Twixt pressures of a busy day
And migraine that held me in sway
Way back here near out of sight
I remember to post before midnight
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Sorry
#SOL2017
Not Today
7
Category Archives: The Funny SIde
Cold As
Hung out last night for dinner and drinks with friends. On my way home this happened:
Male Friend I ran into on train: Have you been drinking?
Me: Yup.
MF: You’re drunk?
Me: Nope. Inebriated.
MF: What’s the difference?
Me: A) I can still pronounce it easily. B) I can still spell it slowly. C) You’re attractive, but not nearly enough for me to have illicit thoughts. D) I actually thought the words “illicit thoughts”.
MF: Damn. Even inebriated you’re cold.
Me: Yup.
For the record, even when sober, I spell inebriated slowly.
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#SOL2017
Let’s see how other’s are slicing it up this Saturday:
As Old As
Killing time before class starts, my students and I are shooting the breeze about music. One mentions she will be attending Metallica’s upcoming concert in NJ, which I will attending as well. It segues into first album purchased (Micheal Jackson’s “Off the Wall”) and first concert attended, which for me was The Spinners with an appearance by Dionne Warwick. Only one student, not much older than I, knew of the group. Way to feel ancient Rai – geesh, but I guess it was better than none of them knowing, right? Right.
The student who knew of the Spinners sings out “I’m sitting all alone by the telephone, waiting for your call..”
Not missing a beat I join in singing “…when you don’t call at all. It’s a shame, sha-ame.”
We trade lyrics and singers from the late 60s, early 70s for a bit. Clearly, I was familiar enough with the music of that time to have not just heard it from my parents collection. I am accused of that often enough that I just shrug it off for the compliment it accidentally gives. Meanwhile I can see the numbers crunching in his head as he looked hard at my face, which is never a good way to judge my vintage, by the way.
“How the hell old are you?” He baldly asks the burning question at last.
“Damn dude!” Exclaimed another student “You don’t do that!”
Without batting an eye, me – being me, answered in true me fashion.
“Let’s just say I was a cougar to Methuselah.”
There was a most awkward pause before some of them got it and laughed. While Methuselah had to be explained to the rest. It amused me immensely that I, the self-proclaimed resident heathen, made a biblical reference that went over nearly everyone’s head.
“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”
–Genesis 5:27 King James Version (KJV)
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#SOL2017
Let’s see how other’s are rapping up their slices:
The Distance
I cringe at the horizon that gives me pause as I sit on a crescent ledge and stew over the possibilities. There be giant monsters here. I only need to travel a short distance, but the terrain from when I last visited this place has changed. The comfort of the familiar, now replaced by the exotic of a new clime. Longanimity among my kind has made me tough, but cautious. I know how dangerous it can be, but I will not let fear be the pasty jailer that holds me back. Belatedly, I remember I was out in the open while my mind filtered through various strategies when the world vibrates in sound and a rapidly approaching darkness looms over head.
I’ve been seen by one of the giants that roam here. Death is all but a certainty when afflatus strikes and I make a run across the emerald landscape for the crevice ahead. The blast of air that propels me toward my goal is only equal in terror to the noise of the impact narrowly missing where I just stood. I skitter into the narrow space between counter and the oven, hearing the giant bellow in frustration as I drop out of reach.
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Yes, this from the view of the cockroach.
I fully bless (blame?) the Wordle graphic for the inspiration.
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie | Weekly Wordle #145
Crescent, Exotic, Ledge, Longanimity, Filter, Stew, Pasty, Afflatus, Emerald, Jailer, Cringe, Noise
Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem. The words can appear in an alternate form, in any order that you like.
Soulmates? II
I covered this before, but considering today I’d like to bring it up again.
I have a special person in my life.
I love him immensely. When we’re together there is much laughter, very heated discussions, tears and yes love. When I completely lost my mind last year and had to face up to the reality of my actions, he was my first call for drinks and discussion. The words were never spoken, but there is no question if one calls, the other will answer because we don’t do so lightly.
