Perfection...More or Less

Saturday, November 22, 2025

The Magical Stardust of Thankfulness

Every day, spread the magical stardust of thankfulness into your life.

~Terri Guillemets

I sometimes feel as if we are in the dressing room of Autumn as she disrobes her fiery finery to put on something more relaxing for winter. If she wants to remember once more what elegance feels like, the snow begins to fall with all the magic of a multitude of star struck prisms.

How sad that in all this finery or lack of finery with just layer upon layer of frozen crystals, she transcends, only to descend once more when sun rays warm her. Her calming fairy tale magic takes a nosedive into a dreadful Brothers Grimm fairy tale full of mud, frostbite and chopped off toesies.

“Expectation is the thief of joy.” If we leave expectations out of the equation, then we leave even snowless days full of possibilities.

And here I am, looking for possibilities as each day’s temperature may be flirting with the end of summer or cozying up to the beginning of winter.

The cats are fed and I am cozying up to my laptop wondering how my gratitude really rates on the scale of life. Gratitude is a deeper, more profound state of being than thankfulness, that involves a lasting attitude of appreciation for life's circumstances and the people in it.

I seldom think of gratitude, or for what I am thankful for. Striving to live a positive life is a full time job for me. Not living under the best of circumstances creates a heavy load in that department, but I always refocus back to the possibilities in my life. One has to or the fingers of depression begin to work their damage.

I think the most memorable moment in my life of happiness was when I was young, maybe 25 years old, way before I began to drag all that garbage of my past around with me instead of letting go. My handle was ‘Juliet’, for when I used my husbands CB radio, which was rarely ever.

I was home and my youngest sister was with me when a trucker called on his radio asking if anyone was out there, as he was passing through town. Since no one answered, I answered back without a clue as to what I would be saying next. We jokingly hinted he could stop by and take a short break. He took us up on the offer and soon a large semi-truck was parked along the front side of my yard.

We all hung out by the semi-truck talking for about half an hour, before he said he should be going, but we had been laughing and having so much fun. He enjoyed the visit so much that he opened the back of the trailer and took out one of the many boxes of Red Delicious apples he was hauling from Washington state down through Nevada, which is where we were living, and gave it to me.

We were shocked but happy and thankful for the gift. I have to say this is the most pleasant memory that ever comes to mind all these years later. Those apples were so crisp and juicy, a reward just because we were ourselves, being outgoing and welcoming with a stranger of the CB radio world.

It is said that one never understands all the simple pleasures that we could be grateful for, but for much of the time we just assume it will always be there. It takes loosing those privileges to wake us up to what we always take for granted and never even think of the gratefulness of it all.

Sometimes I would hear that expression of getting off the plane and kissing the ground expressing an overwhelming feeling of safety at the end of a perilous situation. It was my first thought when we flew back home from Panama, Central America.

When we entered the airport at Panama, it was extremely intimidating, full of armed Panamanian soldiers with rifles. Being so obviously white and more likely assumed Americans, we had to be careful about the police, because being stopped by one always meant a bribe had to be paid to be allowed to continue our trip.

There was a double price for groceries, one for Pannonians and one for the richer Americans, even though we weren't rich. If you where American you were always assumed to be rich. If you didn’t pay the guy who stepped out of the shadows to watch your parked car on the street when eating or shopping, on ones return it would be discovered the guy stole from your car, usually a tire or two.

There was always tension in the air over the politics of the country, as dissatisfied students would riot on the streets, sometimes rolling a car over onto its roof and setting fire to it while the owner had to run away. One never wanted to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the military showed up in a fun place, it was best to quietly exit and go somewhere else.

We were never assigned a home on base, so we always lived out in the city of Panama, among the richer Panamanians. Our rent was at least doubled, which our government paid. We felt safe there because it was a Panamanian lawyers house and apartments for his children within a walled yard.

The third year, we were moved to an American owned street off base. ‘Just Cause’ happened and we found ourselves sitting on the floor of our bedroom for part of the night, as mortars flew over our house to destroy a police station nearby, while poor bloodied Panamanians from that shelled area, filled our back yard and carport, and we rightly feared for our lives.

It was an exhilarating experience, but overall, eventually the fear of no safety and the lack of empathy towards us made it a living hell, one in which we always had a gun on the coffee table just in cause its use was necessary.

For the first time in my life, when I got off that airline flying us home from Panama after four years, I felt like kissing that ground a hundred times, it was such a relief.

In The Garden

Front Yard with

Monarda fistulosa, Wild Bergamot, around the sign post,

still green in November.

Heuchera americana

A type of American Ginger

Blackhaw Viburnum berries

Type of native clematis.

Seeds of Calico Aster with the yellow/green leaves of Oat Grass.

Coral Berry

Very prolific this year with more fruit than any other year.

Maybe Maple seedlings, maybe not.

American Dogwood leaves.

Pachysandra procumbens

Left side of Back Yard

Clethra alnifolia, summer sweet in center of photo,

behind it is a male Persimmon Tree,

to the right is an American Hornbeam,

To the front left is a short type of American Arborvitae

where it catches rain runoff from the pathways.

With a hint of Christmas

The Book Wreath

My Favorite

While the cool winds chill on a sunny day, and the rain is so pushy, never wanting to stay away; I seldom celebrate this month’s holiday, although I do celebrate husbands love for it, which I think centers around all that tasty food.

