His words…
I may have just gotten in a lot of trouble for disassembling a good portion of the steel siding around the front entrance door to the shop…. so I could grab a baby sparrow that fell down into the metal channel with mom and dad freakin’ out….
Worth it.
Definitely worth it.
Yet one more of the many reasons I am proud to call this guy my friend.
It was my third week back at work after my husband’s passing. Still early in my path of grieving, the okay days were the ones spent staying one step ahead of the tears in want of falling at any given moment. The better days were the ones I got through simply by rote. This particular day was a cross between the two and only I knew why. Thus, it was something of a surprise when early in the afternoon a flower delivery guy stops at my desk. My mind was understandably elsewhere and it took a moment for it even register that the flowers were for me.
I remember being perturbed as I signed for them. I was thinking who in their right mind would send me condolence flowers, at work, a solid month after the fact. I mean what else could they be? And why today of all days? I open the box to reveal two dozen red roses in a silver vase. They were lovely and smelled heavenly. After getting fresh water and arranging them, I finally read the card that came with it.
Because you thought I never would –Posslq
I loved my husband dearly, but it was a running point of contention/running joke between us on how he was not a flowers giving kind of guy. The compromise being that I received flowers on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day; that was it. And that was the way it remained. Still, in our nearly twenty years together, never had he sent flowers to work for any reason, until that day.
The signature “Posslq” -pronounced “poss-el-que”- stood for People of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. It was something we got from the late Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes” fame, where in his not quite jokingly curmudgeon way stated the IRS should add POSSLQ to the Married/Single/Head of Household options on the annual tax forms, to reflect couples who live together, but are not married. We had turned it into a silly term of endearment for each other, which we had stopped using, quite correctly, once we married. It is the only reason I knew they were from him, as no one else would have known we called each other that. I then knew why they arrived on that specific day – it was our wedding anniversary.
I learned later on in the day, after a few phone calls, that he made the arrangements for the flowers the Friday before he died. The guy at the florist shop remembered him and how he was making jokes about messing with his wife (me), on a random whim. None of which was surprising at all to those who have had the pleasure/torture of knowing my late-husband. But at that moment the incredulous reality of it set in and I burst into laughter.
I had not laughed that hard, that sincerely, since before my husband passed. One of my co-workers popped his head over the low barrier of out joined cubicles. He was smiling, happy to see me laughing and wanted to know what was so funny, so I told him. “My dead husband just sent me flowers for our anniversary.” Suffice it to say, that wiped the smile from his face, which made me laugh even more. I explained it to him and then he understood. Granted it took some convincing before he would believe that I really was all right; that my laughter was not from hysteria and I was not about to lose all it in the middle of the office floor.
My husband was the reason I lost my laughter. It made perfect sense to me he was the reason I got it back. Surprisingly, and yet not, I really was okay with it. Now, seven years after his passing, there’s always a twinge of the bittersweet in my smile when I use that vase.
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Daily Post: Bittersweet Memories
And come see what else is slicing at Two Writing Teachers:
I understand many major municipalities police dispatch units are woefully understaffed.
I understand that dispatchers have a “script” they must follow, to get the pertinent information.
I even understand that dispatchers receiving crank calls by the dozens on the daily, can easily grow jaded over years of hysterical phone calls coming in.
Still, I have to say the seemingly complete apathetic attitude of the Cleveland 911 dispatcher regarding Amanda Berry’s frantic phone disturbs me.
If you have not heard it, give a listen…
Amanda Berry 9-1-1 Call – Missing Since 2003, Found Alive 5.6.2013
Okay, on the reality side, I am not expecting any dispatcher to go all out ala Halle Berry’s character in “The Call”, so let’s not go there. However, a panicked crying woman tells she’s been missing for ten years, just became free of her abductors and needs help deserves more of a response than “We’re going to send them as soon as we get a car open.” and “Talk to them when they get there.”.
