New Link

This little photo is just a taste of what awaits you if you visit the Shock Family website, which I added to my chain of links today. For more pictures by my son-in-law, Clinton Shock, scroll down to his name and begin exploring. I lay claim to all of the Shocks, my daughter, my grandchildren, and soon-to-be-a-Shock Susan Sullivan, who is engaged to grandson Cedric. Every one of them has worthwhile things to contribute.

Almost June!

JUNE LESSON
So trite and tired our chosen subject, “June”.
It mires in sentiment and in cliche--
weddings, graduations, Fathers’ Day--
and don’t forget to rhyme it all with “moon”.
Embellish it with roses, hum a tune
(for “what is so rare as” something new to say?).
Musicals tell us all this is the way--
The audience will all be yawning soon.

June, prancing in, unconscious of abuse,
looks at our city rooms with healthy loathing,
shoves us to camps where air is piney cool,
prods lazy muscles stiffened with disuse,
pulls off constricting swathes of winter clothing
and, smiling pertly, dunks us in the pool.

This is a silly little sonnet, probably unworthy of the sonnet form. It is an easy form for me to use, however, especially after translating sonnets from Portuguese. And in my opinion, frivolous verse seems more humorous if formally presented.

I want to correct that line below which should read, "ARE we supposed to be their babysitters?". I know that I should be able to correct the post, but yesterday I attempted what I have done successfully before and lost completely 2 successive posts.

Memorial Day Weekend

Otto and I have been enjoying the sight of two spotted little fawns in our backyard. Their Mama is nowhere in sight. After we supposed to be her babysitters? At least this time I had a good camera vantage point to take pictures of them. The fawns were spooked a bit when I opened the window. I got several pictures with both fawns, but they were in retreat at that point and don't show up well in a blog-sized photo. The one in the picture, however, seemed fascinated with my camera (or me) and kept turning its head to observe.

I seem to be at least temporarily marooned on the bedroom floor of our house, having left the hospital with written instructions to rest, and to walk 5 to 15 minutes twice a day. This floor is the second if you count from the front door and the third from the backyard, as our house is built on steeply sloping land. There are views from east, west and south windows, so some of my entertainment is to explore with my trusty digital camera. Yesterday I observed that Otto's trumpet vine has put out small clusters of blooms here and there. It is a very badly behaved vine, having been intended to cover and hide the neighbors' chain-link fence. While some tendrils stay on the job, others reach for the stars - or at least the next higher branch in our heavily wooded area. The photo is of a blossoms at least fifteen feet above the base of the deodar tree it is climbing. Perhaps I will post more trumpet vine pics when it is in full radiant bloom.


We spent an uneventful Memorial Day weekend, but watched the PBS Sunday night Washington DC national Memorial Day Show. I was shocked at the emphasis on armed forces and all of the nation's "glorious" wars.
While I felt enormous sympathy for the show-cased bereaved families and the Iraq and Afganistan wounded, sent home with possibly irreparable damage, I still remember when Memorial Day was Decoration Day. We would ransack the garden and carry arm-loads of flowers to the graves of our own dear dead. Some had served in the armed forces, most had not.

In the words of cartoonist Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We has the met the enemy and they is us."

I spent most of this last week in the hospital, and I am feeling lazy today. Therefore I am going to borrow from Daria's blog yet again, as I did with that magnificent fox photo last time I posted, Sweet Daria has given me permission to do so whenever I wish to. Now, that's the way to make your Granny happy! You would probably enjoy the rest of her cat pics and the little essay that introduces them. And, lest you think she spends much of her time phoiographing animals, keep scrolling down the page to enjoy her real specialty which is people. Her blog, Daria's Day is among "Links to my chain" in the column at right.

Award-winning photo

This is my second post today, but I couldn't resist showing this photo by my Vermont photographer granddaughter. It's on her post for today with the news that she won an award with it. A link to her blog, "Daria's Day", is at right.

Today Otto and I have been enjoying views of a doe with two little spotted fawns. Unfortunately they were at angles that were unaccessible to the camera without disturbing them. This is an older picture of a doe with two almost grown fawns. Today the doe was busy demolishing every flower on my pyracantha bush, probably precluding any lavish display of red berries later in the year. Since we prefer watching deer to maintaining a perfect garden, I guess we have no cause for complaint.

Mothers' Day made me think of my own beautiful mother. It's hard to believe that, were she still alive, that she would be 104 years old! On Mothers' Day she made a practice of going into the garden and choosing a red flower for me (signifying that my mother was still living), and a white one for herself. I feel almost guilty on Mothers' Day when I ignore the custom. Last Sunday I should have chosen to wear something with which my white rose necklace would be appropriate (instead of a dragon tattoo!). This snapshot reminds me that there was a time when one wore gloves even to shop at the grocery store! Although in this pic, Mama seems to be holding the left glove in her bare hand.

Recently I tried to duplicate one of her recipes from memory. I haven't got it right yet, but, in general, she parboiled an eggplant until just soft enough to scoop the center, leaving a shapely shell. This she sauted in butter along with about a cup of chopped onions, a handful of broken walnut meats and a cup of soft bread torn into shreds. She cooked these until the onions were transparent and the bread golden, then stirred in some chopped parsley and packed it all back into the eggplant shells, sprinkled them with fresh bread crumbs and baked until the shells were fork tender. All my measurements are guesswork. And I forgot to say that she seasoned the mixture with salt and pepper. Mine didn't taste as good as hers, so maybe I have it all wrong. I was sparing of the butter, given our current concerns with health and waistlines; maybe that's the difference.