Overwhelmed!

The last day of September has arrived and I don't have a single blog post to show for the month. Pathetic!

Painful knees, allergies,
Overwhelmed by both of these.
Family doc and orthopedist,
Keep chin up, don't be defeatist.
On the walker, limping yet,
Dentist visit, dog to vet,
Mammogram again this year,
Flu shot season once more here.
Make appointment, not too late,
Make one more, coordinate,
Make the phone calls, make the lists,
Rub my eyes and clench my fists.
Headache, headache! Blow my nose.
Take these pills but don't take those.
Knee replacement coming soon.
Back to bed to sleep till noon.

Preparing for the Inevitable

Life writing class has officially ended until February. I will miss those weekly get-togethers with strong, good-humored, thinking women. Our last assignment, just in time for Halloween, was to write our own obituaries. Wait...if you think you've already read this, you haven't; we did the same assignment last October, and I wrote about it then. There were a couple of new people in class this session, so the newbies wrote their obituaries for the first time, and the rest of us gussied up our old ones.

I rather liked the hippy-dippy "child of the universe" obit I'd done previously, so I didn't change too much about it. I did reduce my guesstimated age at death from 90 to 86, having read an actuarial table earlier in the week. But who knows? I may kill myself any day now if the phone doesn't stop ringing with political robocalls.

Anyway, in the spirit of the assignment, I wrote about somebody else's funeral that was the kind of informal send-off I want for myself, and I also wrote this little piece:

Notice of Death

(to be published in the event of my untimely demise

if I have correctly predicted the cause of it)

Linda (Last Name) died today.

She fell and hit her head, they say,

Tripped on Lucy, underfoot,

Alive one minute, then kaput!

Lucy

Easter was blissful, but then...

The gifts from Ye Olde Easter Bunny

Were gag gifts, though not at all funny:

A deep cough that's lasted

Five days (furry bastid!)

And a nose that is constantly runny.

Easter itself was a lovely day. Though I didn't feel quite up to par, I took myself, my made-from-scratch cupcakes, my camera, and what I thought were simply allergy symptoms to my younger daughter's house, where I hugged and kissed everybody like Typhoid Mary on a mission of doom. So far since then, this "upper respiratory infection--viral, like a cold" has spread to both my daughters. I don't know whether others in the family have it. If so, I hope they'll forgive me. Or maybe, as I do, they'll assume it's "some bug" they picked up at Walmart.

Back to Easter itself, the family gathered at three in the afternoon, when the day was at its warmest. My daughter and son-in-law had planned a repeat of last year's egg hunt for the young adults in the family, albeit with a change or two. Last year's plastic eggs had cash in them. When some of those eggs went missing for several weeks, it was decided that this year's eggs would contain only slips of paper with dollar amounts written on them. The second change--because the young men were ridiculously aggressive egg-hunters last year--was to make them search in pairs of spouses and/or significant others, relay-race style.

And they're off...

After the eggs were counted and the money divvied up, there was another egg hunt for the two little kids. Their eggs contained tiny toys and small candies, and they knew ahead of time which colored eggs were theirs. Let's just say their egg hunt was a kindler, gentler event.

The young ones had plenty of helpers.

The swing in the photo above was a special Easter surprise for the little ones, built by their grandfather (my son-in-law), who was more than willing to push them. They loved it.

Popee and Olivia

Owen: "I can do it by myself and go high, high, high!"

By late afternoon the very shallow water near the steps of the pool was warm enough for the little ones to take a dip. They didn't need much encouragement. First came the floaties:

Olivia's lips were blue from a lollipop,

not from the water temperature.

Then came the fun:

Cute cousins.

While the kids played in the water, the men fried fish, french fries and hush puppies. I ate too much of all of it. If I'd known then that I was going to need to keep my strength up this week, I'd have eaten even more. As it was, I stopped eating and sat back to ponder the serenity of the outdoor oasis my son-in-law and daughter have created for themselves, their family and friends...

...the glory of the nature that surrounded us...

...and the beautiful faces of the people I love most:

Those loving thoughts would have sustained me all week long had it not been for this blasted cough. 

