estrogen anyone?

I know a lot of families who have only daughters, my household included.

Was a time we had two female cats, one female dog.

We got a a fish, one of those Siamese fighting fish, a betta. I would joke with Hubby that that was the only male companion in the house for him. Not much personality or ability to interact, that betta. Still, one needs allies.

Not much today, my usual mental musings. Is this a poem? It’s a bit silly, I know. I now see all of my repetitions, the words and images I love to use over and over. Not gonna censor myself right now. Not yet.

Just as I strongly dislike blogs and websites with white words on a black background (only forgivable on erotic content sites or sites run by folks under 21), I also HATE censorship. If I apply this to my writing, it backfires a bit because changing habits requires saying no to them. It’s not censorship, but discipline I need. Like I said before not yet. Let me be as free as a betta.

All We Have; What We Are To You

The estrogen pulses through us,
through the house

We ring with progesterone
the house rings with us

Later,
oxytocin
softens the ligaments
loosens the ishia, ilia, pubis

Milk concentrates and pours

My man is surrounded

Resistance is futile

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Thankful Thursday–ain’t no thing

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my loves!

 

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twinkly on the Cape, June 30-July 7, 2012

Provincetown: a pair of little dogs in a pink doggie stroller being fed ice cream by their owner. Egregious behavior? Not until she licked from the same cone and then tried to force feed one of them when it roundly rejected the ice cream. Other details available, just ask.

Window at one of my favorite galleries. On my way to a body and hair like this? Time will tell.

3 flying seahorses grace the handles of the Lipton Cup in the Provincetown Library. The cup was awarded to the great sailing ship the Rosa Dorothea, a reproduction of which is on the 2nd floor. When I say reproduction, I mean half-size, 66 feet long. Part of it is lit in pink. A Cape Cod must-see.

living sculpture:

Advertising for a show, The Naked Boys, I think. After you walk past these guys night after night, it’s awfully hard not to pull that terrycloth down and see what’s going on under there. And such pretty legs. Dang.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Yes, this is the pool that I loved. High tide was often on either side of my poetry writing workshop. The Bay beaches lost a lot of shoreline a couple of years ago in a severe storm, so when the tide is high, there is just water next to a fence; this is why I jumped in the pool morning, noon, and night, naked when possible (also hot flashes are abundant ’round my these parts). I want to go back to the same house. I want to live in the pool.

The full moon last week. It makes me think of the nursery rhyme boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shine as bright as day….I swear I’ve posted that song here somewhere, but I am too lazy to find it. Perhaps a video is in order?

4th of July, fireworks on the beach. This was a kick, fireworks dotting the shore as far as the eye could see with the closest large display in the harbor at Provincetown. The great thing was that everyone was happy and running around in the cool windy air. Beyond Ptown, on the ocean side, we could see lightening. What a night. Here you can see what someone was shooting off right next to us. Tide coming in, but look how wide the beach is still…

All the girls (lucky man, that Paul):

Back to Ptown: Hubby and my mom, in front of Puzzle Me This, the best store in the world for games and puzzles

a very bold woman or a lost extra from the set of Lord of the Rings:

This is from our last night in Provincetown. We want to laugh at first, but it’s not funny, you know. It reminds me of the Jacques Brel song about the sailors and the whores.

Can you imagine?

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Happy Birthday to my oldest!

Best Wishes on your 16th birthday, Violet Elsa! You punched your way out of me and into the world 16 years ago and we are glad and blessed that you did. May you stay intense and fiery all of your days.

Boston, August 2010

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Hey, I’ve edited this post to include the following because it’s so perfect for Vi’s B-day, but I don’t like the way it lays out on the page under her photo!

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Music Monday–Christmas with Tim Minchin

One of my favorite Tim Minchin songs (you can read my earlier Tim Minchin Music Monday post, too):

I don’t have much to add. The Advent calender is coming along beautifully, I haven’t figured out much about Christmas presents, and we don’t have our tree yet.

Oh, and Tim Minchin’s daughter’s name is Violet–he gets bonus points for that, as if I didn’t like him enough already.

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Music Monday–last Hurrah

I spent the morning “swimming” in 60-degree ocean water with a pack of happy teenagers, cleaning up a house rental top-to-bottom (that’s a lot of dishes and laundry, my pets!), and driving back home with me mum and a tide of New Englanders heading west.

Sun setting on orange-dusted tree tops, low rolling mountains layered dusky purple, tangerine, and gray…Oh, New England! Oh, Fall!

I love this song and began singing it to keep myself awake on Route 2 because, you know, it’s near full-dark at 6:30 now.

I learned this from my kids, but it’s nowhere to be found on the web so that I might share the tune with you. Perhaps my Annie and I could record it so you could hear it.

I would love to know if you know it, have heard it, know anything about its origins. I rarely ask for things from you, my doves, but I ask you now.

