A Snippet of Light
All is drear today in this dark valley,
but for the ray of light we carry safe within.
Call on it now that the sun might shine-- that joy might transcend
to celebrate where we are going;where we have been.

His Promise

When darkness falls Across the page and amber rays elude the eye, The seasons will continue; no need to question why. There is a plan, a greater plan than our mere minds can comprehend. There is a circle, ever turning; It has no end. It defies our reasoning and turns death’s fetid breath to just a breeze. Death’s season holds no fear for us nor can it conquer spirits bold and true. It shrinks beneath His promise of eternal peace. We, the weak and weary are confident of His grace; Even when we stumble, He attends our needs. He asks only that we seek His light for it will end the darkest night. And lift our eyes to sunshine at the break of each new day Smzang 8/23/2020

It Doesn't Take Sherlock Holmes

By SMZ

Post date June 23, 2020 

After announcing the closure of my Wordpress blogs,  a competitor sent the following email:            e

“Sarah,

I hope you will give me an answer on this question. Is there any way you could transfer ownership of the Pub to me? I would put up an announcement of the change of ownership and pay you whatever you still have invested in the site.

I just hate the idea of trying to build a new blog from scratch. I understand the problems you have with the new editor style, and I may end up switching somewhere else myself. However, for now I could use the ready-made audience.”

The audacity of this individual disgusts me.  I wanted you all to know ‘how important”
the Peaceful Pub is to this person.  It means nothing. to him obviously.

I would ask that if you see someone has attempted to steal the 20 years we have put into building  the name that you will not support the efforts of the would be thief.  There
are those whom I have asked to take over the Pub, both in the past and at this time; they were/are not available to do so.
The person who sent me the email has been making statements that suggest he was with the Pub from the start-up.  He was not. Not with the original pub nor with this one which  began in 2017.
At any rate, this post  is not meant to create a discussion.  It is meant to inform our members.
And in order to save the keystroke it would take to reply to his email I will reply here:

Most emphatically I will reply to your audacious question.

 I quote you verbatim ” I would put up an announcement of the change of ownership and pay you whatever you still have invested in the site.” 

 What do you think is a fair price for one’s good name?  Whatever you think, it is not enough.  My name is not for sale nor is the name of the peaceful pub

As far as what I have invested in the site…you could never amass it.  It has nothing to do with filthy lucre.  

Furthermore, it is my opinion that you haven’t a clue what the Pub
stands for.

Thank you for offering me the incentive to state my piece.

NOTE  For all of you author associates who did not send me that email, I will be sending you a personal note within the next week.  You are dear to me.   Sarah

 

 

Notte di Luna Piena (Full Moon Night)

Such is the soul that mortal eye
cannot see.  A word heard
but not understood, familiar
from dreams, this symphony.

Por ti volare.
Because you give me wings,
I soar. Song of the land, night winds
are whispering.

Con ti partiro, for as long
as the moon is full.  What’s in a song?
What magic makes wise men
such fools?

Such is the soul that mortal eyes
cannot see, Such is the reason
we dance in the rain.
Canta ora per me.

A full moon and a Bocelli concert are a dangerous
combination.  If you have heard his album “Si”
you will recognize several of his titles sprinkled
through this Full Moon Night.
Por ti volare….for you I will fly
Con ti partiro..I’ll leave with you
Canta ora per me…sing now to me.

Pause

Hints of summer warm the air,
Dreams whisper all is well,
Doubts whisper fears.
Will we ever be ourselves again?
Who were we then? Who are we now?

Have we lost that space where calm
prevails? Is it  foolishness or faith
to look for light when the sun is slipping
behind a cloud?  Despite the unknown
of tomorrow

Write your name with stardust. The night
is clear. Moonlight heals the darkness; we
are as resilient as Earth itself. This moment
is a miracle of wonder;  take time
to savor it.

Must be the Weather

A difficult season,
this one we’re living in.
Confusing, some say
enthusiastically
as if an assertive attitude
will clear up any doubt you,
or they, had.

The government or something like it,
has even cancelled the poetry reading
in town. Makes sense I guess, though
I will confess, I had a vision
that somebody (Clooney or Bocelli,
I couldn’t tell…
the lighting was bad)

Stood in a standing room only crowd,
proud to have a spot at all
for my curtain call.  And my
how I did read. No over-emoting,
elegantly understated, every syllable
enunciated .. Oh gee,
it was swell.

And when I was done,
I saw him waiting in line
like a hungry waif, patiently
standing until  at last it was his turn
when timidly he asked me
to sign his mask.  I awoke then.
I wonder what I would have done.

