AFTR's Daily Commute

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 8:07 am

I thought this rather interesting:

Double-decker portraits – CNN Photos - CNN.com Blogs

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:59 pm

Well, after almost 2 weeks without an internet connection here at home, I'm finally back. (The last post I entered above was a quickie from my work computer...I was un-websensed on that day.)

My previous modem went kaput, and I had to wait all this time for the newer one to arrive via UPS.

So...what did I miss?

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:07 pm

"March is the month of expectation,

The things we do not know,

The Persons of Prognostication

Are coming now.

We try to sham becoming firmness,

But pompous joy

Betrays us, as his first betrothal

Betrays a boy."

- Emily Dickinson, XLVIII

fuzzywuzzy · Post by **fuzzywuzzy** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:16 pm

along-for-the-ride;1387323 wrote: Well, after almost 2 weeks without an internet connection here at home, I'm finally back. (The last post I entered above was a quickie from my work computer...I was un-websensed on that day.)

My previous modem went kaput, and I had to wait all this time for the newer one to arrive via UPS.

So...what did I miss?

The usual.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 2:24 pm

:wah:

Thanks, fuzzywuzzy. So I really didn't miss anything.

When I was off the net, I got reacquainted with my Sims 2 game. Passed the time.

I think this computer needs more memory, so I'm thinking about having more installed by a professional, ofcourse. I keep getting that pop-up saying my computer is low on virtual memory. I have trouble getting on Facebook, with "Internet Explorer not responding" showing up on top. Aargh!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 1:13 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:44 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:42 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:21 pm

So today I was at the station about to put gas in my car. I flipped open the gas cover, and saw two wasps. Then I noticed the little white nest. I had the nozzle in my hand and let it drip on the wasps and the nest and proceded to put my $20 in the tank. I wasn't looking forward to reaching in and screwing in the cap. The time came....and I did it. Mission accomplished.

How dare those wasps make a nest in MY car!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:00 am

Interesting snapshots from our culture at the time:

“Mad Men Era Advertisements | Photo Gallery - Yahoo! Shine

By the way, I started watching reruns from this TV series and got hooked.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:47 pm

True story.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting right here in front of my computer. Hubby was sitting on the couch to the right of me in the living room watching TV. Suddenly I felt a brief gentle poke on my back. I looked behind me. My first thought was that Hubby snuck up on me like he sometimes does......but no....he was still sitting on the couch. It was so real, I told my Hubby about the poke right away. He suggested it could have been from someone who has passed away..like my mother or his mother.

What do you think?

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 2:43 am

He could be right! Or maybe you have a mischievous guardian angel!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 2:08 pm

I was raised to believe in guardian angels. You may be right. I can't remember what website I was on when I was nudged. It couldn't have been Forum Garden. :wah:

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 1:27 pm

The Enkindled Spring

D.H. Lawrence (1916)

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 4:56 pm

Spring Carol

Robert Louis Stevenson (from New Poems and Variant Readings, 1918)

When loud by landside streamlets gush,

And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,

With sun on the meadows

And songs in the shadows

Comes again to me

The gift of the tongues of the lea,

The gift of the tongues of meadows.

Straightway my olden heart returns

And dances with the dancing burns;

It sings with the sparrows;

To the rain and the (grimy) barrows

Sings my heart aloud—

To the silver-bellied cloud,

To the silver rainy arrows.

It bears the song of the skylark down,

And it hears the singing of the town;

And youth on the highways

And lovers in byways

Follows and sees:

And hearkens the song of the leas

And sings the songs of the highways.

So when the earth is alive with gods,

And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,

And the grass sings in the meadows,

And the flowers smile in the shadows,

Sits my heart at ease,

Hearing the song of the leas,

Singing the songs of the meadows.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 10:58 am

A Spring View

Tu Fu (c. 750, trans. Witter Bynner, 1920)

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;

And spring comes green again to trees and grasses

Where petals have been shed like tears

And lonely birds have sung their grief.

...After the war-fires of three months,

One message from home is worth a ton of gold.

...I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin

To hold the hairpins any more.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:31 pm

We're having real April showers right now where I live.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:36 pm

Umbrellas In The Rain

An assortment of coloured umbrellas,

Fending off the rain,

I wonder if those, concealed underneath,

Have had lives disturbed by pain,

With the greyness of the sky above,

Their bodies crouching low,

What is the message that greets the eye

Where do all these 'bodies' go,

There's a feeling that they may be hiding

Not only from the rain,

But that is just a 'thought' of mine,

And I could be wrong - again!