He is my soulmate.
Luckily, his wife knows I am not a threat to her and is completely supportive of our friendship.
Betcha didn’t quite see that one coming did ya?
Let me begin where I ended the last time I broached the subject of Soulmates…
https://raivenne.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/soulmate/
“Nearly, everyone says and thinks of a soul-mate as the all-encompassing, be all and end all romantic type of love.
I propose a person can have more than one soul-mate and while a soul-mate is always, someone you want to share the rest of your days with, a soul-mate is not necessarily or solely the person you also want to share your bed with for the rest of your days.
But that thought is a blog for another day”
It is now another day…
The concepts of soulmates arose from mythology, Greek if I remember correctly. According to the story, our ancestors once had 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs. These ancestors did something to piss off one of the gods so bad that the deity punished them by splitting them down the middle, resulting in the creation of humans. To add insult to injury, we humans are now condemned to spend our lives searching for the other half of ourselves, our soulmates.
You’d think the gods would’ve gotten bored watching us run around pell-mell trying to find the ever elusive One, but nooooo. Here we humans are, a few millennium later, still soul-searching.
As Shakespeare had Puck say in A Midsummer’s Night Dream “Lord what fools these mortals be!”
Indeed, Puck-a-rooni, indeed!
I mean think about it, unless these two-headed, four-armed beings were asexual and/or hermaphroditic and/or aromantic, they were loving each other just fine without the concept of The One, but I digress…
My mileage dictates a soulmate is a person who connects with your soul in a way that changes you and that can happen on various levels.
Temporary Souls: A teacher who intentionally or not provides a valuable life lesson. The complete stranger or barely known acquaintance who unexpectedly reaches out to you at a time when you really need it. They are the people that we encounter throughout our lives, who come, touch our souls for a moment and are gone. Whether or not they have any idea that they touched our souls, we know they did and they will always be a part of us. Think of all the nth amount of people you have encountered in your life, outside of your family, yet of all these people only a select few have somehow made it in to the very core of you however briefly. For that brief moment – soulmates.
Twin Heart Souls: Think your best and/or closest friends. The ones who help you bury the body or at the very least know the right thing to say to you at three in the morning when you’re losing it, to keep there from being a body to to be buried in the first place. The one/s you really click with pretty much from the moment you meet. Those who believe in reincarnation, say it is because you have already met in a past life, and in this life you are continuing the relationship. My best friend of over thirty years and I have a saying of our relationship. Where we are opposite we are polar opposite, but where we are alike we are twins. If we both point at something in a store window – say a piece of jewelry and we both love it, without even looking at each other, we immediately know two things. 1) It’s a classic piece that can work with various styles and 2) it is likely to be considerably out of our price range and to keep on walking. From the moment I butted into her conversation with someone else back in high school, unto this day – we were soulmates. YMMV
Twin Flame Souls: This is the what most people refer to when speaking of the soulmate. If we follow the edicts of the mythology I mentioned earlier, there is only one twin flame soulmate for each of us. Like Twin Heart Souls, in reincarnation beliefs, Twin Flame Souls have spent several lifetimes together in past lives. The chemistry and attraction towards each other is undeniable. They burn with passionate fire for only each other. To go all Jerry McGuire here, they “complete” each other and only a very lucky few are able to find their twin flame soulmate.
If I go by that edict, that would mean my late-husband was my twin flame soulmate. Does this then mean if I happen to fall in love again, this person will only be second best? Considering I tend to lean toward the very self-confident to borderline arrogant types, I’m somehow guessing my potential paramour would not take kindly to that option. In addition, many people change as they grow older. If Twin Flame Souls find each other and grow together that’s perfect and as it purportedly should be. However, for most of us, the soulmate that would have been perfect for us in high school, may not exactly be as acceptable in later years, unless they too have somehow continued to follow a congruent path in life, so then what?
