19 years on a farm: sunflowers

This is the year of the sunflower, and the drought, and a few other things.

After last year’s bust of a sunflower crop, my husband, Radames, nurtured these beauties through woodchuck attacks and squirrel carnage.  Today, he picked the last of this particular batch…big huge blooms that the chipmunks were munching away at…we will keep them on the table a few days and then put them outside, up high, for the birds.

In celebration of 19 years here, I thought I’d try a theme for a while:  19 years on the farm. I’ll let you know if it works out.  My husband said to tell you this isn’t a farm, and it really isn’t.  But it was a farm and it is a lot closer to a farm than my homeland, the suburbs.  I like to say I live out in the middle of nowhere but then I am reminded that there is a Dunkin Donuts about 4 miles down the road.

It is September 18, 2016.

 

©claireaperez@gmail.com

Sunflowers picked by Radames and photo-shopped by me.

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The Carnival of Dysfunction…inspired by politics

 

The Carnival of Dysfunction

Step right up
And hop on the Merry-Go-Round
Pick a horse, any horse
Round and round ~ the carousel’s bright lights
And magical ponies
Stationary, never changing, round and round it goes
From above the joker laughs at us all
The great engineer: knowing all, caring none

Step down; proceed to the house of mirrors
Look in and laugh
You are fat, you are thin, you are fat and thin
Reflections abound
Created to mock you
Take away your soul with illusion

Shoot the basket, five dollars for three tries, win a prize?
Rigged, contrived, set up
Beyond your control, in the dark of night
With trickery passed down
One generation to the next
Fooling you in silence
You can never win

Sideshow…the alligator man
The fattest woman ever
Mocking them
All the world’s a stage
Their role transparent
Yours hidden under subconscious guise
Puppet on a string

The next circus comes to town
The horses are all purple
You pay admission, buy your ticket: the same Merry-Go-Round.

©claireaperez@gmail.com

 

 

Let Go and Let God does not mean throw your soda can on the ground

I realize that is a long title but it sums up what I saw yesterday.  At the end of a long, hot week and a long hot month where the random fluctuations in my little universe have challenged me to rise up and cope, I was dismayed at the following scene.

Enroute to the pharmacy after my husband’s second arm casting of the week, we sat on the exit ramp.  In front of us I read the bumper sticker, “Let Go and Let God.”  I think ” what exactly does it mean for people?” For me, it means that God will intervene so I don’t have to do anything.  For that reason, I don’t particularly like this bumper sticker.

One thing I believe, if God is listening, he sure as hell, does not mean for me to abdicate my throne for hers.  Rather, I think, he wants me to get in there and do my part for the universe, as best  I can.  Yep, go ahead and forgive those mud slingers, Ann Coutler included.  But don’t wait for him to save me from her.

So back to this little scene on the ramp where I’m hot and bothered and at the end of my patience rope.  As I read the bumper sticker, I saw before me the driver open the car window, smash his soda can and drop it to the ground.  I started yelling at him, so tired, I didn’t want to beep, just yell out my window. By  the time my finger engaged the controller, the traffic was moving.

This man/woman drove off leaving the rest of us with his/her mess.  I imagine three scenarios for this piece of trash discarded into our universe:

a.  the can will be driven over, smushed probably, and it may affect someone’s tires.

b. a cautious driver may dodge it careening off to the right and into the guardrail.

c.the can will be picked up by the air or a person or a sweep of heavy rain and it will end up in recycling or the lake.

So, this is the bumper sticker I think God and I could agree on:

God Protect Me From Your Followers.

The followers who think that you created this beautiful planet and all of us for our own purposes, that we are not here to hold sacred each human, each piece of land, each day because somehow with your magical intervention, you are going to take care of it and make it all better, no matter what crap we put into the universe.

©claireaperez@gmail.com