Red

Things in the jungle have been, well, a jungle. I’ve been lax about Project Blog It for many weeks now, but am trying to get back to it. As the year wraps up today, I hope everyone can look back with satisfaction, and ahead with optimism.

Project Blog It


On 14 Dec. 2008 I ran a marathon. I ran this marathon in a bright, new, red shirt bought specifically for the event. I’ve never been a fan of the color red (unlike Minerva). I own very few things that are red. In fact, I can only think of two red items that I own, and one of those items is my red marathon shirt.

So I’m left asking myself why I chose a red shirt to run in. I don’t have a clear answer, but perhaps I needed something different to mark a new achievement. Something different to mark something I had never done before. The marathon was a project I wanted to do. It was my own goal, and as such, was much more mental than physical (if you can believe that). And as a mental project, it was also internal. My choice of a red shirt, something I would likely never have worn, was external, a visible marker of something new in me.

I began 2008 by running my first distance race. Within the first three weeks of the new year, I hit a milestone birthday, which I marked with a half marathon. As the year progressed, I continued running, working towards new distance goals, and I also worked toward new personal goals of being more of the person I really want to be. I close the year having completed a marathon, and I did it in a red shirt.

In preparing for the marathon, I trained for six months. I began running in the sweltering Texas summer, and I finished running in the windy, damp, and cold Texas winter. I rose every day at 5:00 AM to run in the dark during the week. On Saturday mornings I rose at 4:30 AM to meet my running team for longer and longer training runs. I attended training seminars. I spent money on high-tech running gear. I monitored and logged my times, distances, and splits. I watched my carb/protein ratios, and obsessed about my hydration. I read running magazines. These are activities I continue pursuing even post-marathon.

I was the nerdy and hopelessly uncoordinated kid who couldn’t do a lay-up with a basketball, the kid who couldn’t hit a baseball with a bat, the kid who couldn’t throw a football with a spiral. Rather than participate in sports that I had no natural talent for, I preferred to spend time with books.

Now, in my forties, after months of training, sore muscles, and blackened toes, training that I continue even having achieved my goal, after all of that, is it possible that I’m actually an athlete?



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Cold

Words

Over the last two weeks things in the jungle have been, well, a jungle. Shmonkey took a couple of weeks off but is back again. Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday.

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“What are words for, when no one listens anymore?”
Missing Persons

Word are the very heart of my thinking. They structure and organize my thoughts. They form the fundamental basis of language. And without language, without words, what are we? I’m sure it might be possible to conceive of a way of communicating and expressing without words. But we, as humans, need our words. I may express something with how I order my face or how I move my body, but I can only understand such expressions via words. My thinking is mediated entirely by language. Those voices in my head aren’t insanity, but my thoughts being thought, speaking to me in the silent language I hear only in my mind. And it’s a conversation of words.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Red.

Camaro

Project Blog It

Camaro was from a border town. It didn’t matter which side of the border. In the US, everyone assumed he was from the other side. In Mexico, everyone assumed he was American, or at least a lucky emigrant.

His language was the language of the border, neither pure English, nor pure Spanish, as if either of these languages could ever have a pure form. Camaro’s border language was slightly accented in both English and Spanish. He spoke those languages perfectly, natively, but with the notes and tones that gave away his border status. It was those subtleties of pronunciation that labeled him as someone from the other side, never someone from here, never someone who belonged.

The other people of the border, people like Camaro, spoke in the same way. Looked and lived the same way; people who ate frijoles as often as they ate potatoes. They were people of nowhere, neither here nor there. Only knowing themselves what their addresses were, addresses that stopped at their zip codes, not extending beyond to the abstract idea of nation.

Camaro knew the border was a line, a political designation marking the boundary between one world and another. But the border, as lived by Camaro, was much more fluid. Not a fine line that marked this side from that side. Not a line that when crossed with a mere step meant the movement between languages, cultures, opportunities, and possibilities. Camaro saw the border as a much wider expanse than a simple line. And he wondered how wide the border was. In not belonging on either side, his border existence transcended nations. He was a man without a country, subject to no one, until it came time to pay taxes, and then both sides wanted him. But he wondered how far either north or south one would have to go before belonging. Where does the border really exist? At what point would he be regarded as one with the others, as one who is home?


