Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Haiku and Stuff - Sue

I'm cleaning off my shelves in my room and I found a packet of Pizza Hut parmesan, romano & hard grating cheese blend, very dusty, with the corner bent. I haven't cleaned off my shelves in a little over a year, since I got them at the Container Store. Should I keep the packet?

I love to clean with steam clean. I do it every week. I guess you'd call me germophobe, along with steaming geek. I love the vapor swirling, a foggy mist that cleans. I'll kill the germs no better way, by suds or soapy means. I've got a dozen nozzles, each for every chore. From nooks and crooks and walls and shelves, please deign me "Cleaning Whore."

It's a way to get some exercise. I have to reach and bend. Up and down, left and right, to and fro I wend. The ladder is made for climbing, the cloth is meant to dry. My voice is made for groaning and my lungs to heave a sigh. I spend some time just looking. I'm please with it so far. Perhaps some day I'll find a way to keep it in a jar.

I didn't think I wath a poet, or piano player, either. Thome thingth you don't dithern until you are a geether. If you loothe your teeth and mutht invent a different way to thay thingth, jutht thtick your tongue up where your teeth would uthed to make a thee thing.

Stephanopolous has five syllables in it. And Mississippi.

I steamed the toilet.
And layered rose petals there
in the water bowl.

Pete doesn't like loud sounds.
Grinding, screaming, squeaking noise.
Pete runs out the door.

philosophical
can be silly if you see
the hidden meaning

You don't want my help.
You think you know everything.
You can kiss my ass.

One day I loved you.
The next day I fell in love.
This is the third day.

I drank 7-Up.
Then I let out a big belch.
I said, "Excuse me."

Helicopter flew.
Machine gun bullets rained down.
I was hit running.

The ice is melting.
The 7-Up is flattened.
I'm not thirsty now.

You could write your life.
It could all be in haiku.
Then you could drink beer.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

United (Get Out of My) Way...Phyllis

October is the month for our annual United Way campaign where I work. We reached 78% participation. How? By giving us two months of casual dress. That means that for the rest of the year, I can go to work looking just a little better than I do when I first get up in the morning! I save five or six minutes I usually spend getting all gussied up! It means nothing has to match! I’m in heaven.

I have had a relationship with United Way for many years, payroll deduction-wise. I have a collection of United Way pens in my desk drawer at work along with some United Way beer cozies, and a United Way squeeze ball.

My first introduction to the United Way campaign was in the Army. They knew how to do it right and they got 100% participation. First they marched us into a room and told us to SIT DOWN and SHUT UP! Already it was a nice break from our regular routine. Then the United Way representative stepped up and talked to us so nice and friendly. No one had talked to us like that in weeks. When he finished, we were jerked back to reality.

“EVERYBODY STAND UP!”

You had a choice. Get in this line and fill out the payroll deduction form, take the rest of the day off and have a nice weekend. Or, get in that line and get a white rag to tie to the end of your bed so they can wake you up at 4am for some knuckle-dragging kitchen duty that would last well into the evening and leave you feeling like you’ve been par boiled until you’re begging to die. You call that a choice? People pushed each other out of the way to get into the first line while rag man stood alone with his unwanted rags. That’s how to get what you want!

Whatever works is fair, I say. There’s nothing like a day off in the sunshine in your favorite crappy clothes.