Category: Misc

Aunty Jess

I saw my new friend Hobbo had written a response to a prompt by Chel Owens. It was supposed to be a verse to go inside a card, so I don’t really think this is a proper response, but I was inspired to write this poem. At least it is short (120 words).

To write this prompt, it wasn’t hard,
I hardly ever send a card.
My family is very scant,
Except down under, have an aunt.

Another aunt in Lancashire,
She’s eighty now, delightful dear,
Her birthday now is round about,
I’d better pull my finger out!

The card’s awaiting me to send,
My missus made it last weekend,
Better than I could have bought,
But to the message, gave no thought.

No flow’ry message was supplied,
Just “Happy Birthday” stamped inside,
As long as there’s no writer’s cramp,
All I’m waiting for’s a stamp.

Must keep my cool, not overkeen,
Her birthday’s not ’til Hallowe’en,
By then must break out from my bubble,
If card is late, I’ll be in trouble!

Lost in Translation

I’m still quite green on this platform. To this post, I would actually like some responses, please, if you feel inclined.

I follow a blog on here. I found it early. They comment on things sometimes, which is how I first found them. I receive notifications of their posts – mostly quite a few, at least a dozen per day. Mostly not writing themselves, but reposting material. That’s fine, I can live with that. I can skim past the reposts very quickly, and just click through to the original blogger’s page if the title takes my fancy, or to show my appreciation.

This morning I came across “quote of the day” a regular. I quite like the quotes that people have come up with, little gems to help you start the day. This morning’s:

Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.

Goethe

As far as I’m concerned, a great one-liner. In fact I’d go further and say that we should ecourage all the time, regardless of censure, sun or showers. That’s my #1 goal on here – I know it is small potatoes but I hope my likes and my comments encourage other bloggers. The late Tony Benn [a UK politician] was almost ninety when he died, and he used to say that the job of old people was to encourage. Again, for me, doesn’t matter what the age – we encourage each other, period. I think that the only thing about age is that the older you are, the more likely you are to actually realise that.

So I commented:

That’s our job. All ages really, but especially as we get older. To encourage.

and thought nothing more of it. I didn’t think it was particularly humourous. And just now, I had a “laughing” smiley face response, a 😀 . Not a “like”, not a smile, not even a proper word, just one of these emoticon things that I never really got the hang of.

I know that over of Facebook, a “laugh” response normally means “your contribution is so pathetic that it makes me laugh”, i.e. purely sarcastic. But so far I have found wordpress to be a whole lot more civilised and yes, good-natured.

So I would be grateful if one of you old hands could explain to a noob exactly what they think this “comment” actually means.