Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

growing up April 8, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:09 pm
Tags:

Topic #89 When did you realize you were an adult? (If you haven’t yet, when do you think you will?)

When I was twelve, I felt very grown up, but by the time I graduated from high school, I’d figured out that I wasn’t.  I lived abroad for a year, and I thought I’d feel grown up about that, but although I felt more mature than a lot of teens I knew, I still didn’t feel grown up.  When I got married, and then had babies, I expected to feel grown up, but I didn’t.  When we bought our first house, I felt like I was doing all the grown up things, but I still didn’t feel grown up.  Now I have a career or two, the kids are grown and gone, and I still don’t feel grown up!

Perhaps because I have been so blessed to have avoided many of the tragedies that often strike us and steal our youthful effervescence.    Perhaps because I have a great husband who looks after all the ‘responsible’ stuff, I’m not burdened by them.  I am free to do the things that I enjoy: writing, dancing, volunteering, sewing, knitting, travelling, etc.  Being able to do those things makes me happy and carefree, rather than tired and grown up.

I have a friend who has a sign above her desk that says, “If you haven’t grown up by the time you’re 50, you don’t have to!”  I kind of like that philosophy.  I have a few years to go yet, but I am counting on the fact that I don’t ever have to grow up.

.

How about you?  Do you feel grown up?

 

shampoo or conditioner? April 7, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:29 pm
Tags:

Topic #90: Pick something that annoys you and redesign how it works.

Our population is aging. About half the continent is over 40. Over 40, most of us have some difficulty with small print. We need glasses to help us read. Most of us do not wear our glasses in the bath or shower.

Why is it, then, that shampoo and conditioner bottles have the words “shampoo” and “conditioner” in the smallest font on the bottle? Isn’t this information more important than the brand?

I am really frustrated trying to read the bottles and guessing wrong! I would make the product key word the largest thing on the bottle.

What do you think?

 

crowning grace April 6, 2011

Filed under: Grace Beguiling - Petrarch,Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 4:35 pm
Tags:

“Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good.”

~Francesco Petrarca

He had to say that.  He was so obsessed with his Laure, wife of another, that people talked.  He was a priest, after all, and a scholar.  His mind should have been set much higher than all this mundane love stuff.  He knew it, too.  He couched his obsession in lofty terms:  Such love as his for her was a crowning grace!  Oh, he adored her soul.  She inspired him to greater spirituality.  She was all purity and goodness.  Blah blah blah.  I know what obsession looks like.  Francesco had it bad! 

He was a very famous scholar and diplomat in his time.  He traveled through Italy, France and Germany negotiating peace treaties and mediating disputes.  He rescued early Greek and Roman literature and was the father of humanism.  He wrote biographies of the greatest warriors of Classical times.   He had a huge influence on civilization, but what is he most known for?  For his obsession with a married woman.  It’s kind of pathetic, really.  Except, one can’t help admiring his devotion.  What would it be like to be adored like that?  How did Laure feel about it all?  There is some reference to her reactions in his writings and those of others at the time.

What do you think?  How would you feel?

 

poodle entrepreneurship opportunity… April 5, 2011

Filed under: poodles — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:23 am
Tags: , ,

BEFORE:

AFTER:

One of the things about Paris is the number of tourist gimmicks around.  Guys with rings of Eiffel Tower souvenirs ready to sell, Guys with shell games on the go, Artists ready to paint your portrait or cut your silhouette, Kids pretending to be deaf and mute and wanting you to make a donation, Musicians playing with their hats at their feet,  People holding photos of their family and just begging.   Everyone has an angle to fit the stereotype: Eiffel Tour, beret, scarf.  (Never mind we only saw 4 people in berets the whole time we were in France).

When I groomed ‘Scruffy Mutt  OJ’ after his couple of weeks in the kennel and transformed him into ‘Continental OJ’ with some semblance of poodle panache, it occured to me that he could garner me some money in Paris.  If I took him out walking in the park at the Eiffel Tower, I’m sure I could get at least 2 Euro (and maybe more) from tourists who wanted to pose with him with the Tower in the background.  200 Euro a day, say,  for letting people stand beside him and snap a photo with their own camera.  What a great stereotype!  I might be able to pay for our trip that way.  Too bad I didn’t think of it before we went!

