Tag: SoCS

Blather

Weird

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The Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS) prompt for today is “i before e.”

Earlier today, I had had a conversation with someone who remarked how he still remembered and leaned on that rule.

“Kind of weird,” I said.

He didn’t get it.

Weird is such a great word — and it’s weird that it doesn’t follow the rule, even when the rhyme is completed — “or when sounded ay as in neighbor and weigh.” We don’t pronounce it wayrd. Weird.

I looked the rule up to make sure I was saying it right. There is funny stuff out in internetland.

How about this one: “I before E unless you leisurely deceive eight overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits.”

Weird, right?

Ooh, ooh! Here’s another: “I before E except when your foreign neighbors Keith and Heidi receive eight counterfeit beigh sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.”

I had to look up the word beigh: a provincial governor in the Ottoman empire. I suppose an alternate spelling to Bey.

Or maybe they meant beige.

Or maybe I misread it — I am, after all, trying to do stream-of-consciousness writing, not look-up-funny-things-and-copy-them writing.

Good golly, there are a lot of them. They refer to overweight reindeer and beige sleighs involved in heists.

I kind of stream-of-consciously wrote this last night and meant to post it, but I fell asleep.

Weird.

family

Chickens

Sally7 Comments

Egg. The answer is egg.

I was 8 or 9, maybe even 10, when I went off to 4-H camp. There I took an embryology class.

I remember walking into the dim classroom in the old building at the camp. An incubator on a table held several dozen eggs. A few had the cracks started where the chick was starting to peck its way out.

When I stop and think about it now, eggs are a pretty marvelous invention. The hen and the rooster do their thing and a fertilized egg is laid. In that egg is everything a chick needs to grow for the next 3 weeks. The egg just has to be kept warm. Mammals are so much more taxing on their mothers, right?

Anyway, I was at 4-H camp where day after day we watched the miracle of chicks hatching. They would emerge kind of wet and sticky, but their little feathers would quickly fluff out. They would run around their little enclosure peeping and looking very cute.

At the end of the week, the 4-H leaders asked if anyone wanted to take chicks home. We had an unused chicken coop on the property, so I called my dad on the big green rotary dial phone in the camp office and asked if I could bring home some chickens.

He thought I said “a” chicken, so he said I could.

When I arrived home with 19 little chicks, he was quite surprised — but he got to work on the chicken coop, cleaning it out and fixing the fenced-in run behind it.

It turned out they were Polish chickens, black with a white topknot of feathers. It also turned out that of those 19 chicks, 13 were roosters.

Me — with a chicken on my head and a cast on my arm. Typical.

I hauled water up to the chicken coop every day, and scattered chicken feed in their pen. I learned what a pecking order is in real life, not middle school. The six hens started to lay and I collected the eggs.

One Sunday afternoon, my parents took me to town to watch a movie at one movie theater in town. This was a rare treat, and I didn’t stop to question why.

However, when I got home the roosters were gone. Well, kind of gone. Let’s just say that they became chicken soups over that winter.

I experienced the full circle of life with those chickens.

My father then took up the hobby and raised chickens for many years.

But the egg — at 4-H camp — definitely came first.

This is in response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: Chicken or Egg

Writing

Water

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When I first saw the Stream of Consciousness prompt for today — water — I immediately thought about a quote that I had jotted in my journal a few days ago.

“Let us bless the humility of water
Always willing to take the shape
Of whatever otherness holds it.”
John O’Donohue

He also blessed

“The buoyancy of water,
Stronger than the deadening,
Downward drag of gravity”

I’ve always been a water person. Being in or near water is a happy place for me.

When I don’t feel well, I take a bath. One of the times I was in labor, I sat in jacuzzi to relax and almost didn’t make it out in time. Aches and pains seem to diminish in the shower.

I love to swim — for the exercise, the mental health, the solitude, the refreshingness of it.

I love to sit in the presence of water and hear the gentle lap of lake waves or the bigger crashes and rhythm of ocean surf.

I love to stand on a bridge and watch the water rush, flow, trickle — whatever that day brings — underneath. I love to drop a stick or a leaf or a flower in on one side, then watch it emerge on the other. Sometimes the object gets caught in an eddy and swirls in circles for a bit before moving on or under or off to the side.

Water supports me and yet offers resistance when I exercise in it.

If I could sing the praises of water, I would, but it would be a poor song in comparison to the song water sings itself. Murmurs, gurgles, steady streams, rain drops on windows or the roof.

Even the smell of rain is a wonder.

Blather

Questionable Plans

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What should I do today?

It’s gray out, or, I suppose, grey if I lived in Scotland, where I think it’s often gray/grey.

Is Canada gray or grey? Now there‘s an important question, right?

I mean, they do add those extra “u”s as in favour, colour, and honour. Is that their French influence?

But back to the question at hand — what to do today? The weather looks less than inviting which is where I was going with that other word that we won’t debate the spelling of right now.

It’s been such a long week work-wise. I kind of don’t want to use my brain for the indoor paperworky sort of work that needs to happen. Can I just veg out? Will people judge me if I do that?

