highlands ...

   "Clarence?  Where are you taking Augustus?"

   "Where he belongs."

   "But he belongs to us now, Clarence.  Really, I don't know why you got so bent out of shape about a small, innocent, sweet-faced little lamb being in your bathtub.  I did give him the bath he needed, and I washed out your bathtub.  I don't know why you are just being so difficult about this."

   "DIFFICULT?!?!?!?!  This ... THIS IS A LAMB.  Not a cute little puppy, or sweet little kitten.  It is a LAMB.  Lambs grow up to be large sheep that poo a thousand times more, unbelievably, than this small creature already does ALL OVER THE HOUSE."

   "Clarence, please don't scream.  You are scaring Augustus.  Sit down, please.  Let's discuss this rationally."

  "Rationally?  RATIONALLY?  You were the one behaving irrationally by bringing it home in the first place???  You ..."

  "Clarence, I really must insist that you refer to him by his name.  He has feelings, you know.  Now.  Tell me where you are off to with him?"

  "I am taking AUGUSTUS to a farm in Scotland where he will be able to live a happy life with other LAMBS and SHEEP.  Perhaps he will even meet a nice young EWE named AGATHA, and they will have little LAMBS they can name CORA or BERNARD."

  "Did you know that mares eat oats, and goats eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy?  A kid will eat ivy, too."

  [receeding foot stomps, a distant baaaaaaaaaa, followed by a door slamming]

  "It really must be his hormones.  Although, we did just experience a full moon, solar eclipse, and mercury in retrograde.  Perhaps he hasn't yet recovered." 

baaaaaaaaaa ...

   "Albert!"

   "Yes, dear brother?"

   "Why is there a lamb my bathtub?!?"

   "Well, you didn't expect me to put it in mine, did you?"

   "I wouldn't have expected you to put it in any bathtub!  What is it doing in the house?"

   "It had a bit of mud and such on its wool, and I was hoping you could give it a bath."

   "YOU WERE HOPING I WOULD GIVE IT A BATH?  ARE YOU DAFT?"

   "There really is no need to scream at me, Clarence.  I am sitting less than two feet away from you.  Of course, I hoped you would give it a bath.  It is in your bathtub after all."

   "ONLY ... only because YOU put it there!  I've never seen that lamb before in my life!  Why on earth would I give it a bath?"

   "Because of the mud and such on its wool, as I said."

   "BUT ... [deep sigh] ... but what is it doing here?  What is it doing in the house?  Where did it come from?"

   "It came from the field, of course!  Where else would it get mud and such on it?  It needs a bath, so I brought it in."

   "ALBERT ... [deeper sigh] ... dearest brother.  We do not own sheep, therefore, we do not own lambs.  There are no sheep ... or lambs ... in our fields.  Therefore, it cannot be ours, and should not be in MY BATHTUB!"

  "Clarence.  You should really calm yourself.  You are going to give yourself a coronary.  Not to mention scaring the lamb.  If you must know, I purchased the lamb this morning down at the yards.  It looked at me with those eyes, and I knew that I could not let it go to whatever fate was in store for it.  It ... it more or less followed me home.

   "Wait ... where are you going?  Shouldn't you be going upstairs to your bathroom?  Clarence?  Clarence?  Augustus is there, not outside."

   [faintly from distance ...] "AUGUSTUS!?!?!?"

   [SLAM]

   "I just don't understand why he is so cranky this morning.  It must be his hormones."

lines ...

 Why paint within the lines?

 Why not just paint ...

 and add the lines later?

 My new mantra for aging ... wildly.

Marley ...

  "WHY ARE YOU OUTSIDE PLAYING REGGAE MUSIC SO LOUD?"

  "Stop shouting.  It's not that loud.  I want to make sure Marley can hear it."

  "Marley?"

  "Yes.  Bob Marley."

  "Uh, not to be a stickler for the small details ..."

  "Oh, but you are."

  "... but isn't he dead?"

  "Dead?  How can you even say such a thing?  Don't be an arse.  Look at him.  Full bloom."

  "You named the willow tree Bob Marley?  Why?"

  "Well, I think it'd be obvious.  Because of the dreadlocks!"

fawning over you ...

   I fell the other day.

   Head over heels.

   I was watching where I was going.

   And there you were, with your momma by your side.

