GRAPES OF WRATH

I have a friend who never smiles.
His name is Loathsome Lloyd.
He suffers from his Massive Piles -
The dreaded Hemorrhoid.

The Grapes that grow inside his butt
Can drive him quite insane.
It’s quite enough to make him nuts
The itching and the pain.

His scratching brings him no relief:
His agony, it lingers.
It steals upon him like a thief,
And gives him stinky fingers.

He’d sell his soul to find a cure,
A balm to soothe his anus.
An anesthetic, sweet and pure,
To take away his painus.

But meanwhile, Lloyd lives with his Piles.
They’re “Grapes of Wrath,” indeed.
You know now why he never smiles
And scratches ’til he bleeds.

THE OFFICIAL BLOG D’ELISSON DICTIONARY,Volume 20.

Yet more stuff that should be in the dictionary but isn’t.

Previous installments of the Blog d’Elisson Dictionary may be found in the Archives.

NyQuil Narcosis [ni-kwil- nar-ko-sis] (n) - The remarkable stupefaction that occurs when one takes a nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best fucking sleep you ever got with a cold medicine, especially during daylight hours.

“Good Gawd! I’ve been wandering around like a zombie for the past two days - must be a case of NyQuil Narcosis.”

COPPIN’ SOME Z’S

Neighbor cops a few Z’s... in Hakuna’s bed.

I know: I’m such a sleepyhead.
I’m squatting, here, in ’Kuna’s bed,
Where it is mercifully soft.
She will not dare to chase me off!

The Last Day of Poetry Month

Carl Sandburg's ten definitions of poetry -- and each one is a poem in itself.

1. Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break the silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllable, wave lengths.

2.Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.

3. Poetry is a series of explanations of life, fading off into horizons too swift for explanations.

4. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.

5. Poetry is a theorem of a yellow-silk handkerchief knotted with riddles, sealed in a balloon tied to the tail of a kite flying in a white wind against a blue sky in spring.

6. Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower.

7. Poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.

8. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

9.Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

10. Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen in a moment.

As I read these, trying to decide which was my favorite (2, or maybe 5, or possibly 6, oh, wait, 9), it seemed to me that each of these would work equally well as a definition for Life itself.

NOTICE! Today is the last day to leave a comment and ask to be entered in the drawing for the quilt book. Contest closes at 9 pm EST -- winner announced tomorrow.

GASTRONOMIC GROTESQUERIE

Steve H. Graham, the twisted genius behind Hog on Ice Tools of Renewal and Manly Grub, shares with me an appreciation for fine, albeit calorific, food. Our motto might well be “Nothing exceeds like excess.”

It’s the kind of thinking that impelled me to create a menu for the infamous House of Meat... as well as an advertisement for it. And it’s the kind of thinking that led Steve to write a cookbook: the aptly entitled Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.

But this... this is Too Much.

The difference between the Gastronomic Grotesquerie of This is why you’re fat and, say, Steve’s Calorific Cookbook? The first is a collection of extremely fattening, horrible-looking dishes cobbled together mainly for the amusement and/or shock value; the second, a collection of recipes for dishes that (albeit packed with Food Energy) you actually would want to eat.

F’rinstance: Ya gotta admire someone who can come up with something called the Cornhole. Corn on the cob wrapped in hickory bacon with two hot dogs and two Colby-Jack cheese sticks wrapped in ground beef. Holy Fuckamoley. But there’s no way I’d ever actually eat that. Or even consider eating that.

On the other hand, Steve’s book has a recipe for a chicken-fried ribeye steak served on a giant biscuit. I’d eat that in a New York minute... and wear it on my ass for the next ten years. And it’d be worth it.

Update: Like to order a Hindenburger? More Big Food below the fold.

Restaurant Waldgeist

View more presentations from guestf42f8.

Breathe, just breathe.

I don't like confrontation.

But sometimes it's necessary.

But I've been taking stock of my life.
And I'm not happy.

So, I've issued a much-delayed ultimatum to my husband.

The details are not important.

