Friday, January 30, 2015

YELLOW



Yellow is an interesting color. I’m told it is the color our eyes see best. You won’t see it very often in daily life, except perhaps in the kitchen with lemons and bananas or egg yolks and butter, but when you do see yellow it’s usually a “heads up”. Yellow means caution – in traffic lights, in poisonous snakes (red and yellow could kill a fellow), speed limits, and caution or penalty flags.

BANANAS!!


The yellow in the Swedish flag is an exception in the otherwise red, white, and blue scheme of the Scandinavian flags. Speaking of the Swedish flag, there is also I Am Curious (Yellow) the film from the late 60’s that everyone wanted to see and no one could figure out.



Yellow can be a sad color: yellow fever, jaundice, yellow bellied coward. But we usually see yellow as a happy color. We think of daffodils and sunflowers and honey bees, of smiley faces and, of course, sunshine. 



Every once in a while we’re on the road, my husband and I will see a really yellow yellow car and call out “Yellow!” Cars of this color are few and far between, usually very expensive, and always stand out. Although they’re not the same sunny yellow, and some are now acid or neon colors, I suppose that’s why school busses are yellow: they stand out.



Now that I think of it, I see a yellow car every day: the one parked in my neighbor’s driveway. It’s a cute little yellow ‘Bug’, sort of a powdery yellow. Not a “Yellow!” yellow. Like its owner, it’s sort of a mellow yellow.

You all remember that intriguing book, The Yellow River by I.P. Daily. 




Friday, January 23, 2015

NO POST TODAY



I follow several daily bloggers who every once in a while will start off their post with the words “No blog today”.  They then go into detail about why they’re not posting. Seriously?  Gal, you just posted.

Today I am guilty of the same thing because I just don’t have the oomph to fuss with the process of adding all the pictures I want to add to my essay on Yellow.

It is easier for me just to do this new .doc, copy and paste it, add maybe one picture, and voila! It is raining. Blah. I am getting over a nasty bout with a chest cold. No sniffles or sneezes – well, not too many sneezes – but I still feel achy, the cough is persistent, and if I talk for just a few sentences my voice shuts down to a croak.  

So readers – and you know who you are! – this is it. 



Friday, January 16, 2015

FIVE YEARS

                 


Last week, one of the daily freebie Kindle books was 1000 Awesome Writing Prompts by Ryan Andrew Kinder. Free? I’m a writer, of sorts, so I downloaded it. Skipping over all the introductions stuff, I got right to the good stuff: the prompts. The first one was “Describe an important item from your childhood. Why was it important and where is it now?”  Wow, that’s a good one. But I did that one a while ago as a Remembrance of Things Lost.

It was the second prompt that really got me: “You find out that you will die in five years or less. How did you find this out? What would you do in those five years?”

First, I am 72. Not a spring chicken. Much as my sister and I swore to live together and live forever, and we really, really were going to do just that, I realize now that it isn’t possible. First of all because, to my deep chagrin and sorrow, she died over eight years ago. Second, because it just isn’t possible. Maybe it is in science fiction, but not in science fact.

I know I’m going to die one day. Though I know many people do, rarely, if ever, do I think about it. I’ve had nebulous thoughts questioning what would be my ultimate demise: heart attack, cancer, car crash, what? But I don’t dwell on the possibilities. (Perhaps I should: I might live longer!) One time I did have a fleeting ‘pit of the stomach’ moment when I was sitting in my car in a parking lot, getting ready to go into the doctor’s office to learn what it was that they’d removed from my forehead the previous week. Was it cancer? What was the ultimate diagnosis and prognosis? I’m happy to tell you it was just a solar keratosis, “but be careful of the sun.”

But if I knew today that I had only five years? Whew! That was definite. Writing about it now, I don’t have the same gut feeling now as I did when I read that second prompt. You’ve heard of “aha” moments? That was an “uh oh” moment. It was just a suggestion; it had nothing to do with me, but it struck home. I think I lived more deliberately in those next few hours than I have before or since. It’s too bad it didn’t stick.


