I’m Never Wrong, Unless I’m Wrong

Yesterday I posted in regard to my angst about this being the final season for the HBO series, Game of Thrones. On my Facebook feed I was soon chastised, politely, for my error. Indeed, this is not the final season. There will be one more after this.

On one hand I’m aggrieved that I made such an egregious error on an easily verifiable issue. I mean, it’s not like I was speculating on the exact date the world will end or the moment the polar ice caps will crumble into the sea. But on the other hand I’m so genuinely glad that I won’t have to contemplate living in a world without Game of Thrones once this season has come to an end.

And the way things are going, with North Korea threatening nuclear war on the international stage and white supremacists threatening on the domestic front, we might not make it to next year anyway. Now there’s a cheerful thought.

Maybe this little poem will ease our troubled minds:

Will Jon Snow find a Walker

And bring him home to Cersei fair?

Will Arya kill Littlefinger

By luring him into her lair?

Is Cersei carrying Jamie’s child?

Only time will tell.

Has Samwell made a prudent choice

In leaving the Citadel?

Has Sansa succumbed to power?

Has it gone straight to her head?

Will Daenerys lead her dragons

In a fight against the dead?

We won’t know at season’s end

There’ll be more shows to come

But I’ll be sitting front and center

Watching every one.

Peace, people!

Game of Thrones Guesswork

Who else out there is watching the final season of Game of Thrones? Studly Doright and I have some major bets surrounding the outcomes of this series.

Who will rule from the Iron Throne?

Will someone finally do away with Littlefinger?

How many dragons will be lost?

Will Theon Greyjoy develop a spine?

Will Jon Snow realize who his parents are before becoming too attached to Daenerys?

Who gets to kill Cersei Lannister?

Will the living outwit the dead?

Will Tyrion find happiness?

How will I manage to go on once the series ends?

What other questions should we be pondering?

Ross Castle, County Kerry, Ireland

No visit to County Kerry would have been complete without a trip to Ross Castle. Had we had more time we might’ve taken a boat tour of the waterways around the castle, but instead we walked the grounds. There’s nothing like a castle to stir one’s imagination. I almost expected a dragon to come roaring across the water to find a perch on the stone crenellations. 

The lovely Marsha!

Notice the slots meant for shooting arrows.


Black Days and White Knights

Black Days and White Knights
by Leslie Noyes

She wiped down the counter,
Rinsed out the cloth and draped it on the sink’s edge to dry.
At least three times each day, often more,
Her life boiled down to these
Clean counters.

Daydreams of white knights,
Daring rescues carried out beneath a watchful dragon’s eyes.
While envious ladies-in-waiting stood, wringing expertly manicured hands,
Sighing wistfully.

She never learned their names.
The knights blurred one into another over forty years of drudgery.
And those ladies never amounted to much, married hastily in stiff organza,
Ignoring dragons.

“The Sword of Air” by R.J. Madigan

Salvation

Finally she knew
no one could ever save her
neither knight nor prince.

Armed with this knowledge
she sallied forth, unafraid,
searching for dragons.

  
Empowered woman
whole and unafraid of strength
could not be distressed.

For lo and behold
no dragon needed slaying;
fear had been man made.