Autumn Rhymes

Well I could make rhymes with “Autumn”, such a “bottom”, or “caught ‘em”,  but I just thought some rhymes I’ve written in the past, and some more recent might be a nice, quick read for you. 

Tuesday's Truths: 

Spider webs look pretty 

in the early light of dawn, 

but the spiders sitting in them 

make me scream loud and long, 

laughing away the workday 

is the best way to get by, 

it's oh so nice when co-workers 

all see eye to eye.9/27/11

October dawns with air that’s cool,
As is generally the rule,
With shorter days and crisper air,
And golden sun beyond compare,
The trees will sport their colored leaves,
And at the end a ghostly breeze.2017

Obnoxious politicians,

Rumored scary clowns,

According to the squawking heads,

There's a hurricane bearing down,

There are gloom and doom purveyors,

Everywhere it seems,

Read a happy book at bedtime

If you don't want scary dreams!10/5/16

Leaves are falling

Through sticky air

Can’t find a 

Cool breeze anywhere

October weather’s 

Up and down

Cold then hot

And all around.10/6/2017

On a chilly, rainy Autumn day,

At home is where I wish to stay,

Making soup and drinking tea,

Having time to spend with me,

Alas! To work I still must go,

Up the stream I’ll row, row, row.9/2018

Summer leaves on an Autumn breeze,

Cool dry air is sure to please

Those who long for air to breathe,

The sun is bright, it’s a sparkling day,

There’s not much more that I can say,

‘Cept have a happy, lovely Saturday!10/2018

Cool and rainy Sunday morning,

Sleepy thoughts and coffee’s warming,

Bleary eyes blink and clear,

Nostalgic thoughts bring a tear,

Time moves forward, sure and steady,

Regardless of if we are ready.9/2018

Happy Autumn!

How You Bean?

Summer Lament

August went by in a haze
Of hazy, hot, and humid days,
We say goodbye to a month
Some folks love, some not so much,
Time has flown since it was June
Vacations seem to end too soon.
------------------------------------------------
Thought Drops

Cool and rainy Sunday morning,
Sleepy thoughts and coffee’s warming,
Bleary eyes blink and clear,
Nostalgic thoughts bring a tear,
Time moves forward, sure and steady,
Regardless of if we are ready.
-------------------------------------------------------

Recently my friend and former neighbor lost her son under tragic circumstances. I never imagined getting the phone call from her that she never imagined she would have to make telling me that the little boy who was my oldest daughter's first playmate, who I took care of, who ate all my M&M's if I forgot to put them away, who grew to be a kind young man, was gone.  I cannot begin to imagine her pain although I have been witness to far too many friends who have had to say a final goodbye to their children and learn to carry the weight of that pain with them for the rest of their lives. It appears to me to be a breathtaking pain, palpable in its intensity, and mindblowingly terrible.  How could it be otherwise?  I have sat countless times holding a friend's hand, passing tissues, speaking the child's name, telling stories of their life, all the while tears flowing like a river down our faces trying to remember everything about the precious life which ended too soon.  This friend lives far away now, so we cried on the phone together when she called to tell the news, me wishing I could be there with her to help her learn to breathe again.

Let me tell you some of my memories of Kevin.  He was a quiet, sweet and sensitive baby, startled easily by my louder daughter who was prone to looking at him and yelling, then looking soberly at him when he cried, as if to say "why are you crying?".  As they grew, he became the inquisitive boy who took toys apart to see how they worked, and the typical boy who climbed and jumped down from too high places, swam like a fish, and loved to run.  He was smart, and funny, and polite, and just an all around "good egg".  My favorite thing about him was his sense of humor and how early in his life he understood jokes and plays on words.  One of his favorite jokes was, when asked, "how you been?", he'd answer, "I bean green, how about you?" and laugh.  I cannot open a can of green beans without thinking of him.  Also, when I have M&M's candies I can picture him as a toddler eating them, one after another out of a dispenser we had which was shaped like a large red M&M that if you pushed the raised arm down dispensed a few candies at a time into your waiting hand.  I'm not sure if it was the dispenser he liked so much or the candies--probably both.  There are pictures to look at to jog my memory, the little suit for Easter that he hated wearing, Halloween costumes he and my daughter wore as they trick or treated together, his mother and I hanging back as they knocked on neighborhood doors lisping out "trick or treat!".  There are pictures of Christmas pageants and parties, egg coloring for Easter, a Santa Train ride, birthday parties, and pictures with melting  popsicles running down their sticky faces and hands in summer.  There are so many precious memories of a dear young life for us to look back on as we  try to imagine a future which will never happen.