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Words.

Let's go get our damn equal rights!

Solstice

Project Blog It

The solstices are both my favorite and my dreaded days of the year. The summer solstice, when the sun crosses the Tropic of Cancer, marks the longest day of the year in our hemisphere, the day when we experience maximum daylight, the official start of summer, and my favorite day of the year.

The winter solstice, when the sun crosses the Tropic of Capricorn, marks the exact opposite, the shortest day of the year. The day we experience maximum darkness, the official start of winter, and my least favorite day of the year.

Sunlight is important to me. It makes me happy, brings me joy, and makes me feel good. I love long long days that start early in the morning and last until long past evening. The summer solstice is the pinnacle of such days. It is the moment from which I can look forward and see the long, bright, warm summer months ahead of me. It is a moment of pure bliss when I feel like there is so much time ahead of me, and there really is. It is the moment I think about, months from then, looking back, and wishing it hadn’t all passed by so quickly, wishing that I still had some more time—but on the solstice, I really do have all of that time.

As the days are nearing there shortest time and we approach the winter solstice, I’m starting to feel that sense of longing, even anguish, for warmth and daylight. But on thinking about solstices, I wonder if perhaps I’ve gotten it wrong. Yes, the summer solstice remains my favorite day of the year, but that day also marks a turning point. It marks the point after which the days begin to shorten. And in the same way, though the winter solstice marks the shortest and darkest day, it also marks the point at which the days begin to lengthen. Yes, it will take months for the sun to cross the equator bringing me more light than darkness, but after the winter solstice, we’ve turned a corner and begin to move back towards warmth and light. Likely the coldest days of the year remain ahead of us, but the countdown to those long sunny days I love so much has begun.

It seems the dark and the light go hand-in-hand together, one with the other, in balance, unity, and harmony. And I guess that’s as it should be.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Bitchin Camaro.

Treat

Project Blog It

Apologies for the tardiness of this week's post.


A treat is a fleeting indulgence. Something given or received as a reward, but not always a reward for an accomplishment. To be a treat, the reward must be temporary—the momentary pleasure of chocolate that makes the calories and blood sugar spike worth it. Even treats that result in concrete rewards, unnecessary or costly items that are purchased, are temporary, for the pleasure they bring as treats is short-lived in comparison to the life of a new pair of shoes or a car. These items last, but we become accustomed to them. They soon cease to excite us in the way that reminds us of the accomplishment they were meant to mark. We may still enjoy and appreciate the item for its lifespan, but the immediacy of the sense of being rewarded flies away.

Treats are delights. Momentary pleasures that bring us joy and well-being. They remove us from the challenges of being, if only for a moment.



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.


Next week's prompt: Solstice.

Fright

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I suppose it seems appropriate, or perhaps cliché, to write on fright on Halloween. So rather than focus on fright per say, I want to write about fear, something I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of days.

Fear, I think, is never actually fear of anything other than the unknown. There is no real direct object of fear. Insofar as something that we truly believe to cause fear in ourselves is not real, which is certainly open for debate. Instead, I think what we really fear is only the abstract idea of something we do not, or cannot know. It is the unknown that is the object of fear.

We fear death because we do not know what death means for us, or even for those closest to us. We think we know, but really we cannot know.

We might fear snakes or spiders, but really it’s not fear. Rather it’s a sense of creepiness and discomfort.

We might fear heights, but such a fear is more likely the fear of not knowing what it would be like to fall—the fear of not knowing what it’s like to not be in control of ourselves.

My fears derive from the unknown parts of who I am and who I will become. I was a certain kind of person at one time, and kind of person that I valued greatly. I have long hoped that that person will find a way of emerging again, but I do not know if that will happen, and that frightens me. This is not to say that I am unhappy with the person I am today. I am, in fact, very happy. At the same time, I do have ambitions and goals, and I worry that situations, circumstances, and freely made choices have worked against those goals. I do not know though, and therein lies the locus of my fear.

Happy Halloween, everybody.

Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Treat.