What is important, is that if things don't change, I'm leaving.

Fabric Commentary

My friend Nora, the med student who is spending a year in Mali, sent me a length of this charming fabric which honors our president. Her accompanying note said: "I hope you like this Obama fabric. It's so Malian -- there is a fabric for everything -- a fabric for the gynecology conference, the rotary club, TB prevention week . . . and people make coordinated outfits with all of it and wear it to the prescribed event or during the aforementioned week. Amazing. 200 gynecologist in matching purple skirt/shirt or pant/shirt ensembles."

It's wonderful to think of people so far away celebrating our president, wearing his smiling face and sporting the American flag as they walk along dusty roads under African skies.

I see it as a hopeful sign. . . a very hopeful sign.

And now I have to decide how best to use my bit of cross-cultural material -- some sort of quilted wall hanging . . . hmmm . . .

DEPARTMENT OF EUPHEMISM

I was listening to the Big Glass Teat with one ear when I overheard a news report - something to the effect that the Obama administration has requested that people refer to swine flu as the “swine influenza (H1N1) virus” - or, even better, “the H1N1 virus.”

The rationale? Administration officials were concerned about the possible negative impact of the term “swine flu” on the American pork industry.

Did I hear that right? Or did I imagine it? If it’s true, it is the most creative exercise in Proactive Euphemism Creation since PETA came up with the harebrained idea of calling fish “Sea Kittens.” It ranks right up there with “Freedom Fries,” brought to you by the prior administration.

It’s doomed to fail. For one thing, “swine influenza (H1N1) virus” - or just “H1N1 virus,” for that matter - has too fucking many syllables. Swine flu has just two.

[That’s the same objection I have to the term “African-American.” Not only is it inaccurate in many cases, it’s seven syllables. Whereas “black” has one. “Caucasian,” with three syllables, isn’t quite as cumbersome, but it’s still nowhere near as efficient as the monosyllabic “white.”]

For another thing, when everybody is running around like headless chickens screaming “We’re all gonna die!” nobody is going to consult their Directory of Officially Approved Disease Terminology. They’ll go with simple and quick. Swine Flu.

But if you want something more creative, I have a few ideas.

The Mexicali Pork-Grippe - a creation of the inimitable James Lileks.

Chazzer Choleria - Leave it to the Jews, who aren’t supposed to eat pigs, to have the best words for them. Chazzer Choleria literally means “pig cholera.” Catchy, innit? A perfect name for a cartoon character, the Smokey Bear or Woodsy Owl of the New Millennium.


Meet Chazzer Choleria, official H1N1 virus spokesman.
(Apologies to Warner Brothers)

Porkulusterfuck - For those who prefer a political spin to their euphemisms.

How ’bout you? Can you come up with some creative alternatives to “Swine Flu”?

THE LASSIE MOMENT

I had a “Lassie Moment” while watching a rerun of Seinfeld yesterday evening.

Never heard the term? No surprise: I just made it up. To explain it, a little history is in order.

When I was a young Snot-Nose, there was a program on television about a young boy and his collie dog. I speak, of course, of Lassie, which ran from 1954 to 1973. The eponymous Lassie had an IQ somewhere just north of that of Stephen Hawking, and much of the series (as I remember it) had to do with her rescuing Jeff (her first owner) or Timmy (her second owner) from one sort of scrape or another.

The family lived on a farm somewhere in West Bumblefuck - I have no idea where, really - in a house that was furnished in Early Depression. But what the hell - they were farmers. What did I know about farmers?

What I did know was that their telephones were very different from ours. We had your basic black rotary-dial models - no fancy-pants “Princess” phones for us - but the Lassie family had something else entirely. They had a wall phone, one of those archaic jobbies with a wooden cabinet, the two ringer bells at the top, and a hand crank to power the thing up. Modern technology, circa 1930... except this was the late 1950’s already.

Lookee:


The Lassiephone!

I could never look at that phone without thinking, “Jeez - these people are living in the stone age!” just like the smug suburbanite snot-nose I was.

