"His Funeral"

I cannot believe that a month has gone by already since my last post. I'm sorry about that and will try to do better. However, I'll be in a marithon for the next 3 weeks to complete the last of the third adoption book. But I'll try.

The title is odd here, but it is the title of a poem I wrote in honor of Hans' 68th birthday, April 9, 2008. It is a limerick. Actually I don't like limericks. Seldom read one I liked. However, when I started this poem, it sort of began to fit the meter of the limerick, so I ran with it. Once I checked the rules for a limerick, it went pretty fast. So ...

"His Funeral"

That he planned his funeral is factual

And being a prankster quite actual

He prerecorded his voice

So when we kneeled on the joist

He said, "Hi there! Don't I look natural."

.

~*~

.

This has been getting a lot of good and fun reviews. And the fun part is that this really was something he talked about doing. He used to laugh and laugh at the thought of someone coming up to his casket during the viewing and hearing him say that. Sometimes he would think of another phrase to add, but this one was his favorite. He never got as far as actually recording his voice, but he really enjoyed planning it!

.

There has been another snow or two since the St. Patty's day snow. One about 3" and very, very wet. Was the first real moisture we had this spring so far. Today was 77 degrees. Brought out buds on the tulips and the graphyesenth.

.

My son Hans has been working on Mom and Dad's old camper, and it is running like a top. Now for all the little nuisence quirks. Like the gas tank gauge not working. Worked fine when the engine didn't work, but not now that the engine does. Go figure. It will take a little time to find all the little stuff. Going to have to look for an owner's manual for the camper part. Hope I can find one on line. Wouldn't want to do something wrong starting the heater or the fridge etc..

.

I am looking forward to loading up my art supplies, camera's and laptop and go someplace quiet to draw or write. Where I plan to go probably won't have internet service, but oh well! I'll just have to "rough it." I'm expecting that Gizmo will get quite used to his new and small home. We'll have a good time I'm sure.

.

Time for bed me thinks. See you the next time I get around to it.


All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer --

St. Patrick's Day Snow

Well, I guess this should end all that "Spring" talk I've been doing!

.

Took this from my dining room window. Not yet willing to get out in it.

This taken from the front window facing North.

.

I have even been working on a poem about the brown leaves, flattened by the drifts of winter and all that kind of stuff. I guess that will have to go back on the shelf until I can see the smashed and dirty brown leaves so I can accurately discribe them.

The snow started late last night, and I don't think it snowed much past midnight. The temperature is up to about 38 degrees now, so this "spring" snow won't last long. March is the snowiest month in Colorado anyway! Sigh. This is good though. There hasn't been any snow or moisture to speak of since the first big storm of the season. The mountains have record amounts, and it snows all the time, but not where I am. This will help the Iris and the Grapehyacinth's as they are already trying to peek out.

Looks like I am going to work at getting the camper fixed and ready for summer. Will be nice to have it at the ready. It is a Toyota, (1983), but I'll bet it has better mileage than my car. I'm looking forward to loading it up for a run. Get all my portable art supplies, camera's and laptop readied for downloading the pictures. I have always, so far, waited to download on the desk top at home. Have a couple of friends up in Wyoming that I want to visit again this year. Again for one of my friends, and it will be the first time I visit the other one.

"We are all different expressions of one reality, different songs of one singer,different dances of one dancer, different paintings - but the painter is one." -- Osho, Indian Spiritual Leader

Senior moment.

Saturday night was concert night. I was looking forward to it. The program was the Spring Pops Concert. They were playing Leonard Bernstein's music. One of the sets is the Westside Story, composed in 1960. Should have been a good evening, but when I went to the bathroom to get ready, there was this strange noise. I finally found that a pipe had burst and water was leaking all over in the crawl space. And that is exactly what it means too. A crawl space. A Halloween decorated crawl space. The plumber found that there was a shut off valve close to the break and that worked. The line was for water to my studio, and I'm not using water in there currently, so ... done and done.