Autumn Roundelay

Here I sit and wait for you, ‘neath the spreading branches,
Cool the grass with shade and dew, sunlight ’round me dances

Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
How my heart is ringing,
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
Songs to you I’m singing

Fall is in the air today, hear the wild geese crying,
Don’t delay, come while you may, snow will soon be flying

Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
How my heart is ringing,
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
Songs to you I’m singing

The verses can be sung in a round. It’s the most lovely song, gives me shivers and tears

Happy Fall and Happy Deciduous Leaves Turning Color!

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every child’s birthday is a birthday for mom

My youngest is 13 today. Happy Birthday, my love!

Here is a photo from when she was a littler bug:

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Thankful Thursday–ocean-bound

It’s the ocean today and the ocean tomorrow and this beach has a carousel. And beach rhymes with peach and you know I love peaches.

My kids are too old to ride the “Flying Horses” carousel, but we are going with a friend who has a 6-year old. Perfect.

This carousel claims to be the oldest of its kind in the US. These types of claims are made all over New England. Oldest this and first that and most, richest, prettiest, best. Who knows? I’m just happy to be here.

The carousel horses are hand-carved and their tails are made of real horse hair.

My mother called me yesterday in a panic that we might be caught in the upcoming hurricane. I see it’s not expected in New England until Sunday, but the predictions for NYC on Saturday are dire. I don’t mean to be flippant, but I have a hard time getting in a tizzy over these kinds of things (still, I’ll kick myself if we have a flooded basement over the weekend). Here in the motel, we have full cable and the weather people are falling all over themselves. It must be nice for them to have a story to sink their teeth into, but it’s pretty shocking how bad TV culture (and by extension, our country’s) is.

Thankful then that I don’t watch TV (for the last few years, not that I never have and not that I didn’t used to love it).

The waves were huge today, a bit beyond my comfort level, but the water was refreshing. Strange clouds and a spot of rain in the late afternoon, not sunny like in the photo below. I love being at the ocean and I’m grateful to live close (enough).

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Thankful Thursday–Maine, etcetera

Thankful for getting invited to our friends’ place way up north in Maine.

We didn’t see any moose on the drive in (daytime) and maybe we won’t see any on the way home, but it’s exciting just to know they are around.

It’s been 9 years since we have been up here and now that we’re here, we wonder why we couldn’t make it work sooner.

There’s a lovely breeze blowing across the porch of the Main Hall, the loons are calling, the water is lapping all around, and the best darn wind chimes are joining in as well. I hear the water hitting the 100-year old rowboat.

It feels like late summer, but it’s just early August. That’s what happens in New England; moreso the farther east or north you get. The sun sets by about 8:30, much earlier than where I grew up in Michigan and Ohio (since they are toward the farther western reach of this time zone) and evening temperatures start to dip.

It’s enough to be grateful for. Really good people, one of my oldest friends and a couple of her kids, good food, fresh air.

Here you can see a photo of the last remnant of my birthday cake, which was given to me last Friday (because it was the best opportunity to have one with the 4 of us all together even though my bday was a couple of weeks ago). I didn’t plan this, but here is how the last of the cake was cut. Except for the water spot on my lens which is plainly visible, this is as good as it gets:

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Happy Anniversary, Kitties!

This January marks the one-year anniversary of adopting our 2 cats, Willow and Miss Lilly. I read somewhere on the internet that I’m not supposed to say adopted, but I don’t really remember why, having never finished reading the blog that told me this, but I think it had to do with me being human and cats being not-human. I think I am not supposed to use adopted because it identifies me as an imperialist or an over-anthropomorphizer, but I’m willing to live with it for now.

I have had cats most of my life. I found a cat when I was a very young girl and that cat became my mother’s after I went to college. Once, upon seeing a “Free Kittens” sign, live-in-boyfriend-at-the-time (who actually became Hubby) and I came home with a kitten to join my cat-at-the-time, Scamper. That free kitten became Jack, had her own litter (yes, before I was a responsible pet owner who got her cats “fixed” immediately) and we kept 2 of those, a black male who we named Spike and a gray female who we named Ray.  I have adopted kittens from animal shelters, twice, I think, but until January, 2010, I had never walked into a shelter and come home with an adult cat.

I am writing this to say how happy the cats have made me and how much they have added to our lives and household. In spite of Willow’s expensive and weird dental problems, Miss Lilly’s bad habits and not particularly imaginative name (we renamed Willow, who was given the uninspired moniker “TJ” at the shelter), the most revolting cat poop ever created (currently courtesy of Miss Lilly, though it had been pretty bad with Willow before the new food), pee in various boxes and on top of various cloths (you guessed it, Miss Lilly again), giving these 2 cats a home has been a very satisfying experience.

I came up with this little rhyme one morning while lazing in bed with one of my kids and Willow, and it pretty much sums up my feelings about my cats. It makes me laugh, but I wish I could remember to sing it when I am cleaning up nasty litter poo, or poo that someone simply chose against putting in the litter box and decided to put onto a clean sweatshirt instead.

(sung to the opening bars of  Benjamin Britten’s “This Little Babe”)

A kitty’s tongue is oh, so rough

it keeps her clean, it makes her tough

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