Tag Archives: Humor

The Air Around Me

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The Prompt: Object Lesson—Sherlock Holmes had his pipe. Dorothy had her red shoes. Batman had his Batmobile. If we asked your friends what object they most immediately associate with you, what would they answer?

My MacBook Air—no contest!!!!  There is not a time when I’m home that it isn’t with me…and usually not a time away from home.  I have to be able to write at any given time and my Kindle is too hard to type on.

The Air Around Me

In the morning when I wake, she’s on my bedside table
where she’s been charging all night long, so now I find I’m able
to perch her on my counter as I brush my hair and dress,
put mascara on my lashes and curl them, I confess.
I take her to the kitchen as I blend my smoothie up—
slice the fruit, add soy milk, and pour it in a cup.
To my desk we go then, to write our morning verse.
If I wrote it longhand, I fear it would be worse.

When I do pool aerobics, she sits at pool edge.
(I put her on a table that has a little ledge
to protect her from disasters that might tip her in the pool.
I never take her in with me. I’m not a complete fool.)
That hour of exercise flies by as I watch junk TV.
Old situation comedies are what I like to see!
But when I drive to town I always listen to a book.
Much better than a video, as I don’t have to look.

At the plaza café, at my favorite outside table,
I converse with favorite friends whenever I am able.
But if they’re busy I just take my laptop there with me
and talk to her with fingers whenever they are free.
When the waiter brings totopos and the sauce to dip them in,
salsa on her keyboard would be disastrous sin;
so I have to move her—our contact I must breach—
but close enough so earbuds are still within my reach.

Before I eat, I talk to her with fingers fleet and swift.
During the meal, I listen, for my food I have to lift
from plate to mouth from plate to mouth till it becomes a rite.
Then my computer talks to me. She has no appetite.
She is my secretary and my bookshelf without end.
My video library and my calendar and friend.
She is my photo album and the archives for my writing.
She corrects my spelling and she’s expert at reciting
all my words right back to me so I can see what’s wrong.
And when I need interpreting, her language skills are strong.
So perhaps it’s clear now why she’s always here with me.
For the bond that binds us both is electricity!

ESP

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Daily Prompt: Full Disclosure—A mad scientist friend offers you a chip that would allow you to know what the people you’re talking to are thinking. The catch: you can’t turn it off. Do you accept the chip?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

ESP

I don’t really need a chip to know what you are thinking,
for when I ask, “Should I wear this?” your left eyelid starts blinking
like it does whenever you tell a little fib;
and I can tell your “It looks great!” sounds a little glib.
That’s how I know without a doubt you’re spinning a fine yarn;
and that, in fact, in this dress I must look wide as a barn.

If you say this dish is great but feed most to the dogs—
if you say I’m clever but you rarely read my blogs—
if you “want” to get together but we rarely do—
I’ve already read the clues to ascertain your view.
Yet, still I have the option to see the other side
and find a way to look at it that will preserve my pride.

Your eye might blink because a gnat got caught in it just now,
and so I do not really look as broad as any cow.
He just has a small appetite. Her eyesight might be failing.
She might be out of town and when she gets home from her sailing,
she’ll call me up and we will meet and have a laugh or two.
Without this ESP I really get to choose my view
of believing what I want to in spite of what I’ve guessed.
When it comes to friendship, less clarity is best!

 

Party of Twelve

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The Prompt: Seat Guru—You get to plan a dinner party for 4-8 of your favorite writers/artists/musicians/other notable figures, whether dead or alive. Who do you seat next to whom in order to inspire the most fun evening?

I chose twelve guests, plus myself. The seating chart is below. You will have to imagine me sitting in the exact middle of the table shaped like a ring around me.

Dinner for 12 seat chart

Party of Twelve

I have planned the dinner party, set the table, cooked the food,
but decisions about seating charts is ruining my mood;
for I want to sit by everyone, hear every conversation,
and trying to choose only two is causing consternation.
I think, therefore, I’d put me on a chair right in the center
on a sort of lazy Susan so I’d be able to enter
every conversation and to listen in on all,
seeing how they fare just like a fly upon the wall.

