Author: Marilyn Armstrong

Writer, photography, blogger. Previously, technical writer. I am retired and delighted to be so. May I live long and write frequently.

THE EASTER BOUQUET – Marilyn Armstrong

The Easter Bouquet – FOTD – 04/24/2019

It was Easter. We weren’t going anywhere or doing anything. No one seemed to be doing anything and to be fair, I was just grateful I didn’t have to cook a huge meal that I couldn’t eat anyway.

I have to say that when you can’t really eat, cooking loses a lot of its attraction. And after cooking for a husband and kids and other people since I was 18 (was I really ever 18?), I could do without ever cooking for anyone ever again.

But I do because Garry doesn’t cook and if I don’t cook, he won’t eat. He might go so far as to open a can of soup, but that’s pretty much it. These days, though, cooking for a crowd is not on my agenda. I occasionally get enthusiastic about trying out a new dish. Mostly I do a lot of sighing while saying: “I suppose I have to COOK.”

Meanwhile, I am waiting for Garry to say those magic words: “Don’t worry Sweetheart. I’ve got this.”

The closest I get to that is (1) he will put a frozen pizza in the oven, and (2) he’ll drive to Mickey D’s and buy el cheapo chicken sandwiches.

If there was a good take-out joint in this town, we could occasionally work something out, but we don’t have anyplace worth going. Even when we can afford it, it isn’t worth the effort much less the money.

But I get flowers.

Sometimes, he brings home amazing bouquets and I don’t dare ask how much they cost. He no longer buys them in the grocery store, either. He goes to The Flower Lady who does all kinds of really fancy arrangements. He won’t cook, but he buys me flowers.

And he has gotten really into our birds. He watches the feeders and as soon as they get a little bit low, he’s out there filling them.

“Big group for dinner tonight,” he says, staring out the window. Like me, the first thing he does when he gets up — even if it is just to go to the bathroom — he has to look out the window and see who’s there.

We get pixellated by the birds. You go into the kitchen for something, but instead of whatever you were doing, you just stand there, watching the birds. “I see the pigeons have done a good job cleaning up the deck,” he adds. “You know, while I was feeding them, there were a few on the rail giving me a look which says ‘Get out of the way, fool. We’re hungry.’

“We didn’t get any squirrels today, ” he comments. I assure him we did. Between flocks of birds.

So I guess I’ll keep him.

Garry, I mean. The birds belong to the woods.

THE BRIDGES: CEE’S FUN FOTO CHALLENGE – Marilyn Armstrong

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Bridges

Photo: Garry Armstrong – Downtown Uxbridge
Arizona
Tampa,FL

OILING DOWN THE ANGRY – Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango — Oil on the water

Oil is supposed to settle down rapidly boiling water.

It doesn’t.

The water keeps boiling at the same level only there’s oil on it. Patches of oil. In my house, oil is olive (usually) but out in the Real World, ocean water glistens with oil meant to run trucks, cars, and heat homes. A good thing insofar as it was warm a few days ago, so I turned down the thermostat … and now, it’s cold.

Not bitterly, miserably dead-winter cold. No, it’s wet and gets into your bones. It feels a lot colder than it is.

Garry and I have been trying to figure out if we are suffering from the pollen (it’s high) and it’s from trees. We’ve got trees). That or one of us made unintentional contact with a sick person.

Garry pointed out to me since I had (recently) pointed the same thing to him (recently), that it doesn’t matter if it’s a cold or allergies. You feel equally crappy regardless.

NOTE: Anyone who says “Oh, it’s JUST allergies,” has never had allergies. An allergy is a cold that only ends when the snow falls. If you get sick and feel better three days later, you were sick. If you feel like crap but are still feeling awful three months later when the trees are turning, it was an allergy.

It’s probably the best part of winter that unless I actually get sick, which I do very rarely now (I think I had everything when I was younger and am now resistant to everything), I stop sneezing until spring comes again. In case no one noticed, it IS (technically) spring. I know this because during the two sunny days this month, I took pictures of our bunch of daffodils.

