or the Springsteen lyric
It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.
or Eugene O’Neil’s
Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.
I know a young woman who tried to kill herself this year. Twice. In between, she found a boyfriend – apparently also preoccupied with death – who did then kill himself. I have struggled and flailed to find the right words or argument that would convince her to keep going, to not give up. But I realize it won’t be anybody’s words that turn her around. The desire to live has to come from the inside.
When I was younger I was obsessed with not getting tricked or fooled and I was always determined to Know the Truth in every situation. I don’t think I care about that nowadays. I’m not saying I believe everything I read or hear. I’m not saying I’ve lost interest in truth. All I’m saying is that a suspicious nature takes a severe toll.
It is a fantasy to imagine I or anyone can live without illusions. Optimism is a kind of illusion. Optimists live longer and happier lives. (There are scientific studies about this so it must be true.) My current thinking is that I am going to believe that things will work out and life will evolve in good ways. Maybe on my deathbed I will say Wulp I was sure wrong about that. but in the meantime I will have enjoyed many days of hope and enthusiasm rather than bitterness and resentment.
Wildfires make nasty air.
Wildfires make gorgeous sunsets.
This post topic comes from The Daily Prompt.
This sign in the yard of a neighbor* begs the question: just how trainable are the owners?
Hmm. Recorded. Camera?
* For the record, I have lived here 10 years but never met nor seen this neighbor, who kept a ROMNEY/RYAN sign in the yard for several months after the November election.
Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.
The errant are risky but it is the frivolous balls that are really treacherous.
Sign on golf course fence, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California.Posted as part of
Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.
At last a confirmation. Always hoped there were extras around somewhere. (Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
This is the symbol for infinity, a concept that gives me a headache and makes me feel privileged to be part of the universe. Even at its most routine and mundane, daily life takes place in this astonishing place that must go on forever, else there would be an outer edge with nothing beyond it. (Ow. Headache.) Infinity doesn’t induce headaches in mathematicians, though. Math, for all its rigor and precision, very comfortably accommodates infinity. There are infinities everywhere in math. An infinite collection of numbers exist between 0 and 1, for example. Also, you can do a calculation and get a result that goes to infinity but you can still know the quantity well enough to engineer a bridge based on that calculation.
When I look at the symbol for infinity I think, what goes around comes around. I think of the mobius strip. I dwell on karma. So many westerners including me wield the concept of karma as revenge. You’ll get what you deserve. Lately I’ve been attempting to exercise my very under-used sense of compassion. From this effort I realize that karma, viewed from the perspective of compassion, takes on a very different meaning. We are all in this together. You must face your karma just as I must face mine.
This symbol also suggests the Lazy 8 Dude Ranch. When I was a kid my parents took me on a Dude Ranch vacation. So mortifying. I couldn’t control my damn horse. It kept taking me back to the barn. (I never got the horse appreciation thing.) Recalling this, I speculate that perhaps memory loss increases with age because our brains become cluttered with pointless recollections like my dude ranch horse. And of course, with TV theme songs from the ’60s.
This post topic comes from The Daily Prompt.
My name, Suzanne, has never inspired me. As a kid, I hunted for great artists and thinkers with the same name so that I could pretend they were my namesake. I found the minor league actress Suzanne Pleshette. Throughout my life I’ve been called Susan by mistake.
Once I got sprung from high school I ditched Suzanne except on forms, and I’ve been Sue ever since. That isn’t more fulfilling, but it doesn’t remind me of childhood. My grandmother used to call me Susie and I bet it would be fun to be a Susie but I don’t think it’s me. Maybe on a long holiday I should try it out, somewhere among strangers who could say it with a straight face.
For a while in high school, somebody called me Sudsy. Glad that one didn’t stick.
I was sort of mistaken for a Susie for a while. Back before cell phones, when we had names in curious artifacts called phone books, for a while I got a lot of calls from guys looking for a Susie. Apparently she met guys pretty much everywhere – bars, restaurants, laundromat, in line at the bank – chatted them up and then when they asked for her number she told them she was in the book. Except she wasn’t in the book; I was. Thanks Susie. One time I got a terribly early morning call from a distraught woman.
“Is this Susie? Susie Sunshine?”
“No this is definitely not Susie Sunshine.”
“Susie, this is serious. Listen carefully. Your brother has got a gun and he – ” In retrospect I suppose I regret stopping her before she got to the punch line.
But I digress.
I would love to have a great nickname, and I keep searching. Well. Without lifting a verbal, mental, or physical finger, I keep searching. I remain open to the possibility.
The closest I’ve come so far was also back in the day, when credit card companies sent unrequested cards in the mail. One of them mistyped my name. Suzane. We assumed the correct pronunciation was [Sue-ZANE] and a friend called me that for years. But the usage never spread.
I do enjoy all the names my kids have for me. Madre, Mumsters, Short Stuff are a scant few examples. I heard somewhere that numerous nicknames are a sign of love, so the more the better.
This post topic comes from The Daily Prompt.
Required Writing 