SIX DAYS IN CANCUN

I survived Hurricane Wilma.

Early in the summer Joe made reservations at an all inclusive hotel on Cancun for October 19th thru the 22nd. We shrugged off the danger of the tropical storm Wilma actually becoming a hurricane.

My sister had already been through Katrina and sooooo..........

I have the most incredible story to tell about the six days. We just arrived home (moments ago). I want to make sure I have the rights to my story and that I am protected. 

I need to know that AOL will not step forward and say since I wrote it on their Journal Service,  it belongs to them.

I need to know that I have some type of Copyright protection.

A Glory Glory Day

I just took off yesterday. Around 7am I grabbed the car keys and headed...west! Had no idea where I was going but knew there was a State park somewhere between here and there.

Close to my destination I came upon the most beautiful stretch of road. On both sides of the highway along the fence lines were these beautiful flowers! This had to be someone's labor of love. It was enchanting. And it lasted for about three miles.

I took a long hike at the park. I was almost the only one there. The silence was beautiful. I walked up on the largest mushrooms I have ever seen in my life. Someone had laid them in the middle of the path! They were the size of basketballs!  They resembled giant marshmellows due to the sticks poked in them.

I realized I was very alone in the heart of a forest. I remembered Hansel and Gretel....I looked around to see if a magical cottage was somewhere on the edge of the tree lines.

Then I remembered The Blair Witch Project!

I walked out a lot faster than I walked in!

 

ROUND ROBIN CHALLENGE - VILLAGE

WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK - GREENWICH VILLAGE

One of the first adventures of my life took place the summer I graduated from grammar school in the late 1960's. As a reward, I traveled to New York City and stayed for several weeks with my Aunt and her family in Hollis, NY.

I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. New York City had to be the most exciting, stimulating, thrilling and dangerous place for a 14 year old girl.

My cousin Eileen, four years my elder, and had just graduated from high school. I adored her. She had a steady boyfriend Allen and a cool best friend named Mona Lisa (I kid you not). I was totally smitten with them and for those two weeks they absorbed me into their lives. I felt so grown up!

They showed me their New York. Which included the wild and wonderful Greenwich Village. We went to a place called Cafe Wha? Can you picture it? A little old country girl from the sticks at the Cafe Wha?

For fun, I found my first journal (the Bible) and this is what I wrote about that day

"......went and blew our minds. It was fantastic. The Wha? was sensational in every aspect! The stage was a horse shoe type and it has strobe lights around it they went crazy in the middle of it and the effect was maddening. I had a drink called a tiger we all had them and pretzels - cool beyond description."

And yes, there were pictures

.

 

When I tried to come up with some ideas for an image to photograph for the challenge this week I thought of finding a tall building that I climb and look down on Ft. Wayne. No go.  I thought if I were in Kentucky I could find that Indian village of tee pees that are used as a road side motel! But I am not in Kentucky. I even went to the Fort in down town...but it was a fort, not a village. I was getting desperate...until I remembered that crazy wonderful day with kids so much older than myself accepting me as one of them. In Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village on a July day so many years ago.

* The band was called Rhinoceros and upon looking them up on the Web....The guy must be John Mars!!!

The other Round Robin participants..........

Carly......Ellipsis

Karen...Musings from Mavarin

Sara...Photographic Memories

Mary...Alphawoman's Blog

Dorn...Through the Eyes of the Beholder

Betty...My Day My Interests

Kimberleigh...I Shaved my Legs For This?

Aunt Nub (Liz) Fool's Paradise

Maryanne...My feelings are real

Chris...It's all about me I think

Derek...Derek's Photo of the Day

Mary...Hunybea's Open Journal

Renee...Timeless Calligraphy Studio

Marie...Photographs & Memories

Robin...These are the days of our lives

Rose...WAIT-NOTYET-/

Cosette...Pandora's Bazaar

Robin...MidlifeMatters

Steven...sometimes photoblog

The Matinee

I carry your heart

Because I have nothing to do, and only two more weeks to do it in, I went to the matinee today and saw In Her Shoes. It was wonderful.

What was especially touching, other than one of the characters hitting very close to home, was the e.e. cummings poem, I carry your heart... 
 

I carry your heart with me
(I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it
(anywhere I go you go, my dear; and what ever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

 

 

I heard this poem not only with my ears, but with my heart.  I was very melancholy leaving the theatre.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

Doing the Dance of Joy

Received the phone call today that I have been waiting for. I passed the drug test and the back ground check!  I'm good to go to resume working for XXX.

My benefits are reinstated and I loose no seniority! I'll have a company car and the absolute best....a gas card! You do not know what you've got till it's gone!

My job will not be the same assignment I had in Hell City (nor in Hell City but Ft. Wayne), but a return to the position I had in Lexington.

I am so happy! I start October 24th. Joe and I have a trip planned for the near future, so the 24th was the best option.

Today is Joe's Birthday! Now we have two celebrations rolled into one tonight! Thank you everyone for your good wishes and positive thoughts. When I quit the job in August I was very appreciative of the kind words and support.

You guys are the best.

Lost Souls

Kites in the trees at St. James

Last year after I attended the St. James Court Art Show I came away inspired and full of ideas to create some folk art of my own. I began to search for old photographs. I thought that I could make shadow boxes of "mixed media" as good, if not better than what I had viewed at the Art Show. I went to numerous Flea Markets and antique malls in my quest. I actually found some very interesting photos. To look at a person some how discarded is sad. Yet, there is a new beginning, a second chance to live, in the art. It encourages speculation about the life of that lost soul.

I lost motivation in short time. My own circumstances demanded consideration in regards to the future. That future at the time did not involve creating interesting shadowboxes.

A year later, I found myself at the Art Show once again fascinated with the simplicity of the boxes and the powerful aura's surrounding them. Discarded souls.

I encountered discarded souls of a living nature all over Louisville during the weekend.

Three separate times during the course of a 12 hour period I was asked for money. Once at a fast food joint as I was walking back to my car. I handed over a $1.

At the Octoberfest festivities on Fourth Street Live. I handed over all my change in my pocket.

At a convenient store a little later on, while buying lottery tickets for Powerball, Omega and I encountered a young kid in the parking lot. "Have you got 74 cents?" he asked, "Its all I need to get home." Peggy turned to me and I handed over a dollar. "More", she demanded. I added another two bucks. She gave it to the young man.

Once we got back into the car she said, "Since New Orleans......K. (her husband) says you never know when the person you are helping could be Jesus. I think there is God in all of us anymore. No matter what." 

Nervous

I have a big job interview this afternoon. It is complicated. I accepted a position with a company and the very next day my OLD company calls and has a job opening they would like me to apply for.

Then....they call back and want to reschedule the appointment so the General Manager can sit in.

That is when I got nervous.

Even though the company is huge, it still is tight. I realize it is common knowledge what happened to me this summer. I think they want to make it right. I always was a good worker. Maybe I was a little bit of a slacker due to the many years I had on the job and the ability to know how to make things run smoothly. That gave me time to be  a slacker. That was squeezed out of me this summer.

I have been dragging my heels with the other position. I have a moral and ethical tug of war going on in my head. Yet, if XXX offers me the job I will do cartwheels.

This time when they ask me those hard questions  I will not take it so lightly. This is also what is making me nervous.