Wishes

Project Blog It

A wish. A look to the future. Something more than a hope.

A wish is as often unrealistic as it is possible.

“I wish 5:00 would come.” “I wish I could fly.”

Whereas as a hope tends toward something that carries with it possibility.

“I hope it doesn’t rain.” “I hope she recovers quickly.”

Wishes are dreams, fantasies of a world we imagine. They are unlimited in their possibility and their impossibility, subject only to the limitations of our own imaginations.

“When you wish upon a star. . .” “Make a wish and blow.”

A wish, at best, marks a future possibility. At worst, it marks an impossibility free of time, existing now and always in its own inability to ever be realized.

I will never be able to fly without the aid of a mechanical device, and lots of money.

A wish is an escape from the here and now. Perhaps its benefit lies in its power to move us, if only in the moment it takes to construct the wish, from the place of our existence devoid of the object of the wish. It is idealism. It is the dream of something else, something better, something magical. It is the construction of a world, a situation, an experience as we wish it could be.

And though a wish is not a hope, the fact that we can make a wish indicates that we do have some hope for the future. And I think that’s a good thing.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Fright.

Migration

Project Blog It

The Monarch butterflies are in the midst of their migration to northern Mexico for the winter. There, they'll stay until springtime, when they lay eggs and die. Those eggs become the butterflies that migrate north again where they too will lay eggs and die, completing a cycle across generations.

I am fortunate to live in an area of the country that sits along the Monarch's autumn migration path. In fact, the Monarchs are attracted to the Cypress trees outside of my office window. And given that I'm on the second floor, I'm treated to an amazing daily show of hundreds of butterflies fluttering by and roosting in the trees. It's truly a stunning sight, and one that I never fail to appreciate.

The Monarchs, on their long annual journey, give me pause to consider migration, the movement from one place or mode of being that is somehow marked (whether by political boundaries, climate, personal sense of self, or something else) to another, differently marked space. I've migrated a few times in my life. Not always by choice, and not always the result of good choices.

I wonder what it would be like to live the simple and directed life of a Monarch. Floating on currents, instinctively pulled across continents and then back again. Somewhere along the way leaving one's legacy and then passing out of the cycle of migration for good. Do Monarchs understand their beauty? Do they know how they fascinate us? A bit of wind and color drifting past my window. They remind me of childhood summers in the northern Midwest, the beginning and the end of their journey. There, the Monarchs marked the long days of mid-year. The orange of their wings glowing in the warm summer sun. Now, here in the Southwest, their migration marks the migration of the year itself, its own end coming closer with shorter and shorter days.

This movement of butterflies, the migration of the Monarchs, for a brief moment, shifts me out of my own inertia and stagnation to migrate with them, if only for a few seconds, before settling again into the mode of being the defines me now.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Five wishes for yourself; Five wishes for the world.

Vote to Make a Difference

Project Blog It

I'm an idealist. I freely admit to being so. I do have faith in the American democratic process, and I proudly take part in it.

That said, I also freely admit that the American democratic process is flawed. Citizens don't vote. Large numbers of those who do vote do so blindly--in other words they pick candidates for reasons other than a thoughtful reflection on qualifications and position on the issues at hand.

I don't believe our process, or any process for that matter, can be perfect. Sure it can be better than it is now, but despite its flaws, it is a process that I embrace and take seriously. I proudly go to the polls on election day. When I vote, I actually do feel as if I am a part of something larger. I do feel civic pride and my own sense of patriotism.

I do believe that voting makes a difference, and I'm glad that voting is a legal, fundamental part of our system. But I also try to be realistic about it. It's all a matter of degree, like my comment about the American system being flawed and imperfect. Voting does make a difference, but it's usually a much smaller difference than we might hope for or expect. Politicians, especially those running for the highest offices, like to speak with soaring rhetoric about their great plans for our nation. In reality though, any plan will, almost necessarily, by subject to compromise. It's the way we all get things done, big and small. So voting, whether it be on the PTA or for President of the United States, does make a difference because we are voicing an opinion. And those opinions determine the kinds of policies and programs that we then debate, compromise on, and implement, often to only small degrees. But they still make a difference. The path to change is usually done in small steps, not larger leaps. And for me, at least for now, that's enough.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Migration

Burning Up, Burning Out

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He rises, tired, in the dark. Tired before he's even begun the long day of using up energy that is already running at a deficit.

