She Kept A Parrot
A Journal For Charlie
Blind Squirrel Haiku-ey
Haiku-Coffee
- No. 1
Under the Golden Arches
molten steam rises
Blindly seeking the god-face
~joji~
51 Comments on “Blind Squirrel Haiku-ey”
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She Kept A Parrot 
Pingback: Golden Arches | the human picture
Now there’s an observation!
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Thanks for stopping by, Zannyro. Glad you liked it.
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i may have found my burial urn! as a means to annoy my children after i’m gone, i want to leave them a little something to remember me by… we’ll call it “Daisy’s Ash Hole”…
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Lord, you are so damn clever and funny too. I think that urn would be fitting for me too. A little something to leave my prissy daughter…to throw in the garbage. Posthumous jokes are the best!
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Beautiful haiga-haiku. 🙂
If it was one of those iced lattes, then you would have had to compose a koan. Sorry, couldn’t resist..
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Ah, you made me laugh. That’s worth the effort of the jest. I was not in a smiley mood until you showed up.
🙂
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Didn’t Haiga originate as ink brush painting in black or monochrome? That’s what I tried to do with the cup image. Do a post on haiga-haiku. I used to visit an online site on which the art of haiga was beautifully illustrated. Often, they posted a haiga and asked for readers to submit a haiku. One of their Japanese professionals would “marry” the haiga to the best haiku submission. Then, they would reverse the order and ask for submissions again. I have to find the site. It fascinated me.
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Mine’s usually a Coke…
but I think I know the feeling… it always makes me smile!
🙂
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It is truly a shame that I actually have to do some work today…given that I’m presently at work…and will be for another seven or so hours…I would so love to sit and read you and your friends all day…such wonderful conversations. Thank you. 🙂
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There are some interesting people here, I agree. What fun to meet and talk instead of dropping by and clicking “like”. I’m a talker. I’m sure you didn’t notice!
Your use of the international peace sign struck me the first time I saw it. I’m sure you know the history of it. It was originally designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement by Gerald Holtom in 1958, before you were born. It was the symbol we flower children used on everything from the tie-dyed tee shirts to scribbles in the margins of our textbooks. I always see it on blogs and make a mental note that you were there. If you change it, I won’t know you anymore. Jump right into the conversation. I never care what people think and you shouldn’t either. You’re just saying it to me. And that’s like talking to your granny. 🙂
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Yes, George, it is fun to sit and chat for a bit…or just sit and “listen” to what everyone is saying.
I’m glad you like my avatar symbnol of the peace-sign. I wasn’t aware of the full history of it, but did know that it was popular among people who are just a bit older than myself during a certain era of our country’s past. Thank you for the history lesson! 🙂
Thank you for the encouragement to jump in and say whatever I need to say during your conversations…and I think I’ll consider it just speaking with my aunt…I think you might be too young to be my granny! 🙂
Will see you around, sweet George.
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wonderful.
I had my very first McCafe latte just last week when I had to wait for the damn pharmacy to open so I could get my gabapentin. So while waiting for one drug, I went in there and had another. I wouldn’t put it on a pedestal like you have, dear (smile)–but I’d love to share one with you someday.
It reminds me of the time in 1968, just after the infamous/notorious Democratic National Convention in Chicago, I was in the O’Hare Airport and saw this portly, dignified gentleman resplendent in a linen suit, sitting in a bank of seats near a window, watching the jets take off. When I spotted his walking stick, I thought to myself, “that looks like Colonel Saunders”.
And it was.
Arlen Saunders was there filming TV commercials and was on his way back to Ontario (I honestly remember him telling me that’s where he lived, because he had sold his U. S. rights, but not his Canadian franchised businesses, so he’d moved there, though not for long). And he was gracious enough to talk to me for quite some time and autograph a pack of cigarettes (the only thing I had for him to write on).
I’ll never forget when he died, I was quite nostalgically-moved by it. He had the grace to talk to me like an equal, and I was what? 20 years old at the time.
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Lord, we’ve lived a long time, haven’t we? Colonel Sanders! And you didn’t have even an iPhone on you. We never though about recording then, did we? I think our unselfconsciousness or naivete made our appreciation of those experiences that much more honest and the memory of them sweeter. Never mind that you could winter in the South of France for the market price of that unsnapped photograph now.
