A Cavalcade of Cavorting Fools

Note: Heads Or Hails is now based from it’s own new home. You can read the rules, grab some graphics, check out the themes, and of course sign in to play here! This week–HEADS-Fool

Who Is Not a Fool? [“Qui non stultus?”] —Horace (65-8 B.C.), Satires, 2.3.158

Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere. —William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (3.1.39-40)

He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom. —James Gibbons Huneker

You can educate a fool, but you cannot make him think. —The Talmud

April Fools’ Day: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. —Mark Twain

Can you find all the April Fool’s Day tricks hiding in this painting by Norman Rockwell? There are 57 that I know of and they are listed behind the break.

 

 

Thinking Too Hard

For more Heads Or Tails entries hightail it over to Skittle’s Place.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is HEADS – Wonder OR TAILS – Wander. This week I am going HEADS.

I wonder if I will remember to schedule my mammogram today? I wonder if the sun will continue to shine through to the weekend? I wonder what we will have for dinner? I wonder how long it will take to get where I am going? I wonder what MacDougal’s baby will look like? I wonder if I pretend this donut is fat free if that makes it so? I wonder why my sinuses despise spring so much? I wonder who wrote the book of love?

Edited: Ok, I scheduled the mammo!!!

 

Ponderous

For more Heads Or Tails entries hightail it over to Skittle’s Place.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is HEADS – Anything that starts with the letter P.

I am late, late, late to the party today! Posting has been particularly problematic since I am a plebeian. I am out of P words that fit into this post (except for that one). So here are some idioms that start with the letter P.

• pad the bill
• pain in the neck
• paint oneself into a corner
• par for the course
• pass the buck
• pay through the nose
• penny-wise and pound-foolish
• people who live in glass houses should not throw stones
• pick someone’s brains
• piece of cake
• pig in a poke
• pinch pennies
• pipe dream
• play one’s cards right
• play with fire
• pot calling the kettle black
• pour oil on troubled waters
• promise the moon
• pull a fast one
• pull someone’s leg
• put one’s foot in one’s mouth
• put the cart before the horse

 

I Love Being The Daughter Of A Hypochondriac

For more Heads Or Tails entries hightail it over to Skittle’s Place.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is HEADS – LOVE .

So, as previously mentioned, my mom got sick last week. She had a problem with her hand which was extremely painful. I can understand that. She went to one doctor who sent her to another doctor. While she was at this nerve specialist she asked him to check her breathing. He said her oxygen sats were low and she should go see her doctor right away. She has been diagnosed with mild PPH and has a pulmonary specialist who treats her. She had been doing well.

Instead of contacting the pulmonologist, she went upstairs to her GP. He said her sats were low and she needed to be on oxygen, which he would arrange, and to contact her pulmonologist. My mother heard “You will be on oxygen the rest of your life. There is no hope. You will never return to work and what time there is of your life left will be spent tethered to an oxygen bottle.”

When I talked to her over the next few days, she was ‘making arrangements.’ She notified her work, had “difficult” conversations with her beloved co-workers, and called her mother “to tell her.” She had a long, worrisome conversation with Nanny that got Nanny all worried and upset. The entire time I was saying hey! This seems a little sudden don’t you think? Maybe we should figure out why your sats are so low all of a sudden, you know, just before we bury you? After all, I said, this isn’t your GPs area of expertise and maybe, just maybe, we should talk to the specialist before she started “packing it in.” She said I needed to stop yelling at her (in Mom’s world if you disagree or tell her things will be okay when she has unilaterally decided things will not be okay then you are yelling at her). Apparently all three her kids were “yelling” at her. We “yell” because we love.

Today she went to the specialist. He said she will not be on oxygen for the rest of her life. In fact, she has improved so much just in these few days she can go off oxygen during the day and just use it at night. Oh and she might be allergic to the dog they got for Christmas, so he started her on an inhaler and some nasal spray. A dog allergy!

My mom, I gotta love her…otherwise I might have to kill her.

