Poetic Preferences

Fiorella's taste in poetry runs counter to the current trend, which seems to be overlong flowery essays with the punctuation omitted.  She's more of an old-fashioned kinda gal.  In fact, she prefers rhymed verse, though not exclusively, because she thinks it has  a stronger impact, is a better mnemonic, and presents a more of a challenge to the writer.   She also likes poetry that speaks strongly in as few words as possible, in which the message outweighs the words.

Like, ahem, her own.

Small World

Daughter and Husband are heading out on their eight-month-delayed honeymoon tomorrow.  Husband and Fio had  a delayed honeymoon too, but it was seven years late.  And we went to Mexico while they're going to Europe for three weeks--France, Spain, and Germany.

When Fiorella was is college, the pundits kept talking about how the world was getting smaller.  Fio didn't believe them then, but she was wrong.  The world is MUCH smaller now.  While her parents traveled from Texas to Ohio en famille once a year at the most, Fio has traveled to New York or its environs solo three times.  And she and Husband have visited Older Son and his wife in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Minnesota--and Younger Son in California,  Fio was even scheduled to visit Canada earlier this year, but the plane got stuck on the runway too long and she had to disembark.

Smaller and smaller. When's the next shuttle to Mars?

Nighttime Troubles

Fio woke up about 2:30 in the morning feeling hot and cold at the same time. And the air seemed too warm to breathe and she ached all over.  Her head hurt, her facelift scars hurt, her jaw and cheekbones hurt, her back hurt,  her legs hurt, her right hip hurt A LOT.  Lesser beings, she believes, call it pain.

No choice but to stagger to the bathroom, exercising her arms and neck along the way, grab a pain pill, and run herself a hot bath.  She slept in the tub till about 5:00, then transferred back to bed.  A slight headache was all that remained of her nighttime troubles.

Sonya Dog awoke her at 6:30 and Fio's been up and running ever since.  It's gonna be a great day.

Pondering Sonya

Fio's power cord is safe now.  Sonya has moved on to vacuum cleaner attachments.
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As alpha dog, Sonya bullies Bosco unmercifully, but she also depends on him for company, yelping and whining until he comes downstairs every morning.
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We lock our big girl into her crate while we sleep, but she'd probably stay in her appointed boudoir all night even if we removed the door. It's easy to accustom animals to captivity, to get them used to being in a cage, to convince them that's where they belong.  People are like that too, but we create our own cages.

Blind Eye

Years ago, when Forella was finishing her schooling and working part-time in the Sears credit department, she befriended a new hire named Lisa.  Lisa was unusually short, had a lame leg, and her forehead was in continual flake from some kind psoriasis, all of which probably made Fio more sympathetic to her.  Then one day Lisa told Fio about asking a stupid black girl to hem a dress for her while she was visiting her parents' home in Mississippi over the holidays.

She'd told the girl she would pay her three dollars, but when the time came, she offered her a choice between the three dollars and an old skirt of hers.

"She just looked at me," Lisa exclaimed.  "I couldn't get her to make a decision!"

Fiorella wasn't as friendly toward Lisa after that, and not in the least sympathetic.

Coddling

Ah, the luxury of being allowed to wake up at my own speed, to snooze on and off till the bright morning sun penetrates my closed eyelids, to have someone else answer the desperate yips of a dog insisting she needs to get outside pronto.

Now I know that Husband loves me. 

Cross Your Fingers

Fiorella was astounded that eBay has disallowed psychic sales.  She's even more astounded that eBay allowed them in the first place.

Now, Fio, like half the people in the world, thinks she has a bit of the psychic in her.  After all, she foresaw a couple of deaths--admittedly of people who were on their last legs anyway--and she's good at reading Tarot cards if she has the explanatory book beside her.

Her cold brain tells her she's fooling herself, but because she's susceptible, she avoids putting herself in the position to be swayed by soothsayers, just in case they are naysayers. After all, her life so far has been one surprise after another, with opportunities going down the drain when they should have put her on the high road and unexpected bounties when life looked bleak.    Everything is looking up right now, but don't say it too loud.

Not that Fio is superstitious.