Poet for hire

I was amazed to hear advertised on the radio before Valentine’s Day that at the Farmers Market in Halifax, poets with fancy paper and scissors were available to create poems for that special some one. Now how lacking in imagination would you have to be to hire out your poetry needs? The next day another station mentioned that in the Victorian era you could purchase books of acrostic poems to use for valentine sentiments. Guess when you come from a long line of crafters and those who create with words you don’t consider those activities to be external services. Inspired me towards wordsmithing an ode to retirement, so here is my acrostic attempt:

R - Rejuvenating
E - Enjoyable
T - Therapeutic
I - Invigorating
R - Relaxing
E - Energizing
M - More
E - Entertaining
N - Naps
T - Tropical

Surprising how much more fun that topic is than searching for the right term for my course assignment. And to think, that’s just describing it - not participating in it. Mind you the last letter is the most tempting at this time of year. I am suffering from a severe case of sun vacation withdrawal as this is only the second winter in the past dozen years that has been Caribbean free. I don’t have the bonus of enjoying playing with toys in the snow (think Tim plowing the driveway on the 4 wheeler) with pink cheeks and a wide grin. This afternoon I was walking the dog with the bitter northwest wind all but ripping the hair off of her, my eyes streaming as if I’d peeled a bag of onions as I bent into the gusts, with my fuzzy scarf stuck protectively across my respiratory passages and adhered to my lip chap … I was NOT smiling. Couldn’t even say like my western transplanted friend that “it’s a dry cold” because it was raw enough to need cooking.

However, as daughter # 3 informed me - if you want to whine you should just blog on MySpace as pity parties are welcome there. Not even going to mention the hazardous drive to work on Friday, the bill at the garage, scene at the phone store or the work computer which is so slow that it took 3 hrs to do a 15 min. task or the cranky colleagues that made the air as thick as ice at work. So, enough of the frigid descriptions, who wants to remember winter anyway? The Latin music channel of Sirius radio and banana liqueur on ice as the sun streams in through the windows will have to pass for a tropical break this weekend. Hasta leugo.