Poetry Monday: Phones

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is ....... PHONES .....

What do we all want to say about phones? And by "we" I mean Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae, me . . . . . and YOU, my people! Everybody should have something to say about phones, I think :)

If you'd like to leave a poem in the comments, go right ahead. Or you can post on your own blog, and leave us a comment so we can find you. Use the topic, or choose another. It doesn't matter; it's all good. We're here to have fun and get our brains humming.

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Shortly after I started my blog in 2016, I wrote about how I had acquired an aversion to the rumble of a diesel engine because it reminded me of all the ambulance trips my father took in the final years of his life. The stress I experienced with each trip stayed with me after my father's death, even though there was no longer a reason to have that reaction.

As that sound has come to bother me less with the passing of time, a new sound has taken its place: the ring of the telephone.

I've written recently about how my mom is suffering cognitive decline. She is not a spring chicken anymore; she will turn 90 in January. Physically, she is still healthy, but she gets anxious about her health easily. Numerous times I've taken her to the emergency room for a lengthy visit due to pains that she finds strange and scary, and that I can't reasonably explain away. Usually she is given a clean bill of health and sent home.

Those trips always start with a panicked phone call from her, telling me anything from "I have a pain" to "I don't feel right". The calls usually come in the evening, often after bedtime. One came at 3 a.m. One came late at night in the middle of a blinding snowstorm.

Last week's call at midnight was especially frightening. My mother said (and I could clearly hear) that she was having trouble breathing. It turned out Mom had a panic attack on top of a minor medical issue. She is fine now, and barely remembers it.

Most of the time now I can recognize how much of the issue is the actual pain and how much is the anxiety of being old and alone with the pain, and I can talk to her until her anxiety dissipates and I've gotten a clue as to what has caused the original discomfort.

But the stress of hearing that @#$% phone ringing at an hour when no one should be calling . . . well, it does my head in. I never know what is in store.

I find myself wanting to pick up the phone and hurl it into a concrete wall. Or take a big hammer to it.

It's not the phone's fault. It's not my mother's fault. It's nobody's fault. But dang it, I hate hearing that phone ring. I realize hate is a strong word. But it doesn't seem too strong for me to use here.

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Alexander Graham Bell Probably Didn't Foresee This 

The shrill of the phone
The thud of my heart
The twist of my stomach
The rush of adrenaline
The flood of fear
The swirl of thoughts
What must be done?
How fast can I get there?
How serious is this new symptom?
How long until I am home again?
How much sleep will I lose?
How many more times can I do this?

I am thankful for easy communication
And I wish it had never been invented

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See how much fun writing poetry can be?!

Sorry for the downer this week. It does feel better to have written about this, though - the healing power of setting it down in black and white is a real thing.

Here are some funnies to help us all see the other side of stress:

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How about you -- does your phone stress you out or is it the Best Invention Ever?

Wishing you all a fine and dandy week :)

Next week's topic for Poetry Monday is ........TIME ....

Good luck! 

Poetry Monday: Humming

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is ........ HUMMING .....

Join us if you like! "Us" usually being Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae and me . . . . .

Leave your masterpiece (or your two-liner, if you prefer) in the comments here, or post on your own blog and leave us a comment so we can come along and cheer you on. Use the topic, or choose another; the objective is to have fun and give our brains a workout :)

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I am a hummer.

Not one of those tiny marvels of birdy nature who can hover and drink at the same time -- although I actually CAN do that, just without the wings or the marvel.

No, I'm one of those people who hums under my breath a good deal of the time. Often, I don't even realize I'm humming unless somebody comments on it.

In an office setting, I realize this is even more annoying than microwaving popcorn or seafood (numbers one and two on my list of annoying things other people do at the office), and I try to be aware and avoid doing it so I don't drive folks off their hinges.

But when I'm alone, whether at home or in the car, I can hum to my heart's content. I hum when I'm happy, I hum when I'm stressed. It's strangely soothing to me to hum when I'm stressed.

Usually I hum a song I've heard on the radio when I'm waking up. It stays in my head until the next day when I hear another song. Sometimes I find myself humming a tune that has come out of nowhere and eventually vanishes to the same place after I have hummed all the good out of it.

My never-ending talent extends to singing badly and whistling, too. But those are both intentional acts that require concentration. Humming is just . . . there.

All. The. Time.

To some folks' dismay.

Are you a hummer? A singer? A whistler? Do tell in the comments! You can just add that info along with the poem you're leaving, okay? 😊

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Would You Rather I Talk To Myself? I Can Do That . . .

There was an old gal liked to hum
Made no difference if happy or glum
Some of those round her said
"She'll still hum when she's dead!"
And to those folks her nose she did thumb  😜


Disclaimer: I wouldn't actually thumb my nose at anybody; I just needed a rhyme for hum and glum :)

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And since I couldn't find a fully-appropriate picture to illustrate my poem, you'll have to make do with this semi-appropriate picture instead:

Well, I declare, you're coming in clearly at last!