.

(PS.  Just an FYI- this is technically a “Historically Correct Continental” which has a much short jacket and topknot than you see in the big hair show cuts.  This is the serviceable version, and closer to the origins as a hunting cut for the water retrievers to go into the water to get the ducks, with the hair covering the joints, but the back shaved to make swimming easier.  In OJ’s case, the shaved parts are done with a 15 blade, rather than a 30 or 40 so it’s not bare skin.  As well, since I’m not  a pro groomer and I rarely play with this clip, I never seem to get the shape of the jacket quite right!  Getting closer, but still not quite perfect…)

And for fun- here’s OJ being a “French Poodle” for Hallowe’en a few years ago…

 

fitness perfection April 4, 2011

Filed under: Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 10:59 am
Tags:

Prompt: What non-exercise activity do you wish would keep you fit?

Sleeping.

There is nothing to explain here. My life would be perfect if this counted! I am a championship sleeper! It takes me awhile to fall asleep, but I can go 12 hours through. If only it counted as exercise I would be one of the fittest people I know.  It would cause trouble for my husband though.  He is fit because he is a cyclist.  He rides 5 or 6 thousand kilometers a year in lots of 50 to 100 km rides.  He doesn’t sleep well though.  He wakes frequently throughout the night and every sound brings him to consciousness.  If sleep was exercise, he’d be a pudgy guy. 

How about you?  What would you love to count as exercise?

 

elevator April 3, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:21 pm
Tags:

PromptTopic #89:

Who is the last person you’d want to be stuck in an elevator with? And why?

The first person to come to mind is Howard Stern. I find him quite disgusting and obnoxious. His intentional goding to create reaction just seems so negative and destructive that I can’t see the value of it.

I’m sure that outside of his public arena, he can be a pleasant and reasonable person, but the public guy is not someone I’d be interested in ever meeting.

 

life changer April 2, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:43 am
Tags: ,

prompt # 68. Name a book that changed your life.

Will I sound hopelessly pompous if I say Grace Awakening?  The experience of writing this book, of watching the characters craft themselves around me, was life changing.  People who know about the book are awed that I wrote it.  People who’ve read it are members of an enthusiastic club, who share the information with everyone else.  Strangers come up to me to ask about my book because they’ve heard of it from someone else. 

I have been transformed from a reader to a writer.  Grace changed everything.

 

any other April 1, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening,Grace Beguiling - Petrarch — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:38 am
Tags: , ,

“My own age has always repelled me, so that, had it not been for the love of those dear to me, I should have preferred to have been born in any other period than our own.”

~Petrarch in “Letter to Posterity”

I came across this quote in a junior high text book.  It seemed rather profound in the context of his appearance in Grace Awakening, not to mention the development of Grace Beguiling.

I am so looking forward to wandering around Avignon and the Vauclus region, exploring the places where Francesco Petrarca and Laure de Noves de Sade walked 700 years ago.  He first saw her at the church across from our hotel  684 years ago!  

Because Petrarch was such a prolific writer, his words remain with us today.  His thoughts, emotions, and battles are just like those we must sort out in our own lives today.  His words are timeless.  He didn’t just belong to his time, and it’s wonderful how he shared himself so generously with the future.

Imagine how much fun Petrarch would have had in our world.  His blog would have been fascinating to read.  He would have loved being able to travel around the whole world with little effort, and I know he would have loved the internet: entire libraries of thought at his disposal in an instant!  Best of all- there is no black plague to steal his beloved muse in our time.  He could follow all her doings on Facebook and sigh at her profile photo.

I am thankful to live when I do, with all our modern benefits and health care.  If I long for the beauty of a previous age, I am not so foolish so as to imagine that I’d have been among the nobility who would have been able to enjoy it!  I’m glad Petrarch felt enough out of touch with his time, as he looked back to Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and forward to posterity.

How about you?  What time would you like to have been born in?

 

dawn March 31, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:39 am
Tags:

Night shatters

as sky is split

by a slice

of light.

 

Paris in the springtime… March 30, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:37 am
Tags:

Spring blossoms at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.I love Paris in the spring time
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles

I love Paris every moment
Every moment of the year
I love Paris, why oh why do I love Paris?
Because my love is here

~ Cole Porter

I