Sunshine en Route

For the Daily Prompt: Song

The jonquils have bloomed, the tulips showed their happy faces, the grass is greener and greener and the bees are busy welcoming Spring to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley!

And though I cannot carry a tune, I carry around a song.

“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”

Music by Allie Wrubel
Lyrics by Ray Gilbert
Performed by James Baskett
© 1945 Walt Disney Music Company

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Mister Bluebird’s on my shoulder
It’s the truth, it’s actual
Ev’rything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day, yes sir!

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin’ my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Mister Bluebird’s on my shoulder
It’s the truth, it’s actual
Ev’rything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, feeling this way

Mister Bluebird’s on my shoulder
It is the truth, it’s actual… huh?
Where is that bluebird? Mm-hm!
Ev’rything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!

From Wikipedia:  For many years the song was part of an opening theme medley for the Wonderful World of Disney television program and it has often been used in other TV and video productions by the studio.  It is one of many popular songs that feature a bluebird.  Today, this song is used as the main song in Splash Mountain, a log flume ride based on “Song of the South” at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Original Version:

 

 

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Adventures of BigFoot in the Big City

Baltimore, MD -The View from our room.

I am home from a Big City-BigFoot adventure and happy to be alive and well.

Baltimore is a beautiful old Maryland city, with more than enough to do if you are young, agile, and don’t mind horrific traffic in the inner city.

Strike “young.”

Strike “agile.”

As for the traffic?

A nightmare!

But we somehow got where we were going in spite of white knuckle rides and hysterical screaming at our GPS lady and maybe one or two jabs at each other (to say nothing of unacceptable language).

For solace, we turned to food.

Have you ever had Maryland crab cakes?  They are the best and of course I had to have crab at Phillips’ famous seafood restaurant.  It was just around the block from the hotel, but may as well have been on Mars.

I am back to driving challenges again!  Sigh.

 

But of course, the original purpose of our visit to Baltimore was for an appointment with an expert orthopedic doctor at The Institute for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy.

And a wonderful doctor did spend a whole hour with us, discussing, analyzing, offering advice and answering many questions.

In a nutshell, this Gimpy Gal (me, Big Foot) simply (or maybe not) has an injured “talus” bone that may take a long time to heal.

So it was back to frolicking in Baltimore!

We frolicked over to the Whole Foods place and actually started to get lost in the garage.  But we somehow frolickedstumbled into the place and found the six loaves of decadent bread I wanted so badly!

We would surely not starve with all that in the car right?

At breakfast next morning we managed some exciting sight seeing by looking out the window next to our table (no driving required).

There was a mysterious tent-covered barge-like THING with a giant water wheel and it was parked and floating in the harbor basin, and the big water wheel seemed to turn of its own accord when and if it wanted to.

We took turns guessing what the mysterious barge might be.

And I wondered why technology wouldn’t let me take a picture and ask Google to please identify the unidentified object.  Why couldn’t I just say, “Hey Google, What is this?”

Whatever it was though,  it made for great conversation over pancakes!

Can YOU guess what it really is?

This is the unidentified floating object.

To be continued….

 

 

 

 

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Fading Fotos

Years ago I created a collage

of favorite photographs.

I glued them in a haphazard way on top of a big old ugly $15 dime store print that once hung over our couch.

Even now I think it was a great idea and I remember pasting away and thinking, “How artistic if I do say so myself!”

I loved it so much that I eventually had the collage framed and was assured the priceless photographs were safely under protective glass.

“This collage of family and friends will live on through generations,” I thought.

And yes, that inventive impressive self indulgent collage is over the desk in Bill’s “office.”

And every now and then I look once again at a dimming past.

Literally!

Some of the photos are not only dimming,

they are disappearing!  

Many of those faded fotos in my collage were taken with an early Polaroid camera in the 1960’s or maybe even earlier.  The miracle was that the camera itself would process a picture and spit it out for at you.  Then you waved it in the air and blew on it to “set” things – or at least I did.

