When shirts are shiftless

Possible inspiration for Trendy Top

Shirts, for much too long, have been less than diligent in performing shirt duties. The primary job is to cover flesh. As much flesh as possible. There should be shirt to spare, for instances when arms lift over heads or kneeling/bending/sitting postures are assumed.

Shirts that actually do what they were born to do are in short shrift.
The bottoms of shirts and the tops of bottoms barely have a passing acquaintance with each other. Sometimes they can’t even see each other.
Young men have to appear in public wearing shirts and pants with irreconcilable differences, and become unwitting advertising pawns for the manufacturers of their undergarments.
Young women, (and, tragically, some not-so-young women) also struggle with shirts that have taken out a restraining order against their pants.
The ladies either tug shirts down, pants up, or give up the fight altogether and just allow their flesh to hang out in public.
Some poor females, in a futile attempt to do what their shirts refuse to, place tattoos in that strategic no-man’s land area between shirt bottoms and bottom tops. My heart bleeds for these young women (and, tragically, some not-so-young women) who hope the butterfly splayed across the lower spine can achieve the modesty of a good, long shirt.

But (oh joy!)
Someone invented the greatest modesty-assister since suspenders.
I saw it advertised during a recent episode of ‘Murder, She Wrote’.
The Trendy Top is a little band of fabric that goes under one’s miserly shirt and spans the wasteland between tops and bottoms.
All flesh in the mid-section is covered in your choice of 4 fashionable colors.
Instant modesty!
The inventor of Trendy Tops deserves a holiday named for her/him.

My only complaint is that, at this point, Trendy Tops are just being marketed to women.
I plan to write to the manufacturers and suggest they add camouflage and possibly a nice little skull pattern. The young men of the world will be clamoring for a Trendy Top of their own.

I’ll be purchasing these by the gross and never again be stuck for a birthday/bridal shower/bat mitzvah gift idea.

Through the Portal

Readers of fantasy, if they are honest, would admit that there are times they want to visit Middle Earth or Camelot or Narnia or possibly Hogwarts when the Death Eaters aren't in residence.
Portals to fantasy worlds being few and far between, one has to look elsewhere.
This past Saturday I found my portal.

I didn't find any fauns, hobbits, wizards or castles, but the trees seemed to talk and the water murmured and the breezes whispered.
And I want to go back someday.

 

BLACKBIRD WAR

Also known as:
     Battle for Wind Chime Way
Locations:
    Main battle: Soffit
    Minor skirmish: Gutters
Combatants:
    Homeowner
    Blackbirds
Date:
    May, 2012

Cause:
    Territory War
   
First strike:
    Blackbirds attack Wind Chime Way home to force new inroads to soffit.
    Minor offensive against gutter

First Counterstrike:
    Homeowner mounts ladder
    Strategic  rag inserted in soffit opening to restrict access
    Minor defensive action against combatants in gutter. They flee without a fight.

   

Second offensive:
    Blackbirds tear down rag

Second counterstrike:
    Homeowner erects scaffolding
    Nails opening shut with aluminum, cutting off access to insurgents inside soffit

Third strike:
    Blackbirds call in reinforcements
    Attack aluminum from inside and out

Third counterstrike:
    Homeowner calls in reinforcement.

    Uses scaffolding to disassemble soffit.
    Captures enemy combatants
    Destroys stronghold
   
Aftermath:   
    Homeowner releases captives
    Birds mount futile, but disturbing, guerrilla warfare on roof of  battle site.

Outcome:
    Homeowner declares victory but birds keep vigil, watching and...waiting.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

It would be easy to bake a 24-blackbird pie.
Set out a big pie tin.
The blackbirds will find it, move in, and stay forever.
You wouldn’t even need a top crust because, if the ones living in my house are any indication, blackbirds can’t find their way out of anything with more than one side.

Our blackbirds nest in the most unconventional and least homelike areas.
Trees are so last season.
The hot locations for blackbirds this year are:
-our soffits
-our gutters
The parents fly in and out of the soffit and gutter, build the nest, fly out for twigs, fly in with food, fly out again to get away from the kids.
In all this coming and going wouldn’t you think they would remember to train their offspring so they, too, can fly out?
Oh. No.
Our home echoes with the frantic sound of cranially-challenged young birds who don’t understand why squawking and pecking and fluttering are a suitable alternative to just flying out.
The equally frantic parents, faced with the options of
a) demonstrating to their babies how to fly UP from the gutter/ OUT of the soffit.
OR
b) dive-bombing the house to peck through the overhang and free their children
of course chose (b)
The only break in the attack came when the parents snatched some lunch and flew INTO THE SOFFIT AND GUTTER TO FEED THEIR CHILDREN.

I’m not sure how I feel about the survival of the fittest, but do we really want a generation of blackbirds who can’t fly their way out of a gutter with no roof or a soffit with no sides?

Tomorrow: The Husband/Blackbird War

Flowers from a friend

Do you write poetry? I don’t.
In grade school I would run through the alphabet to figure out how
many words could rhyme with ‘house’. Can you believe ‘wouse’ isn’t a word?
The limerick I agonized over for a college English class was given the cold shoulder by
the professor.
And free form? Hardest of all. Every word needs to count and I never use 13 words when 30 will do.

But when a dear friend sent flowers for my birthday, I wanted to write a poem.
I would do a cinquain.
A cinquain will tolerate no nonsense, no verbosity. It gives you 5 lines, 11 words, a defined structure and several parts of speech and orders you not to mess around with it. So I tried.

By the way parents, this could be a fun summer activity to do with the kids.
Yes Junior, you can go out and play rugby with your pals. But first write a cinquain about it.

Enjoy your Monday. And then tell me about it in a cinquain.

Flowers
lovely colored
flood with fragrance
friendship’s blossoms knockout doldrums
roses

You Must Have Been... But–

You must have been a beautiful baby,

BUT BABY, LOOK AT YOU NOW!

 

To sweep, perchance to clean

Give a Prude a big enough broom and she’ll sweep the world.

Don’t give a Prude a big broom.

Please.

If you’ve been with me for any amount of time, you have gotten a glimpse into the world of Prudedom. You know it encompasses so much more than excessive regard for modesty. Our excesses reach past modesty and encompass rules of behavior before codifying the Proper Way to do Everything.

Take our sweeping situation, for example. A fully vested Prude knows there is a proper way to sweep. She knows about angling into corners and moving all the furniture and shaking out the rugs. She knows it is cheating to sort of strew around the room that little line of dust left in front of the dustpan. And she would never store a broom resting on its bristles.

The problem with our full-force Prude is that she doesn’t know when to quit. She’ll finish the floor and start on the baseboards. She’ll get those done and tackle the corners of the ceiling. She’ll head outdoors to sweep her stoop, her sidewalk, her neighbor’s stoop, and if you don’t stop her she’ll be heading to Oklahoma because she heard they have a dust storm.

If you have a prude in your life, do her a kindness. Take the broom gently from her hands. Remind her that the world needs her in so many other ways. Distract her. Ask her what she thinks of droopy male pants. Tell her you just heard someone call a Canada Goose ‘Canadian’. Warn her that sometimes couples smooch in public in Oklahoma.

Prudes need you as much as you need them. They can’t monitor the modesty, behavior and propriety of the world if they are stuck in a corner swatting at cobwebs. It’s your job to remind her.