mermaidcamp

mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

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Wonder

August 6, 2017 1 Comment

space

space

Inside the circular passage the whispers bounced
Off the reflections of the insinuations left by the past
Inner balance outer strength come with hard choices
When clouds obscure the top of the peak it is unclear
If there is a reason to climb today to the higher ground
Did pioneers or invaders carve this path on which we travel?

#WritePhoto Who’s Watching?

August 3, 2017 10 Comments

watchers

watchers

The soldiers scrambled down the rocky terrain and spread out to hide in ambush. They had a secret mission to intercept a currier who was carrying supplies to the enemy  general in the field.  It was uncertain when the delivery would be made, but they had reliable intelligence about the location.  A spy had infiltrated the opposing camp to listen in on planning and strategy conversations.   Espionage was rather crude in that era, and extremely dangerous. The young man who had been sent to gather information had to remember it and relay it in person to a contact.  This required regular escapes from the camp, as well as returning in secrecy to his tent after the clandestine meetings.  He was chosen for his speed and his ability to make his way in the dark in silence.

He was never raised to be a spy.  His family was famous for long distance running and athleticism.  His brothers all joined sports teams and became stars.  He planned to follow in their footsteps, but had been drafted into the army when the war broke out up north.  He did not want to go, but since his family felt strongly that he should, he agreed to join the military effort.  His politics had not yet developed, but he suspected that the war and strife was absorbed by the poor while seeming to benefit the rich.  He did not really believe in defending this state of affairs, but was caught in a trap.  He hoped that the war would somehow liberate him.  He longed to leave the island and never return.

As the afternoon died he made his way through the woods to meet his contact at the prearranged time.  He only had a short window of time because he would be missed if he was not back for dinner.  He felt scared this time.  Something just felt wrong that day.  As he snuck around the bend to the appointed meeting place he was shot in the back by his own brothers in arms.  The arrow that pierced his heart was shot from the bow of a counter-spy who had infiltrated his platoon while he was busy in the opposing camp.  He died instantly.

#writephoto

#writephoto

Please join writers from around the world each Thursday at Sue Vincent’s Echo for an inspirational photo.  Find these stories and poems on twitter using the hashtag #writephoto.  This diverse group interprets the photo with great creativity and insight.  Read, write, or comment to join the party.

#WeedWednesday Shatter

August 1, 2017 1 Comment

One of the concentrates available on the market for medical marijuana patients is called shatter. It is a butane extraction of dried plant material. The solvent butane dissolves and extracts the active ingredients from the plant. After the solvent is evaporated through a distillation process, the product is aged in a vacuum oven to further remove any residual solvent that remains in the product. The highly concentrated shatter can then be used in various ways, including smoking it.  It is ready to be absorbed easily by the body in this form, and therefore delivers a fast acting onset.  For those who want to smoke very little for maximum benefits, shatter is one way to achieve that goal.  A little bit goes a long way.

At our dispensary, Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, shatter is available in many strains.  The flavor as well as the effects are preserved by this method.  The essence of the plant’s active ingredients are harnessed for concentrated use.  Start with a single low dose to find out for yourself how best to use shatter for your condition.  Your bud tender will assist you in selecting a strain that matches your needs, and show you how to use shatter.

Sails Under Stars

August 1, 2017 1 Comment

How does the navigator read the map of the stars at night?
Do the winds and tides hold secrets used to predict a fight?
We have little knowledge of our history, and even less of our fate
This ship on which we are sailing is loaded down with pieces of eight
Stolen from pirates in the last century down on the Outer Banks
Our treasure has become our curse as we labor without thanks
Our masters run a cruel ship, violently whipping the crew
We would have never joined their side if we had known what’s true

Hacked

August 1, 2017 1 Comment

spamalina

spamalina

As soon as we opened the office door the phone rang
The voice on the end of the line spoke Chinese
Asked us for a currency exchange rate off the bat
We had nothing to sell and felt creepy about buying
Anything sold over the phone in a foreign language
We passed on the offer then turned up the tunes
Proceeded to finish the task at hand in high spirits
Nobody knew what the communication had meant
We wondered how those people knew our number
After the work slipped away and we lost our livelihoods
We found out they had hacked our system with that call
Our data was used to design a cheap knock off product
That ran our establishment completely out of business

#WeekendCoffeeShare Lazy Muse Edition

July 30, 2017 6 Comments

reflection in my pool

If we were having coffee this weekend I would invite you to sip a long glass of iced tea or coffee. The weather is muggy and the ground is muddy. My ambition is active in starts and fits.  Last weekend was extremely successful in the possession purge department.  I unloaded a big car, loads of fabric, twofold funky floor cleaning machines, and about 300 pounds of glassware.  We went to the used book store with our DVD’s, but only a small portion were accepted for trade.  The initial phase was exciting because as items left the house, more was revealed that needs to go.  I did uncover space in the garage and in some cabinets in the house, but I am not even 10% into the work that I need to do.  It is exhilarating to see the empty space appear.  It will be even more exciting to clear out the barn and sell the lot across the street.  The financial reward will be more than worth the effort. I will perceiver.

