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 Week 240: Tricked

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to carve a story to a mere 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. The word of the week is “border.”

His friends told him if he smiled nicely, the people would let him cross the border of the pumpkin patch to live in a place called “Pumpkin Paradise.” Those punks.   134

His “cute face,” which bordered on adorable, at last got him picked. He found out they weren’t adopting him when the carving knife came out. The horror. The horror.  136


Every year, people crossed the borders of the quiet pumpkin patch and changed their sweet faces into grimaces of death. Those ghouls.  112

Squidward, I used your clarinet to unclog my toilet. ~Spongebob Sqarepants

Succinctly Yours Week 239: Too Pretty to be Silly

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to write a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word is “evaporate.”

Beneath the amber autumn canopy, the elixir of leaf-spiced dew evaporated all tenseness, all toil…all time.   92

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. ~Iain Thomas, often mistakenly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut

Succinctly Yours #189: Arguably Grim Reaping

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours, the game in which we are challenged to use the picture to whack a story to pieces at 140 words or 140 characters or under. The bonus word this week was “alert.”

Many people are shocked to find out who the Grim Reaper really is—an outdoorsy gal who weaves baskets in her spare time, yet always remains alert for the next soul.   135

While Pauletta sang “Bringing in the Sheaves,” she found it hard to remain alert. All she could dream about was getting her hook into Antonio.   118

Death is the landlord and you’re just the tenant. ~Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul

Ode to the Dying Turkey Décor

♩ Christmastime is here again! ♫

No, it isn’t, actually. The only thing that’s here in this mall is these stupid carols that annoy the crap out of me and a bunch of decorations.

♫ The weather outside is frightful!  ♪

Again, no it isn’t. It’s really pretty balmy.

♫ 'Tis the Christmas season! ♬

See, but it isn’t, and that’s just the point. It’s really more post-Halloween. Christmas used to arrive with fanfare—Santa used to land on the roof of The Cool Mall in a helicopter to long lines of eagerly anticipating children. Now he must sneak in sometime around October, because every time I try to pick up a few things at the mall since then, they’ve assaulted my senses with Christmas carols and decorations that shouldn’t have been put up for another month. The mall and television keep trying to convince me that it’s the Christmas season, but saying it doesn’t make it so. Halloween just got over, and all this Christmas junk is eclipsing the Thanksgiving season and ruining it for me.

I have decorations, even, Thanksgiving ones, and all but one were gifts at some point, which makes them that much more special to me. The year my mother-in-law inexplicably gifted me with a giant, accordion-type crepe paper turkey that ushered in Thanksgiving on enormous cardboard wings, I decided to embrace seasonal décor—the tackier, the better. I added my own Avon turkey basket in the 80s that really isn’t designed to hold anything because it’s too small for fruit, too basket-y for candy, and not tall enough for anything useful, like serving utensils. The cardboard turkey has long since flown the coop on lame and crumpled wings, but I still have the basket, which is currently trying to hold TV remote controls even though the weight causes it to topple over.

It’s joined by tapers designed to look like a pioneer couple. Never mind that their heads have melted off so that Papa Pioneer drips wax remnants of his hat like so much dried blood down his decapitated body. I admire the determined way their little arms still clutch that harvest bounty to their headless bodies. They are Halloween and Thanksgiving at once, festive in their own macabre way, and I hate that the malls are trying to deprive me of enjoying them along with my stuffed pumpkins and leaf dishes and maple-scented candles.

♪ Home for the holidays…. ♬

This carol I agree with, fleeing the mall and racing home to be with my turkey handprints and not-so-tasteful gourd arrangements. Bah, humbug.

Oh sweet mercy! A lime green hatchback! It’s a thing of beauty! ~Cars.com commercial

Improper Poll: Bad Trips

Recently Lynn Obermoeller wrote a hilarious post about tripping on the stairs. What’s funny is that I was just talking to another friend who announced she is very clumsy. She said she thinks it’s because she is always thinking “several steps ahead.” I’m incredibly clumsy when I’m sleep deprived, but I liked my friend’s explanation much better. Sounds positively cerebral to trip.

One of my clumsiest moments ever was when I was running on the treadmill in my chilly basement about ten years ago. I was wearing several layers of clothing and a new headset that stayed on my head better than ear buds and rendered my boom box obsolete. The problem came when I went to peel off a shirt and forgot about the headset. it got all tangled up in the earphones, flapping over my head like Lucy-with-a-loving-cup-on-her-head. Or Monica Geller with a raw turkey.

But the treadmill kept going, and I was spewed off the back still flailing about my head. It would have been funny, except that the finger I landed on had to go through months of physical therapy and is now permanently bent. I call it my “sports injury.”

Have you had any amusing trips?

The Summer Home from College

I’m sorry it’s been so long. Fortunately my computer issues are as resolved as they’re going to get for now, and I’m trying to get caught up. Again. In the meantime, this is an old post I ran across that I never published. Hope you’ve enjoyed your summer!

For several weeks now, I’ve been asking him if he would be ready.

He blew home at the end of spring, and the house just hasn’t been the same all summer.  He dropped his things in his room where he stood, and they’ve stayed there since, some of them still in garbage bags.  Years ago I learned to choose my battles, and my son’s mess was such a mighty contender that I surrendered early on. 

He left a collection of dirty dishes near the computer in the basement.  He left bags of chip crumbs and little plastic yogurt cups for the dog to get into and then vomit up. 

He worked on his car in the garage whenever he had spare time.  It became a hangout for the kids, like their own private annex.  They set up chairs out there.  The tools and car parts were everywhere.  Greasy black fingerprints marked a path through the house.  I cleaned them, but they appeared with such regularity that I gave up, figuring I’d wait till after he went back. 

And then, the day before he was due to move back to college, I got home from work.

His car was put together, and the garage was cleaned out.  As in, clean.  The black fingerprints were gone.  His room was packed up and as clean as it gets.  The lawn had been mown.  He had done all that I had asked and then some.  It was all so neat and clean, it broke my heart. 

Ready?  Guess so. 

“I’m going to make this the Summer of Socks. I’m going to go all out. Gallery crew socks, short socks, knee socks. Maybe hose, even. But socks, definitely socks.” ~Eleventh Grade Girl