Poetry Monday: Mail

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is .........MAIL.

Join Delores, MotherOwl, and me as we bring our poems to you Special Delivery!

You can post your poem in the comments or on your blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment so we know where to find you.

Use the topic, or not; the idea is to have fun and maybe give your brain a workout.

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Without any preamble this week (I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry, ha ha), here is my effort.


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We're More Alike Than Different

No matter the means of delivery--
Pony express or technology--
All of humanity feels a real thrill
When the mail brings a letter instead of a bill.

Does your mailbox look like one of these? (Source: Pixabay)

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And some mail-related funnies from icanhas.cheezburger.com . . . . . .

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Next week's topic is ............ PORTALS ............... thank you, Delores.

Wishing you some good mail this week :)

Poetry Monday: Mosquitoes

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is ...... MOSQUITOES.

Join Delores, MotherOwl, and me as we delve into this topic. You can post a poem in the comments or on your own blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment so we know where to find you. Use the topic or not -- it's all in fun and it's good exercise for the brain.

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Mosquitoes.

Tiny but deadly.

What's worse than turning out the light and climbing into bed after a long summer day and hearing ...... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ..... all around your face? You know you won't be getting any sleep until you (1) donate blood, or (2) kill the critter.

But in the dark, it's hard to know just where to aim. And when the droning stops, things just get worse. You know the flying hypodermic needle has landed and is about to pierce your skin. You wait for the tiny prickling sensation that tells you it has started to insert its pointy proboscis, and slap yourself silly.

Hoping you've landed a death blow, you settle down to sleep again.

Ahhhhhh. Peace and quiet.

And then .............. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...........

It's either Lucky Lindy back again . . . or a half a dozen of her friends who've arrived for the funeral.

I say "Lucky Lindy" because, as we are often told, it's only the females who want to drink our blood. I personally have probably killed thousands of mosquitoes during my life and I bet half of them were innocent. But who can tell if a hovering mosquito is male or female?

Smack it! Smack it dead!


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My Hypocrisy

Oh, woe betide the soulless schmuck
Who kicks a dog or shoots a duck

Or pins a wriggling butterfly
Or from such things does turn his eye

My scorn for such a savage jerk
Is merited by his vicious work

. . . But I don't turn a hair and I don't say No
When somebody kills a mos-quit-o

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While searching for an appropriate mosquito-related picture, I came across some additional helpful information.


First, this:

And this: (but be sure to read the punch line. We don't want a rash of spoon burns going around the internet.)

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Wishing you a week free of things that bug you :)

Next week's topic is ........... MAIL ........... Good luck!

Poetry Monday: Stitches

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is . . . STITCHES.

Join Delores, MotherOwl, and me as we wrack our brains for something to write about this topic . . . or is that just me who had to root around in my brain like a kid looking for all the pieces to a small toy in a full-to-overflowing toy box??

made of stitches and cuteness

There are so many kinds of stitches . . . sewing, knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch, crewel work, stitches that doctors use to sew us up, getting a stitch in your side if you run too long, being "in stitches" over something funny, and being without a stitch of clothing.

What to write about?

Having an interest in sewing (which you may have guessed from last week's post), I should be writing about sewing stitches.  Instead, I decided to talk about the dark side of sewing -- unpicking stitches. This is the most boring, frustrating, time-consuming, and apt-to-go-sideways part of a sewing job, in my opinion. I need to have a good rant about it, and now I have the perfect excuse :)

Why would a person ever want to unpick stitches? Well, if you make a mistake while sewing, or if you want to let out a seam or hem to make a piece of clothing bigger or longer, or if you want to take apart a garment in order to re-make or repair it, you're going to need to rip out the old stitching first.

Here's the tool you need when you're unpicking stitches:

the handy seam ripper

Looks harmless and effective, right?

Well, the same little pointy part that is supposed to slip under a stitch can also easily slip under a thread of the fabric, especially when the thread and fabric are the same colour -- which will result in a hole in the fabric -- and also especially when you get older and your eyes aren't quite as sharp as they used to be. The sharp blade can also put a neat little slice in the fabric if it slips.

And if you have carpal tunnel problems? Holding that tool makes your hand go numb in less than a minute, which isn't enough time to unpick one average seam.

Enough, enough! I can rant just as well in rhyme!


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The Horrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Sewing Day *

I sewed a seam so straight and true
But then those jeans did not fit you
. . . So I ripped it out.

I sewed two pockets to the butt
But then I saw I'd sewn them shut
. . . So I ripped them out.

I sewed the hems to their new length
They were too short -- Oh! give me strength!
. . . So I ripped them out.

