What the hell do you want now?

I didn't do it.

Day 1---I Can Do This! Got enough food and wine to last a month.

Day 2---Opening my eighth bottle of wine. I fear wine supplies might not last.

Day 3---Strawberries: Some have 210 seeds, some have 235 seeds. Who knew??

Day 4---8:00 PM. Removed my day pajamas and put on my night pajamas.

Day 5---Today I tried to make hand sanitizer. It came out as Jell-O shots!

Day 6---I get to take the garbage out. I am SO excited. I can't decide what to wear.

Day 7---Laughing way too much at my own jokes!!

Day 8---Went to a new restaurant called "The Kitchen". You have to gather all the ingredients and make your own meal. I have no clue how this place is still in business.

Day 9---I put liquor bottles in every room. Tonight, I'm getting all dressed up and going bar hopping.

Day 10---Struck an conversation with a spider today. Seems nice. He's a web designer.

Day 11---Isolation is hard. I swear my fridge just said, "What the hell do you want now?"

Day 12---I realized why dogs get so excited about something moving outside, going for walks or car rides. I swear I barked at a squirrel. He laughed.

Day 13---If you keep a glass of wine in each hand, you can't accidently touch your face.

Day 14---Watched the birds fight over random bird seeds. The Cardinals led the Blue Jays, 3-1.

Day 15---Repeat.

Written by some clever people. 

The Old Woman

Photo taken in 1917

The Gwich’in tribe had decided, and once a resolute decision is made, there would be no change.

Leader Ti’kto’ma approached the old woman with tribal leaders behind him.  The old woman huddled close to the fire, but continued to chew the hide of a seal, softening it.

”Old grandmother!  It is time to leave you in this camp for you to take your final journey!”  Ti’kto’ma shouted down at the elderly woman, where her youngest granddaughter wrapped her arms around the woman.

Old Woman, whose worth now was less than bark on a tree, nodded in submission.  The young girl begged for Grandmother’s life, her bruised deformed face twisted in tears.  Ti’kto’ma kicked her away from the fire.  “The fire is wasted on you!  Return to your mother…she must have some use for you, Mongrel Child.”

Old Woman gazed as the tribe walked off in the distance, clutching her bag and fur scarf tightly. In a day where dusk came as soon as the sun disappeared, she was left in the abandoned camp. She settled her elderly bones onto icy snow, waiting for the cold to take her.

As night crept in and cold settled over her, sounds grew louder in the forest.  Old Woman reached out, finding her grand-daughter.

“Let us both float off in the final journey together,” Mongrel Child whispered.  Old Woman wrapped her shawl and scarf around the girl, and they settled into a final night's sleep.

Elephant’s Child has provided the bold underlined words as a challenge for bloggers to stir the pot and produce any genre using those words.  This week there are six and another six words to play with as you choose.  Pop on over to her site, by clicking on her moniker above.

Have you heard of a book Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal and Survival" written by Velma Wallis? The tribe name is true and this ancient custom is accurate.  The story has truth in it as well.  After discovering "two old women" left behind, the tribe finds them well, healthy, and with a huge collection of dried foods.  The Gwich'in discontinued this tradition. This book is a worthy read, simplistic yet moving.

More on this history and legends

The War of the Words

Source: Check this one out!

In 1951, a new word came into being and later was added to the dictionary:  Eek, which means “an expression of surprise”.  Why this word was worthy to be added makes no sense, no sense at all.

But what about this one: Eke?

Is it real?  What the heck does it mean?  Was it a 1951 wonder?

Actually, this is an ancient word.  From around 900 AD, “eke” came into being from a combination of languages. 

Germanic and Norse contributed auka.  Latin added the word augēr.  Old English mixed those into ēacian.  Finally Middle English created eek.

All the words in their different languages mean “to manage to support oneself, but barely.”  It also means “to enlarge, to increase, and to stretch resources.”

As long as humans have existed, all have been trying to eke out a living.  They were trying to stretch what they had just a little bit farther.  If they had not done so, surviving became a serious issue.

Eek wisely became EKE.  After all, who had ever heard of EEK?

Oddly enough, I have been trying to eke all my life, and I never knew it.  

Wait Until Dark

Source: Sky Movies

Front row seats

Small theater.

Stage almost at finger tips.

Wait Until Dark

Will she wait?

Will he let her live?

Evil in the light,

Good in the dark.

If she does not kill him in time,

Then I will leap onto stage,

And kill him myself.

Source

The Crazy Goose

The crazy goose who never left

It was a cold November that year.  Snow moved in early, and my father was glad to have the crops in and the livestock secure.  He had watched the sky for more snow, and saw the last of the snow geese moving down from Canada.  The week before the sky had been full of them, and now there were isolated gaggles in their V-formation.

The following morning Dad moved the Farmall tractor with a trailer of hog feed through the gate.  Perched up on top of the feeder was a snow goose, its wing clearly wounded.  They glared at each other for a minute until the goose gave up and fluttered down to the ground.   Dad filled the feeder and speculated what the hogs would do to this lonely injured goose.

It didn’t take long for his question to be answered.  The hogs rushing in for their chance at the feeder were held back by one very obnoxious aggressive, albeit injured, goose.  Hissing and nipping at their snouts, the goose was the first at the trough. 

This would be the way of the goose and the hogs for the next few years.  During the coldest nights, the goose always found a perch on a pile of warm hogs.  At every feeding the goose was at the head of the line.

When Dad herded the hogs to be sorted for market, the crazy goose insisted in going into the sorting chute.  Getting it out back to the hog lot took a lot of effort.

Then another November day five years later, the goose disappeared.  Dad thought it might have heard the overhead geese calling and decided to join them. 

The next day Dad found feathered remains in the lot.  ‘Well, it had a good life, a long life,’ Dad thought. 

Let's take a few minutes to pray for the soul of our departed friend, the crazy goose....