Poem: "Flipping Expectations"
Feb. 2nd, 2022 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is the second freebie, since I've used backchannel discussions with justanorthernlight and sweetsorcery for various poems. It was inspired by a prompt from scrubjayspeaks. It also fills the "challenge yourself" square in my 2-1-22 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series LIFC.
"Flipping Expectations"
It had been an awful day.
Coulson had gone to SHIELD
with Romanova and Ross,
only to get entangled with
sexist agents, bad paperwork,
and a panicky phone call from
Uruguay about AIM again.
Both women were cranky and
snappish on the way home.
Phil wanted to help, really
he did, but he was just so tired.
Bucky took one look at them
and said, "You three seem
like you need a break."
"Oh god yes," Betty said,
rolling her head until
her neck popped.
"Everyone else is out of
the Tower at the moment,"
said Bucky. "Why don't you
go clean up and change into
something relaxing, then we
can have a little game night."
The three looked at each other,
then bolted for their showers.
Eventually Phil made his way
back to the common room.
He wore his pajamas, but
it was still pretty hard for him
to shift down without a push.
Natka and Betty were already
there, talking about games.
Bucky wore track pants under
a black T-shirt with a deer head
that read in white, Uncle Buck.
"What are we playing?" Phil asked.
"Betty wants to teach Natka how
to play jacks," said Uncle Buck.
"I figured you can pick a game too."
"Paper dolls?" Phil said. "It's been
a while since I played with those,
but they're good for imagination."
He'd used them in training, too,
though not with anyone here.
"You play with paper dolls?"
Betty said. "Most boys don't."
"Growing up, I didn't get to play
with other boys much," Phil said.
"I played with my mother and
my sister. Paper dolls didn't
cost anything, since you could
cut them out of magazines."
"Oh yeah," said Uncle Buck.
"The old ladies in the tenement
used to do that for Stevie and
my sisters. It's not hard."
Betty scampered over to
the cabinet that held supplies
and dragged out a rubber tub.
"There's craft catalogs and
magazines in here," she said.
"Somebody get the glue
and the heavy paper."
"Scissors," Phil said,
taking a pair of those.
Uncle Buck lifted them
from Phil's hand. "Why
don't you let someone
older handle these, mm?"
Phil frowned. "I know
how to use scissors."
"Do you? Right now?"
Uncle Buck murmured
with a sideways hug.
He pressed down gently,
and quite unexpectedly
Phil turned into Flip.
"I guess you can do
the scissors," Flip said.
"Thank you," said Uncle Buck.
Flip took a magazine and
began leafing through it
in search of good pictures.
Betty picked up a catalog
and turned to Natka. "See,
the models use a lot of
the same poses. So we
can cut one for a doll,"
then others for clothes."
"Let's do the dolls first,
so we can match clothes
to those," Flip suggested.
He remembered doing that.
"Good idea," said Uncle Buck.
"Start with two girls and two boys."
It was easy to find girl dolls; soon
Betty and Natka had one each.
Flip finally found a sport magazine
that had good pictures of men fishing
and hunting in outdoorsy clothes.
The littles glued the pictures onto
thick cardstock, then Uncle Buck
cut around them to make the dolls.
"Okay, we've got a sporty girl,
a fashion girl, a hunter boy,
and a fisher boy," he said.
"Pick out some extra clothes."
Flip had no trouble finding
new images of hats, coats,
camouflage, waders, and
a bunch of different gear.
Natka was picking out
beautiful dresses, shoes,
purses, sweaters, and skirts.
Betty had all sorts of sportswear
for women, balls and racquets too.
Then Flip found a magazine
about businesswomen. "Hey,
do you want this?" he said.
"Oh yeah, we can make
a couple of business dolls,"
Betty said with an eager grin.
"Briefcase," Flip said, pointing
to a page. "We used to play a game
where we'd write things on the back,
like what someone had in a purse.
Then someone names a situation,
and you have find things to deal
with it. Like if you're hungry, you
need to have the granola bar piece."
"Can't you just tell them apart?"
Natka said with a frown.
"Yeah, if you can remember
a hundred pieces and they're
all different," said Flip. "But if
you have duplicates of some ..."
"Then it's harder," Natka finished.
"That is an interesting game."
Uncle Buck rummaged in the bin.
"We got doubles of a fashion magazine,
a business magazine, and an outdoors one."
They'd cut some pictures from ads, so
they could probably find duplicates.
Eventually they had three to four
copies of things like briefcases,
purses, coats, and fishing vests.
