{"id":12621,"date":"2017-03-22T13:14:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T17:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=12621"},"modified":"2017-03-22T13:14:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T17:14:29","slug":"the-balloons-by-barbara-f-lefcowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/the-balloons-by-barbara-f-lefcowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Balloons &#8211; by Barbara F. Lefcowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the auto repair shop\u2019s waiting room<br \/>\na glut of clustered balloons,<br \/>\nforce-fed multicolored grapes<br \/>\nso monstrously huge<br \/>\nno human mouth could fit one inside.<br \/>\nThe wall-size TV shows a smiling woman<br \/>\nwho won first prize<br \/>\nfor raising mammoth pumpkins,<br \/>\ntoo massive for anyone<br \/>\nto scoop out their flesh for pies or<br \/>\nJack-o\u2019- lanterns. Does she know<br \/>\nthey will explode in the sun<br \/>\nor implode to rotting hulks in a field?<br \/>\nI\u2019m tempted to jab each balloon<br \/>\nwith a hairpin, but the bursting sounds<br \/>\nand whoosh of exhalations<br \/>\nwould only briefly relieve my impatience,<br \/>\ndo nothing to quell my fury<br \/>\nabout the enormous sedans<br \/>\nwaiting to be serviced<br \/>\nahead of my Honda Civic<br \/>\nso it\u2019s nearly invisible<br \/>\nas a squash between mega-pumpkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the auto repair shop\u2019s waiting room a glut of clustered balloons, force-fed multicolored grapes so monstrously huge no human mouth could fit one inside. The wall-size TV shows a smiling woman who won first prize for raising mammoth pumpkins, too massive for anyone to scoop out their flesh for pies or Jack-o\u2019- lanterns. Does [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barbara-f-lefcowitz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12622,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621\/revisions\/12622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}