On a lighter note!

     My email box has been the happy recipient (you didn't know that email boxes have feelings?) of jokes related ti COVID.  Like the mailbox, I too, have been glad to receive them. Seeing the funny side ameliorates the gloom of the dire news which assaults us daily. In that vein...which reminds me of the old pun about the red corpuscle who lived his life in vein...today's post is to entertain.
     Teaching in Thailand has heightened my awareness of  the idiomatic nature of much spoken English. The principle of my school likes to practice her English with me.  Idioms often creep into my speech and, of course, they take some explaining. Being no linguist  I have no idea how English compares to other languages in the use of figures of speech.
     Consider the following poem.
Two Poets

– or, why English is such a difficult language to learn –
by Julie Cadwallader Staub
 

Hey—we've been passing like ships in the night.
Can't we hang out together
and make beautiful music like we used to?

You must have lost your marbles, she says.
You need to turn on a dime
and step up to the plate
if we're going to make hay while the sun shines.

Wait a minute—you're putting the cart before the horse.
Let me cut to the chase.
We've been treading water, and all I'm trying to do
is move the ball down the field.

I know, she says, but you have to have
your oar in the water too.

Look, he says, you're my north star.
I know I missed a few beats, but
don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
I've turned over a new leaf.
I'm watching my p's and q's.
I'm dotting my i's and crossing my t's.

Now we're cooking with gas, she smiles.

I'm so relieved. I was afraid you had hung me out to dry.
If we can be like two peas in a pod again,
everything else will be icing on the cake.
 

“Two Poets” by Julie Cadwallader Staub from Wing Over Wing. Paraclete Press, © 2019. Used by permission of Paraclete Press in Brewster, Massachusetts.

  On this "lighter note" I suppose I can resume posting random pictures. 😃

Takk for alt,

Al

Chao Phraya River, Bangkok