I’d have a little foot pedal to spin me at my ease—
enjoy Chaucer with my salad and Jane Austen with my cheese.
Jesus Christ and Whoopi could gang up on Rush and tell
why he’s the one who’s going to be broadcasting in Hell.
Osama bin Laden would be seated ear-to-ear
with Mohammed who would tell him what all terrorists should hear:
that the truth of the religion has got lost along the way,
for no one who is enlightened wants to kill and burn and slay.
Steve Martin would be there for fun to loosen up Osama
and spar with Rush to get his mind off Hillary and Obama.

I’d ask two people from real life to join us at the table:
Doug between the prophets so he’d finally be able
to be faced with the real men so he can sort out fact and fiction
and show it’s the religions that have caused us all the friction.
The men themselves had peace at heart and must bemoan the end
that power brokers bring the world to as their truth they bend.

The other person that I want to have here at my meal
is Ann Garcia, for I know her pleasure would be real.
Seated by Jane Austen, she would question her and tell
of her appreciation of the books she’s loved so well.
Barbara Kingsolver I’d seat upon on her other side.
She, too, would get much praise but also would have to abide
many interruptions from one listening from the middle,
for I’d be hopping back and forth like water on a griddle.

These people all are here because my curiosity
is whetted by my fantasies of what I’ll hear and see.
There is another guest that I’ve neglected to reveal,
but he is central to the plot of this illustrious meal.
Geoffrey Chaucer would be there to listen and relate
the story of this group of people that we love and hate.
So all the world could hear the tale of what we learned at table.
This earliest father of literature is surely the most able
to see the truth of character and spin a tale to tell
the truth of what will save our world from fire, brimstone, Hell!

And then, one final person I’d invite to be a guest
is Barbara Walters, who would come to interview the rest;
so we’d be sure that all received their moment in the sun,
and we could question them after her interview was done.

If you have any questions that you’d like an answer to,
most happily, I’ll ask them and pass answers on to you.
I will not mind a bit assuming this laborious task.
Just comment on this poem and say what you would like to ask
of Chaucer or of Jesus or of Whoopi or of Steve.
If they’re still here, I’ll ask them, or if they have chosen to leave,
I’ll channel them in poetry and say what I believe
they’d say if your request were one they could themselves receive.
But for now our party’s over and our guests have all departed.
Many better-fed, and (let’s hope) some more open-hearted!!!

P.S. The number of guests at my dinner party is coincidental. In no way is this poem meant to allude to another illustrious dinner of twelve plus one.

P.P.S.  Oops..Barbara Walters somehow got bounced off the seating chart.  I guess I’ll give her my seat and I’ll just roam around the perimeter, helping my sister serve the soup, but mostly just listening in and butting in. So this really should be called “Party of Thirteen.” I also had Will Rogers on my original seating plan, but he was somehow omitted.  It was my first time using the program that created the seating chart and it took me longer to get it together than to write the entire poem. Sorry Will, I’ll catch you later.  Perhaps devote an entire poem to you.

 

 

Many Me’s

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Nude Descending a Staircase picture

The Prompt: Frame of Mind—If you could paint your current mood onto a canvas, what would that painting look like? What would it depict?

Many Me’s
If I should have to paint a picture of my present mood,
I’d be walking down a staircase, and I’d have to do it nude—
My many selves preceding me and coming fast behind—
for there would be not one of me, but many of my kind.
This scene is a mere copy of Duchamp’s solution to
a person who perhaps has found she has too much to do.

My list of tasks is growing, though I’ve dealt with one or two;
but how I’ll deal with everything, I fear I have no clue.
And so I guess my canvas style would simply have to be
like Marcel’s (though not cubist, still with more than one of me.)
That way I’d send off each of me to do what must be done.
They’d do all my labor while I went to have some fun.

While self 1 wrote my daily prompt and self 2 cleaned my shelves,
I’d go out to the water park with all my other selves.
We’d climb up all the ladders and slide down all the slides
and play a game of tug-rope where I would be both sides!
We’d go out to the ice cream place and have a cone or three
and they’d get all the calories with none assigned to me!

