Month: October 2015

Wild Flax Flowers | Photoart

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
Wild Flax Art no. 24674
Blue Wild Flax no. 24664
Wild Flax no. 24676

The flowers have been all but gone since our first hard freeze, but enough warmth has come from the sun, combined with frequent cloudy nights, for some flowers, sheltered by the weeds (which also hid our baby bunnies, this summer) to continue blooming. Once we get ice or snow, I expect even that to come to an end.

Although I’d cut and frozen the outstanding chives along the back of the house, some have put out fresh stalks, which I have enjoyed in cottage cheese, omelets and scrambled eggs, and homemade soups.

Catching up

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

halloween decorations, skeletons, hanging on a plank fenceWe have had our hard frost, and yet a few of the wild flax flowers have been showing up, quite unexpectedly. I’ve turned out a few arty versions that I’ll include in the next post.

My HP 4545s died on me over the course of the past couple of weeks. My replacement showed up on Friday (2nd day delivery), and I still am attempting to get everything in place. I still have to/want to upgrade my Corel Paint Shop Pro if I can manage it.

I don’t remember quite when it happened in relation to when I last posted here, but I did end up as co-editor of the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2015 Online Halloween Poetry Reading page (with Shannon Connor Winward, who is a gem to work with, BTW). I think that we screened our final submission to the page late yesterday from a new SFPA member. Joe Nazare’s poem, “Them Apples”, may be last on the page, but it’s not lacking in entertainment value. Actually, they’re all pretty good, again this year, art and poetry. All poetry and art are creations of and contributed to the page by SFPA members.

You may remember that I was not the page editor, last year, although I did submit three photoart pieces. Stephanie Wytovich was recruited for the editorship; I remember that we did interact during her editorship, and it was comfortable. It was nice to be back and even nicer to work in partnership with someone, this year. I had missed that over the years. Not the “Lone Ranger” sort of personality . . . and we’re all getting older. My dad’s turning 100, next year, and still doing the autumn leaf raking (see poem) on their double lot that’s shaded by tall cottonwoods, lilac bushes and a nice maple that was planted long after I left home.

Anyway, my poem and Shannon’s are about halfway down the page. Mine is “Halloween Awakening”, and if you have problems with hearing audio files, you can find a text version at QuiltedPoetry.net under the Performed Poetry heading, along with text versions of my other Halloween Page contributions since 2006; I believe that the only years I missed for poems were 2012 and 2014.

ETA: One more submission just arrived for the Halloween Poetry page. Happiness!

Leftovers

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

One of my mother’s mass mailings to myself and my siblings included a humorous observation with regard to my father, from which I wrote a poem:

“Himself at (almost) 99 Years”

When last seen, barely hanging
onto life, old enough to die,
angry, and yes, he said, too
tired to move from off his bed.

Now again espied, he’s spent
two hours raking out a rock
garden and the two-lot yard,
filling 20 bags with leaves and
started hauling them away.

What wonders come from too much
time that’s spent in idleness,
staring at the ceiling and
muttering about the aches
that he now cheerfully ignores.

Copyright © 2015-10-24, by myself.

Halloween is coming | Alien Life (2010)

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

ladybug (inverted color) navigating a blade of grass
Navigating the Space-Time Continuum
In 2006, I worked with Karen Romanko on her new SFPA project, a virtual Hallowe’en Poetry Reading presented by members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. That first year, and for several years following, I also did the web work. From 2006 through 2013, I volunteered as the editor/curator of this ongoing project. I thought it might be fun to repost some of the poems that I contributed to the project over the years. I think I only missed one year as a contributor.

 

“Alien Life”
by Liz Bennefeld

They live among us,
only slightly alien—
their DNA so close
that some of them can breed
with some of us.
A cross-section of each
is close enough
to be the other.

And so, then, who is alien,
after all? You? I?

I won’t tell,
if you don’t.

