A to Z, part 2

Alright, today you get F-I.

F-Festivals. I have discovered that there are festivals for just about anything—Crossworders, Trekkies, Renaissance Faire Enthusiasts, Scrabble-ists, etc. I love attending these festivals as a total outsider and seeing all these quirky people finding others who are quirky in exactly the same way they are. They let go and become quirkier than ever and no one judges them for it. I witnessed such a festival two summers ago when some friends and I went to the International Accordion Festival in Leavenworth, Washington. So much shameless displays of lederhosen, polka, and frilly frocks all in the same place! While we were there, we invented The Accordion Clap. It is done by bringing your hands together back and forth in a very rapid fashion, without your hands ever actually touching, as if you are playing an accordion. It looks like this.

(Kendra, Christi, and Elise giving a spectacular demonstration of the accordion clap)

You should know it’s very difficult to keep from grinning like a fool while accordion clapping. It just makes you so happy.

G- Grasshoppers, Shower of. After I moved to Nebraska, I discovered a bike trail near my apartment that goes through the city and out into the countryside on the east side of town.

(my beautiful trail)

One afternoon, I went for a ride and found multitudes of grasshoppers and locusts sunning themselves on the gravel trail. For several miles, as my wheels crunched the gravel and approached the sunning insects, they would suddenly spring up just like popcorn in a popper. I had never experienced a grasshopper shower before.


H-Haiku. I have developed a habit of writing haiku poetry to vent my frustration, irritation, or annoyance at one particular culprit: The Wind. I do not mind a gentle breeze tousling the ends of my hair, but when it whips around my face, blowing my hair into knots and making my eyes water, it just irritates me. And so I create poetry to distract myself.
The first wind haiku was born on a cold winter day as I walked into my job at Richland High School:

nasty blowing cold
hands are freezing hair a mess
sometimes I hate wind

The second one was created on my walk to church:

Shine! Gloss! Kiss me now!
Hair blows wildly sticks to lips
sometimes I hate wind

The next came about as I fiercely fought against the wind and the waves while kayaking on a should-have-been-calm mountain lake:

waves and rapids wild
wind should not be on the lake
sometimes I hate wind

The fourth one, sadly, I can’t remember entirely but was constructed by my sister and I as we sat on the beach at the Oregon Coast with the wind whipping the sand around us and sandblasting our bare legs. Rest assured you probably know the last line of the haiku already.

And finally, the latest was developed to calm myself while being gloriously irritated by riding my bike into a cold and strong headwind for several miles:

gale forces blow strong

almost knocks me off my bike
sometimes I hate wind

They do make me feel better.

Ice, Scraping of. For an entire winter, while I was in grad school and living at home, my younger brother would scrape his car and then mine before he left for school (every morning). When I came rushing out of the house, late, it always made my day to see my scraped car ready to be on her way.

(my little brother, about 15 years before he scraped my car all winter)