Poetry Friday Word for Tomorrow, plus Oompa-Loompa programmers, Magical Thinking, and Cheeeeeese, Gromit

1) The beautiful and talented Maggie will be offering up the Poetry Friday WORD for tomorrow. Check her site, and check often, as she is a brilliant writer and all-around Girl-You-Wanna-Be-With. Feel free to use the Word in your blog post tomorrow, in whatever manner laces your boots…poem, story, photo, recipe for mulligan stew, graphic retelling of your favourite folktale, slightly naughty limerick….

2) Last night I dreamed that my company hired a bunch of Oompa Loompas to do some computer programming for us. The old version of OLs, the Gene Wilder-version, with orange skin and balloon-y pants and notsomuchfunk as Deep Roy. The Oompa Loompas may be good at making candy, but in my dream, they made TERRIBLE programmers. The Marketing manager and I sat discussing their apparent lack of progress on the project, and I said, “He made it basically functional, BUT he forgot to put in that bit of code that said, ‘In case this doesn’t happen….’”, and the Marketing manager and I were laughing our geeky pants clean off, when my alarm sounded and I woke up, slapped at the blasted thing, then sat on the edge of the bed wondering, Why…why do I have to dream about working, only to wake up and have to go to work? Don’t I get overtime pay or something??

3) In Augusten Burroughs’ book, “Magical Thinking” (not to be confused with Joan Didion’s book of similar title), he explains that “magical thinking” is the belief that your thoughts control the world around you…that magical convergence of the wishing for something to happen and then it happens. (I found this thing just now, and I adore Augusten even more after reading it.) This morning I drove to work and, as I approached a nasty criss-cross set of railroad tracks, thought “I’m not gonna be stopped by a train today.” Just then, the crossing gates came down and the lights and bells blared. Lucky for me, I had to turn onto a cross-street right before the tracks. I went on my merry way, driving parallel to the train tracks, outrunning the train handily, traversing the snare of trunk lines and street signs and made it to work in record time. I am also convinced that when street lights shut off as I drive under them, it’s because my aura shines as bright as the sun. Doesn’t everyone think this?

4) Yesterday I refused one of those fake-cheese-and-small-cracker packets offered me by a co-worker. We then launched a conversation revolving around cheese and cheesy comestibles, ending in the possibility that I am a cheese snob. It’s possible. It’s probable. I often hear the lilting call of a chunk of bleu cheese, or the sharp tongue of cheddar, or the siren song of a boursin box coming from my refrigerator. I am not, however, above slapping two slices of ‘Merican cheese on white bread, grilling them, and wolfing them down like a hungry 5-year old. Are you a snob about anything?