“…as soon as we get an open car”???? If Amanda Berry had not practically begged dispatch into sending a car immediately it makes one wonder just how long she could have potentially waited for assistance. Dispatch could have, and should have, placed her on hold as a car was sent out and then stayed on the line and talked to the girl, now a woman, until the police arrived. It was so clear Amanda desperately wanted to keep a connection to the dispatch until her rescue. Amanda desperately needed that connection, yet dispatch simply did the minimum, and dumped the call.
The way dispatch dismissed Amanda with “I told you they’re on their way; talk to them when they get there, OK.” sounded like an irritated parent, fussing at the child who keeps interrupting in the midst of watching a favorite show. You can all but see the dispatcher’s rolling of the eyes in annoyance. Can you imagine Berry’s confusion, frustration and fear at that moment as she was politely, but firmly being forced to hang up?
“…Check out the kidnapping in District 2…”
Even as we listen to the dispatcher transfer the information to have it processed, the complete sense of “whatevs” in the handling is near appalling.
To be on the fair side, Dispatcher Perdy (sp?), the dispatcher who took the fateful call, did her job. She took the call, got the pertinent information and transferred it to the appropriate party. That is all she is required to do. Yet, I pray no loved one of hers, if having a desperate emergency, gets processed in the same indifferent manner in which she handled Amanda Berry.
My God, all the things that could have gone so horribly wrong because of this dispatcher’s nonchalance. Thankfully this story has a happy ending, and bless you Charles Ramsey! Oh but, would I have loved to have seen the dispatcher’s face when the truth of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight came to light.
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The passionate call of the joined heart beat
Felt long past when the heart was nubile
The feeling of spring’s first blooms so sweet
The old memory that still makes me smile
It’s the urge at a concert to just weep
The comfort at night when I fall asleep
The piece that’s with me wherever I roam
In the spirit of land, of heart, of home
The knowing when it’s my time to let go
After countless days and nights on this earth
A song on the end of the world I know
That began playing since the day of my birth
As my Deity holds my life in sway
I am drenched peace, as though it’s my last day
For I know I’ve lived the best way I can
In the spirit of love to fellow man
The not so free will that brings me to here
Those voices of guidance to go or to wait
Gifts of inner light to make the dark clear
Past lessons that leads me to paths straight
The persons I feel when no one is there
When needed their presence snakes through the air
Their hands go right through me like ghosts and walls
In the spirit of the ancestral call
A coat of many colors dark and fair
Sometimes it is sparse, sometimes it flows free
Those are my scarves and my rings that I wear
The glow of words that accessorize me
The trifle of rhyme that falls just right
The feeling that haunts “post this tonight”
Paint, pencils, pens and pixels I use
In the spirit of the magic I call Muse
The delightful joy I can’t put into words
The raw anger growing above the din
The most quiet of calm I’ve ever heard
The connection of love with my close kin
The slow chill of knowing hell’s on its way
The warm glow of just being, that needs no say
And it’s to my core when I feel it
In the spirit of living in the spirit
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Your Voice–Let’s Hear It!
Mountain Dew Drops “…the most racist commercial in history”
For those of you at work or on a device that can’t/won’t let you view the video, let me break it down for you:
In a police station, on one side of the one-way glass a battered white woman, on crutches stands next to a white detective who casually sips a Mountain Dew while asking her to “nail this little sucker.” Two other men, one white and one black, presumed to be fellow detectives, are also on their side of the glass.
On the other side of the glass is a line-up of all African-American male suspects. But not just your average Joe Blow black man, no. Each male exemplifies every inner city hip-hop/urban/thug stereotype a mama could ever warn her precious babies about, and a goat.
Yes, an actual goat.
The police detective tries to get the woman to point out her assailant “..the one with four legs”, but the woman is paralyzed in fear over whatever these scary black men, and a goat, have done and might yet do to her if she talks.
To further ensure her silence, the goat with the name card of “Felicia”, is portrayed with a deep speaking voice that sounds more like a pimp character from blaxploitation films than one would imagine say – a nanny goat would sound like, as he(?) utters encouragement such as “snitches get stitches, fool” and “Keep ya mouth shut. When I get outta here, I’m gonna do you up” until the woman hobbles out of the room in tears, screaming.