A Labor of Love: The Owen Poems

My granddaughter, Kalyn, will turn thirty this week, and just over a month later her son, Owen, will turn four. When Kalyn was Owen's age and spent the day or night with me, I loved making up silly rhymes and singing them to make her giggle. She thought they were funny enough that they became a routine part of our time together. To this day she remembers all the words to one song that started out simply as lunch menu suggestions:

You can have pimento cheese

Or ABC's & 123's,

I'm begging you on bended knees,

Please don't make me eat green peas.

Actually, I love green peas; she's the one who didn't.

I don't get to spend as much time with Owen as I did with Kalyn, but during the recent holidays I saw him enough to know that he's developed a pretty good sense of humor. The boy likes a joke. I could tell that by the way he laughed uproariously every time he used the words, "chicken eyeball," which he did repeatedly on Christmas Day.

A couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that one way to build a closer relationship with my great-grandson between visits would be to send him letters. That was the start of the Owen Poems. Since then I've been making up short verses and "borrowing" photos from Google images to illustrate them. My plan is to send him a new poem--or something--every week or ten days until he loses interest.

With a little help from his mama, a clearly excited Owen called me after he got this first one:

You'll have no trouble guessing what the illustration is on this next one I'm mailing today:

Owen Poem #2

Owen Asks the Body Question

Owen suggested, "Pick only one thing:

From your hair to the tips of your toes,

What part of your body do you like the best?"

Claire answered, "My eyes, I suppose."

Nicholas said, "I would pick my right arm

Because of the cool way it throws."

Jonathan said, "I can wiggle my ears,

so I think I'm gonna choose those."

Emily's choice was her curly red hair,

And Anthony? He picked his nose.

Rounding out the first three (all I've written so far) is this one:

Owen Poem #3

Up and Down

A dog named Up and a duck named Down

once walked together into town.

They walked along a railroad track

and didn't bother looking back

until a whistle made Up shout,

"A train is coming! Down, look out!"

The train was moving very fast,

but just before it roared on past,

the friends did what they had to do:

down Up jumped and up Down flew.

What about the pre-schoolers you know? What kinds of things do they find funny?

Old Notes

One reason it takes me so long to clean out drawers and closets is that I have to read every doggone piece of paper I find. This morning, going through the deep drawer of my nightstand, I found a pad of paper on which I'd written several notes--late night thoughts, apparently. It touched me to be reminded of Kadi, who was determined to be the best dog ever, and Butch, my beloved blind dog. And it made me wonder what in the world was going on in my life when I wrote those gloomy haikus. Here's what I had written:

**********

Kadi holds her big biscuit between her paws, wedging it against her dewclaw, eating from one end to the other. Butch drops his biscuit on the floor, chomps a bite right out of the middle, hurries to eat both ends, then goes to where Kadi is and sniffs the carpet for crumbs.

**********

Butch hovers beside me as I eat dinner, hoping I'll give him a bite. "Move," I tell him. He backs away a few steps, turns in a circle, then comes right back to where he was. "Back off!" I say. He backs up, walks around the coffee table and shows up on the other side of me. "Butch, I'm not sharing!" I say, sternly. He stands there for a couple of seconds longer, then crosses the room, exhales deeply in what sounds like a sigh, and lies down.

**********

I'm watching a video about a 22-month-old girl taking her final exam in swim class. The child whimpers as the instructor puts her under the water over and over. The girl's mother watches but doesn't interfere. Butch, however, takes action. He eases himself off the futon and moves hurriedly to stand in front of the computer, his ears cocked and his forehead wrinkled as he tries to locate the baby in distress. The sounds of crying children and whining puppies never fail to get his attention.

**********

There were so many adjectives in each sentence that I felt as if I were standing blindfolded in a pool full of manure and flailing around desperately in search of a point.

**********

I asked you because

I needed some clarity.

You answered in fog.

**********

What if my true thoughts

Were written on my forehead?

Who would love me then?

Lightweight Poetry

One-a-Day Redux
Day Twenty-Eight:  Light

In January's photo challenge I interpreted "light" as the opposite of dark. For today's exercise, let's go with a different definition. This time "light" means the opposite of heavy.

A List of Light Things

Clouds above a mountain stream,
high-peaked dollops of whipped cream,
postage stamps for letters written,
baby chicks, a newborn kitten,
puppy's paw held in my hand,

a butterfly, a rubber band,

autumn leaves adrift in air,

fancy, lacy underwear,

marshmallows afloat in cocoa,

my great-grandma's faded photo,
blue-gray feather on the ground,
Peeps when Easter rolls around,
the silky scarf I never wear,
a ribbon for a baby's hair,
Q-tips stored on bathroom shelves
near cotton balls, so light themselves,
ping-pong ball that bounces high,
red balloon in bright blue sky,
dandelions turned to seed,

a single page I've yet to read,

daisy petals plucked to see

does he, does he not love me?

