Nursery Rhyme Nuptials

What a week at the Supreme Court.  One day we're down, the next day we're up.  Here's a ditty to celebrate the rulings on same-sex marriage.  Sing to the tune of "Jack and Jill" from Mother Goose Rhymes.

Joan and Jill
Went to the Hill
To see if they could marry.
Joan found out
There was no doubt
And so could Tom and Harry.

Life Lessons From the Garden

The news is too much these days, as we lurch from one screaming headline to another.  I prefer thinking about plants.  Here are some observations that have occurred to me over the years, as I've dug up weeds and divided bulbs, moved plants and thinned overgrowth.  You could consider these lessons about life, along the lines of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten or Tuesdays With Morrie.  Here goes:

1.  Sometimes you have to cut off part of a plant for the whole to thrive.

2.  Sometimes you have to move a plant out of the spot--I mean--sunlight.

3.  Sometimes you have to move a plant to the other side of the yard.

4.  Sometimes you have to accept that plants will die no matter what you do.

5.  Sometimes you have to let the wind and the bees and the rain take over.

6.  Sometimes you can't dislodge a weed from the rock that protects it.

7.  Sometimes you can't tell the difference between a baby flower bud and a dying flower head.

8.  Sometimes you can't get a plant to grow straight.

9.  Sometimes you can't keep the deer away.

10.Sometimes you can't imagine what your efforts will yield.

Sky Over Chapel Hill

"The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Deen Cuisine

It's hard not to move when Michael Jackson sings "Billie Jean," especially in this video as he performs the first moonwalk.  I thought of this song yesterday when I read that Southern cook Paula Deen had been dropped from the Food Network.  Anyone who cooks a cheeseburger sandwiched between two doughnuts deserves her own song.  Sing to the tune of "Billie Jean":

She was more like a cooking queen on the TV screen
I said don't mind, but what do you cook? I am the one
Who will eat all this junk that's prepared.
She said I am the one who will cook what I want on this show.

She told me her name was Paula Deen and she caused a scene
'Cause every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
Who would eat all this junk that's prepared.

People always told her be careful of what you say
Don't go around making racist jokes
And Matt Lauer asked her to come down to his show
But she was too tired and cancelled her plans
Hey, hey, hey

Well, Paula Deen was dropped for good
She's just a girl who cooks with lots of bad stuff
Like sugar, cream, and fat
She cooks really bad stuff
With sugar, cream, and fat.

She cooks really bad stuff
With sugar, cream, and fat.

On Being Real

Sometimes when I see this rabbit outside,

I think about the Velveteen Rabbit and wonder what the "real" rabbits in our yard think of this sculptured imposter.  For as the Skin Horse in Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit tells us, "You become.  It takes a long time.  That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

I think my stone bunny is Real.

In Suburbia

On my morning walks in our neighborhood, I often notice sounds more than anything else. 

Here's what I don't like:

1. Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and all varieties of yard noise makers

2. Car alarms

3. Unidentifiable animal sounds

4. Footsteps behind me

5. Dogs barking

Here's what I do like:

1. The calls of the mourning dove

2. The thwack of newspapers hitting their driveways

3. Airplanes overhead

 4. Children's voices

5. My dogs barking

Can't Stop Singing 'bout Those Unborn Babies

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill this week, sponsored not surprisingly by the Republicans, called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.  What are these people thinking, if they're thinking at all?  Here's a song that might explain their mindset.  Sing to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad":

We've been working on abortion
All the live-long day,
We've been working on abortion
Just to pass the time away.
Can't you hear the liberals moaning
Heaping on their endless scorn?
We'll pretend we cannot hear them
As we save the unborn.

Women don't you know?
Women don't you know?
Women don't you know that we're in charge?
Women don't you know?
Women don't you know?
Women we're in charge of you.

Someone's getting pregnant right now-ow
Someone's getting pregnant we know-oh-oh-oh
Someone's getting pregnant right now-ow
Someone who just couldn't say no.

We're singing
We'll save li'l embryos
We'll save li'l embryos-ohs-ohs-ohs
We'll save li'l embryos
Forgetting 'bout their mothers' woes.