Miss Jean Louis --- the lost years

       Miss Jean Louis has been on my mind a lot, lately.  I haven't seen her in years, but I still think of her with fondness.  We went to high school together, in Djibouti, class of '77.  Go Hyenelks!  After we walked down the dirt path to the podium to receive our diplomas, she turned to me and said, "It's been a slice, see you around."  I thought we'd connect up later at the after party down by the tar pits, but I never saw her again.
       Fast forward twenty years to the late nineties when life was simpler.  I was sitting at my desk, hunched over a bowl of Ramen reading through a book about a boy who goes off to wizard boarding school, terrible script that will never go anywhere, under the dim light of my single bulb, when the familiar "Uh Oh" of the ICQ screen interrupted my thoughts.
     "MUSHIE?"
     I hadn't been called that in years!   JEAN LOUIS?  I typed.
     MUSHIE!
     HOW THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN? I typed again, a rush of excitement flooding me as I fondly recalled my old friend.  AND WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
     WORKING.  TRAVELLING WORLD IN SEARCH OF HYBRID PETS.
     WHAT?  HYBRID PETS?
     DISCOVERED A FEW.
     WHICH ONES?
     SLANGAROO.  ELOPUS. DINOMITE. FOGRAT. WOOSTER.
     I was scratching my head at this point, staring at the tiny little conversation box at the top of my computer screen. The most fantastical, far-fetched tale began to unravel as Miss Jean Louis filled me in on what I have now come to refer to as her "lost years." She described each discovery in great detail, explaining the location that she spotted each of them, their habitat, their natural instincts, their mating rituals.  They way they fought one another for dominance.  She'd been living among these hybrid animals for years, carefully documenting them in a book she was writing called The Absonome Almanac.  She subsisted off the generosity of others, doing good deeds in exchange for food and shelter in, what she called "random acts of goodwill."  She explained that she had come into town for a vacation from living in the wild, and had looked me up on a library computer while waiting for the glue to dry on a 6 foot replica of a Chinese dragon sporting the face of a little boy she used to baby-sit.
      I must have been quiet for some time because she typed:
      MUSHIE?  WHAT DO YOU THINK?
      I wasn't sure how to answer her.  It all seemed so far-fetched at the time.  Finally, I typed what I'd been thinking for the past several minutes.

SO... BASICALLY YOU HUNT WUZZLES? LOL

I haven't heard from her since.

What? It's April already?

April... National Poetry Writing Month.  I am NOT committing this year.  It's too easy to beat myself up when I fail.  Last year I didn't make it through April OR November.  So this year I'm keeping my expectations low.  Maybe I'll write 30 poems... maybe I'll write one.  Maybe I'll write a novel in November, maybe I'll just read one.

Having said that, I was curious so I headed over to the National Poetry writing month website http://www.napowrimo.net/ to check out the prompt for the day.

 Today, I challenge you to write a lune. This is a sort of English-language haiku. While the haiku is a three-line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable count, the lune is a three-line poem with a 5-3-5 syllable count. There’s also a variant based on word-count, instead of syllable count, where the poem still has three lines, but the first line has five words, the second line has three words, and the third line has five words again. Either kind will do, and you can write a one-lune poem, or write a poem consisting of multiple stanzas of lunes. Happy writing!

A "Lune" huh?  I can handle that!

Warm spring days are here,

Feels like shorts...

Time to shave my legs!

Happy National Poetry Writing Month!  And Happy Unseasonably Early Spring!

Laura

Off to the Races!

That was a lot of fun!!! We spent our Saturday morning in Prince George, yesterday, as spectators and Connor's cheering section at the District Kub Kar rally (Oops, I didn't know Kubs started with a K, I've been telling everyone he's a Cub Scout this whole time!)

I will say, growing up in Girl Guides has left me so inadequately prepared for the challenge that is Kub Kar building.  But I think we held our own.  My Dad helped Connor with the sawing and sanding of it, Connor did the designing and I wielded the glue gun, and then, the final step, was hammering the wheels on.

Which might just be where we lost speed.  A couple of his wheels turn inwards and all are somewhat wobbly.  But we held our own and we represented our town proudly!  

The race was completely computerized (see the videos that follow this post) and was right down the a fraction of a second.  It was fascinating!  I'm told, though, that at our local rally in two weeks, we're going to find things are a lot more old-school (manual).

Next year... we are going to work on aerodynamics... or not.  The design is the fun part, after all.

Kub Kar races

Kub Kar races

Kub Kar races

Kub Kar races - Connor's is the white car

Kub Kar races - An example of what a crappy cinematographer I would make

Kub Kar races --- this one was a do-over

P is for Pizza

So we came across this sign on the back of our local pizza place last night.  Yes, I'll admit it, Friday nights are pretty much always "take out" nights.  I hate cooking on Fridays.  There's nothing particularly different about a Friday than any other weekend night, but Fridays just feel like a good night to let someone else handle the dishes. Anyway, I digress.  

I had my three year old with me.  She likes go on any errand I go on, be it picking up pizza, getting groceries, running into the post office, the bank,  the dump... I'm going to miss that when she outgrows it.   So she sees this sign on the back of the building and says, very matter-of-factly, "That means P is bad!"

I look to see what she's pointing at and I'm a bit taken aback, and pretty impressed, that she can identify the letter P.  I agreed, "Yes, it kind of does!"  That seems to be a good enough interpretation for her.

"P is bad, so no P here!"  She continues.

And then it clicks for her and she figures out why this sign is hanging on the pizza restaurant... "P is bad to eat!  They don't put P on their pizzas!"  she triumphantly explains.  And she's so proud of her ability to translate the sign a that I'm not going to tell her otherwise (especially since I'd parked right in front of the sign.)

So, come on down to the Cozy Corner Pizza Parlour where you can rest assured that they will not P on your pizza!  The sign says so!

I almost P'ed myself laughing...