Color makes magic.

 

It is impossible to describe or apply the unbelievable talent that God has granted these artists.  

Vermeer

15 Three-dimensional Oil Paintings By Sergi Cadenas (wooarts.com)

Arcimboldo

Use of the colors, perspectives, details---It is all amazing.  Thank you, God!

CCR....John Fogerty

 There are only a few groups that make me stop and listen, and CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival) with John Fogerty is one of those.  Hard to explain, but he is unique, with talent that grabs me.

Credence Clearwater Revival

Looking out my back door

Still got it

Have you ever seen rain?

John Fogerty is an awesome musician whose songs have been ringing in my house for decades.  His voice has a ragged baritone, passionate about his music.

Went to a performance in Laughlin, CA, about 2 years go.  Still remember it. He closed with my favorite "Bad Moon Rising", still gives me goosebumps. 

How about you? Have you ever had a performer who grabs you and doesn't let go?

Bad Moon Risin',

Take the bathroom on the right.

Neverending

 

BikeHikeSafari

Books will all surround us.  Books from boxes topple from bookcases.  Boxes? In the garage?This all seems unending, moving and unpacking.  Then, how about finding space in which to place our treasures? This is all unending, a chore that we did not see at the beginning of escrow.

This brings up the subject of “unending”.  Thinking over the years, ghosts of “unending” appear to nag and torment. In the theme of “unending” lies a list, an “unending” list about those ghosts:

Replacing an engine, discovering missing parts and tools, with more auto parts littering the floor.  Oh, sure, friendly veteran sang a story about an old war injury prevented him from using manual shift, so that's why there are only 75,000 miles on the speedometer.  You drive classic car home, finding smoke and clanks following you. Not such a good deal, and when online sites send replacement parts, there is always a screw short.

Being in labor for hour after hour definitely makes the list. (45 hours? Followed by C-Section.) After ten hours, just when you beg for an epidural, an army nurse briskly tells you that it is too late to give one.  

Flights to the other side of the world.  Australia?  South Africa? Switzerland?  You find yourself in cheap seats, middle seat packed in, next to someone who hasn't taken a bath in the last year.

Keanu would do well in recess duty.

Playground duty. You are the only teacher with 300 children racing around an one acre playground.  You clutch a clipboard under one arm and grip the teacher whistle in  a tightly clenched fist.  

Waiting for Santa. You are 6 years old and this night is one wished for all year. Tick, Tick, Tick...eyes want to shut but you won't let them...tick, tick, tick...

Picking strawberries day after day after day. No joy after the fifth day. Mid-May arrives with garden full of red berries peeking from green leaves.  First day is like discovering rubies, sweet rubies. Leads onto the second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day....Enough already.  This won't ever end.

Waiting in an emergency room, filled with sneezing and coughing. You have a brain-splitting migraine and your blood pressure is 177/85.  With your head dropping to your knees and a throw-up bowl beneath, you watch as a child with sinusitis(#45) is called in.  You are #62.  You won't live to see the end of this day. 

Driving through Death Valley in summer. (Been there, done that) Long straight road over flat desolate land, you see in distance, heat waves fooling you to think it is water.  It is 121 degrees and you watch your car's gas light like a hawk.

Standing in the line at DMV, until legs are shaking, growing light-headed. Husband is home, too sick to go into the line from hell to transfer registration.  You are three months pregnant, and hours pass.  At the third hour, you tell the kind lady behind you that you are pregnant and wonder if...then you open your eyes as you lie on the floor.  Registration was expedited. 

Shopping on the day after Christmas and you find there are no bargains worth this amount of physical abuse.

YouTube has numerous of Curling videos

Being forced to watch “curling” during the Winter Olympics. Your family is Nordic, and cheer for some team.  Crushed between Olaf and Sven, you decide to develop a tummy-bug, staying in the bathroom.

Re-modeling a bathroom and/or kitchen the week before company arrives--this is your spouse's idea.  Tearing out the sink and cabinet reveal rot and mold.  Company will be staying in the hotel with you, as your entire house is being examined and treated.

Sitting in rush hour traffic on the Friday of a four-day weekend. A black juiced up muscle car is shaking with the bass turned up high.  You have windows rolled up, and yet you are vibrating as well.

Most or all of this involve unending waiting…and more waiting…including walls of boxes lined up like heavy soldiers.

 What about you?  Can you add to this list your own unending events?

This is a repost from April 2014.