The burden of life, work, and responsibility carried in his slow steps in the early morning, he pads about the dark knowing each step, finding what he needs, without light, having done it the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that.

There is something peaceful about the quiet, early, dark mornings. Moving about in the stillness, long before the rest of the world rises, he finds a sense of ease. At these all too brief moments, the peace and stillness of the morning finds its way to his soul. It is that peacefulness that enables him to draw forth the strength to begin fully the long day ahead.

He moves about his day, running here and there. He fulfills his responsibilities, those he's agreed to willingly and those placed upon him, with faithfulness and dedication. Those responsibilities fill the day as the sun rises, erasing the dark that began his day, until it hides once again returning the world to stillness.

He ends his day as he began it, in the dark. He falls into bed, tired. Tired from a long day begun too early, filled with too much work and responsibility. Tired from a tired that had never really left, but was only hidden. To rest for a few hours, only to rise, tired, in the dark, to begin another day.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.


Next week's prompt: If voting really made a difference, it would be illegal.

Love Is An Art

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"Love is an art you learn degree by degree." I Want a Long Time Daddy – Bea Foote

I'm not quite sure what to do with this week's prompt. I haven't been able to come up with a single unified idea to write about. Instead, I keep coming back to my training in literary analysis. I've deliberately not looked up the entire poem. (BTW, Road Trip Girl selected this week's prompt.) This single line reminds of what I consider to be one of the beautiful things about English (and in truth, likely any language). There's great richness to the language and word choice with multiple and sometimes diverse meanings. And as a person attracted to postmodern theory, I like that richness and multiplicity and like to keep those many possible meanings in play all of the time.

So, what is this love that we learn? Do we learn it bit-by-bit ("degree by degree"), or do we learn it by earning degrees in love ("degree by degree")? And what would it mean to earn a degree in love? Would a degree be an instance of the experience of love? Would multiple degrees in love imply multiple love relationships, or multiple ways of loving? What does it even mean to "learn" love when love is, or at least seems to be, something one feels and experiences?

These are the questions that this one isolated line raises in my mind. And the fact that there are no definite answers to any of these questions makes the line all that more appealing. Perhaps it's time to look at the rest of the poem and put the line in context.

On a side note, the author of this poem, Bea Foote, seems awfully close to Big Foot. Hmmm, Road Trip Girl (AKA Squatch), what's going on here?


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: Burning the candle at both ends.

September

Project Blog It

Your position on the calendar
Marks the beginning of the end of the year,
The beginning of its perpetual death.
And yet, you too cycle through living and dying
To be reborn for another thirty days,
Marking death with your own birth.

The days shorten and the nights lengthen
We turn from summer reads at the beach
To the more intellectual matters of the academy.
The pace quickens in a rush towards death.
That short thirty days speeds past matching our pace,
Closing too abruptly with the first cold winds of winter.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.


Next week's prompt: "Love is an art you learn degree by degree." I Want a Long Time Daddy – Bea Foote

The Hour of Departure

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You left. You left in a moment. Not an hour, not a minute. It was a moment. A single, imperceptible moment. I held you and you were there, and then suddenly you had departed. That "hard cold hour" was not one of departing. It was not a process stretched out over sixty minutes. It was the empty space left by one who has already departed. And it's been much more than an hour.

Long ago, you had departed once before. It was a departure that I chose, and because of that, it was much easier to accept. But then you returned and I felt redeemed. My choice was a regrettable choice, but I believed then, or wanted to believe then, that it was the right choice. When you returned, I felt I was given a second chance. And I hoped, wished that your departing would never come forth again. Knowing all the time, that departure is fastened "to all timetables."

Departure is as much a part of arrival as history is a part of the future. We cannot have one without the other. It is the natural course of things. It is the right course of things. My welcoming of you always already carried within it my farewell. Then, the coming goodbye seemed so far away that I didn't need to think about it. Now it seems it came too fast.



