My Little Eye
Yay!
Dan, Dan the Dancing Man has just been crowned king of...
(Teacher's Edition)I'm not surprised in the least, for I already knew the outcome of this contest way in advance.
Didn't I
tell you you'd win, Dan?
Yes, I most certainly did.
Oh, lurker people from Rochester, don't you fret -- no funny business involved here. It's just that I have a darling little third eye right in the middle of my forehead, which has been known to terrify those in my life at times, but mostly, it's just really, really cool. Very useful for predicting the future, or reading people's minds, or telling folks what time it is without using a watch, or bending spoons, or levitating refrigerators, or...
Anyway, CONGRATULATIONS to Mr. Playfair! His competition was fierce, but Dan displayed tremendous professionalism, good humor, and admirably effeminate deportment throughout. Great job, sir.
His fifth grade class. as well as his children, and proud wife,
Kim, were there to help celebrate Dan's shining moment this morning. Kim looked lovely, as usual, and my boy shrieked at the top of his lungs when he saw her smiling face on the T.V. (oh, my GOD! Look, Mommy, it's THAT AUNT we know!), then he waved frantically at the television screen when the camera panned to Dan and Kim's young daughter (hi! Hello there!).
Which would be cute if it didn't disturb me so much.
All in all, a very nice morning thus far.
Now I must go work off the fifty pounds of lard that has accumulated on my buttocks over the past week.
Seriously, I seem to have misunderstood the rules of Thanksgiving or something. Perhaps not, I don't know...I mean, isn't it the norm to allot one entire pie per person? Forty-two slices of turkey? A bucket of dressing?
Well, it should be.
A Boy and His Plane
My boy...My sweet, innocent boy thing...
Late September, it was a beautiful Indian summer evening, and we were enjoying the sunset on our patio, Lar and I with our beers, the kids with their juice boxes, when my boy decided to make a paper airplane out of the "note" he "wrote" to his grandma -- a get-well note, I assumed, for my mother.
Lar dutifully folded the scribbled loose leaf into a respectable approximation of a DC-10, and handed it over to the boy. The boy thanked my husband, then, solemnly, he cradled the paper plane in the crook of his little, fat arm, and noisily sucked down the last of his juice, after which he resumed doodling with his crayons. When the boy didn't attempt a test flight, I asked him why.
"Why aren't you flying your plane, Brandon?"
"I don't want to ruin it."
"Ruin it? Oh, you won't ruin it, honey. And even if it does get a little beat up, Daddy will fix it for you, no problem."
"It's a letter to Grandma."
"Yes, I know, Brandon. She's going to love it! I'll give it to her when I visit her in the hospital tomorrow."
"No, Mommy, not
that grandma! It's for the grandma that makes cookies!"
Puzzled, I asked him why he wrote a note to Grandma Howe (my paternal grandmother who passed away last January) on a paper airplane.
"Because, Mommy, the airplane will fly up to heaven tonight, and Grandma will read it, and then she will make cookies for the angels."
Well, I don't have to tell you just how touched I was. Also, I was a bit surprised that all of this was going on inside his darling head. After all, my grandmother died last January, a grandmother that my son had only seen but a handful of times during his four years on earth, and her death hadn't been discussed since.
That night, after the boy went to bed, I retrieved the paper airplane from its take-off spot, a block of wood set on the patio table, and put it in my keepsake box.
The next morning, soon as my boy woke, he promptly ran out to the patio. I knew what he was looking for. I smiled to myself when he excitedly ran back into the house, shrieking about how the heaven-bound plane had reached its destination.
"Do you think Grandma Howe read my letter yet?"
Well,
of course she had. And she was baking cookies even as we speak.
Adorable, right?
Get this, then: The other morning as I was readying the boy for school, he stated that he was on another letter-writing mission, only this letter would be for
Nici.
He said, "I want Nici to go see Grandma Howe and make cookies with her. Would she like that, Mommy?"
My throat closed up, and I thought my heart would burst, but I managed to assure him that Nici would indeed like that. Very much so.
Flight leaves tonight.
#8 in My Series of "Incredibly Bad Poetry by Celebrities or Fictional Characters"
I am Beautifulby Sapphire Young's Butthole
I am beautiful
No matter what they say
Which is a total rip-off
From that Christina Aguilera song
Be it right or wrong
It speaks to me, anyway
I am beautiful
In so many ways
I must sing my own praises
Despite the ire it raises
With a hi and a ho
And a ding dong, ding dong
Fa-la-la, oh, Fa-la-do
I am beautiful
My mama says it's true, especially
When Papa says mean stuff
Like "Disgusting Butthole, I've had enough!"
And "Why must the Butthole situate near my face?"
Mama just smiles and
Tenderly says Grace
Not really, but I couldn't think of something good to rhyme with "face"
I am beautiful
All freckled and pink
And I always appear mischievous
With my constant little wink
Okay, I'm tired of rhyming
Goodbye
