April Showers Bring May Flowers

It is appropriate that we ended April with pouring rain. We received 24 mm of rain on Thursday tongue in cheek, I saw someone twitter “Toronto is looking a lot like New Orleans after the flooding”. We have had a few rainy days this week and the grass where I walk Bella is covered in inches of water. OK, bring on the flowers!

May Day
Is it May already? I received my annual announcement from Susan this morning, who every year reminds all us friends what the good weather starting in May means to everybody. Actually, her note brings back memories, but I think I have gotten past the May “2-4” camping weekends which were the harbinger of spring for me. Right of passage for our teens here is to go camping with friends that weekend, get drunk and *hmmm* need I say more? I will let others do this sort of stuff outside in the spring – I think I prefer to wait for summer to bake on a hot beach or have weekend long outdoor escapades. In the meantime, long walks, roller blading and nice outdoor patios are on my agenda!

We finished poetry month, but I can’t help but do one last blog on the topic. I was able to find a few minutes to catch up on my blog reading on Thursday night and as I was attempting to get through the ever growing list of bloggists I am following, I had to add two others I found mentioned within my “regulars”. This is a round about journey to the poetry topic, but bear with me, I will get there.

Visiting a Castle in Spain
First, let me put in a plug for My Castle in Spain. I am having a wonderful time with “virtual travel” by visiting various foreign websites. Since I have a great interest in doing the Camino in Spain in the next few years and am reading another blog On the Camino, which is a day by day account of one person’s Camino journey 2 years ago, I read the My Castle in Spain blog with great interest. She does a splendid job of describing the local culture, customs and everyday life which surrounds her. I enjoy her blog immensely. Hers contains many great local pictures, well framed and explained! It is like being on a guided tour which is handed out in 10 minute lumps every day or so in each blog. It was her blog which connected me to the Oia blog and caused a large sigh of jealousy to escape my lips.

Azure Seas and Blue and White Houses on the Hill
Oia is a village on the sea side of Santorini Island. The blog is called A Notebook about Life in Oia. It is a blog well worth exploring. I have some fond memories of things Greek and have listened to some first hand accounts of the beauty of Santorini.

Sadly, I never got to go there with my Greek, although his parents own a beach house on the Mediterranean a boat ride away. However I was bitten by the bug to go there some day and experience this beauty first hand. This blog brought back some wonderful memories of things Greek and is a very interesting site to visit because it documents the work these expats who are renovating a cave house in the side of the mountains. An interesting blog with beautiful postcard perfect scenery pictures.

I will go back to follow the progress and hopefully see the finished product of all their labours – along with the breathtaking photos of the azure blue waters, white and blue stucco homes and hillsides of green. I am sure their “cave” (not to mention Santorini island) would an idyllic place to live.

A Brief Stop with a Cuban In London
The second new blog I found was A Cuban in London. Whilst browsing through his site, I read the most wonderful poem, titled “kidnap poem”. It evoked some warm and fuzzy memories because of words used. Lilacs are my favourite flower and soon it will be lilac time. Words like “the beach” and “the sea” always cause a moan of desire to escape my lips. In its own way it is a very sensual poem. The linguistic imagery is so playful and laid back that the sensuality sneaks up on you. I was also very much grabbed by the content of the site itself. The visuals are stunning and attention grabbing and I saw several blog titles and some longer text content with interesting titles that will draw me back again when I have more time.

I have to thank the Cuban in London bloggist for finding such a wonderful poem. I am going to have to read more poems by this American poet.

Kidnap Poem by Nikki Giovanni

kidnap poem

ever been kidnapped by a poet
if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my sea
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love
song anything to win you
wrap you in the red black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you



According to Wiki:

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni (born June 7, 1943) is a Grammy-nominated American poet, activist and author. Giovanni is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech.[1]

looking at wiki it seems her most recent published work is - Bicycles: Love Poems (2009) (William Morrow) I wonder if this poem is in that book? I will have to find it.