A friend recommended a rom-com to me — Falling for Figaro — because it’s set in Scotland. They knew I love Scotland even though I’ve never been there. Even though the weather is often gr–, um, overcast.

I suppose I could snuggle up under a blanket with a bowl of popcorn and watch that movie.

Should I?

That’s really the question, you know.

Time is this commodity that we can’t put a price on. We can’t hold it. We can’t really save it. We can’t do anything but use it. I want to use it wisely because I know I’ve wasted so much in my life.

So, I ask you — What should I do today?

This is my response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: “start with a question.” Begin your post with the first question that comes to mind when you sit down to write your post.

What are you going to do today?

Life

Getting Old

Sally7 Comments

I almost titled this post “My Left Hip,” because, dang, my left hip is hurting today.

Oh, it’s been hurting for a while. I thought it had to do with my hip flexor, but when stretching and rest didn’t help, I got an x-ray.

The results came back and I had to look up half the terms — “diffuse osteopenia” — the predecessor to osteoporosis. At least it’s NOT osteoporosis, right? “Subchondral lucency in the left acetabulum” — this has something to do with osteoarthritis, I think?

In any event, I have to wait until mid-June to see someone in Orthopedics.

In the meantime, I keep moving. Sitting hurts. Standing up from sitting is THE WORST.

But standing and walking are fine. I actually feel better after a good walk.

So I tell myself throughout the day, “Get up and move.”

There are people in the “rest” camp. They say things like, “You must rest.”

Trust me, though — rest doesn’t help. Lying in bed — the ultimate rest, right? — can be painful. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel the pain radiating from my hip down my leg.

So I listen to my body and move as much as I can during the day.

Yesterday, however, I overdid. I won’t even tell you what I did, but it was strenuous and it was a mistake. My left hip is hurting today.

Seriously, who has time for this stuff?

Thank God for Advil.

This post was inspired by my left hip and Linda Hill’s “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” whose prompt today was “move.”

Life

I Thought I Knew

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Yesterday, when I went into work at 5 AM and entered the building, I thought I smelled something.

What’s that smell? I thought.

Smells niggle, don’t they — tickling some unreachable place in the brain.

Oh — I knew the smell, or at least thought that I did.

Cannabis.

I shook my head. I certainly was not going to be the one who turned in someone on the night cleaning crew, but sheesh, they should know better. What you do on your time is your business, but what you do when you’re on the clock — not so much.

It was about an hour later that one of my early morning co-workers came by to see me.

“Did you see that this morning?” he asked.

“What?” I replied, somewhat confused. I had seen nothing unusual on the way into work and we both drive the same route.

“Right by the side door,” he said, gesturing with his chin to the door he uses. I actually use a different door when I come in.

I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything,” I said.

“You must have smelled it then,” he said.

I shook my head again.

“That huge skunk?!” he said. “It had obviously just sprayed, but I was worried it might try to get me too! We were that close.” He indicated a spot about 5 yards away.

I shook my head now for a different reason. Do skunk and cannabis smell similar? A quick google search affirmed that they, indeed, DO smell somewhat alike.

I thought I knew what I was smelling.

Guess I was wrong.

Sorry, night guys!

This is in response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: What’s that smell?

I haven’t done SoC writing in a while — too busy, too tired, life too full, all the excuses. When I read her prompt this week, though, I had just had my cannabis-skunk experience so I wrote it out.

Life · photography

Visiting British Columbia

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It even says it on their license plates, Beautiful British Columbia, as if our eyes are deceiving us. Yes, this is a beautiful place.

I had to fight the urge of pulling over on my drive up from Seattle to take some pictures. The mountains are breathtaking. The trees stand tall, erect, pointy and somehow brave.

It’s so very different from the Northeastern US, where the mountains are lovely, but older. The trees are also lovely, but more are deciduous; they seem to go with the flow of life instead of the unmoving strength of those giant pines.

Ah, I know, I’m probably way off base. The oaks and maples have deeper roots, right? And I’ve seen tall pines toppled with their root system, shallow and broad, turned on edge like a wall.

But this is my submission for Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday — a day late — and I’m not going to go back and correct what may need correction. When I saw that the prompt was “Photograph,” I thought, Yup, I’ve taken a few photographs over the past few days.

We’ve gone walking every day. Two days ago, my son and his wife wanted to take me to see some glorious vista — which I’m sure would have led to not a few photographs. However, we started up the logging road and it got steeper and steeper and steeper.

“Are we there yet?” I quipped two minutes into the hike.

Twenty minutes in, after a couple of rests, I asked them to guesstimate if we had gone a quarter of the way yet. He studied the map on his phone. “Umm…. maybe just under a quarter,” he said.

We turned back at my request. I walk A LOT, just not straight uphill.

Instead we walked along the Fraser River which was lovely. The only photograph from that walk was of an immature eagle who stared down on us as we passed.

Yesterday, we walked along the Vedder River, a river which changes its name to Chilliwack once it passes under a bridge, so I saw the Chilliwack River, too. In fact, I only photographed the Chilliwack.

