Guido the Enforcer

Yesterday morning just before we left for church, we got a phone call. It was fraud alert. Yes, Calvin’s identity has been stolen AGAIN. This is the fourth time. Cal’s social security number must be popular—it keeps getting sold over and over again.

We found out about the fraud because a couple of months ago we got a Capital One Visa card. And, providentially, Identity Thief Number Four chose to open a Capital One credit card. Capital One thought it was odd that Cal was applying for a second credit card from an address in Detroit, so they called us. Capital One is now denying Identity Thief Number Four a credit card.

Later today, we’ll find out if ITNF has opened other credit cards in Cal’s name. Then, we’ll call the police in Detroit and they’ll tell us that ITNF has rights and they can’t help us.

Hmmm. We still have some friends in Connecticut. I wonder if anyone there has a cousin named Guido the Enforcer who will help us. After all, this identity thief is not nearly as clever as the last one. ITNF actually gave Capital One his home address, instead of a PO Box. I’m sure Guido can convince Capital One to share ITNF’s address with him.

Anyone out there have a cousin named Guido?

Parental Exit Evaluations

Whenever our children complain about something my husband Calvin and I have done that they don’t like, Calvin always says, “Okay. So include it your exit evaluation.” In other words, just like they get to evaluate a professor at the end of a class, Cal says that they can give us a parental exit evaluation when they move out. (They don’t think it’s funny, but Cal and I think it’s hilarious.) But I’ve been thinking about it, here’s how I’d evaluate us.

1. Food. A serious lack of junk food. When my kids complain that there’s nothing to eat, I open the fridge and say, “Eggs, cheese, milk, meat—protein! Ooo, look veggies and fruit too!! ” My kids give me a fake smile. When we visit my parents’ house, my mom always has chips, cookies, pizza, etc.  When we have grandkids, I’ll buy lots of junk food.

2. Entertainment. We watch no movies that will give me nightmares. Sorry. Cope.

3. Laundry Service. Your siblings have to fold and put away laundry. This explains why your sister’s bra shows up in a pile with your manly shirts. Too bad.

4. Slave Labor. This occurs when the-house-is-too-messy-for-mom-and-she’s-losing-it. Then I yell, “Slave Labor,” and it means you are my slaves until the house is clean. My sanity is valuable to me.

5. Pest Control. When there is a gross/stinging/creepy bug, a parent (or non-freaked-out sibling) is supposed to come and kill the offending insect that has escaped from Hades. Sadly, I’ve been known to say, “I’m busy writing. If it’s not hurting you, ignore it. It’s only a wasp.”

Cal and I are hoping we're only one standard deviation away from the parental effectiveness mean. If not...oh, well.

Re-Imagining

A friend posted a YouTube video that showed a flash mob “performing” Rembrandt’s Nachtwacht (The Night Watch). I was enchanted by it. And as each member of my family got up in the morning, I made them watch it.

After watching it a few times, I thought about what other than the “coolness” factor captured my attention. I think part of it is the way the producer and director re-imagined The Night Watch. They imagined the fictional story behind the painting. They took a different medium, a combination of performance art, music, and film, and told the same story. They even included subplots—the audience reaction to the story, what was going on with the chicken, etc.

It occurred to me much art is new ways of imagining. In writing there are only a few major plots, and most stories are creative mixes and retelling of those plot lines. (The Greeks limited plots lines to two types—comedy, the story ends in a wedding, and tragedy, it ends in a funeral. I think you could still argue the Greek position by broadening those categories to include works that function as repudiations of the categories. But I digress. Sorry—I took too much literary criticism in college.)

In any case, I think this flash mob short film does just that. Re-imagines the story in a new way while still giving credit to its inspiration.

Or maybe, as my kids might say, “Mom, you’re overthinking it.”

Here’s the video clip. Enjoy.

Make Words Your Playground

Today, in honor of National Poetry Month,  I'm welcoming poet and author Laurel Garver (Never Gone and Muddy-Fingered Midnights) to the blog. Welcome, Laurel, and thanks so much!!

Make Words Your Playground.

I started writing poetry at ten, and it has been a life-long love for me--a way of writing that’s condensed, intense, and musical. But it’s never too late to start. Here are a few favorite tips for beginning poets.

My first, ultra-obvious piece of advice would be to READ poetry. If you’re new to the genre, there’s no need to put historical barriers in your path--start reading contemporary poets. There are loads of free e-zines with wonderful poems. Every Day Poets is a favorite of mine. They post new pieces daily that are accessible (you don’t need a PhD to understand them) and cover a variety of styles and topics. My collection Muddy-Fingered Midnights also offers diverse styles and topics.

