Coco Tuesday

Okay, so my titles are a bit off this week.
Madge had her first band concert today. What an afternoon. Because she wanted her best friend there, her friend got to come over after school and accompany us to Coco's soccer class.
After soccer we walked Madge to school, which got a little nerve-wracking for her because the church bell rang six o'clock (the time she was supposed to be there) and we were still ACROSS THE STREET from school. Then matters got worse because the front door was locked.
ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy
We walked around school and shouted through some windows and by the time we got back to the front we managed to knock loudly enough for the security guard to open up. Madge wiped her tears, took her instruments, and went in.
Coco, Madge's friend, and I went for pizza.
The concert was great, of course.
And terrible, of course.
It all depends on what you want out of a fourth- and fifth-grade band concert.
Coco loved it (even though he got a bit tired). The friend loved it.
Most importantly, Madge loved it and thought the fifth graders were great and wants to do it again next year.

Madge Monday

Madge, when asked, usually says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. Understandable. Coco one-upped it last week by saying he wants to be a principal.
What? Really? What kid says that?
I have no explanation other than that he wanted to best his older sister.
We then asked him if he'd ever been to the principal's office. Because, you never know.
No, was the answer. He is, after all, only in Kindergarten. But apparently a kid in his class did get sent. Hoo boy. I sense a promising future.
Anyway.
This afternoon, they were playing school and I chose the role of principal, thinking I could just rest while they did their class thing. But, no, there was a crisis right away. Two crises, those stinkers. One involved a cockroach, the other an injury.
Luckily I've already done my first level improv class, so I delegated the cockroach to the janitor-cat and the injury to the nurses office. Problem solved, begin the nap.
Maybe I want to be a principal when I grow up.

New term - a good one

Coco has a scab on his hip bone. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, I think a rug burn at school. But he noticed the scab while getting dressed this morning and said, "Oh look. Good. A body band-aid."

competing songs in my head

I have a playlist on my iPod that I've named "Can't Not Sing." Songs like this are prominent there. (Needless to say, this can be quite embarrassing for people around me - not for me, though, I'm immune. The kids are immune, too - how much longer?)



I think that's why I listen to so many songs in Spanish and Portuguese, because, not knowing the words, I'm not as tempted to sing along. I may have to learn the words to this one, though. Man, her voice kicks butt!

flying cow

Coco's class wrote counting books today. On the page for the number nine, he drew cows. (Each of the cows has three legs - maybe he senses some divisibility there, I don't know.) One of the cows' legs are splayed backwards, all the others point down. I didn't ask him about it because he's been sensitive of criticism lately, but he volunteered that this cow is flying "Like in Monty Python with those baby people ["run away!"] and the fake big rabbit."
My work is done. (The cow appears at 1:55 in the clip below.)

Coco Tuesday

First soccer class today. Turns out Coco was the only one signed up, so it's a one-on-one class. But since Madge - who didn't want to go because, well, just because - got interested in playing, too, the class got bigger. Coco didn't mind her joining. I don't know whether it even occurred to him to mind. The benefit for me is that I sort of got a gift with purchase there. We'll see what happens next week.
In general he's the playdate king this week and she's a royal grump about it. Tomorrow should be better but on Thursday there's a little dude coming over whom she is disinclined to like. Oh, well. We'll figure it out.

Madge Monday

I've heard that people are missing the kid updates. Oops.
Yesterday, you may have heard, was Mother's Day. It was the first one for which Madge bought something for Mommy with her own money. I was going to help out financially but realized that might not make it as meaningful to either of the parties involved. And this way I didn't have any input, really, in what the gift was. (It was a plastic chalice with fake flowers around the base. A perfect kind of Mother's Day gift just as an eggshell omelet is a perfect Mother's Day breakfast.)
And then the girls had a pedicure, too.

I'm jealous

The first minute of this genius. The rest is good, too, of course, and oddly prescient, but the opening is so simple and (in retrospect) obvious, it just makes me say "why couldn't I have thought of that?" (Please refrain from answering this question, it is rhetorical.)
Enjoy:

Good Eye

I'm so proud of Madge for spotting this. Even though she interrupted Mommy to point this out, I think her powers of observation have jumped up a level. Viz. the irony in this image.

The ad on top says: Together, Building a Healthier Community.

The bottom ad says: Divorce $399. Spouse's Signature Not Needed.

quick review

Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder
(Mother Courage and Her Children)

First performed in Zurich in 1939 for an audience of pacifist and anti-fascist German expatriates, the play is a praise song of sending children to their deaths.
Of course not. Silly. What do you expect from Brecht?
The setting is the 30-Year war (17th Century, Europeans killing each other in order to decide which cut of clerical dress represents a more direct line to God).
The characters are not one-, but two-dimensional, not bad for Mr. Didactic. The mother (I first heard of Niobe in this context: look her up and impress your friends!) is also a war-profiteering capitalist; the cook is also a womanizer; the preacher is also a coward; the grown children she loses have less depth: Strong, Honest, and Innocent.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Brecht and enjoy the occasional preachiness. And slogans like

Peace is sloppy, only war creates order.

Or

Wherever there are great virtues, it only proves that something is rotten.

always find a willing audience in me.
And I can't find the quote right now, but there was also a bit where the preacher said that Jesus first multiplied the loaves and the wine and then taught brotherly love because it’s easier to love your neighbor on a full stomach. All classic Brechtian ideas which appeal to the Undergrad Idealist in me.
A worthwhile read, but it doesn’t oust the Three-Penny Opera as my favorite.

outer space

We went to Mars 2112 last night. It's a themed restaurant. Guess the theme.
You get in a spaceship that bounces and squeaks and rattles like a school bus and when you're done, you're in Mars. The kids, especially Coco, loved it. Now he selflessly thinks we should take Mommy there on Mother's Day. And every ten minutes or so he suggests someone else who needs to come visit us because I told him we can't just go there any old day, it needs to be a special occasion.
So, when you come visit us, be prepared for some overpriced average burgers in a place with a great, albeit low-gravity (wacka-wacka), atmosphere.

afternoon fun

I forgot to mention about the playdate...
Because of grade recess, I picked up Madge first, on the way to get Coco. A rare occurrence.
When his classroom opened and we went in, he asked to have a playdate with a friend, the kid who cries more than I'm comfortable with. Only in class, though, so playdates are okay.
I said okay and told Madge about it. She said, "That's not the 'Ow, my wiener' kid, is it?"
I said no, and the playdate was greenlighted.

