mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Cajun Navy Reporting For Duty
August 28, 2017
— 1 Comment
Getty Image With rescue efforts still underway in Houston following the city getting hammered by Hurricane Harvey over the weekend, many volunteers have taken it upon themselves to help people trapped in homes or on rooftops, as local authorities are inundated with more rescue requests then they can handle. One such group of volunteers have…
#WeekendCoffeeShare Borderland Politics
August 26, 2017
— 3 Comments
If we were having coffee this weekend in Arizona I would invite you to chill while I serve you iced tea or coffee. Our state has hit the big time in the news this week with our rally in Phoenix and yesterday’s pardon of Joe Arpaio. The pardon was highly symbolic to the people of Arizona, who put up with all the benefits and detriments of living on the border. We know about illegal immigration and dope smuggling at the border because they are the traditional businesses that rely on slack or corrupt law enforcement to thrive. The attention drawn to the Mexican border these days is all about the wall and the people living here without papers. It is rare to hear anything about collaboration with Mexico, although most of the produce we eat comes from there. The border is not a simple issue, and the wall, in any form, will not stop the cartel from serving their customers up here. They catapulted a giant bale of weed into downtown Douglas right after Trump visited his wall in Yuma. You can’t say they don’t have a sense of humor.
This week a giant bale of weed landed in Douglas, AZ, formerly famous for a long running underground tunnel beneath the border. It is impossible to explain to those who have not lived near the border what it is really like. Don’t believe any simplistic explanation of our situation. It is centuries old, and not going anywhere soon.
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If we were having coffee or tea I would ask how your life and writing are going. I wish all those in hurricane country an easy time. I hope you will stay dry, and keep all your possessions in tact. I wish our country some kind of respite from all the crazy politics and anger, which do not seem to be diminishing. My poetry and fiction are still kind of depressing, and I think it is all about the current events on my mind. I do find that it is a creative source, but wish the trauma would settle down for a while.
I hope you are feeling productive and pleased with your writing. I appreciate your visit today to our controversial state. If you have written a coffee share post please share it here. Diana at PartTimeMonster hosts the party every week from New Orleans. You can join us by reading, position, or commenting. Thanks for visiting this week.
#WeekendCoffeeShare
#WritePhoto Crack In Time
August 24, 2017
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Saturn cracked up when he made the spring erupt and spew
Hot molten lava down the side of the mountain leaving few
Alive to bury the dead and rebuild the city in a safe location
The handful of citizens still looked to the pantheon for all creation
Life began anew when the summer rains brought water to the land
Green shoots and busy insect colonies sprung up to cover the ground
After some time the wildlife carefully returned, built nests and found
That Saturn in retrograde sets very strong limits and restrictions
That break down many great obstacles to living without addictions
Father Time
Please join us on Thursdays for a photo prompt from Sue Vincent’s Echo that inspires these stories and poems. Comment, read, or write your own version here. There is great variety and talent in the mix.
#writephoto
Saturn Stations Direct
August 24, 2017
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Saturn stations direct today, the 25th, in Sagittarius, releasing us from the cycle; this either opens the floodgates, allowing forward progress and bringing an end to the most egregious obstacles in our path, or we suddenly find barriers materialized before us, progress halted, sometimes for no reason we can point to, other times by some […]
via Just a Little AstroEssence 25 August 2017 Release — Julie Demboski’s ASTROLOGY
The Best Sourced Dorothy Parker Quotes
August 22, 2017
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Happy Birthday Dorothy Parker!!
10 of the best quotes from Dorothy Parker and where they first appeared
We’ve compiled a list of ten of the wittiest and wisest quotations from the Dorothy Parker oeuvre, as well as some of her pithiest and most memorable one-liners. Many quotations have been attributed to Parker, but here we’ve confined ourselves to the things that she definitely did say.