Try a beginner’s poetry class hosted by a local writer’s group, public library, or adult education evening classes at your public school. You could also try a free online course.

Or simply read some poetry-writing books and start experimenting. Here’s a list of recommendations from a beginner poet.

If I were to pick one thing that has helped me most as a poet, it would be vocabulary building. I don't mean simply picking up a thesaurus and looking for fancier ways to say things. I mean delving deep into the world of words. A poet must look not only at a word's definition, but also its connotations and connections. A poet must hear the tones and feel the textures of words.

Developing a wide and flexible vocabulary is a life-long pursuit, not something you can master in a few weeks. Most of all, it should be fun!

Here are a few journaling exercises I recommend to open your mind to words’ many possibilities.

Word clouds
Select a word and spend fifteen minutes writing down every word that pops to mind to describe it, that you associate with it, that comes from a similar setting, or has similar meanings, connotations or sounds. Here's an example:

RABBIT
long-eared, cottontail, velvety, fluffy, tawny, spotted, lop-eared, floppy, hop, scamper, skittish, twitchy, whiskers, nibble, hutch, hole, meadows, woodlands, thickets, briar patch, Brer Rabbit, Thumper, tree roots, Peter Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy, blackberries, MacGregor's garden, Springtime, Easter, chocolate treats, March Hare, Alice in Wonderland, Bugs Bunny, wascally wabbit, what's up doc, carrots, munching, crunching, large litters, perpetually pregnant, fertility, multiples, growth, expansion, invasion, hare, jackrabbit, habit, Babbitt, rabid, rapid, traffic.

Word studies
Select a word and delve through its many layers. Start with a basic definition. Consider what activities, settings and literature/films/music you associate with the word. What rhymes with it? What almost rhymes with it? What sounds ring loudest in the word? What do you sense(hear, feel) from those dominant sounds apart from the word’s meaning? In other words, if you didn't know what the word meant and had to guess based on how it sounds, what meaning do you hear?

Here's an example:

CHALICE

Definition: A stemmed cup

Associations: wine, Holy Grail, Arthurian legend, king’s tables, celebrations, banquets, church, Eucharist, weddings, toasts, drink offerings, poisoning, drinking games

Rhymes: Alice, callous, cowl-less, Dallas, malice, towel-less

Slant rhymes: ballast, foulest, Gaulish, jealous

Dominant sounds: CH, S

Sound texture: Slicing, whistling, hissing, sword swinging, wind shear

By all means, don't limit yourself to nouns in these explorations. Pick a verb or an adjective. Open the dictionary to a random page and choose a brand new term to research for its meaning and associations (Google can help there).

Let your imagination loose in the world of words, and you will never be at loss for poem ideas.

Does poetry intimidate you? How might read, study, and wordplay help you overcome your fears and set your imagination free?

Laurel Garver is a magazine editor, poet, and writer of faith-based fiction.She enjoys quirky independent films, British TV, and geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

About Muddy-Fingered Midnights
This thirty-poem collection is an eclectic mix of light and dark, playful and spiritual, lyric and narrative free verse. In an intricate dance of sound play, it explores how our perceptions shape our interactions with the world. Here child heroes emerge on playgrounds and in chicken coops, teens grapple with grief and taste first love, adults waver between isolation and engaged connection. It is a book about creative life, our capacity to wound and heal, and the unlikely places we find love, beauty, and grace.

Available now. $1.99 e-book Kindle / Nook / all other ereaders ; $6.50 paperback

Spring Cleaning

I started spring cleaning. Theoretically, it’s spring, which means I should be getting dirt under my nails and smelling like weeds and flowers. But it’s raining and raining.

So, I scrubbed the laundry room, the haven of muddy boots. I figure I’ve got 12 hours before you can’t tell that the floor’s been cleaned in months.

I oiled furniture so now the whole house smells like lemon oil.

Then, I got out the bleach. I’m a bit of a bleach fiend—my children have been known to yell, “Mom’s going crazy with the bleach again.” Yesterday, my son asked, “Did you bleach the kitchen counters?” Me (hoping he’d noticed their sparkling cleanness), “Yeah.” Son, “I thought so. I slurped milk that I spilled on the counter and now I taste bleach.” Me, “Sorry, I washed the counters with water afterwards.” Son (after spitting and rinsing his mouth), “I think my mouth is oxidizing.” Me (having no idea what that means), “Right.”

