GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Working in a bookstore I am delighted to admit

Has some wonderful advantages...some unexpected benefits.

How can I not be mesmerized by the charm and the allure

When I find myself surrounded by the world’s great literature?

It has prompted me to look around and wistfully concede

There are so many books...so many authors whom I have yet to read.

So I went home to our bookshelves with the expressed purpose to explore

If they housed any novels I hadn’t read before.

I discovered we had some classics to my sheer enjoyment and exultations.

I finished Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and I’m on to Dickens’s Great Expectations.

I was reading at my own pace and wondering if I would see

Pip give Estella a kiss on page one hundred and forty-three.

He didn’t, so I quickly turned to page one hundred and forty-four

But before the kiss could be revealed, something fell out on the floor.

I closed the book and picked it up...and was reminded how lucky I am

For in my hand, dated February 2, 2004, I held a 10 year old sonogram.

There was a picture of our grandson Aden packed into Ali’s expanding space.

To help us recognize what we were looking at it had labels...body and face.

Ali’s name was in the corner, it was 9:27 A.M. when the time stopped

And on the bottom of the sonogram...the words Hi Nana and Pop Pop.

In many ways life is like a novel for as we read we’re never quite aware

When we turn from one page to the next what might be waiting for us there.

Sometimes our story is predictable, sometimes there are twists and turns about

And sometimes when we least expect it, a memory floats out.

Will I keep reading the classics? On that question there is no debate.

For thanks to the bookstore and Charles Dickens...my expectations are now great.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN

Today we wish Happy Birthday to Ben Cohen a man who set the world aflame

So much so that we’ve come to know him by his first, not his last name.

In 1978 he teamed up with his longtime childhood friend, Jerry

Together they transformed ice cream forever with their unique use of dairy.

Yes, Ben and Jerry took a correspondence course and a whole new world unfurled

When in Burlington, Vermont they changed the ice cream world.

They brought flavors like Phish Food and Half Baked for the world to taste and see

They gave us Cookie Dough, Fossil Fuel and Chocolate Therapy.

They’ve given us Chunky Monkey, they even lace some of their pints with jam

They’ve given us Karamel Sutra and Blueberry Vanilla Graham.

I could go on and on naming flavors that whet the appetite and tease

But I can’t, you see I have to stop typing...I’m drooling all over my keys.

Ben is also a social activist someone we can embrace

As he tries in his own way to make the world a better place.

Wether or not you agree with his politics...how can this man be faulted

When he brings us Peanut Butter Fudge and Caramel that’s been salted!

The man who brought us Imagine Whirled Peace, Cheesecake Brownies and Cinnamon Buns

Has shown he’s got a sense of humor and is not afraid of puns.

For opening our world to new flavors, today we say thank you, Ben

Oh no! I’m thinking of Cherry Garcia and I’m starting to drool again.

So let me bring this poem to an end but instead of singing that birthday tune

I’ll be going to the freezer and getting out my spoon.

COMPLAINING

We have become a nation of complainers. Don’t you find it a little insane

To be surrounded by so many people who complain, complain, complain?

We complain about the weather, we complain about waiting in lines

We complain about the service in a restaurant, we complain about the wine.

We complain our team just lost the game, we complain it wasn’t fair

We complain when we look in our closet and there’s nothing for us to wear.

We complain about the dog, we complain about the cat

We complain that we’re too poor, we complain that we’re too fat

We complain today is Monday, we complain about our job and all its stress

We complain about our government, and we complain about the press

We complain there’s so much to do, we complain we need more time

I even imagine there are those out there who complain about these daily rhymes.

And they’d be right to complain about this rhyme for even I can see

A rhyme complaining about complaining; there must be something wrong with me.

So I will gladly end this little missive, this dreadful parody

But just one more thought before I go and then I’ll let you be.

Today when you feel like complaining would it be too ludicrous or bizarre

To stop for a moment and think to yourself...how lucky you really are?

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...

Today I offer this little quiz, for your amusement and edification

You may hold until the end you’re thanks and appreciation.

1.   His first two automobile companies went bankrupt but he never lost his way

      The third company he created is still making cars today.

 He was cut from his high school basketball team but he saw in himself what other             could not see

    And he is now considered the greatest player in basketball history.

3.  His music teacher called him hopeless saying he had no talent musically

    When his career was over he had written 9 complete and 1 unfinished symphonies.

 This boy was such a poor student they called him ‘that ignorant one’.