Fast forward to 2009. I’m watching a second-season episode of Seinfeld, an episode that is something on the order of eighteen years old. Way older than the earliest Lassie episodes were when I was watching them as late 1950’s reruns.

And Jerry is talking on a cellphone that is the approximate size of a cinderblock. Holy Crap!

I exaggerate, but not much. The phone he’s using - whether it’s a cellphone or a plain old wireless handset is not clear - is humongous by modern standards... and the foot-long antenna is downright laughable. For now we have phones that are small enough to replace Richard Gere’s gerbil.

Lotta technological development under the bridge in those eighteen years. iPhones, iPods, laptops, hand-held GPS devices, you name it.

Jerry looked perfectly happy with his Huge-Ass Phone, though. I was waiting for him to crank it up and get Mabel the Operator on the line. Oh, wait - that was Lassie.

So: The “Lassie Moment.” It’s when you’re watching a show on Ye Olde Boobe Toobe and you see a Technological Anachronism. Crank telephones - hell, rotary telephones - slide rules, great big cell phones, stuff like that. And you think, “Jeez - is this show that frickin’ old?”

Have you had any “Lassie moments” lately?

R.I.P. PONTIAC

It looks like the Pontiac line will be joining Oldsmobile on the Midden-Heap o’ History. Alas.

I’ve owned both Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. Well, technically, at least in the case of the Pontiacs, the cars were technically owned by the Great Corporate Salt Mine... but since I had more-or-less exclusive use of the vehicle, the distinction is without effect. And they were reasonably decent cars, although I would not put any of them up against today’s Nipponmobiles.

But back when I was first learning to drive, it was in my parents’ 1970 Pontiac Bonneville.

The ’rents were Repeat Pontiac Offenders back in the 1960’s. After disposing of their two-tone 1954 Dodge - the first car I can remember - in 1961 and replacing it with a Chevy Impala, they switched over to the Pontiac Bonneville in 1964. New Bonnevilles showed up in 1967 and 1970, but it was the 1970 model that was a real step-out. No more boring “Metallic Silver” or beigy “Champagne” - this one was fire-engine red, a real eye-catcher. My mother, no doubt, swung the decision-stick when it came to the color.

It was fun, that car, despite being somewhat stodgier than Pontiac’s more youth-oriented models - like the G.T.O. And the grille design seemed to hearken back to the notorious Edsel - “like a car sucking a lemon.” But I was in no position to be choosy. And it was bright red. The perfect color for cars... and toenails.

Pontiac, ave atque vale. We hardly knew ye.

ELVIS, IMAGINED AS AN ELDERLY JEWISH MAN

I been at the Home for, what, eight years now? And all the years I’ve been there, I never seen a guy like this Elvis fellow.

The Home? That’s what we call it, anyway. It’s the Memphis Jewish Home. Just north of Germantown. All things considered, not a bad place to live. And the kids come by every week for a visit or to take me out. The daughter-in-law likes to go to the Oak Court Mall on the weekends, and so they schlep me along.

Heh. When they show up at the reception desk, I always wish them a “Good Shoppis.” It’s our little joke.

But I was telling you about this Elvis guy.

Such a flashy dresser, you never saw. One day he’ll come down to breakfast in leather pants. How he squeezes his tuchus into them, I’ll never know. Maybe the next day it’ll be a white suit with rhinestones. He looks eppis like that Liberace fellow. You know, that feigeleh that played the piano? Yeah, him.

But this guy is no feigeleh. A real ladies’ man. Has to beat them off with a stick. One time we were having lunch and Mrs. Schwartz walks by our table, all casual-like, and she slips him a pair of her gotkiss with her room key tucked in ’em. Elvis, he rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, “What the hell can I do about it?”

Anyway, I asked him once did he always live in Memphis and he said he was born here... used to be a singer. Had himself quite a career for a while. But like a lot of musicians back then, he started getting into the drugs. Almost died, so he tells me, back in 1977. That’s when he decided to give it up. Quit the drugs cold turkey, and reconnected to his Jewish roots. Started studying Talmud. Never quite made it as a rabbi, though, because (he says) he was afraid that if he started standing up in front of large crowds again, the old problems would maybe come back.

