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Tag: whimsy

March 2, 2007

pssst, don’t forget the green eggs

as the self-appointed director of whimsy around here, a role i relish, really i do, i hereby declare today a day of national honor and import and food dye. it’s green-eggs-and-ham day, for cryin’ out loud. at least at our house, it is. and technically, kosherly, it’s green-eggs-and-turkey-bacon day, thank you. has been for quite a few years now.

but today the green eggs are greener than ever, and the ham it is hammier. for today the cat with the hat and the mischief tucked under his mitts, he turns 50. which means the ol’ wily fellow with the stripes on his stovepipe was born a mere 58 days after moi.

matter of fact we both came to the planet within a full moon or two. which means the two of us have seen just about the exact same show over the last half century. although i’ll bet he’s been in more bedrooms.

the cat with the hat is just the latest excuse to wake up my boys with a bang. there are, come to think of it, quite a few bangs in this cottage we call home sweet home. in fact, sometimes it downright rattles under these rafters. just ask the one who sneaks out for the early-morning train, ever scheming to wake up with no more tympany than the splash of the oj gurgling into his glass.

mind you, it’s all in the name of silly. and silly is not such a bad name. what with all that there is to worry about, to feel afraid for the world as you take in the news, a little silly is just the inoculation you might need to keep from going under.

especially when you are 13, and mindful, and you think very big thoughts much of the time.

you need a mama who’s nuts. and so, i offer myself, wholly, completely; exhibit a, in the she’s-nuts department.

i think i learned nuts from my aunt. my beloved, wonderful, kooky, aunt nancy. i wanted more than anything to wake up at her house every morning. to go to sleep hearing the sound of her house-rocking laugh.

aunt nancy, whom my papa called noo, she made, among other eccentricities, jell-o that jiggled 1,001 fruits, nuts, marshmallows, whipped cream, mayonnaise, even cole slaw, i swear in that jell-o. and cakes that oozed super goo. she penned love notes, too, that oozed the same goo, only not sticky.

every day at aunt nancy’s was reason for joy. every day was a new definition of what in the world could be done to make you laugh silly.

my own mama, her sister, tended toward serious (a quality i have come to hold dearly for her rock-solid stance in a wobbly world). at our house, jell-o came three ways and three ways only: straight, whipped, or laced with mandarin oranges.

although she did pull her pranks now and then, my mama she did. i remember one april fool’s pouring green milk on my o’s. my mama, she giggled. from back by the stove where she tried to keep a straight face.

so maybe this green gene comes as a birthright. maybe i got it from her.

all i know is that life is a wonderful thing when you’re little and someone much bigger than you gets all silly.

so the eggs will be scrambled in green. and the seuss books, scattered all over. the cat’s hat will be worn, will be tipping.

and we’ll all settle in for a reading of the little red house, with the blue swaying tree. the house where the sun did not shine, it was too wet to play. so they sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. and then something went bump! how that bump made them jump! how the cat in the hat, he stepped in on the mat, and said to sally and friend (forever left unnamed except for the first-person, i): “i know it is wet and the sun is not sunny. but we can have lots of good fun that is funny!”

not a bad cat, that cat 50 years old. you might bake him a cake. you might break a few eggs. just make sure that they’re green. that cat likes green eggs with his ham.

hey look, it’s eggs that are scrambled and green! bet you’re glad you weren’t here for breakfast….

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February 27, 2007

stuffing envelopes

in a world in which bank bills and passion, catalogue orders and invites, teacher notes and to-do lists, itineraries and plane tickets all can come into your screen, into your daily agenda, at the click of a button, there is something sublime about succumbing to the slow pace of letters with stamps.

something even richer if you slit open the envelope and consider the vast possibility for what you can stuff deep inside, cast off to the clouds, with little more than the 39 cents that, as of this minute, the mail minions claim is the bottom-line cost of doing the business that will not be stopped by rain, sleet or snow.

you’ve read and you’ve heard, you’ve considered, i’m sure, the rapture of actually picking up pen, choosing ink, choosing paper. putting down thoughts in that old chicken scratch that gets scratchier by the day, i swear, what with the lack of practice, and maybe the eyes that now make it fuzzy, fuzzy all over, oh no.

a letter for no reason. a letter for thank you. or i’m sorry. or i love you. or, god, this is bad, is there something to do to pull you out from the deep dark place you’ve plunged into?

it’s just that once in a while there is something marvelously breath-taking about stopping the flow, taking time out, creating in real time, and stuffing your heart in an envelope.

ah, but here’s where we rip open that envelope. think outside the confines of words penned, flatly, on paper.

here, people, is where we go into the third dimension. here, people, is where we really consider what you can do with the limited room of an envelope.

here’s where we see what we can stuff down the throat of the folded-up paper with the gummy north rim.

i am particularly fond of sending mail-sized surprises, stumbling across some little thing that triggers a thought, makes me think of a someone. and rather than waving goodbye to the thought as it travels along out the distal hole of my head, simply succumbing.

just the other day i was perusing the aisles of a spice house, an amazing, intoxicating shrine of a spice house, filled with all sorts of jewels with fine smells. the furled logs of cinnamon sticks, the shining little stars of anise, peppercorns in pink and green and white, vanilla in long lanky pods you couldn’t wait to rip into, for the soft sweet treasure inside.

well, in my mind, this is just the sort of place for envelope stuffing. imagine the joy of opening an envelope stuffed with, for no reason, a packet of herbes de provence. or slitting the sealed edges of something postmarked to you, and finding three anisey stars spill in your palm. maybe even a recipe napping there, too. let loose your inner marco polo, dispatching spices from hither to yon.

bulbs, too, make for fine winter wonders. even just one tucked in a safe nest of papers. or packets of seeds, beckoning spring, promising summer. imagine the reverie of twirling the seed tree and picking nasturtium or sweet pea, big boy tomato or chocolate bell pepper, or the one i’ll never forget, forget-me-not. a packet of bath flakes. a few bath oil beads, especially the ones in shapes like the moon or the stars or the proverbial rubbery duck.

anything little. anything sweet. anything willing to slide into the confines of a letter-sized, legal-sized, or heck even a manilla-sized lickable post.

these are the sorts of once-in-a-blue-moon surprises i delight in mailing along. packing some wholly unanticipated folly into the folded-up paper that is addressed and sealed with a stamp.

what a sumptuous treat in these drab days of the winter that will not scat, to know that, just a few days after you stuff, lick and stamp, someone you love will reach to pick up the mail, expect nothing so much as more grist for the recyclable mill, and suddenly, unexpectedly, stumble upon you and your envelope whimsy.

suddenly inserting a good dash of joy into the spiceless stew known as a long day in winter.

i know you’re an imaginative lot. so you’ve probably already thought of, and executed, a vast army of marvelous mailings. anyone willing to open the envelope, and divulge the contents inside?

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