Purposeful poetry

Some of my readers know my love for rhyme. And some may know I’m behind this year’s humongous yard sale on April 7 to END ALL YARD SALES! (Well, I wish!)

I’ve been advertising the up and coming sale in the UUCH newsletter, pleading for help and donations. To review the weekly alert, read below:              

Week One:  It’s No Bunk . . . I WANT YOUR JUNK!

Tidy your closets, your cabinets, your drawers.

De-clutter your sofas, your shelves, your floors.
Don’t leave any stone unturned.
What’s underneath may well be yearned
for. Can you not see the value it has?
Whatever it is has a certain pizzazz!
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,
So don’t deny someone the pleasure
Of buying your stuff. It meets a need.
Clean up now, and do a good deed!

Week Two:  This is no bluff . . . WE WANT YOUR STUFF!

Look in your closets, your desks, your cubbies.

Look under your children, your dogs, your hubbies.
Look for the stuff that you no longer need.
Give it to us, and you’ll do a good deed!
The things that you donate are for a good cause—
Stuff that is perfect and stuff that has flaws—
Maybe it’s no way to run a concern
But it is OUR way, and I’ll be dern
If we don’t make a pile of money—
So give us your stuff. Be a sweet honey!

Week Three:  It’s your duty . . . BRING YOUR BOOTY!

Don’t forget to clear your attic.

We need junk for each fanatic.
Bring me stuff that you find crummy
Bring it all—don’t be a dummy.
Books and toys and shoes and blenders
Pickup trucks with dented fenders
Pots and pans, an old George Foreman—
Sell them to a dude named Norman.

Week Four:  Kid you not . . . WANT JUNK A LOT!

Look in your attic, your basement, your shed!

I want your junk, alive or dead--
With thanks to taxidermists!
Perhaps a lunch pail or a thermos?
Kids’ blankies and their car seats?
Or when they get old, discard their bar seats.
And do you have time enough to spare?
Help me out! Show me you care!

Week Five:  You, in the suit! . . . WE WANT YOUR LOOT!

We are a fancy lot, you see—

No monkey here, instead monqué.
Target isn’t what we say
The proper term would be Tar-zhay.
J. C. Pen-náe is at the mall—
But shop with us. You’ll have a ball
‘cause JUNQUE is what we sell.
It’s fancy stuff you’ll think is swell.
Get out your Franklins now and come.
Ignoring JUNQUE would just be dumb!

Week Six:  Final call . . . WE WANT IT ALL!

Call it goods or stuff or treasure

One man’s junk is another man’s pleasure.
Look in your couches, your bureaus, your beds.
Search your car ports, your cellars, your sheds.
Bring all of your stuff and sell it—
Be a fanatic, a regular zealot!
The time for the sale is upon us!
Sell your birds, your snakes, your iguanas!
(Just in case selling pets isn’t legal,
Better hide that doggone beagle.)

BONUS FOR MY BLOG FOLLOWERS:

Call it stuff or junk or treasure,
You know it’s been my pleasure
To rhyme with such a reason
Throughout this yard sale season.
And despite what all may think,
while it’s true I’d sell a sink,
I would not sell my mother,
And I would not buy my brother—
Accused unjustifiably,
I like to rhyme maniacally!

Danger is my middle name

I cleaned my blinds yesterday. Okay, I admit it—an odd spring day in which I’m compelled to clean blinds occurs every, oh, three to four years—and cleaning one’s blinds in and of itself doesn’t constitute danger.  However, listening to Zumba tunes while cleaning one’s blinds may—if one performs fancy maneuvers on the stepstool.

And what of my ambitions of walking to the nearby, yet-to-open Baskin Robbins? Yes, it’s within a half mile of my house. No problem there; I love to walk. But, no, there isn’t a walk signal allowing me to cross the very busy five-lane highway safely. What wouldn’t I do for a heavenly BR chocolate almond cone? Not much. As I told my husband upon the BR sighting, “Good heavens! This could be dangerous!”

But I'm prepared. I already live on the edge:

1.      I eat chocolate. It makes my heart race.

2.      I eat sugar. It leaves me wanting more.

3.      I drink wine. It disrupts my sleep.

4.      I zumba. It causes me to jump around in wild abandon--in other words, I’m an accident waiting to happen.

I don't, however, climb rocks, parachute, ride bulls, dive in caves, snow ski, hang glide, shave my head, or get tattoos.  But, hey, I live dangerously in my own quiet way.

