Friends of Mr Toad

Yellow finch, swallow and robin too,

all friends of Mr Toad.

You can find them all

in garden glen

basking just up the road

~

Hmm, so maybe that's a frog in the picture, but I do have a few resident toads in my yard, plus a few more at the Community Garden plot that inspired this short poem.

Who's going to be picky, when a photo is worth a thousand words?

Hope you have a friend or two

just up the road as well!

Sun-Kissed Wings

Please excuse my absence. The dust bowl outside my door gets larger by the day and I run from it. I try to escape into the garden in the morning, before the noise of passing dump trucks drives me inside. Oh yes, the reminder of the workload waiting is not to be forgotten either. 

As a respite, I have even spent time in another garden plot, wiggling weeds free of their homes between rows of tomatoes, peppers, peas and beans. The work renews me. It refills my faith in life and fairies' song. I was given reminders yesterday. For that, I returned to my garden plot once more today and was given the gift of poetry, as I rested beside my square of dirt. Blessings that I accept with open arms.

~~~

Sun-Kissed Wings

hello in a stranger's smile
shared on hands and knees
toes still wet
from early dew
This morning's prayer to please

dirt encrusted fingernails
dusty filled-up lungs
sweet songs shared
from swallow's flight
and colour wheels that run

How long shall I need this pause?
When does fleeing stop?
When sun-kissed wings
of butterfly's flight
fills this heart to the top.

Spring Day

A touch of white

lace and petals bright

on a spring day light

enough to skip

through and dip

small toes into the lip

of a river swift

that gives my heart a lift

enough to bless this gift


of a day
that I never thought I'd pray
to see, let alone foray


Now mine
pure and divine
so sweet and sublime

like a shooting star
I feel this kiss from afar
and know that nothing could ever mar
~this new day~

CAUTION: Hot Monday

It's Monday. Its 31C and feels like 39C. That's 102.2F for you American folk who are enjoying the last of your Long Weekend today.

I have the radio singing behind me, but sadly I have nothing worth sharing with you folks. It is just distraction today. I am trying to block out the music of diggers, chainsaws and steamrollers that comes from outside my window. Construction season has begun and is in my neighbourhood for the remainder of the summer. The sound of backup beepers at a few minutes to 7am is not really what I would consider music to anyone's ears and certainly not how I would choose to be awoken on a Monday morning.

CAUTION: Grumpy Mama on Board

Perhaps I should have looked for an office job this summer? Anyone need a gal Friday? Can I get a do-over?

(Pretty thin for the MFM theme Do-Over, but my concentration is not what it could be as I watch orange-vested construction workers traipse across my front lawn and the pavement dissolves into a muddy gravel pit by my driveway. It's going to be a long summer people. This is only the beginning of my gripes I fear.)

Saturday's Email of the Week: When a Girl's Got To Go

Saturday's Email of the Week

Last week, I was picking on you boys out there. This week, I can't help but share this little jab at the ladies. I haven't quite hung my purse around my neck, but I am familiar with 'The Stance'. I know the rest of you ladies are too! Somehow it is just worse in a public bathroom as well. I don't have any qualms about doing my thing in the woods after dark (too much information - sorry), but present me with a questionable toilet seat and no toilet paper and the world is coming to an end, with me leading the parade! Ugh!! That is the reason why women always carry a purse full of crap by the way gentlemen. This has happened more than once to all of us.


I hope you have a lovely weekend. I survived my trek into the bush last weekend and shall be returning for another night of fun today. Happy Memorial Day to my American friends. Catch you later.

*~~~*

When you have to visit a public toilet, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the cubicle doors. 


Every cubicle is occupied. 


Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the cubicle. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! 


The dispenser for the modern 'seat covers' (invented by someone's Mum, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your bag on the door hook, if there was one, so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!) down with your pants and assume 'The Stance'. 


In this position, your aging, toneless, thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but having not taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, you hold 'The Stance'. 


To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, 'Dear, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!' 


Your thighs shake more. 


You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your bag (the bag around your neck, that now you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail. 


Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest and you and your bag topple backward against the tank of the toilet.  


'Occupied!' you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, while losing your footing altogether and sliding down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, 'You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get. 


By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your bum and runs down your legs and into your shoes. 


The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force and you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. 


At this point, you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a sweet wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. 


You can't figure out how to operate the taps with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. 


You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it?) 


You yank the paper from your shoe, plonk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, 'Here, you just might need this. 


As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's toilet. Annoyed, he asks, 'What took you so long and why is your bag hanging around your neck? 


This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with any public toilets. It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly asked question about why women go to the toilets in pairs. It's so the other girl can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex under the door. 


This HAD to be written by a woman! No one else could describe it so accurately.