I suppose being under glass and exposed to sunlight would “unset” or affect images.  Or maybe I shouldn’t have shaken the photo to hurry things along.

Is there a Polaroid camera now with a re-set button?

I want to hit RE-SET!

The fading fotos from yesteryear are following my life cycle and we will all fade away together.

Are you watching your life fade away too?

If you are wondering if they even make Polaroid cameras anymore, the answer is Yes!  Instant film is coming back into popularity!

From Polaroid’s Comeback, by Mark Rogers, Photographer: “Polaroid cameras have recently been coming out of storage. …With instant film so popular, there are now once again hundreds of these small, square-shaped photographs around — and your favorites should be preserved and displayed the right way. Just like standard photographs and prints, instant film can suffer the same damage as standard film. However, a little more care should be taken when handling the still-developing film — according to Polaroid, the more closely the photographer followed the instructions, the longer the photo will last. Tip: Shaking the photo does not help a Polaroid develop faster. In fact, it could actually damage the developing photograph!…Standard photography preservation practices apply: keep the photos away from light, heat and moisture; most organizations maintain that Polaroids will fade in as just as much time as conventional photographs…”  

 

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Winter Whisper in Virginia

 

There came a winter storm this March

that threatened to arrive in a roar

but only crept in with a whisper and

left with a whimper, not more.

It was a March storm that welcomed spring.

 

 

 

 

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Let Us Do Our Exercises

I am a firm believer in exercise but tend to follow a more sedentary pursuit of happiness.

My gym is a recliner chair that encourages naps but requires repetitive ab crunches and push-ups to maneuver up and down for bathroom runs.

Is that enough exercise?  I wonder.

Probably not.

In an attempt to assuage guilt, I have added a challenging exercise routine.

Now do not laugh!

Did you know there are more than 50 muscles in the face?

I have been doing these new exercises for 2 whole days and swear I’m feeling the aches and pains of using all those unused muscles.

But the first step is to define problem areas whereby one is to put a mirror on a table and look down into it to determine what is sagging.

They didn’t say anything about the whole face sagging!

Eyes, cheeks, chin (double), wrinkles, upper face, middle face, between the eyes – all crinkly, wrinkly, sagging unused facial muscles!

Fortunately, I am lying face up in my recliner.

And fortunately, I can do the facial exercises in the privacy of the bathroom.

Anywhere else and  I am afraid Bill would collapse in laughter as I perform:

Exercise # 15 – Tensing the wings of my nose downward

Or

Exercise #19 – Snarling like a dog

Note the clipped pages of photos and instructions for all the different sagging areas.  Little did I know I would be clipping all the pages.

But I swear my face looks younger in just two days!  And a friend just said, “You look good in white.”  Surely she meant, “Did you get a face lift?”

Ahhhh!  Managing a healthy lifestyle is the way to immortality.

I wonder if  I can do these facial exercises in the recliner!

Note:

The book is The Five Minute Facial Workout, by Catherine Pez

 

 

 

 

 

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Life’s a Compromise

Life is a compromise.

Like marriage.

Especially marriage.

I may be an expert on that.

• What should we have for dinner when I love cheese and my husband hates it?

Compromise:  I do not cook with cheese, except for myself or if I am craving Mac n’ Cheese, we eat out.

• How warm or cool shall we set the thermostat for our temperature comfort levels?

Compromise:  It’s always a little too warm for me in here, but a little too cool for him.

• To avoid being deemed a “back seat driver”, how quiet should I be as a passenger in the car when I know he’s about to make a wrong turn?

Compromise:  I make little noises and white knuckle the hand grip.  I think he sees all that with his great peripheral vision.  If none of that works, I gasp out loud.

•  What movie should we watch when he loves spy thrillers and I love romantic drama?

Compromise:  We have separate viewing rooms and meet between films.

