Betcha can’t tell from the photos below. Happy Birthday to my favorite young woman in the whole world — you look awesome in that sweater!

I’ve a beautiful sis, Julie S.
And she’s older than me, I confess.
But my friends, they all say,
“She’s not fifty, NO WAY!”
It’s her wonderful life — free of stress.

Here are a couple of oldie-but-goodie photos of Julie from 1960. One is with Mom and one’s with her big sister, Daisy.

I had an amazing birthday this year, and two very special homemade presents. One was a birthday card hand-painted by my Dad (I had thought Dad was the writer and Mom was the artist!), and the other was this limerick by my sister, Julie.

Meps travels both hinder and yon
Now that beautiful hair’s almost GONE!*
Still, she’s awesome and nifty,
Though half way to fifty
Her new moniker? Captain Ron!

Julie also provided the perfect ending to my birthday. She was doing a radio show on KLCC, in Eugene, Oregon, and I managed to pull it in over the Internet. Then I called the request line and asked for a song from 1964. She asked, “Which song?” “Any song will do!” I sang out, and only then did she recognize her little sister’s voice, all the way from North Carolina.

She played Sam Cooke’s “That’s Where It’s At” for me. Beaufort, North Carolina: That’s where it’s at!

*Explanatory photos to come…

This is weird, but it’s happened twice! Out of the blue, someone sends me a limerick about a Julie when I need one for my sister of the same name. This one comes from reader IronMan Mike Curtis, and although it’s not a perfect fit (my sister is NOT middle-aged), it is perfectly timed for my sister’s birthday.

Thanks, Mike! But next time, maybe we could call her “a lovely young woman,” instead? Then, as you can see from the photo, it would fit my Julie, too.

Julie, Schmulie

A middle aged woman named Julie
Feared her next birthday unduly
As the clock struck midnight,
She blanched with sheer fright
As if she’d been possessed by a ghoulie

(Limerick (c) 2009 M. Curtis)

If you think that equality’s great,
And you wish for a world free from hate,
And you have curly hair,
And your first name is Claire,
Here’s your present! It’s just one day late.

Claire’s birthday was the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama. The photo above is Obama’s official presidential portrait, which we’ll be seeing in federal buildings while he is in office. It’s the first presidential portrait taken with a digital camera.

The lady, at age something-nine,
Is feeling quite youthful and fine,
But next year, the blow
Will come. Big uh-oh!
And then she’ll have reason to whine.

Happy Birthday to Julie and Sharon…39 and holding, both of you!

While buying some liquor and ice,
They check his ID once — no, twice.
It says forty-one
Years under the sun,
But he looks ten years younger: How nice!

I have known Dave for twenty-five years,
Though we’ve never shared whiskey or beers.
He’s a fine upright friend,
And this poem I send,
As I raise up my Coke and say, “Cheers!”

“I missed it!” I cried out, aghast.
The birthday of Craig has just passed.
Though he’s now six-zero,
The man is my hero,
‘Cause parties with him are a blast.

This one’s for Captain Craig, Scourge of Lake Union and Environs. The notorious Craig was celebrated in an earlier Mepsnbarry Adventure, That’s Me in the Monkey Mask.

There once was a lady named Kate,
Whose birthday was on this fine date,
She wanted a cake,
But her friends could not bake,
So her candles just sat on a plate.

Here’s a funny coincidence — a reader I’d never met asked me out of the blue for a birthday limerick for her friend, Kate. I dashed this off, then sent a copy to my brother-in-law, whose daughter is named Kate. He wrote back, saying Kate’s birthday was only three days away! What are the chances of that?

Of course, then I got overwhelmed and forgot to post the limerick on June 6th. Silly me…happy belated birthday, to all Kates!

Now, there once was a pirate named Barry,
Who is frozen and quite stationary,
He’s unable to fight,
What is looming in sight,
Turning forty for him is reeeeeeal scary.

I’ve never tried to write a poem about myself. The only word that I can think of that rhymes is “adeps,” a synonym for lard.

But I discovered yesterday that when properly lubricated (see my recipe for the Goombay Smash), my friends can produce birthday limericks right off the cuff. Since Tina just had a birthday (4/27) and Will is about to have one (5/16), I’m gonna write some limericks about them, too. Luckily, I have just the reference…my own article, entitled “How to Write a Birthday Limerick.”

From Tina:
There once was a sailor named Meps
Who’d had poor luck with men, excepts
a sailor named Barry
Who asked her to marry
And so they went up the church steps.

From Will:
There once was a sailor named Meps
Who refused to take her twelve steps
With surprising alarm
She drank with both arms
By morning she cried, “Oh my biceps!!!”

For Tina:
Is it time for a concert, Ms. Tina?
Will your rub board’s sound fill this arena?
For the Zydeco Locals,
Which feature your vocals,
Make me dance like a crazed ballerina.

