{"id":753,"date":"2026-03-17T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=753"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:59:13","slug":"charmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=753","title":{"rendered":"Charmed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Morning, Kitchen:<\/em>
Kid: Did you wear green?
Me: No I forgot \u2014
Kid: I'm gonna pinch you!
Me: Please can you not?
- - - 
Afternoon, Foyer:<\/em>
Kid: Ashley didn't wear green today!
Me: You didn't pin \u2014
Kid: I pinched her!!
Me: Did she consent to that?
Kid: And Taylor didn't either!
Me: Please tell me that you \u2014
Kid: I pinched her too!
- - - 
Evening, Kitchen:<\/em>
Him: I forgot to buy corned beef
Me: It's OK.  It would've needed
to cook for hours anyway.\"
Kid: Can we have pizza?
Him: Didn't you have pizza for lunch?
Me: What about sheet pan dinner?
The brats and broccoli
and mini potatoes?

Him, mischievous: I have an idea!
[He reveals enormous red box]
Kid: LUCKY CHARMS!!!!!!
Me: [soul sucking grimace]
Kid: THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!
Him: [quiet, assured simile of success]

Family minus me: 
[sits down to engulf eight cups
of dry, frosted extruded grain meal
and dessicated sugar lumps
with Red D40 and probably lead.]
Me: Charming. 
- - -
Evening, Dark Corner, Family Room:<\/em>
Me: [Skulks off.]
Me, again: 
[Eats vanilla ice cream
covered in Fruity Pebbles,
with Red D40 and probably lead,
and whipped cream
and marshmallows]

Me to self: \"Taste the rainbow!\" 
[weak, half-earnest laugh]

Me, still: 
\"Wait, that's the wrong slogan.\"

Me thrice: 
\"Stop talking to yourself.\"
[sigh]
\/\/End Scene\/\/
- - -
This St. Patrick's Day, 
my family is 
as colorful as ever.

Here's to 
ridding your life 
of snakes and serpents.

And to filling their void
with semi-edible,
mostly toxic,
all-American food products.


 <\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCharmed,\u201d scenes from a St.Patrick’s day in the burbs. Written March 17, poem 076 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Rainbow over Maui,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,200,2],"tags":[341,345,343,132,182,342,125,9,346,40,77,232,347,344],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-humor","category-poems","tag-american-food","tag-charmed-life","tag-dinner-of-champions","tag-family","tag-family-dynamics","tag-food-of-minumum-nutritional-value","tag-holiday","tag-humor","tag-husbands","tag-kids","tag-magic","tag-march","tag-mom-dinner","tag-st-patricks-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","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=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}