Ernestine Northover

Attached files

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:00 am

The Easter Flower by Claude McKay

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly

My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,

Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily

Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!

Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,

It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief

In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,

And some called it the resurrection flower;

And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,

Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.

About the author:

Charles McKay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Attached files

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:34 pm

Thomas Kinkade -- loved by many, loathed by art critics - latimes.com

Were you a fan?

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:45 am

I can't say I disliked his art but I wasn't really a fan either. The first time I saw one of his landscapes with its idyllic pastoral scene and homey cottage I thought it was a nice painting but they all started to look the same to me after the first few. Maybe they became too commercialized and mass produced and at that point they ceased to be appreciated as fine "art"? He made a bundle of money off of them though!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:29 pm

Hey tabby!

I personally put Kinkades art in the same category as those "Romance" paperbacks and rich birthday cakes.

It is a shame that he died in his late fifties...so young.

Attached files

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 4:46 pm

An April Night

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The moon comes up o'er the deeps of the woods,

And the long, low dingles that hide in the hills,

Where the ancient beeches are moist with buds

Over the pools and the whimpering rills;

And with her the mists, like dryads that creep

From their oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,

Who hold, while the eyes of the world are asleep,

With the wind on the hills their gay revellings.

Down on the marshlands with flicker and glow

Wanders Will-o'-the-Wisp through the night,

Seeking for witch-gold lost long ago

By the glimmer of goblin lantern-light.

The night is a sorceress, dusk-eyed and dear,

Akin to all eerie and elfin things,

Who weaves about us in meadow and mere

The spell of a hundred vanished Springs.

About the author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Maud_Montgomery

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:52 am

A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

To which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends he will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:38 pm

We have recently purchased two entirely different plants. I snapped pictures of both of them.

Can you guess what kind they are?

Attached files

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:09 pm

Beautiful! Is the first one a lily of some kind? I've never seen the second one before ... it's definitely a new one to me! I'm going to throw a wild guess out there and ask if it's a pitcher plant maybe? I've heard that name before and the flowers on your plant do look like little art deco vases!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:39 pm

Hey tabby!

The first flower is an oriental lily. The lovely fragrance from it was strong and lasted several days. Alas the petals are falling off now. Hubby is hoping there are seeds somewhere on the plant.

The second is a pitcher plant....just as you guessed. :)They are hanging out in back yard ready to snatch up flies and mosquitoes as they are attracted to the insides of the "pitchers". Deadly to them, but fascinating to us.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:09 pm

"O Day after day we can't help growing older.

Year after year spring can't help seeming younger.

Come let's enjoy our winecup today,

Nor pity the flowers fallen."

- Wang Wei, On Parting with Spring

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:55 pm

"Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,

Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,

Here I wander in April

Cold, grey-headed; and still to my

Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,

Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;

Spring, flower-planter in meadows,

Child-conductor in willowy

Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:

Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:

O child, happy are children!

She still smiles on their innocence,

She, dear mother in God, fostering violets,

Fills earth full of her scents, voices and violins:

Thus one cunning in music

Wakes old chords in the memory:

Thus fair earth in the Spring leads her performances.

One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginal

Green - one more, and my bosom

Feels new life with an ecstasy."

- Robert Louis Stevenson, Flower God, God of the Spring

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:23 am

Early Easter morning, Hubby became a great grandfather again. The photo below was taken of the baby recently.( We visited the hospital on Easter.) She is so precious. :-4

Attached files

tabby · Post by **tabby** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:56 am

Congratulations, AFTR!

I love her "Easter Bonnet"!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 5:49 pm

"If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

Vincent van Gogh quotes (Dutch painter, one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists, 1853-1890)

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along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 3:30 pm

Hubby and I saw a double rainbow one morning earlier this week.

The double rainbow is the symbol of transformation.

In the first rainbow we see red is at the top and violet at the bottom. This represents the material world. We are a rainbow, but the red belongs at the feet and the first chakra area and the violet at the head. So when we see the red at the top and the violet at the bottom, it is as if we are seeing a person upside down or descending from heaven diving down to the earth.

In the upper second rainbow – and remember it is not such a common sight – the colours are the right way up, this symbolizes the journey back to heaven, the ascent of the kundalini, the journey of transformation, the spiritual world.

~ The Symbol of the Double Rainbow – Osho Energy Transformation Institute

Have yoiu ever seen one?

