Which One Would You Prefer? A Morning Kiss or a Witch's Tongue?

Clerodendrum incisum

Here's a novel gift for your sweetie the next time your romance hits a sour note or you somehow manage to strike the wrong chord in conversation. It's commonly known as a musical note plant, although I've seen it referred to as the "Morning Kiss" as well as a "Witch's Tongue." Which name do you prefer? By the way, it doesn't smell bad, so I don't know how it got saddled with those particular names.

If you're into chasing small balls around for hours and trying to get them into holes from various angles and distances, you might even think it looks like a club of some sort. What I'd like to know is where do teeth enter the picture? As in "dendrum" and "incisum?" I'll leave it up to you to figure that one out.

Although most sites I've searched recommend this plant for more southern zones, it has tripled in size since I planted it here in the spring of 2012. The leaves fall off when winter arrives and the temps drop, but it slowly emerges from dormancy around the beginning of May and continues to bloom regularly until the first touch of frost. It's one of those plants that shines in the evening when the moon rises above the horizon.

I missed seeing this month's full moon (July 22) because....

It's been raining again!

H2uhO: Be Careful What You Say or Think, Especially Around Water

Pensacola Beach By Moonlight

Why is it that, more often than not, I am apt to say or write something I shouldn't before I consider the consequences? You would think that after nearly 53 years of life on this earth, I would know better. Unfortunately, that's usually not the case. A couple of posts ago, I said something negative about mammograms and health care and then gloated about certain body parts of mine still being present and reporting for duty. Did I stop to think that some people reading this blog might not be so fortunate? No. Oh dear!

I think I'm afflicted with foot-in-mouth disease, or, in this case, foot-on-keyboard disease. Clumsy, careless, at the very least I've shattered or disfigured a few billion water molecules (see video below). I didn't intend to, but there it is. And to think that the adult human body is 70%, more or less, made up of water--a dynamic, living, breathing, feeling, hot-or-cold, in-the-flesh trope, if you will, for the earth itself. Maybe anthropomorphic climate change isn't a far fetched idea after all.

The tongue has the power of life and death,

And those who love it will eat its fruit.

                            --Proverbs 18:21

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

                            --Proverbs 25:11

But Soft! What Twilight Garden?

Peanut by twilight garden

"But soft! what [Twi]light [Garden] through yonder window breaks?"

The gardener softly shuts off the light and out of doors her way she makes.

Daylight fades and night begins to fall but just before it does,






The gardener takes the cap from off the camera lens and blows away the Peanut fur and fuzz,

'Cause camera obscura is not the tack she wants to take
as flowers show their peak.

The gardener's figure softly hides in twilight's cloak,
and softly does she sneak

To savor and to archive twilight's bloom for future garden plan.
Whilst present, pleasant, daytime life is fat and full and may be whipped up cream,

"O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all [that] this is [we've learned from life thus far may be nothing]
but a dream..."

(Words in quotes, it's true, are gathered from bits and pieces of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,
but those in brackets and all the rest come from Walk2Write, direct to you, via blog and Internet.)

These Boobs Are Made for Walkin'

When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, go-go boots were all the rage, and, as you might imagine, quite irresistible to a nerd like me who wanted to fit in. I wanted to go-go places, see the world, walk 'til I ran out of road, and then make my own path through life. These days, I am content to just have my own body parts intact, thank you very much, boobs included. I am also certain that the people who dreamed up high-heeled shoes must be in cahoots with the ones who invented mammography machines. They both have a monopoly on torturing women with a back-handed sort of kindness: Want to look good? Wear high heels but pay the price in back pain and sprained ankles. Want to be sure your boobs aren't rotting away with cancer? Get an annual, painful mammogram (or two) and pay the price your insurance policy won't pay for (the second one). It's too bad there's no bank to dole out the money once you make it so far around the game board, or at least there won't be by the time SAM and I are old enough to qualify for Medicare, if we live that long.

This morning, much to my surprise and delight, I was given another chance to Pass Go. (No cancer!) Instead of collecting $200 from the bank, though, I was asked to pay!--several hundred dollars for the follow-up mammogram and possible sonogram even before I was subjected to them. Boy, was I steamed! But I didn't lose my cool at the gal entering my information in the hospital computer. She was only doing her job and a fine one at that.

Instead of losing my cool at the hospital help, I started looking for errors--in the Right to Privacy brochure I was advised to read while I waited to be examined and in the ancient magazines stacked on side tables in the waiting room. I noted quite a lot of them (errors) in one issue of Southern Living, but they were nothing compared to the one on the front page of the brochure:

"This notice describes how health information about [   ] may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information. Please review it carefully...."

Oh, you can bet I did, West Florida Hospital. Notice anything missing? You! Of course! (I put the brackets in for effect.) I can only imagine what the Powers-That-Be are thinking behind our backs:

If You were paying any attention and had any backbone, You poor schmucks, You would feel outraged that the health care system in this country is a sham. It's not health care. It's overpriced, Mismanaged Disease-Care, and it's about to get even more overpriced and mismanaged (Affordable Care Act). Do You get it, You boobs (schmucks/fools)?

Got it. Now I really need a walk....