There's no place like home

My  kids + 3 (boyfriend plus dogs) came home to visit last weekend. This is unusual. Our far-flung locations form a triangle, and it’s more common to meet at a neutral spot—or we go to them because they’re just starting out (meaning minimal vacation days) while my husband’s nearing retirement (meaning the opposite).

Having everyone home meant hours of preparation—cooking, cleaning, and, thanks to my husband’s efforts, providing a balloonapalooza. I fixed the crew hearty breakfasts, stuffed them with cupcakes, and cajoled them into wearing complementary clothing for a family photo shoot. I aggravated my daughter and quizzed my son—both have come to expect it. In other words, like Popeye used to say, “I yam what I yam.”

Lucy, an amiable short-haired German Pointer, bounded about with joyous enthusiasm and drank with abandon, as evidenced by the puddles of water she left behind. Although decidedly smaller, Maddie, a feisty Jack Russell, often clung to Lucy’s neck in good-natured dominance. When they left, the silence was deafening.

And that’s the thing. Who needs silence? Playing Yahtzee and Scrabble, hiking up mountains, clinking glasses, talking with friends . . . fun, laughter, and the occasional growl fill a house with love.

So, kids, how about coming for dinner this Sunday? And don't forget the dogs.

Coming back to real life

After last night’s nightmare, I’m pretty sure that teaching high school for a year scarred me for life. I was told to take the students to the gym, giving them a writing assignment to be completed by the end of the period. A veteran teacher led them, with me taking up the rear; yet, even though the walk was short, she claimed she’d never take any part in my class again. Not a good sign. We arrived at our destination. Seating was abundant—far too spacious—so I told the students who sat farther than midway back to take seats toward the front. There was much grumbling and one confrontation; she refused to move. While I argued with her, wondering how to save face because I knew I was fighting a losing battle, I noticed not one but four students swinging from trapeze swings from the very high ceiling. I yelled, “Get down from there, you idiots!” but no one paid attention to me. Correction: the entire student body laughed at me. I rushed into the hall. I was so new that I didn’t even know how to contact the office. A coach saw me and pointed to a phone. A short buzz later connected me to the principal. He was too busy to deal with me, even after hearing about the trapeze swings. I was on my own.

In real life, I had 90 students that year—95% of whom were happy and willing to be in my class. The remaining 5% took Spanish that year only because they felt they were forced to do so. Alabama education requirements had changed—students needed to take the equivalent of two years of a foreign language to receive the Advanced Diploma. That 5% didn’t want to be there and let me know daily. I was the one on the swinging trapeze, but it wasn’t exhilarating. One or another of that 5% batted me around with a big, giant hand.

This was a shock to me. Before and after my stint in high school, I taught English as a second language to sweet elementary kids. They loved to get out of their regular class to see me. Kids whose first language was English wanted to be in my class. My class was fun. I was dynamite. And I was in complete control.

These days, I’m on my own again. For good or bad, my teaching days are behind me; I’m in charge of no one but myself. Even so, I occasionally find myself on a trapeze, not feeling the angst of a teacher about to get smacked, but, instead, feeling the remarkable exhilaration of writing. Something fun. Something noteworthy.

And when I send  it out to be published, someone invariably yells in the form of a rejection letter, “Get down from there, you idiot!”

A tribute to my husband

    I did a really stupid thing over the weekend. I mistook myself for someone who knew how to handle a computer problem. My darn laptop knocked me off the internet yet again. Out of frustration, I started poking around and found a “restore” avenue. What could go wrong? It had to mean “restore to a working condition,” right? Wrong.

The mouse arrow glowed with a feeling of hopelessness, or so it seemed. It matched my mood. No icons to select on the totally black screen. No directions to tell me what to do next. I turned it off/on, off/on, off/on. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach warned me that I had to tell my husband.

Nonetheless, I sat on the secret for about 15 minutes, hoping for a miracle that never came.

Fast forward three days. Even a computer-savvy husband needs time to mount an appropriate attack. Would this work? No. Would this work? No. How about this?

