A jumper cable walks into a bar. The barman says,
“I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything.”
Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says,
“I’ve lost my electron.”
The other says, “Are you sure?”
The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”
Two Sweet Creams Please
I watch you standing there
at the ice cream counter, ordering two sweet creams–
in sugar cones please–laughing and joking with
the gangly young ice cream scooper,
and suddenly I see you for real:
an eager little boy, standing on tip-toes,
fingers hooked fiercely onto the counter’s cool edge,
barely able to peer over,
eyes bright, unable to contain your joy, exuberance
exploding everywhere, shouting
yes please! to sprinkles, yes!
more sprinkles please!
A happy little sponge
extracting everything you possibly can
from this moment, wondering how will you ever
fit all this good stuff in?
I see you.
I see you standing there,
ordering us two sweet creams–in sugar cones please–
soaking it all up, still looking around for what more fun
you might wheedle
out of this moment,
when suddenly, your eye catches mine
and your joy pulls me fast and hard to your chest where
we collide, sparking a dazzling flare seen for miles around
though you are still paying, and I
haven’t moved an inch.
~ by madlyinlovewithlife
I met my partner, my one true love, many moons ago. I was crazy about him then, and all these years later, I’m more in love than ever.
Two Sweet Creams Please, by madlyinlovewithlife
From my collection of poems entitled Blowing Rings Around the Moon
© 2010 madlyinlovewithlife
Image Credit:
Love Flare, digital art by madlyinlovewithlife; © 2012 madlyinlovewithlife
DanboA few years ago, when I first joined Flickr and started perusing all the incredible photography there, I would occasionally come across fun and creative images of a box-headed character. I had no idea who this character was and why people were taking photos of it. It took me a while to figure it all out, so for those of you who are new to Danbo (or Danboard, as it is technically called), it is a toy figure from Japan made to resemble an Amazon box. The character originates from a Japanese comic magazine (or manga) called Yotsuba&!.
The Danbo figures have articulated arms, legs and heads, which allow them to be moved into different positions. For some reason, they have become somewhat popular as subjects of photography on Flickr. That’s where I first saw them and fell in love with them. They always make me smile! :)
When I saw all the creative fun that many Flickr members were having with their Danbos, I really wanted one of my own to playfully photograph. I checked around on Amazon but they were out of stock at the time. Shortly after that, I went off to visit my parents on my own, while my partner stayed back home and I totally forgot about Danbo.
I was away from home for almost two weeks and when I returned a happy surprise awaited me—two Danbos: Big Danbo and his little brother, Little Danbo. As soon as I walked in the door, I spotted them both patiently waiting for me—Little Danbo happily sporting a welcome sign and Big Danbo extending an offering of my favourite locally-made gourmet chocolates, which evaporated almost instantly (and it wasn’t either of the Danbos or my partner who devoured them). Ah, it was a sweet homecoming indeed!
“I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny,
but we can have lots of fun that is funny.”~ Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat
One winter several years ago, my partner and I took a fabulously fun road trip from Calgary (Alberta, Canada) all the way down to Los Angeles, California. The Greater Los Angeles area is such an exciting place to explore—there are oodles of interesting things to see, tons of great food to sample and a myriad of beautiful sights to take in. We only had a few days to explore and one thing high on our list was to spend an afternoon at one of the many magnificent beaches.
I love almonds in all of their forms: I love munching on them raw for a snack; I love using them in baking and I love them in savoury cooking. Many recipes call for blanched almonds, sliced almonds or almond flour. All of these products are widely available for purchase but if you have the time and inclination they’re also all very easy to make yourself.
I like to make my own blanched almonds simply because I really enjoy the process. For me, the easy, repetitious act of peeling and slicing almonds is rather meditative. Also, I find that my homemade blanched almonds are much fresher than the commercially prepared ones and they’re a lot more economical.
I took up the violin when I turned 33. To this day, I’m not sure what possessed me. One day, the idea just popped into my head—it didn’t matter how old I was, I could learn the violin if I wanted to. A week later, I owned a good quality used violin, a lovingly worn second-hand violin case, an inexpensive bow, a small cake of amber rosin and the phone number of a violin teacher who accepted adult students (apparently, there’s a special knack to teaching violin to the less pliable adult mind).
I’d wanted to play the violin since I fell in love with fiddle music in my early twenties. But I scoffed at the thought of picking it up back then, pinned down by my own limiting belief that it was an instrument one could only learn in childhood. But, for some unknown reason that day, the powerful thought, an epiphany, really—that it’s never too late to learn—struck a deep chord in me and kept resonating until I finally acted on it. I had no goal in mind other than to play the violin simply for the joy of learning and, possibly, hopefully, one day, to be able to play well enough to strike up a few fiddle tunes as my partner strummed his guitar. I reasoned that if I only practiced fifteen minutes every day, in time I’d be somewhere—I didn’t know where exactly, but no matter how bad I was, in five or ten years I’d be someplace farther up the road. Since I was starting from point zero, there was no way I couldn’t improve.
Short film is one of my favourite art forms. I love watching shorts. Not all shorts, of course–just as with feature film, the range of quality varies from exceedingly bad to exceedingly brilliant. And just as with feature film, I have strong preferences, so I am very discriminating in what I choose to view.
My first experience with short films was back in my childhood, growing up on the Canadian prairies, when our small town theatre would sometimes screen cartoons and short films before the Saturday afternoon matinée feature film. Many of the shorts were produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and I fell in love with a few NFB classics over the years.
Until recently, it was nearly impossible to view shorts outside of the theatre. They were usually only screened at film festivals and they simply weren’t widely distributed for home viewing. As a result, shorts were virtually inaccessible to your average joe. Each year, I’d wistfully watch the trailers for the Best Live Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film Oscar nominees, knowing that I’d probably never be able to see any of them.
madlyinlovewithlife 