Succinctly Yours Week 202: Groundhog Daze

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours, a delightful little meme which encourages us to peak into the world of micro and come up with a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer. This week, a biography unexpectedly emerged. The bonus word was “zany.”

Punxsutawney Paul was more ambitious than his predecessor, Punxsutawney Phil. He longed to sing, quote the Bard, or do a zany dance during his moment in the sun. 132

Punxsutawney Paul loved his new job. He had terrific job security, a great benefits package, and he only worked one zany morning per year.  114

Punxsutawney Paul was horrified. It was his one moment in the sun, and he had overslept. He feared those zany crowds had ditched him for the ground squirrel next door.  135

Due to cutbacks, Paul was forced to work the rest of the year in a zany Whac-a-Mole game at the carny. When he did emerge, he couldn’t remember what he was looking for. 136

Thanks to PETA, Punxsutawney Paul retired and is now Palm Beach Paul. He does daily searches for something he knew he was supposed to look for and occasionally golfs. 137

That was a great game of golf, fellers. ~ Purported last words of Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby

Succinctly Yours Week 200: Beware of Bigfête

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours! The purpose of this delightful challenge is to whip up a lean little story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer. I got carried away this week—especially with the idiotic idioms. My entire story has about 115 words total. The bonus word was “waddle.”

Sally Sasquatch served, at her sylvan soirée, an authentic ice sculpture designed by Stefan Stag. Thanks to crashing Claude, it proved to be a real icebreaker.   134

“The beavers are a fabulous touch!” exclaimed Sergei Skunk Ape. “I love to watch them waddle. Too bad I gave up finger food.”   103

“Sorry, Sally,” said Claude, once they fished him out. “I’ve attended a few too many forest fêtes over the holidays and now I waddle. Guess I’m a splash-squatch.”   135

When clumsy Claude tried to dance, he waddled on two left bigfeet. “Care to cut a river? Trip the lake fantastic?” He asked Sally.

“Um…not yeti,” she replied.  131

Yeah, I'm a legend. You know, they call me the cautionary whale. ~from Juno, 2007, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman

Adventure at Psycho Bell

If the universe is a big drive-through speaker, I lean in and order good stuff on the menu because…well, you know…who doesn’t? I am careful to enunciate, too, just so the universe doesn’t get my order wrong. Again. And then the universe promptly gathers up a bunch of psychos and plops them into my bag. Because that universe sure has a sense of humor, doesn’t it?

It was broad summer daylight just after the dinner rush last Thursday evening, and I was the only car sitting in the Taco Bell drive-thru. It’s one way, just big enough to let an extra large vehicle through. There are curbs and landscaped berms on either side, so you are lower than the surrounding area and very much hemmed in. This is in a pleasant, family-oriented, suburban area just off a main highway.

I was talking into the speaker, which is a little way back from the building. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “One cheesy supreme TRUCK SPEEDING TOWARD ME GOING THE WRONG WAY NO NO STOP GO BACK!!!”

There was absolutely nowhere for Taco Bell's Ding-Dong-Driver to go but straight into me. Fortunately he did slow a bit, but then it became clear that his plan was to pass me. With his truck. In the space that was only about 3 feet wide. It was if he thought one or both of us would magically accordion into something skinny like that cool Harry Potter bus for stranded witches and wizards. He was literally inches from the magic when I desperately amped up the shouting and gesturing and yelling. “NOOOO!!! Back up! Go back!”

The guy inside—who did look extremely wasted or at least not at all right, pondered the situation like a Taco Bell Buddha for what seemed like an eternity. Then he gave a sage nod; he had given the matter a great deal of thought and concurred. This was the undoubtedly the smartest decision of the day for him.

He threw his truck into reverse and tried to back up at the same speed at which he’d approached, which had to have been about 25 mph, which is surprisingly fast in a drive-thru, not to mention going backward, especially considering the job he was doing going forward.

Here is what my conversation with the Taco Bell Girl over the microphone was like.

Me: “Oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh! The crazy man is headed back toward you now! Can you see that??! He’s crashing into the curb! Now he’s in the flower bed!”

Taco Bell Employee: “Yes, ma’am. We apologize for the crazy man, ma’am.”

Me: “He’s turning the corner and I can’t see him. Is he coming back? Will you tell me if he comes back? That was so scary! What’s he doing now?” (This was when I could hear people in the restaurant laughing in nervous horror, because the guy was now threatening to crash into the Taco Bell building while trying to negotiate the turn. Still backwards.) “Where is he?!”

Taco Bell Employee: “He appears to be trying to drive backwards on the highway, ma’am. He’s going to—no, he made it. Now he’s back on the median. Now he’s on the sidewalk—okay, he’s back on the median again. He’s really tearing up his car. I don’t think he’s coming back, ma’am. He’s definitely not coming back. (The giggles behind her were hysterical now.)

Me: “Are you sure?” There was a brief pause.

Taco Bell Employee: “Yes, ma’am. Right now he’s...(at this point her calm voice almost—but not quite—broke, but she immediately recovered her composure).  He’s stuck in a tree.” The outburst of snorting guffaws behind her was positively explosive.