I sewed the zipper (what a chore!)
It opened upside down. (I swore.)
. . . And then I ripped it out.

The drudgery of sewing seams
Was lessened by machines, no doubt
But what I wish for now would be
An automatic ripper-out .......


*Apologies to Sesame Street's Grover and his book "Grover's Bad, Awful Day", which is the version of the story I'm familiar with, and also to Judith Voirst and her book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" which I suspect inspired the Grover version . . .  

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Wishing you a week wherein you have more than a stitch of clothing to wear, you are in stitches at something funny in your life, and you avoid medical stitches.

Next week's topic will be ......... MOSQUITOES ......... courtesy of Delores - thanks, D!

Poetry Monday: The Tool Shed

It's Poetry Monday, and the topic this week is . . . THE TOOL SHED.

Join Delores, Mother Owl, and me as we nail our topic this week, hammer it home, and deliver solid, well-built poems that will shelter us from all weathers.

. . . poems that will WHAT now??

Sometimes analogies just don't work the way I think they will.

Moving along.

You can leave a poem in the comments or post on your own blog; if you do the latter, please leave a comment to let us know where to find you. (Pssst! You can even post a poem that's not yours, as long as you tell us who wrote it!)

Use the topic, or not. The objective is to have fun and get the brain cells working.

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You might be expecting a poem about a traditional tool shed, a little building out behind the house filled with garden rakes and shovels and maybe a lawn mower and a workbench with hammers and saws and bottles of nails and that sort of thing.

That's the first thing that came to my mind, too. But there's never been one of those in my life, ever, so I was a bit lost as to what could be written about it.

And then, a dim bulb brightened as it occurred to me that I just bought my own tool shed.

Oh yes I did. Here's a picture:

Yep, as soon as I get it cleaned up, my sewing tools will be going in there, so while it's officially a sewing basket, it's basically just a miniature tool shed, right? 

This came from the local second-hand store. I've wanted one exactly like this for a long time and when I saw the $10 price tag I knew it was coming home with me. It needed two screws replaced in the handle, but that was a simple matter for my husband to do, and with the help of a little Murphy's Oil Soap, it will be ready to use shortly.

Look how much room there is:

I already have a sewing basket, standard size, but I ran out of room in it long ago. I can hardly wait to fill this one. Then, my old friend -- much more portable -- will hold only the essentials I need to fix a hem or a loose button.



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Roomy Enough For All My Memories, Too

Into my sewing basket
I will place
Pinking shears from my mom
Straight pins and measuring tape
From high school sewing class
Bobbins and thread
Needles for my sewing machine
Needles for hand sewing
Thimbles and needle threaders
Scissors of all sizes
Hand drawn patterns for small crafts
Pincushions
And my sweet little pin dish
For stabbity items
And an old spice bottle for safe storage
Of bent and broken stabbity items

You may s-a-a-y I'm a weirdo*
But I'm not the only one**
All you sewists out there
Will understand my utter delight . . .




*Sorry, Mr. Lennon, for taking your beautiful lyrics and changing them
** Sorry again, although this time I didn't change them, I just stole them


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Here's my old faithful basket. It's so full it won't shut, and I have boxes of stuff besides that.

And here's the spice bottle for bent and broken stabbity things (you can push them through the holes in the inner cap, and they won't easily fall out if the bottle tips over without the lid on), along with one of my pincushions and one of my measuring tapes:

Finally, my pin dish, which I wrote about before (I can't find the post, but you're not really missing anything):

What can I say? I enjoy simple things.

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Next week's poetry topic is . . . . . . . . . STITCHES . . . . . . . good luck :)

Poetry Monday: Favourite Food . . . And Funnies

It's Poetry Monday, and the topic this week is . . . FAVOURITE FOOD.

Join Delores, Mother Owl, and me as we whip up our mouth-watering and delicious poems on this topic! You can leave a poem in the comments or post on your own blog -- if you do the latter, please leave a comment to let us know where to find you.

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I had a surprising amount of trouble with this topic (who suggested it, anyway? oh right that would be me), until the moment I found a different perspective.

I was thinking about how people will sometimes speculate for fun what they would choose if they had to eat the same thing for the rest of their lives. I was thinking that wouldn't be the same as a favourite food for me because I doubt I could eat just one thing forever, no matter how much I liked it to start with.

Then it occurred to me that that's exactly what many dogs and cats do, especially the pampered ones being fed a veterinarian-approved diet . . .

Written from the point of view of my cats this week :)


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Let's Have A Bit Less Of That Crunchy Kibble, Eh?