The "Ow, my wiener" kid needs explanation, I know. Apparently he smacks himself in his privates and then shouts, "Ow, my wieeeeeener," to the delight of his friends.
They're so precocious nowadays. I don't think I started using crotchal pain as a conversational stimulus until my mid-twenties.

what happened to yesterday?

Things just got away from me, I guess. Between working at the Coop and Family Night at school (and limericks and basketball playoffs), I didn't get around to keeping Julie updated. Here you go:
I had my Coop shift and we went to Family Night at school.
Today we played board games. Madge and Coco played Monopoly before school and picked up where they left off after a playdate this afternoon and then packed it in when they got bored.
I wish modern capitalism - especially the kind based on real-estate greed - could be taken care of in the same way.
Oddly enough, Madge skipped her reading homework today (she has accumulated homework passes, so it doesn't really matter) because she was busy reading things I brought back from the library.
How meta.

no TV update

Last night, Coco dreamed that Madge was watching TV.
This upset him.
So I said I'm giving her a time-out in his dreams tonight.
Problem solved.

oops, no notes

Of course we did stuff today, but I wasn't keeping track. No super cuteness that needed to be written down. A special treat was that we got to talk to Julie on the phone - thanks, Caroline, for lending Julie your phone!
Coco made up some French sounding stuff ("bonzoo") on the phone, which was confusing to all parties involved. Then he wrote a note which we had to put in an envelope. I'm glad I could convince him not to send it off or it would probably be lost.
Oh, yes. No TV week. I got some markers today. The smelly kind. You know, not the intoxicating ones, but the ones that smell like fake fruit. Sure enough, the pink one made Madge think of penicillin. But we have some new drawings on the wall now.
No, we didn't color the walls.

party game

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/hillary_clinton_launches?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

This could easily become a warm-up game for your trainers, Julie, or just for anyone who's a little bored.

Take a celebrity and launch a fragrance line (or makeup line) around them.

From Orlando Bloom (objectively crisp, wispy top-notes of sandalwood to a scruffy undertone of peat moss, this fragrance is a pick-me-up for those under sixteeen and those over thirty-seven) to Judy Blume (play-do and musty books combine to a mischievous alliance of insouciant intrigue; think jelly donut with a kick of mustard), this could be hours of fun.

Try Caroline Kennedy, Salman Rushdie, Pete(r) Doherty, Whoopi Goldberg.

Or others of your choosing.

lloraras

It's a song the salsa band I was in (long time ago) played. The lick repeats a lot: bah, bibiduda, dap-DAA, duh da dwee dap dee dum
Anyway, it's on my iPod now and kicks my butt when it shows up while I'm running. No way to merely jog to this:

day two

Of course, now that mommy is out of town, it turns out that this is school's turn-off-your-tv week. Okay, it sounds like I'm complaining, but really, other than me needing to be a bit more of a cruise director, it leaves the kids in a better mood, so it's a good thing. The heavy rains, however, are another story.
This morning we didn't know about the no-tv thing yet, so we were watching SpongeBob in which he said it was his best day ever (not the episode with the song, though; he says it a lot).
Coco said, "Saturday is the best day ever. That's when Mommy comes back."
aww.
We tried calling Mommy this afternoon (evening for her). It's hard to coordinate the timing because she's busy. Sure enough, Le Front Desk Guy (that's what they call a concierge in France) said that she had stepped out. When I hung up, Madge said, "I didn't know you could speak French so well." She was impressed that I never switched to English. Which is sweet, but it sounded like she's been trying to speak French with me for a few years now and has only been holding back because she figured I wasn't very good at it.

inverted hunger strike

I'm always a bit late on reading the Economist, so this might not be news to you.
But
It appears that aside from using the delightful word "inquorate" (a negative adjectival manipulation of "quorum"), it points out that Evo Morales went on a hunger strike to get what he wants. Kicker one is that he happens to be the president.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13496059
Kicker two is that he didn't actually get his way, but got to eat again because the problem could be fixed in time.

"lazy" Sunday

Neighbor boy came over and we watched an animated X-Men thingie.
After lunch, neighbor girl (gotta think of pseudonyms, I think) came over. New haircut, cute. Madge was teaching her the Twilight characters' names off the poster. "Rose something" giggle "Jasper" yes "Isabelle Swan" giggle "Edward!"
Later we played with neighbor boy at playground. He's an only kid, so he does the infamous only/older rule-making and rule-adjusting, which got very frustrating for Coco. I tried to stay out of it and was sort of proud and sort of feeling bad for neighbor boy when Coco walked away from the whole situation.
Which isn't to say that Coco isn't the manipulation king or at least prime minister.
I handed out allowance today and he tried to give Madge a dollar in order to collect a ten from me.
After various frustrated and -ing attempts at an explanation, it turns out that it was his tenth dollar. He finally agreed he'd have to cough up all ten - and not to her, but to me - in order to get a Hamilton instead of Washington.
Now Coco is asleep in our bed so I won't be lonely, he says. I should teach him that Police song, the one that I'm always humming when Julie's out of town:

Mommy in Paris

There will probably be more kid updates here now, so Julie can keep up with our shenanigans.
Our plan for the day includes playdates and shopping and perhaps some balcony gardening - I think I'll plant the garlic that sprouted in the pantry, to see what will happen.
So far, we're still just lounging around, singing "I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World" and enjoying open windows for the first time in quite a while.
See, Julie, you're not missing much - except that we got to hear neighbor boy do his singsong playing on the balcony - which is where Coco went for the first part of the playdates.

Larkin review of sorts

The proof of hope lies in disappointment.
That’s the most positive spin I can put on these poems. Don’t get me wrong; they’re great. But don’t look to Larkin for uplift. Look to him for honesty, insight, and formal play. How very cliche, but I don't know how else to summarize the appeal.

[Here’s my story of getting to Larkin. It seems that every pseudo-intellectual started misquoting Larkin’s “Annus Mirabilis” because McEwan’s On Chesil Beach is about a kind of sexual awakening at the referred-to time. “Blah, blah sexual intercourse began blah 1963 blah blah Chatterley ban blah blah Beatles LP.” I meant to look up the actual poem but didn’t get around to it. Then I started reading Kingsley Amis and picked up Lucky Jim and sure enough, it’s dedicated to Larkin. Then I noticed that all of Larkin’s poems fit on less than 200 pages and there we are.]

I’ll try to give you a taste.
As a reader, I hit my stride in Larkin's mid-thirties – I’m not bold enough to say that it’s when he hit his stride as a writer – with The Less Deceived. A random sampling of titles will give you a flavor of his subjects. Poems include: Next, Please; Going; Wants; Maiden Name; Born Yesterday; Whatever Happened?; No Road. You get the drift.