Daily Prompt: Compromise

 

 

 

 

 

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The End of Blog Fog

It occurred to me this morning that I need to just sit down and write.

Having a blank mind and an idle pen only magnifies an unexplained malaise.  Maybe it started with the BigFoot that continues to plague me, but this is hopefully the end of Blog Fog!

For today I can provide some exciting unexpected writing (and hopefully reading).

Because today I am celebrating a wise purchase.

Not being able to shop afoot I have been keenly watching the internet for life changing “things” to perk me up.  And there it was -THE GARDEN OF EDEN!

Actually it’s a quilt.  A microfiber quilt that promises to “add an extra layer of light weight warmth.”  And it does just that.

But this quilt is also a Garden of Eden to behold.  It is complete with butterflies and flowers, berries and greenery in an overwhelming array of images that take you out of yourself and into paradise and ecstacy.   (Please remove your minds from the gutter though.  This is ethereal stuff.)

Ever pragmatic, Bill says, “But it’s missing snakes and apples.”

Nevertheless, and even though this quilt is a bit too busy to suit my craving for clean clear modernistic, uncluttered lines, I love it.  It is definitely light but warm and cozy-soft, and I drift into sweet dreams where I am lithely running across heavenly fields, no longer dragging the big bad boot behind.

Watch out now my friends in cyberspace.  ‘Tis the end of Blog Fog here in Virginia and the beginning of ecstatic posts to wow you.

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Fun(ny) Friends

Some friends are fun,

and some are funny.

Meet our friend Pete,

a combination of both.

We had dinner with our friends, Pete and Phebe last week.  We see them often and look forward each time to hilarious conversations that leave us literally doubled over with laughter.

I am always concerned there will be nothing to say

since we have probably said it all by now.

But no story gets left untold and nothing escapes our howling laughter.  

Pete is wearing Phebe’s hat in this photo and you an see he is cracking himself up and the silliness is oddly catchy.

We are supposed to be among the distinguished elderly now, behaving with quiet maturity and an air of pride and elegance to make our families proud.

It may be fortunate that our families are not around to witness actual behavior!

We even make political arguments insanely funny (maybe because things are so insane in that realm anyway).

And what young folks would want to listen to those zany memories of  our younger selves?  We relive ridiculous moments with humongous chuckles.

Teasing the young wait staff at our local restaurants is part of the unplanned plan too. They may be secretly snickering at those old folks who are having such a great time, but I think they know we love them.

On this last visit to The Sheridan Livery Inn, in Lexington, Virginia, an old favorite restaurant, a familiar waitress greeted us with, “Oh No!  It’s those crazy people again!”  

I took that as a fabulous compliment and so did the others.  Besides, it started us off laughing and we laughed right through the meal.  Surely all that laughing is beneficial for digestion.

How lucky we are to have such people in our lives who are fun, funny and always funnier – they are the catalysts for life’s comic relief.  And just think of all the new memories we are creating to laugh about later.

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How to Keep Your Mouth Shut When You’re Out Cold

It comes as rather a nasty surprise that I am aging.

You too?

Oh, I knew there would be a few aches and pains,

and of course a face with well placed character-wrinkles

and some artfully arranged gray hairs.

But the plan was (and still is) to ignore such minor imperfections and compensate with self deception.

Creams and lotions help (and please try them all like I do).  The commercials might be right after all.

And  maintaining an upbeat, youthful attitude is the way to go.

This means a devotion to nutrition and exercise (if you practise on rare occasions like I do).

But who knew about falling asleep in a chair and waking up

with mouth wide open?

And how can you take charge of keeping

your mouth shut when you’re out cold?

I admit this humiliating onset of age mars my usually proud

and eternally youthful countenance.  And thankfully, I don’t snore!

But

I am now hoping for soulmates out there (those of you with gaping jaws)

to come forward with your learned-from-experience solutions to this ultimate indignity.

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Natural Art in Virginia

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