Thursday December 6th, 2012

The exercise:

Today we discuss in our writing: initials.

Had a fun family outing for coffee and lunch today (that was the actual plan, unlike last time). Though it was a close call getting Max back home before his fussing turned into a full blown crying extravaganza.

I suppose we were pushing it a bit, having two fairly long outings on back to back days like that.

This afternoon I finally managed to fill up our wood box behind the house with firewood. Only been needing to do that for like a week. I'm hoping to get back to the gym tomorrow, if only for a run on the treadmill and some stretching.

The muscles, they still be sore from Monday.

Mine:

I act as though
They mean nothing to me,
Those four faded letters
Carved into the tree.

A long ago fling,
Just that and nothing more.
Two neighbourhood children,
Foolish and bored.

But I can't stop
Visiting that old tree,
And my eyes give the lie
To Nothing to me.

5 comments:

Greg said...

I suspect stretching after all that wood-chopping is a good idea, so I hope you manage to get to the gym today! My dog seems to be a permanent toddler in human terms: she copes better than Max with long days, but if you keep her awake she'll get very grumpy and let people know that she wants to be left alone. She's kind of sweet when she's grumpy :)
I think with both dogs and babies it's the same thing though: overload from the environment and a need to get back to somewhere familiar and assimilate it all.

That's a very sweet poem today, and has a rather nostalgic haunt to it. It was so easy to read it three times :)

Initials
The palm reader frowned, and Jenny felt cold sweat spring out on her back, and the backs of her knees. She forced a smile.
"Well?" she asked, her voice husky. "Is there anyone in my future?"
The palmreader lifted her gaze from Jenny's palm and mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown, bored into Jenny.
"Carving someone's initials into your palm does not change the future," he said. "However, I can tell you that the intials you've picked are those of the paramedic who will pick up later this afternoon when you collapse through blood-loss."

g2 (la pianista irlandesa) said...

Because I'm tired and caught up in finals madness, I'm sharing something I dug up from about three years ago. The challenge was to write up something about your icon picture (which is the same there as the one I use here).
- - - - - - - - - -
I always trust Mercedes’ Metal Works whenever I have a new assignment.
I slip into Mercedes’ one drizzly night, finding her hard at work with a torch in one hand, & prodding hot metal into shape with a chopstick in the other. When she looks up, she slid off her tinted glasses with a smirk of expectant surprise.
“Well, Ms. Guienalei,” she lilts. “You only swing by when you switch roles. What stroke of fate & management sends you my way this time?”
“Infiltration job,” I say simply. “I need a new tag.”
Mercedes waves her hand at me. “I know the drill by now; but what in el nombre de Dios do you do with these?”
“They help me hide out in the open. It gives them something by which to identify me.”
She gives me a look. “Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of the secrecy involved in spying?”
I smirk in reply. “Not really. After I make my move, the clean-up crew goes in, questions everybody, & asks if they know anybody with my particular symbol. If they do, they say adios to recent memory associated with it.”
She nods, but I can tell she’s not thoroughly convinced. “What’s the job this time?”
“Sadie, you know I can’t say too much.”
“Nor do I want to know too much, I just want to know where my work will be seen.”
I sigh in mock exasperation. I wouldn’t normally tell, but she knows as well as I that if she spills, there are consequences.
“It’s a writing compound. There’re a couple characters in there of particular interest to us. I have to worm my way in, work up respect, you know how it is.”
“Do I ever.” She folds her hands on the workbench. “You have the metal?”
I smirk, gingerly slide a lump of uninteresting metal out of my pocket & hold it out to her in my gloved hand.
She nearly drops it in shock. “You know what that is, don’t you?” she whispers.
“Most certainly do. I know it turns a beautiful cerulean blue when tempered.”
“But how did you…?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies, Sadie. You know that.” I give her a slip of paper. “Here’s the pattern. I’ll be back in a week.”
- - - - - - - - - -
(originally from here. hooha)

Marc said...

Greg - yeah, overstimulation is a big thing to be aware of. Kid's got a lot to learn, can't blame him for wanting to tune out every now and again.

Hah, nice twist. I was not expecting that :)

g2 - good luck with finals!

Fun little scene. I see a world of possibilities with Mercedes' Metal Works too...

Anonymous said...

initials

I was endowed with the initials, TB.
Great teaser there... the kids at school called me Tuberculosis - that disease was all the rage back in the 60s.
Nice to be associated with phlegm, blood and eventual death.
No wonder I left my job at the clinic before I was drafted to work in the TB lab.

Why couldn't I have been given the initials, FAB?
Or HOT, or PRO? No, maybe not pro, that would be worse than Tuberculosis, 'sides, there's no B at the end of those.
I am really TAB, but that's no better, that just equates to a legal gambling corporation here. Pick your disease with that one.
Parents really ought to think about all the aspects of naming their children, huh.

Marc said...

Writebite - TB? Seriously? Oh, man. Brutal.

Yeah, I was very aware of potential initials for Max. Though, as Greg pointed out, I was somehow able to miss the fact that we were *this* close to giving him MEGA initials...