Yesterday, following my post on Patty Hoisch, my friend, classmate, and fellow insomniac Beth Facebooked-messaged me that she liked Patty’s jewelry and wondered if it were available online. I steered Beth to Patty’s Etsy presence, and, as if to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, Beth subsequently told me that she should have been trying to sleep, but instead bought earrings, and that therefore I owed her $15.00.

Of course she was kidding, and so was I when I asked if a $15.00 drawing would satisfy her claim on my assets. “Even better,” was her instant answer. And then came the alchemy: I decided to do the drawing, send it to her, and make a blog post of the drawing and how it came to be. Here we are, and bless you, Beth, for supporting the arts with your $15.00 earrings purchase. (By the way, my drawing is valued at $150.00. My friends get a 90% discount. [grins])

And here are the words to the triple acrostic:

Forsooth, vermouth, then toothy smile
Regaled, assailed, benailed & riled
Entrapp’d, enraptured, captured well
EGAD! Be glad! Your life’s Unhelly

Readers may hit a speed bump with that final seeming non-rhyme. But if you slop the third line a little into the fourth, you can use the E of EGAD! to make it work. (House rules, folks! [grins again])

PS: This is the second day in a row a page has come to be due to a woman of many talents. Beth has been a medical doctor; she is now an outstanding pastel artist, with still lifes to rival the Old Masters. She’s also, often, playfully edgy, and vice versa. No details on request; sorry! [grins yet again, the grinning fool!]