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week's prompt: September

In Mourning

Joy and pain are very natural parts of life. They are what makes us human. And they are perhaps the extremes of human emotion.

Right now I am on the pain side of the spectrum. Please see the memorial to my beloved Zimba over at Crash Course.

Movement

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To move means to change. There is no stasis or stagnation in movement. It’s a moving forward and a moving beyond where one is at any given moment in time. Movement is a positive thing. It’s growth. It’s new thoughts and new things to see and do. And yet, movement can also bring pain. Change can be difficult emotionally. I often get anxious about change, fearing the unknown. But it’s also important. I fear even more becoming rigid. Without movement, the barriers get established and limits on one’s life are raised. And that is certainly something I don’t want.

All that being said, sometimes there is too much movement. Running helter skelter, here and there. Lives of stress, on the run, go go go. Such movement is not positive. On the contrary, it’s destructive, and meaningless. It’s counterproductive, setting one back rather than moving one forward into new being.

Movement in my life, unfortunately, tends to be more frequently of the latter type. One of my deepest hopes is that I’m able to distinquish the two, control the latter, and promote the former. I don’t think I’m very successful, at least not at the current moment.

It’s times like these when movement needs to slow or stop. One needs to be still both physically and mentally—slow oneself so that the world one occupies slows in response. The beauty of stopping movement in this way, at these times, is that the movement doesn’t really stop. The clarity and peace found in stepping off the train of chaotic movement allows one re-establish a productive flow of movement that benefits life.

Keep moving. Always. And seek the courage to neither be afraid of movement nor unwilling to free yourself from senseless motion.



Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt. Road Trip Girl is road tripping back to the blogosphere and should be posting again soon.

Next week’s prompt:
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
Pablo Neruda, "A Song of Despair"

Certitude

Project Blog It

Freedom from doubt, especially in matters of faith or opinion; certainty.

In asking myself what I am certain of, I realized that the only true answer I can give is that there is very little of which I am certain. Certitude requires absolutes, and I’ve never been fond of absolutes. They pin you down, lock you in, and can limit you. I want freedom to be fluid in what I think, how I am, and what I believe.

And yet, certitude is one of those wiggly concepts, itself unpinnable. The minute I say I can’t be certain of anything, I realize there are in fact things that I am certain of. I’m certain that I love Thai food. I’m certain that I want to live in Europe at some point in my life. I’m certain that there’s value in being a decent human being. What I realize in making this list though, is that these certainties are time-specific. I am certain now that I love Thai food. I am not certain that I will always love Thai food. And so on.

So, if my certainty is time and context-specific, is it really certainty. Does certitude need to transcend any qualifiers to be certitude? I’m not sure.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt. Road Trip Girl will be posting late over the next couple of weeks as she is being true to her name and is currently on a road trip!

Next week’s prompt: movement

The Function of Art

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The beauty of art is that it is, at once, both utterly functionless and completely filled with function.

Art is (perhaps) inessential to sustaining life. I don’t rely on it to feed, shelter, or protect me. But it does sustain the mind, the soul, and the heart.

Art is a reflection and a product of a context, a culture, and a history. And it’s a reflection that remains flexible. Art is able to shift and move among cultures, contexts, and histories while still remaining relevant.

Art’s function is to be that touchstone whereby the individual as well as the group sees itself reflected, finds a way to communicate ideas, concepts, feelings, experiences, and finds a way to challenge, honor, and comment on the very state of being.

Art is powerful and wonderful, and yes, even essential in its inessentiality.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week’s prompt: Certitude

The Other Seven Dwarfs

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Surly views the world as the primary source of personal torment. Rather than “whistle while he works,” Surly, in a nod to his increasingly anti-social tendencies, wishes he could WFH (work from home) permanently—so long as the other dwarfs stay down in the mine.

Sassy’s joy in life is to throw his attitude around in a mildly biting, but amusing way. Rather than selling all of the diamonds he digs from the mine, he’d rather set them into shiny pretty things to wear and catch peoples’ eyes. He was much happier before Snow White showed up and got all of the attention.

