July 30.23: Coping, but barely

There are things I oughtn’t have read

because I’d rather not know.

Like yesterday’s announcement

about J-e-l-l-o.

They referred to it as dowdy!

What libel, I declare!

Jello, ever ageless,

is chic and debonair!

Nothing else performs

in hues of orange and cherry

with jiggling points of light

like this bright confectionery.

It dances on a platter,

shimmies in a bowl,

with finery of marshmallow,

almost profiterole!

Jello is fun and memory,

when all is done and said

because, when you were sick,

your mom brought you some in bed.

So speak to me not of dowdy;

I’ll not abide such snootery.

for sweet Crayola colors

all jiggledy and fruitery!

 

Yes, dear reader, there it was: Jello is changing its packaging. They say they will not change the “formula,” but I don’t trust anyone who says Jello is dowdy.

I have written about Jello before and I’m sure I will again because I’m an unapologetic Jello enthusiast, and some of our most shamelessly caloric family feasts included my mother’s and my cousin’s Jello concoctions. Dowdy? Not a chance.

Dowdy, if you seek it, is in my closet.

(Far be it from me to presume a reader’s thoughts, but I feel sure that a few readers of a certain age will immediately picture themselves stepping into my closet and saying “Howdy, Dowdy!” Yes, I hear it clearly.)

 

 

July 23.23: Coping, but barely

My handprint gave

the cake a grin,

Halloweenish

Devil’s Food skin.

My noble heart

in gesture grand

insisted I taste

my chocolate hand.

Mmm…not bad,

though sawdust cake

was not what Grandma

was known to bake.

Though I did everything

her recipe said,

somewhere Grandma Mauck

was shaking her head.

 

Last week, dear reader, was a lulu. We all have such weeks. You know I’m not good at telling a story so I won’t try. I will just tell you some parts of it.

I finally got an estimate I’d been waiting for. Mildly apoplectic, I declined the honor of being gouged. A couple days later, I got an Overdue notice from that company in the amount of the rejected estimate.

In other matters, I had to call the “customer service” of three other companies.

I wrote the wrong date on some checks.

I couldn’t remember the last four of my social security number.

Through all this, my laptop was suffering from some malaise. Thursday it wouldn’t let me  into WordPress.

By Friday, I was on the edge. There was nothing to do but take a deep breath and resolve to bake my Grandma Mauck’s Devil’s Food Cake on Saturday. I had never attempted this because the recipe scared me off. Further, as a certified cookieologist, I am only somewhat conversant with cakes.

I do not sift flour, but Grandma’s recipe called for sifting cake flour four times. I resigned myself to it. There was the true measure of my angst.

The cake flopped.

The end.

 

July 17.23: Coping, but barely

If I live a million years,

and every summer through,

I plant a million tomatoes,

would they cease to be brand-new?

Would the first to glow like ember

be less a wondrous sight,

a miracle to linger over,

ecstatic drooly bite?

Could it ever be cliché,

a trite and common thing,

unseen in everydayness,

overlooked, so trifling?

Perish thought unthinkable!

It simply cannot be

that something so breath-stopping

seem triviality.

That first bright glowing bauble,

summer’s Valentine,

is nothing less than magic

aborning on a vine.

 

July 9.23: Coping, but barely

When a tree holds

shape of the untamed wind,

when its roots hold life

amid soulless rocks,

and,

seeking to touch a cloud,

it rises,

solitary,

unambiguous,

untimid,

certain somehow

in its very self,

should we

— do we dare to —

hold to hope?

 

With thanks to Susan Rushton for this eloquent image.

 

July 7.23: Coping, but barely

“One of these things is not like the others”

started playing in my head

as I beheld outlier

in rainbow’d pansy bed.

Whoa! That’s not a pansy!

(I’m sharp as any tack.)

Does he think he’s well disguised

as garden bric-a-brac?

As writer I was nudged

to feel a sense of kin:

some of us are fated

never to blend in.

 

When my son was here visiting in May, we drove down to Bloomington because he wanted to see IU’s campus. By chance, it was right after graduation and happy young people were posing for pictures in caps and gowns. IU was decked out in pansy patches, and they were wonderfully festive. (As a graduate of mid-century Purdue, I can say that I thought that college landscaping meant a smokestack.)

I lacked proper energy, so my son took off on his walk while I watched the pansies and the people and tried out various benches in the shade.