Sunny with a 50% Chance of Flowers

For a whole year I kept two Christmas plants

Amaryllis, and her adopted brother, Cactus

Tucked away in the dark closet

Keeping them so dry they must've believed they were in the Sahara

Must've thought I had forgotten them

In the glory of summer's gardens.

Then, when my plastic stick and the paper note,

taped to the inside of my cupboard door

Said it was time,

I brought them out

Though still in a cool location with at least 12 out of 24 hours of darkness

Just as I was told by the foremen,

Mr. Stick,

& his equal partner in the business,

Mr. Paper.

Watering them sparingly,

As one would give water sparingly

to a man

About to die of thirst

So as not to overwhelm them

With too much of a good thing.

Amaryllis began to grow her long green leaves

So fast that I could almost watch them stretch out longer every day

Christmas Cactus began to show little pink blushes

on the ends of his darker green leaves

Then it came time to bring them out

To put them where they would hopefully

Display their full glory in colour

Cactus was ever so grateful to be out in the brightness again

And showed his appreciation by spreading wide his lovely red petals

Amaryllis grows ever longer

Somehow though,

I don't have much faith in her

She's a little more revengeful

And won't let me forget the long lonely months

She spent banished to the closet.

There was one more though;

One who was treated differently from the others

Pointsetta, left over from last Christmas

Was left out in the open all year long

I watered her, gave her light.

Allowed her to take part

As spring turned to summer, and fall turned to winter

She grew bigger and never lost its greenness

I was proud of her

Not many would've done as she did

Sadly though

She was so used to being the only child

She couldn't face the competition

Of the showy new addition to the clan

Within 5 days of her bigger brighter sibling coming home

She shrivelled up and died.

I felt her pain,

and my guilt.

Sibling rivalry can be rough.

But most of us learn

To love our fellow man,

And yes, even our siblings,

Even though we may feel jealous of their beauty

Isn't that what Christmas is about?

-The End-

Thankful in the Dark

"The moon was abreast on the new-fallen snow

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below"

Those two lines of "The Night Before Christmas"

Often run through my head

I never gave them much meaning,

Just a part of another Christmas Story

Memorized by children before they can read it

But lately, I have been thinking of how apt they really are

As I walk through the night in the new-fallen snow

When there's a full moon, there really is a luster of daylight

To objects below

And what to my wondering eyes should appear?

(No, not a miniture sleigh and eight tiny reindeer)

But a really big moose, with no reasons for fear!

I stopped in my tracks

To my dog gave a whistle

And away the moose bolted

Like the down of a thistle

I continue onward,

Monty now securely on his leash

As the moose may not feel like playing

with an exhuberant full-grown but puppy-minded dog

And as I head home

I give thanks that I live in a part of the world

Where one can walk at night

Guided only by the moonlight or starlight

Sure of the ground beneath my feet

With no fears of muggers or rapists or serial killers

The only thing I have to be aware of

is making sure I don't startle those moose!

This is a terribly fragmented post

But I don't apologize

Its how it came out of my mind

and how it stayed.

None of these are my photos,

I don't usually bring my camera at night

One of these nights I should,

But I don't have the photographic skills

to do the beauty justice.

credits here and here and here

I Heard How Your Day is Going........

First you had trouble getting out of bed,

You had a stiff neck.

You washed your hair and couldn't do a thing with it

Your new diet really doesn't seem to be working out

You pulled a muscle when you tried to exercise

And your new hat looked better on you at the store

You keep misplacing things

You got caught in the rain at lunchtime

Then the lunch you had didn't seem to agree with you

You feel trapped

Uninvited guests showed up at dinner time

On top of that you think you're coming down with the flu

And when you're finally relaxing alone at night, you think you hear a noise in the basement!

Just remember, handle every stressful situation like a dog,

if you can't eat it or play with it,

Just pee on it and walk away.

The magic number

Most of us don't like the cold
Not the kind that makes your nostrils stick together,
The kind that makes it impossible to take a big breath
The kind that freezes your water pipes if you forget to plug the heating tape in
Makes your car impossible to start if you forget to plug the block heater in
and forms ice on the insides of your windows.

But there is a select group of the human race
(okay, that part is debatebable)
who pray at night, if its going to be cold anyways,
dear god, please let it be -32C.

For -32C is that magic number that all kids look forward to
They peer out the window every 20 minutes all evening
Excited at every drop in the temperature
Even the teenagers
More excited than the on night before christmas

Kids who live in less wintery parts of the country
Sometimes get "snow days"
A day off school because the inch of snow that fell overnight
Has completely snarled the traffic


We don't get snow days.
We are prepared and accustomed to it
We prefer driving in the snow
Because it fills up the potholes in the road

But we do get "cold days"
When the mercury drops below that magic number - -32C
The powers that be have decided that is the point
To call it off

And,
today is a cold day!

I'm late, I'm late, I forgot the date!!

One cannot manage too many affairs

Like pumpkins in the water

One pops up while you try to hold down the other

(Chinese proverb)

*

To do two things at once

Is to do neither

(Publius Syrus)

*

Take care of the minutes

and the hours will take care of themselves

(Lord Chesterfield)

*

I am overextending myself

I cannot say no

-

I am close to using the stress management skills

Which have been tried and true

But are unhealthy all the same.

-

Instead, I am using my blogging

-

If I'm not careful,

Like a spent bulb

I will soon burn out

-

(But I will visit your blogs as soon as I can, I miss y'all!)