A-Z Challenge: K - Kiss

K is for Kiss

Today I am delighted to introduce my friend, Barbara Alfaro. She is an amazing writer who I met through the Scribd community. She wrote this lovely poem all about her first kiss. It is the title poem for her collection of poems, which is available to buy on Amazon Kindle. More of Barbara's writing can also be found on her blog. I particularly loved a short story she wrote called "Resistible Impulse" about a robot called Shelley. She has published her memoir, Mirror Talk, about growing up Catholic, her experiences in New York Theatre, her marriage and the healing power of humour.

First Kiss

Teddy O’Connor, I dreamed of you last night.
You were the age you would be now
and still handsome in your quiet way.

Remember us, in our Easter Sunday best,
beside my father’s mint green Chevrolet,
holding torch-shaped ice cream cones.

Ten years later, I’m wearing a prom dress.
You are Cary Grant in a rented tux.
You broke my heart that night,
being too attentive to another.

Somewhere between the Carvels
and senior prom, probably
when we were twelve, we paused
in a Long Island woods and
sat beside each other on a fallen tree.
You surprised me with a kiss
and I fell silent as a log.

In the dream, you said you live in Delaware.
I wonder how you are now.
The fool part of me is tempted to see
how many Theodore O’Connors
live in Wilmington but if I found you,
what could I say?

Teddy O’Connor, I dreamed of you last night.

   ~ Barbara Alfaro

Isn't that a great poem. Can you remember your first kiss?

A-Z Challenge: J - Jigsaw

J is for Jigsaw

A-Z Challenge: H - Hungry and Homeless

H is for Hungry and Homeless

I had a wonderful experience at Christmas that I never got around to blogging about. A friend invited me to join her annual feeding of the homeless in San Francisco. I wasn’t sure what she meant at first. Were we going to dole out soup in one of those homeless shelters? No, apparently her and a friend had started a ‘give back’ tradition over 20 years ago, which entailed the following:

• Spending a fortune buying top quality, fresh, organic ingredients
• Taking an entire day off work to prepare a delicious Martha Stewart recipe chicken salad 

• Making up 150 sandwiches with said Martha Stewart chicken salad as filling
• Filling 150 lunch bags with about 10 different items, all top quality and as healthy as possible
• Driving down to San Francisco and handing them out randomly to homeless people.

I joined them for the sandwich making, lunch bag stuffing and handing out to random homeless people in SF. (Luckily they had already done the extravagent food-buying as my bank balance was a little thin.) I was a bit nervous beforehand wondering what sort of reception we would get. Would it be dangerous (or smelly)? Would we get shouted at or attacked even? Would they think we were patronizing, middle-class do-gooders? I needn't have worried. Everyone we handed a lunch bag to was so grateful, thanking us profusely and wishing us a Happy Christmas.

Some people were fast asleep under newspapers or blankets, some were stoned or drunk or out of their minds on something, but the vast majority were simply hungry. It felt great to be giving them quality food and not just a dry, stale bit of bread with a limp piece of ham. It was so rewarding to see their faces transform into smiles of joy, especially when they realized we were just giving them free food - no sermon or lecture or religious diatribe.

What I noticed, however, was that the vast majority were black. Or is the proper description, African American? I’m never quite sure in this politically correct world we live in now. But really, who cares what the correct term is – surely the point is that these people are hungry and homeless and it seemed that a certain skin colour was more prevalent than others. I am sure there are worse places to be homeless than California, but there were a lot of people of all ages, with no home and no food. Now I know some people make a 'choice' to live like this, but I'm damn sure most of them don't. There was a definite sense of community though, with groups of people looking out for each other, making sure their 'sleeping' friend had a lunch bag for later and so on.

I don't know how much good it really does in the end, but my friend says that she likes doing this because she hopes they will realise that someone cares. That their situation isn't entirely hopeless. That they have been noticed. She is a lovely, caring person and perhaps if there were more people that did something like this it would really make a difference. I am glad she asked me along. I had a great time. It made me feel like I had done something good with my day. I definitely experienced a rosy glow from my good deeds, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty that I was ending the day by stuffing my face in a delicious restaurant, and going back to my loving husband and a comfy bed in a warm house.

A-Z Challenge: G - Grammar

G is for Grammar

 I recently stumbled across

The Fumblerules of Grammar

by William Safire - listing 54 self-contradictory rules of writing -thanks to Lists of Notes. I think they are not only hilarious, but extremely informative. I have picked 10 randomly but they all worth a read. For the full list, go here.

A-Z Challenge: F - Funny

F is for Funny

I love to laugh. I think it's on a par with an orgasm, but without the wet spot (unless, of course, you've given birth and then you have no pelvic floor and uncontrollable giggling can frequently cause embarrassing wetness). And no-one makes me laugh quite as much as the fantastic, fabulous, fart-makingly funny Dawn French.

A-Z Challenge: E - Elbow

E is for Elbow

Time for some music! Love this band. I was first introduced to them by my hubby’s brother and thought their name was fab. They looked like a bunch of accountants though. Then they won the  (British) Mercury Music Prize for their album The Seldom Seen Kid in 2008 and went from being virtual unknowns (although they'd been around for years) to overnight megastars. They are even composing the BBC’s 2012 Olympic coverage theme tune – can there be loftier heights for a band to aspire?

A-Z Challenge: D - Dog

D is for Dog

I inherited  was forced to live  agreed to look after my husband’s dog when we moved to the US, along with his children. Although the dog (who is tail-less and called Stubby) was psychotic, she was less frightening than my new step-children. At least I had had a dog before. 

A-Z Challenge: C - Cats

C is for Cats

Yes, I know. Obvious. Sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity to bore you with a quick rundown of all the cats I have had over my lifetime.

A-Z Challenge: B - Bug

B is for Bug

Left: Bug

I first laid eyes on him when I was at boarding school. I was only thirteen years old and had never had a boyfriend. He was a couple of years older and had an air of confidence and experience about him which made the age difference seem more than that. He looked so cool, with a faded denim jacket casually worn in place of his school blazer, the top few buttons of his white shirt undone, and fashionable black boots under the school uniform trousers. He was small and skinny and I remember him staring at me, all floppy black hair and intense brown eyes looking out under enormous bushy eyebrows, like a giant hairy caterpillar crawling across his forehead. I wasn't the least surprised when he said his name was Bug.

A-Z Challenge: A - Apple

I am participating in the A-Z Challenge blog hop which is happening for the whole of April. The idea is to blog on a different letter on each day of April, except Sundays (the exception being 1st April as it is on a Sunday this year). Ok, so here goes.

A is for Apple

I got this lovely shiny red apple when I went to see The Kaiser Chiefs at The Fillmore recently. For those of you that don’t know, one of their very sweet traditions is to have a large tub of free apples for concert goers positioned near the entrance. And they are nice, crispy, juicy apples too. My son ate this one.