I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Humor

  • what’s scarier? Halloween or the MID-TERMS?

    what’s scarier? Halloween or the MID-TERMS?


    Do you have our Boo at the Zoo tickets yet? Pretty called to me from her chair in the den last night while I struggled to catch up on a sea of emails in my office.This past weekend was Laver Cup tennis, one of my favorite tennis events of the year, but the 2022 tournament was in London which meant I was glued to the Telly on British Summer Time for three days with no opportunity for the 3Rs: reading emails, reading blogs and reading bills.

    Boo at the Zoo tickets? I called back to Pretty. It’s not even October, I thought to myself, but I obediently went to the Riverbanks Zoo website to find out about tickets. Last year was our first ever Boo experience because, you guessed it (a) Covid restrictions were lifted for the annual Halloween at the Zoo extravaganza and (b) we had a two year old granddaughter.

    Ella fell in love with her first real Halloween in 2021,

    eyes full of wonder at friendly ghost as we entered

    Boo at the Zoo

    The dates for Boo are October 20th. – 30th., I told Pretty when she walked into my office to make sure I was following up. Luckily, I continued, there are 2,900+ tickets available every night.

    Well, Pretty said, I’d better text Caroline (a/k/a Pretty Too, mother of Ella) to get our date on the calendar right away.

    Exactly, I answered. Game on. Pretty returned to her iPhone in the den.

    ***********

    September flew by this year – such an emotional one with the retirement of Serena Williams the first week of the US Open followed by this past weekend’s farewell to another living legend of the game: Roger Federer. Woe is me, I am undone. I feel like I’ve lost two best friends within a month; I’m feeling sad and angry, as Ella says when she fusses at me for one of my thoughtless outbursts in her direction. The word No should never be in anyone’s vocabulary.

    I’m angry with Time and Tide which wait for no man, according to an ancient proverb, and we can add they seem to speed up for tennis players over the age of 40. If only I could put Time in that bottle Jim Croce sang about…

    However, I will enjoy five more days in September, the first days of autumn, thirty-one days of Halloween excitement with soon to be three year old granddaughter Ella and her eight months old baby sister Molly, trying to avoid the angst of the looming general election on November 8th.

    Stay safe from all hurricanes, stay sane and please stay tuned.

  • who’s (what’s) to blame for microwave disaster?

    who’s (what’s) to blame for microwave disaster?


    Plenty of blame to go around, of course.

    (1) no alarm clock in our house that we can figure out how to work except microwave timer

    (2) the Covid test kit with exactly 15 second nose swabs and then

    (3) exactly 30 seconds swirling in tube and then

    (4) exactly 15 minutes to wait for valid test

    (5) the unsuspecting Lizard’s Thicket dinner roll placed two days ago in microwave to be eaten by someone for breakfast yesterday

    (6) Lizard’s Thicket for giving Pretty one dinner roll and one cornbread with her vegetable plate day before yesterday instead of the two cornbreads she always orders with the vegetable plate she gets at least once a week

    (7) whoever was supposed to eat unwanted dinner roll for breakfast yesterday but chose cinnamon raisin bread toast because she totally forgot the dinner roll was in the microwave

    (8) whoever decided to take yet another Covid test early this morning because she can’t believe her laryngitis and sore throat aren’t due to Omicron variant of the coronavirus

    (9) Pretty for staying with Molly for five nights at Drew and Caroline’s house across town while they were gone with Ella, leaving Pretty’s hypochondiac wife alone with Covid testing kits in kitchen

    Note to self: never leave dinner roll in microwave for 15 minutes. The dinner roll will catch fire, the microwave will never be the same, and the house will be filled with smoke.

    Could I possibly blame Carport Kitty when Pretty comes home today?

    Hm. I doubt it. Sigh. What’s one microwave more or less among friends, right, Pretty?

  • setting boundaries with Molly

    setting boundaries with Molly


    Family times on our screened porch this summer have been far and few between, as my cousin Martin used to say, but Labor Day weekend Number One Son Drew brought his two daughters almost 3 year old Ella and 7 months old Molly for a visit with their Nanas for a final pool fling. While Daddy Drew and Ella took a bathroom break, Pretty captured my efforts to teach Molly the importance of boundaries.

    Naynay, why are your eyes always watering?

    Maybe you have something in there

    Naynay, stop talking about my fingernails – not nice

    Ok, Naynay – is this better?