Nefarious Arises

 Town of Nefarious, Wyoming or Idaho: pop. 4957 ---953

"Come Sick, Leave Healthy"

At the turn of the 1900s, Nefarious ** had been a boom town.  Seltzer Springs brought in wagons full of health seekers to use the springs, eat peculiar food, and spend money.

Alas, the Springs started to dry up along with the tourists.  Around 1993, the population itself dwindled.  Then one day, few boys were playing in the empty waterbed when they screamed in delight, ran back to the mayor, Ol' Doc Kinkaid, who confirmed their big find.  He took to kids to his house and locked them in a closet.  "I'll let you out when the city council men get here."

The council men came quickly as there had been little to do lately.

The boys told them and led them to the creek bed.  "Look, Mr. Jenkins! Look!"  And there it was: the bones of an immense prehistoric boa, 50 feet long with the circumference of 8 feet.  Silence fell.  There was more to be found as they walked along the dried stream, lined with dinosaur bones.

 

Source

In the quiet dining room of the widower Jasper Fillings way out of town, all men along with the boys sat around the dining table and a plan was hatched.  "In two weeks time, we must re-construct our miserable little town to make it look like it did back in 1890s.   Stores must occupy the empty old stores....and anyone known to be a gossip and who has relatives who are gossips must be confined." He paused and shook his head.  "How, I don't know."  

He continued. "Phones ripped out, Facebook and such shut down...secrecy is the key. Boys?  You wanta help or be locked up in the old boarded up classroom out in the dusty school?"

The town without the gossipy group threw muscle into renewal.  Quilts were ordered from China, tags removed, with new tags added "Hand-sewn by Louisa May Smith".  Rusty tools and blacksmith shop were restored.  Jars and jars of jams, preserves, and candles were ordered.  The labels were stripped off, and new ones put on:  Mrs. Nefer's Homemade.... My...Oh, the work. Nefarious appeared to be frozen in the late 1800s.

The gossipy type were sent on a 21 day cruise to Hawaii on the Holland American vee Dam. 

Finally, the paleontologists were summoned.  Two wise men, then four, then more:  all agreed that this was the biggest titanoba ever found, and joy overflowed as they walked down the creek bed.

A lackadaisical bearded old man was paid to sit in an old chair with his feet propped up on the sidewalk railing.  Curious tourists with full shopping bags asked him how long had he been there.
"Heck if I know,"  he answered and then aimed some tobacco spit at the nearby spittoon.  Sometime he hit the mark, sometimes he did not.  All went well in Nefarious here on out.

Please forgive me for assigning Idaho, Wyoming, Montana to the town Nefarious I actually think there are some others, but they might be in Pennsylvania.

This is a repost of Wednesday Words given as a challenge for bloggers to shake up their writing, to take a break from WIPs, try different genre.  A dear Blogger, Delores, started this challenge a few years back, passing the baton onto other talented bloggers. 

P.S. We visited Branson, MO, a few years ago.  Branson is famous for its quilts and homey products, I was eager to look at them.  They were lovely, but when I looked for the source, I found a tag, "Made in China".  Then I saw a sign which read, "Homey Quilts, made by Branson designs."

Disillusionment.

Hope comes in degrees.

 

It is 93º outside and the time is 10:30 AM. By noon, 104 deg. is expected.

The end of July hovers in our roasting.

When life is unbearable in a California roasting oven, a CostCo or Sam's trip is required.  It is air-conditioned.

The chilled fresh produce room can hold 20 people, easy.  The chilled dairy products room can hold at least 50 people, as long as everyone keeps moving.  

This was there…

And this was there…

There is hope after all. 

Help. Oh please.

 

There's an Orange Apron!

Upon marriage, it is assumed that each partner knows their station in life:  Husband carries the load, seizing opportunities to improve and provide for his family. Wife is released to do everything else, all to cover all bases and support as far as possible and using common sense, her Husband's decisions.

For example, couple heads to Home Depot to purchase stuff for home project.  Husband has written in a notebook: screws, nails, bug killer, and a lot of other items.

When Husband walks into Home Depot, he walks aimlessly looking for tools and plumbing.  Where is that... you know, those screws I wanted...He mutters to Wife, who rolls her eyes to heavens above in supplication.

Husband searching aimlessly

Wife steams inside.  She heads over to a stranger in an orange apron.  She pleads the Orange apron woman, Help me!  Please!  Orange apron woman sees Husband, and recognizes that look of frustration, and hurries to help Him.

Husband is embarrassed---he doesn't need help. The woman in the Orange apron tries to help Husband, but he did not write down the size of the screw or the nail. He could remember those damn sizes! Thank you very much!