What's in your bowl, Tall One?
What's on your plate, Furless One?
Whatcha cooking, Stiff-Spined One?
Whadja bring me from the store, Water-Bathing One?
What's in your mouth, Selfish One?
Whattya putting in the Cold Box, Clawless One?

Whatever it is,
I WANT IT.
IT'S MY FAVOURITE THING .....

But you just said you wanted it . . . Sigh. This, too, is normal for a cat.

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For the sake of all that's verbal, verbose, and full of verbiage, please Delores please give us a better topic for next week!

I'll update here the moment she does :)

(Note: I've put the update on next week's topic at the bottom of the post, where it is usually found.)


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In the meantime, some more funnies, just because:

Wishing you a week with your favourite foods in it :)

Update:  Next week's topic is . . . THE TOOL SHED . . . thank you, Delores!

Poetry Monday: Hope

It's Poetry Monday, and the topic this week is . . . HOPE.

Join Delores, Mother Owl, and I as we give this topic our all.

You can leave a poem in the comments, or post on your own blog. If you do the latter, please leave a note in the comments to let us know where to find you. If you'd like to have your blog linked in the preamble (like Delores and Mother Owl, above), let me know!

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Generally when I start to do my Poetry Monday post, the topic will spark a connection in my head, and until I write about that connection, my own creativity seems to be stifled. Sometimes that connection story makes it into the blog post, and sometimes it doesn't, but that process is almost always the first step in my poem-writing.

This week it's happening again. The topic is Hope. The immediate (and then maddeningly persistent) thought in my head is . . . "Hope" is the thing with feathers, the famous poem by Emily Dickinson. (Read her poem, plus a fine analysis of it, here.)

But . . . I want to write my own poem about hope, and now that I've emptied out the drawer in my brain that has Emily's poem in it, I can finally do that. It's another Haiku today, because last week was very busy and my little brain can only hold so much stuff.


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Hope Remains

Hope is what endures
When reason, fact, and logic
Retreat, defeated.

This person may be a little too full of hope.

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Wishing you a week where you don't have to rely on hope alone. But if you do, wishing you lots and lots of it.

Next week's topic is . . . . . . . . YOUR FAVOURITE FOOD . . . 😋

 

Poetry Monday: Shoes

Thank you all for your birthday wishes on my last post. I appreciate your kindness!

It's Poetry Monday, and this week's topic is . . . SHOES.

Join Delores, Mother Owl, and me as we try this topic on for size, break it in, polish it to a shine, give it some soul/sole,  . . . what other analogies can one make??

You can leave a poem in the comments, or if you prefer to post on your own blog, please leave a comment to let us know where to find you. If you want to take part every week, and would like me to link to your blog in the preamble (as for Delores and Mother Owl, above), let me know!

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I'm using shoes today to describe all the different footwear we might use to get around in. Also, please forgive the phrases where word order is ... ah ... shall we say ... unusual. I wrote down all the rhymes for shoes I could think of, and then  coaxed, pushed, pulled, and threatened the words to make them work. Poor things, I hear you say. Well, they were just sitting there mocking me; at least now they're earning their keep!

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Lose Those Blues

What do YOU do when you're wearing shoes?
Do you go for a visit to see kangaroos?
Do you walk the dirt roads through the muck and the ooze?
Or stroll on the beach with its marvellous views?
Do you stride through the field where the cow moos and chews?
Do you head to the gym to pay membership dues?
Or perhaps to the shop to get papers of news?
Do you head to the courtroom to see whom who sues?

Me? I wear my shoes to walk in the yews
My stress all to lose and myself with to schmooze


(Note: I know one reader who does visit kangaroos! If you want to see a sample, go to Elephant's Child's blogpost, here, and scroll to almost the bottom. Scroll slowly if you would also like to see a lorikeet, some pelicans, and a pair of black swans.)

What's your favourite thing to do in shoes?

Wishing you everything you could hope for from your footwear :)

Next week's topic is HOPE ... thank you, Delores :)

Another Revolution, and Funnies

It's a beautiful spring day here. The sky is blue, the grass is green (at least on the front lawn), there are a few wisps of cloud above, and the temperature is a comfortable 13C (55F), just where I like it.

What a contrast to this date sixty-two years ago, my first day on earth as a human bean separate from my mama. My dad took her to the hospital to give birth in the middle of a snowstorm. It's a story I've heard many times over the years, my mother always ending with "We didn't know if we'd get there or not", but they did, and the weather changed again, and by the time she and I went home a week later, my big brother was wearing shorts and the snow was mostly gone.

So how about some funnies to celebrate the start of my next trip around the sun? It's an extra-long edition today, and they're all related to birthdays or me 😁

Okay, I guess we've established I don't like mornings. Moving on.

Have a great week, folks!