Keep it Simple Stupid, it's the Weekend

Even good old Dear Abby knows what the weekend is for. On Saturday she posted three letters, answering each in her typical blunt way.The first was from a woman so full of smug advice that Abby just basically let her give the sermon. She did well in school, she said, then got a good job; and when she got laid off from that job she decided to ....go back to school again! Because she loves learning! (Now why can’t other people do this too, the whiners? is what's she's all but saying as far as I can tell. )I think Abby picked this big non-question because she didn’t even have to wake up from her nap to answer it. She just said basically, Good for you dear. And that door over there? Don’t let it hit you on the way out.The next letter she chose to answer came from a teenager who explained that he was growing out his hair. He said his bangs now come down to his eyes and it looks really cool and all, but his teachers keep commenting on it. What should he do?Abby's tart response: Cut it. “Teachers like to see your eyes.”But really what did the kid expect, asking an adult? Adults all like to see the eyes. It’s because we know, just like the animals know: you have to see the eyes to read intent. If the eyes narrow, start packing your stuff. If the teeth get bared, start running.The third and final question she shared came from a well-meaning person who, noticing how much her niece seems to like her own pet rabbits, thought Hey what if she gave the kid a nice little bunny of her own? Wouldn't that be cool? And should she also throw in a cage?Now on a weekday Abby might have wound up and given a full Power Point presentation on why this was s a bad idea. But because it was Saturday she just bit her tongue and said that no it’s actually never a good idea to give a live animal as a gift. I myself would probably add “especially a poop-each-time-it-hops animal who needs hay of all things and has long sharp teeth like the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail."But I am not as wise as Abby and do not always remember that weekends are for taking it easy; for saying less rather than more; and for just pressing 'Play'  and enjoying a little humor:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw]

The Use of a Goose

Here's what else I've heard about nursery rhymes, just off the top of my head: Ring Around the Rosie is about the Plague, and 'ashes ashes we all fall down' brings to mind the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the crier goes up and down the street calling “Bring out your dead!” Ashes? Think Ash Wednesday. Think funerary urns. "Fall down?" Think of your final bow to Mistress Gravity.Also, tradition has it that Hey Diddle Diddle conveyed the gossip at court during the reign of Elizabeth I, the cay being the regent herself and spoon and the dish referring to two of her royal retainers (her official taster and her chief "dresser" who allegedly eloped.) Then of course the cow jumping over the moon stands for Ben and Jerry's ice cream.I used to teach a course in the uses of fantastical tales whose curriculum I got to write. "Fantasy in Literature" it was called and we did spend a day or two on nursery rhymes. In fact I am holding on my lap now the densely footnoted-book about them that I used in the preparation of that syllabus. The Annotated Mother Goose has the following nursery rhyme on page 13 6 and 137. I offer it for its pleasingly frisky lilt, to divert and delight us all midway through this rainy May week. Maybe I should have brought it to the pond where I met these geese today and read it aloud to them just to get a reaction. Neither of the two adult birds was wearing an apron but you never do know when Old Mother G. might step out incognito.

Now for this pleasing little chant:

Needles and ribbons and packets of pins,

Prints and chintz and odds bod-a-kins-

They'd never mind whether

You laid them together

Or one from the other in packets and tins.

But packets and tins and ribbons and needles

And odd bod-a-kins and chintz and prints

Being birds of a feather

Would huddle together

Like minnows in billows or pennies in mints.

Yup, just the thing for this rainy day. Internal rhyme even! Believe I'm feeling better already.  :-)