Mug Shots

For a birthday, or maybe it was Christmas, my niece Betty Rocksteady sent me this framed piece of her art from a series she did of posters for an imaginary side show. A signed original that according to eBay is worth nearly $12,000. (just kidding). Flanking it as two travel mugs ordered from her online XX store. They are not all that functional 😦 Some sort of lined metal that doesn’t hold heat from long & the lid son both don’t form a tight enough seal to keep from leaking. But they look great. 

Betty is an accomplished & well-regarded horror writer. Check out her out at bettyrocksteady.com or better yet buy some of her books on Amazon. I would highly recommend her story in the Looming Low anthology.

Betty is a major fan of Ernest Bushmiller’s Nancy & envies me my Nancy mug. I bought this decades ago in Stratford Ontario. At one time there was a great gift shop at the corner of Erie & Ontario Street (Worthington’s?). It was full of collectables, tee-shirts etc. I spotted Nancy on a wall of mugs. Turned out it was not a mug but a music box! The fact that it played the Theme from the Godfather !! meant I had to have it. It is a treasure.

The Queen Mother thimble. Niagara-on-the Lake, I think.

I bought this sailboat mug at a dollar store decades ago because the boat reminded me of the Bluenose. Solid microwaveable crockery it is the perfect size for hot chocolate. At one time it was also my Loyalist workshop mug, it reminds of those good time. It has no maker’s markings. I love the Japanese quality of the boat design.

Another of my favorite objects is this KFC Colonel Sanders mug. I bought it at a yard sale decades ago. I may have paid a dollar for it. The high-gloss, very dark, surface makes it hard to photograph – I’m just point & click. It is a fired dark terra-cotta (I think) & is a finer, if that’s the right word, crockery than the sailboat mug. I’ve never used it for liquids – hot or cold. It is a treasure.

Serious Business

I realize this is serious business

life is always matter of

life and death

at any minute it could be over

heart attack

stray bullet

a breath in a crowded room

<>

I know that you expect 

a certain degree of compassion

respect

yet part of me is unwilling to give it

not that I don’t feel it

but showing it 

is a different matter 

or perhaps I don’t show it

in the somber way you want

<>

I give little digs

snickers at the futility

rather than wail in desperate calm

about what we are powerless over

tears aren’t the solution

one gets dehydrated too quickly

lack of water can lead to 

more emotional & physical distress

a self-propelling conundrum

that can only be stopped

by measure of levity

<>

I didn’t mean to laugh 

at that car accident

or at the fate of the environment 

I’m not mocking the event

just our powerlessness over it

while we maintain this facade that

we do have power over it

<>

people die

I will die eventually

maybe soon

who knows

but I’m not one

who waits in solemn dignity

for the right exit moment

the right exit line

that wall paper is dreadful

<>

I’m not asking you to forgive

my lack of dignified respect

sometimes there is laugher 

in the mortuary