Mrs Metaphor

What??? Plain, me? Hardy har har…well, maybe these online quizzes are not quite as accurate as they may initially seem.

You Are a Glazed Donut

Okay, you know that you’re plain - and you’re cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone dig you. And in a pinch, you’ll probably get eaten.

Well, I may be a lot of things but according to this quiz, I’m not a dramaqueen…

You are a No Drama Mama!

No need for drama, you just chill out and don’t let things bother you You’ve got a peaceful, zen-like attitude… even when things get crazy You’re a pleasure to be around, and you have lots of friends to show for it You don’t need to be the center of attention, you’re happy enough as is!

Tomorrow I’m going back to see what kind of a donut I am.

I found this video by a group, called “The Bird and the Bee” on my friend Steve’s blog and I admit, I’m stealing it and posting it as my own post.

This is another “hum all day long” tune…I’m starting to feel this is my task, my mission…to have you humming all day.

it’s so creepy and creepy and creepy and creepy uh, oh…again, again, again…

(just watch…it’ll make sense…)

Based upon the clever commentary by Rachel in a previous post here on Mrs Metaphor I’m giving myself a week or two off from the pressures of literary fifedom and starting a new trend, “Make your own Metaphor.”

Remember the basic definition of a metaphor as found in Webster:

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English methaphor, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French metaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Greek, from metapherein to transfer, from meta- + pherein to bear — more at BEAR
1 : a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language

I’ll give you the subject matter and you must draw your metaphor (comparing this subject to something else and not using the words “like” or “as” remember….)

Here is your assignment this week…you may make it as long or as short as you would like, if you need additional paper you may raise your hand and I will virtually send one back to your seat.

Your subject is, “What did you do on your summer vacation?”

I’ll even model this for you briefly.

In the midst of rural tennessee, the winter brings with her solitude and wonder, stillness and cool crisp evenings.   We have spent the summer welcoming June and July, bags unpacked, filled with friends and family, who came bursting onto the scene with immense vigor.  They make our home a full scale replica of Grand Central Station…thank God for air conditioning and the  approaching of Fall.

Ready? Begin.

I am not saying that I am proud of this trait I am about to reveal but rather that it exists and I’m workin’ on it.

I’m not as “crunchy” as I appear.  I’ll admit that I homeschool, had all 4 of my children at home (yes, on purpose and yes, without drugs), consider myself a pacifist and a Jesus freak but there is one element missing to the picture you may have begun to draw (two elements if you would please remove the image of “birkenstocks” from your mind.)  I do not recycle.

I was accused once of being a “tree-hugger” and I do love trees.  Truly, I do.  I just don’t recycle.  This is not some kind of political or environmental stance.  It’s a shortcoming that I hope to rectify in my near future but one which I doubt will happen before my youngest quits his pampers.

When I lived in the big city I did try to recycle.  We had this nifty “bag” system, put all your paper in a bag and all your plastic in another bag and all your glass in yet another bag…all bags being blue.  I did very well for a time and then, life got a little more complicated and another little person came to live with us and then I did well for a time and then, life got a little more complicated and another little person came to live in the house and then…well, you get the picture.   For a while there I did end up throwing everything even remotely recyclable into a single blue bag, hoping that someone on the other side of the process would be able to work it out on their end.

The guilt was terrible.  I kept thinking of the poor shrinking planet and the hole in the ozone.  I thought of the dedicated people who worked so hard to put the plan in place in the big city to save us all from ourselves.

And then, I read an article in the paper about the city’s recycling center.  It was under investigation and was likely going to be shut down.  It seems that the “recycling” part of the city’s program was in effect, a lie.  The picture on the front page showed the pile of “blue bags” which rose out of the center of the dump like a great blue thumb pointing upward.  According to the article the sorting and the bagging was about as far in the process as the city had gotten.  No actual “recycling” was happening.  We didn’t have a recycling program, we had a sorting and bagging system.  I guess you could say that at most they had managed to merely “sequester” the recyclables from the rest of the garbage.

This soured me on the whole idea.  I’ll admit that it gave me a sort of reprieve of conscience at my own utter lack of responsibility in this matter.  I retreated to a common thread of thought which  removes one from the picture of the planet at large, a participant of something greater than our manicured lawns and Walmart shopping sprees.  I put on the blinders of my own personal problems and let it go.

Then we moved here, to the country, where the city won’t come up to our house to retrieve the garbage. Instead,  a nice man named Ed comes in his pick up truck up the gravel road and takes away the waste each week in exchange for $25 a month.  No questions asked.  I think I asked him about the “recycling” program in this area and maybe he chuckled a little.  He chuckled, I chuckled…then I dropped the subject.

In my own defense, I did start composting and did brilliantly but then the garden project was pushed to “next year” and the composter sits…full…ready…and gross, truth be told…nothing to fertilize.  The trash compactor feels like a start of sorts.  I buy local and organic, does that help?  I promise to vote for the “greenest” candidate this year, will that penance suffice?

I know that something has got to give.  Again, I do not feel proud of my part in defiling the planet but I’m workin’ on it.  Potty training first, recycling next.