That thin thread of hope the deities tossed out at us, that there’s always a possibility that we will find and connect with our perfect soulmates becomes ever more threadbare when one considers after all these eons, our Twin Flames Souls may be on the other side of the freaking planet. Hell, if Richard Branson has his way, that soulmate could be on Virgin Galactic heading to a galaxy far, far away in the really not too distant future.
Just as your heart has more than one way to love, so can your soul have more than one way to share. It is one of the many reasons why I find the Highlanderish “There can be only one” soulmate bullshit, well — bullshit.
To those of you who have found your Twin Flame Souls enjoy your Valentine’s Day. For the rest of us, lets grab our Twin Heart Souls, hit a bar and and hope Branson does not get his galactic wheels up anytime soon and give us earthlings a chance.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
Editing to add: Thanks to my Sweet friend, I am reminded that Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium is the Greek mythology I was trying to remember and any one who saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, knows the myth was best explained in the Origin of Love.
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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 7
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.
Beaned
The bean’s the scene, potency gleaned
It’s the dark daily grind by far, har- har!
A buck’s a deer, yet scales appear,
What do mermaids have to do with stars?
Now I do insist on non-instant
For getting into hot water is tough
And granted thirty will leave me quite quirky
But a venti is never enough.
It’s derision, this double vision
To work uphold, I must first upend
It’s a blip, a drip, a tip, a sip
Hello darkness my old friend!
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Hmmm, maybe I do need more coffee…
Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: The Big Achoo
One of my several knuckle-headed, irreverent Facebook buddies posted the following…
If God sneezes, what do you day to Him?
Me, being equally knuckle-headed and irreverent, responded in kind of course …
Salud! Careful Big Dude, I heard the last time that happened You accidentally took out the dinosaurs.
The older I get the more certain I am that Mr. Alighieri is going to need a whole new circle built for me and my shenanigans. At least I’m guaranteed excellent company.
By Any Other…
“Oh, bee barf…?”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Why?” I smile knowingly.
“Because it’s an insult!”
“Not to me.” my standard response.
A decade plus later…
“All this damned time you’ve been calling me honey?” His mouth ajar.
“Yes, bee barf.”
Stupid Internet ruined everything…
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A memory of the day my late-husband learned something of a sticky situation…
dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #13
Today’s Quadrille (a poem of 44 words: no more, no less – not including the title) has to include the word jar. A word that can find many uses, as a noun or, as I’ve chosen to do, a verb (with or without an object).
To Serve With Loath…
Ah jury duty!
While I can’t speak for the rest of the country, or even the rest of the state for that matter, here in New York City a summons to jury duty seems to fall into 3 major camps:
- Yay! I get out of work!
- Damn! This shit again!
- Whatever!
Then there is the subset cross twixt the Yays and teh Whatevers in which I fall. I do not relish jury duty, with glee, nor do I find it abhorrent or am apathetic to it. I get the whole “what if it were happening to me” aspect of it and that it’s my civic duty. If I think myself to have the wherewithal to decide whether a candidate is worthy to be president surely I have the same to decide whether the average Joe is innocent or guilty. I merely hope if sellected for a case, I can serve with as little interruption to my life as possible, but I serve. Believe me when I tell you most NYCers report for jury duty with less joy than going to the gallows.
After herding us cattle, I mean joining us prospective jurors together in to one large hall, the court clerk begins to read the rules and expectations of serving on jury duty. Clearly she s reading from a script so memorized that the sheets of paper in front of her is just a mere formality – it’s akin to watching a flight attendant who has done the Y M C A of flight safety nth times too many. Moreso, the clerk delivers her instructions with a monotone that would make a Ben Stein monologue seem lively and engaging by comparison.
Luckily, being allowed to use our phones as long as we were quiet I gratefully distracted myself from the acute boredom by snarking on facebook. Commentary from yesterday:
“Anyone who has a letter from their boss, explaining why you cannot serve jury jury, please bring the letter to the front so we can stamp it “Denied” to return to to your boss. You will not be excused.”
The “Aw fuck!” disappointed expressions around me are hilarious.