Hustle, Bustle, and a Smidgen of Sentiment

I am busy-busy-busy this week. Big weekend ahead, my house is about three dust bunnies short of a disaster, I'm dog-sitting for my granddogs, Lucy and Oliver, and I have about a million errands to run. If I'm noticeably absent from the blogosphere this week, that's why.

That being said, something in yesterday's post about an elephant leaving our local zoo reminded me of a short, simple poem I wrote when I was in my 20s. Back then I thought it would have made a good greeting card inscription. Today I think it'll work for a quick blog post--right when I need one:

On Leaving

Tomorrow will come,

And with it will come leaving,

And loneliness

And emptiness

And sorrow, too.

But through it all,

I'll have my memories

Of music,

Of laughter,

Of loving you.

That's all I have for today. I'm outta here.

Egret's egress.

Sycamore Haiku

Dappled sycamore
catches shafts of sunlight, then
tosses them to me.

A Purty Little Thang

One-a-Day Photo Challenge

Day Thirty:  Nature

Mother Nature watered her plants for a while in the wee hours of this morning, then turned her spray nozzle up to "blast" and hosed down everything as if it had deliberately played in mud while wearing its best clothes. She banged things around with loud claps of thunder for hours, letting us know with no uncertainty that she was in a no-nonsense mood. I, for one, stayed in bed and kept out of her way. I didn't dare let her see a smile on my face. But secretly? I was happy, happy, happy!

Now that she has settled down, I can tell you that Mother Nature herself makes me happy on a regular basis. She does it with hills and mountains, streams and oceans, trees and flowers, clouds and sunsets, full moons and twinkling stars, and every living creature I've ever encountered (except for a few kinds of bugs and spiders, indoor mice, and Fox News reporters). I'm especially happy today because she put a certain squirrel in a certain tree just as I walked underneath its branches in search of a photo for today's "nature" challenge:

When I sat down at the computer this morning, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. And I've said it. I've written enough. I should probably stop right here.

But . . . at the risk of negating any good, nature-appreciation feelings this post may have engendered, I hate to waste something silly that I wrote down yesterday. I was mulling over what I ought to say about the squirrel picture when I realized I'd begun thinking in verse. And worse. I was hearing those rhyming thoughts in the voice of a neighbor who lived across the street from us in Georgia.

Now, I'm warning you, things are about to get cornier than ever, so my best advice is to stop reading right now. But if you're bound and determined to travel with me all the way to Silly City, then read on, and read in a slow, twangy drawl:

About Takin' the Pitcher
One little squirrel was settin' high up in a tree
A-lookin' like hit was just a-waitin' thar fer me,
So I pointed up my lens, as quick as I could be,
And I tuck this here pitcher fer all y'all to see.

. . . and . . .

What I Know about Nature
Now, I know that a tiger is a gret big jungle cat,
An' I know th' earth is round, never mind if hit looks flat,
An' the squirrel in the tree? Hit's the cousin of a rat!
(But hit's a purty little thang, so don't you bother none 'bout that.)



**********



P.S. In rereading these verses this morning, noticing their rhythm, I realized that they can be sung to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies theme song. You want an earworm? Go ahead and try it. I dare you.

P.P.S. I'll make no apologies for any of this. Silliness is in my nature.

In the Afterglow

It was Two Thousand Twelve, twenty-fifth of December,
A day that it fills me with joy to remember.

Our families came to spend Christmas together

In spite of some terrible, threatening weather.

The skies, they were black, and the rains were torrential,

Yet Christmas lost none of its magic potential.

The weather forecasts for Christmas Day were dire at best, with violent storms, possibly including hail and tornados, predicted for precisely the time of our own Christmas gathering at my daughter Kelli's home. I don't like to leave my dogs at home alone in bad weather, and I don't like to drive in it, but there was no way I was going to miss a chance to be with that particular group of people on that special day. 