You just need to watch this hot ass mess to get the full impact, but I’ll go ahead and ask the question already formed in your mind, in some fashion:
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!
So PepsiCo, tell us again, how did this bullshit come about? Mountain Dew recently released three new ads featuring a crazed goat voiced by rapper Tyler, the Creator, who was also the mastermind behind the commercials. The goat is seen attacking a waitress after she gives him the soda, fleeing a cop after getting caught with a car trunk full of the soda, and then threatening that waitress from behind the window of a criminal lineup Tyler, the Creator is a founding member of the rap group Odd Future. Never heard of them? Neither had I and I apologize for ruining that particular peace of bliss for you. It seems shock and offense are the tools of his trade for Odd Future. Tyler, known for his violent lyrics (“You’ll see the meaning of stalking/ when I pop out the dark to find you/ And that new dude that you’re seeing with an attitude/ Then proceed to fuck up your evening”), the rapper is committed to crossing boundaries of taste and decency. It is members of the group who portray the human suspects in the line up. Odd Future is a group known for trying to provoke people with their actions. And provoke they did.
In just 59 seconds, the total running length of the clip, there is
Misogyny:
The sole female in the commercial is not a cop, not even a thug, but a beaten, abused, and likely sexually assaulted woman. Because yes, this makes total sense in a soda commercial.
African-American Misandry:
It this Dewiverse it seems all black men are either misogynistic thugs, especially in the hip-hop/rap culture, or the token brother, barely noticeably standing in the background.
Stereotypes:
Black man in the urban/hip-hop/rap culture all wear du-rags, gold front teeth, white t-shirts (generally under an over-sized plaid shirt), and go around abusing women, especially white women, every chance they get.
Racism.
What? Don’t you know only the ‘good ones’, read a non-threatening black man, who knows how to stay in his place just outside of the main spotlight that shines on the others, get to be in the place with the good, read white, guys. When the detective coaches her with “the one in the du-rag” the camera focuses on one of the human, though by this point we clearly understand the goat is the perpetrator. They are all are animals and look alike. (Think about it, what side of the glass was the goat on again?)
Yes, now that it has been brought to their attention on several fronts PepsiCo, has pulled the offensive ads from their site and their subsidiaries as well as have Odd Future remove it theirs. Yet, oddly enough the blame is not spread on the various ad execs who not only signed off on this fuckery from the concept stage and then gave it the green light to be produced and aired. No, the finger is squarely pointed at the black guy, Taylor the Creator, read scape goat – pun fully intended. I mean what’s the problem? If the black guy was okay with it… right? Because clearly not one of those ad makers were born and raised here in America and were totally clueless as to how such bullshit would be perceived. The ad-makers were very aware of Tyler’s music and decided to exploit that button-pushing. They absolutely knew what they were in for and wanted to to start shit—why? Just to sell soda – period. PepsiCo deserves to be taken to task for this.
Congratulations Tyler, you not-so-stupid fuck, you’re getting your Dew. I hope they’re aren’t using lube.
Buzzfeed.com had an interesting post on “What Happened To Opera”. True to Buzzfeed’s style the article, while somewhat tongue-in-cheek, makes a damn good point and gets extra kudos for the Bugs Bunny reference.
While the opera productions have become bigger, grander, the singers themselves have not, at least not size wise. Here in America, as well as in other Western social minds, the fat body is considered unhealthy, abnormal, something to be ashamed of, not the socially accepted form of what is sexy.
Many opera companies, especially the smaller ones, struggle economically. And apparently think the solution is to behave like popular music labels and play up the sexuality of their leading stars. Singer Deborah Voigt, a leading dramatic soprano, was famously fired years ago for being too fat to portray a role as the stage director at that time had envisioned it. Voigt was eventually reinstated after she lost the weight through gastric band surgery. Yes, she states it was for her own health reasons, but no one can be blamed for the unspoken wink, wink, nudge, nudge that goes with it. Erstwhile mega operatic superstars such as Norman and Sills and Pavarotti would likely be hard pressed to keep their standing in this new aesthetic. This goes beyond mere fat-phobia into an analysis of appearance in music and theater that is depressing.
