My Cup of Tea

Why can’t everybody be just like me?

We wouldn’t have nasty spinach; it would be considered a weed.
Music playing everywhere a la Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grieg.

There wouldn’t be gyms for basketball, just roller skating rinks,
And lots of meandering nature trails, but only in town, I think,with resting stations every mile-- clean, iced water to drink.

We would all get up in the morning, by seven on holidays.
In the early evening, we’d say goodnight and go our separate ways.

Nobody would stay out after eleven, on those dark and dangerous streets.
Nobody would climb Mount Everest;
There would be no boxing meets.
We would all enjoy the poetry of Tennyson and Keats.

Computers would be everywhere, each person would have his own.
Nobody would waste time with TV; nobody would answer the phone.

There’d be a plethora of house plants, and scheduled time to read.
Rooms piled high with mystery books, and an occasional biography,
And maybe a little Gothic romance, if the era was Regency.

No crowds, no noise, no shopping malls, no traffic, no large cities.
No stinky ferrets, no anacondas, no allergy causing kitties.

If everybody were like me, I think we’d have no wars.
There would be no need for borders; nor locked and bolted doors.
We’d all be happy with what was ours; we wouldn’t be needing yours.

Sigh.

But then again.

Would we have any “what was ours” without the great explorers
The reckless and the fearless ones, the "peace and quiet" deplorers,

The policemen, the inventors, the sellers and the buyers,
People who can change the oil, and air up all the tires,
Farmers and Ranchers, Risk-takers and Try-ers?

Hmmm.

It’s interesting to ponder over what the world would be.
If nobody were like you, my Dear, and everyone were like me.

Our Sunday Scribblings Prompt was: I Just Don't Get It.

Light Dawns

Thirteen Quotes about Morning
from LOTR

Thursday Thirteen

Alright, so I'll admit it: I read Lord of the Rings. That's present tense, because I re-read it so often. No, I'm not really a fantasy genre fan--mystery is more to my liking--but I absolutely adore beauty in descriptive phrases, and these are abundant, nay, spilling over, in anything written by Tolkien. Here are some of my favorite descriptions of "Morning"


1. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun began.

2. It was a pale morning: In the East, behind long clouds like lines of soiled wool stained red at the edges, lay glimmering deeps of yellow.

3. The light of a clear autumn morning was now glowing in the valley. The noise of bubbling waters came up from the foaming river-bed. Birds were singing and a wholesome peace lay on the land.









4. It was a cold chill hour before the first stir of dawn,
and the moon was low. *


5. In the morning he woke to find that the rain had stopped. The clouds were still thick, but they were breaking, and pale strips of blue appeared between them.


6. He walked along the terraces above the loud-flowing Bruinen and watched the pale, cool sun rise above the far mountains and shine down, slanting through the thin silver mist; the dew upon the yellow leaves was glimmering, and the woven nets of gossamer twinkled on every bush.






7. The day came like fire and smoke. Low in the East there were black bars of cloud like the fumes of a great burning.
The rising sun lit them from beneath with flames of murky red;
but soon it climbed above them into a clear sky.

8. They woke to find a cool sun shining into the great court, and on to the floor of the bay. Shreds of high cloud were overhead, running on a stiff easterly wind.

9. The rising sun was hazy, and behind it, following it slowly up out of the sky, there was a growing darkness as of a great storm moving out of the East.

10. The light came grey and pale and they did not see the rising of the sun. The air above was heavy with fog and a reek lay on the land about them.

11. Day came and the fallow sun blinked over the lifeless ridges of Ered Lithui.

12. So soon they struggled on once more until the dawn began to spread slowly in the wide grey solitude.

13. And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and light leaped forth; and the waters of Anduin shone like silver, and in all the houses of the City men sang for the joy that welled up in their hearts from what source they could not tell












All quotes are taken from The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, The Riverside Press Cambridge,Copyright 1965.

* Sunrise through Fog Shrouded Trees by Don Moorcroft

Yeeps! What a Miserable First Day for Spring Break.

That's got to be "spring" as in "spring a leak" and "break" as in "break in the dam".

The rain woke me up this morning, scarcely an hour after my husband finally came to bed saying I needed to wake him at eight so he could pack all the stuff for a two day camping trek. OK. I tried to sleep, but my mind was troubled and the caffeine I had foolishly consumed at the community service fellowship last night was gurgling through my brain.

So I got up. Just in time to hear the first alarm clock go off.

Did I say alarm clock? I meant cell phone alarm...much louder and more demanding.
I ran into the kitchen and turned it off, stumbling over a mountain of camping gear--backpacks, sleeping bags, stoves, lanterns, and first aid kits--then dashed back for day clothes. In a few minutes I was back, stumbling over a heap of old buckskinning stuff in the hall--deer skins, black powder pouches made of leather and fringes, and a long coat made out of a Hudson Bay blanket. I made fresh coffee and stumbled to the computer, determined to catch up on my e-mail, devotional, and blogging time. Another loud alarm. It was my husband's cell phone, ringing somewhere in the vicinity of the toaster. I got it. A few minutes later an alarm rang from--strangely enough--the floor. After the third ring, I found it behind the computer desk. It was my son's. I know it sounds impossible, but we live in a crazy house. I recognized it as the one that had awakened me at around 10:30 the night before and been shut off in the process of my trying to figure out how to open it--it's a sliding one, tricky for over fifty-year old fingers that had been asleep beside their owner. So does anybody know why it was in my room? Maybe hubby had mistaken it for his, which was now ringing again loudly--I hate snooze buttons! So I woke him up. He took one look at the rain and said he should probably sleep another hour. I let him...ntil the phone rang--the real phone. It was the pastor of the church that was hosting the youth camp (at which my husband and son were supposed to speak and lead the worship time). He said the water main at the camp was broken and they were going to hold the camp at the church. Ok. So is all the camping stuff moot? Not by a long shot.

It turns out that all my husband's lessons for the camp were connected to the stuff, kind of a show and tell, so it all still had to go. First, he wanted me to reword the notes he had printed off for the students. (They had turned out to be 17 pages long.) I reminded him that the students would have young eyes and would not need everything to be typed in size 14 and 16 font. I rewrote the stories, streamlining and surreptitiously sneaking in lots of blanks in the "student notes". That will make them listen. The guys needed to leave at noon. We found duffel bags, toiletries, jeans, shirts, etc. and threw them in. At eleven fifty-five we were trying to fit it all into the pickup cab. (The rain, remember). Finally, they gave up and took my car. That way there would be room for the guitar.

When they left I collapsed...well, first I put a load of laundry in and a load of dishes. That's my self-imposed pre-requisite for collapsing.

It was still dripping....still is for that matter.
But oh the flower buds on the little tree outside look lovely, and I saw two squirrels on the lawn. My stay-at-home daughter is making scones with raisins.
Time for a good book and a cup of Earl Grey Tea in a quiet house.
Yes. Life is grand.