    Naynay, please stop talking about boundaries

    Can anyone help me keep Naynay from talking about boundaries?

    What’s a boundary?

    ***********************

    For the children. Slava Ukraini.

  • 2022: the Year in Review (well, so far)

    2022: the Year in Review (well, so far)


    Let’s rap.

    Two thousand twenty-two, I’m worried now ’bout you.

    You’re two-thirds done and not too fun.

    so where the heck have you gone?

    (rhythm band in background doing their best to find one)

    A new war in Ukraine with Russia to blame.

    Killing children at will with no sense of shame.

    bombing nuclear plants without any aim.

    (rhythm band in background stops and says in unison Seriously?

    bombing nuclear plants?)

    Two thousand twenty-two, I’m worried now ’bout you.

    You’re burning, you’re flooding, we shy away from the sights

    you’ve allowed the Supremes to take away rights.

    (rhythm band in background shakes their heads and wags fingers)

    Two thousand twenty-two, I’m really worried now

    our minds are blown by what we’ve found

    An ex-pres has taken secrets you shouldn’t have allowed.

    (rhythm band in background shake tambourines furiously)

    Two thousand twenty-two, number of months remaining four.

    we’re sick and tired of Covid and of you we implore

    give us a break from chills and fevers and muscles that are sore.

    (rhythm band in background nod approvingly, clapping hands)

    And if you don’t mind, here’s the last ax to grind.

    Two thousand twenty-two, you’re moving way behind

    We’re watching, we’re rapping, to make sure you get in line.

    (rhythm band moves into foreground to take bow – why, Liz Cheney is leading the band)

    **********************

    Yikes – I’m clearly not a rapper. Please stay tuned – I’ll do better.

  • Dimples, Butch, Buttercup, Sissy… Sissy?

    Dimples, Butch, Buttercup, Sissy… Sissy?


    Whenever someone asks me what I’m writing, I feel a fleeting twinge of guilty laziness for saying I continue to blog – no new book of essays, no great American novel, no legacy book for my granddaughters. This is me self publishing using the same platform I’ve had for thirteen years. Never reaching 2,000 followers but loving my local and international friends who faithfully hang with me. Averaging 150 hits per post in 2022, sometimes more in other years, sometimes fewer. Somewhere along the way I found a voice, but the Boomer passion for individual achievement in the realm of literature that produced six books is mixed now with the seasoned settling of comforting routines that continue to produce my cyberspace conversations. If I ever changed my mind about publishing a new collection of my flash nonfiction, I promise the following post from the archives would be included.

    Pretty, the great Treasure Hunter, occasionally brings home items that fascinate. One such find  was two versions of a board game I played as a child growing up in rural Grimes County, Texas in the mid twentieth century. Before the television set took over as our main form of entertainment, my family played all kinds of games from dominoes to gin rummy to board games Santa Claus left for me under the tree at Christmas. One of our family favorite board games was Go to the Head of the Class which was supposedly “educational” as well as fun. With school teacher parents, I played tons of “educational” games.

    fifth series copyrighted in 1949 by Milton Bradley, publisher

    The game was originally played with tokens that were cardboard images of children attached to wooden bases. Each game had 8 tokens, and their pictures were on the book that contained the questions.

    (top row, l. to r.) Sissy, Dimples, Liz and Butch

    (bottom row, l. to r.) Sonny, Buttercup, Susie and Red

    Sissy

    I can’t find the edition when publisher Milton Bradley eliminated the unsmiling player named Sissy, but I can assure you it would have been the last token picked in my family. Buttercup would have run a close second to the last.

    Take a good look at Sissy, the little boy whose two obvious distinguishing features were that he wore glasses and parted his hair down the middle like the little girl tokens.

    I remembered Jim Blanton’s essay in Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home where he talked about growing up in Gaffney, South Carolina and being called “sissy” as a child and teenager by bullies in school. Words, labels that cause pain.

    I’m sure my parents were oblivious to the subtle cultural messages being sent to me in our educational games, but for me this game was one more nail in the coffin of internalized homophobia and intentional segregation in my childhood. Never any people of color as the tokens. No one wanted to be known as a “sissy,” and how could I explain to anyone why I always picked “Butch” first?

    This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_20220827_150432507_hdr.jpg

    not sure where this picture of me was taken or why – 

    did I already feel different?

    Be aware of bias and labels that hurt. Be kind to each other. Be safe this weekend.

    Stay tuned.