At some point he disengaged his car from the pine tree and drove off. I was so shaken, it was difficult to complete my order. When I got to the window, it was interesting to see the people with whom I had just survived the ordeal. The calmly polite Taco Bell Employee, a cute blond girl who was probably only in high school, continued to complete the order with utter aplomb. One of the employees in the crowd behind her, though, appeared as shaken as I felt. He said it was the most excitement he’d seen since he’d started working there six months earlier. Then he handed me my ”nachos with trees…I mean, cheese.”

It was completely unconscious—a Freudian slip. We all laughed so hard, I was a little afraid I’d be the one who had trouble driving away that time.

We apologize for the crazy man, ma’am. ~Taco Bell Employee

What’s in a Name

Recently I got a comment on an old Book Blurb Friday blog post. Most of you know that Book Blurb Friday is the brainchild of Lisa Ricard Caro of Writing in the Buff. The challenge of this fun meme for writers is to use her weekly picture as the cover of a pretend book, and then post an accompanying blurb. I had written about a fictional little boy.

Be sure and check out the comment I got from a man of the same name as my main character (though a slightly different spelling). The only reason I’m not using his name again is because I don’t want to further misdirect his online presence. I was telling this story to a friend, and her comment was that he sounds like an amazing man. Yes indeed.

Isn’t life cool?

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

~Alfred North Whitehead

Book Blurb Friday #53

Book Blurb Friday is a wonderful meme from our Southern Hostess-with-the-Mostest, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff. The challenge is to use the picture provided in order to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” I am late this week because the storms that passed through were not exactly kind, and the resulting power loss left me without a computer. Or a backyard fence.

But others have it much, much worse, so am sending my best to all those who’ve suffered as a result of those storms.

Today’s blurb has 150 words.

~Tea with Miss Nabbity~

Lunden Tate was in trouble. At 18, she’d crossed the country in order to follow a man who promised to make her a famous model. Now here she was with nothing.

Miss Florence Nabbity of Wildwood Bed and Breakfast had a place for her to live and work…if Lunden could stand to live in the middle of nowhere with a woman in her sixties. Lunden had been searching for excitement. What on earth did she have in common with this woman?

Not much, it turned out. Because Miss Nabbity’s life had been far beyond anything Lunden ever could have imagined. She began looking forward to her afternoon tea with Miss Nabbity.

“Is this you in the picture, Miss Nabbity? Dancing topless?”

“Well…yes, sweetie,” she shrugged, sipping her Pomegranate Antioxidant. “I never should have done that.”

“Taken your shirt off?”

“No, dropped that much acid. But that’s how Woodstock was….”

And maybe one day, when the kids go to college and I get a divorce, I’ll embark on a journey someplace to which JetBlue does not fly. I will get a job as a foreign correspondent, wear hiking boots and a tan vest with many pockets. There will be others of my kind, smart-talking women, and probably, hopefully, men with English accents, and we will sit up at night in foreign hotel bars, drinking whiskey and trading outrageous anecdotes. Oh, the stories I’ll tell. ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

Improper Poll: The Date with Superfluous Boobs

During my college years, I went out (once) with this guy. In my defense, I later found out a good friend of mine had also gone out with him and had an almost identical experience. In order to carefully protect this friend’s identity, we’ll call her Diborah, (Dib for short). In both our cases, when we’d first met him, he was cute. Slim, twenties. Had on a loose shirt that buttoned down the front.

Then, for the date, he showed up in a knit shirt. The tight one. The one that showed off the fact that he had positively enormous breasts.

“Huge ones!  Huge!"  was Dib’s comment.

Dib, as it turns out, did not even get the full treatment that I did. On my date, the guy also brought a couple of his friends along—the brofriends. The brofriends were presumably there in order to conduct a Cheech-and-Chong-like discussion…of me. In front of me. As if I weren’t there. They said things like, “Dude! This one’s okay, but what about that last one? That Shauna? Dude! She was hot.  But this one’s okay….”

This from a man with breasts that were bigger than mine. And the two men who were on his date with him.

Do you have any memorable first date stories?

Cam: Notice that I have not eaten any of the chocolates.

Mitchell: There were two levels. You know it and I know it.

~Modern Family

Improper Poll: It’s a Drag

Is there a small thing that you’ve really regretted? I don’t mean big things, but those little chances you passed up and now regret?

In my last Book Blurb Friday post, I mentioned a character who was a female impersonator. This reminded me of the time I passed up attending a “Miss Drag Queen” contest. It was held after the bars closed. I opted not to go because my children were young then and I was perpetually tired in those days.  But now I have to ask myself what tiredness is compared to an opportunity like that. Throughout all of the years since, I’ve thought of that as one of the adventures I’m most sorry I passed up in life, because how often does a straight Midwestern suburban mom—especially one who writes—get to attend a drag queen pageant? And this was in Omaha, so it was in fact a Nebraskan drag queen pageant. Let’s face it: life just doesn’t get much better than that.