At the end of the third day . . . success! The computer works better than ever, costing only (?!) time and aggravation.

My husband didn’t need to extract a promise out of me. On my own, I solemnly swore to admit total ignorance of all things computer and to never, ever go down the questionable path of no return.

And I’ve got to hand it to my husband. He wasn’t happy with the situation, but he was very patient. Never a harsh word crossed his lips.

The man should be nominated for sainthood.

The death penalty: no laughing matter

I read. I READ A LOT. And every once in awhile, a book bowls me over and really makes me think.

Without giving a blow-by-blow account, I’ll tell you this: John Grisham’s The Confession is a fascinating persuasion against capital punishment.

When I was young, I was dead-set against the death penalty; but, as I got older, I temporarily lost my idealism. Perhaps we’d be doing society a favor by eradicating the most heinous of criminals; perhaps we’d be doing the taxpayers a favor, too.

But since then, I’ve come around to my original thoughts. Taking someone’s life is wrong, no matter the circumstance—and, as Grisham so articulately illustrates, particularly if the accused is innocent. Because, while we want to believe in a judicial system that judges fairly, it simply doesn’t always do so. The system is made up of humans. And humans sometimes make mistakes. If society kills an innocent person, no one wins—from the jury all the way up to the Supreme Court—not the guards, not the taxpayers, not the victims’ families, and certainly not the accused.

Furthermore, housing criminals might not come cheap, but executing them costs millions more, tens of millions more. For example, if Californians shunned execution in favor of life imprisonment, they could save $1 billion over five years. These are compelling reasons to abandon the death penalty. An eye for an eye just doesn’t cut it.

But wouldn’t it make the most sense of all to nip a life of criminality in the bud? Sure, that’s simplifying the nearly impossible. Unfortunately, nature or nurture condemns too many lives to count.

However, there is a path that’s proven to be successful. By recognizing the issue of the role of poverty in crime, strides can be made toward reducing it. Identify little ones most likely to commit crimes; in doing so, invest in their future. Don’t throw money away for the upkeep of prisoners; instead, invest it at the beginning through programs such as Head Start. Nurture preschoolers through love and education. Give them hope. Enable them to become productive citizens.

And there’s a final truth we must face. First-time offenders rarely receive life sentences. They commit minor crimes, they go to jail, they become hardened criminals. There are too many stories about incarceration gone wrong not to be real. Things go from bad to worse. And what do ex-cons face? No one wants to hire them. They get angry. They get desperate. Jail in and of itself does more to destroy a person’s chances in life than it does to rehabilitate—not because imprisonment in and of itself is ineffective but because no one has the resources to follow through. Prisons are too crowded; resources for follow-up are too few.

As James Grisham tightens the noose, the reader can't help but race ahead. Will claiming innocence prove futile? How about claiming guilt? And just how do you view capital punishment, or even imprisonment in general?

Reading The Confession makes a person think.

Guilty until proven innocent

A recent newspaper headline read Sudafed brings meth charge. If a picture had accompanied it, I may have concluded guilt or innocence based on that alone, despite the fact that my own driver’s license reveals a woman capable of killing her own mother for a pack of gum (when in actual fact, I’m simply guilty of being caught off-guard by a disgruntled government employee with a heinous sense of humor).

While it’s true that believing in the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty scenario isn’t one of my strengths, I can sometimes keep an open mind. Yet, I was reasonably certain when I started reading the article that the accused was guilty . . . until it became clear that the poor woman was victimized by a sting operation gone amok. Convicted of second-degree intent to make methamphetamine, she’ll serve a year in jail unless she wins an appeal.

The buying of Sudafed has become so suspect that one can no longer pick it up off a shelf. Based on her doctor’s advice, the accused simply purchased Sudafed to avoid an ear infection on a scuba trip. Never mind that she crossed state lines to do it. She had run out of time, and the trip was looming. Unfortunately, her son bought Sudafed at the same time in a different store. Even that didn’t convince me of her guilt. 

But her confession did.

She apparently told police that she intended to make crystal meth with both boxes. She claimed that by “confessing,” she could get permission for her son to drive home with the three children who had accompanied him to the drugstore.

“But I didn’t really do it, Judge.” 

If you buy that, I have this piece of property in Florida. . . .