Thursday, September 10, 2009

Childhood Flash Backs

As a child I was often read poems by my older sister. We had a collection of poems that I loved her to read to me from. So in high school when were had to memorize and present a poem I dig deep into my childhood and chose to memorize my favorite poem from that collection. I could recite the following by heart, word for word at one point in my life.

THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON

By Ogden Nash

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.


I remembered this poem this evening because my friend ran into the daughter of my high school english teacher the other day and told me about it. Although I did recite it in class and a few other places my most vivid memory of this poem was at relief society enrichment night. My mom was in the presidency at the time and asked me to demonstrate something at that month's enrichment. During a moment while I was waiting for something to boil I looked around to find every eye fixed and me and nothing to say. So I blurted out 'do you want to hear a poem?' And I recited the above poem. I also recited a passage from Shakespear's Julius Ceasar. The fact that I did this still slightly embarrasses me and I hope none of the ladies remember.


(p.s. this is my 100th post)

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Kind of random..

At the end of my internship the company had a poster fair for all the inters. A lady interviewed me there for a clip they wanted to put on their facebook page. I just found it. It you wanted see me pretending to be serious here's the link. http://www.facebook.com/IdahoNationalLaboratory. Go to the careers tab and click watch the video 'see what some of our interns have to say'.


***To get the link to work copy and paste it into your internet browser, that worked for me***