When we were very young, I accompanied my husband to a job interview in Findlay, Ohio, The president requested to have breakfast with me alone. As I tried to sip my coffee without shaking it out all over the table, I clearly heard Paul Harvey’s voice from a table directly behind me. I glanced back. There was Paul Harvey in the flesh, but he didn’t need a job. My husband did. Hancor was originally founded in 1887 as the Hancock Brick and Tile Company. I think the old man with the still laser-focused blue eyes must have been there for the grand opening. I realized suddenly, in the back of my head, that I was being interviewed. Thank God, I didn’t understand the significance of his presence there with me. I surely did not understand why the vice-president was standing at his elbow and various other of his lackeys were scurrying about trying to satisfy his every whim. He looked at ME. He talked to ME. We had a grand time over breakfast chatting about ordinary and important things I don’t remember. I do recall that he smoked most of my cigarettes. He never carried money or cigarettes or wore matching socks. He was a genius I’ll never forget. And he was interested in what a country girl from a little town in the mountains of NC had to say. My husband got the job. I did not get Paul Harvey’s autograph. Sigh…
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omg, I love that story. How I remember him saying “. . . . . page two”, and “Paul Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . good day.” in that unique, clipped manner. My father worshipped the ground he walked on. What a marvellous story. I’m glad he got the job. And am even more glad you went away feeling appreciated in your own right. Those days weren’t known for giving women their due.
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Well, come to find out, he had a very independent-minded daughter of his own. Those were the sixties when young women believed they could do anything they wanted to do. It never occurred to me that I might be received any differently than my husband. I never wore a wedding ring. I didn’t wear one in my nose either. I wasn’t a feminist or a rebel or anything remotely like that. I even thought Gloria Steinman was more than a little melodramatic. I was my dad’s child, and I was like him. Maybe I just didn’t have a very well defined self-awareness. Throughout my professional and business life, I never thought I was “discriminated” against. Honestly, I always thought gender discrimination was a card inept women played. Maybe I’m wrong. I can only attest to my own experiences.
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I well remember passing by a brick wall on a side street in New York in the early ’70’s and seeing this poster with a woman pointing directly at me and the caption: “Have YOU had YOUR vasectomy yet? WHY NOT?!”
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God, I love that one! HA HA HA Now, that’s priceless.
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I am assuming that is some sort of cradle for an Urn, and that is indeed splendid social commentary if so. I now have to work on my clever Haiku. Quite funny and a really lovely photo.
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Thank you, Michael. Black humor always seems to come out of me. Otherwise, life would be unbearable. I am Mollusk Girl in my heart too.
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I am the dark weaver of tales from blackheart
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That you are. And a fine one too.
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This is is beautiful, so beautiful… made me smile. What a creative one… You are amazing dear George, Thank you, have a nice week, with my love, nia
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Thank you, Nia. You are too generous, but I love that gentle soul of yours. You have a good week too.
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…..and she continues to amaze!
: )
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I adore you, Alex. I think I’ll adopt you. Your only job would be to hang around and keep me alive. Oh, and we could sip a little wine under the evening stars while you tell me of your dreams. Yep, that would be nice. Really nice.
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I love it!
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Brilliantly, cuttingly, side-splittingly hilariously. I would love to give this to my students to have them do an “explication de texte.”
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Woops, I meant “hilarious.”
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Might be interesting. As in the photograph, there always is a light and a dark side. When I taught English literature, what struck me most was the very different interpretation each student offered. What I learned is that no interpretation is invalid. Each person sees through the lens of his unique world view.
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I may just do it, George (with your permission) if I can figure out how to legitimately work it into my French lit class 🙂
Well, I’d qualify what you said by saying that no interpretation is invalid, as long as it’s rooted in the text… I have many students (early on) that carry out “interpretation” that ends up being about themselves and not the text…
Ah ha! “when [you] taught English Literature”… I knew it! Even though I never read that you taught, I might have guessed it. Did I miss a post somewhere? Ohhhh, I bet you were splendid in the classroom, George!
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Lemony, I taught English for four years right out of college with no notion of how to teach. I was so full to the brim with my love for words that all I wanted to do was to share it. You just reminded me of something I’d forgotten. I used to recite “The Prologue” to “The Canterbury Tales” in Middle English for my students. They couldn’t get enough of it. We learned how to write a business letter too and balance my checkbook. The grammar books stayed lined up in a bookcase along the wall. I claimed we used them as reference books. We studied the students’ own writing. I didn’t know how to teach and I thank God I didn’t. I would be fired from any teaching position in the country today. I loved it and I loved my students…every single one of them.
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In my own head the subtitle to your blog is “Keepin’ It Real with George Weaver,” and this is where I come to keep it real. Actually, I wish the students who are showing up in my classes today had had a good dose of “The Canterbury Tales” in Middle English, balancing your checkbook (ha! I LOVE that!), and business letter writing. I really wish they had had someone to take a good look at their writing with them (I like how you put it, that you “STUDIED the students’ own writing”–that’s exactly what the average student today is missing out on!). And most of all, I wish they had had a teacher who cared about them the way you did. Teachers today are under such pressure to meet demands outside the classroom that they have little time and energy to devote to their students. Most first-year college students arrive tested to death and totally underprepared. They simply don’t know how to think, much less how to write.