 

Last Words

‘Allo, ‘allo fellow Heads Or Tails amigos. If you don’t play, please visit Skittle’s Place for the who, what, where and when…

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is TAILS – Last (HEADS is First). Here are some famous last words:

Am I dying or is this my birthday?
When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside.
~~ Lady Nancy Astor, d. 1964

Codeine . . . bourbon.
~~ Tallulah Bankhead, actress, d. December 12, 1968

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.
~~ Humphrey Bogart, actor, d. January 14, 1957

Beautiful.
In reply to her husband who had asked how she felt.
~~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writer, d. June 28, 1861

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.
~~ Lord George Byron, writer, d. 1824

That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted.
~~ Lou Costello, comedian, d. March 3, 1959

Damn it . . . Don’t you dare ask God to help me.
To her housekeeper, who had begun to pray aloud.
~~ Joan Crawford, actress, d. May 10, 1977

That was a great game of golf, fellers.
~~ Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby, singer / actor, d. October 14, 1977

I must go in, the fog is rising.
~~ Emily Dickinson, poet, d. 1886

Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.
Last letter to her husband before her last flight.
KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low.
Last radio communiqué before her disappearance.
~~ Amelia Earhart, d. 1937

All my possessions for a moment of time.
~~ Elizabeth I, Queen of England, d. 1603

I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that’s the record . . .
~~ Dylan Thomas, poet, d. 1953

Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
~~ Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary, d. 1923

 

Assignation

‘Allo, ‘allo fellow Heads Or Tails amigos. If you don’t play, please visit Skittle’s Place for the who, what, where and when…

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, TAILS – Who would you like to meet and why?

This got me all contemplative and thoughtful…oh, brain freeze! I went into history; famous artists, geniuses, writers, politicians. You know, people who shaped the world we live in. None of them, shall we say, inspired my thought processes.

Then I asked for cues from Mr. Vixen and Sparkles ( we are still meeting for Heroes night even though there is no Heroes and we desperately try to entertain each other). Something Sparkles AND Mr. Vixen combined, set the spark, and VOILA:

I would like to meet my Grandpa Ernie. Now, it is true that I have already met him. But the last time I saw him he was in a coma and I was eight. He had just had surgery for a brain tumor. He never recovered and passed away a few days later. He is my paternal grandfather. My paternal grandmother lived until I was 32 and I knew her pretty well. I would like to spend a couple days talking to Grandpa Ernie. I am pretty sure my Dad got a lot of the qualities I admire most about him from Grandpa Ernie. The stories just aren’t enough to satisfy my curiosity. I want to talk to the man in person as an adult. I know we would hit it off and I would love to see in person his wit, intelligence and strength. He would be a vast wealth of information about the world in a different time and life growing up in England and Canada. He could give me ‘dirt’ on my Dad so I could raz him. I would like to share with him my husband and kids, and let him know I carried on that hard-work ethic he ingrained in my Dad and indirectly in me. I could thank him for raising one of the greatest father’s on the planet. I could thank him for that time he came and sat at the end of my bed and told me everything was going to be okay, how much it meant to me and still touches me today. I would like to say, I love you and I miss you, Gramps.

 

Senseless

‘Allo, ‘allo fellow Heads Or Tails amigos. If you don’t play, please visit Skittle’s Place for the who, what, where and when…

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, HEADS – Any of the five senses (Hear, Touch, Smell, See, Taste).

Woo hoo. I just stayed up late writing and then posted, only to find I had done next weeks cue. Ah well. I am determined and will now try and do this weeks cue and still get a few hours sleep before work.

She heard the rain before she went out the door, a gentle pitter patter on the roof. As she closed the door behind her it become a downpour and swooshed in upon her eardrums. Unable to locate her umbrella, she dashed across the yard towards her car. She could feel the rain soaking through her sweater as she ran. She saw the puddle too late, her foot planted deep in it and the water splashed up her leg. She laughed. This was just like being six again. The rain released the scent of citrus from the grove beside her house and she stopped to inhale deeply. It reminded her of another childhood folly and she tilted her head back. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. The drops tasted of rainbows and unicorns and for a moment she was transported to a simpler time. She shook her head to release some of the damp and dove into the front seat of her car. She cranked the heat up to high and felt it start to penetrate through her clothes and into her damp bones. That was fun, she thought. She started the car, shook her head once more, and drove off to work.