If the saying “It ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings” were to held to its truth, it would likely mean the death knell for opera. As with everything else there are exceptions to the rule, those whose amazing voices transcend the benchmark. Still, even those exceptions are growing smaller and smaller and not just in size.
It’s sad, but unfortunately true. Opera used to be solely about the singing. Now not only must the singers have the most amazing voices for the parts, they now must have the looks to go with them and therein lies the rub. There was ad campaign which queried “What is sexy”. And let’s face it, in this climate, the de rigueur definition of sexy = skinny.
The beloved image fat, horned-helmet Valkyrie, belting out Wagner, pretty much synonymous with opera, will eventually be as obsolete as the Beta-max. There are such amazing singers out there whose voices may never be heard because of this downsizing and we will never know our loss.
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Sun
Dappled
Shimmering
Full of promise
With daylight dawning
Tears
Are done
I know this
Down to my core
As I stretch yawning
So
I rise
Contented
Feel my soul smile
In this new morning
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Welcome to the Arun.
A nonce poem created by friend and fellow blogger, GirlGriot. An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one syllable with each line. 1/2/3/4/5 — 3x. There are no other rhyme or structural requirements. Though all of hers, so far, were left aligned and not rhymed, I took a little poetic license here.
Just this morning I quoted “all the world’s a stage” to a friend. A discussion ensued which wound up with us using Google to prove I was right in that the line was from “As You Like It” and not from “Love’s Labour Lost”. That in turn became a discussion of just how Shakespeare’s words have infiltrated our lives.
Few of us get through the education system without gleaning some basic knowledge of the man, well at least a couple of his works. Even if one cannot quote any other line from say, Hamlet; even if one does not know the name of the tragedy itself, one is still familiar with “…to be or not to be…” I still remember the magical moment in fourth grade upon realizing wherefore actually meant why and how that one little thing completely changed the context of “…wherefore art thou Romeo?”. It taught me to always look deeper than the words on the page, because as Led Zeppelin perfectly states ’cause you know sometimes words have two meanings. Still, thanks to my southern upbringing, I knew what being “a sorry sight” meant long before I ever heard the name William Shakespeare and was destined to enjoy more of his magical verbiage.
Think about it. Most of his words which we quote without thought, were written for plays – for mere entertainment. Think about how so much of it has transcended from Elizabethan times to now, without one iota of loss in their overall meanings. Talk about staying power! Many of us remember little of what we’re taught regarding the actual history of those times. Well, little of history in general, to be honest. Yet all of us quote him more than we can ever imagine, even if we do not realize the words are his.
I’ll quote someone else for a moment and paraphrase Edward Bulwer-Lytton: the might of the pen, indeed!
In the midst of the above mentioned Google search I also discovered today, April 23rd, is William Shakespeare’s birthday.
Willie Shakes, as I quite tongue-in-cheekily like to refer to the Bard, would be 449 years old. In honor of the man who likely has had the biggest influence on many of the colloquialisms that continue to spice our language I post the following:
* click to see full size *
Happy 449th Birthday William Shakespeare!!
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old”
— Shakespeare Sonnet 104
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Slice of Life Weekly Writing Challenge – April 23, 2013
In all honesty, I really don’t know what to say, yet I feel I must say something…
The bombings happened moments after I left work for the day. I was underground waiting for a train when the first one went off. I knew nothing until my train rose above ground and my phone, along with several others, went crazy with the influx of activity. There is a certain amount of activity that happens on a normal day and then there is the activity when something major happens. As a social media person I can almost sense when it’s something bad before I pull out my phone to check. And when other cellphones were also going berserk, I knew I would not like it.