   And there I was.

   Fawning over you like a screaming Beatles fan.

   You, with your brown doe eyes and long lashes.

   Completely oblivious to what you were doing to me.

   You had me at that first wobbly step into my view.

   I slowed and waited patiently as your mom crossed the road in front of me.

   You, cautious and afraid, rightly so of the loud rumbling beast took one step and then curled up into a ball, trying to be invisible, just as your momma taught you.

   I stifled a laugh, knowing that at any minute traffic could come from the opposite direction and terrify you even more.

   "You can do it," I whispered.  "Come on, get up."

   Your momma came and stood over you, glaring at me, daring me to rush you.

   I turned off the engine, waiting patiently for the silence to comfort you.

   You peeked at me.  I saw you.  Your eye opened, your ear flickered, then slowly you lifted your head and looked at me.

   "You can do it," I whispered again.  "Come on, get up."

   Slowly you stood.  Took a step.  Your momma right there next to you.  Then another step, and another.

   A flip of your tail and you disappeared into the brush.

   I sighed, that long, slow sigh of someone who just fell in love at first sight.

... sat down beside her ...

   "Have you seen Mary this week?"

   "Wasn't she here yesterday?"

   "No, she usually just comes on Mondays and Fridays.  I haven't seen her since last week when she came to fix our meals for the weekend.  When she didn't show up on Monday, I assumed she was ill since she wasn't answering her phone either.  I arranged for one of the restaurants in town to deliver all of our meals for the week."

  "Ahh, that's why they tasted so much better."

  "Why must you always be such a difficult arse all the time?  That was really quite unkind.  Mary's meals are quite delicious."

  "Yes, on Mondays they are.  And sometimes on Tuesdays.  But by the time Wednesday evening or Thursday rolls around, they are sometimes a tad stale and flavorless after being in the refrigerator or freezer all week.  This week they have been quite fresh and delicious.  I've enjoyed them immensely."

  "Well, if you were willing to get off your arse and learn to cook something other than your thicker-than-oil coffee, you might be able to have fresh food more often."

  "Humph.  Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?  Have you rung her yet today?"

  "I have, but this time her daughter said that she never came home on Friday.  She assumed she had been staying here for some reason I don't understand.  Why on earth would she be staying here?  Do you suppose Mary has another job that she hasn't told us or her daughter about?"

  "More like she has a secret paramour she hasn't told her daughter about."

  "Don't be absurd!  Mary must be in her 80s!"

  "Don't be daft!  She might be in her 80s but she's not dead yet, and I certainly hope to still have paramours when I'm in my 80s."

  "Still?  You mean you have them now?"

  "Don't change the subject.  When was the last time you saw Mary?  What was the last thing you said to her?"

  "Oh, so this is all my fault?  She asked if we had any more jam, and I told her there might be some of grandmama's in the cellar."

  [Both of them at once.]  "The cellar!"

  "You don't suppose ..."

  "Surely it has to have died by now ..."

  "You will have to go check ..."

  "Me?  You were the one that sent her down there."

  "You were the one that said if we ignored it long enough it would just starve to death."

  "Well, we haven't had any problems with rats in a very long time."

  "I thought that's what we had the cats for."

  "We have cats?"

poppies ... poppies ...

   "I wonder if when Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 he was an opium addict?"

  "Excuse me?!?!?!  Are you now seeking knowledge from moi?  The foolish Jeopardy aficionado?"

  "Well, you know everything else.  Was he?"

  "I doubt that he was, but he may have experienced the effects of it as a child."

  "Oh, so he was a child addict?"

  "No, that's not what I said.  Or meant.  Opium production from poppies began as early as 3400 BC but by the late 19th century when he wrote the book, it was peaking in the U.S. as laudanum."

  "So he wrote the book when he was a child?"

  "NO!  He wrote it when he was 44 years old.  But he had a great deal of health issues when he was younger, and may have been given laudanum to help him rest.  Especially after having a possible psychogenic heart attack when he was 14."

  "He was psycho?  No wonder there were flying monkeys and oompa loompas."

  "NO!  I don't know why I even try to educate you at times!   And there weren't Oompa Loompas in The Wizard of Oz!   That was Willy Wonka!  There were MUNCHKINS in the Wizard of Oz!"