With all the extra emphasis on physical things, my muse decided to be lazy and fickle.  I wrote very little this week while I settle into my work and commute schedule.  I made some excuses about all the “work” I have to do. I admit that this is pure malarkey.  My commute is an easy 20 minute straight shot, and my work is fun.  Plenty of people go to school full-time and work full-time and get graduate degrees.  Surely I can work a tiny part-time job while purging my possessions and still find time to write.  I am putting this muse’s nose to the grindstone in the coming weeks. It is better to write something, even if it is not my best work, than to skip too many days.  How do you handle your productivity issues?  Does your muse just lounge around and refuse to work?  Today I am working a shift on Sunday so I can take a full day off for my facial tomorrow.  Ms Muse should realize she is living in a very privileged and pampered being, and be more grateful.  If I discipline her she just leaves.  I can usually squeeze a poem out of her as she exits, but there is no telling when she plans to return. She is a lot like me.

While I fill your iced tea glass, tell me how your life and writing are going.  I hope you are feeling more productive than I am now.  Are you looking forward to the next season (back to school for some) or treading water?  I love summer because I spend so much time in the pool.  I don’t really mind the heat because I have a pool at my condo village I can use 24 hours a day.  I am very fond of moonlight dips.  The water cools off in the middle of September, ending the nighttime enjoyment.  Until then I can be found in the deep end, thinking deep thoughts, teaching the muse to swim.

#WeekendCoffeeShare

#WeekendCoffeeShare

Please join us each week for #WeekendCoffeeShare, hosted by Diana at Parttimemonsterblog.com.  Share your news and catch up with the gang on the weekends here. The feast is moveable and the drinks are all digital and calorie free.

 

#WritePhoto Last Windmill

July 27, 2017 9 Comments

the last windmill

the last windmill

The pump beneath the windmill brings water to the fields
Narrow streams flow gently between the grain and weeds
Sustaining this small patch of land was easier in the past
Today we watch industry sprawl then collapse just as fast
In our youth we did not imagine this could happen here
That the last windmill in service would be held so dear
Ceremonies and pageantry now commemorate the times
When Mother Nature spoke to us in stories and in rhymes

#writephoto

#writephoto

Join writers from around the world each Thursday to respond to the photo prompt generously provided by Sue Vincent on her Echo blog.  Read, write, and comment here on last week’e entries.

Isaac Perkins, Eleventh Great-Grandfather

July 25, 2017 3 Comments

Colonist

Colonist

My eleventh great-grandfather was born in England and died in Essex Massachusetts.

Name: Isaac Perkins
Birth Date: 1571
Birth Place: Rugby Borough, Warwickshire, England
Death Date: 1639
Death Place: Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States of America
Cemetery: Old Burying Ground
Burial or Cremation Place: Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States of America
Isaac Perkins (1571 – 1629)
11th great-grandfather
Lydia Perkins (1616 – 1654)
daughter of Isaac Perkins
Lydia Peabody (1640 – 1715)
daughter of Lydia Perkins
Mary Howlett (1664 – 1727)
daughter of Lydia Peabody
John Hazen (1687 – 1772)
son of Mary Howlett
Caleb Hazen (1720 – 1777)
son of John Hazen
Mercy Hazen (1747 – 1819)
daughter of Caleb Hazen
Martha Mead (1784 – 1860)
daughter of Mercy Hazen
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of Martha Mead
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse

Isaac Perkins was baptized 20 December 1571 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England, the son of Thomas Perkins and Alice (possibly Kebble). Isaac married first Alice —. This Alice was buried in June of 1602 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England. Isaac married second Alice —. Isaac became a yeoman in Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts. On 15 June 1639, his widow Alice sold the lot in Ipswich.
Isaac and the first Alice’s children are:
1. Sarah Perkins, baptized 3 Feb 1596 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
2. Elizabeth Perkins, baptized 19 May 1600 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
3. Thomas Perkins, baptized 27 May 1601 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
Isaac and the second Alice’s children are:
4. Abraham Perkins, baptized in 1603 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England, married Mary (Wyeth?), one of first settlers of Hampton, Rockingham, New Hampshire, miller, clerk of the market, constable, and tavern keeper.
5. Jacob Perkins, baptized 23 Mar 1605/6 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England, said to have settled in Holmes Hole, Martha’s Vineyard, Dukes, Massachusetts.
6. Abigail Perkins, baptized 8 Nov 1607 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
7. Isaac Perkins, baptized 26 Jan 1611/2 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England, married Susanna —, one of first settlers of Hampton, Rockingham, New Hampshire, constable.
8. Hannah Perkins, baptized 9 Oct 1614 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
9. Lydia Perkins, baptized 1 Jan 1617/8 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.
10. Mary Perkins, baptized 16 Sep 1621 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England, may very likely have been the Mary who married Henry Green of Hampton, Rockingham, New Hampshire and died 26 Apr 1690.[1]
Sources:
1. Perkins in Hillmorton Parish Records (England), extracted by Jim Perkins.
2. Davis, Walter Goodwin, The Ancestry of Dudley Wildes, 1759–1820, of Topsfield, Massachusetts, Portland, ME: Anthoensen Press, 1959, p. 89.
3. Noyes, Sybil, Libby, Charles Thornton, and Davis, Walter Goodwin, Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1976, p. 541.
4. Savage, James, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Vol. 3, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990 (originally published Boston, 1860-1862).
5. Holmes, Frank R., Directory of Heads of New England Families, 1620-1700, New York, 1923, p. 354.
Baptisms20 Dec 1571 Isaac son of Thomas
3 Feb 1596 Sarah dau of Isaac
19 May 1600 Elizabeth dau of Isaac
27 Mar 1601 Thomas son of Isaac
Burial[28?] June 1602 Alice wife of Isaac
Baptisms[4 July ?] 1603 Abraham son of Isaac & Alice
23 Mar 1605/6 Jacob son of Isaac
8 Nov 1607 Abigail dau of Isaac
26 Jan 1611/12 Isaac son of Isaac
9 Oct 1614 Hannah dau of Isaac
1 Jan 1617/18 Lydia dau of Isaac
16 Sep 1621 Mary dau of Isaac
Source: Perkins in Hillmorton Parish Records (England), extracted by Jim Perkins.
In 1637 there was an Isaac Perkins in Ipswich where he owned “land lying above the street called Brook street, six acres.” He was dead before 15 Jun 1639, when his widow Alice Perkins sold the lot to Joseph Morse. It is tempting to believe that he was also of the Hillmorton stock. John Perkins did not have a brother Isaac, but he had an uncle Isaac only eleven years older than he, while other Isaacs were baptized in Hillmorton in 1597/8 and 1611/2.
If Isaac Perkins of Ipswich was a man of middle age, which we have no means of knowing, he and Alice may have been the parents of Abraham and Isaac Perkins who turned up in Hampton, not far down the coast, where Abraham took the Freeman’s Oath in 1640 and Isaac in 1642. These men are presumed to have been brothers. Abraham named a son Luke, not a common name, and John Perkins of Hillmorton and Ipswich had an uncle Luke, a brother Luke, and a grandson Luke.
Source: Davis, Walter Goodwin, The Ancestry of Dudley Wildes, 1759–1820, of Topsfield, Massachusetts, Portland, ME: Anthoensen Press, 1959, p. 89.
Perkins/Perkeings/Perkus/Parkins, Isaac, yeoman, Ipswich, propr. 1637. His widow Alice sold land and house 15 (4) 1639. [Ips. Rec.] Ch. Isaac (rem. to Hampton); Jacob (sold land recd. from his father 23 (2) 1674, after removing to Holmes Hole.)
Source: Holmes, Frank R., Directory of Heads of New England Families, 1620-1700, New York, 1923, p. 354.

Terror Trap

July 25, 2017 3 Comments

symbolic

symbolic

When the center of town exploded we checked the sky
Nobody could see the cause of the blaze or find out why
Our news was jammed and twitter was disabled tonight
We are not sure if this is an invasion, a prank, or a fight
If our communications are stopped we will quiver in fear
It will be of no use to have all the latest of apps and gear
Please send us a signal, a message, a hint or a sign
Are we surrounded by zombies, or enemies of some kind?
We have become hyper-vigilant, paranoid, and obsessed
Is this one road we have traveled doomed or blessed?

symbolic

symbolic

Conquer Doubt

July 23, 2017 3 Comments

The New Moon in Leo on July 23rd is going to be dramatic, surprising and unexpected. Sizzling with passion, the New Moon is a wake up call to roar like a lion, strike a lightning, and cut though any B$ and lies you’ve been telling yourself. The desire to break free from ‘concrete maze’ we’ve […]

via New Moon In Leo at 0°– Cut Through The Bull$hit — Astro Butterfly