Yup

Still funny.

Really do - Click for self-esteem booster!

I am telling you what - I was doing some fine midnight websurfing the night I discovered this invaluable button.

If nothing else it will really crack you up.

On second thought - I HAVE noticed that the movies I think are HYSTERICAL sometimes get a sideways glance.

But really, it's runny - ha! now see I think that is priceless! Runny! Classic typo.

Like I was saying - it's funny, so give it a whirl.

Don't Be a Litter Bug

Have you ever seen a tree eating sign - make that a sign eating tree?

Nope, me neither.

Huh.

Bad window...

bad, bad window.

Oh no.

So apparently it is soooo hot here that the tar holding the window in place melted? Something's gotta give.

Really.

It's great to be FIVE!

According to Bill Cosby, "It's great to be FIVE!" And Charlie believes him. He is three - and a half - and he told his soon-to-be Aunt Mary that he was five. He sooooo wants to be five because when you are five you get to go to Kindergarten.

Kindergarten. Big whoop. The beginning of 17 loooooooong years of education. I used to long to get on the school bus too, until I did. School is not all you have dreamed it up to be my little Chaz, but maybe for you it will be.

But about the pic...Little Laurel got a kitten and named him Smokey. I seem to be the most boring pet namer in all of the universe. Why is that? I had a black horse and named him Blackie. A grey cat is Smokey.

My mom reminds me that I had an imaginary friend I called Collijosin. Now that is a name!

I did have a cat - she came prenamed - Spark Plug, until we realized he was a she - common problem I know. We ended up calling her Sparky, but not me, I called her Woofie. Woofie because she would get right up in your face and bark a meow at you, like she, her puffy little self was going to let you know exactly what she thought. And she did. Woofie was a cool cat.

Ha.

But really, Woofie was a cool cat.

MEOW.

MeeOWH.

Mee OWH.

MEEowh.

Love that shot!

How cute am I? Jeans rolled up, pig tails, nerdy glasses?! Not everyone can pull this look off. In fact very few can.

Haha!

The other day I was in Publix with my little guy. He was being a very good little guy because he had just gotten a new transformer with the money great gram gave him. He asked to go to the turkey section - the deli - so we waited for slices, one of ham, one turkey, and one chicken. As he was gobbling down his on-the-go meal, I was working his new purchase from the robot version into the truck.

When I was finished I handed it to him saying, "You know Charlie, not every mom knows how to transform a transformer." He knew his mom had something special.

Hehe!

I crack myself up.

Circa 1991

Flashback - Here's a photo of a Jersey girl at the Senior Prom! Charlie's having a fit...will write more later.

Lil Buccaroo

This little boy sometimes does not want to listen. But on this day he learned Mama means business and cars are no joke.

I shoulda been a quarterback.

New Role

This summer I find myself in a new role, that of tutor - of writing. A neighbor's daughter, like me, has the passion to write. So today I shared with her Freytag's Pyramid, protagonist, antagonist, and parallel structure. We also edited the first three chapters of her novel.

Freytag's Pyramid

Exposition - Background knowledge, characters, and setting

Rising Action - A conflict is introduced; subplots are introduced

Climax - The highest point of action

Falling Action - Subplots are wrapped up

Resolution - Conflict is resolved; main character may have come to realization because of process

Protagonist - The main character, readers want this character to succeed

Antagonist - The character opposing the main character, often seen as the "bad guy"

What else needs to be said?

Defenestrate. Oh so often I have felt the need to verb this. If I were to invent a word - uh, think I have already accomplished that more than once - this would have been it. Not only is it capturing an action but also an emotion, loads of emotions. Read into it as much as you will.

By the way - the word of the day is one of the dailes - daylies - dalies - I get in my mail (and for good reason - seeing as I am an English teacher who cannot spell worth a darn) from Dictionary.com.

Love it!

The kids refer to urbandictionary.com but seeing as I wasn't born in 1991...

Word of the Day: Defenestrate

defenestrate \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\, transitive verb:

To throw out of a window.

Some of his apparent chums . . . would still happily defenestrate him if they caught him near a window. -- Andrew Marr, "No option bar the radical one", Independent, July 5, 1994

I defenestrated a clock to see if time flies!-- Lane Smith, quoted in "Who's News", Time for Kids, September 25, 1998

A woman, driven to fury by the manner in which her lover prefers to lavish his attention on a match on the telly rather than her, starts to throw his possessions out of the window. He's finally moved to stop her when she tries to defenestrate his new Puma boots. -- Jim White, "Budgets substantial enough to buy most of the clubs in the Endsleigh", Independent, April 6, 1996

Defenestrate is derived from Latin de-, "out of" + fenestra, "window." The noun form is defenestration.