"Each piece only holds what you
can write on the back," said Uncle Buck.
"Ooo, that's a good rule," said Betty,
leaning over pieces with a pen.
"You can mix and match colors
to make different looks, or go from
everyday clothes to camo," said Flip.
Natka immediately dropped her catalog
and started trying to arrange pieces
for her doll to hide in different places.
Once they had the hidden items
written out, Uncle Buck called
for different situations and let
them try to solve problems with
whatever their paper dolls had.
Then Natka had the idea of
choosing occasions that they
had to dress for with their clothes.
Betty threw in actual dress codes.
Flip added dice, and if you rolled
a six, you could search a magazine
or catalog for a new thing to cut out.
That kept them busy a while, but
eventually Betty got restless.
"Can we play jacks now?"
she said, shifting in place.
"Sure," said Uncle Buck.
"They're in the cabinet."
Betty fetched the jacks.
"Start by flipping, right?"
Flip said. He put five jacks
in his palm, tossed them up,
and deftly caught four on
the back of his hand.
Betty caught three,
and Natka caught two.
"This is harder than
it looks," Natka said.
"Yeah, but flipping
is good practice for
hands," said Flip.
Natka tried that
a few more times,
and got better at it.
The three of them
played several rounds,
onesies through tens.
Betty was better at it
than anyone else, but
Natka was making
rapid improvements.
"Hey, do you know
Cherries in a Basket?"
Betty said, cupping a hand.
"Yeah, let's play that one,"
Flip said. It was interesting.
You threw the ball with
one hand and put jacks
into the cup of the other.
Again, Betty was better.
"Sheep Over the Fence,"
Flip suggested, which meant
holding one hand straight on
the ground and moving jacks
to the other side of that hand.
He actually won that round.
It was a favorite variation.
Uncle Buck wasn't good
at the game, though.
"Try again," said Betty.
"You'll get it next time.
"Lefties," Uncle Buck said,
smirking at the littles.
It didn't help any.
"I used to be better
at this," he muttered,
watching the jacks slide
off his metal hand.
"Been a while," Flip said.
"You'll get the hang of it."
Natka was almost as good
with her left as her right.
If Clint had been there,
though, he would have
beaten them all at Lefties.
"Your skin is too smooth,"
Betty said to Uncle Buck.
"Can you arch the back of
you hand to catch jacks?"
"Not much," said Uncle Buck.
They kept falling off his hand.
"Pull your outer fingers up more
and your inner fingers down
a little," said Flip. "That'll
make a bit of a cup."
Uncle Buck tried that,
and it worked a little better.
"Yay," Betty said as she
clapped her hands.
Even though Flip
wasn't quite what
anyone expected,
he was pretty good
at figuring out solutions.
That was the job he'd picked.
* * *
Notes:
See the Uncle Buck T-shirt.
Paper dolls have a deep history. Variations include paper doll chains, articulated paper dolls, cutting dolls from magazines or catalogs, and specially printed dolls. Here are some free printables; JARVIS could find such things later, though right now the littles are happy with raiding the craft bin. Me, I liked cutting them out of catalogs because, as mentioned, the repetitive poses made it easy to match dolls with a wardrobe.
Jacks is a game family with a fun history. Playing jacks requires at least two colors and preferably more in order to enjoy some of the more complex options. You need more skill to grab only a certain color, or a specific combination of colors. I grew up with the nice multicolored metal ones; the modern plastic kind have terrible handling in comparison. Variations include colonial and other rule sets.
EDIT 2/3/22 -- Tigrislilium on AO3 noted another version, Jax rings or wacky jacks, which are little bundles of differently colored rings played by tossing and scooping.
justanorthernlight and sweetsorcery for various poems. It was inspired by a prompt from scrubjayspeaks. It also fills the "challenge yourself" square in my 2-1-22 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series LIFC."Flipping Expectations"
It had been an awful day.
Coulson had gone to SHIELD
with Romanova and Ross,
only to get entangled with
sexist agents, bad paperwork,
and a panicky phone call from
Uruguay about AIM again.
Both women were cranky and
snappish on the way home.
Phil wanted to help, really
he did, but he was just so tired.
Bucky took one look at them
and said, "You three seem
like you need a break."
"Oh god yes," Betty said,
rolling her head until
her neck popped.
"Everyone else is out of
the Tower at the moment,"
said Bucky. "Why don't you
go clean up and change into
something relaxing, then we
can have a little game night."
The three looked at each other,
then bolted for their showers.