I cannot fathom why people must die at a young age, I'm not sure anyone can, really.  All I can do is be there when a friend needs me, and make sure that memories of a young life don't fade away.

Gentle Soul

Sweet gentle soul gone way too soon,
Tell me can you see the moon?
Are you a star shining bright
Chasing 'way the darkest night?
We feel you with us as we trudge along,
Angel wings enfold us when we're not strong.

Summer of My Discontent

End of Summer Haiku

August is waning
The days are much shorter now
Geese will soon fly South
————————————————
Limerick for Humidity

From this weather we can’t get a break,
It surely does make my joints ache,
I wish it would change,
There’d be much less pain,
I don’t know how much more I can take!
—————————————————-
Gross Weather Poem

Don’t show me scenes of
Ice and snow
And say that we are lucky
That this is not what’s
Happening
‘Cause I know too soon
It’s coming
But please admit this
Mugginess
Makes you feel hot and
Sticky
This muggy, humid weather
Is just plain gross
And icky!
——————————————

As August draws to a close, I find myself feeling out of sorts. I’m not sure why, but my overriding feeling this summer has been discontent. There isn’t a good reason for it, I had two very happy events to attend—the wedding of our dear friends’ daughter, whom I have watched grow from a 5 year old into a beautiful, intelligent, young woman; and a family reunion for my husband’s side of the family. It was really nice reconnecting with family we seldom see, and it was in a beautiful setting at my sister-in-law’s house in the gorgeous Adirondacks in New York.  We went to our town carnival, and to our town’s food truck festival, as well as other excursions to favorite spots in our region. It’s been fun, even if the weather seems to have been especially hot and humid with showers and thunderstorms many days. So really, why should I feel such discontent? I’m usually one of the most contented people around; I’m generally happy with my life. I guess that’s something I’m going to reflect on once Autumn arrives.

Cruel Irony

One of the cruelest ironies about caring for an adult child with special needs is that while they are getting bigger, parents are getting older and less able to do the heavy lifting; not to mention the chronic fatigue of having been “on duty”  day and night for decades.  It’s wearing on the body, mind, and emotions.

