Pare a Pair of Pears, Please
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Tag Archives: silliness
Unbalanced
Love always makes us a little nutty, and that’s not a complaint.
After all, it’s the only explanation for how I’ve managed to be so loved all of my life!
One could do a whole lot worse than beginning and ending with love.
If You’re Not Growing, You’re Disintegrating
Decrepit Like Everybody Else
I ought to get my rear in gear; encroaching entropy
Challenges my mere existence, yes, the being-ness of me—
Why, I’ll be disappearing soon, with chaos on the rise—
Order is losing ground to it, and much to my surprise,
Growth falls to dissolution at a speed I comprehend
Is likely to outlast me, too, as I fade to my end—
And now I am unraveling, unwinding, getting old
And obsolete, for that’s the end of every tale that’s told.
Goodbye to all you younger things: relish your hour of youth—
You’ll all join me, and soon enough, and that’s the simple truth.
Keeping My Eyes Open
Let’s not quibble about why I’m here; just show some respect for my dedication. I keep watch, I am the guardian, I stand undaunted at attention. I am a tireless protector. Never mind that I’m protecting what I hope might be my lunch, or at the least, my plaything for the while. I am a cat, and that is what the best of us cats do. It is nature and vocation.
The mouse living in there, well, he might have a slightly different point of view. But let’s be honest: his place in the natural scheme of things is as a cat’s toy or treat, isn’t it just. So I shall perch here and keep my patience, and never you mind criticizing my ways. That would be too—well, human of you. And you didn’t want to share your house with a mouse, now, did you! Just look away. I’m busy here.
Meeting the New Kid
Did you know that there are creatures you didn’t know you knew? Of course you knew it. After all, there’s the whole race of super-characters, multiple species like the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster, Dracula and Tinkerbell, Wonder Woman and Wolverine peopling our universe, or at least some parallel ones, so we’re pretty well surrounded by fantastic fellow creatures if we’re willing and able to recognize them.
I think that perhaps part of the reason I’ve so long loved living so deeply in my imagination is that, having the social anxiety I’ve always dealt with when it comes to human-type people, I find I’m fond of fictional company and its many quirks and quizzical qualities. Not that I would necessarily be more masterful or even less shy in the midst of make-believe characters: I’m perfectly capable of being intimidated by the magnificence of pretend persons or frightened by the nastiness of the wicked ones just as easily as by real folk.
So you’ll forgive me if, despite his appearance of being slow-moving, benign, and perhaps a touch dim-witted yet perfectly friendly, I take my time getting to know the Bumblesaurus. He just wandered into the backyard when I wasn’t looking and made himself at home under a mulberry seedling. Yes, you got that right: he’s four centimeters long. Did I mention that I’m a nervous type? I mean, you only have to be the size of a flea to spread the plague all over Europe and kill off hordes of humans, right? I really do have to remind myself to give everyone, not least of all the Bumblesaurus, the benefit of the doubt. As they probably all do me.
Slow-Moving Cars & Shiny Objects
Distractions abound. One split second of inattention can lead to disaster, whether it’s the roadside wildflowers that make me fail to notice the brake lights ahead of me or the glittery wings of a metallic beetle that keep me from realizing that everybody in my promenading party has walked on ahead without me and I don’t quite know where. Not such great and significant dramas in the grand scheme of things, these, but small indicators to remind me that things could have been so much worse if I hadn’t been so fortunate, and might be yet if I don’t learn from the nudges.
The best fortune in them is, of course, that I’m cautioned before the crack of doom. How much better to be alerted by noticing the swerve I had to make to avoid plowing into the slowed traffic, or by realizing I have to catch up with my strolling companions than that I actually caused a crash or hiked right off the trail into uncharted wilderness alone. A little jolt is an occasion for large thankfulness.
That’s how I travel through life, bumbling along its unmapped corridors with my faulty personal GPS and my avid, easily attracted magpie eye. I bump into life as much as I take a route through it. I’m just relieved to have lived this long without disappearing down any of an infinite number of rabbit holes and being lost forever in the warrens, tripping in them obliviously only because I was too mesmerized by nonessential Other Things along the way.
Cautionary Tale
Years ago our family lived near a wooded area where all of the kids in the neighborhood loved to explore and build forts and play, but the youngest among us wasn’t permitted to go there alone, for obvious reasons. The training was attested to by the little girl from next door who announced quite solemnly to my mom one day that her “mother always told [her] never to go into The Forest.” This little ditty is for Micki.
Don’t Go into the Forest
From long ago, our elders cautioned us
That in the wood there lurked a dreadful beast
Whose fangs were fiercely fine, and for whose feast
A hearty haunch of whole rhinoceros
Was scarce an appetizer, and the main
Entrée, a village full of soldiers, knights
And heroes snapped up, each, in single bites,
Made more delicious by their screams of pain.
Our fear of this stayed abstract, since the hurt
Inflicted, terrible enough, was made
For full-grown animals and men, which stayed
The doom from us—but then we learned dessert
Was Children, and we changed our minds, for good,
About the lure of wand’ring in the wood!
My Opinion, and Welcome to It
Here’s a little something I’d Tweet if I had an actual Twitter account, because I’m quite sure the whole rest of the world *really* needs to know it.
Just My Opinion
While I pontificate and muse
On any topic I should choose,
You can’t be blamed for heading east
When I head west or, in the least,
For covering your weary ears—
Like any sentient who hears
Such foolishness as what I spout—
But don’t talk, too; I’ll just tune out.
Let’s Just Hug It Out
The Cuddlesome Kraken
You think that I’m all hands, my love,
Controlling, holding tightly so?
Don’t wriggle, struggle, push and shove;
This is the only way I know!
I love you, darling, s’truth I do,
So let’s just cut right to the chase—
Let me wrap all my arms ’round you—
Embrace, embrace, embrace, embrace!
There’s No Pleasing That Woman
So Crotchety behind Her Crocheting
Does this seem troubling to you? All grans aren’t tiresome, it’s true,
But this old lady nurses ire as if she kept eternal fire
Cooking for gleeful roasting of all who would dare to fall in love,
To be successful, find delight in anything, morning to night,
That is not hers, and hers alone; she glowers as if from the throne
Of Empire, threatening with doom all who would dare challenge the gloom
With which she paints her own worldview; I find her hideous, don’t you?
The only worse soul, I should think, would be my own, if I would sink
To wishing others ill because they weren’t as awful as I was.
Art-Colored Glasses 