Ear we go again

“April is the cruellest month” wrote T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land, his epic meditation on death, loss and war.

The old bugger wasn’t wrong, as I discovered this month, hit with a hellish cold that knocked me, DivaB and the boychild sideways.

In fact, I am still speaking with a distinct mid-Atlantic nasal twang, courtesy of a endless post-nasal drip. I’m Madonna in reverse. She, a nice mid-Western gal, moved to the UK and promptly began to sound like a cockney member of the royal family. I, a nice British gel, caught a cold in Boston, and now sound like I’m channeling Robin Leach in Nantucket Reds.

Little B’s ear infection was terrible for all. Getting her to take her antibiotics has felt like we’re waterboarding the little tyke. Hubby or I, her fellow torturers, would hold her flailing arms,  while the other forced her mouth open to shoot the noxious, bubble-gum flavored liquid down her throat with a syringe, ignoring her cries for mercy. Christopher Hitchens, were he alive today, would have a field day.

I’m tired. Very tired. Which in part, explains the terrible title of this post.

My only respite this week was a yoga class I happened upon. Dubbed “restorative yoga” on the class schedule, I think “geriatric stretching” would be more accurate, based on the median age and lack of limberness of my fellow downward doggers. And the fact that the yoga teacher was wearing pleated pants and looked like Paul McCartney.

I’m not complaining. When I lived in New York and went to Jivamukti Yoga, surrounded by toned, tattooed 20-year-olds who looked like Megan Fox or Zac Efron, I used to feel like a flabby yoga fake.

During this recent geriatric stretching extravaganza, however, glancing over smugly at my classmates’  relative creakiness,  I suddenly morphed, in my mind, into Cindy Crawford. Which is, of course, terribly un-yogic and mean, and I’m sure the Sanskrit-wielding gods and goddesses would not be pleased.

Then again, if April is indeed the cruellest month, I might as well embrace my inner Cruella — possibly my all-time favorite character from a Disney movie — and let it rip.

For Groundhog Day: A Penguin

It’s Groundhog Day folks, and in honor of this rather strange animal that strikes me as a cross between a hedgehog and a weasel, I present you with a poem I wrote. About a penguin.

I know. This is stretching it. But cut me some slack. Please. I’m recovering from a recent episode to get the boychild to take his yummy pink bubblegum flavored amoxicillin for the EAR INFECTION we just discovered. I can’t go into details. Suffice it to say, I feel like I just survived the Battle of Little Bighorn.

It’s part of a cycle of poems I’ve been working on. They’re not all this naughty. But they’re all just a little silly.

Enjoy.

Penguin Love

“Penguin love is not enough
For me, I need a bit of rough”
Sighed Penguin gazing at the moon
“I need a man who’s coarsely hewn.”

“I’m sick of damp romps in the ice
And kisses that are much too nice.
I want a lad who’ll pin me down,
Who’ll dare to rip off my night-gown

And take me down a fishing hole
For dirty talk as dark as coal.”
Dear Penguin felt a burn inside
Of yearning tinged with shame, and cried

“I’d rather join the nunnery
Than put my life in jeopardy
Of vice-less living in the ‘burbs
And working off the carbs at Curves!”

A Penguin Boy he heard her plea
(He’d just walked out the pub to wee
A golden arc across the snow)
And now he had the urge to go

And grab the girl who seemed to roar
Unlike the usual frigid bores.
Although he’d never met this bird
Her longings shook his depths and stirred

His passion for some rumpy pump
He hoped she was a babe, not frump.
He followed Penguin to her car
And cornered her beneath the stars.

“My love,” he said “you are the one
I’ve yearned for ‘neath the burning sun.
Please come with me, I’ll show you how
Us naughty penguins get on down.”

Ms. Penguin took one look at him
She licked her lips and stroked his fin
But as their beaks began to merge
Her pleasure turned to wrathful dirge.

“How dare you make a pass at me?
Your breath smells like a brewery!
I need a man who wants me sober –
I’m easy but I’m no pushover.”

She quickly got into her car
And didn’t have to drive too far
‘Till she got home, snuck in the door
And noticed that the clock said four.

Next morning waking up in bed
Ms. Penguin grabbed her aching head,
She dressed herself and went downstairs
For coffee and a bowl of pears.

“How was your night?” her mother chimed,
“Your science project took some time!”
Ms. Penguin changed the subject fast
And prayed the talk would swiftly pass.

She knew her mum would soon catch on,
With eyebrows rising like the dawn,
With piercing gaze that saw the truth
Beneath her daughter’s feeble ruse

To study science with her pals —
Her daughter was an artsy gal,
And mother knew her crafty tricks
And passion for wild country hicks.

Mum vowed to send her daughter off
To boarding school to meet some toffs,
She’d wring her wayward spirit dry,
And cure her of her dangerous lies.

But mother loved her daughter dear
And thinking back she shed a tear,
Remembering her own mad youth
When she pursued lads most uncouth.

“What harm is there in teenage lust?
Enjoy it ‘ere we turn to dust.”
And with that thought, her mama rang
Her husband for a mid-day bang.