I decided to leave early and see if I could get there ahead of the storm. I just made it. The skies opened up and dumped rivers of rain, then, oddly but quite nicely, fizzled to a drizzle as each new carload of family members arrived.

The young and the older, arriving in shifts,

Brought smiles and good wishes and armloads of gifts,
And inside the house, with its lights all aglow,
The merriment rose with each paper and bow
Tossed aside by a toddler, a sweet girl or boy,
Whose eyes shone more brightly with each unwrapped toy.

The youngest of the grandchildren is twenty now, so the excitement torch has been passed to the great-grandchildren, Owen and Olivia. Olivia was more interested in the bows than in the presents, but Owen, at two and three-quarters now, enjoyed the whole shebang. He played Santa's helper, happily delivering gifts as directed by his Popeé, Troy. Among Owen's own gifts was a kid-sized tool bench. He, having a small amount of nasal congestion, promptly dubbed it "the tool bitch," and you can imagine how often we tried to work that phrase into the conversation over the course of the afternoon.

On Dasher, on Dancer, on Donder and Blitzen--

Just smell the aromas that come from the kitchen!

There's shrimp fettuccine and crisp crawfish pies,

And pot roast and meatballs and audible sighs

At the display of cookies and candies galore.

Taste one, then another, then sample some more.

There was so much good food that I didn't even get around to tasting all of it. God knows I tried. Last night, for the first time in over two years, I had to unzip my pants after I got home, just to find enough comfort and breathing room to last until bedtime.

The kids were the focus till late in the day
When we knew it was time for the grown-ups to play.
A Christmas Day game is traditional now,
So we pondered the options that time would allow,
And decided charades would be given a go--
There's an app for that now, in case you didn't know.

According to an earlier post, the Christmas games tradition began about 2004, with the men and women on opposite teams playing Battle of the Sexes. Charades, though an old game by almost every standard, was new for us.

This year we chose teams by size instead of by sex, playing tall against small, and the teams turned out to be fairly evenly matched. The best-acting Oscars would have gone to Jeremy on the tall team and Kandis on the smalls. Both of them seemed to have remarkable abilities to zero in on the most important aspects of their allotted words or phrases and act out clues that conveyed them almost instantly. The words weren't easy, either: claustrophobia and turbulence, for example.

It's often a leap of faith for people to step outside their vulnerable skins and throw themselves into the spirit of a silly game. It's an exercise in trust and, in the best cases, a heartwarming demonstration of love and acceptance--all played out amidst riotous laughter.

The echos of laughter, the joy that still lingers
From down by my toes to the tips of my fingers,
Remind me that love is where everything starts--
The thoughts in our minds, the peace in our hearts--
And if we let love guide the actions we take,
The words that we say, the decisions we make,
Though storms may rain on us and strong winds may blow,
Love will see us through safely, wherever we go.

Gleeful Murder

I would not bother to deny
How much I love to kill a fly,
To swat it soundly on its head
And watch its body lie there dead.
I only wish, when I kill flies,
That x's would replace their eyes.

Haiku: Big Dog with No Brakes

Happy to see me,
he runs through the yard, hits hard,
knocks me to the ground.

-------

And for good measure, here's a different version, same title:


Big galoot runs fast,
hits me in the effing knees.
I walk with crutches.

Autumn Leaves - Haiku

Autumn blows a kiss

to South Louisiana,

leaves us wanting more.

Dream composer

Something weird has happened to me in the last month, and I'm wondering if it's ever happened to any of you. On two separate occasions I've awakened after dreaming that I listened to someone singing a song. The odd thing is that I've remembered the tunes and a substantial portion of the lyrics, even though the songs were ones I've never actually heard in real life.

The second dream song was the prettiest one, but I can only remember a few bars of it now, and I haven't been motivated to do anything with it. The first one, though, came to me pretty well packaged. I woke up with the tune for the whole thing and complete lyrics for the bridge. I wrote down those lyrics when I first got up, and before noon that day I'd written four verses to go with the bridge and the melody.

So, what do I do with the next great country western song now that I've written it? Well, since I have neither the talent nor the means to make a demo record and send it to Nashville, I'll share it with you, of course -- at least the lyrics. You'll just have to trust me that there is a tune, but since you can't hear it, knock yourself out and make up your own tune.

