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Tuesday 16 October 2018

Poetry Monday on Tuesday: Doors

It's Poetry Monday, a day late, but all the better for marinating an extra day (she said hopefully), and this week's topic is "doors" . . . join Diane, Delores, and me as we fling open all the doors in our brains to see what drops out.

If you'd like to write along with us, feel free to leave your poem in a comment on any of our blogs. If you'd prefer to post on your own blog, please leave a comment to let us know where to find you, so we can come along and cheer you on. Use the topic, or write about something else -- it's up to you. The object is to work our brains and have fun!

*****

The topic of "doors" brings to mind my reliance on those hinged wonders to keep my warring cats separate and safe. About a year ago, my husband installed French doors throughout our living/dining area so that we can close off one or two rooms at a time.  I like this arrangement better than putting one cat in the basement while the other one is with us. I think they like it better, too. They can see us even if they can't be with us every minute.

The other side of this is that they can see each other.

Here is a picture of Lulu, our warrior cat, looking through the little windows, trying to see Missy, our lame cat.





I don't know if she is thinking that she'd like to make a meal of Missy, or if she's afraid Missy is ready to come after her, but she likes to keep an eye on things all the time. It's a good thing the windows go all the way to the bottom of the door. Otherwise we'd have to install a set of stairs and a viewing platform. Oh, Lulu. I know what it's like to be short. Maybe I need to write a post about that. 😜


Anyway, today's poem is written from Lulu's point of view.


*****

Haiku For Doors

Doors. They keep me out.
Or maybe they keep me in.
Either way, I'm safe. And bored.


(Yes, there are too many syllables in that last line. Not all cats know the rules about haiku. Or maybe they do, but -- as usual -- they don't care.)


*****

October is always busier than normal for me. It starts with Thanksgiving, morphs into two weeks of deadlines at work, and ends up with a double bang -- my annual craft show and Hallowe'en. The craft show is the thing I am least prepared for. So I'm busy sewing and stuffing and gluing and sequining and burning/stabbing my fingers -- trying to do in one month what I should have been doing all year. Procrastination strikes again. 😬

The upside? Short poems!! Enjoy it while it lasts! 😝

And I've just discovered the Blogger emojis, if you hadn't already noticed. 😵

Feel free to leave me your thoughts on doors. Or even The Doors. Speaking of which, here's Light My Fire to take you waaaaaay back:







Now I shall go light a fire under myself and get some more crafting done. Wishing you a good week, people!


Update:  Next week's topic is . . . "The Grandma Club" . . . (or "The Grandpa Club" if appropriate)





35 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Happy crafting.
Love your poem - and agree wholeheartedly that cats dismiss rules. Unless they are THEIR rules.

Joan (Devon) said...

Hello Jenny, It's a shame your cats don't get on and it must be very tiring trying to keep them apart all the time. I have noticed that the door you referred to as a french-door is a single one. To us here in the UK that single door with glass panes would just be called a glass door, french-doors are double doors as in patio doors. Confusing isn't it?

Anyway, my contribution this week nearly didn't happen as I couldn't think of a single interesting thing about doors until ... ta da, I looked in a crossword solver book for inspiration and found 'portals' and thought I could do something with that.

Doors

Technology is ruling the world,
Its advancement has been so fast.
Reducing conventional methods,
Of looking back into the past.

It is easier to press a button,
Than plough through books of text.
But, how much further can it go?
Here's my prediction of what's next.

I will predict the next wonder,
For us as mere mortals,
Is the endless availability,
Of various time-travel portals.

Not only history at our finger tips,
We can experience it all first-hand.
The beginnings of the contours
And the discovery of far-off land.

We could discover new medicines,
We could feel the force of the wars,
We could write plays with Shakespeare,
If we only had portal doors.

It would be interesting, but a long time into the future, I hope.

See you next week Jenny. Take care and don't work too hard.

jenny_o said...

And their rules can change without notice :)

jenny_o said...

Your poem makes me think, Joan. Time travel portals would be amazing, as long as they were used for good. Human nature being as variable as it is, though, I can see it being used for wrong reasons as well. As you say -- a long time into the future, hopefully!

We use the term French doors for the double doors as well, and that's what we have on the rest of the doorways. We had to use a single one on that doorway because it was narrower. I've never heard them called glass doors, but I may start using that name instead! I think my mom would find it easier to follow what I'm saying if I did that.

only slightly confused said...

That little powm is so 'cat like' lol.

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

We have to keep our two cats separate also. One is an old cat, Wheezy (Louise), and Daisy is three. Wheezy had a tough time with her real sister, Thelma, for years when she was constantly bullied. Thelma died five years ago, and Wheezy became a very happy, playful cat. She was happy. Then we introduced her to Daisy and that did not go well. Her grey tail turned white overnight and she did not want anything to do with the newbie and showed her dislike right away. Daisy would love to have a companion, but that was not to be. One is downstairs from 8 AM till 6 and the other gets the night hours. After raising four kids, we just wanted some peace and quiet in our lives, and having a Cat WWIII was something we could not handle. So, doors are closed in our house also.

Steve Reed said...

Have you showed us your crafts? What are you making?

Love the poem! It's too bad your cats don't get along better. But I've lived with warring cats too, and I know how miserable it can be.

jenny_o said...

Haha! Thank you. One might think I don't put a lot of thought into the short poems, but really I do put SOME thought into them :)

jenny_o said...

I find this comforting. Sometimes I think we are weird because we don't know other people who do this. One of our neighbours keeps saying "just throw them down in the basement together - they'll work it out" ... er, no, I don't think so, not without bloodshed! I'm sorry your kitties don't get along either.

jenny_o said...

