Category Archives: Humor

Planning Meeting at the Senior Citizens Center

5 Replies

IMG_0051

Concerted: contrived or arranged by agreement; planned or devised together. A concerted effort: done or performed together or in cooperation.

Planning Meeting at the Senior Citizens Center

Has anyone else noticed that it is much harder to make a concerted effort after the age of 65?  Plans somehow get skewed, no matter how much harder we try. One person forgets the meeting. Another is ill or merely having an “off day” and can’t get out of the house.  Yet another shows up but has forgotten to do the tasks they have agreed to do. Once at the meeting, one or two people can’t hear. Another is dealing with a phone call that has just come in on her cell phone.  Two others ignore their calls but either can’t figure out how to turn off their phones or actually don’t hear the drone. 

The leader of the meeting keeps forgetting the last word of her sentences,  but luckily her friends are accustomed to this and they take turns filling them in for her. When she switches to a power point demonstration, the pictures seem to have turned themselves upside down and the man switching to each new photo has problems coordinating them with the vocal cues.

Several who can’t see move forward to a seat closer to the screen. A man in the front row falls asleep and everyone is distracted watching him as his head bends lower and lower. His next door neighbor wonders at what point she should put an arm out to catch him lest he pitch forward onto the floor. 

The meeting seems to go on for longer than usual and at five minute intervals, women work their ways from wherever they are situated in the rows of seats, past the stiff legs of those they must pass on their way to the aisle, trying not to stumble over feet whose owners seem unable to shift them far enough out of the way. Their panicked eyes and the speed with which they move reveal that they have waited a bit too long to begin their journey.  This serves as a lesson to several other women who rise and work their way out behind them.  As each in the group returns, at least one other audience member stands to work her way out in the same direction.  Occasionally, a man just leaves for a short stroll out into the garden. Everyone finds this suspicious.

Neighbors ask neighbors to repeat what was just said. Questions are asked that have already been answered minutes before. Men make suggestions that are widely agreed with, to the chagrin of the women who have made the exact same suggestion earlier in the discussion with no response.

There is a disagreement and one of the participants remembers that it is time to go home to feed her dog.  Another person wants to get home before dark. Another has arranged for a taxi that will be there in five minutes.

Meeting adjourned.

If you are looking for a daily prompt, try this one.  It posts daily, is easy to post your answer on and stays active for a month.  The Daily Addictions prompt today is “concerted.”

Flummoxed

11 Replies


Flummoxed

I fear that I am flummoxed about where to post this poem
since Daily Post abandoned us, our postings have no home
where we can find each other sufficiently clear.
Just where do we post them? Is it here or here or here?
I applaud your efforts. I know you’ve planned and planned.
You have your daily promptings sufficiently manned.
The problem is we need one place where we can find each other
once we have surveyed the prompt and written yet another
poem or essay most profound that we would like to share.
Except, where should we put it?  There, or there or there?
The solution to this problem has me tearing at my hair.
Please give me a solution. Where should I post this? Where?

Perhaps I’ve overstepped my bounds, and if I have I fear
that you’ll simply say that I should  hang it in my ear!

 

The prompt today is flummoxed. 

Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

7 Replies

 

Click on any photo to enlarge all.

For dVerse Poets today, we were to compose a poem making use of the following street names:
Rope Walk, Potacre Street, Silver Street, Catshole Lane, Buttgarden Stree, Gas Lane, Coral Avenue, Dragon Hill, Baron Way, Mutton Lane. Well, I used them all, but don’t blame me for the zaniness of the following:


Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

When I’m asked to walk the rope,
I am most likely to say, “Nope!”
But(t) Garden Street sounds more ornate.
I might pass through its flowery gate.
I won’t be Dragon up the Hill.
Don’t do inclines, and never will.
Silver and Coral? My confession
is that they suit my old profession
as a silversmith and vendor,
so if you are a generous spender,
I’ll go on a buying spree
and sell the results, then, to thee.

Don’t go for mutton. It ends in gas,
so on those two, I’ll have to pass.
There’s a barrier on Baron Way.
I can’t go there, for no one may.
Acres of potholes also mar
Potacre Street and so my car
must avoid both Catshole and it
lest we wind up in a pit,
damaging our undercarriage
and my stability of marriage.

Are we going there? The wife says no,
for she decides where we will go.
So, much as I would like to wander
up all those streets up over yonder,
dVerse Poets are not my boss,
so this adventure will be my loss.
And though I will not ace your test,
all-in-all, I think it’s best
to limit where I’m going to roam
and simply take the fast route home.

For dVerse Poets Pub prompt.

After the Ceremony

19 Replies

After marriage, even after the mundane invades our life, hopefully, some of the magic remains.

After the Ceremony

Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.

It is flowering, our ordinary world.
Zephyrus peanut butter
and turgid corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.

If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
I am diaphanous in my kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.
For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.

Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
I am thy bride, thy fairy princess.
Your pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of your wick,
the cooker of your sausage.

My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, you are my big zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
and I am forever thy camellia and thy rose.

Remember me under lindens,
my footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and my cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.

This is a rewrite of a poem first written five years ago. The prompt word today was ceremony.

Doppelganger Disclaimer

10 Replies

 

“Double Identity” Retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown. Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Doppelganger Disclaimer

I do not have a doppelganger. There’s no evil twin
wandering around within the world I’m in.
So any malfeasance—any scrape or sin
that has occurred in any place where I might have been
please attribute just to me. I will take all the blame.
Blaming a doppelganger would be to share my fame.
Sometimes I am a stinker, but at other times most jolly.
I’m responsible for all of me—both bravery and folly.
As a denizen of this fair world, until I pull up stakes,
I think it’s only fair that I claim my own mistakes!