Sleazy was never more happy than when Snow White came along. Living for so long with six short men put him on edge. He spends most of his time finding excuses for climbing ladders to clean ceiling fans and change light bulbs just so he can get high enough to peak down Snow White’s blouse.

Snarky finds Snow White annoying and useless. With the other dwarfs constantly mooning over her, nothing seems to get done. He wonders why Snow White can’t at least clean the cottage and cook dinner rather than sing and dance with wildlife all day.

Sarcastic likes to comment on the “shortcomings” of the other dwarfs. None have been successful in winning over Snow White. You know what they say about small hands and feet. And Sarcastic believes Snow White clearly knows too.

Snarly is generally pissed off. He can’t understand why seven men with an unlimited supply of diamonds have to live together in a woodland cottage and perform manual labor every day. His dream is to live a life of leisure aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean with Snow White all to himself.

Superior is the shortest of the dwarfs, and yet he can’t help but look down upon them all. Snow White may be beautiful and charming, but Superior knows he can do better.


Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.

Next week’s prompt: What’s the function of art?

Strawberries

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When I was a kid, I often wondered if eating fruit seeds would cause fruit trees to grow in my belly and pop out of my nose, ears, and mouth. This wonder actually started out of fear after accidentally eating an apple seed. I was taught not to eat apple cores and seeds. I, being a naive child, believed that we weren't supposed to eat the seeds because doing so was somehow dangerous, rather than the true fact that apple seeds simply aren't appetizing. On the school playground, I inadvertently swallowed an apple seed and proceeded to enter a mild state of panic thinking I had done something wrong. My classmates warned me that an apple tree would now grow from my belly.

This wonder about eating fruit seeds eventually became a mildly amusing joke--eating the seeds of anything would incite some comment about foliage sprouting forth from ones innards. I am not unique in such humor. It seems that jokes about plant life growing from within the human body are a collective cultural experience, something parents, aunts, and uncles tease children about.

I still occasionally joke about trees and plants growing from my body. I often eat the seeds of fruits, partly because I kind of like them, and partly because I'm too lazy to pick them out, watermelon being the prime example. I love watermelon. I don't like seedless watermelons. And so I eat the watermelon seeds, only passing up those that fall from the melon on their own.

To be honest, I sort of like the idea of plants growing from my ears and nose. How convenient would that be? Simple reach around to the back of my head and pick a ripe apple. If I timed my fruit consumption right, I could harvest various fruit crops throughout the year. When my apple limbs were finished producing, I could pick cantaloupes from the vines growing out of my belly button, and so on. Although, admittedly, it might be difficult to carry around those heavy watermelons.

Ultimately though, I know that fruit trees and vines do not, sadly, grow from the human body. Cat bodies, however, are another story entirely. A few weeks ago, I fed my sleek black cat some strawberry ice cream. This wasn't strawberry-flavored ice cream. It was the full-fledged, all natural, real deal, with fresh strawberries and lots of strawberry seeds. Kitty loved it, lapping up every drop and cleaning the saucer. It wasn't too long after he ate the ice cream though, that I noticed a change. He seemed to swell a bit, and he rolled about as if someone was tickling him from the inside. Within a few hours, I saw thin whitish curls emerging from his ears. I thought he had worms, but those curls soon turned a deep shade of green and unfurled into leaves that matched the green of his eyes. By morning, strawberries had sprouted from the vines, now wrapped about his neck, belly, and tail. A giant strawberry hung from each ear like a set of earrings, and a whole cluster dangled from the tip of his tail. My cat, rather than finding this situation disturbing, seemed delighted. He merely had to turn his head slightly to take a bite of the luscious strawberries that decorated his ears. By the time he'd finished one, another had grown in his place.

I have to say, his shiny black coat, the bright red of the glistening berries, and the deep green of the vines that match his eyes made a beautiful portrait. He looked like the quintessential cat peeking out from the bushes. The only difference is that he was now also the bush.

Kitty continues to produce berries and eat them with gusto. It's actually made my job as a pet owner easier because I no longer have to put food out for him. But I gotta tell ya, it sure would be nice if he'd share.




Please check the blogs listed on the right for companion pieces to this week's prompt.



Next week's prompt: What are the names of the seven other dwarfs?