Aqua Boy

Now here's a boy who is way too excited to be blue. After lunch, I laid in his bed with him and read him his toddler Rhyme Bible. After a hundred pages or so I slipped out of the room to take a shower. Apparently Charlie did the same, only the intention was not the same.

Stepping onto the bathmat, to hear the sound of silence only reassured my reading had settled my little guy right into dreamland. Boy was I wrong. A quick peek into his room to noiselessly shut the door brought the discover that my sweet angel baby was not tucked safely in his bed. On the contrary, after a one man woman hunt, it was I who discovered a tiny blue man huddled in the corner, stoic and smurf blue. A shade I have never truly see on a human being, although the man on NBC Today, who took too much silver supplement, did have a blueish-silverish tint, my boy was BLUE.

Blue like he wanted to travel with the Group, of which he had never heard.

My reaction? Silence. Followed by "now Charlie you know you aren't supposed to play with mommies markers..." So I grabbed Aqua Boy, my camera, and handed him the soap. (The pumice stone was his idea.

Plopping myself on the toilet, I just had to snap some shots of this moment. Today, I officially name the day before St. Patty's Day, the day the water ran blue. (Ran as in right down his tummie into the tub.)

Oh, boy.

Uncle Wes's Monster - (dot com)

Uncle Wes works at Monster.com, so he stocks us with a good supply of monsters. But this is by far the best! Uh, I could use a few more of those thermos coffee mugs with lids.

As you can tell, Charlie is not as interested in saying "thank you" as he is in seeing if the monster can fly, and how high.

Mariposa

Mariposa

A ray of light by shuttered pane does pass,
Bringing with it refraction;
New light shone on air, fire, water, and stone,
How so I am enraptured.

Enveloped by your rocking embrace,
Sweet breathe’s satisfaction;
Needing only what holds a fleck afloat;
Soft lips set skin ablaze.

Drawn to you without consent,
So deep is this attraction,
The path was set by moon, sun, and stars,
Crackled words fan the flame.

From yellowed love letters, neatly stacked and bowed,
Blossomed tangible abstraction;
Apple seed to orchard, in one short springtime day
Is illuminated by dawn’s freshest ray.

The Key To Life

The Dalai Lama told me (however indirectly) that the key to a fulfilled life is happiness…and from this comes a memory, a memory repeated again and again. (Now I am a superstitious person so probably should not share this but for the sake of relevance, I will – for now, unless I decide otherwise later, in which case you will not be reading this.)

The excitement of the day has come to a peak, voices of the ones I love crack as they half-whisper half-sing, whole-heartedly, “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you…” This special, once-a-year moment, has again arrived and it is the time to take that breath to cease the fire that glows just before a birthday wish is granted. The wish so many people believe in; the wish so many say must be kept to one’s self in order to come true. But since I have learned what the Dalai Lama has taught me, I feel I can share my one almost-constant wish. I say almost-constant because from the time I can first remember wishing this wish until now I am almost sure that I wavered and wished for a pony or something of the sort. I take this wish very seriously – doesn’t everybody – a chance for a wish to be granted, your very own genie, and one rub of the lantern? Far more important than New Year’s resolutions, which by nature are made to be broken, more important than thank you notes, though my mother would cringe to hear this be said, even more important whispering into Santa’s ear, though my son would never agree.

First because these are things that are said to someone, maybe promised, thanked, or requested of someone. Whereas a wish, a true birthday wish, is as magical as birth itself. An overwhelming how, or wow, or ahh! Or could it possibly be? To whom are you wishing? Audience unknown, destination devine? To say the least it is not a last minute thought because what if that wish really will come true? If wishes really do come true? Would you waste yours on some material thing? Only a fool would fretter away such a gift, such a chance, such an opportunity. Even skeptics must have a thought in their mind as they release that big birthday puff. A birthday wish can only be equated to wishing on a shooting star, which can prove even more exciting because its frequency, or even the very possibility of it ever occurring again that exact moment that you just may happen to be looking up, can never be determined, scheduled, or predicted making these wishes that get sent into the universe wishes of the moment wishes determined by circumstance, may be arguably be less significant. Some may say, to those inclined to believe in things larger than they, a wish may be a passive way to pray.

But the birthday wish may also hold this importance because of the day. Amazingly, somehow, however many years ago, on this very day, you were brought onto this earth, you breathed that very first breath that now is expelled again in the hopes that some fragment of a miracle might again occur.

So with this breath I wish for happiness, as I said, for as long as my mind allows me to recall. Prompted by this lesson taught, the key to a fulfilled life is happiness, is the memory of this scheduled release of hope through breath over flickering wax sticks of light quickly pressed through frosting to cake, as a way to celebrate me, my life, my being on earth - with them, to my being me. This thought is that of the cake, the celebration, the gathering, and the breath released the same moment as my repeated wish for happiness, to be happy. Why wish for this? Is it because I was unhappy? Because I did not have happiness? Or was it more simply, my life felt unfulfilled? What purpose did I have? What good did I serve?