Eventually Phil made his way
back to the common room.
He wore his pajamas, but
it was still pretty hard for him
to shift down without a push.
Natka and Betty were already
there, talking about games.
Bucky wore track pants under
a black T-shirt with a deer head
that read in white, Uncle Buck.
"What are we playing?" Phil asked.
"Betty wants to teach Natka how
to play jacks," said Uncle Buck.
"I figured you can pick a game too."
"Paper dolls?" Phil said. "It's been
a while since I played with those,
but they're good for imagination."
He'd used them in training, too,
though not with anyone here.
"You play with paper dolls?"
Betty said. "Most boys don't."
"Growing up, I didn't get to play
with other boys much," Phil said.
"I played with my mother and
my sister. Paper dolls didn't
cost anything, since you could
cut them out of magazines."
"Oh yeah," said Uncle Buck.
"The old ladies in the tenement
used to do that for Stevie and
my sisters. It's not hard."
Betty scampered over to
the cabinet that held supplies
and dragged out a rubber tub.
"There's craft catalogs and
magazines in here," she said.
"Somebody get the glue
and the heavy paper."
"Scissors," Phil said,
taking a pair of those.
Uncle Buck lifted them
from Phil's hand. "Why
don't you let someone
older handle these, mm?"
Phil frowned. "I know
how to use scissors."
"Do you? Right now?"
Uncle Buck murmured
with a sideways hug.
He pressed down gently,
and quite unexpectedly
Phil turned into Flip.
"I guess you can do
the scissors," Flip said.
"Thank you," said Uncle Buck.
Flip took a magazine and
began leafing through it
in search of good pictures.
Betty picked up a catalog
and turned to Natka. "See,
the models use a lot of
the same poses. So we
can cut one for a doll,"
then others for clothes."
"Let's do the dolls first,
so we can match clothes
to those," Flip suggested.
He remembered doing that.
"Good idea," said Uncle Buck.
"Start with two girls and two boys."
It was easy to find girl dolls; soon
Betty and Natka had one each.
Flip finally found a sport magazine
that had good pictures of men fishing
and hunting in outdoorsy clothes.
The littles glued the pictures onto
thick cardstock, then Uncle Buck
cut around them to make the dolls.
"Okay, we've got a sporty girl,
a fashion girl, a hunter boy,
and a fisher boy," he said.
"Pick out some extra clothes."
Flip had no trouble finding
new images of hats, coats,
camouflage, waders, and
a bunch of different gear.
Natka was picking out
beautiful dresses, shoes,
purses, sweaters, and skirts.
Betty had all sorts of sportswear
for women, balls and racquets too.
Then Flip found a magazine
about businesswomen. "Hey,
do you want this?" he said.
"Oh yeah, we can make
a couple of business dolls,"
Betty said with an eager grin.
"Briefcase," Flip said, pointing
to a page. "We used to play a game
where we'd write things on the back,
like what someone had in a purse.
Then someone names a situation,
and you have find things to deal
with it. Like if you're hungry, you
need to have the granola bar piece."
"Can't you just tell them apart?"
Natka said with a frown.
"Yeah, if you can remember
a hundred pieces and they're
all different," said Flip. "But if
you have duplicates of some ..."
"Then it's harder," Natka finished.
"That is an interesting game."
Uncle Buck rummaged in the bin.
"We got doubles of a fashion magazine,
a business magazine, and an outdoors one."
They'd cut some pictures from ads, so
they could probably find duplicates.
Eventually they had three to four
copies of things like briefcases,
purses, coats, and fishing vests.
"Each piece only holds what you
can write on the back," said Uncle Buck.
"Ooo, that's a good rule," said Betty,
leaning over pieces with a pen.
"You can mix and match colors
to make different looks, or go from
everyday clothes to camo," said Flip.
Natka immediately dropped her catalog
and started trying to arrange pieces
for her doll to hide in different places.
Once they had the hidden items
written out, Uncle Buck called
for different situations and let
them try to solve problems with
whatever their paper dolls had.
Then Natka had the idea of
choosing occasions that they
had to dress for with their clothes.
Betty threw in actual dress codes.
Flip added dice, and if you rolled
a six, you could search a magazine
or catalog for a new thing to cut out.
That kept them busy a while, but
eventually Betty got restless.
"Can we play jacks now?"
she said, shifting in place.
"Sure," said Uncle Buck.
"They're in the cabinet."
Betty fetched the jacks.
"Start by flipping, right?"
