20080327

A couple weeks ago, the Monk and I tagged along with a couple friends to a wedding that would play host to the awesomest display of a horrible wedding sermonthing ever known. It was exuberant in its excruciation. In fact, it was as if the presiding minister, lifted up on high with face burned into sour malevolence and grave shadow, brandished his phoenix-tail-and-baobab wand with gleeful abandon, shouting over and again the harsh cry of "Crucio! Crucio! CRUCIO!!" until all before him kneeled, abject and terror-stricken.

It was difficult to suppress my own fitful humour as I watched this dark master at work.

But that is not why I write today. No, I thought that in lieu of weightier exercises, I would share the wedding card we offered in congratulations to the happy couple.* Now keep in mind that I knew neither of the participants (that pleasure belonging wholly to my companions for the afternoon's jaunt). As the four of us went halvsies on a gift, I prepared a card in all of our names. Never knowing what to say to those of whom I have been entirely ignorant up until the days leading up to the event I would be attending, I decided to go with something simple and effective, tried yet true, and several other clichés.

So, in light of the cutout sunflower card we had purchased (below replicated to the best of my abilities), I decided upon the most obvious. I decided to invoke Sauron.

I suppose The Monk should be congratulated for her willingness to allow me to take care of the greeting card duties. Our companions should also be congratulated for actually trusting me and not opening the card to make certain I wasn't going to be an embarrassment to them and their future fortunes in which the fresh-minted couple might figure. In the interest of fairness, tonight The Monk was expressing much regret, proposing that it was quite possible that the newly wed would have not the cultural cache to make sense of the card, either remaining oblivious to the identity of Sauron or not being savvy enough to recognize that the sunflower we had used bore an uncanny resemblance to the dread lord's much-ballyhooed eye.

In a way, I think The Monk's fear, if realized, makes the card that much cooler.

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*note: though not happy for long if the minister has any say in the matter.

20080124

Here is a cute one. Written to Monk's parents who were generous this Christmas. The "Ticket to Ride" line refers to a boardgame (Ticket to Ride) that is coming in the mail at some point.

You got us both lots
     of treasures and gifts—
So many, in fact,
     the Earth's axis did shift!

From right unto left,
     the gist of its tilt;
But please do not feel
     one moment of guilt.

We both quite enjoyed
     each present you wrapped,
Though jungles now flourish
     at the polar ice cap.

The CDs of music
     and stories read 'loud
Keep us warm in this winter
     of snow-laden clouds.

When Ticket to Ride
     arrives by the post,
We're sure to submerge
     with all the West Coast.

Your kindness was great.
     Our thanks greater still.
Sacremento is certain
     to send you a bill.

We love you both much
     and hope that you're fine.
Our soul's gracious thanks
     for the sweet Christmastime.

20080114

This Christmas, to help get me in the mood for writing Thank You notes (an activity that all alive know can be a soul-wilting prospect under the best of circumstances), I took a note from my efforts with the wedding Thank Yous from way back when. I painted* a cute little orchid scene (as seen above in the masthead for this post or more expansively here) and printed it thrice upon a sheet of 8.5x11 - so that when cut just right, I'd have three vertical notecards that would be perfect fits for standard envelopes.

And of course, what is homemade stationary without a poetic Thank You note gracing its humble plane. So, here are two such examples. This first is for a dashing fellow who got us a pile of classical music.

Thanks for the music—
     such a wonderful treat!
So many composers
     put a spring in our feet.

With cellos, violas,
     and cymbals and more.
With grand ol’ pianos
     to even the score.

The horns softly trumpet
     a victorious lilt.
On percussions’ rhythm
      foundations are built.

There’s Bach and Beethoven
     John Williams and Mozart.
Music to calm
     maybe even a stoat’s heart.

Wagner and Verdi
     and Handel’s "Messiah."
Verdi’s Italian,
     I’ll-a give him a try-a!

There’s Shubert and Gershwin,
     Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
To any of these,
     I would loan out my loft’s key.

So here once again,
     I offer my thanks,
For CDs of music,
     and the cool fish tanks.

p.s. just kidding about the tanks!

This second effort goes out to a family who had us over for dinner on Christmas day. The husband and father-figure is a composer of great and various talent and he spent an hour or so playing samples from the wide variety of pieces he's composed, some noble and grand, some less so. Like a commercial piece he did for Taco Bell's book series Todd and the Talking Piñata (which we spent the better part of the next two weeks having stuck in our heads).

Thanks for the dinner:
     the shrimp and the salad.
Your efforts deserve
     a rock-fantasy ballad.

With dragons and bats
     and a fierce ring of fire.
And the power of love
     and a funeral pyre.

Yet despite all our hopes,
     it seems fortune has balked,
‘Cuz stuck in our heads?
     The piñata that talked.

So thanks for the fun
     on that great Christmas date,
But I’m sorry to say
     that your song—it must wait!

*note: I painted it in Photoshop, so take that for what it's worth.

20071201

It's been awhile so here are two more thank you notes I've given out. The first is for a set of dishes that get used almost daily and the second for a, well, you'll see.

SPECIAL NOTES:

• If you have trouble reading any of it, just ask and I'll translate.

• The fart bit was in there solely because the gifter would value the note more for its inclusion.

• By the first stanza of the second one, you can tell that I am a lazybutt.

• And the BBQ model in the second one was named The Challenger. Which was comforting during my first grease fire while using it.

• Oh yeah, and Valerie, did you L-O-V-E the pun in the second one?

20071024

In an act of prescience common to my station in this spinning, whirligig called Planetos Earthena, I predicted the recent firestorms (and their source) with both an accuracy and alacrity that should, quite frankly, alarm even the best of us. And perhaps even Boy Scouts - to hit the other end of the spectrum.

It was the birthday card thing that did it. Peggy brought in a birthday card to sign for Bryan, but expressed some disappointment and trepidation at just how "girly" the card was. For some reason built into the culture of her youth I'm guessing, she felt that a card with delicate lyricism featuring a young girl looking demurely into her basket of roses was too—and I quote—feminine for a man twenty years my senior and four inches my taller.

I know, huh? To each her own, huh. That's what I thought too. But then I thought about it a bit and decided that Byran might be from Peggy's culture as well. So I did what I could to man up the card while maintaining the sentimental flavour, letting him know that even if he is a rampaging terror and blight upon society, we still respect him and count him as a blessing to the working environment.

Little did I know that a mere two days later, the world would be in flames, lit up by an arsonist. An arsonist who is, I think we may conclude, a hunnerd-an-twelve foot tall girly escaped from her role as the flower girl at a recent wedding in the Land of Giants and Marmots. Oh, I hope the police catch her. We can only take so much more.

20070726

Birthday loot was glorious and much appreciated. Wonderful things include:

• My Neighbor Totoro
• Vols. VII and VIII of Osamu Tezuka's retelling of the Buddha story in, what else, Buddha
• X-Files Season 4
• A package of Nutter Butters
• A two-disc collection of songs performed at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (yeah, the famous one)
• An awesome dinner at Wood Ranch

And just 'cuz, here's a thank you note I sent to my pastor's family:

Tanks for the Loots

Help! I'm at it again.

Thank You

Sending out notes (thank you and otherwise) is the bane, not just of my existence, but of existence generally. I hate doing thank you cards, Christmas cards, and whatever other kind of cards there are to be sent. Still, society has this queer standard and so these things must be done. So, in order to keep them from becoming too boring, I like to try to write a poem for each card. Here are a couple I sent out over the last year.