Maureen Bush

Missing My Garden

As the snow gets deeper, I miss my garden.

I fill the birdfeeder to draw birds into the

yard, and watch squirrels feast instead.

I pour over seed catalogues debating what

to order. I found some seed pods persisting

above the snow, like living sculptures.

Maureen

Gift Books

Intriguing books that flowed through our house this season, in one direction or another:

Masters of Contemporary Watchmaking – huge and gorgeous, for a newly-trained watchmaker (yes, Virginia, there really are watchmakers).

Field Guide to Monsters, with monsters the recipient had never heard of, which delighted her.

Tolkein’s Letters from Father Christmas, an old book in a new printing, a new discovery for me. Tolkein wrote letters from Santa to his children every year. What a wonderful tradition! I wish I’d heard of it before my kids were almost grown.

And a non-book – the monster patterns from Danger Crafts at ETSY website are wonderful for any knitter who likes things just a little twisted (and I don’t mean the yarn).

Maureen

Merry Christmas

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,

Was singing! Without any presents at all!

He HADN”T stopped Christmas from coming!

IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

.

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,

Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!

“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!

Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.

“Maybe Christmas . . . perhaps . . . means a little bit more!”

.

Merry Christmas,

Maureen

Oh Holy Night

When I was in High School, four of us went downtown to sing Christmas carols outside The Bay. They were paying us as a fund raiser for the school choir. We sang every Christmas tune we knew, working our way through our song book. An older lady stopped to listen, and requested O Holy Night. None of us knew it, but she looked so tired and so hopeful that we couldn’t say no. We found it in the songbook and fumbled our way through it, very badly, I suspect. But her face lit up with such joy that it’s been one of my favorites ever since.

Maureen

Fall 2009 Contest

It’s time to conclude the fall 2009 howweirdcanyouget.com contest.

And the winner is . . . Beth, 11, who sent in a story idea that charmed me:

“My idea is a book about a girl, but she’s not an ordinary girl; she is a star shiner. She has magical powers but she doesn’t know it. She can create the temperature on earth. When she does find out she goes out of control and creates disasters around the world. Soon mother nature is after her and has her trapped in an imaginary world. Will she ever escape?”

Other lovely ideas worth an honourable mention:

Another from Beth: a spell to control minds.

And some great ingredient ideas that Griffith intends to work with:

from Beth, again: troll toe nails and ghost sweat

from Peter: lizard tail and rabbit tough!

Griffith says to Rachel:

A time machine is the hardest – my plans always fail. Any ideas for how to make it?

From my sister – this one always works:

Sister Solution

Guaranteed to make her run away FAST

one strand of naturally curly hair,

one ounce of spit from a mischievous child,

One can of sardines

one glop of peanut butter

Mix well and serve to older sister

(That would be me).

Maureen