Since we are apparently allergic to everything and we live in pollen central, we suffer. Even the dogs suffer. Our dogs have sneezing fits. To be fair, our pollen is so bad that sometimes — about a week from now is my best guess, assuming it stops raining by then — the air looks like it’s snowing, except the snow is green. Everything turns green. The car is covered in green pollen.

Goldfinch flock – Sneezing?

Do the birds sneeze? That could really ruin the hawks hunting time. And if the little birds sneeze, it could make it hard for them to hide in the branches. But if ALL of them sneeze …

“The wood would resound with the sound of sneezing …”

I have sneezing fits. Sometimes I just keep sneezing for so long I forget when I started. It makes Garry’s hearing implements go crazy, so eventually, he has to cover his ears. If I get loud enough, he has to leave the room. I am a hearty sneezer.

Back to the oil. If oil theoretically makes boiling water settle down (I think it just pollutes it), maybe we should pour oil on each other. We could then be sick and slimy simultaneously. The dogs would love it and would lick every inch of us.

Yummy olive oil! We could stick salad to our arms and legs and be really green. I could wear a tomato hat and Garry could arm himself with huge cucumbers.

I think I’m losing it.

All I want are THREE SUNNY DAYS so I can clean out the garden. Is that too much to ask?

WHO AM I? – Marilyn Armstrong

I am not who you think I am. I am not who my husband thinks I am. In fact, I am a superhero. Huge superhero. I know this, because …

When I look in the mirror, this is what I really see!

It’s good to be a superhero.

It’s good to want to be a superhero. It’s good to wear a purple cape with your red tights. Just call me:

MAGNETO.
THE MAGNIFICENT!

WORLD SHARING IN A WET APRIL – Marilyn Armstrong

Share Your World 4-22-19

Was the last thing you read digital or print?

Digital and it was “The Mueller Report.” Otherwise, most of my reading (other than comments and posts ) are audiobooks with a little bit on Kindle. I don’t really have a decent reading light by my bed anymore. I’m used to reading Kindle with its own backlight.

Are you more an extrovert or introvert?

It depends on the situation. I’m not good with large crowds, but I’m pretty extroverted in small groups with good friends.

How is your life different from what you imagined as a younger person?

May flocks of Goldfinch follow you everywhere

I got OLD. How did THAT happen? Worse yet, all the people who I knew when I was young — they got old TOO. That’s just not fair!

Do you think about dying?   Does death scare you?  Why or why not?

I don’t worry about dying. I worry about staying alive.

Who has been nicest to me in my life?

That is a question I cannot answer. As a start, I can’t remember all the people in my life. If whoever they were, they were part of my much younger life, I don’t remember them. Sometimes, not even a footnote.

For another … how long do we remember people? I remember asking my Aunt Kate, who was in her 80s at the time, about “life in the Old Country” and she said, “Darling, I don’t remember. It was 75 years ago.”

Titmouse and Chickadee have a turn at the feeder

Anything much that happened in my 20s I’ve mostly forgotten with a few exceptions, but the memories are going fast! Unless I still KNOW that person and can share memories, they have just slipped away. I’m sure they are in that giant hard drive in my head, but I get a lot of notifications labeled “FILE NOT FOUND.”

For another thing, “nicest” is too vague. I don’t know what it means.

MY DEMONSTRATION – Martha Kennedy – Reblog

More good words for Earth Day. Because we older folks remember the day it began … and wonder why so little has been accomplished. This fragile craft grows more fragile every day.

 

I'm a Writer, Yes, I Am!

It turns out that the great love of my has been nature. Nothing and no one has given me — or asked from me — anything comparable. The photo above is of me, Dusty and my tree — it’s been my tree since I was fifteen. That tree taught me pretty much everything I have needed to know about faith, perseverance, beauty and survival. A tiny bit of it went into the ground with my dad when he was buried in Montana in 1972.

Me and Cody and my tree Cody O’Dog and I at my tree in 2010

Back in the day, when people were marching against the War in Vietnam and all manner of things, the only demonstration in which I participated was that of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.

I was a senior in high school in Colorado Springs. I had my mom’s car (I don’t remember why). I ditched school…

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