Chilliwack River

But my favorite picture of the day was one I took immediately as we started on the path. It made me laugh — and it still makes me laugh.

I love when people have a sense of humor.

I really want to know who thought of the poop fairy.

In Beautiful British Columbia.

Blather · poetry

Customer Service

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Alternate title: Smile

Customer Service isn’t that hard
Some people think that
It’s easy to smile and say hello
I understand
Your complaints — I listen and say
I’ll see what I can do about
Your situation.You’re not alone
I’ve been there. I’ve been in
Pain. I still smile
Even though I’m feeling that
The weight of life is heavy. I smile
What else can I do when
All these things hurt.

A less than stellar reverse poem — but I really wanted to do the W3 Challenge for this week which was to write a reverse poem. A reverse poem is one read forwards and backwards, line by line.

My struggle this week has been dealing with this darn shingles pain.

“Listen to your body. It’s trying to tell you something,” a friend said to me. “You’re dealing with a lot of stress.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. But I don’t know how to fix it.

The thing is that there are aspects of my job that I love. I do love greeting people — by NAME — I can’t believe how many people’s names I know now.

They stop and tell me about their lives. I LOVE that. I really do. I think I could listen to people’s stories all day every day. I heard stories about Maine and Nova Scotia, about Ireland and surprising relatives there, about knee surgeries and hip surgeries from older people who are DETERMINED not to let this hold them back but continue to live life fully.

My problem is that I am experiencing this nagging pain in my side and back from the Shingles.

And I feel like a wimp.

I don’t want anyone to come close up and hear ME complain.

So you, here, my blog-readers from afar, get to hear about it. SO SORRY!

Really close up, I’m fairly miserable. And I’m making mistakes.

I made a mistake early in the week, and my supervisor said, “But I showed you how to do that.”

Yes, she had — the previous Friday afternoon, after a full week of work and pain, she showed me this thing, which I totally forgot by Monday.

Dang.

I don’t like when I make mistakes.

I finally called my Primary Care Provider this week. I told her about this pain and she prescribed something for it. I’ve actually had two full of nights of sleep since starting it. The pain has subsided to a dull ache and I’ll live with it.

Or I’ll figure out a way to de-stress.

Any suggestions?

family · poetry

Bruce the Spruce

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I asked myself, Is it possible to write a rhyming poem in stream-of-consciousness?

Hmm… First I chose a structure: a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire, an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Then I opened a tab in Rhymezone and typed in “spruce” — the Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday prompt for this week.

Here goes:

Christmas tree
Little spruce
I hereby
Name you “Bruce”

Quite a name
For a tree
Many folks
Would agree

Bruce the Spruce
Tall and green
Sparkling lights
Lovely scene

You may come
See my tree
Or this pic


Or these three –

family · Life

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

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Strawberry-rhubarb crisp for breakfast.

I can easily rationalize it. There’s oatmeal in the topping, fruit (strawberries) as a mainstay, and rhubarb — whatever food category that fits into — in there too. Surely it’s healthy, right?

The truth is my appetite has been off. My whole everything has been off. When my son’s girlfriend made peanut butter blossoms — those peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss pressed in the top — I politely declined. Oh, I eventually ate a few, trust me — later. They are hard to resist. But I didn’t woof down six at a time which I might have done had things been different.

Last weekend, or maybe it was last Friday, I started feeling achy. My back hurt. I thought I had slept on it wrong. It was my left scapula, and it was weird. Not the ordinary I-slept-on-something-wrong feeling.

Before the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning, I left for a flight to Roanoke. I was picking up one of my daughters from school. As I was getting dressed, I noticed a small rash just below my left breast. That’s weird, I thought.

Got to Roanoke. Got the rental car. Got together with my daughter, but I was exhausted. I left her mid-afternoon to go nap in my hotel room. The rash had grown, too, and was itchy-painful.

Maybe you can see where I’m going with this.

It was either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning that it hit me that I had shingles. No, I hadn’t gotten the vaccine.

I contacted my primary care provider, but, as it turns out, they can’t do a tele-health visit with me if I’m out of state at the time. Ridiculous, right?

Initially, shingles was (were?) just annoying. “I don’t have time for this,” I said more than once to more than one person. I mean, it’s the holidays. Sheesh.

But, by Thursday, I felt like excrement. You know what I mean, right? I did a tele-health appointment, was prescribed an antiviral, and stayed in my room all day. Mostly.

The next day, same thing.

My appetite has been way off with this.

Last night, my son’s girlfriend was making strawberry-rhubarb crisp. “Do you want some?” they both asked.

I politely declined. I didn’t like strawberry-rhubarb crisp on a good day. My mom used to make it and it was not my favorite.

However, this morning when I went down for coffee, there was the baked crisp on the counter. I could see the oatmeal in the topping. Breakfast food, for sure.

I dished out a small bowl, and it was, literally, just what the doctor ordered. (She’s a doctor.)

It was so good that I went back for more.

Maybe rhubarb has healing qualities.

One can always hope, right?