I have several friends and people I consider family who live if not necessarily in Boston proper, close enough that it gave me pause. Especially on a day like yesterday any where number of them could have been near, if not actively watching the marathon. I immediately checked Twitter and Facebook and had most of my initial worries quickly assuaged that they were safe. Others I had to text or email later on to check on them, but all my not-so-near and dear were accounted for. That left me with just the news and there was a ton of that.
I have been to Boston several times, almost all for party occasions, so my view of the City as a whole is a favorable one. It’s a backdrop to many really good memories for me. I’ve walked along Boylston Street where the explosions occurred, so it was a gut punch the first time I watched footage and recognized it. Broadcast news mostly repeated the same footage of the explosions itself. The internet, as always had them, beat. What struck me most is the one thing that can always be counted on when such events occur. Yes, we expect the police, the emergency service, Fire Departments and other first responders to be there and assist. That is their jobs to run toward the danger when nearly everyone else is running from it, and thank God / God bless them for it.
No, I am referring to The Unintentional Heroes.
The everyday men and women who did not run away, but ran to and stayed to help the hurt and injured until the professionals could take over and sometimes stayed to help again elsewhere afterward. Yes, the images that are going to be the defining ones of this are the images of Carlos Arredondo, the man in the cowboy hat. Like so many others, he immediately jumped into the fray at the site of the first blast to assist. He came upon Mr. Bauman (no first name currently given), who had just lost his legs in the attack. No one, who has seen the instantly iconic photo, is going to quickly forget the image of Arredondo running along side the wheelchair carrying Bauman, pinching a major artery from what remained of Bauman’s leg to keep it from bleeding out as he and two other first responders race to help. Yes, Arredondo’s particular act of heroism should be duly noted as it should and will continue to be.
Still, let it not take anything away from the many acts of heroism, big and small, in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, for every act was truly heroic to the persons being assisted by these John and Jane Q. Publics, many of whom whose names will never be known. All we will ever of them are the various images posted in slide shows from various news sources such as The Huffington Post, The New York Times and of course The Boston Globe.
I guarantee as they all stood celebrating the marathon, did not ask their fellow onlookers about their politics. I guarantee those who ran to help once the bombs went off did not ask the victims about religion. All of it, all of it, is proof positive that we can put all the differences down to celebrate and work together, when it counts.
If only we could hold on to that and make it count everyday, not just special circumstances.
Boston, it’s going to rock you for a bit, we New Yorkers know and understand how that goes. Just remember, the spirit of what made us break ranks and create our own nation over two hundred and thirty years ago still runs through your veins. Trust, you got this.
(aka the shit that comes out of my mouth).
On being addressed as a female progenitor by people, other than the two I actually gave birth to, one time too many:
Him: Hey Mami
Me (annoyed): I am not your mother!
Him (surprised): But it’s just a term of endearment.
Me (eyes rolling): You just laid eyes on me for the first time in your life. I have yet to become an endearment for you to have a term to. It’s rude and an insult to all the women who are mothers, who have put in the work and earned the title.
Him (fishing): Maybe it just means on first sight I think you’ve got what it takes to love and take care of me.
Me (incredulously): Really?
Him (thinking he gained a point): Yeah.
Me (evil smile): So on first sight you think I’ve got what it takes…?
Him (cocky): Yeah. To cook, clean and all that good stuff, like a mother would.
Me (trying not to be mean, but failing): And occasionally whip your ass?
Him (back peddling): No, that’s not what I meant, I…
Me (totally nonplussed at his ignorance by now): And is there’s some Oedipal history I should be aware of?
Him (clueless): What kind of history…?
Me (in full on evil mode): newsflash boy, because most men know better, when it comes to the majority of females you meet on the street addressing us by the title of the first woman whose vagina you came sliding out of, is not considered a compliment to the woman whose vagina you’re trying to slide into. Good-bye.
Want to guess what term of endearment was heard as I walked away? Hint: It rhymes with mucking witch.
Me (not even bothering to turn around): Thank you!
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Slice of Life Weekly Writing Challenge – April 16, 2013
Raivenne-lations 