And for good measure:

My next hobby!

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Hope you have a week that makes you want to burst out in song, or, at the very least, finds you enjoying music, whether it's self-made or  nature-made or any other kind :)

Next week's topic for Poetry Monday will be ..... PHONES ...

Good luck!

Poetry Monday: Windows

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is .....WINDOWS.

Join Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae, and me, as we put a shine on this topic. You can leave your poem in the comments, or post on your own blog. If you do the latter, please leave a comment so we can find you and your poem. Use the topic, or choose another; the objective is to have fun and work our brains :)

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Can you believe I struggled for days to produce four lines of "kinda" poetry about windows? I had ideas, but, people, nothing worked until I followed the line of thinking that had been in the back of my mind but which I had been trying to avoid the whole time . . .


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I Don't (Often) Do Windows

Invisible when they're freshly washed;
Less so, with some screening.
Windows let us see the world, but --
I wish they didn't need cleaning

This picture cracks me up every time. Those expressions!!

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I hope you have a better relationship with your windows than I do, and -- at least this week -- you don't have to wash any :)

Next week's topic will be ........... HUMMING .......

Good luck!

Poetry Monday: Neighbours

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is .....NEIGHBO(U)RS.

Join Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae and me as we give a tip of o(u)r hats -- or not -- to those folks who share our lives by occupying a space close by us -- at work, at home, or by geographical accident. Good neighbours or bad, let's let it all out :)

You can leave your poem in the comments or post on your own blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment so we can find you and your excellent offering. Use the topic, or choose another. The objective is to have fun and give your mind a workout.

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We are lucky to have excellent neighbours at the moment -- kind, considerate, friendly, and supportive, yet still allowing everyone to have their private space, given our comparatively small house lots in this town.

But my poem today isn't about those neighbours.

Read on :)

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Sometimes Exasperating . . . But Always Magical

The folks in houses round us
Are top-notch. No complaints.
They have our backs; they are our friends;
They're close to being saints.

But the beasts who range the closest
Are a different sort, all right.
They use our yard as bed and bath;
Munch everything in sight.

They flaunt their coats of fur!
(How unethical can you get!)
And as for paying monthly rent?
Well -- not one penny yet.

They even had their babies
Along the property line,
And brought them back for naps and snacks,
Time after time after time.

If they were human neighbours,
There would be heck to pay.
But since they're white-tailed deer, you know,
It's fine! They're A-okay :)


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Some photos from last summer, of the neighbours in question, follow.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the two wobbly fawns that we think were born in the back yard tree line (the second year in a row!) but I didn't dare disturb them. But as the fawns grew, it was easier to get pictures because they were no longer hiding in the bushes. There were two mothers who visited regularly with their babies (one mother had one fawn, the other had two), and there were an additional mom and fawn that occasionally joined the rest.

These shots are not clear, but they'll give you an idea of what we were seeing all summer.

The earliest picture I could get after the babies started showing up

Taken through our basement window. Note the ears up close to the window; this was one of the twins, lying down next to the house. The other twin, along with mama, is in the background.

The body attached to those ears, after he/she stood up

The twins, having a snack. I wondered why my perennial geraniums weren't blooming this year. Eventually I realized they'd all been mowed off by little teeth!

Napping in the sun. Still wearing baby spots.

Later in the summer. The baby spots are gone.

Can you spot six deer in this very hazy photo? Taken in the fall; you can see the tree to the right has mostly changed colour.

The video was taken early in the summer.


And one final shot, from our front verandah. This is the twins' mama, with one of the fawns. This mom was very thin all summer. You can see her ribs in the photo. Feeding two babies is tough on the mother. I hope all of them survive the winter.

"Mom! That two-legged animal is looking at me again!"

And here's a casualty of the grazing habits of our "neighbours". This used to be a beautiful geranium but in its first peak flowering, one morning all of the blooms were gone. There was a muddy hoofprint on the verandah that identified the culprit!

If you enlarge the screen (press Control and the "+" keys a few times) you'll see the denuded blossom stalks in the center of the shot. This is why we can't have nice things! Well, this, plus cats :)

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I hope the upcoming week brings you lots of magic and not much (if any) exasperation :)

Note: The topic for next week's Poetry Monday is ......WINDOWS.....

Good luck!

 

And then there's this . . .

. . . (click on link) My Turn

Twelve seconds of joy, and the best part in my opinion is at the ten-second mark!

In other news, have you caught on to the fact that I've figured out how to link to videos in Twitter feeds????

Don't worry, I won't be making a habit of it :)

Pause, and . . .

. . . have a peek at something to hopefully brighten your day 😄

(Click on the link below)

The Dueling Duo




 
https://twitter.com/Lisa_Bizzle/status/1193220924327288834The Dueling Duo https://twitter.com/Lisa_Bizzle/status/1193220924327288834

Poetry Monday: Glasses

It's Poetry Monday, and the topic this week is ........ GLASSES.