Here’s a bit of “Maiden Name”:
…
Then is it scentless, weightless, strengthless, wholly
Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly.
No, it means you. Or, since you’re past and gone,

It means what we feel now about you then:
…

Or, how about only the rhyme words of “Maiden Name”:

Disused; face; grace; confused; cannot be; beauty; used;;
No one; scattered through; prize or two; ribbon; wholly; slowly; gone;;
Then; young; among; again; faithfulness; meaning less; laden.

Great stuff. If you don’t care for a whole book of poems, I highly recommend “Church Going,” “High Windows,” and “The Trees” (“Their greenness is a kind of grief.”)

[Depending on my speed on bigger novels, I reserve the right to count this reading as four books, since The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows each originally appeared as a separate volume. And now I’m off to start Lucky Jim.]

picture time

a little self-dressup from Madge

tissues at the ready

I can't embed the clip, but here's the link.
Seriously, I dare you not to get chills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
daaaaaamn

Lord Of The Rings

Sure, Coco may be a little young to see it, but he said he'd just wear his dream bracelet to bed to avoid nightmares.
So we polished off the movies this weekend.
This morning he noticed that we still had some cotton candy left over from a Knicks game we saw a while ago and asked if he could have it.
When I handed it to him, he hunched over it and gurgled, "Aaah, my precious!"

bookie

finished my first book for the 100 books thing and wrote a little "review"
Great Gatsby

Did you remember that Tom and Daisy had a kid?
Pammy is her name. She’s three.
It’s odd, the things you notice when you reread a classic. I’m now convinced that the only reason the book is assigned to high school kids is its length. For example,

A) If I didn’t have kids of my own, I don’t think I’d have noticed the kid, since the Buchanans don’t seem to, either. I would have noticed Tom breaking his mistress’s nose for mentioning his wife, though. It, too, came as a surprise to me on the reread (am I really such an inattentive first-time reader?).

B) If I hadn’t moved to New York after living in Chicago and Minneapolis, some of the West vs. East would have been greeted with a “whatever.” Makes sense now, though.

C) If I hadn’t passed my thirtieth birthday a while ago, I would have rolled my eyes at this observation:

“I’m thirty,” I said. “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.” (177)

Which is part of this theme:

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. (59)
…
“You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. (154)

Put Gatsby on your list of 100 books to read five years from now. It’ll be worth it (again). I’m sure I’ll be picking up recommendations from all of you, too.





The oddest line for the contemporary reader is probably

-- intruding into one chamber where a disheveled man in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. (91)

But Chapter IV, in which he describes the Long Island crowd, is filled with great nuggets as well. For example:

From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew in Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all. (61-2)

Homework

I've signed up to a site where I can publicly catch up on stuff I've never read.
Here's my first bit, the assignment: http://fillinthegaps100.blogspot.com/2009/04/goedis-list.html

Speaking up

I just finished an intro level improv class. Fun stuff. And now I'll go off to level two. Yippee.
This weekend I went to see two shows, which made me notice something.
When I show up to my kids' classes (from pre-K to 4th grade so far), there are always kids who raise their hands before they have something to say. Inevitably, one of them gets called on because, let's face it, they are very skilled at raising their hands and going "ooh, ooh, pick me!"
Well, it turns out that this never stops.
At Friday's show, the cast was going to ask for
"PASSOVER!"
was going to ask for a suggestion of the place you're from.
"Oh. Israel."
And from then on, she had hardly anything to say. To her defense, she probably didn't know the English words for the stuff she did as a kid. Still.

At Saturday's show, the cast asked for something special that happened to someone in the audience.
"Ooh. Me! Me!"
"You over there."
"Whoooooo!"
"What happened to you?"
"Well, next week we're all going to get together and..."

I suggest that grammar school teachers crack down harder on kids who speak before they've listened to instructions. It only gets worse with age and alcohol.

memories

Julie can attest to this.
When we were living in San Francisco (the second time), I needed to get new contacts and didn't have an opto- ophtho- opti- eye doctor. So I looked in the phone book and chose one based on his name: Thomas Chong.
He still sends me reminders to get my eyes checked even though he's been sending them to Brooklyn for two and a half years now.
And, no, it wasn't even remotely who I hoped for. But he did a good job. I can see fine.

gumballs

Because Coco has to take his getwellicillin for last week's strep throat, he gets to kill the icky taste with candy. He chose gumballs.
Now, our video store has a gumball machine, and they give out a free rental if you get a yellow gumball. However, we got our gumballs from a corner store. The packet contained two yellow ones and Coco didn't miss a beat.
"Let's save the yellow ones so we can get free rentals."
And no, I don't think it was meant as innocently as it reads. He intends to sneak them in and pretend we got them from the machine.
That's my boy.
(Madge, of course, is outraged at the idea.)

confession

I wish I could say I wore out Miles Davis' Kind of Blue when I was a kid.
No.
This is the single I played over and over and over and ...

April Fools

At pickup today I overheard a dad tell his daughter that the mom had gone to Florida on business and they are going to pack up this afternoon to catch up with her and spend an extra wee there before spring break. She was ecstatic and jumped up and down until he said those magic words which deflated her and literally sat her on her butt on the ground.
Zing.
That doesn't compare, though, with Coco's April Fools. "Your eyebrows are tied. April Fools!"

Cielito Lindo

As the family can attest, this song is my latest obsession. You'd think it's not the best bedtime song. Yet, if you repeat the same verse often enough, your child will pretend to be asleep just to end the torture. Try it.
Ay, ay, ay, ay... canta y no llores... porque cantando se alegran, Cielito Lindo, los corazones!

nice day

sunshine is a wonderful thing, and now I'm getting excited about the cherry trees in the Brooklyn Botanic* Gardens. I just need to load up on eye-drops and I'm set to go.
click and enjoy and share your favorites if you want: http://bbg.org/exp/cherries/stages.html

*botanic/botanical? I figure the "al" is redundant unless there's a clear noun ending in "-ic." I.e., music/musical are two different things, but rhythmic/rhythmical both describe the same thing and unless you're making a poetic point about a waltz rhythm, you'd better shy away from the latter when I'm grading your paper.

Running Pal

He's built a chicken coop in his backyard and has ordered three pullets. One of 'em will be named Omelet. The others, he's not sure of yet, but probably Yolky and I fogot the other, but I'll suggest Shelley.
Today he mentioned that his wife isn't too excited about the chicken idea. This never occurred to me because I think it's awesome. (Apparently you can't have a rooster in Brooklyn, though, because of the noise. I smell a protesting cause culminating in the "Cocks for Brooklyn" walk-a-thon. I wonder who'd show up.)
Anyway, I told him to sell her on the idea by saying that other men, when they go through a crisis, gravitate to fast cars and metaphorical chicks. She should count her blessings. (Before they hatch. mwah, mwah)

NYC PS is anti-something?