My son Hans is out back working on his car. He had bought himself a very bright yellow VW Bug. He needed something that wasn't going to cost him $50 every time he drove to his place out in the country. Anyway, he was screaming that little Bug down the country road, and hit a Jack Rabbit. I can just see this yellow blur flying down the road, and the Jack Rabbit only having enough time for his eyes to get big before the hit. Really messed with the plastic grill and fog lights. He thought that was all it was, but discovered that it dented the air conditioning coil just enough to rub up against the radiator. I think he finally managed to get about a 1/2" clear between them, without damaging the coils, so they shouldn't rub anymore. He'll be keeping an eye on it for a while to be sure. Doesn't need those kinds of problems. They wouldn't be cheap, and he cannot afford the expense right now.

Time to tell on my own self. Had a senior moment today. Well, yesterday AND today really. Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning and dusting and moving storage boxes out of the living room so it would be presentable. I had an appointment for 11:00 this morning here at the house. At noon I finally called to find out if everything was okay, and found out her appointment is for tomorrow at 11:00, not today. I had in my head that today was the 13th and continued with that assumption without checking it out. Like, before I made the phone call. Then, she said why don't we meet at a restaurant, and we can do our business over lunch. I said that would be just fine. It would have been dusty again tomorrow anyway!

~J~

Chicken CPR

A fun video was sent to me from my friend Lynn Thomas. It is a clip from a Jay Leno show. His guests are Terry Bradshaw, and a lady from Arkadelphia, AR, to tell her story about giving CPR to a chicken.

This is hilarious, if only for watching Terry unable to stop laughing.

Enjoy!

God Bless Colorado

I just have to laugh. I don't know why people have to control their lives. (And I'm one of them.) (Be quiet Wayne.) Colorado shows us everyday how futile that is. Yesterday we broke a record high of 75 degrees. No wind, just afternoon sunshine that felt hot on the skin. What a pleasurable respite from winter.

Amazingly, I must have automatically decided for my body that the day was the norm, because here I am freezing my self clear to the shivers. Today the temperature is 32 degrees, and the wind is blowing with a purpose, AND, there is snow covering the ground. I am absolutely unable to get warm. The furnaces are set at the very same setting they were yesterday, but today they too are grumbling and growling and seemingly not getting the job done.

Even Gizmo, curled up on my lap as I type, is only getting one small patch warm. When I stick my hand under his blanket, I get this dirty look as if to say, "What did you do that for, and get it out of here."

Well, I think I'll go now and get some cheese to go with my whine. Or even better, some hot chocolate, a lap quilt and a good book.

Have a good day. Til' next time ..... ~J~

"We are all different expressions of one reality, different songs of one singer, different dances of one dancer, different paintings - but the painter is one." -- Osho, Indian Spiritual Leader

Sun on my face!

Good evening! It is time for bed. It is hard to believe that this was the scene out front just a week or so ago, when they are predicting 70 degrees for tomorrow. Have been getting some sun on my face for days now. Yea! Need all the vitamin D I can get.

Tomorrow is breadfast with friends at the Double Clutch Cafe. A good thing to have to look forward to each week. This last week I wrote a poem for a poetry contest on PoetrySoup.com. The "rules" were that it had to be a 5 line vignette on a book author. I did mine on Dean Koontz. What do you think?

Fear

He draws you in
using compelling mental images
of atmosphere and entryways;
state rooms; glades; soft nudges.
Letting your fear flourish unaware.

All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer --

Cat Story Number Five

This is the one you have all been waiting for. The last one. Well, maybe it is the one I have been waiting for! :-) Okay, Remember Tasha, the mother, taking the two remaining kittens into town where she knew she could find enough food for them. Well, they are in town now, and are found, actually outside of a shelter. The mother and the two kittens were in separate crates, and when they were adopted, it soon became apparent they were all the same family. They do have the same recognizable coloring. The three of them were adopted together.