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My English teacher in high school also taught French. She told me that I was “different”. That I would always be on the outside looking in. She also told me that I would have a difficult life. I half understood what she meant, but I never forgot her validation of who I was. When I got the results of my freshman college placement tests, there was no suggestion that I pursue French! I signed up for Spanish. Ha Ha
I wonder how literature is taught today? I cringe when I hear about rigid lesson plans and state testing programs. We desperately need to think long and hard about what we teach and to whom we teach it. Modern public education was designed and is perpetuated as a means of controlling the thought processes of the population. If you read and understand anything of substance about John Dewey, you can’t come away with any other impression. And, you gotta’ go way beyond Wiki to discover the truth about him. It’s scary.
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Well, thank goodness for “different.” I think most of us hanging out on your blog are “different.” So, has life been difficult because of it? We’ll probably all have a different answer to that. You go first 🙂 (if you want… perhaps for some other time or post…)
I think it’s great, though, that you saw your teacher’s comment about your difference as a validation.
Your placement test reminds me of my mom’s first-year experience at George Washington University. She arrived in the late 50s, a young lady from Batesville, Arkansas. She enrolled in French, but was asked the first week of class by her professor: “How can you expect to learn French when you can’t even speak English correctly?” Now my mother had always taken great pride in her command of the English language, so it was not her grammar the professor was alluding to; it was her southern accent. My mother never recovered from that insult (and neither did I, in a way). Now, in her seventies, she has returned (fortunately with great enjoyment) to her French studies.
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I knew what the English teacher meant. She always encouraged me. Had she been unkind, I would have reacted much differently. She made “different” sound special. For the first time in my life, I realized that being different was not a bad thing. I owe her one for that.
I suspect that many young people were crushed by those kinds of callous remarks. I cannot imagine a professor saying such a thing today. It’s remarkable how those few careless remarks stick with us for a lifetime. I’m happy to hear that your mother has returned to her beloved French. He didn’t win after all.
I am reluctant to reveal too much about myself anywhere. First of all, I don’t revisit the past. I also doubt that anybody is interested. We’re all fractured in one way or the other. If you think about it, we reveal ourselves all the time in our posts. Whether people are able to see through the cracks depends entirely on their levels of awareness. Maybe that’s what is so interesting about this mystical place.
YOU go first, Missy.
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Okay, George. That’s fair. You’ve just given me the title for my post tomorrow.
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WOW. I’m excited, Lemony! And I’m not kidding. I can hardly wait. I love your idea.
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By the way, Anybody who visits here is welcome to take anything that might remotely interest him. I am delighted that it might be of some use to you. Of course, the exception would be the work of other writers and photographers that I have used here.
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Latest studies show that caffeine makes the blood flow to the brain.
Just helping out the coffee lovers.
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Totsy, without 99% coffee running in my veins, I’d be dead. I’ve lived to read everything from coffee is bad for you to how beneficial it is to a long life. I dunno’ and I don’t care. Coffee is not only an addiction for me, it’s a way of life. It’s often served as the introduction to people I’d never have met if our hands had not touched that cup as it passed between us. Ha! Coffee is highly underrated.
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enjoyed your lifting that which is taken for granted or banal to the level of prayer. I’ll publish in your honor a picture of the golden arches in Jerusalem.
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Shimon, you find me out, don’t you? What I said was both a comment on American society and a sort of blind, primordial scream of a prayer. The cup is a symbol of both to me.
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Brilliant! I laughed…I cried…mostly I said, “wow, George nailed that one!”
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Thanks, Rita. Jis come tuh me outen the blue, I reckon.
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excellent haiku and image
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Hearing this coming from you, I’m a little red-faced. Sometimes, I feel we are lost as a people. I thought of this little tongue-in-cheek way of saying it on the trip home from my coffee run tonight…as I said. I call my attempts at writing Haiku, “Haiku-ey” for a reason. Thank you for understanding. I have such reverence for the Japanese masters that I would never dare to try to write it. Although, I did write a serious one on the death of my husband. Maybe I’ll share it with just you.
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You surprised me with a poem, another side of you to discover. 🙂
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Well, it’s hardly poetry. My tongue-in-cheek commentary on the state of our society… We have to laugh…or cry. Sometimes, I manage to laugh.
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I hope laugh more than only “sometimes” I take less energy than sadness and its good for the system. 😦
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No sense in crying over spilled milk, as the old folks used to say. No, mostly I try to be an outside observer. Sometimes, though, the futility of our ignorance overwhelms me. Then, I try to lighten it up a little for myself. 😉
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