Please pardon the repetition, but I figured I'd share here, too.
The kids' school has a "kindness quote" (I think it's "of the week" but am not sure). It's a quote that includes the power of kindness and a picture of the person quoted. Right now it's Anne Frank, and she is cited as "Author, The Diary of a Young Girl."
Now, here's a good reason to be a stickler for accuracy. Maybe she should be called "diarist." Or maybe she should have not titular appellation at all.
See, my point is that "author" implies that the whole thing is made up. And would that make the public school a holocaust denier?
Maybe the whole point of the kindness quote has passed me by.

don't care if it's real or fake

it's great

Coco Tuesday

In school yesterday he made his own laptop computer. He says it took him a really long time.

He stapled two pieces of paper together. One he made into a screen, on the outside of which he was sure to draw an apple (the circle with the stem in it) although we don't have a Mac. On the other he drew "two thousand" squares and put letters in them. He also has a touchpad, a power button, and two volume buttons. The game on the screen is Star Wars Clone Wars which has the special feature (for Madge) that you can choose several girl characters.

Madge Monday

Okay, so Coco wins in this one, but still.
It's my favorite kind of joke, and it was enacted before my eyes.
Coco was saying something about "When pigs fly" and I asked him where he heard it. He said Madge told him. Then I asked him what it meant and he said, "It means never, because pigs can't fly."
At this point Madge piped up with, "Yes, they can. On an airplane."
And before I could say anything, Coco came back with, "No, they can't. They don't have a suitcase."

weird

Kid who is in fourth grade was at the playground and asked me the time.
Without any pleases or other manners, so it took me a while to answer. What took me a while was to decide whether or not to make her ask again. I decided against it and said, "Quarter to seven."
She asked, "What time is it?" again, and that was really pushing my patience. One of my many adult grumpinesses arises when someone asks me a question and then doesn't bother paying attention to the answer.
So I said, "I just told you the time. What did I just say?"
And she said, "Quarter to seven."
And I thought we were done. But her look told me that she didn't know what those words meant. And she said, "I need to know because I need to be home at six forty-five."
Now my next answer took me a really long time because that's the kind of joke I would make and I had to study her face carefully in order to determine whether she was joking or not.
So I asked a friend of hers, "What does 'quarter to seven' mean?" And, after thinking a while, he said, "Six fifteen?"
Oh.

half-day

Don't know why they call it that. Selfish people. It's a double day for those of us entertaining the kids once they get out. They're not even properly exhausted or homeworked up.
Maybe chores is the solution. Come home and fold clothes, kids.
But then there's also the parent-teacher conferences. I still can't believe I'm on the parent side of this equation. Which reminds me, I still need to sign some report cards.

Coco Tuesday

He's definitely into a new stage of boyhood now. It's called "wear the same pants all the time and don't take a bath."
Luckily, the pants a disintegrating on their own. More wearing means more washing and more washing means thinner and thinner fabric and soon - poof - his legs (and maybe more) will be exposed.
The bath thing though, phew, that's taking some cajoling.

Madge Monday

In the last two weeks, Madge has lost her lunchbox twice and a sweater once. I think the warmer weather is to blame because she's more eager to go outside (and once there, to take off the sweater).
I found the lunchbox in the lost and found bins and the sweater was returned by a teacher.
But here's what I'm thinking. Next time she loses one of these things, I'm making her dig for them herself or I'm just replacing them.
It appears that the most frequently misplaced item is a lunchbox, and a lost lunchbox invariably contains leftovers, which do not improve over time. In other words, between the rancid food and musty clothes, the lost and found bins are a masochist's delight.

Happy Friday!

I Mean You

yikes

Went to Madge's class today where we got to read their "realistic fiction" projects.
There were autobiographical elements everywhere. The sweaty kid wrote about a kid breaking out in sweat. The kid with matching clothes wrote about a kid whose clothes always match. The absent-minded kid wrote about a kid who freaked out because he didn't know that the test he was taking was only practice, not the real thing.
Madge wrote about parents who fight about the weirdest things. Sample dialogue:
"You forgot to feed the pigs!"
"We don't have any pigs!"

And, yes, I've already asked if she thinks we fight a lot. She says no. Hm.

album art

too cool. there are obviously more arty ones here, http://b3ta.com/challenge/album_art/, but this one is dear to my heart.

Coco Tuesday

He can be quite articulate.
He had a playdate over who was ignoring everything while on the DS. Coco wanted him to stop so I said, Why don't you just ask him? And Coco said, to his friend,
"Will you stop? Because friends are better than games."
And his friend shut the game.
Voila. The power of words.

Madge Monday

Our Twilight reading is almost done,
so she's starting to choose another one.
I'm sure I'll be done with teen vampires
so I'm starting to stoke other desires.
On our shelves there is quite a crowd
just asking to be read aloud.
But I think I'm starting narrow my view
to Wodehouse, Chandler, or Catch-22.

For a Chandler read-aloud I've got quite an itch,
but I'm not quite sure of a proper sales pitch.

hair

Busy, chaotic afternoon.
I had said yes to a playdate, but had forgotten that we had haircuts scheduled, so the playdate came along. He was a good sport about it.

Madge is direct, makes room for no doubt,
"I want shorter bangs, but I'm growing it out."
Coco's directions were not quite as clear.
But one thing was certain, "Short 'round the ears."
And one more detail that is dear to his heart
The perfected pert placement of Peter Parker's part.

hunh, now what?

We went to the neurologist today and she said we don't need to come back to check in with her unless there's another "incident," as she calls it.
This is good news of course, but she is a doctor he actually doesn't mind going to. Though he's still freaked out about going, just not as much as the "shot doctor" (his term).

Our Doc,
not a quack,
gave a shock.
Said, "Don't come back."

Thanks, Dr. LJ!

Coco Tuesday

Aha! On a Tuesday, no less. I know you're impressed.
He's been full of gems lately. As you may have guessed, we call him Coco. In his previous school there was a kid who pronounced his name "Cornrad" and we reminded Coco of this, recently.
To which he replied: "I'm not a piece of corn. I'm a piece of hot chocolate!"
I think this is only second place to his comment on the history of our neighborhood.
On the way to school he complained about the incline. Well, I think he said hill, but I'm sure incline just slipped his mind at the moment. I think his question was:

"Daddy, why did they build these big hills?"
And I said, "The hills were already here,
all the stuff you see was just put on top.
Grass and trees would grow a fresh crop
if all the buildings were to disappear.
Long ago only greenery was to be found."
And he said, "You mean when the money people were around?"
I found this comment queer
so I had to stop
and let my jaw drop.
After some questions it became clear:
He meant the time of the people who adorn our bills.