The second illustration is a different story. They are two cats who were friends and spent the mornings sunning themselves on the fence. The owner of Jelly, the one on the right, built the ledge for them. The other cat there is Justin. He is the long lost son of May.

The cat's name in picture three is May, and she is looking longingly out the window of her adopted home. She had been separated from her son when he was very young, and spent hours at the window believing someday she would again come across his path. There is a cat in the distance where she is looking and as it turns out it is her long lost kitten now grown. (On the fence shown above, and barely visible.) She can tell he has a good life and a good home, so she can now rest easy and enjoy her own new home.

I have enjoyed sharing these stories with you. Thank you for your interest. I can save up all your wonderful compliments now for a cold and rainy day when I feel "abused." I'm so abused, can't you tell!

Now, to work on some poetry, and the illustrations for book three.

Love and appreciate you all. ~J~

All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer

Cat Story Four

This is the story of Smokie. He is the one that was hit by a car. A good samaritan had picked him up and she took him to the vet. It was touch and go for a while, but he finally woke up from the surgery. Ali, the Dr's assistant wanted to take him home, but had two cats, and they were old and set in their ways. They laid around a lot and just knew that the new active kitten would not fit it, or would be shunned by the older pair.

As it turned out, with the injury to his leg, he wasn't so active and fit in well with Alexis and Athena. And he is no longer "The Little Gray Kitten," but has a new name. She calls him Apollo.

Ali had always been shy about a bad scar she had and never worn shorts, not wanting anyone to see it. But a scar didn't seem to bother Apollo, and he lived his life not caring what others thought. Watching him she thought that maybe she had been foolish and put on a pair of shorts and T-shirt and went out. The scar is there, but doesn't change who I am.

All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer

Cat story three

This is the story of Lily. She is one of the four kittens who got lost. She was hiding under a car in a parking lot when she witnessed her brother Smokie being hit by a car. She ran away in fear and ended up taking refuge under a huge dumpster behind a store. She was rescued by a sweet man who took her home. But his apartment had rules against animals, and when Joe's girlfriend came over that night, she reminded him that he couldn't keep her. After a few days, he finally took her to the kennel.










His girlfriend noticed how much Joe was missing the adorable little kitten and finally decided she would go down to the kennel and see if she was still there. Her apartment allowed animals, so figured Lily could stay at her place. She was excited to surprise Joe. When she got there she spotted a kitten that looked just like Lily. His name was Grayson. He took to her right away, and she decided to adopt him for herself. The lady from the kennel, listening to her story said, "Follow me." They went to the back room where the lost and found was. There in the back was Lily.


She took them both home, and from that time on, much more time was spent at the girlfriend's apartment than Joe's. And the kittens got along great.

All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer

Story two of the cats

Okay, without the book the stories are a little confusing for me to just put up pictures. The first picture today is the story of Tasha and her kittens. As you can see they are living in the basement of an abandoned house. Momma has exhausted all the local food resources, so as her babies sleep in a bunch on the floor, she heads out into the neighborhood to find enough food for herself and her kittens.

The kittens wake up while she is gone and eventually worry about being alone. As kids will do, they make a bad decision to head out the window to find their mother. This starts the adventures, and individual stories, of all four of the kittens. So the second picture is showing that Tasha has found two of her kittens, and after deciding that she will not find the other two, she heads off towards town. While she doesn't like to take them into the town, she knows she will find food for them there.

The model for Tasha was a pretty tuxedo cat I had. He was around for several years, longer than most, and actually tamed. Most of the cats here are barn cats and keep the place free of mice.

Today is a gorgeous day. It just figures. The day before the eclipse of the moon was gorgeous, and the day after. But the night of the big event, a snow storm was trying to come in, and our area was very cloudy. About two hours after the eclipse the sky had started to clear.

Have a good day everyone. See you tomorrow with a new story....

All art, poetry and writings are copyright & cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission from Judith Angell Meyer