Flip said. He put five jacks
in his palm, tossed them up,
and deftly caught four on
the back of his hand.
Betty caught three,
and Natka caught two.
"This is harder than
it looks," Natka said.
"Yeah, but flipping
is good practice for
hands," said Flip.
Natka tried that
a few more times,
and got better at it.
The three of them
played several rounds,
onesies through tens.
Betty was better at it
than anyone else, but
Natka was making
rapid improvements.
"Hey, do you know
Cherries in a Basket?"
Betty said, cupping a hand.
"Yeah, let's play that one,"
Flip said. It was interesting.
You threw the ball with
one hand and put jacks
into the cup of the other.
Again, Betty was better.
"Sheep Over the Fence,"
Flip suggested, which meant
holding one hand straight on
the ground and moving jacks
to the other side of that hand.
He actually won that round.
It was a favorite variation.
Uncle Buck wasn't good
at the game, though.
"Try again," said Betty.
"You'll get it next time.
"Lefties," Uncle Buck said,
smirking at the littles.
It didn't help any.
"I used to be better
at this," he muttered,
watching the jacks slide
off his metal hand.
"Been a while," Flip said.
"You'll get the hang of it."
Natka was almost as good
with her left as her right.
If Clint had been there,
though, he would have
beaten them all at Lefties.
"Your skin is too smooth,"
Betty said to Uncle Buck.
"Can you arch the back of
you hand to catch jacks?"
"Not much," said Uncle Buck.
They kept falling off his hand.
"Pull your outer fingers up more
and your inner fingers down
a little," said Flip. "That'll
make a bit of a cup."
Uncle Buck tried that,
and it worked a little better.
"Yay," Betty said as she
clapped her hands.
Even though Flip
wasn't quite what
anyone expected,
he was pretty good
at figuring out solutions.
That was the job he'd picked.
* * *
Notes:
See the Uncle Buck T-shirt.
Paper dolls have a deep history. Variations include paper doll chains, articulated paper dolls, cutting dolls from magazines or catalogs, and specially printed dolls. Here are some free printables; JARVIS could find such things later, though right now the littles are happy with raiding the craft bin. Me, I liked cutting them out of catalogs because, as mentioned, the repetitive poses made it easy to match dolls with a wardrobe.
Jacks is a game family with a fun history. Playing jacks requires at least two colors and preferably more in order to enjoy some of the more complex options. You need more skill to grab only a certain color, or a specific combination of colors. I grew up with the nice multicolored metal ones; the modern plastic kind have terrible handling in comparison. Variations include colonial and other rule sets.
EDIT 2/3/22 -- Tigrislilium on AO3 noted another version, Jax rings or wacky jacks, which are little bundles of differently colored rings played by tossing and scooping.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-02 09:00 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2022-02-02 10:42 pm (UTC)That's what I've been aiming for.
>> Seeing them continue to benefit and grow is heartwarming.<<
I'm happy to hear that. I want to show how it's possible, even for people as banged up as this.
<3
Date: 2022-02-06 03:54 am (UTC)Well, that was a good thing, because life decided to dump about three hours of no good, very bad foolish junk on my head. So when I finally did crawl into bed to hide, I curled up and read this, knowing it would give me all the comfort I needed.
I loved the description of helping Phil drop down into being Flip. Even when you know you need a break, it's so hard to let go.
Re: <3
Date: 2022-02-06 06:29 am (UTC)Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.
>> and since I was feeling a bit under the weather that day, I thought I would save it to read in bed.
Well, that was a good thing, because life decided to dump about three hours of no good, very bad foolish junk on my head. <<
Aww.
>> So when I finally did crawl into bed to hide, I curled up and read this, knowing it would give me all the comfort I needed.<<
I'm so happy I could help.
>> I loved the description of helping Phil drop down into being Flip. Even when you know you need a break, it's so hard to let go.<<
Yeah, he's getting a little better about that, but he still needs a nudge. Fortunately now he has a team to take care of him.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-07 10:51 pm (UTC)Aww ...
Date: 2022-02-08 12:17 am (UTC)Meanwhile, have some medicinal chocolate:
https://www.finegardening.com/article/combining-chocolate-with-herbs-and-spices
https://www.motherearthliving.com/health-and-wellness/mind-and-body/herbs-in-chocolate-yes/
Holy crap, these fix everything.
https://joybileefarm.com/herbal-love-truffles/
https://camillestyles.com/food/this-superfood-hot-chocolate-will-leave-you-feeling-zen/