We’d take my bad dogs for a walk and I would be so free
Two other me’s would hold the leashes, not the actual me.
I’d loll here in my hot tub, swing in my hammock, too,
while selves from 1 to 9 would do all that I have to do.
They’d figure out my microwave instructions all in Spanish.
They’d sort out all my photographs and clean my loo with Vanish.

Agreeable to every task, they’d never mention “can’t.”
They’ll pick off all the yellow leaves from every drying plant.
They’ll organize my studio that is a horrid mess.
(It’s been that way for many months—a fact I must confess.)
They’d sort out all my closets and organize my drawers,
then go into my Filofax and sort out all the bores.

They’d shape my canned goods into rows—sorted from “A” to “Z.”
which makes it difficult for them, but easier for me.
And though my other selves keep warm from their activity,
my idleness seems not to create any warmth for me.
So although I like my colors and my brush strokes strong and bold,
I wish I’d put some clothes on us, ‘cause I am getting cold!!

Laughter Schmafter

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Laughter Schmafter

I used to roll with laughter most every day or so.
My parties were all riotous. No one would ever go
back home again till two or three or four or five or six.
And some would stay for breakfast, prerhaps hoping that I ‘d fix
my special chocolate waffles or orange berry strudels
or curried eggs or cheesy pie or strata made with noodles.
We’d story-tell and play charades and I admit, we’d drink
and stage our paper yacht races within the kitchen sink.
The guests might come in costume and some might bring a friend
for I had grown notorious for parties with no end.
When I was a teacher, I’d invite the whole darn staff.
Away from school, our hearts were gay. We dearly loved to laugh!
But this was years ago, my friend. Our hearts were young and gay.
Now that we’ve lived past sixty, we live a shorter day.
When I have my friends over to play a game or dine,
some find the spices don’t agree and others shun the wine.
Some have little dogs at home they have to feed by five.
Others have eye problems and find they cannot drive
after dark at all and so they have to leave by seven.
I guess our laughter’s done on earth. Perhaps we’ll laugh in heaven.

Daily Prompt: Roaring Laughter—What was the last thing that gave you a real, authentic, tearful, hearty belly laugh? Why was it so funny?

Prompt? Really?

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Prompt? Really?

I wake at six and for two hours and I check and check and check.
Now 8:03 and still no prompt. I wonder, what the heck?
Can they not post the prompt so I can get on with my day?
These lazy daily prompters must be laid out in the hay
when they should be here prompting for we still have things to do!
We can’t just sit here all day long to wait and wait for you.
Just slap some words down on your site and we’ll begin to write.
For we’ve been waiting morning hours and others through the night.
In the hours we’ve waited, we have stretched and paced and stomped
and realized the truth: Your prompt is anything but prompt!!!

Finally, at 11:13, today’s prompt was posted, but I had written my blog entry between the hours of six and eight and then watched for the actual prompt to post so I could establish the link.  Alas, 5 hours of waiting was enough and today I’ll post to a different drummer!  But—I was the first to post!!!!  Ta Dah!

The prompt today, when it finally came, was if you had three wishes to grant, who would you grant them to?  No necessity for thinking about this.  I would grant one each to three women who because of the culture they have grown up in have been sentenced to death for adultery or  because they have been raped or because they have stood up to a brutal husband.

Ocean Rental

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DSC09359

Ocean Rental

Her towel is spread out on the beach, the cat is on the stoop.
The housewife sips her coffee while her husband sips his soup.
There are advantages to houses built upon the sand.
You do not have to leave your porch to get expertly tanned.
You dine on tuna every day that never has been canned.
When fishermen jerk in their fish and they happen to land
upon your porch, you eat them either cooked or sushi-raw.
The fisherman cannot complain, you see it is the law.
And that is how you know what hubby shoves into his face
is probably not vichyssoise, but rather bouillabaisse

The Prompt: An Odd Trio—Today, you can write about whatever you what — but your post must include, in whatever role you see fit, a cat, a bowl of soup, and a beach towel.

If Only I Could Play Guitar

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Today’s (Jan. 8, 2015) WordPress Daily Prompt is: I Got Skills – If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick? Oh, to play the guitar! But I already wrote to that subject last July. Here is that post.