When I thought about it for a while I decided that the prompt wouldn’t make for much of an essay, though there 415 words already. I’ve no great urge to see more of the world. I’ve traveled a lot in my lifetime and I’m in no condition now, neuritis and arthritis being the chief causes, to do more. I wouldn’t dedicate my last years to doing more for the undertrod and mankind in general. I wouldn’t spend, spend, spend until I died clutching my last dollar. No, I’d just say “oh, well” and just keep on keepin’ on as I’m doing today. Short as it is, that’s life.




Saturday, January 10, 2015

JANUARY


       January

In January it's so nice
While slipping on the sliding ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sipping once, sipping twice
Sipping chicken soup with rice


January: the yearly restart of my sputtering engine of ambition. I had all good intentions, but New Year’s Day found me completely wanting.  My mind slipped on the sliding ice and I forgot to post this month’s poem. Perhaps it is appropriate to post it today, because it is certainly icy out there. The whole country is still bundled up. I think I’ll go have another cup of coffee.

   

Friday, January 9, 2015

GREEN



These days when you say ‘green’ folks immediately think something eco-related: the environment, energy, agriculture, recycling, and such. Today, for this blog, ‘green’ also means just green. I’ve done orange and red – now it is green.



Green is a color I’ve used for years, usually with red. Amy day can be Christmas Day. In my last house I had wall-to-wall forest green carpet. Dark? Not at all. With while walls and even darker upholstery, it was smashing. (I’ve that same upholstery now, but with the yerky beige carpeting – you can bet I won’t be doing a blog on beige - that was the best available choice from the builder eight years ago. Fate forfend we should have replaced it before its time – that wouldn’t be ‘green’!)  



There are as many shades of green as there are leaves on the trees. They vary, as they fit into a crossword puzzle, from pea to chartreuse; they vary, as they fit on the color scale, from spring through apple and olive to forest. They vary as widely as the shades on the color chips at the home improvement store. Just think of those poor folks who have to think up names for all those colors.



Just think of some of the neat things that are green: emeralds, moss, shamrocks, baby spinach, pickles, Cousin Margaret, Kermit.
  


Just think of some of the nasty things that are green: kale, slime, spinach baby food, jealousy, envy, toads.



Green is the Christian ecclesiastical color of hope; it was the favorite color of Mohammed, and it is the most favored color, especially for flags, in the Islamic world. It is the color of growth. The first green of spring, in any culture, gives hope for a good year to come.  The Green Man of legend is also a symbol of rebirth.



In today’s world, for many, along with orange, green means decaffeinated as in coffee. We’ve got the Green Party, The Green Bay Packers, Green Peace, Wearin’ o’ the Green. We try to go green and live green.



On these cold winter days we’re never gonna ‘think pink’ – it’s green, green, green.  In all its shades and tints, it is the color of spring.


                                                        



    It ain’t easy bein’ green.




Friday, January 2, 2015

LUSCIOUS WORDS



A few months ago, while I was getting my daily dose of The Writer’s Almanac, I read this quote from author Roy Blount, Jr., who said "Language seems to me intrinsically comic - noises of the tongue, lips, larynx, and palate rendered in ink on paper with the deepest and airiest thoughts in mind and the harshest and tenderest feelings at heart."

I thought of the quote later that week when I was watching one of the many repeats of Keeping Up Appearances. The British comedy - you know: “The Boo-kay residence, the lady of the house speaking.”  They are always funny no matter how many times you’ve seen them, always good to fill in a half hour before you get to watch what you really wanted to see on PBS. In this episode, Daisy and Onslow were sitting in bed reading. Onslow, wearing his always stylish ‘vest’ (an “A-Shirt” to us these days), was consulting the tout sheets. Daisy, in her house coat, had one of her favorite romance novels, and read one line to Onslow. She thought this line lovely: “He looked into her limpid eyes.” Limpid was the word that ‘spoke’ to Daisy.



Limpid – the word is well, limpid. Just recite it to yourself a few times: limpid…limpid…limpid.  It is sort of limpid in a boiled noodle-y sort of way.

Some words have a way of almost being what they describe. Lewis Carroll coined a poemful of wonderful words: Jabberwocky. The poem is just brillig!

Herewith are a few of my favorite words. Think about the beauty, the aptness of the word, think about Just roll the words through your mouth and off your tongue:

scoundrel

dangle

louche

aplomb

festoon

ludicrous


What words would be on your list? Be sure they are luscious! 

TRIPPINGLY!