{"id":1730,"date":"2026-05-19T14:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1730"},"modified":"2026-05-24T12:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:47:38","slug":"stainless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1730","title":{"rendered":"Stainless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Clank clank clank;
screech squeal scratch.<\/em>
Shrieking stainless streaks porcelain.
Metal screams; shrapnel to my soul.

I peer over at her, my child.
She's holding her owl bowl,
filled with melting ice cream.
The first bowl she received,
from a loving au pair long ago.
I wonder if it will be her last?

I pause the movie, turn my head, stare.
\"Please, please, be quieter.\"
She shoots death eyes back at me.
\"Yeah, mom.\" She means, No.

I resume the film;
she resumes stirring.
Clank screech scratch
Shriek squeal crash.<\/em>

\"Please, for the love of your mom, 
eat that ice cream with less scraping!\"
I am about done with this.
We return to The Hunt For Red October.<\/em>

It's a pivotal scene; 
the submarine is chillingly silent.
And yet, here in suburbia,
screeeeeeeeeech scratch shriek.

My hands fly for the remote.
IF YOU CANNOT BE QUIET,
THEN YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!<\/em>
I bellow, reasonably.

My callous daughter remains unmoved.
My husbands eyes shift to mine,
and while he is smart, he says:
\"How long does perimenopause last?\"

Which is why, this morning,
I am up an hour before my alarm.
I am on the Interwebs.
I am searching on terms such as:
\"Quiet eating spoons.\"
\"Silicone-dipped eating utensils.\"
\"Non-noisy eating ware.\"
\"How to make family be quiet for seven years.\"
\"Quiet\"
\"Finding Quiet\"
\"How to find Peace while living with Family\"
\"Silent spoons.\" 
\"Flights to Fiji.\" 

===

My four-pack of silicone mini mixing spoons 
is set to arrive at four a.m. tomorrow.
Pray for my family
that these stealthy spoons will fix this.


<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cStainless,\u201d a moment of dysphonia as exacerbated by young humans. Written Tuesday, May 19, poem 139 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Noisy Spoon,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,262,311,200,2,263],"tags":[1187,523,1180,132,1183,1179,651,932,865,1004,1185,1186,47,372,1184,1182,1190,361,1181,1189,1155,1188],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-dry-humor","category-generational","category-humor","category-poems","category-snarky","tag-bowl","tag-child","tag-dysphonia","tag-family","tag-fiji","tag-hormonal","tag-husband","tag-ice-cream","tag-may","tag-melt","tag-noisy","tag-owl","tag-peace","tag-perimenopause","tag-quiet","tag-silicone","tag-soul","tag-spring","tag-stainless","tag-suburbia","tag-tuesday","tag-utensils"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1763,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions\/1763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}