Funny thing. Not once have I ever seen him eat a banana. Asked him about it once and he got real quiet, said something about he used to eat ’em all the time, even with peanut butter in a sandwich, but that they made him constipated and that he had to give them up. I don’t know whether I got the whole story, but I kinda got the feeling that the last thing he ever wanted was to be constipated. You never saw anyone drink so much prune juice in your life.

OUT, DAMNED SPOT HAIR

This morning, as I stood ’fore the bathroom mirror,
I saw a sight to make my bowels quiver,
My chest palpitate, and my knees grow weak:
A Nose-Hair, protruding from my ample beak!

Only one thing to do, I thought - by Jesus,
I was going to have to get out the Tweezus.
To leave that hair there would be as much of a sin
As to dine with the Queen and get egg on my chin.

Now, I hate tweezing nose-hairs. It hurts, pure and simple.
It’s way much more painful than squeezing a pimple.
But I grabbed that damned hair - yanked it out of my face -
A-leaving a droplet of blood in its place.

And O, how I screamed as that bright bolt of pain
Shot up that short passage, direct to my brain!
I cursed, and I moaned, and I groaned all aloud,
And said things of which I’ll confess I’m not proud.

It’s been said by the Sages that Life Just Ain’t Fair.
I’ll agree, on account of that Vile Nasal Hair.

Thrift

Yesterday, when I was fetching an empty sunflower seed bag to use to hold paper for recycling, I found myself absently pulling the string from the strip that had held the bag closed and shoving it into my pocket.

This simple act reminded me of my mentor in matters of mountain economy -- Louise Freeman. Louise was the one who showed me that the sturdy cotton string used to sew shut bags of feed was worth saving. It wouldn't have occurred to Louise not to save it, having lived her life in a culture that couldn't afford wastefulness of any kind.

So I have a little ball of string in my kitchen drawer -- just right for trussing up a chicken to roast or making a toy for a cat to chase.

The saving here is minuscule -- but it always makes me smile when I wind on another piece of string.

Of course, back in the Twenties and well into the Fifties, feed and flour sacks were often made of cloth, not paper or plastic. This cloth, originally a plain unbleached muslin, often with the brand name stenciled on it, was prized for dish towels, undergarments, and the like. Then some marketing genius had the idea to print patterns on the bags. And suddenly, poor countrywomen had 'free' pretty material to make dresses and curtains and the like.

And with the scraps, they made quilts! Quilts of such wild exuberance that they knock your socks off!

This one below is a Nine-Patch. Blocks composed of nine squares -- four of one print and five of another -- are joined with sashing strips of still more different prints. And all of these fabrics, I'm pretty sure, were from feed/flour sacks.

All I know about this quilt (which I bought some years ago in downtown Marshall) is that it was made by a lady named Esta Gentry and she lived in Jupiter -- which is just across the county line.

As time went on, there was another source of 'free' fabric. Almost everyone had a friend or a relative working in the mills or garment manufacturing industry in the area. I remember Louise giving me stacks of scraps -- literally, stacks, layered with paper in between the fabric -- odd shapes left when a collar or a sleeve was carved from a larger stack of material.

The tied 'quilt' below was made from a combination of flour sack fabric and mill ends. "These were the last squares Mama made," said my friend Grace, handing me a box of strip pieced squares. "Maybe you can do something with them."

The squares were made by sewing strips diagonally across a square of paper (cut from Sears catalogue pages, for the most part -- again, no waste.) I joined the squares in fours to make a diamond pattern then joined these larger squares with blue sashing strips.

I didn't quilt it (honestly, I think I'd have gone blind had I tried to -- it is rather loud), instead I tied it with red crochet thread, put a binding on it and gave it back to Grace.

And then, several years later, she gave it back to me.