With the apple picking just about done for, and winter nipping at our toes, may your days be bright with possibilities and your soul warmed with the remembering of why life's a blessing and not a curse.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment, if you wish. You make my blog possible, and I do think if everyone disappeared, it would just melt away into the cosmos and be a lost memory ever so pleasant.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Always with love,

~Yvonne

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Saturday's Critters

Saturday, November 8, 2025

Love and Hot Chocolate

You and I, perhaps, have grown out of fairy stories long ago. And I will assert that nearly every one of us grows out of it too soon. It was not our fault — it was our misfortune that elder people, who should have known better, stole the fairies from us. They knew but one world, these elders, and they had forgotten the joy of living in two.

Many, I know, hold it harmful to keep children too long living in the realm of faëry. They say it helps to make a woolgathering habit of mind, and so in time unfits the adult for the practical work of life. All of which I firmly believe to be wrong. Never did men and women have more need of a refuge in the exercise of poetic imagination than in this bustling age; and the happiest people I know are those who keep a keen delight in poetry and the things that are only to be seen by an inner eye.

There is a connection between the fairyland of youth and the poetry of mature years. Let a child but keep hold long enough of the gossamer thread that runs back into the realm of faëry, and in time it may join on to the world of higher poetic fancy.

~John Crawley, "The Realm of Faery," Reveries of a Father

'Winterthur' Viburnum

Just as he has filled his stomach to capacity with dinner delivered on demand, my purring little friend has wedged himself between the chair arm and my right hip, which is magical as no space exists between the chair arm and my hip, yet here he lays with his legs comfortably laying across my leg and his head resting on my belly bump, knowing he can just about get away with anything on earth he wishes.

Licking his right paw and rubbing it over his right ear, he ignores my aching left arm arched over his body trying to type out this post. He’s stopped purring, I’ll fix that.

A gentle rubbing under his chin, his purring reeves up again, then… oh no, he gets up, walks across my legs and curls around, plopping down into my right arm area, grazing my nose as he goes into his comfort zone, and as I wipe a tissue across my nose and fur with it, arch my right arm over his body to continue typing, a massive ache escalates quite fast from zero to nine in less than 60 seconds causing me to wish I had never thought about typing a story at all today.

I need my ice water. What! All I can produce from a brain swimming in words is ice water. Where is my ice water before I have a meltdown!

Well, Vic popped his head into the room, and my cat Austin made a beeline to safety from a man whom he loves dearly if food is available, otherwise he shrinks from sight and scoots into another room. I tell Vic the secrets for bonding with him, but he has no patience to stay the course.

Anyhoo… my subject flew the coop, leaving me no inspiration to continue. I’d write about Charlotte, but she’s a secret cat appearing at mealtimes before being absorbed back into the house until bedtime. I’m blessed with two cats who know their names, but don’t always come on demand. They only appear if they feel like it… so annoying.

Austin said you were in your ‘me’room typing a story. I was going to roll around in the plethora of lint clouds in the kitchen and dining room, lick it off my fur and puke it onto the living room rug, but daddy vacuumed, and I am left with nothing.

And I am being told this because…

…because, as Santa Claus, we have a request for toys to replace the ones you gathered up and dumped.

And what toys do you miss?

What toys did you dump?

I asked first, but it’s clear you had no favorites or at least one would pop up into your memory.

Oh pleaseee… we don’t want those dorky toys as replacement. We want better toys.

Well pardon me, Miss Lottiedah, do you have a list of the better toys? Is this request from Austin also?

It would be from Austin if he didn’t melt into your lap and forget about life every time you go into your writing room.

Well, I have a lap cat and a bedtime cat. Guess which one spends more time with me.

Well, if you took an afternoon nap, I would be spending more time with you, Mommy. Anyway, what about the request.

Request? What request was that?

New toys, Santa Mommy, new toys!

Isn’t it a tad too early for Christmas present requests, Charlotte dear.

Oh, Mommy, Mommy… There is no starting point for requests in life. It just always is. You could learn a lot from me.

Well, Ms. Einstein, I think I’ve learned enough to last two lifetimes. I’ll pass your list along to Santa.

Oh please, Mommy dearest, daddy ratted you out years ago.

Just give me the list and I’ll make sure you get the presents.

Here, Santa Mommy.

Why is it folded so many times?

To give you time to not freak out, coolest Mommy ever.

What the… tell you what, dear Charlotte, cross the first item off the list, then come back with a list written with words one half inch high on one side of this index card I’m giving you, since Santa is old, partly blind, and running low on funds this year’s end.

Why must I cross the first item off the list, Mommy meanie.

Oh, please Charlotte, I wasn’t born yesterday. Why do you want a singing canary in a birdcage? Why not forget the birdcage and just ask for the canary?

Well, if you insist.

I can see a big lump of coal coming your way this Christmas.

I can see we just keep getting dumb presents for Christmas, because there is no Santa. There’s just you. Forget the list.

*************************************************

Mommy was sad that night as she laid alone in bed, for Charlotte never appeared. Oh, how Mommy wished there really was a magical man who could whip up a present on demand, and deep in her heart she always pretended such a man really did exist, for what is life without a bit of magic.

Mommy sighed and let herself drift off into serenity as she listened to soft music and felt the cold of night settle around her. She rested peacefully, knowing her presents this year would have to be spot on with a cat’s prospective of the concept of life and Santa. She created the monster, and it seemed she would be living with it for some time to come.

Isn’t life grand. She thought that sarcastically, but caught herself saying it again, only this time with conviction. Sometime during the night Charlotte silently found her place next to Mommy on the bed.

All became well in this little corner of the world as Mommy dreamed of a mob of canary wings flapping all around her head, as Charlotte leaped through the air with the greatest of ease, claws extended and mouth open, shouting Hallelujah, there really is a Santa Claus!