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If you can’t grow flowers, you can always photograph them.
My photo. Not my petunias.
Laughter is the best medicine. Reportedly, there is scientific evidence which proves it.
While I credit myself with having a sense of humour, I have to admit that I am not easily amused these days and I could count on one hand my full belly-laughs in the past decade.
Not long after we moved to New York, we made one of our first excursions to Hannaford’s. Getting out of the car I felt a strange sensation in my feet and looking down realised I had my boots on the wrong feet.
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“What’s so funny?” asked Grant as I exploded with laughter.
We sniggered and tittered all the way around the supermarket causing people to give us strange looks.
You have to be able to laugh at yourself and sometimes the silliest moments are the funniest.
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My solemn offering of a sugar-free cough drop for breakfast, as we made the long drive north following our overnight flight from Seattle was something else that made us howl.
We’d had many weeks of tension and anxiety over a very stressful and complicated move.
Laughter that morning was such a welcome release.
So you don’t need to convince me that it is the best medicine. Certainly the cheapest and healthiest.
Not the easiest to come by.
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It had been a while since we last had a really good laugh.
But we are still giggling about yesterday…
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The maturity of our six pussycats enabled us to undertake building a jigsaw puzzle.
Therapeutic, you see. As I mentioned previously, jigsaws offer many benefits.
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The one I chose was quite a stinker. It was a photograph of Lake Matheson in New Zealand.
Which had been carved into 1,000 pieces.
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Once we’d got the border in place, it was quite a challenge to figure out which way was up and the difference in colours was very subtle. Grant got a lot more done through sheer determination, but he was close to calling quits.
So I sorted out the remaining pieces by shape and we slogged on.
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The cats had not been interested in our puzzle, but Little Man came to cheer us on as we neared the end.
My infallible system was going to carry us over the finish line.
How pleasing it would be!
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Um – what just happened?
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As cats do, Little Man abruptly shot off, sending our nearly completed puzzle straight off the table.
For a moment we were stunned, then looked at one another and fell about laughing.
It was laugh or cry and jigsaw puzzles are just not something worth shedding tears over.
Something about the suddenly empty table top struck us as terribly funny.
Perhaps you needed to be there. We wished we could have seen our faces at that moment.
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Large parts of the puzzle were still intact and I attempted to rescue them but Grant put his foot down. He was done with it, could not face another minute of looking at all those blue bits.
He’d already mentally moved on…
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Having re-awakened his interest in jigsaws, he’d ordered another puzzle. One that comprised 2,000 small pieces.
It required inserting an extension into the table.
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It’s a painting of scenic Cinque Terre on the Northwest Italian coast.
Grant seems far more enthusiastic about this one. I may have to stick to sorting the bits and leave the building to him.
Truly magnificent photos, Carolyn.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the lovely story and the wonderful photos, especially of the beautiful little face looking up!
Joanna
That jigsaw puzzle looked very impressive. I would be afraid to start putting it together. It reminded me of Niki in the first week he arrived at my home. He kicked my Beatles LEGO Yellow Submarine on the ground and it fell completely in pieces. First I was shocked but soon I had to laugh too… Cats, you know…
Stunning petunias, and that is one laid-back groundhog!
Loose-limbed Little Man to the rescue!
Oh no…all that time doing the puzzle only to be destroyed so close to the end!
You guys are always going on lovely drives, that’s very cool. Back home, we seem to be always doing renovations/maintenance on our house, especially after 2 years of rental!
I would be struggling after the first one was demolished by Little Man. The second one would stay in its box unopened, and end up being donated to a charity shop.
Laughing at yourself is often the funniest thing, it’s what Julie and I do all the time.
Best wishes, Pete.
Beautiful petunias and worthy of being photographed! I laugh easily – and most of the time it’s at myself (maybe that’s why I don’t get sick so often 😁). Haha, the moment I saw Little Man on the puzzle, I knew trouble was coming! Maybe it was his way of telling you that it was time to stop building this one or maybe it was under Dee Dee’s command because meal times were not strictly adhered to – who knows! Good luck with Cinque Terre – there may not be as many shades of blue pieces in this puzzle, but you will definitely be confronted with BRIGHT colours galore!!
Hahaha! Glad you had a good laugh about it and were able to move on. Let’s see how long Little Man will let you work on this next puzzle of yours.