Madge Monday

snow dehh...
Our first, and of course we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We went out twice, but for some reason we didn't feel up to going sledding so we just played in the powdery snow at the playground.
If today had happened two or three months ago, we would have been ecstatic, I think.

Now that spring is almost here and winter ought to be gone,
a snow day produces nothing but an impatient yawn.

On a more Madge-specific note, the day started out badly, with a cranky outburst about sharing starburst and the DS and getting ready for school. Yes, getting ready for school; we were slow on the uptake regarding the snow day. But the fresh air cleared her mind.
And when she realized how she had behaved, she asked to call Mommy at work and leave a message to say she was sorry.
I hope she will be able to do that when she's older, too.

dream time

A couple nights ago, it seems,
I was mean to my wife in her dreams.
This isn't something to be poo-pooed
since it's a reality she's liminally subdooed.
Of course I'm glad she still dreams about me,
but not if those dreams lead her to doubt me.
So maybe, before I take a nap and try to work my psychic powers,
I'll change the sheets and give her a pillowcase with flowers.

behind again

The rhyming is making the posts late.
A quick update:
Tomorrow Madge and I skate,
and the doctor attempts to vaccinate
Coco. Great.

Madge Monday

Reading to her is nice. Lately she wants to read in our bed and she snuggles close. Aah.
And Twilight is getting more interesting, which is helpful, too. Though it is a difficult read-aloud for me because the narrator is female and I don't think I have an appropriately silky Edward voice. Oh, well. And then, of course, there are the very cute giggles emanating from Madge when there are awkward boy-girl interactions.
Also:

At one point Bella feels bad
for her fumbling lunk of a dad.
The poor guy seems to worry
and stay up too late
whether she's out in a hurry
or without any date.
It seems that a teen's dad has no way to win
'cuz it's bad when she's out
but worse when she's in.

An attempt

I'll pick a line from a book and weave it into something. The only problem is to make the line random or at least random-ish. I'll open the book (Andrew Marvell, Complete Poems) and point.
We'll see...
(Dramatic, isn't it? This is real-time stuff.)
... "And the green grass, and their known mangers hate,"
Pretty good so far, especially because I'm not looking at the context, as much as I'd like to because it's not making too much sense.
Here goes:

Two sheep, let's call them Thelma and Louise,
grow increasingly difficult to please.
They longingly gaze past the garden gate,
And the green grass, and their known mangers hate.
But soon, for the first time since they were born,
they wander out, bravely to a new morn
and get shorn.

A country song of sorts

Ambidextrous

They said that she is one of a kind.
That dancer's sure to blow my mind.
Though a gentleman's club, it was unrefined.
And I sat right up front to see her left behind.

At first we merely wined and dined.
Then I proposed a legal bind.
It was really too much of a grind.
To sit right up front to see her left behind.

We'd be right together, not left alone.
I'd be right over for her left overs.
I'd be right in not to be left out.
Right on!
We'd pick it up where we left off.

Without much thought she just declined.
To merely watch I was resigned
Then I saw her fooled by one of her kind.
And I sat right up front to see her left behind.

lazy post

But, hey, rewarding for you.
This is - so far - my favorite Martin and Lewis sketch ever.
Stick with it and see if you don't laugh out loud, even if you're alone.

Coco Tuesday

Eager Auntie

(Based, unfortunately, on a true story)
(But exaggerated for effect, so don't worry)

Relatives, be on your guard,
the learning process can be hard.

Playground antics need good pacing.
If you're too frenetic
you won't be energetic
for Batman and Monster and Racing.

And you'll lie in a hastily self-made bed
with bruised leg, twisted neck, and bumped head.

Madge Monday

Oooh, I was slacking last week. Sorry. Tired.
This week the kids have vacation, which is just a lame way of saying it might not be better on my end, but we'll see.
But for Madge today, I don't know yet. How about:

-Mmmmm, Edward.
-Oooooh, Bella.

Twilight is a book I didn't want to read,
no matter how much my girl would plead.
And yet she got me, oh, she's devious (and I'm proud).
She tricked me by making it our read-aloud.

I keep telling her it's not by choice
(when I read how
his looks are perfect
his voice is musical
his eyes are flashing)
that there's a hint of eye-rolling in my voice.

And sometimes she can hear the chair wriggle
as I am suppressing a giggle.

Coco Tuesday

A day late, granted, but I'm now busier on Tuesday nights, so that's how it'll be, I guess.
Today, Wednesday, was the 100th day of school.

They've been in school 100 days.
Today they count 100 ways.
By ones, by twos, by fives, by tens;
all the way up
and back again.

Their counting's loud and energetic.
For one the counting was emetic.

Perhaps for him it did recall
the beers that once were on the wall
and through some quite precocious thinking
he projectiled ahead
to nights of drinking.

Madge Monday

Dear Cast and Crew of Whatever Was Filming At Our Playground

I don't know what to say.
I apologize.
I didn't realize
- though it made my daughter's day -
that I was walking through your shot.

Two young moms I did pass on my way.
Boy, was I suprised
when I realized
- as I politely wished them good day -
that they were real but their babies were not.

Did I ruin your teleplay?
Well, as you revise
and maybe curse my eyes
as you cut me in your editing bay,
well, anyway
Please send me whatever you got.

My new baby

I was encouraged to adopt a word at www.savethewords.org .
You might want to do the same, I don't know. I got a certificate in my inbox and now I have a word to cherish and nurture. But be warned, you don't get a shiny new word that's all cute and cuddly, you get an aging, retired word. It's more like a make-a-wish foundation thing for words on their way out.
Luckily I got one with a bit of fighting spirit left in it, if only in a metaphorical application. I think we can do this.
My new old word, which I'd like to call George but can't, is: yelve. It looks like a verb, but don't say that to its face. It's a noun and has always been. It's a dung-fork. How exactly it is different from a pitch-fork I'm not sure and it won't tell me.

When someone spreads opinions he or she ought to shelve,
in other words bullshit enough for twelve,
you say, "Hang on, let me get my yelve."

Educational Typo

Sometimes, when I'm trying to find rhymes, I start typing words that might or might not work, and I let WordPerfect be the arbiter. I was trying to see if it would accept "chinny" as a word - we all know what it means, after all: it's the diminutive of chin, just as skinny is the diminutive of skin. Wait.
Anyway, my finger neglected to depress the "C" and I typed hinny. But it didn't get a red underline, so I looked it up.
Apparently, it's the other thing you can get when you cross a horse with a donkey.