Here's my song (the words in italics are exactly as I heard them in the dream):

**********

Jump Right In

You made me think I meant somethin’ to you,
You told me that you loved me, now I know it wasn’t true.
The first chance you had you did somethin’ really bad
And you kept on, kept on just doin’ what you do.

You held me close while you told me your lies
Until I learned you’re nothin’ but a cheater in disguise.
The first time I knew someone else was lovin’ you
Was the last time, last time tears fell from my eyes.

Don’t want to be a friend to you,
Just want to put an end to you,
Don’t stick around like you’re hot-glued
Givin’ me attitude,
Take it to the river, dude,
And jump right in.

You say you’ll do anything to make me see
You’ve gotta have me in your life in some capacity,
But you did me wrong so I wrote this little song
Just to tell you, tell you to stay away from me.

You hang around thinkin’ I might take you back,
You say you’re sorry and you’ll get your life back on track.
You say no other man will ever love me like you can,
I say, “Do you, do you think that I’m on crack?”

Don’t want to be a friend to you,
Just want to put an end to you,
Don’t stick around like you’re hot-glued
Givin’ me attitude,
Take it to the river, dude,
And jump right in.

**********

Now, it was Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles who was singing the song in my dream, and Sugarland just happens to have a hit record of their own called Stuck Like Glue, so I'm thinking that my subconscious mind (or the Grand Poobah of Music Composition in the Sky who beamed it into my head) might have been slightly influenced by that song -- although Sugarland's song is about sticking and mine is clearly about unsticking.

Please, Mr. Heater Man, come and turn it on again!

The air grew cold on Thursday night,
So Friday, when I rose,
My fingertips wore icicles,
And frost was on my nose.

The heater blasted out cold air.
I shivered in the chill
And knew I'd have to call for help,
No matter what the bill.

I called the AC/heater man,
And he arrived by ten.
He needed parts he didn't have,
So left and came again.

At two he came the second time
And climbed the attic stairs.
He tried this thing and then tried that
And maybe whispered prayers.

It seemed that nothing he tried worked.
The pilot light ignited
But cut itself back off again
Before the furnace lighted.

He called this job "the devil" but
Would not accept defeat.
He fiddled with a grounding wire
And finally got some heat.

He finished at four-thirty and,
As I was pleased to see,
He ate the hours he'd wasted
And did not charge them to me.

I settled on the sofa as
Warm air began to blow.
I felt all comfy, cozy,
Because then I didn't know

That four short hours later
It would all begin anew:
The heater fan was on full force,
But only cold air blew.

I'd wasted all day Friday with
The heater service man
And so decided not to have
Him come right out again.

Instead, I'd tough it out, I thought,
And get some errands run
And call him first thing Monday
After all my chores were done.

So extra blankets kept me warm
When weekend nights grew cold,
But frosty mornings let me know
My bones are getting old.

I turned the bathroom heater on,
The oven, then the dryer,
To try to raise the temperature
At least a little higher,

And here I stand on Sunday morn,
Ashamed of what I'm wearing,
But if you ever get this cold,
You'll thank me, then, for sharing.

Water lilies

The two of us, leisurely wandering,

saw lilies, peacefully PONDering.

Coral Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle hugging fences,
Morning glory on the vine,
Tantalizing summer scents as
Rich and sweet as cherry wine.

A Brief History of an Early Romance

I thought he was a handsome prince
Who'd take me to his castle.
Turned out he was a vagabond
And something of an ass'le.

Dragging out another old poem

After work this evening I had to make a dreaded stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things -- pet items at one end of the place, grocery items at the other -- so now I'm ready to just kick back and put my feet up.

In the interest of posting something that wouldn't require me to engage my brain tonight, I hit the old-poem folder again. This time I pulled out a poem I wrote for a friend in 1989, just a few words of advice when I thought she was about to take a flying leap off the deep end. Let's just say it was an expression of a lesson I'd learned the hard way.


CLIMBING IVY

Passion fades.
The rose blooms only briefly
till its petals fall and leave behind
the memories and the thorns.

Cultivate the ivy.
No bold flowers there,
but one small sprig whose tendrils
reach a solid structure
grows to cover, brick by brick,
the tallest tower wall.

The rose’s scent seduces,
but its flower wilts when touched;
the ivy touches roughness
and discerns a place to hold.

Passion fades.
Love grows leaf by leaf.

Talk Radio Haiku

Ranting, radical,
muckraking windbag spewing
hate for a living.