(If you follow the link to the Zydeco Locals’ website, Tina’s the one on the left, with the rub board.)

Will’s limerick will be coming soon…I have two weeks to work on it, and plenty of material.

Writing a birthday limerick is simple and doesn’t take a lot of time. In this age of conspicuous consumption, a simple birthday limerick is a great way to celebrate someone special without bringing more styrofoam, wrapping paper, and unwanted aftershave into the world.

I have chanced on a great birthday present,
Not expensive champagne, duck, or pheasant,
But a lim’rick — some humor
To dispel the old rumor,
That a birthday is not something pleasant.

In order to make the limerick special, it needs to be about the person, not a generic 30th- or 40th-birthday limerick. For me, that requires a little brainstorming session. I do this best when insomnia strikes in the middle of the night. If the person’s birthday is imminent and you don’t have insomnia, a couple of beers can lubricate the rhyming process.

The brainstorming simply involves thinking about the person and anything related to him or her that’s easy to rhyme. Is the person’s name easy to rhyme? I have both a sister and a sister-in-law named Julie, and I haven’t been able to do much with “Bernoulli” or “patchoulli.” So I’ll have to use other techniques, as you’ll see below. However, some names are easy, such as “Kate” or “Barry.”

There once was a lady named Kate,
Whose birthday was on this fine date,
She wanted a cake,
But her friends could not bake,
So her candles just sat on a plate.

Now, there once was a pirate named Barry,
Who is frozen and quite stationary,
He’s unable to fight,
What is looming in sight,
Turning forty for him is reeeeeeal scary.

If the person’s name is not easy to rhyme, think about his or her relationship to you — what rhymes with “sister,” or “son?” When I needed to write a birthday limerick for my father, I found no good rhymes for “Henry,” but dozens for “Dad”:

There’s a guy who I proudly call Dad,
And a mighty fine birthday he had.
To make such a great man, it
Takes years on this planet.
But I won’t tell his age (he’d get mad).

Another good theme to get the rhyming started is the person’s age. Ages ending is “seven” are bad to rhyme, because you’re limited to “heaven” and “eleven.” But you can talk about the fact that he or she is no longer thirty-six, which rhymes with plenty of words — flicks, picks, tricks, mix.

Here’s one I wrote for a reader with two young children who wanted help with the invitation to their combined birthday party. The nice thing about this one is that it’s flexible, and you can change it to suit different children. You could replace the names, change the month, even replace “cookout” with “party,” and it would still work:

Our Seth is about to turn two,
And Rachel’s soon four, it is true,
We’ve written this rhyme,
‘Cause October’s the time,
For a big birthday cookout with you!

You can be even more creative, branching out and thinking about the subject’s home town, home state, occupation, or hobbies.

Here’s one about my brother-in-law, Ed, an ultra-marathon runner. Every year, on his birthday, he runs the same number of miles as his age:

The number of miles he would run
Last year was a mere fifty-one.
But now, fifty-two?
That much harder to do —
Old age does not make it more fun.

Current events or something funny that happened to the person can also inspire a good limerick. I once had a friend who moved from the bug-free Pacific Northwest to New Orleans. That year, he gave me plenty of subject matter:

While taking a drink in the shade,
Dear Brian enjoys Gatorade.
But taking a swig,
Found a live roach THIS BIG,
Now he’s mixing his cocktails with Raid.

Once I come up with an inspiring word or phrase for the person, I usually start going through the alphabet, looking for words that rhyme with it. There are also lots of good rhyming dictionaries on the internet, where you can type in a word, and all the rhymes come back. I use Rhymezone, which organizes the choices by syllables. If I’m having trouble coming up with good rhymes, I can also check Rhymezone for synonyms. That often breaks through the rhymer’s block.

There are a couple of tricks you can do to come up with even more rhymes for a given word. One is to contract the word:

On a trip south through old Oklahom’

And another is to add an extra syllable at the end of a word:

Two gals who were feeling quite plucky,
Drove north in their little red truckie

For your limerick, you’ll need at least two sets of rhymes — one with three words and one with two words. If you have more than that, you may be inspired to write several stanzas.

Now you’re ready to construct the birthday limerick. If you’ve written limericks before, or if you feel comfortable mimicking the ones you’ve read, go for it — but when you’re done, there is one crucial step you should not skip.

Write or print your limerick and hand it to someone else to read out loud. That will immediately identify any problems with the rhyme and meter. This is an important step for a birthday limerick, because birthday limericks are always read out loud, either at large parties or just repeated many, many times.

If you’re new to this limerick business, or you want to hone your skills further, keep reading for some tips on structure and meter.

The structure of a limerick is five lines, A-A-B-B-A. That means that the first two lines rhyme with each other and with the fifth line. The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other:

A - Now my big sister Daisy’s a dear,
A - And I wrote of her birthday last year.
B - But another year’s passed,
B - And it happened so fast,
A - That she’s now one year older, I fear.

