Power's Out To Do List

12 things to do when the power's out.

1. Play hide and go seek.
2. Pretend to be a ninja.
3. Paint yourself with glow in the dark paint. Then knock on your neighbors door to see if they will say anything about it.
4. Build a fire and roast marshmellows.
5. hehe...For Married couples only :D
6. Use a flashlight and put on a shadow show.
7. Sleep.
8. Dance like no one is watching (because they aren't if they can't see you.) Caution...you could hit unseen objects.
9. Make up scary overdramatic stories and tell them to whoever is with you.
10. Light a bazillion candles, have a picnic of sandwiches.
11. Eat ice cream (you know, so it doesn't melt and all that.)
12. Run around naked...because whose going to know. Just don't get caught when the light's come back on.

Cliche (Cat's out of the bag-Wes H.)

Another poetry prompt...but this time the first line is a cliche. The title is an ode to Wes my former boss who at improv night during our church camp as cliche man could only remember "Cat's out of the bag." He then used this every time he was buzzed in.

My cliche is "zigged when she should have zagged."

Zigged when she should have zagged
was my unspoken thought.
The story of her life
She walked away her shoulders sagged

A tightrope walk on the sharp edge of a knife
truth hidden in night
The broken in spirit
Bitter, wounded, filled with inner strife

If I spoke would she hear it?
What to say to
The one in need
pain's past begin to disinherit?

But by word and deed,
By love given, and
The hand of helping
From all sorrow she was freed

(That was a real stretch there.)

Poetry-Remix

The prompt was to take the last line of a poem that you like and make it the first of yours. I chose "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas after doing some poetry research since the only poem I could even remember was "The Road not taken"

Rage, rage against the dying of the light
But why fear you the Lord your soul to take
death should no longer give you such fright

For if you are his salt and light
and all your life is lived for his sake
Rejoice for even in death your future is bright

And be awed by the hoped for sight
that pierced hands will someday make
as your heart in your chest grows tight

The enemy no more you will need fight
as his outstretched hand you choose to take
His word alone will cast back the night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light
but not the dying that death will make
Rage, rage against the lost soul's plight

(And I'm pretty sure that's awful poetry, but I'm not a poet and don't I know it...lol)

Prompt 4- the shoe fits another foot

Cinderella gasped in astonishment as the shoe slid perfectly on her stepsister’s foot. How? She thought as she leaned against the wall and slid slowly to the floor. Her dreams, her hopes for the future were dashed to the ground. Tears ran down her cheeks as her stepsister squealed with delight and nearly tackled the prince.

“Why so sad, Cindy?” a voice said from next to her followed by a pop and a smack. “You ain’t missing much. Prince Charming, he ain’t so charming. He’s a bit of a player, ya know what I mean, Ellie?”

Cinderella turned to see a young woman with long black hair with streaks of bright pink in a black dress with slits up to her hip, legs covered in fish nets, and black leather boots with long thin heels. “Who are you?” she whispered.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. Dolores is so going to give me demerits for that one. I’m Jemma. You’re old fairy godmother decided to take an early retirement. The fairy godmothers are reorganizing and all that other stuff. Anyway, I’m your new fairy godmother.”

“Oh…” Cindrella said. She didn’t quite know what to think of this new fairy godmother. In fact, Jemma didn’t look much like a fairy godmother at all.

“Look, Cinds, I know the story is that you are suppose to be the one the shoe fits and all that, but I just couldn’t put you through all that. Ol’ Charm has a bit of a problem with being faithful. In fact, you would be out to pasture within days of the wedding. He likes the chase, but not so much the catching. So happily ever after isn’t really happy. So anyway I did a little hocus pocus on your stepsister to make the shoe fit. Those two totally deserve each other.”

“But I thought I was going to get out of this house, away from them,” Cinderella said. “He was my way out.”

“Oh girl, don’t you be doubting your fairy godmother. I’ve got a plan for you. No time to pack and all. Adventure awaits! Bippety boppety boom pow!” Her fairy godmother grinned as she waved her wand and sent Cinderella flying far far away on the greatest adventure of her life. And even though Cinderella didn’t get her happily ever after, she found out that real happiness is something you make for yourself. Besides Charming really did turn out to be a dirtbag and her stepsister lived to be old and miserable. But Cinderella never even gloated.

Three-Made up meanings

10 real words with made up meanings (admittedly some of them are obsolete words)

1. gambrinus- a sweaty gambler

2. namaste- something you yell when in Japan to let people know they should not do something

3. velleity- the measure of how much something is like vellum

4. thanatognomonic- the way a king goes about memorizing things

5. killdeer- the act of hunting and then killing a deer while running naked through the woods with your hair on fire.

6. paroxysm- what happens in the brain when you really tick someone off.

7. calamistrate- to make plans to dominate world with your evil henchmen while doing calisthenics

8. dejerate- to attempt to apologize for jeering at someone by giving them a high rating

9. marcesible- When something is prone to causing errors during attempts to access it such as typing the wrong password to get into your email.

10. orcast- this is what the weatherman does when he or she does not really no what's going to happen in the forcast they give an "or"cast in which a variety of possibilities for what the weather is going to be like are presented.

Dos- Old photos

It took me awhile to find my old albums. They were stuffed in the bottom drawer of the desk I hate and would love to toss out the door. As I counted the pages, I found that I had only filled it part way. The very last photo was one from when I was still in high school. There's me and my two cousins Alex and Vicki. Nostalgia crept over me and a deep sense of the swift passage of time. This photo is of these two girls when they are 6 or 7. I wonder at this lost moment in time captured in front of my parents house. It reminds me of things lost. The picture was taken in front of my Mamaw and Papaw's house. But my Mamaw died 5 years ago and that house stands empty since Papaw lives in his new wife's house. This was before their lives were broken by the divorce of their parents. They still seems so fresh and new like the rare white snowscape in the picture. And from the past time goes rushing forward. I remember the summer I stayed with them in Texas for a month while their parents were divorcing. Time skips forward again and I am at my wedding and they are half grown beauties helping at the door. Then, come the summer visits filled with laughter and annoyances. I feel time screech to halt in the present. In a few short months, Alex will be 18. Vicki is already 16. Almost grown, there is still so much life ahead of them.

Questions fill me up. Do they still have the same wonder and joy as they did when the photo was taken? Do they still have big dreams for their futures? Have they forgotten the love and compassion that filled them for animals when they were kids? Or has that spark of life that once so filled them been burn out by the world?

And most of all I am filled with love. Love for them and hope for them. And consumed by my ever present prayer, Father, move in their hearts. Teach them your love. Heal their brokenness. Hold them when I can't.

Numero Uno

On my desk sits a translucent green bottle filled with liquid that glows green in the bottle but pours clear yet bubbly. The bottle has a shine to it that tells me its plastic and not glass.  Four stubbly nubs hold it balanced. Its shape is not unlike my own like an hourglass with cushioning but narrow at the top like a neck and head. I suppose that’s why they call that part the neck. Bubbles drift on the inside up from the bottom to the top from time to time like gas under the sea. On the inside of the bottle, moisture beads up around the neck. The blue (or is it green?) top captures all of this on the inside of the bottle creating a microcosm. It’s strangely beautiful when you contemplate this simple mass produced man made thing. How is it that something so commonplace can suddenly be brilliant and lovely when given a deeper look and thought? Perhaps even in the mess on my desk covered with post its and notes and computers and all sorts of papers, there is a piece of art disguised as a 20oz. bottle of Sprite.