Well, Fred, how are the sheep?
Fine so far, nary a peep.
What’s that in your lunch today?
It’s supposed to be leftover soufflé,
But after four hours, it’s sort of pourable.
Hmm. Guess soufflé isn’t portable.
After the week we’ve all had, I thought we deserved a nice bucolic eclogue.
Bad Poem-a-Day August is winding down, only six left to go. There’s that sonnet that I’d like to finish when I can concentrate, and who knows what else? Not even me.
Our summer traveling in the car
Started out kind of rough.
The squabbling children escalated
Until I’d had more than enough.
They screeched and fought every minute
With intent to harm and disturb
Until I PULLED THIS CAR OVER RIGHT NOW
And sat them down on the curb.
I gave them quite a lesson there
Right by the side of the road.
They thought they might be walking home
From a two towns away zip code.
I let them back in on conditions
Which since then, they’ve mostly met.
Like all siblings, they bicker,
About things they should just forget.
This normal silly bickering, though,
I find easier to survive.
In an imagined car of silence,
I switch to internal drive.
It turns out, I’m not quite able to compose a rhymed English sonnet in iambic pentameter while I’m driving. I was in the car for 5+ hours today, and while I usually do compose verse in my head on the road, keeping track of the syllables and rhyme structure without writing anything down was too much. So I let my brain make this, not at all inspired by anything that did/did not happen in the backseat today.
Also…this may/may not be a completely true story.
I found this little vignette all set up for me, and the play on “throne” was too delightful to pass up.
As a side note, I apologize for the crappy quality of the poem type. I had to insert that as a picture translated through three programs, because I could not get the formatting to work no matter how much HTML I crammed in there. An hour later, I decided that it added a certain “vintage” quality to the poetry and it’s actually the best.
I promised myself that I’m going to write a sonnet for tomorrow, just because I haven’t done that since high school. Dusting the rust off the iambs right now.
To say a child grows like a weed
Is rather unfair to the kid.
While children eventually do move out,
I’ve never seen a weed that did.
We weed and weed, and still we weep. Oregon is where noxious plants settle to raise their families. They move in and holler “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” whenever we start pulling them up. We feel so sorry for them and their little tykes, we just don’t have the heart to—yeah, you’re not buying that, are you? Would you believe we have terrible allergies? No? Hmmm. At least they’re all organic.
I said no mayo
but you knew better than I
food that was, is trash
I have been Team #nomayo my entire life, and not because I haven’t tried it–I’ve unwillingly tried it 100s of times. Eventually you master the Scrape & Drown. Scrape as much of the mayo off as possible, then drown the contaminated food in any other available sauce. You can still taste the biohazard, but you can trick yourself into thinking it won’t kill you.
I balanced that egg on the mustard,
Trying hard to fool myself.
No surprise later that day
When it catapulted off the shelf.
SPLAT! On my foot it fell
From its too precarious nest.
Vaulting over the relish with gusto
When the fridge door I did wrest.
Oh…okay…I loudly sighed
As I wiped the yolk off my leg.
At least now the problem’s resolved
Of storing that extra egg.
I like to give the universe opportunities to surprise me by violating the laws of physics. It hasn’t happened yet, but I hold out hope.
O, the glorious Outdoors!
We marvel at your Splendor!
Except for that last camping trip
When you put me through the blender.
Three days at the local State Park,
Should have been a plate of s’mores.
After two days we were done.
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
We lost one kid for quite a while
On the banks of the Willamette.
Frantically searched and called for an hour,
Nightmares running the gamut.
Until I went to get the Rangers
Riding my bike, heart steeled,
And found him in the motorhome,
Giggling at the pages of Garfield.
Okay, that ended well, I guess,
So we didn’t go home right away.
Dad and I had a couple of stiff ones.
Tomorrow would be a new day!
Let’s start that day with pancakes!
The favorite breakfast of the boy!
Oh my god, this version of mix
Is loaded with processed soy.
For most people, no worries,
The texture’s a little different.
We got to call the ambulance
From the rural fire department.
An ambulance in a campground
Makes you instant celebrities.
While he rode his bike that afternoon,
I repeatedly answered, “How is he?”
We spent the rest of the trip
Reacting to everything at DEFCON5.
We were completely done having fun.
We just wanted to get home alive.
It is my sincere hope that this last trip will forever be The Worst Camping Trip Ever®. If it gets worse, it edges into actual life-altering events. It’s a bit on my mind as we prepare for the next one. The campground is by the ocean. I’m considering requiring life jackets 24/7.
The Ancients thought the solar eclipse
Was the wrath of the great I Am.
In modern times, there’s wrath indeed–
In this God-forsaken traffic jam.
Oregon normally has a population of around four million people, not counting Sasquatch. On Monday, thanks to the solar eclipse, we’re supposed to have an extra million visitors in the state (and not evenly dispersed). The traffic started yesterday, and the logjam of RVs, rental cars, and out-of-towners will only get worse. (If you’re wondering why Oregon is especially blessed with solar tourism, we are the closest destination for all of Asia.)
We live just outside the band of totality. I am NOT driving the 20 miles to be in totality on Monday. We’re going to hang out with our neighbors, drink up the champagne they don’t want to move to Idaho, and not be in the car for six hours.
Side note: That little orange dot in the glasses is the sun. I hope everyone feels like they got their money’s worth afterwards.
Plant the seeds
Or till the sod,
You’ll find our
Homely gastropod.
He ate my frisé,
Peas and beans,
Chowed all the leaves
And in-betweens.
Then slimed away,
Full fed and smug.
Next week’s menu?
Salted slug.
I’m not sure why Oregon has a state microbe (brewer’s yeast), but not a state mollusk. Specifically, why isn’t the slug serving in some official capacity? Lord knows we have enough of them. We could encase them in decoupage and sell them as souvenirs. I say it’s time we force this lazy garden grifter into some real responsibility. I just haven’t figured out how to keep the tiny sashes on yet.
the Erratic Rock
got stoned with Canadians
woke up in Oregon
This 36-ton Canadian rock sits on the top of a short hill in Yamhill County, Oregon. It was carried here, likely encased in glacial ice, during the pre-historic Missoula floods. There’s a very brief hike to get to it, long enough for your kids to think there might be something other than a rock to look at when you’ve arrived.
I adore the Erratic Rock, because the idea of a boulder acting unpredictably, even whimsically, is so delicious. I like to think it rebelled against its Canadian mountain parents and hitched a ride. “You guys don’t understand me! I’m different, I don’t want to hold up a mountain for the rest of my life!!”
YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY 