Before the Hearse

The Burma Vita company’s little signs got into safe driving – not unnaturally, since the readers were behind the wheel when they saw them.  One of my favorites is an “intricate multiple pun” (says Frank Rowsom, Jr., author of Verse By the Side of the Road):

Drinking drivers
Nothing worse
They put the quart
Before the hearse
Burma Shave

I’m picking up my new hat today – unfortunately after this gets posted.  I hope it came out nicely; it sure was fun to select elements of it with the designer week before last.  The colors are retro: pink and orange.  Brimless, it has lots of delicate little feathers, a big flower, and butterflies.  My new problem is to find a suit or dress that complements the hat.  (Which, trust me, is going to be easier than finding a terrific outfit first and then trying to find a hat to go with it!  There are far, far more clothing stores than hat shops.)

I thought I was swinging into a boffo ending for Darned If You Do – but going back over it, I’m finding gaps that need bridging.  So meeting this deadline is going to be . . . interesting.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.  In fact, I better.

This past Sunday I went to a “Poe Party,” an annual event thrown by a dear old friend of ours.  He dresses elegantly, serves a terrific candlelight dinner, then we adjourn to the living room where by the light of a fireplace blazing away and lots more candles he reads Poe to us and we read scary short stories or poetry back to him.  This year I contributed Walter de la Mere’s eerie “The Traveller” and the wonderful “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley – “An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you, ef you don’t watch out!”  If you’re interested, you can find them both online – I did.  And I know, I know, I should’ve stayed at home and worked on the book, but this was a break I really needed.  And it's a great party - I have some great friends!



Who live in an awful climate - It snowed yesterday and it's nine degrees out this morning.

As you can see, I’m not really doing anything penitential for Lent.  Are you?