Grindlewylde’s Frogs

Grindlewylde was a happy go-lucky child. He loved origami, which is a strange skill for a dragon, but he didn’t care what his classmates thought. He could fold a frog in 9 seconds flat. His desk was covered in them and sometimes he would sell them to the other kids.

Mrs. Grindlegrowl was an old-fashioned teacher. She was a dragon that was raised on proper etiquette. She valued gold and gems, but not paper frogs. She took the paper frogs from Grindlewylde, which made him very angry.

Grindlewylde knocked his chair over with his tail and he sulked in the corner, glaring at her. When he thought she wasn’t looking, he tore pages out of her books to make more frogs.

But Mrs. Grindlegrowl knows everything. She marched little Grindlewylde to the Principal’s Office, and made him call his mom. Then she took away his recess for a whole week, which made him even madder.

Little Grindlewylde was angry at the whole world and he kept getting more & more punishments. He got punished at school and he got punished at home. He got so many punishments, that he finally broke down in tears.

All the punishments were so big. They felt heavy and he couldn’t understand how he had gotten them so quickly. He was sad about the punishments.

But he did not learn his lesson about folding paper frogs, no he did not.

Copyright 8/15/2008

An Urban Dog and His Stick

look at that pretty tail... : )

Mood of the Day - Irritated

Geography Lesson - North Platte River

the north platte river begins in colorado and it flows north into wyoming, through a cute little trout fishing town by the name of saratoga...this town also happens to have a natural hot spring that flows into a sand bottom swimming pool, which sounds like an amazingly cool (no pun intended) experience...


unfortunately, the water was too hot and we ended up at the stream about 50 feet away, where several hot springs mix with the cool water...the mom said that the little boys should wear water shoes, but the mom doesn't know anything about anything and they insisted that they wanted to wear their sandals into the creek...which did not work out well, since the rocks were very slippery...ultimately, the mom went trudging back to the car to get their water shoes...

little boys changing into water shoes,
note the single sandal floating in the water between them...

yep...you guessed it...Little Boy #2 lost his sandal...by the time we noticed, his sandal was long gone, without any trace...after the north platte river leaves wyoming, it joins with the south platte river, meandering across nebraska, where it dumps into the missouri river...eventually the missouri empties into the mississippi...and we all know that the mississippi goes past st. louis on its way to the gulf of mexico...

after that, every time we crossed the north platte river, we waved goodbye to Little Boy #2's shoe...and we teased him mercilessly about how his shoe was going to beat us home...

Booger Small

There was a little girl
who had a booger small.
She didn't know what to do with it,
so she stuck it on the wall.

One friend joined another
in that gob of greenish goo.
It seemed her only hobby
and every day it grew.

She painted herself a picture
of eyes, ears and nose.
Then she got creative
and gave him nine new toes.

In the morning she would greet him,
with a pucker and a kiss.
His face was nearly two palms wide.
It was very hard to miss.

Then one day he left her
and didn't say goodbye.
Her heart was nearly broke in two,
she couldn't help but cry.

Later she got a postcard,
in time for Sweet Sixteen.
"Love forever, Boogie."
It was signed in tell-tale green.

Copyright 6/8/1994

Oh, I Make Myself Laugh

Christmas Throwing Stars

Little Boy #2 loves origami...and he recently discovered this pattern in a book from the school library...there are a variety of names for it, including: German Stars, Swedish Stars, Moravian Stars, and Froebel's stars...anyhow, he was really excited when he found the pattern because it made him remember that i know how to make them...it took a while for him to catch on, but above are some of his results...

The Legend of Grindlemyre

Grindlewyse loved her son Grindlemyre. He was handsome, funny, and very, very intelligent. But he was also rude and unkind. Grindlewyse tried to teach him the ways of loving dragons, but as he became a teenager, Grindlemyre refused to listen. He became mean and spiteful, and did very hurtful things to his mother and to his siblings.

Grindlebane was an evil red dragon who delighted in stomping on things when he was mad at people. He was the brother of Grindlewyse. And it made Grindlewyse sad to see her son becoming more & more like his uncle every day. She tried extra hard to teach her son how to be a loving dragon. But, as always, Grindlemyre refused to listen.

One day, Grindlemyre didn’t get his way, so he went on a stomping spree, just like his uncle. He killed many, many flowers in Wentzville. He even had the nerve to kill the witch’s hydrangea bush not once, but twice.

The witch was very angry and when she found Grindlemyre, she attacked him with her sharp tongue and her little shovel. She fed his body to her hungry children, calling it chicken. And she enchanted his heart so that it became stone.

This stone she put in her garden, as a warning to all teenage dragons, that they are not as wise as they think. And that they are, in fact, quite tasty.

Copyright 6/1/2008

And the Lord Created Underwear

"And you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness; they shall reach from the waist to the thigh." Exodus 28:42

"They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the alter to minister in the holy place, that they do not incur iniquity and die. It shall be a statute forever to him and his descendants after him." Exodus 28:43

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not only that, but he said that priests had to wear them in church...

Clarity

apparently, the mom (aka me) was confused when Little Boy #2 said that he got detention because he was "playing with his teacher's stapler"...the mom should have interpreted the statement to mean that the little boy was firing staple-shaped projectiles at the class...the mom has learned a lesson about clarity...

Bitterthought

When trees and bees and purpleness
Have flushed this world away.
And sanity has left the room,
Afraid of what to say.
I cry my tears of emptiness
And scream "It's all too soon!"
But it goes on and on
Around the moon
This craziness to be spent.
And I find myself wondering
Where have all the purple leaves went?
And so I laugh and sigh and bat my eyes
As the cow begins its song.
Wanting, needing, hoping,
That my pain will soon be gone.
For in my world of bitterthought
Crazy, at times, true,
Is told the story of who I am
As I try to talk to you.
For when nonsense words are truly heard
And laughed about with glee,
Between the text that makes no sense
Look there to find who's me.

copyright 9/10/2001