 

The prompt word today is doppelganger.

Modern Bride

7 Replies

 


Modern Bride

The groom’s family was titled and a bit anachronistic.
So when they saw the bride, I fear they went a bit ballistic.
Instead of white she wore a dress of scarlet oddly draped.
The mother of the groom grew faint. Her husband merely gaped.
She wore something archaic instead of merely old—
her grandma’s feather boa—a bridal statement bold.
Around her neck, a python, and her arms were densely bangled.
Her veil pinned to a tractor hat of satin, oddly-angled.
The brim turned back as though she were an umpire at a game.
In short, the bride’s ensemble was anything but lame.

As she hip-hopped down the aisle to a tune by Kanye West,
the groom stood fondly watching her in morning coat and vest.
Her lipstick blue, her bustier was borrowed and conditional
on return to its owner in a manner most traditional.
To complete her fashion statement, her combat boots were blue,
and if you’ve paid attention, you could guess that they were new!
Her bouquet was fresh dandelions bound up with some chives.
She held it in one hand and with the other, gave high fives
to friends all up the aisle as she jerked her way on by.
The groom’s mom gave a shudder and his father gave a sigh.

So did this modern wedding  forsake the antiquated
with customs much less stuffy, less predictable and dated.
The wedding fare was tacos, Cuban sandwiches and chips,
jelly beans and donuts, crudites and dips.
No caviar or salmon. Just ribs and Tater Tots.
The toasts to bride and groom were made with jello shots.
The wedding cake was chocolate with custard between layers.
Good wishes  voiced by ministers, gurus and namaste’ers.
In place of rice the bride and groom were showered with quinoa.
In short, it was a wedding to rival mardi gras!

 

The prompt today is archaic.

Guilty as Charged

14 Replies

Guilty As Charged

Yes, I’m guilty of all charges. I fear I must confess.
It’s true I bought a purse and shoes, then bought the matching dress.
What credit card I charged them on, I can only guess,
but I know what I have spent. Sort of. More or less.
It does no good haranguing me. It does not help to press,
asking if I’ve found the bills, hoping I’ll say yes.

You’re making me feel guilty. Inflicting much duress.
Would it make you happier if I went fashionless?
It’s not like I bought golf clubs, a sports car or a yacht.
Just these paltry fashions are all that I have got.
Yes, the dress is Vera Wang. The shoes are Jimmy Choo.
The diamond bangles matched so well, I really needed two.

When the clerk at Tiffany’s asked what he should do,
charge them on my credit card or just charge them to you,
I asked to see your charge account, and, dear, it was a shock
to see the balance on it. That must have been some rock
you purchased just last fortnight. Might I suggest cash-and-carry
the next time that you buy a gift for your secretary?

 

The WordPress prompt today is guilty.

“My Humorous Anecdote” by Sarah Southwest (Reblog)

Leave a reply

DSC07692

I love this poem that Sarah wrote for dVerse Poets this week.  I’ll prime the pump, then you need to go to her blog to read the rest:

My Humorous Anecdote 

                                 –by Sarah Southwest

We have a funny story
that we often try to tell,
so funny, when we start it,
we giggle for a spell

We can’t remember how it starts
or recall how it ends,
so perhaps we shouldn’t share it
with our dinner party friends

but it’s really so amusing,
it always makes us smile,
so we keep on trying to tell it,
and we struggle for a while –

we argue on location,
can’t recall the time of day,
but it was so hilarious,
we must tell you, we say, . . . .

(To read the rest of this poem, go to:  Sarahsouthwest’s Blog.

Disappearing Act

9 Replies

SheSleeps

Generally, I have no desire to disappear.  Given my choice, you’d have me around forever.  The only exception is when I am ill.  In that case, I just want to draw into my shell and disappear.  This poem written three years ago chronicles such a time:

Skedaddle!

Bring me vitamins and soup,
but please don’t camp upon my stoop.
For when I have the ague or flu,
I’d rather not commune with you!
I’d rather sink into my gloom
sealed up lonely in my room.
Sleep as much as I am able,
use my stomach as a table.

Leave liquids here beside my bed,
but please don’t hover overhead.
An angel is appreciated
if, once immediate needs are sated,
they disappear and leave me to
my soggy Kleenex and the loo!

 

The prompt word today is disappear.

Highchair Fashionista

4 Replies
Frock

Enlarge all photos by clicking on any one.

 

Highchair Fashionista

Her mania for haute couture
came a little premature
when she first crawled across the floor,
wanting to see Grandma’s Dior.
When she took her first steps and fell,
it was reaching for Auntie’s Chanel.
The words she learned at Mama’s knee
were Calvin Klein and Givenchy.

Her alphabet from A to V
(from Armani up to Versace)
she learned in closets of her kin
dreaming of how she’d look in
Louis Vitton, Laurent, Bill Blass.
She’d be the best-dressed in her class
of other girls in cut-off jeans
and dresses made by mere machines.

Thus are fashionistas made.
As other children sell lemonade
or waste their days in hide-and-seek,
they are fingering La Fabrique
and looking at the fold and drape
of a model’s evening cape.
To each their own, we’re given to say,
and yet I’m prone to saying “Nay,
childhood might be better spent
in pastimes of another bent.”

I’d hope that kids from zero to twelve
might be more encouraged to delve
into comics or games or nature
with no stylish nomenclature.
Let kids be freakish, free and nerdy.
Let their clothes get torn and dirty.
Time enough for fashion cults
later, when they’re grown adults.

 

The prompt today was premature.