Recently I took my daughter to a new neurologist, as the one we’d been using no longer accepted our insurance.  The new doctor is in a large multistory office building directly across from our area's largest medical center and located in our county seat.  It’s not in a city, exactly, but for our fairly rural area it’s pretty close to being one.  Our area is also rather hilly as we are in a mountainous area.  Thus the building is built sort of into the backside of a hill.  There is a small fairly flat parking lot in the front where the main lobby is, and then there are 4 floors above that.  The remainder of the parking is in a series of 6 lots behind the building on both sides of the driveway going down the hill.  Two of those lots are in covered garage type parking and are by permit only.  They are for the doctors and office staff to use.  This day we were there was particularly sunny, hot and humid.  After circling the top lot, which was the only one with designated spaces for handicapped parking, to no avail, and circling the closest of the rear lots with no better success, I realized that I was going to have to use one of the furthest away lots.  I felt like crying in frustration as the last thing I felt like doing was pushing my daughter in her wheelchair up a couple of hills in the sun and heat. But I just took a deep breath and continued on.  It’s a heavy chair, and she’s an adult, so in total I was pushing about 250 pounds, and I really didn’t want to at all.  The other problem is that when I am out with her alone and there is not an available handicapped van access spot, I have to unload her in her chair before pulling into a spot, park her in between cars, and then pull into the spot.  If the building had security guards, I may have asked if I could unload her into the lobby and then go park but that was not the case.  There was also no valet parking as they have at the hospital. So, to be reasonably sure that when I returned to the van after the visit nobody would have parked in the spot next to us, blocking the ramp deploying without pulling halfway out of the spot before loading her in, I parked in the furthest away lot in the furthest corner.  As it happened, there was a wheelchair for hire bus parked in that area and the driver was relaxing in the shade of a tree nearby.  When I got out of my van to walk around and get my daughter out, he asked if I needed help.  I thought that was very nice and thanked him for the kind offer, but we were ok. It was a about a ¼ mile hike up hill to the rear of the building, and I was hurrying because I’d spent so much time trying to get parked that we were in danger of being late for our appointment.  I’m thankful that there was an elevator, and air conditioning once inside the building.  We were on time for our appointment, which went fairly well, and before long were on the return trek to our van.  The return walk was much easier as it was all downhill, and since I was parked in the shade, it wasn’t too awfully hot once we got in.  It’s kind of funny because that morning I’d been thinking that I would go for a walk after my daughter’s program bus picked her up but had decided it was too hot and opted not to. I ended up getting that walk in anyhow!  I’m lucky that it was not one of the heavy torrential downpour weather days that we’ve been having fairly regularly that day.  I don’t really know what I would have done in that case.  I do know one thing, the next time we have to visit that office I am taking someone with me so that I can either unload close to the building and then go park, or have help pushing up that hill.  I am not as strong as I once was, not that I’m feeble, but my back and knees were quite achy that night and I took it easy the following day so as not to aggravate my back problems.

I don’t often tell the stories of the times we struggle a bit with our daughter, and I don’t do it now to get sympathy or make me look laudable.  I do it simply to shine a light on situations that others may not be aware of.  I have no solutions to this problem to offer, except that perhaps this particular building could benefit from some wheelchair accessible spots in the closest of the rear lots where we were able to access the elevator.  Otherwise, offering to help someone like me is appreciated, even if we don’t accept the help; we always appreciate the gesture.

4th of July

Our founding fathers on this day declared that we are free,
I'm truly thankful that they did, to the future it was key,
they were hot, I'm sure they were with all the clothes they wore,
they had no way to keep it cool, no air conditioned store,
no fan in the window, no ice in a glass,
they did the work they had to do--
now that's what I'd call class!!!                      
Happy Independence Day!!!!2012

Happy Birthday USA!
Red, white, and blue
We’ll wear today,
There are parades,
There’s fireworks too,
Grill, shop, swim,
Whate’re you do,
You do it here,
Where we are free,
There’s no place else,
I’d rather be.
2018

July 4th is:

Hot and sticky, this year we’re having record breaking heat to begin the month of July. July is, in my opinion, the hottest month of the summer. The days are long and the sun is at its strongest.

A good day to listen to Sousa marches. My mother used to bring a cassette tape player outside and play her John Philip Sousa tapes. They’re songs featuring brass instruments playing parade music.  I can always picture a marching band parading down Main Street when I hear them.

A day for macaroni and potato salad alongside burgers & hot dogs cooked on the grill in the backyard. Later, at dusk when the coals were still warm we used to run and get sticks for my dad to whittle into points for roasting marshmallows over the still warm coals. With sticky fingers we then had sparklers which were fun to draw shapes with in the air.

A perfect day to sip homemade iced tea and lemonade after a game of tag or frisbee.

A day to celebrate that we are free to practice any religion or no religion, as we each choose for ourselves, that we have free press who can write any criticism they care to of our elected officials without fear of punishment, that we can move freely across our country, and that we can, despite differing opinions still come together and work for common goals.