The key to a fulfilled life is happiness, from this grows a memory. It is a memory of a breath filled with hope, not of regret or want. If the ultimate goal is happiness, happiness must have various levels because at that moment, with that breath was not the release of sorrow but that of the belief that what could then be defined as happiness was no where close to the level of fulfillment. My knowing, my unconscious knowing, that there was more to life than cakes and candles and brightly wrapped boxes of wants astounds me, so simplistic yet so complex. The pleasure derived from this day is just that, pleasure. Maybe happiness in knowing I am loved and pleasure in rich chocolate cake and unwrapping prizes, the need for the bread, the blood of life and the desire for the things that might make it better.

Can a thing bring happiness or is it just pleasure? Why is it the things that give us pleasure may be eliminated and yet eliminating those bringing us happiness are as essential as water itself?

Pure pleasure. Sustained happiness. Are those not oxymorons? Should it not be sustained pleasure and pure happiness? Could it be I have always known the key? That the struggle, the frustration, the pain were to get me where I need to be? The key to life is happiness. It does not come in a jar, in a can, a pill, or a drink. There is no phrase magical enough, no wish important enough, no star bright enough to bring happiness to one who’s life is unfulfilled.

The key, as the Dalai Lama told me, is to want what you have, to love who you are and to desire nothing.

Underground.

It's where I go when things get too much.

Big HUGE Golf Ball Moon

My little wordsmith loves to say, "Big HUGE..."

Big HUGE golf ball moon.

Big HUGE boo boo on his belly.

Big HUGE cheese.

Charlie and the big HUGE golf ball moon. The full moon lies in the beach sky. Venus shines high over the water. Uncle Jon points out Orion's belt, sword, arms and a leg. My eyes go straight to the belt, find the sword, and then thoughts fleet to elsewhere.

The sun rises over Bayshore in the strawberry sky.



Big HUGE pain in the butt.

Bug HUGE sweet heart.

Big HUGE love of my life.

Perfect Love

All my life I’ve been waiting to meet you
Waiting to have you
Waiting to hold you

Now that you’re here –
I can’t get enough of you
Don’t want to spend a minute away from you

You sleep and I watch you
You breathe; I exhale…
Your smile wells my eyes with tears

My smile is made for you
My ears created to hear just you
I could spend forever with only you
-- Only you’d grow tired of that.

I’ll grow old thinking of you
Loving you, smelling you, hugging you
Holding you

I loved the thought of you
And love the flesh of you
Forever love you is what I’ll forever do.

To My Dear, Dear Friend

May 24th, 2006

To My Dear, Dear Friend,
Three days after getting engaged.

JC-

Thank you for being who you are to me.
You deserve every wonderful thing that is happening to you.

Be proud of who you are and what you have.
You are who you are because of the life you have lived.
Embrace this.
Reward yourself with joy and love.

Treat yourself well.
Treat yourself as well as you treat others and as well as others treat you.
Being married will become a part of you, it will not take over who you are.
You will retain your shape and enrich your life.

Cry when you want to cry.
Laugh when you want to laugh.
Love as you need to be loved.
Give what you may not have gotten.
Forgive what needs to be forgotten.
Find a happy medium, don’t forget your friends, or yourself, but never forget your Love.

You now are a part of a pair.
You are two crystal champagne glasses sitting in a china closet.
Delicate.
Strong.
Beautiful.
Full of fun.
Together, surrounded by other treasured things.

Let yourself be who you are.
Don’t be sorry for having it all.
Work hard to keep what you have.
Strive for more,
But most of all, love, love, love.


-LP

The Master

We have a routine, Charlie and I. Every morning as I am changing him he tells me about the dreams he had the night before. Last night there were frogs in the closet, one was Aunt Sadie.
On the drive to school, he sometimes tells me a story. This morning's was precious:

"Where’d the puppy go?" This was Charlie’s response to my pointing out a stocky, peppy, white spotted Jack Russell terrier who anxiously pulled his owner across the road.

To this, one of his many, tireless questions, was my response, "He’s on a walk with his master." Normally when I respond to his questions, I try to prompt a further response, or at least give more information, which usually inspires yet another question. So I went on to say, "Do you know who Rudy’s master is?"

Charlie said he did not know. "You are Rudy’s master." I said. "That means you are the boss of Rudy, that he loves you the most."

Barely a second passed, when he asked, "Who is the Dame?"

"Baa, baa, black sheep lives down the lane."

Smiling into my rear-view mirror, I told him that I am the dame.