This is Just to Say

First off, thank you to everyone who left feedback in the form of poll votes and comments on yesterday’s post; at this point it looks like adding a regular knitting rotation is somewhere between fine and good – so if you feel strongly otherwise, please head back to that post and let me know.

–

Some neighbor has put up a poetry dispenser in our neighborhood – just like a real estate flier box, or a doggie bag dispenser – but anyone can come by and either leave some poems, or pick one up if they like.

I stop by every few days, to see what’s there.  Sometimes it’s genuinely good poetry, sometimes homemade poems (of various levels of readability), sometimes jokes.**

But my top favorite entry was left in the box sometime last week.

Have you read William Carlos Williams’ poem, This is Just to Say?

The poetry dispenser dispensed it, along with an excellent response poem by Erica-Lynn Gambino that says what perhaps most of us are thinking when we read original.

Brilliant.

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**The top three stupidest “poetry” entries that I have seen are:

1) YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL

2) Roses are red.
Wine is also red.
Poetry is hard.
Wine.

3) U > *clip-art bacon picture*

the sky was

the

      sky

            was

can    dy    lu

minous

          edible

spry

        pinks shy

lemons

greens    coo    l choc

olate

s.

 

  un    der,

  a    lo

co

mo

      tive      s      pout

                                ing

                                      vi

                                      o

                                      lets

 

e.e. cummings

No photo (that I’ve seen) can capture what I imagine when I read that poem, but photography is my medium right now…

Why My Brother Ryan Is Awesome

I would like to take this opportunity to detour slightly from our travel journal to explain why my younger brother, Ryan, is one of the most awesome people you will ever meet – if you are lucky enough ever to meet him, that is.

Why?

1) It’s true.

2) I have something to share about my older brother soon, and Ryan deserves equal billing.

3) Today’s his half-birthday.

So here’s Ryan in a nutshell:  He’s very smart, and hard-working and thoughtful and creative, and I’m sure he’ll succeed at whatever he wants to do with his life.  He also loves fun and relaxation, so he’ll probably enjoy it along the way, too.

If you want to have a great time, Ryan’s the perfect companion.  He loves to play games and sports of all sorts, and is always up for anything new that sounds fun.

If you want to have a great *laugh*, Ryan’s an even better companion.  His dry and sneaky wittiness often causes me to collapse in laughter, and I’ve seen him have the same effect on others.  It’s the subtle cleverness that sneaks up and gets you.

He’s personable and cheerful and will talk happily with people of every sort, older or younger, strangers or friends.  He’s the most laid-back and outgoing member of our family (although some of the rest of us can kind of fake it) which seems to be an excellent combination – he can sit back and let others take charge or step up and take the lead equally well.

He has an eye and an appreciation for excellent design, particularly of living spaces, consumer electronics, boats, and cars.

He’s masculine, but not squeamish about doing things that don’t fit the perfect guy’s-guy mold.  He likes to dress well, and he’s a decent knitter (although hasn’t practiced enough that I’d call him extremely proficient).  His posture is better than most teenage guys’.  He wore a pink bow-tie for prom this year.

Photo taken by Sharon Kuck

(Doesn’t he look handsome?)

He’s a loyal and dedicated friend.  Two of his very best friends today have been two of his very best friends since preschool.  I’m not sure exactly when they met, but I’d guess they’ve been fast friends for about 15 years now.  Here are Ryan, Freddie (middle), and Edo (right) with their dates for prom.

Photo taken by Sharon Kuck

He’s also a loyal and dedicated brother.  He’s very close friends with Jonathan, and makes time almost every week to talk with me on the phone.

Of course, no one is perfect.  Here are Ryan’s most notable defects:

1) He does not appreciate the magnificence of corduroy.  He refused flat-out to celebrate last year’s Corduroy Day in any way.  (His parents, older sister, and brother-in-law all enjoy this fabric, especially in the wintertime, so I am not sure how this has happened.  Maybe it’s a form of teenage rebellion?)

2) He is prone to reticence; it can be a little hard to eke information out of him sometimes.  This of course is not at all a bad trait in all circumstances, and can serve a person very well sometimes.  However, if you talk with your sister on the phone on the Tuesday before prom, don’t you think you could maybe mention the fact that such a thing is happening in four days?

Photo taken by Sharon Kuck

To wrap up, I thought I’d include a limerick I wrote about Ryan 2 summers ago, that still fits him well:

He’s helpful, hard-working and sunny;

school, sports, cars or boats – he’s no dummy.

With eyes so deep brown –

at times, such a clown –

life’s better because he’s so funny!

Happy Half-Birthday, Ryan!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming…

Ode to an Upstairs Neighbor

To my disliked upstairs neighbor

(I’m sorry, but it’s true)

you’ve finally hit my limit:

I really hate living below you.

You wonder why, you ask me how?

I’ll tell you in a jiffy.

I think I’ll even make it rhyme –

now wouldn’t that be nifty?

You stomp around above me,

jump rope till the paintings fall,

your washer shakes my ceiling,

your leaking something stains my wall.

Your cowbell playing rankles

after the third week straight,

and your thwacking drums in Rockband

as well begin to grate.

You smoke outside my front door

and throw bread loaves in my tree,

talk too loudly on the telephone

and steal my hummers from me!

The overpopulated deer

eat corn they’re fed by you.

Do you hope for extra roadkill,

so you can help the vultures too?

And when your boyfriend dumps you,

I must stay up all night

to listen to you wail and cry

as you replay the fight.

(I also hear the screaming scraps

you get into on the stairs,

as well as those your guests have

after a lot too many beers.

At least the police finally came

after the last of them;

I’m glad they took your roommate

even if was at 3 am.)

And now this last, worst outrage

though once may have come to naught,

on top, has outdone all the rest –

you take my parking spot!

I realize I haven’t got

a house to call my own,

and with it wanted privileges –

my car’s night spot’s on loan –

but that’s my very limit!

The last that I’ll endure!

So with this poem, I hope I can

some stress relief procure.

Copyright puddle-wonderful life, 2012

(Hey, it worked for The Pioneer Woman!)

…..

I wrote this in the late summer of last year, after many years of apartment dwelling and many frustrating and annoying experiences.  Each of these things did actually happen to us – but this is a composite portrait, not a description of one single person.  (Although some of our neighbors were responsible for more of the offenses than others….)

I am posting it here now:

1) hopefully to afford some amusement to anyone who stops by;

2) because today was a very full and busy day and I didn’t have time to compile a post about our Paris trip;

3) and mostly because for the last few months I have been very busy and stressed with a project (graduate school) that I am trying to finish, and I have at times wondered if we should have waited to buy a home instead of springing for it last fall, since I have not had time to keep it up or decorate it as we had hoped – in fact, we have not even unpacked past what we did the first week that we lived here.  Our upstairs is full of boxes and we have no bedroom furniture, and it’s easy to think that we should have just continued at the apartment until I had time to deal with an actual house.  But I am really extremely glad to be living where we are – we have space and a wonderfully large kitchen (from my perspective, at least) and a quiet neighborhood, and most importantly, quiet and respectful neighbors.  It’s good to have a reminder from time to time what we’ve left behind – and to be grateful for the situation we’re in, even if the upstairs is a giant mess and the floors haven’t been swiffered in two months.