Dani the Poet

There was this one time, in 2000, when I wrote a poem.

It was a sonnet. I waxed rhapsodic about how I wanted to live in the days of "yore," when people wore pretty dresses and rode around in carriages and didn't have to go to stupid high school and write stupid poems.



It was not the most well researched poem ever written.

But sometimes, at the oddest moments, the closing couplet pops into my head:

"But those times have passed, as all times must pass,
with only the good things recalled at last."

SO GOOD and SO WISE, right? Every time I think of those lines, I give myself a little pat on the bat and smirk at the rest of the world, full of people who are not as good at poetry as I am.

Seth's secrets decoded

The other day we were biking, and Seth did this with his hand:


I asked him to please stop waving at his girlfriend while I was around. He made a face that clearly said, "I am guilty." Then he told me the truth, which is: That wasn't just any old wave. It was a signal. It meant "meet me in the bike shed at 4 o'clock."

Shocking.

And then he did this:


I narrowed my eyes as I asked him what that one meant.

The answer: "Don't meet me in the bike shed; my wife is around."

Now that I know, I am keeping a close eye on that bike shed.

shopping where the liberals shop

Despite my misgivings that I wasn't quite anti-war and pro-fair-trade enough to shop there, today I put on a brave face and ventured into the Boise Co-op.

Here is something that a small co-op child truly said to his co-op mother while I was in the dairy aisle (in an ecstatic voice): "CAN I HAVE A LOT OF PLAIN YOGURT??"

I guess I could relate to the kid's unusual perception of a special treat because once when I was in elementary school I got in big trouble for eating a graham cracker without permission.

I wandered through the aisles of organic stuffed olives and expensive, exotic spices until I found what I was looking for: a mecca of Indian sauces, unavailable at the grocery stores that stock their shelves with the kind of peanut butter that has a decade-long shelf life.

Then I got to the checkout counter, and the lady brightly asked me if it was my first time at the co-op. I said yes, ashamed at being so easy to spot. But then she said "we LOVE first-timers" and gave me a temporary card that let me buy my Indian sauce at the member price while I contemplated becoming a member myself.

As I left, I said to the co-op, "I'll be back, co-op. You can't defeat me."

I came out a stronger, better person.