I sorted through the “computer crap,” the two boxes of weird cords and assorted disks labeled with names like Zeru. I put all the junk into a big paper bag and stuck it in the basement for a month. My thought was that if they hadn’t used something in a month, they wouldn’t need it. So I announced the eminent disposal of the computer crap that hadn’t been used in months. Talk about gnashing of teeth—you’d think I was announcing that we were getting rid of the dog.  Hands went through the bag, removing “my favorite game.” And if that weren’t bad enough, now the bag itself has been stolen and hidden. So, I’ve learned my lesson…next year, I throw things out and don’t tell anyone.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Autism and Black Beauty

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I try to post about autism every year on World Autism Day. Part of me really doesn’t want to write about autism. But part of me has to.

I have a sixteen year old son who’s autistic. In God’s wonderful mercy, our son has responded very well to various therapies and diet and has progressed from the pediatric neurologist’s encouragement, “Maybe he’ll learn to talk” to what our family calls, “eccentric.” But it’s been a long, long road. And I don’t always like to look back because it’s sometimes painful. But it’s marvelous too. And funny—if you don’t laugh in midst of suffering, you lose perspective.

One of the most difficult things during the first few years of Matt’s life was the lack of sleep. Matt only slept a few hours out of every 24. Sadly, many of the leftover hours were spent doing rhythmic crying.

Much of our life revolved around Matt’s sleeping. He’d be walking in the kitchen, fall asleep standing up and literally crash to the floor. Sometimes his face would smack the ground. But he was asleep. You’d think the crash would wake him, but it never did. Anything else, on the other hand, would. No one could touch him or even go in the room because if he woke up, he wouldn’t sleep again. Often not until the next day. My older kids remember me saying, “I don’t care if it’s lunchtime. No one is going into the kitchen until Matt wakes up.”

And, of course, my husband Calvin and I needed to sleep. So we’d put Matt in our bed between us (autistic kids can get into so much trouble without supervision) and turn on the VCR so Matt could watch Black Beauty—I’ve seen it 1000 times or more. He was completely fixated on the movie. And every time the fire started in the barn, Matt would wake us up. I remember Cal saying, “Matt, you know that Black Beauty is going to be okay. This is the second (or third) time you’ve watched this movie tonight. In fact, you’ve seen this movie multiple times every night for the past couple of years. I promise you, Black Beauty is not going to die in the fire.” When Matt was asleep, Cal and I would sometimes giggle and devise ways for Black Beauty to die.

But having Matt awake and watching BB was better for Cal and me than when Matt actually slept because Matt slept sideways. So the three of us would be in bed, forming the letter H. Cal and I would be huddled on the edges of the bed, trying not to fall out. We couldn’t go sleep on the couch because if we moved even a little bit, Matt would wake up. And during the winter when Matt would shove the blankets to the bottom of the bed, I’d tell myself I wasn’t cold because if I pulled the blankets up, Matt would wake up.

Thankfully, ten years later, we sleep better. Though I’ll still wake up cold and wonder why I didn’t pull up the blankets. I guess old habits are hard to break. And as for Black Beauty. Cal and I are never, ever watching that movie again.

My Life Doesn't Need a Soundtrack

I’m a non-music person living in a house of music people. My husband and most of my children love to listen to music. Me? Not so much. When I’m cleaning the house, I listen to Pat Benatar or Aretha Franklin. But otherwise, I prefer what little quiet I can get. Maybe it’s because I’m with kids most of the day, and there’s always a buzz of noise in the background. So when the kids want to play music on the stereo, I say, “Let’s leave it off. My life doesn’t need a soundtrack.”

My family thinks that’s insane. So when I get in the car, there may be classical, country, or rock playing. Sometimes I just leave the radio on as a favor to whoever is with me in the car. Occasionally, I’ll recognize a song from the 80s, find myself humming along. And someone will say, “Uh, Mom, you do realize what that song is about, right?” And I say, “I have no idea.” My confused child says, “Don’t you understand the words?” And I say, “No. I’ve never been able to figure out music lyrics. Somehow when words and music are put together, my brain can’t suss it out.” Then, my child tells me what the words are. My face pales and I change the station.

This is why my life doesn’t need a soundtrack, I couldn’t understand it anyway.

n.b. I don’t usually post on Tuesdays, but tomorrow, April 2, is World Autism Day, I’ll be posting on our family’s experiences with autism.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.