There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. – Interview in Paris Review, 1956
I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more. – ‘The Little Hours’, 1939
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The Eclipse From Outer Space
August 21, 2017
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As millions of Americans look up to the sky to catch the total solar eclipse on Monday, or watch TIME’s live broadcast, astronauts on the International Space Station are gearing up for multiple views of the phenomenon. The crew on the Expedition 52 will not be in the eclipse’s path of totality, but will see…
via How Astronauts on the International Space Station Are Watching the Solar Eclipse — TIME
#SelfCareSunday Soft Focus
August 20, 2017
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shadow boundary
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Lines are bring drawn everywhere. Politics have seeped into the most mundane parts of our lives. We all need a break, a retreat from the news without dropping out of our responsibilities. Many feel the fatigue of caring for others, either financially or literally. To keep the well of wellbeing primed each of us needs to take care of our own needs before deciding what others might need. I believe in taking a step back, looking at things from a safe distance, and with a very soft focus. What do I mean by soft focus?
- Find simple ways to express gratitude to your family, friends and coworkers
- Make daily habit patterns revolve around healthy habits like meditation and exercise
- Take control of the time you spend on line or texting for social purposes
- Reclaim a portion (no matter how small) of your paycheck to save for a worthy goal, personal or community oriented
- Analyse your own happiness quotient-how much you bring to the table, and how much you rely on others for emotional juice
- Walk away from fruitless arguments you recognize that you have had in the past
It is very tempting to jump into all the arguments available to us at all hours on social media. This too shall pass. Maintain balance by taking your centering practices much more seriously than the outrage of the moment. Don’t consume the toxic Kool Aid. It is spiked, altered, unhealthy.
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Beautiful Rustic Food
August 19, 2017
“We find inspiration for photos and recipes all over the world. . . . Breathing the air on a different continent, our hands intertwined.” Susann and Yannic bring ideas home, then share beautifully styled vegetarian recipes from their Berlin kitchen. (In English and German.)
#WeekendCoffeeShare America The Beautiful
August 19, 2017
— 4 Comments
Believe That
If we were having coffee this weekend I would offer you iced tea and some succotash I just made. I have been listening to a wonderful audio course about this culinary and cultural history of humanity. I heard the part about American colonists adopting crops from natives very quickly because many crops they brought from England did not grow over here. Succotash (a word borrowed from a native language) is a stew of corn, beans, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. It can be made with only corn and beans if need be. I realized I had those groceries on hand in the fridge so I whipped up a batch. It is a heavenly, and truly American dish. Help yourself. I am working on reminding myself of all the noble and beautiful parts of having been born in the US. Succotash is one of those.
If we were having coffee I know many of you live in other countries and are wondering what in the world is happening to the government in Washington, DC. As taxpaying citizens, believe me, we wonder even more than you do. Some people choose to stay away from news of current events, and honestly I am happy to be working with millennials who virtually never discuss anything current or political. I don’t think it is because they lack sympathy, but they really lack all the information. I am loathe to bring up any news at work because it is all so shockingly bad. Who am I to bum them out by letting them in on current events? I really like my colleagues at work. Maybe ignoring current events is the secret of their charm.
I wrote this week, but was still a little lame about production. I did a poem for Sue Vincent’s #writephoto on Thursday. I wrote a factual biography of my great-grandfather who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. I also have ancestors who fought for the Union and even worked on the underground railroad. I am not in any way attracted to these “historic monuments” causing all this dispute. I don’t think they were such a good idea in the first place, since Americans tend to be fairly ignorant of our own history. We just don’t need images to glorify people and events nobody even understands. I know this is not true for all of us, but I am frequently appalled at the total lack of knowledge about geography and history I encounter in Americans.
The one category in which we are still held in some esteem is comedy. SNL is the world leader that demonstrates that we do still live in a free country. Some of our freedom is being used to endanger and incarcerate part of the population. Thank God we still have Weekend Update. For any of you who have not seen #sheetcaking by Tina Fey, please enjoy this peek at our still thriving sense of humor. If we don’t laugh we will cry.
Please join us for the Weekend Coffee Share every week. Our hostess Diana brings us together from New Orleans her blog PartTimeMonster to share our feelings, our progress, and our digital beverages. Thanks for reading, writing, or commenting this week.
#WeekendCoffeeShare
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