  "Jeepers.  Don't have a house fall on you over it.  I was just messing with you.  So Baum was a psycho child drug addict?"

  "Argh!  No.  Frank essentially had an anxiety attack at a military boarding school when he got severely punished for daydreaming. and they allowed him to go home after that.  But he likely experienced being given laudanum during his childhood for his health issues and knew how it would make users fall asleep."

  "Hmmm.  I don't know.  Flying monkeys.  Munchkins.  Lollipop Guild.  There might have been some recreational use going on there when he got older."

  "Get out.  Just get out.  You are an uneducated, and unstable dweeb."

  <SLAM>

  "I don't know what he was all bent out of shape about."

misty mornings ...

   "Did you know ..."

   "Oh boy, wait ... Alex, I'd like to select Useless Bits of Knowledge for 300, please."

  "Well, never mind then if you are just going to be a sarcastic arse about it."

  "Alright by me."

  "Fine."

  "Fine."

  "Right."

  "Right."

  ...

  "Just get it over with.  What is it?"

  "No, really.  It's nothing."

  "TELL ME!"

  "Fine.  Mist, while it looks similar to steam over the water, is something entirely different.  Steam is created as water evaporates when the temperature reaches a boiling point.  Mist is created when there is warm air over water that suddenly comes in contact with a cooler surface of land."

  "So what is fog?"

  "Fog is when there is cold air, and the surface is dry.  Rain falling through the cold air evaporates and causes the dew point to rise and the saturation becomes fog."

  "So which one is it where vengeful dead pirates appear to kill the descendants of their murders?  I always get that confused with the creatures from another planet that take over a small New England town and kill off everyone outside of the supermarket."

  ...

  ...

  "Oh, shut it and leave me alone, you arse."

burning embers ...

 

  The sudden nightmares confused her.  Three nights in a row so far, the same theme.

  Losing her "identity."

  A stolen purse and loss of her driver's license and work badge.

  A lost wallet and missing identification.

  The latest one, she was back living at her father's house in Florida, sorting through piles and piles of mail and papers looking for a replacement ID card that can't be found.  Arguing with her father about his lies and deception and how it had affected her.  How the job she had taken at his insistence was one that she hated, and how he had known all along that it would make her unhappy which is why he wanted her to take it.

  Each morning she woke wondering what it all meant.  Why, after all this time was she dreaming of being back at his house, and the hurt that she felt when his ego put her in the middle of his lies to "her."  Why, after all this time was she feeling inadequate, that her job wasn't good enough for his approval ... again.  Why was she suddenly wondering who she was ... weeks away from turning 62, shouldn't she know that by now?

  It was a little late to change direction now.  Her entire future ... retirement anyway ... rested on this job that she was in now.  Regardless of whether or not she was happy in it, she was stuck.  What was she to do?  Risk it all to take a leap of faith that who she was ... what she was ... was a writer?  An author?  A novelist?

it begins like this ...

 Rather than just posting images of my 100 days of artwork, for these last 37 days, I've decided to incorporate the prompts and images into short ~ or long ~ stories depending on where the prompts lead me.  While the artistic creation process is a great stress reliever for me, I do want to get back to my calling ... wordsmith ... storyteller ... magic creator.

  "Did you know the thistle was Scotland's first Lego toy?"

  "What?!? That's nonsense.  Where on earth did you read that?  Thistles don't stick together, although they do stick to just about everything else."

  "No, they don't.  But in the 13th Century, the Norse were planning an invasion of Scotland to take the lands for themselves.  At the Battle of Largs, in Ayrshire on the shores of Firth of Clyde, they left their ships at night planning to sneak up on the sleeping Scots.  Wanting to be as quiet as possible, they removed their shoes.

  "Unfortunately for them, one of them stepped on a thistle, and his shout of pain woke all the Clansmen who defeated the Norsemen."

  "Oh, I see.  And so that's why you said the thistle was the first Lego toy.  Because stepping on one of them barefooted has got to be the most painful thing ever."

  "Exactly!  Which also makes the thistle the first-ever burglar alarm."

  "You do know that you spend far too much time on the internet, right?"

  "You are just jealous that I would do better than you at playing Jeopardy."

  "Ha!"

mid-April bits & bobs

 I'm going to start here, with a picture of the orphaned rhino I'm sponsoring named Raha.

