Poem for Friday

True Story
By Shel Silverstein

This morning I jumped on my horse,
And went out for a ride,
And some wild outlaws chased me
And they shot me in the side.
So I crawled into a wildcat’s cave
To find a place to hide,
But some pirates found me sleeping there,
And soon they had me tied
To a pole and built a fire
Under me — I almost cried
Till a mermaid came and cut me loose
And begged to be my bride,
So I said I’d come back Wednesday
But I must admit I lied.
Then I ran into a jungle swamp
But I forgot my guide
And I stepped into some quicksand,
And no matter how I tried
I couldn’t get out, until I met
A water snake named Clyde,
Who pulled me to some cannibals
Who planned to have me fried.
But an eagle came and swooped me up
And through the air we flied,
But he dropped me in a boiling lake
A thousand miles wide.
And you’ll never guess what I did then —
I DIED.

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That last line reminds me of Moaning Myrtle. Am sort of relating to her right now -- at least, my raging sore throat is. Have spent the past two hours fighting with my FireWire trying to capture and burn video of my son's concert from MiniDV to DVD -- Nero Express has the sync between the video and audio all wrong and Windows Movie Maker has the beginning all fuzzed out and unwatchable. My parents missed the concert due to my mother's having ditzed on the day so I told her I would try to make her a copy, but thus far I have never actually used the FireWire, just sent things to the VCR from the camcorder.

Anyway, I do still have a raging sore throat but at least I don't have the fever that had me shaking with chills half the night. I had a comforter and two afghans on top of me, which, of course, means that as a radiant heat source covered in blankets I had two very happy cats competing to get close to me. I love my cats dearly but it is very hard to sleep when the one between my legs is licking herself and the one between me and my husband is snoring. Aforementioned wonderful husband bought me a space heater for near my computer, which is in the coldest corner of the house away from the vents, so I also had a happy cat curled on the chair next to me while I was at the computer.

Thursday's news was bullets, Grace Lee Whitney appearing in Star Trek: New Voyages now that Walter Koenig's done one, and finding a dryer repair place that can come tomorrow -- that is the good news, the bad news is that they are likely to be here during younger son's violin performance at school so either or I will not be able to go. Again, it is important to get the FireWire working so that whichever of us is not there has a recording of it for posterity. Kids were home from school two and a half hours early due to snowstorm, will probably be delayed tomorrow due to ice storm on top of snowstorm, so we will see what happens.


After seeing my bear slippers, the kids demanded that I track them down the cat slippers from JCPenney. Here they are, with Cinnamon insisting on being in the photo as well because why have fake cats when you can have a real one sitting on your feet to warm them?