If you really want to know, here is the rule:
Female horse, male donkey, that's a mule.
When a female donkey makes a male horse whinny,
the end result of that tryst is a hinny.
I read on, I'm no fool,
I know you, too, are puerile.
Just one - the entry "mule" -
includes the fateful: sterile.

(Hinny also doesn't seem to have the connotation of being stubborn. Coincidence?)

Coco Tuesday

It's so easy to fall behind when the kids stay home.

As we stay home all day,
listless, uninspired,
I keep the meds away.
It only makes them wired.

I've kept their crazy moods at bay,
I brought them lunches on a tray,
I bring DS games, let them play,
while, reading, on the couch I lay.
Hey,
("lie" doesn't rhyme, what can I say?)
Why am I so tired?

Great Stuff

What, no poem? No, probably not.
A wonderful link is all I have.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/i-lego-ny/?em

Graham Greene would be proud

Maybe. Anyway, this is a true story, as you can verify by searching for the names or places I mention.

An incarcerated middle-aged spy,
Harold James ("Jim") Nicholson,
was aided by a younger guy,
Nathaniel, his trusting un-fickle son.
Jim was jailed, so he had pre-percussions
of selling state secrets to Russians.
But though the bloke was stuck in jail
he had more secrets for sale.
So he said to his son,
"Let's sell every one."
And so poor young Nathaniel
was sent out like a Spaniel.
The part of the tale that made my day:
they met at a Cypriot T.G.I. Friday.

Okay, so it's lacking a struggle with Catholicism and an inability to form human attachments, but I still think Greene might have appreciated the mundaneness and seeming anachronism of the whole thing.

Also, if I were a limerick writer, I'd be sweating over the lovely initial line:
At a TGI Friday in Cyprus.

But luckily it's Monday, so I'm not one.

Madge Monday

Not the most thrilling day. Coco was sick with a fever, Madge was sick without one, so I figured I'd make my life easier and just keep both at home.

Only a seasoned deceiver
will take time to make a fake fever.
Since I like to believe what I'm told,
she stayed home with merely a cold.

Escutcheon Me

Do you know what escutcheon means?
I know I get sidetracked by these words I read, but I figure at some time I should actually learn them rather than saying to myself, "Eh, it doesn't really matter."
Context will tell you it's a sign or insignia or some such. And so it is.

The template on a lightswitch
(ornamental, of course)
and the name plate on a ship's aft
(engaved there by force),
They, too, are bravely clutchin'
to the word "escutcheon."

Sorry about that.
But it's a set-up I had to put you through
to connect "escutcheon" to both "QE2"
and "Baby Phat."

Special Lunch

As a reward for working my Coop shift, I sometimes go out to lunch on the way home.
Today was one of those sometimes.

A Special Lunch

Tomato-onion soup is okay for the group.
But I, the leader-type
eat tripe.

Some pear cake for dessert really cannot hurt.
But it pales against the hype
of tripe.

Yes tripe, tripe soaked in wine,
drenched in garlic so divine.
Tripe, wait, are you cow or swine?
Yes tripe, tripe as they dine
underneath the Tuscan pine
Tripe, now I am truly thine.

For now my lunch demands, "Hey, belly, please expand."
What's that? What smells so ripe?
Oh. Tripe.

Yes tripe, tripe soaked in etc.

Coco Tuesday

Today he had cupcakes in class, which we made and frosted yesterday. And when we left, well:

He had sugary treats where he usually has lessons
but the whole thing felt wrong in its essence.
"What?" he asked me, "No presents?"

Updike

Two thoughts, not meant in an unfriendly way, regarding his sluffing off of the mortal coil.

What, only 76? The thought stretches belief.
So prolific, all slackers heave a sigh of relief.

Madge Monday

Today was/is Coco's birthday. Julie and I celebrated this weekend by watching all of Minority Report, a DVD we were watching when the contractions got too heavy to ignore, which meant that Julie didn't get to finish it until a few months later - and she never really paid that much attention to the beginning in the first place (can you imagine?). I hope I've meandered enough in that last sentence to detract from any inquiry as to when I finished watching the movie. Okay, it was the next day, but ssshhhh - I had to get stuff from home, didn't I? And get Madge to see her little brother - and eat mommy's hospital food.
Anyway, because his birthday happened on a Monday this year, she had the great and generous idea to give him his presents a day early so he could play with them at home without any time pressure. The winning argument for me was that it would be easier to get him to school today, which it was. Yay, Madge!

2009

The advancing age of our family members (other than the adults) demands
that our tracking of incremental temporal advancement expands.
They're no longer midgets
for Madge needs two digits
and Coco must use both his hands.

And daddy can't get limerick endings out of his mind, sorry.
I will try again.
That rhythm must be fixed:
two numbers spell out 10
and two hands spell out 6.

there

fudged pronunciation

I read some of 1,001 Nights to Madge a while ago, maybe 43 nights' worth. Tonight I ran across one of its pesky words again, in a different context, and I realized that I never really learned how to pronounce it correctly. I finally looked it up; of course I couldn't get a single, easy answer.

Divan

From Turkish and Persian the word is derivin'
and yet there's no harm in faux-southern-style, "DIE-ven."
Yet you might assay mid-Atlantic elan
and try to pronounce it "di-VAN" or "di-VAHN."
And though I researched it, I'll still be a slouch.
I'll just say Couch.

Relativity

Considering how good my chocolate-chip cookies taste,
I have a wasp-like (even WASP-ish) waist.

the speech

Lovely speech, really, which is why my quibbles are minor. First: you know there's no pleasing religions, so why even try?
I think he said something like (meaning: I looked it up but am pretending that I just happened to remember it correctly after one hearing): "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers."
That's just a big can of worms, isn't it? Sure, he included Hindus, but why did they get grouped with Jews? And why do the Muslims get to ride shotgun while the others get the back seat and those of us who'd like some evidence sit in the rumble-seat? First I thought the order might be reverse historical, since it seems that Hindus were around first, then Jews, but that gets the Muslims and Christians reversed. Then I figured it might be by numbers since Muslims probably outnumber Jews here as they do worldwide (I don't know). But if it were really representational of the U.S., it should probably be "We are a nation of [and here the joke would be funnier if I knew all the different brands, so let's just say:] Baptists and Anabaptists and Protobaptists and Pre-opbaptists and Post-recoverybaptists and Episcopalians and Counterpostantineoreformipalians and ... "
Most truthfully, though, from the point of view of any one of the religions, it ought to be "We are nation of true belivers, false believers, and non-believers." That should cover them all.