Looking Forward to the Weekend!
I am composing my blog on Friday, although in interests of keeping to one blog per day, I am writing this in advance of my trip up north tonight and putting it out on auto-publish. I am going to sneak off from work early and go up to visit with my friends at GopherBrokeFarm and spend the night and then carry on to my Georgian Bay Shangri-La tomorrow. My folks are camping out there (figuratively) for the summer, until their new place is built and I have some work projects to discuss with my Dad! Got to love a Dad who likes work projects!

Not sure if I will be back late Saturday night or Sunday morning, but will get my next blog out on Sunday for sure!

[Posted with iBlogger from my way kool iPhone]

Carry a Poem in your Pocket Day and other Goings on in My Life

Ok, my excuse is that I have been really busy. I suddenly have a few minutes (I live in a “hurry up then wait” world it seems, so let me fill you in on the bits and pieces in my life at the moment.

Carrying on with the it is Poetry Month theme, today is “Carry a poem in your pocket day”… if you care to participate you can go to to poets.org and choose a poem and print it out and carry it around with you to share with others… hmmm, I appreciate the sentiment to promote poetry in this month but someone has too much time on their hands…

Car Shenanigans

I snapped this picture yesterday when I went out first thing in the morning to walk my dog Bella. Seems there is a practical joker in the area. I was wondering what the background to this prank was? Was the owner of the yellow car overly sensitive about others getting near his/her car so someone decided to help him keep others away or is it a case of someone else wanting to give him the message that he/she should not park here? In any case it did look peculiar.

Big Rude Jake (not) and Friends at Liberty Bistro

I went out on Tuesday night to one of my favourite venues for dinner, drinks and live music. I have been trying to get back to see Rude Jake for some time. See here for my earlier blog about Big Rude Jake. I wanted to find out if I had just fluked into a great night of drop in guests and open mic “friends” or whether his musical guests were always as good as the previous night I caught his show.

First we were dismayed to discover that Rude Jake was not going to be performing as he was moving house that day, however the waitress reassured us that the stand in hosts were really good also. We listened to a set featuring Heather and then Jennifer and then both together. Great girly singers on guitars and they each had quite nice voices. At one point heather did the Prettiest Bird song, which I have
blogged about and is sung by the Be Good Tanyas. She did a great job and her voice is probably as nice as any of those gals. Jennifer was of Mexican heritage and did a particularly romantic Mexican song, which my friend recognized (will have to ask him to tell me the name). It was all the more endearing since she had just learned it (so she said) and made a few mistakes with the words as she sang the song.

For dinner, my friend and I shared a baked brie (it was as good as the picture looks) and I had the chicken penne, my friend had the roast chicken. The brie was great and the chicken dishes were nice enough. The Liberty Bistro’s menu is quite limited, and the waitresses are just not what they should be, but they have a great outdoor patio and I love their Tues night entertainment. I am thinking next time to have dinner at home and go for drinks and music afterwards. Maybe one of these times I will catch Rude Jake again.

We paid our bill and were about to leave when a guy came wandering in during the break and said he was there to play piano. My friend joked that maybe he was a virtuoso and we should stay and at least hear his first song. Well, we were both astounded when he sat down to the keyboard and played like no one we had ever seen (in person) before. Greg Zawawski was his name and he is a classically trained pianist who knows how to entertain. He did a lot of really different stuff, including a Supertramp melody. What a treat! Of course we had to order more drinks and stay for another set!

There was also another lady (sorry, did not get her name) who accompanied Greg on a few tunes and then took over the piano when he left and performed a few of her own songs.

We wandered out of there way too late and I was soooo exhausted the next day - yesterday. But happy.

The reason I was not able to blog yesterday was that work (you know the paying kind) overwhelmed me and I ended up working into the night last night – and I was so tired! Hopefully I am back into the swing of things again and can get back to a regular blogging schedule!