It is a difficult season.

Planting a Garden

     Threatened,
     Bullied,
     Overcome
     by a blank page
     staring dumbly at me.

     Superior,
     Rigid, this entity
     without a soul
     until timidly, then boldly
     I mark it with my pen.

     Slowly It becomes more pliant,
     It begins to bend. I show it things…

     A bird on a limb,
     A latticed rose climbing,
     painting scarlet where drab had been.

     Suddenly arable, the page becomes a garden. Each line
     a row in bloom. The air wears the scent of roses.
                                

.

From a Window in the Fourth Floor Library

 

You would not believe what one can see
from a window in the fourth floor library:

Looking down:
                          a forty foot tall billboard says:
                          THIS IS A SIGN THAT
                          YOU SHOULDN’T DRIVE HIGH

Looking up:
                          There’s the sky.

Looking over and around:

                          You can see Harmon Creek
                          winding along a deserted highway.

Every now and then a car goes by—a rhythm section,
backdrop for bird song warm with Spring sun.

From this vantage point in the fourth floor library
one sees peace.

Somewhere the world has gone mad; somewhere
nations fight nations; neighbors fight neighbors...
scientists fight a virus.  But all that is far removed
from us on this peaceful day.

Here in the library on the fourth floor, looking eye-
to-eye with the eagle on the flagpole, it is easy to
forget dissension and disease.

Here, it is easy to believe
we can choose the world that we live in.

Smzang
May 03, 2020

Pitching Pennies on Blogger.com will be the only Pitching Pennies blog.

This article was written by Smzang.


As of  June 27, Pitching Pennies on Wordpress will close its doors.
I will miss my blogging friends there.  First of all I believe that the effort writers make
deserves more than a cursory glance at a cell phone.  Secondly I think the misuse
of iframes (Blocks) is despicable.  I have sense enough to understand it is profitable
and that is the bottom line.
Google accounts for over 5.7 billion searches conducted on the web daily.
The Google-recommended configuration for smartphone-optimized sites is responsive web design.
Responsive Web Design has an assortment of names.
Responsive design creates blocks.  There is a block for the title, a block for each paragraph, a block for the header, a block for the footer, etc.  “Pages that use frames (blocks) or iframes display several URLs (one for each frame) within a single page.”(this quote from https://www.ostraining.com/blog/webdesign/against-using-iframes/)
Excerpt from  Ars Technica
“Google has deprecated the desktop Web. It’s still here, but for Google it just got less important.
At least that’s the implicit message in Google’s mobile search update. The company is now judging how “mobile-friendly” a site is and is using that metric to weight search results served to mobile devices.
……”The mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages… in mobile search results worldwide. (Conversely, pages designed for only large screens may see a significant decrease in rankings in mobile search results.)” In other words, sites that work on mobile will outrank sites that don’t when all other things are equal.
So what does a site need to do in order for Google to consider it “mobile-friendly”?
The company’s guidelines suggest that the site start by avoiding any content that requires Adobe’s Flash Player. That will probably sound obvious to most developers at this point, but don’t forget that old YouTube and other video embeds were probably done with

Excerpt from OS Training: https://www.ostraining.com/blog/webdesign/against-using-iframes/
“If you create an iframe, your site becomes vulnerable to cross-site attacks.

• You may get a submittable malicious web form, phishing your users’ personal data.
• A malicious user can run a plug-in.
• A malicious user can change the source site URL.
• A malicious user can hijack your users’ clicks.
• A malicious user can hijack your users’ keystrokes.

From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/362730/are-iframes-considered-bad-practice
There is so much information available about block design, iframes, reactive design (all basically the same)
Some of this information is 3 years old, some newer and it is available with a little digging.  It is much easier to find positive articles about reactive design because it is what Google wants. It was reactive design that wrecked my original site (after  13 years of energy and effort invested) so one would think I would be immune by now.  It is clear that most all servers are making the switch.
I have agonized for several years about responsive design.  I have quoted in this article only the quick -find provable, but there is so much more that only the techs for each server know.  That is because each server develops proprietary code.
Where will it end?
(There was more, but this is the gist, and it provides links if you care to learn more.)
For me it ends June 27th on this blog.  Other of my blogs have different expiration dates.  I will not be renewing them.  There is always a certain sadness to saying goodbye.  I confess to feeling it now.

But...I also feel an anticipation, an excitement of seeing Pitching Pennies on Blogger.com find its wings and soar.