     But he proved them wrong by winning the Nobel Prize in Physics...in 1921.

5.  He lost more elections than he won but he remained steadfast and confident

     Saving the Union of our country as our 16th president.

6.  His first book was rejected 30 times, he even threw the manuscript away

     But he is now one of the most widely read authors of this or any day.

Henry Ford, Michael Jordan and Beethoven, 1, 2 and 3 in case you were wondering.

Followed in succession by Albert Einstein, Abe Lincoln and Stephen King.

Failure is part of life for as long as you inhale

Chances are there will be times when you are going to fail.

The trick as these six men will readily admit

Is to get up and try again...because you only fail when you quit.

Don’t let today’s failure stop  you...for tomorrow you may be a whiz...

Who knows someday, you too, may be an answer in this quiz.

PERFECTION

We are taught from an early age perfection is something we need to strive for

It begins with that big smiley face when we get that perfect score.

It’s so ingrained in us as we grow up that before our youth is through

We want to look and act and be perfect in everything we do.

We soon find out our perception of perfection as we make our daily climb

Changes, as it is impossible to be perfect all the time.

Ask a roomful of people to describe their perfect day...you’ll find out it depends

As you receive a myriad of answers before the evening ends.

Why is this? Because we tend to get a little wiser as we get a little older

We understand perfection...like love...is in the eye of the beholder.

When we discard our initial ideas of perfection we become liberated and free

To find moments of perfection in the imperfections that we see.

A perfect day, a perfect evening is no longer an unattainable myth

Sometimes it just depends on who you’re sitting with.

A perfect meal, a perfect party, all take on a different view

What often makes them perfect are the people next to you.

And this is as it should be for we all deserve to experience the affection

Of discovering that our lives have countless moments of perfection.

How long would we have to wait before our last hurrahs

If we chose to see as perfect only moments without flaws.

No, it seems to me it’s imperfect vision that allows us unabashedly

To view the world around us and see things perfectly.

Take this rhyme as further proof...for wouldn’t it be absurd

If I waited for that perfect poem...I’d never write a word.

So here’s a thought to end this verse, I hope you get behind it

If you go out looking for perfection today...I have no doubt you’re going to find it.

THE BUTTERFLY

Today is ‘Learn About Butterflies Day’ an insect we’d all love to hug

So I offer up this little limerick in honor of that beautiful bug.

I know it’s 3-14 and I should turn my attention to that mathematical constant Pi

But I choose instead to focus on the unpredictable butterfly:

From egg, larva, pupa to adult

The metamorphosis of a butterfly I now exult.

Yes down through the ages

They’ve encountered these stages

With such astonishing and beautiful results.

For mere beauty nothing in nature can beat them.

If they had cell phones we’d all want to tweet them.

Though their beauty’s diverse

It is also a curse

Because both frogs and birds like to eat them.

But here’s something I think long overdue.

And I now bring the question to you.

Shouldn’t that divine butterfly

Be called Flutterby

After all, isn’t that what they do?

I HATE SPELL CHICK

Is there anyone out there who likes spell check, you know, in your phone...that clown

Who takes the words you want to say and turns them all around.

He isn’t very nice, he can be vulgar, gross and crude

He will take the words you’ve painstakingly chosen and quickly change the mood.

There are many examples of his X-rated potty mouth but I write for the family

So I’ve chosen as my moral obligation to keep today’s rhyme rated G.

Like the person who was invited to a pool party and was certainly misled

When the text they received said they were invited to a poop party instead.

Or the wife whose text: ‘I’m out getting pregnant’ I’m sure set her husband a-tingle

Imagine his relief when she walked through the door holding only a can of Pringles.

Then there’s the woman who texted her friends about her dear husband Fred

She never saw the surprise on their faces when their texts read Fred was dead.

Or how about the Caucasian man who from his co-workers caught a lot of flack

When he texted I’m stepping out...but in a minute I’ll be black.

We’ve all been there.  We’v all had those moments where we’ve lost dignity or grace

When no matter how careful we are, the wrong word enters cyber space.

I proofread my text and swear it’s perfect but spell check is so devious and mean

It makes changes only after I hit send...and then they show up on my screen.

I immediately scream NO! (or something X-rated) then quickly amend the text

And wonder what that crazy spell checking scoundrel is planning for me next. 

I wish I could disable this feature, it’s something I would gladly disown.

I seemed to get along just find without it...before I purchased this phone.

Yes, if I had the choice to axe spell check...It wouldn’t take me very long.