Tag: Ogden Nash

Say Cheese

“A second grader drew a picture of me today. I think it was me. It may have been a potato.” – Andi @smiles_and_nods, Twitter

This tweet brought a smile to my face. When our children were little, their preschool did a cruel activity every year where they would tell the children to draw portraits of their parents. We parents would then have to come into the classroom and find our own portraits, which were pasted all over the walls, for all to see. It was an excruciatingly difficult exercise. Most of the pictures appeared to be Picasso style. Our redheaded friend had a leg up. He would always just look for the only orange-haired, Ronald McDonald looking picture of a figure in guy clothes, and I think that he got it right, on the first try, 98 percent of the time.

I honestly hate having any kind of picture taken of me. I avoid pictures as much as I can. I’ve never felt like a natural in front of a camera. I am envious of today’s young ladies’ seemingly innate abilities to strike perfect poses, at the drop of a hat. I think this might be because they are so used to having their pictures taken. Since they were little, their parents have been pointing their phone cameras at them, a million times a day. Having their picture taken is as natural to them as blinking their eyes.

I know that they say that a picture paints a thousand words, but I’ve always been a word girl. If there is a video, I’m always looking for the transcript to the video. I read fast. I like to get to the point of things. I love words. I have always been able to express myself most easily in written form. I wish I felt that way about being photographed and videoed.

I read an article recently that said to get the best pictures of yourself, think of the people you most deeply love while having your picture taken. The article said that grandparents always look best in pictures where they are snuggling their grandchildren. Maybe when you are engulfed in feelings of love, you feel the least critical and judgmental about yourself and others, and that natural state of resting in love, gleams through the camera.

Having Your Picture Taken Quotes & Sayings | Having Your Picture Taken Picture Quotes

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Hello friends and readers. I hope that you are experiencing a delicious, comforting, restful, yet interesting and rejuvenating holiday weekend. I’m a little “slow on the go” this Sunday morning. I find my mind wandering on to many things, but none of it rhymes, nor do my words seems to fit any kind of a poetic flow. My regular readers know that I devote Sundays to poetry on the blog. Poetry can be serious. Poetry can be fun. Poetry can be mysterious. Poetry can be poignant. Write a poem today. You won’t regret it. You’ll be tickled by your cleverness. Today I am borrowing from some other poets’ cleverness and wit. Here are two poets’ fun and short, little rhymes:

GREEN EGGS AND HAM – Dr. Seuss

I do not like them in a box
I do not like them with a fox
I do not like them in a house
I do not like them with a mouse
I do not like them here or there
I do not like them anywhere
I do not like green eggs and ham
I do not like them Sam I am

A WORD TO HUSBANDS – Ogden Nash

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

Here are a few other funnies from the humorous American poet, Ogden Nash:

I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.

If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work.

Some tortures are physical And some are mental, But the one that is both Is dental.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, friends. I suppose this is the time of year that marks “unofficially” the end of summer. We made it. As I often asked my kids at dinner on various school days, “What were your highlights? What were your lowlights?” After you get them out of your system, pitch the lowlights, and keep the highlights in your “Beautiful Memories” file, to open up whenever you need their reassurance and joy.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.