Tangled up in b'loons

"We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them;

that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness.

But why should this make us unhappy?

Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice.

I don't believe in this world of sorrow."

-- E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

Smiley face balloon Medusa with smiley face balloon snakes hair 12-21-13

"Straightaway I was 'ware

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove ...

'Guess now who holds thee!' -- 'Death,' I said, but there,

The silver answer rang ... 'Not Death, but Love.'"

-- Elizabeth Barret Browing,  

Sonnets from the Portuguese 1: "I Thought how Theocritus" 

"Amarantha sweet and fair,

Ah, braid no more that shining hair!

As my curious hand or eye,

Hovering round thee let it fly."

-- Richard Lovelace, 

"Song to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair"

Happiest Medusa ever.

Have a nice face!

 

 

"The smile did not mean that he was happy." 

-- Michael Cadnum, Flash

     

Smiley face balloon with a knife 6-17-13

 

 

“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face 

conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.”

-- Greta Garbo

“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”

-- Mineko Iwasaki 

It's hard to smile when everything hurts.

If I don't sleep, I can pretty much guarantee that the next day is going to be painful. 

Today is one of those days. 

If you have chronic pain, like me, whether it's from fibromyalgia, or an injury, or some other ongoing  condition, then you probably know how restful sleep can function like a "reset button."  

A good night's sleep can miraculously switch off the pain. Not permanently, but it can provide enough of a break for me to catch my breath, relax and remember, if only for a short time, what "normal" feels like.

Last night I didn't sleep, so I didn't get the "reset." All of the pain I went to bed with stayed, and built on itself, and this morning it is still here --  mine to keep and to carry with me for the rest of the day.

Yellow smiley faces tend to pop up here on the blog from time to time, usually when I'm feeling anything but smiley. Smileys don't happen on my good days. They usually coincide with "those days" --  the ones when I have to try real hard to grin and bear it.

The yellow smiley face became popular during the '70s. It was on coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually coupled with the phrase "Have a nice day."

I typically place the smiley faces under some type of duress. Unlike me, they keep smiling through the pain, whether I've trapped them under a jar, taken a bite out of them, or stabbed them with a Ginsu knife.
 
It's how I deal.

Grin and bear with me.

Oh. And have a nice day.

Zesty!

"If you have zest and enthusiasm, 

you attract zest and enthusiasm. 

Life does give back in kind."

                                                                                              -- Norman Vincent Peale

Lime face with a cherry, jiggle eyes, and zest 4-21-13

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, 

the zest of creating things new."

                                                                        -- Antoine de Saint-Esupery

This s*** is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

"In nonsense is strength."

                                                               Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Banana face with jiggle eyes, cutout mouth and a sticker 4-11-13

Banana face (2) with jiggle eyes, cutout mouth and a sticker 4-11-13

“When bananas blush, 

they turn brown, not red. 

And when tomatoes blush, 

you’ve probably said 

something really naughty.
”

                               

   -- Jarod Kintz 

99 Cents For Some Nonsense

Shine on

“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, 

but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”

                                                                                                

                                                                                        -- Hugh Downs

Balloon face 4-8-13

"You can turn off the sun but I'm still gonna shine."

                                                                                                         -- Jason Mraz, "Remedy"

Is it happy in here, or is it just me?

The face in my cake

“You cannot go on being a good egg forever. You must either hatch or rot." -- C.S. Lewis

Egg face 2-18-13

Or ... get whisked and baked into a Funfetti cake! Which is exactly what happened to these three eggs, which formed a smiley face in the bottom of my generations-old enameled mixing bowl. I love the matrix of scratch lines, like pencil sketch marks, all round its inside. They are marks made by me, my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother. With forks, whisks, electric beaters ... we've all added our lines to the stories this bowl could tell.

As for the eggs, they come to me weekly from a friendly acquaintance who keeps chickens, because she grew up on a farm and likes having chickens around. But she doesn't like eggs. So she gives them away.

Lucky me!

She even plants a garden just for the chickens, so they eat nothing but fresh grown goodness. They are happy, happy, free range chickens. No wonder their eggs made a smiley face!