Did anyone else NOT know that rhinos can sit like cats????  How stinking cute is she?!?!?!

I also sponsor an orphaned giraffe and an elephant, but Raha, she's a fighter I love.

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust [<link] is something that I am so passionate about, and have really developed a deep love and appreciation for elephants (and rhinos and giraffes) through watching their videos on Instagram and reading about all they do.  Not only do they help the orphans, but they help the fully wild and injured animals as well.  To be able to go there and see how they help ... it would be an amazing dream come true.

Image Credit:  Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

This sneaky child is Gracie, getting some VitD time last weekend when the winds finally stopped, the sun came out, and the temps were up.

April's Spring Fever tree.  Lacking in the flower ornaments, but I'm working on getting more.

Latest moss garden.  I really love this one and am so happy it is happy.

Finally ~ a red dogwood tree in bloom outside my office window.  I really love them, they are just so beautiful.

What I thought was my dream forever home got an all-cash-no-inspection offer on it today that I can't beat, so I'm heartbroken, but it just means that the Universe has something better in store for me.  I did ask the realtor to send me the previous inspection report that was done on it when it was listed and think that it would have been a nightmare instead of a dream to live there.  A lot of poor and marginal ratings, some of which concerned the foundation and plumbing, and could have been extremely expensive to fix.  Which is why they weren't subsequently fixed and marked as such on the inspection report.

The FullMoonSolarEclipseMercuryInRetrograde is still kicking my behind.  I went to take a look at the outside of another house yesterday after I got off work and backed into a mailbox that hurt my car (and my ego) more than the mailbox.   Really must find matching paint for my car now.

Three more roommates to go, and then the dance party begins.  Bipan will be heading out to start new adventures, and the last two from the Philippines will be heading out to live AnywhereElseButHere.  They seem to be among the most immature of the six that were living here in March, although their lack of maturity might have been conveniently covered by the one "matriarch" with control issues.

Yes, there will have to be a book written.  Or the screenplay for a comedy/drama/horror sitcom.  The Year of Living Dangerously has already been taken as a movie name, and The Accidental Auntie sounds too close to The Accidental Tourist and I wouldn't want anyone to think it was a sequel ... or prequel ... to that movie.  Even tho I could certainly use a vacation after this experience.

Anyone else ready for this month to be over?

💚 Ci

this weekend ...

 I'm prepping tonight for a lovely colonoscopy in the morning.

While the prep process has gotten much easier than the first one I had some 20+ years ago, I feel like my body takes it much harder.  I'm exhausted.  Hungry.  Violently projectile vomiting.  I haven't had solid food since Friday, or my meds since Saturday morning.  Taking them on an empty stomach would have made me even more sick, much sooner.

I think I would much rather have mammograms.  Every day for a week.

Charlie is feeling better although I think his infection aged him.  He sleeps a lot more and has developed a new mysterious bump on his shoulder blade.  Still plays like a puppy at times, but for shorter periods.  Mostly he just wants snuggle time when he can get it, and between my neighbors and myself, he gets it any time he wants it.

I am finally at a point where buying a house is within reach and have been looking at a few in the area.  Unfortunately, there are not many listings at this time.  I don't really want to leave the area, but may not have an option if I want to move into my forever home before the end of this year.  

I've already placed an order for a pizza for my recovery meal in the morning.

this next week ...

   Some exciting things are in the works (other than the solar eclipse), but I will wait until everything is in writing before sharing the most exciting part.

  Here are this week's 100-days pieces.  I'm trying a different size paper, and doing less watercolor, more pencil and ink.

now where was I?

  As far as other things in my life are going ... Charlie is feeling much better.  I have four fewer roommates and the remaining three will be gone by the end of April.  Then I am permanently out of the roommate business.  Forever.

  My April tree seems lacking somehow, but I'm not yet sure what to do about it.  I am moving less toward having an "Easter" tree, and more toward having a Spring/Ostara tree.  I am looking for some more flower ornaments.  I did get some pussywillow branches and feel I should have gotten more.  The forsythia bushes are in bloom, but I'm not positive of whether or not the large vase I have them in would hold up to water so might look for some artificial ones.

  I hope that you had a wonderful weekend past, and a relaxing one upcoming... 💚 Ci