If you think that equality’s great,
And you wish for a world free from hate,
And you have curly hair,
And your first name is Claire,
Here’s your present! It’s just one day late.
Claire’s birthday was the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama. The photo above is Obama’s official presidential portrait, which we’ll be seeing in federal buildings while he is in office. It’s the first presidential portrait taken with a digital camera.
I hadn’t gotten any guest submissions in a while, when this appeared in my in-box and gave me a chuckle. It comes from R. Dennis Green, “a limerick-starved fan from Bethesda, MD who shares a birth year (1951) with the comic strip, Dennis the Menace.”
I looked for a birthday limerick
Your web site proved to be perferick
My friend needed laughter
To fight the disaster…
Of aging. Your verse did the trick!
(photos are at the bottom…)
There once was a doggie named Missy,
She wears glasses, which make her look prissy.
She has more clothes than me,
Over seventy-three
Different outfits! A clothes-horse — or is she?
At a street fair in Fort Pierce, Florida, I photographed a man in a motorized wheelchair with a frilly little dog wearing a dress and sunglasses. Two months later, I ran into them again. “Hi!” I said. “I took your picture last month.” The man in the wheelchair smiled, then, trying to recall the event, asked me, “What was she wearing?”
Missy is a therapy dog, trained by Frank. She has almost 80 different outfits with matching glasses, and she spends her time visiting nursing homes and hospitals. A friend tells me the two are local celebrities. “They’re in all the parades,” she said.
All the houses are decked out in light,
Spreading warm, festive cheer through the night,
But our Flutterby strand,
Is strung up just as planned,
On the inside — so selfish, but bright!
Yesterday, we installed 32 feet of 12V “warm white” LED rope light in Flutterby as our primary cabin lighting. It’s beautiful, efficient, and feels like Christmas! (photos to come when the boat is a little less messy…)
It was crowded, and parking was tight,
When we drove into Beaufort last night,
There were Santas and sleighs,
And a lighthouse with rays,
And the Gilligan crew was a sight.
But our friends from Quebec on the pier,
Say they’re lacking in holiday cheer.
“The parade is quite nice,
“But we’ve seen it now, thrice,
“And we’d like to be elsewhere, not here.”
When I wrote this, I thought it was cute, the fact that our friends from Giva will be out cruising this time next year. However, Val didn’t think the joke was funny, and he asked me to include his comments:
I like you to correct the blog you publish on your site.
As the thing goes, we did not say that they were lacking in holiday sheer.
I never ever said that we were tired of the annual Beaufort Holliday flotilla. It is a very nice event that we enjoy seeing every year. What we said was that it was the 3rd Chrismas flotilla that we saw and that we will not be here for the next one because we will be gone cruising. There is a big difference. If you are to report interview, please do it accurently and not with drama to make it interesting.
So did we never said that we were tired of being in the boat yard. We were tired of working on the boat because it as been so long and we want to keep on moving.
I am asking you to correct that incorrectly reported posting on your site or simply remove it.
I don’t think it’s funny
Val
I have set my fine shop-vac to “suck,”
But the dust flies around me, amok!
Now I’ve figured it out,
The solution, no doubt,
Is a “blow job” to get it unstuck.
I hate these steep learning curves! I cleaned the boat for four days, but the dust just reappeared. Finally, I attacked the crevices with the vacuum cleaner hose set to “blow” instead of “suck.” What a mess — this got the fiberglass dust out into the air (I was wearing a respirator), but after it settled, I vacuumed it up.
Hey, the deck is done, let’s celebrate!
So we went and ate plate after plate,
At the Golden Corral,
But it sapped my morale,
‘Cause this stomachache will not abate.
Friday seemed like a good time to try the G.C., which our boatyard friends are always talking about. We celebrated with Clark, of Undaunted, who had launched his boat that afternoon. But the acres of food were overwhelming. It reminded me of Two Scoops Moore, who sang: “I can’t stop goin’ back to the big buffet…probably have a heart attack, down at the big buffet.”
Cogito, ergonomic sum: I sit up, therefore I am…not going to a back doctor. (Before and after photos for this one can be found below, on the website.)
My Dad had a terrible slouch,
As he sat at his desk or the couch,
But we found a new chair,
And he sits upright there,
So he no longer whines and says, “Ouch.”
I was down by the water last week,
When I heard a marine mammal speak,
Yes, a dolphin came near,
And he spoke really clear,
But I just cannot translate his squeak.
This really happened to me! I think he was saying something about “Launch that boat and come play with us.” Or maybe, “Where’s the dog food?”
Now there once was a feller, McCain,
And he took matching funds to campaign.
Now Barack has the dough
For his own TV show,
Which makes baseball fans loudly complain.
Speaking of complaining, Barry rolled his eyes and said no more political entries in our Adventures blog. But he just can’t stop me from limerickin’!