Swine Whine

If I were a swine, I'd be totally ashamed right now.
I mean, passing on such a nasty virus to humans and all...

They're so cute though, it's hard to stay mad.

And apparently those viruses mutate to transfer to humans.

So, it makes me wonder.
Did a pig fall into a vat of nuclear waste?
Get bitten by a radioactive spider?
Get hit by a magnetic meteor?
Get abducted by aliens and experimented on?

I'm gonna blame it on the aliens.
It's always the aliens.

KADDISH

Billie Bob - SWMBO’s daddy - circa age three.

Today - the third day of the month of Iyyar in the Jewish calendar - is Billie Bob’s twenty-third yahrzeit. SWMBO joined me at morning minyan today, where she recited the Mourner’s Kaddish to honor her father’s memory, following a tradition that dates back to sometime in the thirteenth century C.E.

The Kaddish itself is much older, dating back over two millennia. Originally a doxology recited at the conclusion of a session of Torah or Talmud study, it was considered a component of the daily prayer service by the sixth century C.E. It is mostly in Aramaic, with the concluding words in Hebrew - presumably for those few who, back in the day, did not speak Aramaic.

While the Mourner’s Kaddish is popularly thought of as the Jewish prayer for the dead, that distinction properly belongs to Eil Malei Rachamim (“Father of Compassion”). The Kaddish makes no mention of death. It is an affirmation of God’s kingship:

Magnified and sanctified be [God’s] great Name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire house of Israel, speedily and soon; and let us say “Amen.”

[Response:] May His great Name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the Name of the Holy One - blessed be He - beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and let us say “Amen.”

May the prayers and supplications of the whole house of Israel be accepted by their Father in heaven; and let us say “Amen.”

May there be abundant peace from heaven and life, for us and for all Israel; and let us say “Amen.”

He who creates peace in His high places, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and let us say “Amen.”

Take a close look at the first paragraph. Tinker with the wording a little and leave the conceptual framework intact - and look what you get:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Why, it’s the Lord’s Prayer! Which makes perfect sense, because that certain Galilean Carpenter would have known the Kaddish in all its varieties, with the added convenience of its being (mostly) in Aramaic - his own vernacular.

Which brings us back to Billie Bob. Bill, who was Jewish by choice, would have known those words as a youngster before becoming familiar with them as part of the Kaddish.

He would have been eighty years old now, if he had lived. Alas, it was not to be... but I’ll bet he’d be happy to know that we still keep a supply of his Sooper-Seekrit Seasoning Blend on hand for those occasions when we get a jones for a smoked brisket.

Literary Discussion Continued

A few days ago we were talking about what people look for in a protagonist and there were lots of interesting thoughts posted in the comments. One comment, however, came to me via email, from Bo Parker aka The Old Word Cobbler. And since it kind of ties in with an on-going question of my own, I'm posting it (with his permission) here.

Bo says: "As I chewed my way into the craft of writing a mystery novel, creating a main character out of figments of my imagination, I had to stop and ask. Who is this guy? What does he stand for? What makes him tick? Once my mind was fixed on the guy's core values and if I were to keep him true to his core values, I had to consider the scenes into which he would be placed, how he would react to different situations, different people, his actions, reactions, and even dialogue, how he would talk, what he would say."

Bo continues:"I recently read a novel in Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series that in my opinion demonstrates how this works, or I should say, did not work, at least for me, and was part of the reason I asked the question via DorothyL about characters staying at home. Over the course of seventeen books, I had come to form an opinion about the character China Bayles, based on her interactions with family and friends in and around the fictional town of Pecan Springs.

However, in the latest book, WORMWOOD, China is pulled out of Pecan Springs, removed from all family, all close personal friends, and put on the road with a person who is more business than personal friend. For the rest of the story, China is in a totally foreign environment, a Shaker Settlement in Kentucky.

