Poetry Friday Word for Tomorrow; Old Ladies; Bell Jars; Stress

1) Yesterday at 3:30 p.m., a co-worker and I stared out the window and lamented…”It’s DARK already!” Fack. I mean, FACK. I come to work when it’s dark, I go home and it’s dark, I never get out at mid-day for any semblance of sunlight. And the days keep getting shorter…for two more weeks, anyway, and then Mother Nature grabs her crotch and flips off Old Man Winter and tells him to go fack himself, and then slowly, like some creeping insect crawling across the yard of sky, the days start to get imperceptibly longer. One minute a day…two minutes…. But right now? FAAAACK. Can’t stan’ it.

So what does that make the Poetry Friday WORD for tomorrow? Oh, I’m so transparent. It’s DARK. Dark. Which now has me thinking not so much of the daylight I’m missing but of dark chocolate. Why does everything revolve around chocolate?

Feel free to toss this word around your blog post tomorrow, in whatever fashion pulls the covers chin-high…poem, audio post, song lyrics, recipe for winter beverage, expose of your neighbor’s nocturnal habits.

2) An old lady nearly ran down my children and me the other day. We were leaving the mega-gigantic grocery store, and the parking lot has stop signs at crosswalks throughout the main lane so folks can cross. Pedestrians have the right-of-way. Girl-child was holding my hand and skipping. Boy-child walked beside me, excitedly telling me about the book he’d just read. I held a bag of various sundries. We looked both ways, saw a car slowly creeping towards our stop sign. Figuring the old lady driving the car would stop at the stop sign, like the LAW says to, and let us cross, we started to move. The Old Lady SPED UP, didn’t stop at the stop sign, and nearly ran us down. I gasped (the same gasp that came out of my own mother’s mouth), and looked down at my kids. “Jesus Christ!”, I yelled (unlike my own mother). I got the kids in the car and started home, and whaddya know? The Old Lady Who’d Nearly Run Us Down was going our way! Very slowly. Then I realized one reason she didn’t stop (besides the obvious fact that she’s a RAVING BITCH)…the top of her head didn’t even reach the top of the steering wheel. I could see in my rear-view, once I passed her, her eyes could barely see out the opening of the wheel. Like a child. Uh…Granny? Time for Assisted Living.

3) I just finished reading “The Bell Jar”, by Sylvia Plath. Isn’t that one of those books you’re supposed to read as a gnarly youth, like “Catcher in the Rye”, and come away with some sort of new teen angst? My daughter is NEVER getting her hands on this book. She’s too much into being a ‘Drama Queen’, and this tome would not help. Would. Not.

4) The In-Laws are coming into town this weekend for a combination Christmas Celebration/Boy-child Birthday Bash. They’ll be at our house all day Saturday…ALL day…from 9 a.m. to whenever. I have baking to do, gifts to wrap, pictures to develop, laundry to do, house to clean…in short, I’m freaking out. And Stressed. I asked my boss for tomorrow off. I’m sort of thriving on the stress, but it’s exhausting. Anyone have a good recipe for quiche?