Join Diane (who provided the topic), MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae and me as we polish our thoughts on glasses of any kind, whether the ones you wear or the ones from which you drink. You can leave your poem in the comments or post on your own blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment so we can track you down. Use the topic, or choose another; the objective is to have fun and work our brains :)

*****

I've worn glasses since I was eight years old.

Those glasses came in the iconic frames from each decade: cat's-eye in the sixties, wire granny glasses in the seventies, the huge window panes and heavy frames of the eighties, the wire frames (again) in the nineties, the half-rimless specs and the very small lenses of the first decade of the new century, which -- may I say -- were the absolute worst, even worse than cat's eye frames, because it was like looking through a peephole, fer cryin' out loud.

Currently I am wearing super-light frames made from a strong and flexible metal that I'm awfully glad I chose when I had the chance, because I recently stepped on them and they didn't even get bent, let alone break.

Let me pause here to painfully remember how many times I broke either the bridge or the earpiece of plastic frames when I was a kid, and wore taped-up glasses to school for weeks while waiting for a replacement. Any of you who wore the same kind of frames in the same time period of your life probably know what I'm talking about.

Over the years, my lenses have gone from coke-bottle-thick to ultra-thin due to industry improvements and also due to my cataract surgery that installed partially-corrective artificial lenses in my peepers, allowing me -- for the first time since I was that eight-year-old child -- to get up in the morning without needing to slap on my spectacles first.

But recently I have wished with all my heart for a new kind of glasses -- the kind that would help me see into other people's wounded hearts and minds, and make me a kinder, more understanding person.

Especially with my mom. She is suffering cognitive decline, which includes both memory loss and impaired logical thinking. She will ask me the same questions over and over, some of them intrusive and overbearing and some of them just annoying. Most of the time I just give the same answers over and over, but sometimes, for whatever reason -- if I'm feeling unwell, or tired, or in a time crunch, or just because I want my old mom back -- I will hotly point out that she's asked that same exact question several times already. Then her mask of self-sufficiency slips, she laughs vaguely and says, yes, you are right, and I feel like a monster for saying aloud what her faulty memory is allowing her to forget.

This week's poem is about the vision I need at this stage in my life as a daughter.

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In Which I Also Make Excuses, And Feel Guilty

Her eyes, once so sharp, once so clear and so blue
Are watery now, and a hazier hue.
She searches for words and forgets people's names,
And tells the same stories again and again.

I tell myself patience I'd easier find
If only she'd listen to my keener mind,
If only she'd do what I've planned she should do,
If only her stubbornness she would subdue . . .

But she's always been feisty, relied on herself,
Used her own brain, made her choices on health.
And even though now her thought processes fail 
She doesn't want help and her word must prevail.

And so I am set off by trivial things,
And fail to allow for the changes age brings:
The lapses in memory, and constant repeats --
The deficits youthful minds scorn and defeat.

I wish I could see the pathways in Mom's brain:
The damage . . . short-circuits . . . cells circling the drain.
But insight's elusive . . . flawed vision, you know . . .  
How I wish there were glasses to help make it so.
  

Image: Pixabay

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Next week's topic will be ............ NEIGHBOURS (or "neighbors" without the "u", if you insist :))

Have a good week, everyone.



  

Poetry Monday: Busy Days

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is ....... BUSY DAYS.

Join Diane, MotherOwl, Mimi, Merry Mae and me as we get down to busy-ness and create our masterpieces. You can leave your poem in the comments or post on your own blog and leave a comment here so we know where to find you. Use the topic, or choose another; the object is to have fun and make our heads think!

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Last week was full of busy days for me. There was visiting, and being visited, and Halloween, and phone calls upon phone calls, and meetings, and all the usual stuff that a person has to do to keep a house running. I feel like I accomplished quite a bit, which was good, but it was a huge relief to make it to the oasis of the weekend, and then to check the calendar for next week and see nothing planned.

That's not to say I'll be doing nothing. We couldn't have our family Thanksgiving dinner back in October because my husband and I were recovering from colds and didn't want to risk giving our germs to our elderly mothers (or anyone else, for that matter). So our replacement Thanksgiving will be this Sunday, and that will involve some extra housecleaning this week. But other than that, it will be quiet here. There will be time to read and make Christmas ornaments for a second craft sale and go for some walks.

These were my thoughts when I was contemplating "busy days" for Poetry Monday.

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No Offense But I'm Not Answering The Doorbell This Week

Days that are full have their own special charm:
Completing my Do list as long as my arm ...
Visiting special folks too long unseen ...
Getting through meetings or errands routine ...

But days that are quiet are what I live for;
No drama, no worry (both things I abhor).
Some think it is boring, but I disagree;
My life's not for them but it's perfect for me.
 

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Wishing you a week that's just as busy or quiet as you like it :)

Next week's topic will be ...... GLASSES (any kind). Thanks, Diane!