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to talk and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

The Prompt (from July 3, 2014): Strike a Chord—Do you play an instrument? Is there a musical instrument whose sound you find particularly pleasing? Tell us a story about your experience or relationship with an instrument of your choice.

Sayonara Umami

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Sayonara Umami

Every day my word prompt takes time away from me.
I lie in bed and write and write sometimes till two or three.
But today they’ve found another part of me to waste,
for now they’re going to take away one aspect of my taste.
Salt or bitter, sweet or sour, are tastes I must maintain.
Umami is the obvious choice that causes the least pain.
They say monosodium glutamate is what creates its savor.
Seaweed, cured fish, aged cheese and meats are what contain its flavor.
(All foods I hate and so at last, I’ll never have to worry
about detecting those weird tastes in saté or in curry.)
No more lurking fish paste. No more furry tongue.
No more adult flavors found revolting by the young.
So for once, dear “Word Prompt,” I shall to you relate
my thanks for taking from my life something I really hate!

The Prompt: Picky Tongues—You have to choose one flavor that your sense of taste will no longer be able to distinguish. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, spicy (not a taste per se, but we’re generous): which one do you choose to lose?

Unruly Punctuation

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Unruly Punctuation

When a guy driving a GMC
swoops into line in front of me
and takes the place I meant to park,
I use an !

While the ,’s made for multi-tasking,
in a sentence meant for asking,
there has to be a ?
lest readers be left in the dark.

An ! is fine
when simply put at end-of-line,
but,
too many (quite a fault of mine)
bring out the punctuation narcs
to ban those !!!!!!!!!!

Those abounding in . . .
are labeled punctuation gypsies
because they don’t know when to stop.
So please call in a grammar cop.

I must admit that I am rash
and tend to overuse the —.
What’s more, my editor goes crazy
when I forget or just get lazy.
His eyes bug out, his face goes red
when I make use of — instead.

The . is the simplest mark.
At sentence end it’s meant to park.
It’s always put where it is best
to let the sentence come to rest,
and no one puts it elsewhere lest
the reader is put to the test
to search from clause to clause to clause
to figure out where he can pause.

When I think of rhymes for ,
only strange words like pajama
are what come to mind—or llama—
or words not to the point, like “mama;”
so I’ll just say the Oxford ,
is like the Tea Party to Obama.
If his (and my) advice is heeded,
it will be clear that they’re not needed!!!

The purpose of the ’
is as clear as it can be:
Judy’s car or Judy’s house,
Judy’s dog or Judy’s spouse.
Yet, when the pronoun enters in,
it is the biggest grammar sin
to use apostrophes for possession
(although I’ll make this hard confession
that often I, unthinkingly,
will write it’s where it never fits.)
It’s in possession should be its!)
“It’s” only used as a contraction.
(It’s a faction, but not it’s faction.)

I think I may conduct a poll on
: versus ;
Which one separates two clauses,
signaling those longer pauses;
and which one signifies a list?
I’m sure that you have got the gist
of which is which—where each should go
to end this punctuation woe.

( ) mark an aside, much as a—might do,
Like “ ”, they’re paired. You always must use two.
Which brings us to the – that joins a compound word.
You never put a space in. To do so is absurd.
You should not use it as a dash with spaces on each side.
That is an antique usage that I simply can’t abide.

Yet if you choose to Google some of the rules here,
there will be discrepancies from site to site, I fear.
What I say they’ll question. They’ll support what I must pan.
So I can only say that I’ve accomplished what I can.
In spite of all my studying, despite my dedication—
I find that few agree on rules applied to punctuation!!!!

The Prompt: By the Dots—We all have strange relationships with punctuation — do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without? Tell us all about your punctuation quirks!

You might have guessed that the punctuation marks being referred to (but not those merely functional) are meant to be read out as words.  In my original, it was fairly obvious as they were in 20 font in bold so they stood out.  The only way I could find to designate them here was to use boldface and to change their color to blue.  As usual, thanks for reading my entries.  I appreciate your comments and “likes,” always!!! Thanks.  Judy