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along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Wed May 02, 2012 2:44 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu May 03, 2012 1:30 pm

I just finished reading the book below and would recommend it. I picked it up at the flea market for 50 cents after reading the synopsis on the cover.

Stones from the River | Bookreporter.com

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri May 04, 2012 3:52 pm

I posted this documentary because I viewed it recently while I was still reading "Stones From the River". It deals with the same location, the same time period and many of the same events. The book is fiction. The documentary is not.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat May 05, 2012 5:32 am

"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”

Winston Churchill quote (British Orator, Author and Prime Minister during World War II. 1874-1965)

Kathy Ellen · Post by **Kathy Ellen** » Sun May 06, 2012 12:34 pm

along-for-the-ride;1392864 wrote: I just finished reading the book below and would recommend it. I picked it up at the flea market for 50 cents after reading the synopsis on the cover.

Stones from the River | Bookreporter.com

Oh, what a wonderful find Diana.....I love her writing.....been reading her books for a long time. I've read Stones from the River, Salt Dancers, Floating in My Mother's Palm and The Vision of Emma Blau. She's also written a children's book called Trudi and Pia.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun May 06, 2012 4:16 pm

Hey Kathy!

I'm so glad you visited and posted.

Trudi and Pia, eh? Both of us are familiar with those names, aren't we?

The author gave us such a personal view of Trudi with her thoughts and struggles.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Wed May 09, 2012 3:13 pm

Now for a change of venue:

Candler Oak

Kathy Ellen · Post by **Kathy Ellen** » Wed May 09, 2012 4:31 pm

along-for-the-ride;1393135 wrote: Hey Kathy!

I'm so glad you visited and posted.

Trudi and Pia, eh? Both of us are familiar with those names, aren't we?

The author gave us such a personal view of Trudi with her thoughts and struggles.

It's nice to talk with you again Diana...

Yes, we do know who Trudi is :-6....I'd love to meet her if she was real, but she certainly is a part of Ursula's heart. Hope that you read and enjoy the other books that she's written. I really loved all of them.

Trudi always thought that she was alone in the world until she met Pia who is also dwarf. They had so much in common and became best friends.

Someone took my original copy of the Trudi and Pia. I'm going to order it again and read it to my 3rd graders. It's a great book to teach tolerance of people who are different than you:-6

I've read tons of books from her list of books...loved and adored each one:yh_flower

Oprah's Book Club Book List - Complete List of Books Chosen for Oprah's Book Club - Oprah's Book Club Books by Year

Oprah's Book Club and Books - Oprah.com

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri May 11, 2012 3:37 pm

Hey Kathy! I would have liked to have met someone like Trudi who could tell great stories.

Here's a link to information about an American tree with hope that it will come back.

History of the American Chestnut Tree - Brought to you by Appalachian Woods, LLC

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat May 12, 2012 12:48 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun May 13, 2012 10:55 am

There was a Child went Forth

Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 edition)

There was a child went forth every day;

And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;

And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,

And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,

And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf,

And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,

And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there—and the beautiful curious liquid,

And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—all became part of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;

Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,

And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;

And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen,

And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to the school,

And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the quarrelsome boys,

And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the barefoot negro boy and girl,

And all the changes of city and country, wherever he went.

His own parents,

He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb, and birth’d him,

They gave this child more of themselves than that;

They gave him afterward every day—they became part of him.

The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;

The mother with mild words—clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;

The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust;

The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,

The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture—the yearning and swelling heart,

Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of what is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,

The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time—the curious whether and how,

Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?

Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what are they?

The streets themselves, and the façades of houses, and goods in the windows,

Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the huge crossing at the ferries,

The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset—the river between,

Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,

The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide—the little boat slack-tow’d astern,

The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,

The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it lies motionless in,

The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;

These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Mon May 14, 2012 3:51 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue May 15, 2012 2:38 pm

Tree At My Window by Robert Frost

Tree at my window, window tree,

My sash is lowered when night comes on;

But let there never be curtain drawn

Between you and me.

Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,

And thing next most diffuse to cloud,

Not all your light tongues talking aloud

Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,

And if you have seen me when I slept,

You have seen me when I was taken and swept

And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,

Fate had her imagination about her,

Your head so much concerned with outer,

Mine with inner, weather.

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Tue May 15, 2012 3:18 pm

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Thu May 17, 2012 2:28 pm

:wah:

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Fri May 18, 2012 1:16 pm

Today..a road trip...American style....

10 great all-American road trips - Yahoo! Travel

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sat May 19, 2012 1:45 pm