#NaPoWriMo 2024 Day Twenty

Happy Birthday, Buffalo!

In 1832 the city of Buffalo was incorporated.
What an auspicious day: 4-20!
I know everyone is celebrating
with the munchies 😉
Let’s get an order of wings
or fire up the grill to roast
a Sahlen’s hotdog or two.

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Our optional prompt for the day challenges you to write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents. If you’re interested in a little research, you might find interesting this collection of letters written during the American Civil War, or this collection of primary documents concerning South Sea voyages. Or perhaps you might find something of interest in digging through Europeana, an online clearinghouse of digitized materials from cultural institutions across Europe.

Good evening and welcome to day twenty of #NaPoWriMo where I learned Buffalo, NY was incorporated 192 years ago today. Shawn has gone up to Miami, AZ this weekend for their art festival; so I spent today cleaning, but I did do some research on the city of Buffalo this afternoon. It did bring back memories of grammar school and learning about New York State history.

#Bloganuary Day 3 College

Today’s prompt for #bloganuary asks us what colleges we’ve attended. I find it somewhat ironic that my first ever post to my WordPress blog included a photo of my graduation from Buffalo State.

Golden Anniversary

I also wrote about Buffalo State when we were going through our old yearbooks.

The Elms

Yes, once upon a time colleges had yearbooks as well as high schools.

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And just last year, Buffalo State gave Shawn and me #AlumniSwag as part of their couples who met at Buffalo State. I included we were high school sweethearts, but Buffalo State was the first school we attended together. And my love struck fiancé earned a C in one of his English courses because he would skip the class, but then show up in the English department to see me before my class and the professor saw him and knew there was no reason for him not to have been in his class.

high school romance blooms
remains steadfast through college
despite skipping class

Twenty Seven Years – Sculpture

Good Morning! Shawn and I made it to our 27th wedding anniversary with some effort on my part to not celebrating it. On world cerebral palsy day I took a header on my evening walk and came home a bloody mess. Almost a week later, my body is still sore. Honestly I am trying to make it to 50 even though I am definitely feeling every bit of my age and then some. So the traditional gift for making it to twenty seven years of happily ever after is sculptures. Of course my readers know my tradition is poetry.

Lighting Unity Candle October 12, 1996

The poor unity candle did not survive the move to Arizona. I had it packed and shipped in the moving truck with the rest of our belongings and when it was unpacked it was an unrecognizable melted glob of wax. So only made it to our 2nd anniversary. I know I’ve talked about the fact Shawn and I danced to Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman for our first dance as a married couple. And keeping with the sculpture theme and since we saw Bryan Adams in concert this past summer, this was my gift to Shawn today. It’s not a traditional sculpture, but I thought it was a cool concept.

Shawn and I Bryan Adams Concert July 25, 2023

Wooing my husband through poetry

As with my #NaPoWriMo poem from a couple years ago, Bryan Adams played Please Forgive Me and not our song. Shawn was really hoping he’d play Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? But we weren’t that fortunate.

#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Twenty Nine

My mom in silhouette

Through Kitchen Window

Drop by childhood home
Mom in kitchen, drinking tea
Her cigarettes close

Peek through back window
Mom sits at counter reading
Permanent fixture

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now, for our prompt (optional, as always). This one is called “in the window.” Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a window looking into an alien spaceship. Maybe a window looking into a witch’s gingerbread cottage, or Lord Nelson’s cabin aboard the H.M.S. Victory. What do you see? What’s going on?

Good morning and welcome to day twenty nine of #NaPoWriMo where I’m looking in a window instead of looking out of one. I did go back to my childhood, but I dropped into my own home, and knew I had a picture of my mom sitting at “her spot” at the kitchen counter. I used the #haikuchallenge word – drop for the first part of the poem.

Portrait of Motherhood

#NaPoWriMo – Grammar School

My Grammar School from the 1984 Yearbook

Grammar School

On Reserve Road in West Seneca
New York sits a squat rectangle
Building behind a brick church
Where children gather to
Learn reading, writing
Arithmetic
Trinity
Christian
School

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Our (optional) prompt for the day takes a leaf from Schuyler’s book, as it were, and asks you to write a poem about a specific place —  a particular house or store or school or office. Try to incorporate concrete details, like street names, distances (“three and a half blocks from the post office”), the types of trees or flowers, the color of the shirts on the people you remember there. Little details like this can really help the reader imagine not only the place, but its mood – and can take your poem to weird and wild places.

Good morning readers and welcome to day two of NaPoWriMo. Yesterday I was lamenting at the thought of being a kindergarten failure, so today I thought I’d share with you where I spent nine years of my youth. I attended Trinity Lutheran all the way k-8th grades. A few years back, I wrote about one of my classmates. Since we were a graduating class of eight students, we got to know everyone pretty well.

As you can see in my poem, the name of the school has changed; it works for the syllable count of a nonnet, but to me it will always be Trinity Lutheran school. It seems strange to realize I lived in the same house kindergarten through 8th and all the way until I was married a total of 18 years; I just now surpassed that amount of time as we moved into our current residence 20 years ago coming up next month. This has been an interesting trip down memory lane, but once again I need to be productive today. I will see you all again tomorrow.

#NaPoWriMo 2018 Day Twenty-eight

Maid of the Mist Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls, NY

Hello! We enjoyed our trip to see Niagara Falls. The girls and I were adventurous and toured the Cave of the Winds. Okay, Mom didn’t make it all the way up the stairs to stand next to the falls. The girls were having fun experiencing the Falls up close. After that we went on the Maid of the Mist; I’m sending you a postcard of the boat. It’s a good thing they give you rain ponchos, because we all got wet. They bring the boat along side of Horseshoe Falls. It’s loud as the water thunders down into the river right by the boat. Our time in Buffalo is almost over be home soon.

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Following the suggestion of our craft resource, we challenge you today to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard. If you need some inspiration, why not check out some images of vintage postcards? I’m particularly fond of this one.

Good Morning and welcome to day twenty-eight of #NaPoWriMo where we are suppose to write a postcard. Well since we will be going back to Buffalo this summer, a first for the whole family in over 6 years, I decided to write about our last trip to Niagara Falls. Gretchen is off to her Eng102 class this morning. They actually sent the students an email informing them classes are held as scheduled so the kids didn’t think the college professors were on walkout like their high school teachers. Gretchen thought, doh! But I thought it was a good idea if only because the kids have been sleeping in for the past two days; and teenagers, if they think they can sleep in and not have to go to school, they’ll take full advantage.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 8

Feeling Blue

Forlorn
Longing
Overcome
Weeping
Exorcises
Ruefulness

NaPoWriMo Prompt – It’s Friday, and writing poems isn’t easy! So let’s give ourselves a break with a simple prompt today. Poets have been writing about flowers since, oh, the dawn of time. So today, I challenge you to add your own poem to this long tradition, by finding a flower, and versifying in its honor. Happy writing!

We have made it past the one week mark in April. Yesterday the drywall guy came and repaired the drywall. My writing nook is slowly returning to normal, but it’s not there yet. I am still sitting at my kitchen table. Shawn bought the bouquet in the picture in August 2014 when my mom passed away. Right now my table has no flowers. A couple years ago, Shawn brought home orange roses. Wow! It’s hard to believe it will be 20 years this October. As I asked yesterday, How did mom get old?

Another Benefit for a School Friend

Sharing this in hopes any friends in Buffalo, NY will be able to go or just donate to help another of my classmates from Trinity Lutheran. Jim also lived in the Frontier school district so we graduated from high school together as well.

Chaotic lives run
away from us. Don’t forget
appreciate friends!