Succinctly Yours Week 243: Kung Fu Poultry

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to take a shot at a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word is “hearsay.” Have a happy Thanksgiving!

They were so excited when they heard there was a holiday held in their honor that they hurried into the clearing to ask if the rumor was merely hearsay.  124

Every year on Thanksgiving Eve, people told the story that some thought was legend, and others, hearsay. Few truly believed the five-headed Turkey Gobblin’ was real.  140

In case the rumor wasn’t hearsay, they got into formation as they’d practiced. Tom acted as wingman while they prepared to put their martial arts training to use.  135

Through self-nurturance we nurture our inner connection to the Great Creator.  Through this connection our creativity will unfold.  Paths will appear for us.  We need to trust the Great Creator and move out in faith. ~Julia Cameron

Succinctly Yours Weeks 241 and 242: I Spy with My Little Eye

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours! Participants are invited to step it up and tap out a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. Life has been beyond crazy lately, so I am combining Week 241 (bonus word, “autonomous,”) and Week 242 (bonus word, “parse”). I invite you to parse the preceding sentence. Would you place the period where I did, or inside the last set of quotation marks? Grammar-obsessed minds want to know.

They had won the vote at last. Still, she found it hard to believe women were becoming more autonomous when they were still bound by the feet.  116

Evelyn was known to hide and parse the neighbors’ eating habits in minute detail. She was sure they weren’t washing their food properly.   114

Aim for success, not perfection.  Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. ~Dr. David M. Burns

Adventure at the Wiener Crossing

The miniature dachshund was so small, it took a second for my brain to register that this was a dog. It jumped off the curb into a busy four-lane highway directly in the path of my car.

Luckily I had just enough time to be able to signal the car behind me and brake. I immediately regretted honking to scare it back onto the curb when it started and looked like it might dart into the lane next to me.

“NOOOOO!”

Fortunately that smart little dog listened. It wavered, looked worried, stopped guiltily, clearly wondering what it had done wrong. It had presumably been enjoying an unexpected adventure until I’d started making horrible noises at it. I waved an apology to the man behind me and dove out of my car. The man behind me signaled back, “Yes. Get the dog.” With a kind smile.

That was when I realized the thoughtful driver next to me had stopped as well, immobilizing the southbound lanes of rush hour traffic in order to help protect the little dog. The young man got out to help. “Whatdya do?” he asked me.

I didn’t know. If I’d been heading toward home, I would have put it in my car and checked for tags. Driven around. Asked people. But I had somewhere to go. Fortunately the little wiener dog finally understood that the direction it was heading was upsetting a whole lot of humans. It wheeled around and bounded for home in that determined, ear-trailing, stubby-legged gallop that only a dachshund can achieve. That was when I looked behind me and realized it had a partner in crime—a little brown dog several cars back attended by a group of women who were making sure it didn’t continue its little doggy-holiday alone.

It wasn’t until I turned back to my car that I was able to appreciate the rows and rows of traffic as far as I could see that had come to a halt for two little dogs on a spoiled adventure. All of the nearby drivers were out of their cars and actively engaged in a joint dog-herding venture. Not a single one was looking upset about anything but the fate of those pets.

We hear about people who are cruel to animals. I thought I would pass along what was for me a pleasant reminder that most are not. It took a whole lot of strangers gathered on the highway, united over their shared love of another species, to send me a nice message I needed: My own species has its moments as well.

What a paradox that we connect with God, with divinity, with our flesh and blood and time and space. We connect with God in our humanity. ~Anne Lamott, Stitches

Succinctly Yours Week 227: How Nursery Rhymes Were Hatched

Many thanks to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to tell a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word was “nitpick.”

Mother Goose got her start with the military cadence she used to march her brood. She was a real stickler and was known to nitpick when it came to waddling out of step.  136

The Gooseworth Chant*

I don’t know but I have heard

Geese are really the very best bird!

Sound off, 1, 2

Sound off, 3, 4

Sound off 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12… and more!  126

*I looked up the original “Sound Off” and discovered it’s called “The Duckworth Chant.” How perfect was that?

In the beginning, you do need a lot of discipline—until you discover that you want to write, need to write, and that the work of writing is a lot easier than the work of not writing. ~Joel Saltzman in If You Can Talk, You Can Write

Stinky Business

Many thanks to Val Thevictorian of Unbagging the Cats, who made this suggestion while commenting on my last post about stinky dogs: “I think you should run with this concept, and develop a line of pooch perfume/cologne for those leash dogs who live in high-rise apartments and whose foot-pads rarely touch a blade of grass. If you concoct it, they will come.”

Well those high-rise apartment dogs should be showing up any minute now, because I decided she is right. I’m working on my new business, "Pupfume." I’m thinking about shaping the bottles like little fire hydrants. But first things first! To begin my business, I am of course doing the very most important thing and naming the scents.

Please feel free to preorder by sending me large amounts of cash. Nothing but the best for those high-rise dogs! If you don’t see the scent of your dog’s choice below, please do offer suggestions. All fragrances come, of course, in Eau de Toilet:

Ten Names for Dog Perfumes

1. Guerlain’s Shallowmud or Elizabeth Arden’s Pew Grass. Or possibly for the manly dog, Old Spit.
2. Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Pew
3. Cool Lake Water
4. Calvin Klein's Escape 1 (from the Dogcatcher) and Escape 2 (from the Fence)
5. Juicy Carcass Couture
6. Evening in Garbage
7. J’adore la Pew
8. L’Air du Romps
9. Burberry Butt

And for the really discerning French dog,

10. Chien-Smell #5

Yesterday I was a dog.  Today I’m a dog.  Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog.  Sigh!  There’s so little hope for advancement.  ~Charles M. Schulz

Succinctly Yours Week 223: Skunked

It’s time again for Succinctly Yours, a weekly meme made possible by the lovely Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash. Each week, Grandma posts a photo with the challenge to come up with a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer to go with it. The bonus word this week was “gargle.” Ouch, Grandma! My second offering is the true story, written in 140 words, that inspired the first offering, written in 140 characters. Phew. Or is that, pew?                                                                                                                         

Gladys planned to steep a dead skunk in the wading pool so she could gargle before meeting the handsome new dog next door. She wanted to be at her best; that Dane was great.  140

She was Buddy’s best girlfriend ever, a blonde shepherd mix named Amiga who appeared from time to time in our yard sporting a new bandana that signaled a recent bath. She was a big gal who could handle his obnoxiousness and keep him in line. When she needed to rid herself of that spring-fresh smell, she knew he could be counted on to dispatch the insult toute de suite. The two of them made a great pair, leaping and snuffling and gargling in each other’s slobber. Then she’d go prancing back home, bandana torn and covered in dog spit.

Once she got skunked along the way and was thoughtful enough to return the favor. It was a skunking-by-proxy. After two baths, I had to resort to V8 because I didn’t have tomato juice.

It had been love at first sniff.   140

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice. ~Ben Jonson