I did a post last year but I'm making some different things this year, so I will do a new one at some point in the next month. I sew, I make tree ornaments. I use a lot of buttons - lol. And I try to use recycled fabric and recyclable items.

Yeah, the cat wars aren't fun. Or safe. For any of us!

Yorkshire Pudding said...

DOOR

You know you should
Push against this ancient wood
Hear corroded hinges groan
Cross this threshold made of stone
Who knows what the door might hide
When at last you step inside.

jenny_o said...

This reminds me of your many treks to, and into, ancient buildings, YP. Thank you for your contribution again this week.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

No problem Jenny. I was thinking of a figurative door - symbolising the way to something else - perhaps to a different way of seeing things, a better understanding.

dinthebeast said...

Doors? Let's see... I have a little Craftsman tape measure in my sling bag that I used to carry in my pocket when I did home delivery of furniture and appliances.
I used it to measure doors, mostly, or the width they open to more specifically.
That's how I could tell how I needed to go about getting the item in the truck into whichever room in the customer's house they wanted it to be in.
Sometimes the item wouldn't fit through the open door, and sometimes that called for a "door removal", which is just what it sounds like.
Sometimes the item was a refrigerator, and wouldn't fit through the doorway even with the door removed, and that called for a double door removal, in which the doors were taken off of the refrigerator also, in order to make it fit through the narrow part of the doorway.
Sometimes there was an old refrigerator that we had to haul away, and, you guessed it, had to have its doors removed to fit through the narrow part of the doorway also.
At that point there would be doors and hardware all over the place,and the customer would be looking at us like "I hope you boys know what you're doing" and we would have to put everything back together and make sure it worked correctly and to their satisfaction before we could go on to the next delivery.
Got some loyal customers that way, they always seemed more happy when we competently jumped through a few hoops to get them what they needed, and after a while, we got so we almost never screwed anything up in the process.
And we usually decided whether to put the doors back on the old refrigerator by assessing whether the used appliance dealer would buy it from us or not.

Doors.

-Doug in Oakland

jenny_o said...

Even more interesting.

jenny_o said...

I learn a lot from your comments! I wouldn't have thought of taking the door off a refrigerator. I bet my husband wouldn't have thought of it either, although he knows the regular door removal trick. Maybe I can surprise him some day and it'll be thanks to you!

Janie Junebug said...

Cats should haiku however they like. Number of syllables? Pffffffft. I have French doors between my family room and laundry room. The dogs only pay attention to the doors when the Roomba is running on the other side. They can watch her and feel safe. You know she eats paws.

Love,
Janie

River said...

I used to love that song! I need to light a fire under myself right now, I'm a few years (okay, weeks) behind with my vacuuming and still have a to-do list somewhere around here that hasn't been crossed off yet.
Doors they can see through is a great idea for the cats.

River said...

having read in the past about cats that don't get on together is why I only have one. That and the cost of cat food.

jenny_o said...

The dreaded Roomba! A dog can't be too careful :)

jenny_o said...

Housework - ugh. I'm way behind on that, too :)

baili said...

I liked the haiku dear Jenny!

Yes doors keep us safe

used to listen story from grandpa (maternal) in which people don't had to have doors as they trusted each other as much and respected each other's freedom and property

best of luck for your crafts and other tasks my dear friend

i know no mater how late you are you will manage to finish it on time ,yes 100% sure!
hugs!!!

jenny_o said...

Oh, how I wish the world was the way it was in your grandpa's story! At one time it was much safer but I wouldn't leave my doors unlocked these days, much less be without doors at all.

Thank you for your confidence in me, dear baili - I will do what I can and the rest can wait until next year's sale :)

Martha said...

Short and sweet. That would define me, too :) HAHA

Cats...when they decide not to get along, that's the end of it. Doesn't matter what you do after that. At least they are both safe and sound!

jenny_o said...

Yes, that's our number one goal, safety!

37paddington said...

I feel the same way about doors. Blogger emojis? I didn’t need to know! I’m a emoji fiend.

jenny_o said...

I did not know that about you! But if you need help finding them, I'll enable you :)

Diane Henders said...

I like your poem - made me smile, as usual. And hooray for emojis! I have yet to figure out the Blogger ones at all; and in Wordpress I can only do a smile, a big smile, and a wink. Now I'm off to find that googly-eyed grin with the tongue sticking out. (The emoji; not me. Just thought I should clarify.) ;-)

jenny_o said...

The Blogger emojis are only available inside the Post-writing function, not in the comments. There may be some way of doing it (HTML, maybe?) in the comments box but it's not just a button, as it is in the Post function. I don't know if that helps or not! I wish there was an easy way to do emojis in the comments. But then I'd be sprinkling them everywhere, I suppose :) :P :D

Terry said...

Hi Jenny, we had 2 cats, who were brothers. It seemed a shame to seperate Them so we didn’t.

jenny_o said...

Siblings often do get along well. Our warrior cat was a stray so we didn't have much say in how she made out with the other cats. The shelter was full up at the time so it was us or nobody!

Mr. Shife said...

Your haiku reminded me of knock knock joke I used to tell the kids.
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Dolores
Dolores who?
Dolores locked. Now you know why I am knocking.

Have a great weekend.

kylie said...

The haiku is suitably rebellious in form!
I like your French doors.

Now get crafting!

jenny_o said...

Hah!! That's a great knock knock joke! I have a weakness for those :)

jenny_o said...

Thank you, twice, and yes ma'am!