– Elizabeth Bennefeld, 2 Nov. 2009. Audio edition published in the 2010 SFPA Online Halloween Poetry Reading. For more Halloween poems by myself (with links to SFPA’s annual Halloween Reading pages) see QuiltedPoetry.net. The current reading can always be found at http://www.sfpoetry.com/halloween.html

 

Insomnia = flower

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Photo - 2015-10-11, no. 24526

Cannot get to sleep, tonight. I hope that once I do, I can sleep for seven or eight hours. (I did that last night, and it felt good.) Trying to do too much, and not taking breaks when I get frustrated.

Looks like my laptop computer is dying. I’m keeping everything backed up, every day, and trying to spread the backups over several devices, so as to minimize the chances of overwriting good files with bad. Trying actually to do something, and write what’s needful, and keep track of where everything is.

I’ve all of my photo archives in three different places, now, including the failing laptop. The text files, in which I do creative writing, get backed up a couple times a day.

But I made a pretty flower . . . Going to turn off the lights, again, and concentrate on sleeping.

Friday’s Breakfast | No Plate for Sam

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
red pepper & tomato soup, kippers, scrambled eggs with leftover spinach
Friday’s Breakfast

Today’s breakfast held a nice bit of variety. Samantha and I woke up at 6:30, this morning, but didn’t get out of bed until closer to 7:30. Samantha, Flea and I went outside, where there were no crows to be seen. Great sadness!

I fixed scrambled eggs, again, but reheated yesterday’s spinach in the frying pan, once the butter had melted. I let them cook while I whisked two eggs, opened a tin of kippered fish, and heated a cup of roasted red pepper and tomato soup. As the temperature outside drops (and we’re not yet inclined to turn on the furnace until the inside temperature gets closer to 62 °F – I have several nice shawls and pachmina wraps), a cup of squash or tomato soup makes a nice alternative to cold juice. The soup also does a nice job of warming me from the inside out that is different from tea or coffee, first thing in the morning.

Samantha did not get her own plate. Great, great sadness!

samantha sitting in my chair at the breakfast table, hoping that I will put down a plate for her also
Expecting a Plate of Her Own

Dawn’s Coffee | Flexibility Without Remorse

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Went out with the dog at daybreak to find a murder of crows in the tall, bare branches of the cottonwood, calling “We’re meeting HERE!…Caw Caw Caw Caw!” to the extended neighborhood. Invigorating!

I think that they woke me up. I usually go to sleep with a Nature audio running on the desktop computer, but did not, last night. (Went to sleep rather abruptly.)

There have been developments since the beginning of the week.

  • I find myself, after shedding the position last fall when Bryce (youngest sister) fell ill and died, in the position of editing (but, hurrah! co-editor with a marvelous conspirator, Shannon Connor Winward) the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s annual online Halloween Poetry Reading page. (Deadline for submissions is October 26.)
  • I am currently listening to audio tapes, editing bios/blurbs as needed, reviewing Halloween-type graphics submissions, etc.
  • Al developed a horrendous toothache that spread out to several teeth, and so I phoned the dentist, Wednesday late afternoon …
  • and when Al got a time slot for Thursday, I postponed my haircut to next week. That would be length after previous cut = 3/8″, 7 weeks growth = 7/8″. one and one-quarter inches by the time I’m in the stylist’s chair again. I’m already losing the tops of my ears in the fringies!
  • I’m still on the mend from dust exposures earlier in the week, and so Al had to go alone to a pre-funeral visitation. These are getting to be too close together.

And so the only poetry I foresee writing for the next week or so would be my own Online Halloween Reading submission for the page. (The publication is not juried, but instead is a “contribution” to Halloween fun from SFPA members to all poets and the general public. Editors also get to take part.)

I am feeling rather isolated at the moment, aside from the mostly goal-oriented correspondence related to the Halloween Reading page, but because I am not pushing myself to do any more, I am relaxed and sleeping soundly at night.

Eliminating stress—saying “No” and moving on—does wonders for the blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, and quality of sleep. Flexibility without remorse!

I have finished my first cup of coffee. Off to make some fresh, now, start the next pot of Toddy coffee concentrate to cold-brew, and find some breakfast. Scrambled eggs and left-over spinach, I believe.

Wishing you-all a marvelous day!