One of the biggest challenges to limerick-writers, new and experienced, is getting the meter right. A proper limerick has anapest meter, which means lines one, two, and five are stressed like this:

da-da-DUM da-da-DUM da-da-DUM

And lines three and four are shorter, but still have the same kind of meter:

da-da-DUM da-da-DUM

You can modify this a little, starting a line with da-DUM and ending it with da-da-DUM-da. But don’t make changes other than that, or it won’t flow properly, as this example attests:

No, it’s really not that hard to rhyme,
And it just takes a whole lot of time.
But the meter’s the thing
To make every piece sing,
And limerick-writers like me consider lousy meter a terrible crime.

The trick to making a good limerick great is to make it funny. Humor is the hallmark of a great birthday limerick, and you have a chance to gently poke fun at the birthday person. It’s always nice to throw in a little surprise in the last line, as I did in this 40th birthday limerick:

So by 40, your hair’s turning gray,
And gravity holds you in sway.
You must stand on your head
When you get out of bed,
Just to keep nasty wrinkles at bay.

But the truth is, you’re not really old!
You are vibrant and youthful and bold.
You can still climb a tree,
You’re vivacious and free —
Now just eat these stewed prunes, as you’re told.

Margret “Meps” Schulte has always had a soft spot for silly rhymes, her favorite poetry book being the Norton Anthology of Light Verse. In 2002, she was inspired to publish her first limerick on the Web when she noticed that her friend Brian’s name sort-of-rhymed with the name of his new boat, Cayenne. Since then, she has written well over 100 limericks about her travels, current events, friends, and anything else that strikes her fancy. Meps has also submitted about two dozen limericks to the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form, or OEDILF, giving her the dubious title of “Contributing Editor.”

If this article made you smile, you may also enjoy reading some of the Adventures of Meps ‘n’ Barry.

Now my big sister Daisy’s a dear,
And I wrote of her birthday last year.
But another year’s passed,
And it happened so fast,
That she’s now one year older, I fear.

There’s a guy who I proudly call Dad,
And a mighty fine birthday he had.
To make such a great man, it
Takes years on this planet.
But I won’t tell his age (he’d get mad).

Thanks to Cyndie, for requesting this, and Happy Birthday to her sister! In less than a year, I can use this on Barry…

So by 40, your hair’s turning gray,
And gravity holds you in sway.
You must stand on your head
When you get out of bed,
Just to keep nasty wrinkles at bay.

But the truth is, you’re not really old!
You are vibrant and youthful and bold.
You can still climb a tree,
You’re vivacious and free –
Now just eat these stewed prunes, as you’re told.

We dressed head to toe in all green
And joined in the partying scene.
But I cannot abuse
That much Irish booze;
It just sends me to the latrine.

(A description of the surprise party for Charles’ 60th birthday.)

The number of miles he would run
Last year was a mere fifty-one.
But now, fifty-two?
That much harder to do –
Old age does not make it more fun.

In honor of my brother-in-law Ed’s birthday. He runs the same number of miles (or is it kilometers? he’ll never tell!) as his age on the day before and then the day of his birthday. The older he gets, the more miles he has to run. Somehow, that seems backwards to me. Life oughta get easier, not harder. Ed has a great website: www.dudewheresyourwalker.com

A lovely old-timer named Daisy
Said, “This is no time to be lazy!
“My birthday, I think,
“Is a fine time to drink,
“But responsibility, let’s not go crazy.”

So we drove down to rainy Eugene
To check out this partying scene
But the gas left us broke,
So her gift was a joke
Just her face on an old magazine

Still, her friends, they were very impressed
By the way that the picture was dressed
They all said, “Daisy’s not
old, she is HOT!
And her dancing is among the best.”

Yet another birthday limerick, this one in honor of my big sister, Daisy. We drove down to Eugene to attend her party last weekend, and after cocktails and conversation, we danced the night away. Our gift was a copy of AARP’s “Modern Maturity” magazine with a great photo of Daisy on the cover–her face on Susan Sarandon’s body, wearing an outrageous leopard print dress. I was so busy, I forgot to take a picture of it!

The tuner is sounding erratic
And putting out way too much static
Let’s turn off the stereo
And listen to Dario
Whose piano makes us ecstatic

In honor of my nephew, Dario LaPoma, on his 18th birthday!

There once was a fellow named Hank
Who said, “Let’s be perfectly frank
“This party’s OK
But, please, don’t say ‘birthday’”
“POO POO!” cried the guests, as they drank

In honor of my Dad, who retains a prodigious vocabulary in his later years, but has added a number of phrases like “poo poo” and “toot toot.” Friends and family members find such words charming in such an erudite individual, but wonder what the words actually mean.