"The story is well presented as to how a character would conduct themselves as an outsider. However, in my opinion, she is a totally different in this setting. For me, it created an impression of a character that I did not find as compelling, enjoyable, unique, or as strong as the China Bayles I'd come to know in Pecan Springs. If this book and one of the earlier ones in the series were given to separate groups; each asked to read their book and write an analysis of China Bayles, my bet is that there would be two totally different reactions as to China Bayles' character."

That was what Bo asked. And it got me thinking. As some of you may remember, my first attempt at a novel (never published) featured Elizabeth on vacation at the coast of NC. I think that she stayed pretty true to herself -- after all, she's a bit of an outsider back in Marshall County, being a transplant from Florida - and she's an outsider at the coast. But the question under discussion over on Dorothy L was whether you want your series to stay put or whether you're okay with excursions.

It's just idle curiosity that make me ask. I have, at present, no plans to take Elizabeth out of the mountains. But I'm interested to know what others think. Would you like to read about our girl off some where else -- pony trekking in Paraguay . . . sightseeing in Samoa . . . visiting in Vermont . . . or doing anything, anywhere away from the mountains?

RANDOM RECOMMENDATIONS

If you enjoy fine photography, you can’t go wrong by visiting Sam Javanrouh’s excellent site, [daily dose of imagery].

I liked this post with its embedded panorama, embedded below for your viewing pleasure. Click and drag on the image to get the full panoramic effect.


Luminato Light Balls - Toronto in Canada

For a couple of my earlier posts that reference Sam’s excellent work, go here and here. Remarkable stuff.

When you get tired of photographs and just want teh funny, go visit The Bloggess. She’s based in Houston - alas, I’ve never managed to meet her - and she is Certifiably Insane. Pants-pissingly funny. Which is several orders of magnitude funnier than spit-coffee-all-over-your-monitor funny.

I’m almost afraid to introduce the Mistress of Sarcasm to The Bloggess. She’s liable to laugh hard enough to make blood squirt out of her eyeballs. Come to think of it, you might, too.

The Up Side of Down

This weekend I was feeling down.
Down, drained, lost, depressed.

I had to work on a Saturday, which took a good chunk of my day...and time away from my kids.

And let's face it, I'm still not used to spending so little time with them.

I've been a stay-at-home mom most of their life, although I've worked from home and/or been in classes part time at the University of Texas at different times. But, I've always been available for them.

And now that's changed. The change has mostly been for the good. I'm enjoying working in the business world. The boys are gaining more independence. But, a part of me grieves. It just does.

And this summer scares me.
Last summer we went swimming almost every single day.

We went on field trips to corn fields and roller skating.
We had fun...together.

This summer I have to work.
We do have an amazing trip to Disney World planned, but other than that, I have to work.
And I Don't know what to do with them.
I guess summer camps.
And relatives.
but it makes me sad.

So, this has all hit me this weekend.
Along with feeling drained.
And down.
And lost.

And my marriage is a mess.
A big complicated, messed-up mess.

So, when I got home from work yesterday, the boys wanted to go play outside in our neighborhood park. I reluctantly agreed to go with them, grabbing a book and my camera.






And something amazing happened.

I started out feeling grouchy.
sitting in the grass, watching them play.





And then slowly, I began to appreciate the greeness around me. Texas is GORGEOUS this time of year. Everything's blooming.




And then I felt the urge to take pictures.
Of the green trees.
Of the flowers.
Of my two boys playing together.





And by the time we went inside an hour or two later...I felt re-charged.

And I remembered.
Oh, yeah.

Being in nature,
being with my children in nature,
being with my children in nature and taking pictures...

that makes me happy.

THE BUS TO FOREVER

Helen walked down the aisle, headed toward the rear of the bus. She wasn’t sure how she got there - all she knew was that she felt better than she had in years. And she knew she had better find a seat.

There. There, on the left side of the aisle, next to that striking white-haired lady.

She sat down and arranged her robe. Where had that robe come from? It felt like silk on the outside, but the lining was like the softest terry.

The woman sitting next to her - damn, but she looked familiar! - turned to her and said, “I’m Bernice. And you are...”

“Helen.”

“Nice to meet you, Helen. Welcome to the bus.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you too. Now, where the hell are we going?”