There was a woman a few seats from me who nicely took the tri-folded paper in her hand, put it in her purse, then not so nicely swore under her breath. Whoops. I can’t swear on it, but I am reasonaby sure I saw her get it stamped at the front desk later. Sometimes it bes liket dat – as the old folks say.
For the first couple of hours a max of ten names were called. For a bunch of peope who clearly did not wish to b there, I was surprised by the general chatter around me from those who names were yet to be called. It became repetetaive and annoying quickly. There were four or five people conversing around me being really whiny about the whole thing. I actually said to a guy trying to draw me in to the madness “Look. Very few of you actually want to be here. But you are here. You can’t get out of it. Constantly bitching isn’t going to get you out any sooner. Grow the hell up and shut the hell up.”
I don’t think they are going to let me sit with them during lunch. I’m truly heartbroken over it.Speakng of lunch – another facebook comment:
The alacrity with which people hauled-ass out the juror waiting room for lunch is only going to be beat in humor by the comparative lethargy of these same folks upon reentry when the break is over. I could be grossly wrong in my assessment, but I don’t think my fellow jurors-in-waiting want to be here.
Suffice to say my facebook friends were amused.
Now we were warned from onset that if our name are not called, we may be realsed as early as 3pm, however, we may indeed be there until 5pm. When I looked uo at the clock at the front of the hall and saw 3:20pm, I prepared myself for the long haul. Minutes later Lady Ben Stein cle at the front desk announced “Ladies and gentlemen your service for today is concluded. Please return at 9:30am tomorrow…”.
Going by the speed with which many bee-lined for the doors. What was heard was:
“RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!!!”
As nearly all headed out as though the buildng were on fire. I say nearly beause some of us remained seated clearly observing this mad dash with bemusement. Then there was the cutie-pie who had not move at all because he was lightly snoring, about to drool asleep. His complete look of bewilderment as woke him to a near empty hall was priceless.
Today is day two – Let the games begin…
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Spring My Aunt Susy’s Satchel
In winter people complain about the cold. The deeper in winter it gets, the more people complain. It’s a given. However, there comes a point in winter, usually around Ground Hog Day, where I find myself complaining about those complaining.
It’s winter, it’s cold – uh hello – it’s WINTER – that’s what it does – get cold – duh!
Still, by mid-March I am just as happy as everyone else at the hope of spring being mere days away. And while the First Day of Spring brought light snow, and temperatures during the first week fluctuated wildly, we finally had our hopes of warming climes substantiated when last Friday came in all nice and cozy. Friday was also April 1st, a.k.a. April Fool’s Day and the joke was certainly on us.
The temps have steadily decreased from the oh so loverly 78 degrees of Friday to the whopping 43 degrees high expected for today. I mean really now. By the time I walked in to work you could have easily convinced me that we somehow went back a month in time. The 30+ degree wind chill that greeted me this morning was just mean. Singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” in April ain’t cool y’all. I was all set to hang up my winter coat for the next six months and this happens. Clearly Ol’ Man Winter and the March Lion have not received their official GTFO memo from Demeter. Seriously, chick – hop to it already!
Yes, the deities of mythology and I tend to have major conversations when the weather is adverse to what is expected. Those of you who follow my blog may have already read posts referencing Ol’ Winter, the March Lion and Lamb, and Persephone and Demeter. Suffice it to say all of them had a major talking to from me this morning! From what I can read from my scattered friends online these past couple of days, very few of us in the upper parts of this North American hemisphere are happy with those fickle deities and weather personifications shenanigans.
I apologize immensely for all of you who suffer from allergies, but I am so ready for the annual floral orgy. When I start hearing the masses of you discuss (ahem- whine/complain/grumble -ahem) about your struggles I will know for sure that spring has arrived truly and is hanging around to stay, because right now my Facebook says this:
And I think that says it all.
By the way I don’t have an Aunt Susy – let alone her satchel.
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Let’s see how my fellow slicers are holding it up this week:
Raivenne-lations 