And my other quibble is with the line, "we will work tirelessly to [...] roll back the specter of a warming planet."
What kind of a novice psychic attempts to roll a specter? We all know specters need to be sucked up with proton packs.

Coco Tuesday

The day was spent inaugurally. The kids' school showed the inauguration more or less live. But, thanks to the educational funding (perhaps even that of previous administrations), the AV didn't really work and they could only hear, not see.
In either case, the Kindergarteners weren't invited, so I joined the class and walked with them to a classmembers' house so we could all watch there. The attention span of five- and six-year-olds is better than mine, though, so, in order to keep things lively, I kept raising my hand to ask if I could go to the bathroom. Nah, actually the whole thing went rather smoothly, but we did wind up leaving before Obama's speech ended. I guess I'll read it later.

The kids were great
and picked up on the cheering.
They couldn't wait,
"When is Barack appearing?"
Then he'd orate
and boredom was appearing.
But then, "Hey, wait!
Why are our parents tearing?"

Good *sniff* night

Madge Monday

Our previous two winters here have lowered our snow expectation bar considerably (from the Chicago and Minneapolis standards we had temporarily suspended in the Bay Area), so we were completely excited about the half-inch or so we got today. I say “we” but today was a day off, so it was a bit difficult to drag Madge away from her newfound vampire romance and out of doors. It helped that she ran out of books in the series – the fourth installment arrived later this evening. But I finally got her outside and we had a blast.
And, honestly, among the many cute things you get to see in kids, the flushed exhausted look they have when coming home from a fun outdoor activity in the cold is wonderful, especially because I had some hot chocolate at the ready.

One of the selfishly fun things you do as dad
Is think ahead about how the then grown kids
Will think back on all the fun they had.

But will they remember all the things I did to please –
Like ruining my coat to make a muddy snow angel and patiently assisting snowball manufacture only to be the target and going up and down and up and down and up and down the hill and dragging the two of them in the sled even though people had already salted the sidewalks and I had to lunge across grating asphalt so it may as well have been summer for all the sweat that poured out of me –
Or will they say, “Remember that time Daddy let our toes freeze?”

Da Plane! Da Plane!

Admit it. If you’re anything like me, you’re kind of jealous of the people on the airplane that watered* in the Hudson. (*I’m not sure “landed” is the proper term, and water-landing seems oxymoronic.) I mean, the event covered several things I’ve always been curious about.

Why I Envy Passengers On (And Now Off) US Airways Flight 1549
(or, Welcome to Fantasy Island)

(First off, before you all call me depraved,
Let me state I’m glad all aboard were saved.)

My curiosity can’t be denied.
An engineless jet, does it drop or glide?
I know how a swim feels when it’s hotter,
But what’s it like in near-freezing water?
And while we’re on topics that cause shivers,
Just how nasty is the Hudson River?
And who among us doesn’t want to test
What it feels like to poof up a life vest?
And, reading seatback emergency cards,
Who hasn’t wanted to yank those doors hard?
And wouldn’t it be a great source of pride
To go, feet first, down th’inflatable slide?
(You know, I need to read over the news,
To see just how many removed their shoes.)

And, lastly, of all desert islands to choose,
I think with Manhattan you simply can’t lose.

Yet another farewell to Bush

I just had the joy of looking through a book of Bushisms. On the one hand, his sayings could be good practice for my SAT writing class, such as “Is our children learning?” or “he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
On the other hand, they’re just infuriating. If her were a minor figure in a sitcom, they’d be amusing, maybe. But he was or will soon have been the President.
I once had an idea of collecting them with commentary and calling it

The Dubya Sutra: The Diamond-Hard Head of State Speaks

Some of his utterances, after all, have attributes of Zen koans in the sense that a mind tied to the ten thousand things of daily life can not get a grasp on them and therefore, by cracking our reliance on meaning and logic, we might achieve (or reach or whatever the non-word might be) satori.

For example:

A PUPIL asked BUSH: What is trustworthiness?

BUSH: Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and you don’t, that’s trustworthiness. (8/30/00)

Commentary: If you think words and actions are linked, think again. Or, better yet, neither think nor act. Merely speak. The silent BUSH can’t finish his nap.

But that whole goofy idiot thing, whether an act or not, just gets too frustrating for me to confront without anti-depressants.
And then there’s also the incredibly rabid way in which his sayings get bandied about. It’s scary. I get the feeling he said them on purpose as a sort of lightning-rod to diffuse the more rational reaction of dethroning him and that, in raising our bile, he won that attempt. Or, in his way of saying things, he “catapulted the propaganda.”
I’m not sure I’d know how to distance myself from that bile. Maybe I’ll collect the sayings of our new President instead.
I’ll start with my favorite, which is: Click Here To Donate.

gastropod

Went to the library today. I know, alert the media.
Not only that, but I got to be obnoxious by pointing out to the librarian that a book was not just misfiled, but mislabled because, clearly, a chess book would not have a 974 in the Dewey decimal system. That's for current events or US politics or wherever I was looking for a book of Bushisms ("is our children learning" etc.). It should be 794, by games and dance and those kinds of fun things. Man, I'm even annoying myself now.
But wait, this post gets better. I picked up Billy Collins' latest book of poems and found gastropod in it, a word he had to look up. Of course I had to look it up, too.
I'll save you the trouble. It's the kind of creature a snail is.
The reason I bring it up is that my copy of the Random House Webster's Dictionary has some rather poetic elements in the definition. All they need are the proper line breaks:

Snails, whelks, and slugs,
having a single shell, often
coiled, reduced, or undeveloped,
and moving by means of a
w i d e
muscular foot.

or even a slight alteration:

Poems, songs, and speeches,
having a singular idea often
coiled, reframed, and developed,
and moving by means of a
w i d e
muscular foot.

(In case you hadn't guessed, I love the idea of
MOving by MEANS of a MUScular FOOT,
since a foot, after all, a poetic unit of...
oh, jeez, there I go again, pointing out discrepancies in the Dewey decimal system)

Coco Tuesday

We stopped TaeKwonDo today. I had paid in advance for three months and told them to think about whether they want to keep going or not and, despite their apparent enthusiasm, they were both for stopping. The bad thing for me is that we missed the deadline for signing up for YMCA activities. Maybe I'll just have them do knuckle-push-ups every Tuesday and Thursday for about an hour while I do a crossword or something.

The teacher, with her student creed,
attempts to mold a loyal breed.
"Winners never quit."

Pushups, situps, jumping jacks,
iron legs and ramrod backs.
"Quitters never win."