Bernice grinned. “Ooooh, salty! A real firecracker - I should’ve known, with that strawberry-blonde hair. I think I like you already. How old were you?”

Comprehension slowly dawned in Helen’s eyes. “I am... was... eighty-eight.”

“You got me beat. I would’ve been eighty-seven next month. Ahhh, well.”

“So, let me ask you again. Where the hell are we going? Oy. Maybe I should rephrase that.”

“This is the express to Olam ha-Ba. The Next World, the World to Come. Whetever the hell that means. Err, maybe I should rephrase that.”

“Bernice, you look familiar.” Helen regarded her seatmate with a cocked eyebrow. “Have I seen you somewhere?”

“I suppose it’s possible. I used to be an actress. Bea Arthur was my stage name. Ever watch ‘The Golden Girls’?”

“Ah HAH! I knew it! I loved that show. Except I had four sisters, and I could never understand how all you women could live together in one house like that without killing one another.”

Bernice smiled. “It was television.”

*********

SWMBO’s great-aunt Helen and actress Bea Arthur (née Bernice Frankel) both passed away Saturday, April 25, 2009. Barukh Dayan Emet: blessèd be the True Judge.

Exalted, compassionate God, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering Presence, among the holy and the pure, to the souls of Helen and Bernice. May their memory endure, inspiring truth and loyalty in our lives. May their souls thus be bound up in the bond of life. May they rest in peace. And let us say: Amen.

I Can See Clearly Now . ..

The flowering quince at the base of the birdfeeder had grown so tall that it was blocking my view of the garden beyond. So on Friday I attacked it with my trusty Felco pruners. The stuff is dense, thorny, interlaced with poison ivy vines, and, to make it more of a challenge, it grows on a steep slope.

It took all morning to beat it into submission, of sorts, but when I was done, once more I could see all the way down to the garden from the kitchen window.

On Saturday, I woke to find every muscle in my body aching from the battle, a huge blister on my thumb, and my right forearm itching with red weals from the poison ivy. I decided to give the pruners a rest ( I have my eye on a forsythia in sore need of radical pruning) but to continue on with improving the view.

As the day was forecast to be warm -- up to the eighties -- I spent my time washing windows and putting up screens.

It's a lovely Spring time thing to do and improves the view immensely.

Here're some more things I saw on this warm day.

TODAY’S PITH AND VINEGAR

Memo to self: Following the incident in the fancy Dress-Shop, try to remember that “couture” is not pronounced “cooter.”

THE INTERRUPTED PIRATES:A 100-WORD SEA STORY

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“The Interrupting Pirate.”

“The Interrup…”

“Arrrrrrhhh!”

This joke used to crack us up when we were kids. Timing was everything.

I wasn’t laughing right now, though. Somali pirates were attacking our ship. The crackle of small-arms fire filled the air as the Somalis prepared to board.

The usual game. Hold us hostage, collect the ransom, move on. Insurance would pay the owners.

Not this time. As the pirates strode confidently on deck, laughing, Charlie interrupted them with the M134 Minigun, which promptly converted them into piles of gristle amidst pools of blood.

Yep: Timing is everything.

[The topic of Weekly Challenge #158 at the 100 Word Stories Podcast is Knock Knock.]

She deserves a collar made of diamonds.

Hey, Annie!!

Over here, sweet girl!

I know you're really tired,
but I need to dress you up & take some pictures for Camera Critters.

You've worn boots before...and an apron and a hat...

so, let's try on some jewelry today!

Annie, you look so beautiful!
See, your boy had to come give you a hug.

I know the camera flash is really annoying.
And you want to go to sleep.

But just a few more photos...

How about we try on some more jewelry?

At least we didn't tie her up this time...or put on the storm trooper helmet.

Oh, dear, I think she's had enough.

Maybe next time.

I love our sweet girl.
She puts up with so much.

And is totally spoiled in return.
I'm not sure who gets the better deal.

Camera Critters is SO much fun! join us!