Meanwhile, Wife has gone ahead to toss those "other items" into the cart, including several rolls of duct tape.  Finally, Orange apron has sorted Husband out, helping him to figure out the screw and nail situation. Husband is pleased.  Wife is relieved. Orange apron chalks it up to just another Husband, lost until found by Wife.

As they head to check-out, Wife turns to Orange apron and mouths "Thank You!" Apron mouths back, "Good luck!" Both shake their heads in commiseration.

Yes, indeedy, our stations in life are important.

,

This video is the 2014 winner of Video Awards for the Annual Tool Contest. I can see why.

The italicized and underlined words are provided by River, who is providing words for the then weekly Wednesday Words challenge!  Originally posted in 2014. Italicized words are for this particular post. It was reposting in 2019. I love this stuff.

And, down I fall, fall, fall.

 

Gotta respect the cat

Take a fall, I will,

Up or down,

Stairs or flat path,

Fall, I will.

Some say it is a talent,

Some say it is a curse,

And I just say

Fall, I will.

Not a tumble, no.

Not a trip, no.

But a full on down you go,

Fall, I will.

You ask why I claim

That I will fall.

You may wonder

Why I will fall.

God only knows.

I wish it were not so.

But this I can tell you:

Fall, I will.

You Tube: stunt man shows how to be safe when falling

My children and grandchildren have commented about my falling (which has been near disastrous) many a time. I shrug my shoulders and say the above.

This is a repost from August 2014, probably after one fall.  The latest was just a few days ago. I must let my back rest after falling.  Sneezing is the hardest. Please leave comments!

Fickle Words

 

Words linger in silence

Just outside my reach.

Once easily they popped to me,

Now, those damn words will

Scamper and bound away.

#//=&$

Perhaps what scares me most

Is when the words pause in mid sentence,

Leaving my brain 

To scramble through the files there, 

Searching for the right words.

Words, words, words.

Words that sing and shout.

Words that fly about.

Zing, zap, and zoom.

Winging their way with wonder

Denying grasps, causing gasps

Written in 1971, at college during teacher training.

A writer in a hazy world

Is a sad writer.

We're on the one road, maybe the wrong road....

Liam's grandfather had told him stories of life in Ireland, how farmers and their harnessed draft horses plowed land and brought in harvest. These images were so compelling that one day, Liam and wife Betty headed to the 'auld country themselves.

Irish Travellers

Liam had rented a traditional traveler caravan, and plodded out onto the dirt roads, being pulled by a harnessed draft horse, named Billy. Sean and Dermot, owners of Caravan Travels, watched them leave, whispering, They'll be stuck in mud before the day's out.

First few miles, Liam and Betty were filled with energy, singing every Irish song they knew, which were many. Over the hours, as energy seemed to drop and sag, they decided that left lane at the fork looked more promising and shorter to the pit stop where other renters would gather and sing more Irish songs.

Mud grabbed their wheels which locked the caravan stock still, while Billy quite happily grazed at lush green grass. Betty began to weep and Liam was dismayed, feeling betrayed by his grandfather's stories.

Then, a fine old black and white tractor came chugging and howling to this miserable couple, followed by Sean in a Ford 150, who fixed the problem right and proper, pulling them out of mud, with a loud SUCK.

Back at Caravan Travels, Liam doled over more pounds to rent a mobile trailer, hooked on the trailer hitch of his rental car, and drove off in a bright red shade of embarrassment.

Tourists. Dreamers.

We are contemplating a journey to Ireland. No traveler caravan, just something safe.

This was a post from August 2015.

Time to serve and save

 

True story of Granite Hill Fire

Chris had never been known to be a “waiter”; instead he always threw himself headlong into many diverse adventures…here, there, here...He loved the adrenalin rush, the way it drove him. After that rush came his pride and carelessness.

Who and what Chris was then changed radically when he became a man whose greatest desire in life was to wait upon the Lord.  

Be intense, diligent… …taking on the most mundane of tasks.  Wait upon the Lord…were the words running through his mind when the alarm bell rang.

“Take it, Chris!” cried out a fellow fireman. At the clunk sound of hose thrown to him, adrenaline surged. Gripping the heavy hose tightly, Chris reminded himself ”Time to serve!” as he raced into the blazing house.

YouTube from movie "Fireproof". Video is about 4 min. long.

2015 Yarnell Arizona Fire

June 30, 2015

Arizona family

The underlined words are from Wednesday Words, from April 2015. These are for challenging writer, once provided and encouraged by several bloggers. 

The Granite Hill fire was a horror we cannot ignore. Wildfires spread so quickly.