triple dog dare you

Edited again to add Myra's (my ... sort of.... what would you call yourself, Myra? My aunt-in-law?) sonnet (and oh be still my heart, how happy am I now??):

From festival to festival we yearn
To leave undone the many tasks that beckon.
Perhaps the earth, with every global turn
Grows weary of her solstice tasks, I reckon.

So if the leaves can put on different hues
When Autumn struts her stuff, I guess I can
Devise a new display, as I may choose
With green and gold and scarlet as my plan.

If stars can glow, as still the snowflake drifts
I'll add my contribution to the night.
If heaven can devise celestial gifts
I'll twinkle with a small domestic light.

So toss your list and fret not on your chores.
Here's wishing Love and Peace to you and yours!

Edited to add Jeff's response:

Sometimes when evening drapes it's fingers round
And squeezes thoughts and fears from someplace deep
When whispers of my spring cannot be found
And winter's snow so close now seems to creep
I watch my babies blankets rise and fall
And feel those fingers tighten harder still
As women's forms sleep soft on pillows tall
More beautiful than I could wish to build
Their faces speak of summers dreams and plans
The innocence of those living in spring
My winter's heart begins to understand
And slowly evenings fingers set me free
I lie back down contented in the fall
And winter doesn't seem too bad at all...

And now my happiness is complete....

***

My friend Jeff responded thus on Facebook to my challenge:

I can not write a sonnet

I will not wear a bonnet

Keep such dares inside your mouth

Before there's duct tape on it.

To which I respectfully reply to my dear friend, a talented photographer and father of some astonishingly lovely girls:

you can you can you can you can you can

a sonnet is not really difficult

please try and i will be your biggest fan

i do not fear it will lead to tumult.

indeed a sonnet could be just as fun

as taking photos of your lovely girls

okay well maybe not if there is sun,

or if their bonnets let peek raven curls.

but still and all a sonnet you can write

and i believe today is just the day

for such a form in you to take its flight.

duct tape is no defense from what i say

so put your bonnet on your pretty head

and send a sonnet 'ere you go to bed!

So if you're still not sure, here's a little tutorial I offered to another friend:

it's like a puzzle, because it has a really strict form. so first, there's the rhythm of the poem, which is written in what's called iambic pentameter. an iamb is what's called a "foot" in poetry, and it's two syllables, the first unstressed, the second stressed. so like "da DUM." pentameter just means there are five of these feet in each line.

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

so that's the rhythm of a sonnet. all the lines are in iambic pentameter.

next, there's a really strict rhyme scheme. well, actually there are several, but the one i used in my sonnet is the easiest and most typical. it goes like this (with the letters representing the rhyme at the end of each line; i've put the rhymes in my sonnet here too):

A (dog)
B (child)
A (agog)
B (reviled)
C (fear)
D (foreigner)
C (pier)
D (in her)
E (magnifies)
F (now)
E (clearer eyes)
F (vow)
G (then)
G (amen)

so the fun of a sonnet is making it all fit in the strict form, but still saying something meaningful. here's a really famous one from shakespeare:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

cool huh? you should give it a try!

Triple dog dare ya, Jeff. I'm not afraid of your duct tape, but you should be afraid of the bonnet I'm going to make you wear if you don't send me a sonnet by the end of the day.

Diary of a Mad Housewife: Nuts and Bolts

This is "blogging lite," for Jeffrey.

I have tried all sorts of organizational strategies in my life, most of which have been utter failures.  I'm good at setting them up, but not so great at following through consistently.  I find the more technological they are -- for example, anything requiring a computer -- the less likely I am actually to use them.  My calendar on my MacBook still flags on-going meetings that haven't been going on for years, and to-do lists from 2007.  Finally, this year, I hit on a very low-tech strategy that seems to work for me.  Right before the New Year, I bought a pretty, red Moleskine notebook with blank pages.  At the outer top corner of each page, I have written the date, beginning with "Th Jan 1."  Today is "June 15 M."  On the inside front cover are a few recurring checklists for housekeeping and self-care, which I try to check occasionally, but mostly now can check mentally.  On the blank pages for each day, I write appointments, of course, but there is still room on each page for my daily to-do list, which is the sum total of my organizational strategy: pencil and paper and a list.  What doesn't get done one day can be put on the next day's list.  Sometimes I work off the same list for a couple of days, but I find it's better, and more satisfying, if I write a new list each morning.  

Here's today's list (pretend I have hand-written a small square in front of each item, for checking off when complete):

• morning chores (this is one of my lists from the front inside cover, and includes breakfast dishes, making beds, a load of laundry, putting away clothes and shoes from the day before, and cleaning the bathroom sink)
• send email to school board re: revision of bylaws for tomorrow's retreat
• take car to shop
• take a walk (home from car shop)
• call re: garden permit (did you know you need a permit to plant a garden on your own property if it is not adjacent to your house? I just got a letter in the mail Saturday informing me of this fact.... and Marta leans just a little bit more libertarian...)
• laundry
• vacuum/mop
• dust
• clean bathrooms
• hang dining room curtain cat recently pulled down
• meal planning/make grocery list
• shell peas
• freeze strawberries
• grocery shop
• put this list on blog (check)
• Melissa arrives @4:00!!