 

HEADS – Any word that starts with the letter C

(Click on the graphic for info or visit Skittle‘s to play)

This Tuesday’s Theme is any word staring with the letter C. I decided to try a little poetry and finally settled on doing a Cinquain** about Candlelight. It was not as easy as I thought it would be.

Candlelight
Wax Salvation

Glimmering in my dark

Encouraging me to follow

Twilight

 

HEADS – Old *OR* TAILS – New

(Click on the graphic to visit Barb and find out more on Heads Or Tails)

Well I just could not decide on Heads Or Tails this week. It’s my blog and I’ll waffle if I want to.

This week I turned to a book I haven’t been giving proper attention to lately. As I perused and searched for a quote that touched me or spoke to me, I was delighted to begin to feel a great peace within myself. A peace I haven’t felt in quite some time. Isn’t it funny that playing a ‘game’ on the internet could have such a profound affect on me?

Old Testament: Psalm 36

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good, and dwell in the land, and thou shalt be fed with its riches.
4 Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart.

New Testament: Book Of Matthew

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

 

Heads Or Tails #8 – TAILS – Tell About A Memorable Gift

(Go see Skittles for Heads Or Tails details and other participants)

All of my Christmas gifts are memorable, wonderful and appreciated. However, the first one that jumped to mind was from a long, long time ago.

Almost every Christmas, our entire extended family went to my Grandmother’s cabin for the holiday. There were two bedrooms downstairs and two great room upstairs filled with lots of beds. We all bunked together. Every year we prayed and hoped for snow. If it snowed hard enough, we would get snowed in and be unable to go home the day after Christmas. Most times it didn’t.

The year was 1970 and I was seven years old. My Great-grandma Healy was with us and for the few days before Christmas Eve she took myself, my little brother and little sister out onto the porch and taught us the “snow shuffle.” She must have been at least 86 at the time, but she sang a little ditty and shuffled her feet with us.

On Christmas Eve we went to bed and were too excited to sleep. We could hear all the adults downstairs in the family room and every so often they would hear us giggling or talking and they would holler up the stairs for us to go to sleep or Santa wouldn’t come. Eventually I drifted off to sleep. I awoke to a deafening silence. It was so quiet it was almost scary. I crept out of bed and I knew I wasn’t allowed to go downstairs to my parents room without waking one of my aunts or uncles. I crept over to the window upstairs and raised the curtains. The world was blanketed deep and thick in white. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Until I started screaming at everyone, “IT SNOWED. IT SNOWED.”

After the aunts and uncles went downstairs to wake up the eldest siblings and the grandparents and coffee was brewed, us children were allowed downstairs. Santa brought me a wonderful Barbie, but best of all something I hadn’t even asked for. It was a (faux) fur muffler and hat. The muffler was like this, but the hat was like a fur hoodie with a tie under the chin and the muffler had a long string to go around my neck.

It was a great day, but a bit sad because everyone else would be staying at the cabin until New Years and we had to go home (my dad worked for his father and he required my Dad back at work on the 27th as usual). By mid-afternoon, the snow had mostly melted at least enough that the roads were cleared. I went to sleep that night (after performing the snow dance one last time with Grama Healy) in a melancholy mood knowing that when I awoke we would have to start packing.

The next morning I awoke suddenly, yet again, surprised by the silence. Sure enough many inches of snow had fallen. My Dad was not one to shirk his duties (reasonable or otherwise) and spent hours shoveling and clearing. The cabin was off the maintained roads so there was no snow plow. He spent another few hours just trying to get the car out of the drive and onto the street. It didn’t happen, much to my joy. But I remember standing out there cheering him on (because I wanted him to be happy) with my hands (and my barbie) stuffed warm and dry inside my muffler while the snow continued to fall around me. We ended up “stuck” there until my birthday (Jan 3rd)!

Truly a wonderful memory. But a new memory now will join it. Without people like Skittles and the others I have met online, I may not have recalled this memory so vividly. I love how this little space of mine has exposed me to so many people who make me think, remember, recall and be creative. It is all inside me, just waiting to be released, thanks to all who help me tune into it and release!