She helped their will and body grow;
they stand up straight and loudly crow:
"I choose to be a winner."

(Just not in TaeKwonDo.)

Madge Monday

Apparently the saga continues.
Julie went out to brunch with Madge and her friend - a girls' thing, while Coco and I went to a birthday outing to the Intrepid (an aircraft carrier that is now a museum of itself, sort of like a Las Vegas act). The brunch was at Two Boots, where one of the main attractions is that kids can see the kitchen and get lumps of pizza dough handed to them. And Madge, with her new-found what-is-my-body-and-how-does-it-work book knowledge...

My daughter used the pizza dough
to sculpt the body parts belough.
Her artist's "kenis"
knows no "fina"
than a pizza -
and -

Luckily an adult was there to censor the work-in-progress.

Whoooeee

I generally enjoy that our apartment is so, uh, compact. Cozy, that's the word I'm looking for.
But sometimes...
Since Madge is getting near ten and her body is beginning to develop, we got her some books and started telling her about things.
Us to doctor: When does a kid start needing deodorant? Is nine too young?
Doctor: No. Pre-puberty is anywhere from eight to ten.
When the smelling salts did their trick and I remembered what time zone we're in, we decided it was time for me to learn a little something about the female body; up to now I've been groping in the dark.
Metaphorically, of course.
Anyway, Madge is a good student. A friend of hers was over today on a playdate and Madge was sharing her knowldege.
And here is the result:

The same room is the last place where a father wants to be
when he hears his daughter saying,
"A period is when you bleed as you pee."
And the bedroom is the terminus of daddy's quiet stroll
when he hears his daughter whisper,
"And do you want to know what goes in that hole?"

Will

Just so I stop thinking of this great line of Frank Sullivan's, I'll write it out of my system, I hope.


You ask What will I do tonight?
I have two kids, so play and fight,
twice each, with her and him.

I don't make plans, for if I did
they'd only change, because a kid
Rules with an iron whim.*



*the idea of the "whim of iron" is stolen from Sullivan.
I wanted to twist it so it would be borrowed, but I couldn't rhyme sensibly with "my will is too anemic"
and I didn't want to intoduce the idea of a will that's so scary it makes his heirs stand on end

plinth

In case you didn't know, I tend to stay up late on Wednesdays and it makes me a little loopy by the time I turn off the laptop.
So here goes. When I was reading to Madge tonight I couldn't get over the way the word "plinth" felt in my mouth. Say it. See? (I also stumbled over the proper pronunciation of "brazier," but that's another issue.)
Anyway.

Plinth. The word: Plinth.
I wonder what I'll do with it
And how impressed you'll be
When I do get through with it.

I tried to make it rhyme....
What a plinthing waste of time.

Since rhyming is too hard
--
I gave it some more thought
and this is what I got.

The Romans and the Greeks
were architectural freaks.
They thought frolicsome fun was bad
so any happy free space they had,
they went and made it solemn
by planting endless columns.
That's why they say:
(now please forgive me, it's very late in the day)
--
"Give them a plinth, they take a yard."

Okay, I concur.
As puns go, that one's dumb.
So, would you prefer
"Someday my plinth will cumb"?

Coco Tuesday

Coco loves going to school and said today that he wants to sleep there, too. I asked how and he said he'd bring a sleeping bag.
But unfortunately the new DS - darn that Santa, who tends to bring the toys which we, the parents, frown upon - is making him a bit of an irritable zombie when he's not in school.

My five-year-old acts like a teen:
He never keeps his bedroom clean;
Says, "Gmmphmmnn know what I mean?";
Drinks soda till his teeth turn green;
Has angry spells with pouts between --
All
Because of that Damn Screen.

But when he's off of the DS,
He's just a kid: his room's a mess;
Says "Hunh" for "what?" and "no" and "yes";
Has quite a sweet tooth, I confess;
But LIKES TO CUDDLE (more or less) --
All
Because of that incess-
ant tweedle doodle eedly boodle meedle meep meep bshh bzzt xchip pluup grink blink bloobeedoop iggledabonk finally finally FINALLY
giving me a moment's ress-
t.

Burris and the Senate

Well, looky here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/politics/07burris.html?hp
Burris turns up for the Senate and they won't let him play.
I wonder how long before the jokes flow about a black man refusing to give up a seat, followed by a demand for a senate boycott - how racist: shouldn't it be a mancott?

In history - both class and thing -
this phrase has a familiar ring:
Those who don't know, they must repeat.
Now (wait a second, what was it about a guy on a bus not getting up for a pregnant lady? or a pregnant lady not getting up for an elderly person? or the bus being delayed because it picked up too many wheelchairs? or no, I know:)
something about race and giving up a seat.

Anyhoo, I'm sure that they'll find out whose coats those are and he'll be able to sit down in no time.

Madge Monday

We're back in school, like the Obama kids, only with a smaller convoy.
And this morning went smoothly, thanks for asking. It was a close call, though, until Madge remembered that she had computer class today, which made it all okay.
But, man, was I at a loss what to put in their lunches today.

Packing lunches,
heaps and bunches
hasn't been on my horizon.
Planning ahead
and buying some bread
is a thing up to which I won't wisen.*

Hark, what's that I see among all the food clutter?
A loaf of white, praise be, I'm sold.
And right there's a smidgen of peanut butter.
Oh, dad-gum-it, foiled again:
mold.


*but only because "to which up I won't wisen" looks even worse.

Stimulus Package

Third-Quarter Spending

The economy is ailing
And analysts are wailing.
They know just why the world is ending:
Third-quarter spending.

But I refuse to see such gloom,
So this I am intending:
Where they see dung I’ll find a bloom
In third-quarter spending.

The gumballs at our movie store
Are more than ornamental.
When you find a yellow one
They give you a free rental.
I put two coins in the machine;
Madge gets red and Coco green.
You see what is impending:
Some good third-quarter spending.

At “Peep World” up on 33rd
Near 7th Ave, I think,
Is where some guys just can’t, well, uh,
You see, it’s too much drink.
They put two coins in the machine
And limply shrug at what they’ve seen.
But wait, something’s un-bending.
That’s good third-quarter spending.

New Year's Challenge

To the chagrin of all you readers, I'll be trying to put my posts in verse. Not all, don't worry.
It'll help me keep in shape, I think.
Here's the first, inspired by how stranded we felt a week ago when the buzzer stopped working.

Ring For Service

Our doorbell and our intercom
Have buckled under stress;
The stress of endless ringing from
The mail and UPS.

We cannot talk, we cannot hear.
When friends stop by, we’re rude.
And now we face our greatest fear:
We cannot order food.