I had gone to a party with my sister, who is involved in community theatre. The party was held by two gay men who hadn’t come out until after both were married with children. So they divorced their wives and began a less traditional blended family with about five children between them, sort of like the Brady Bunch, only with a male Carol. Very cool party, too—they had a mini-amusement park set up for the children and a mini gambling casino set up for the adults. Gamboling and gambling, ar ar.

Anyway. Is there anything in life you passed up and now regret?

Stylus with Style?

I've always pretty much done my own thing style-wise—which means I’m not at all stylish—so imagine my surprise when Sioux of Sioux’s Page awarded me a Stylish Blogger Award.  I'm so flattered!  Thank you, Sioux!

Here were the rules:
1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award.
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.
Thank you again, and here are my seven facts:

1. I’ve loved writing as long as I can remember and was lucky to have had quite a few teachers encourage me. The question for me has never been if I would write, but rather if I’d try to get paid for it.
2. I worked for precisely one morning as a telemarketer selling tickets to a thing called “Clown Capades.” After making one humiliating phone call, I got to wondering if there really was such a thing as Clown Capades. I suspected—and still do—that it was a scam. So I sat around rearranging my file box until lunch and then escaped and never went back.
3. My youngest child was intentionally born at home.
4. We usually had the smallest family on the block with only three kids. The family across the street had 13 children. The one behind us had 12. I thought five children was average.
5. Everyone in my family was into art in some way. At one time my dad was a commercial artist, my mom taught him how to paint, and one of my sisters was a graphic artist. We all had our “thing.” Mine was portraits. The rite of passage at my house was when we got our first set of oils. For the longest time I thought all families did that.
6. I was a theatre geek in high school and did props, makeup, acting and directing.
7. In college I did product demonstrations over summer, and once wore a sash and handed out bread samples at an Italian festival. In the words of the bakery owner who hired me (you have to say it with an accent), “That’s okay that you’re not Italian, honey—you look Italian!” One of my sisters attended the festival and left in an uncharacteristically gleeful mood. I know her, so I frantically looked all around my little booth. Sure enough, I found a sign taped to the outer wall that said, “Ho: $10 $2 FREE!”

If you follow me, I pretty much think you’re the most stylish person ever. So I will do what others before me have done and pass this—and the coveted “Sisters of the Quill” from a couple of weeks ago—to all of you. Pretty much all of my friends write, so please take either if you are so inclined. Thank you again, oh stylish Sisters (and Brothers) of the Quill! 

I must be moved by what I write, if you enjoy it, we both win; but my words must touch MY heart first. ~Jules of Trying to Get Over the Rainbow

The Truth Revealed

Maybe I exaggerated a teensy bit, but I do estimate that you couldn’t get a brush all the way through my hair for almost a decade. It was clean and everything, and the Rat’s Nest was usually hidden from view (especially for things like my Romper Room debut), but it lurked there mainly because no one in my family could withstand the blood-curdling screams emitted during attempts at Rat’s Nest removal. And cutting was out of the question. I was proud of the fact that I could sit on my hair.
Am pretty sure the candy striper who finally removed it, whose name really was something like Debbi, was a sadist-in-training who was eventually hired by a lesser known dictator to extract military secrets from prisoners of war.

I did learn to juggle in my late thirties. Not well, but to me it fulfilled enough of a lifelong dream just to learn to keep three balls in the air at once. Now if only I could do that figuratively....

I thought you’d think I’m too much of a “Carol” to have partied with Grace. This was not her heyday, by the way, and I was young enough—and she was sedate enough—that at the time I didn’t fully appreciate who she was.

When I picked the lie that I did, I forgot to consider that some of you might think it was impolite even to suggest that I can’t sing. I've had a long time to reconcile myself to it. My non-singing is so legendary that I giggled guiltily even typing such a whopper.

When my oldest was a newborn, I decided I would sing him to sleep just like those nice TV moms. I mean, how could he have any taste about the quality of my singing voice? Tabula rasa, right? So I took that swaddled baby and I rocked with him in the rocking chair and softly sang “Desperado,” because besides my horrible voice, I can never remember words to songs—except that one. And it didn’t sound too bad, if I do say so myself.

Even more amazing, it worked. He fell asleep in my arms. I was so proud! And then I noticed under the blanket…yes, I promise this really is true…his tiny fists were mashed firmly against his ears.

Plus I later read that newborns often respond to horrible noises by falling asleep.

As they grew, darned if those little “blank slates” didn’t moan, “NOOOO! Mom, STOP SINGING!!!” if I sang around them. Except during renditions of “Happy Birthday to You,” when they only snickered.

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. ~Buddha

Just When You Think It’s Safe to Blog About Boogers….

You win two awards! Hooray!! In the order received, thank you so much to Linda O'Connell of Write from the Heart, good friend and inspirational writer who truly does write—and live—from the heart. Linda ever so tactfully emailed me about the booger post; did I mind having my work showcased…now? I told her the truth: my writing has been as blocked as my sinuses lately. That’s okay…I think maybe this is helping to jolt me out of it! And I think I'm supposed to post a picture of myself blogging, so here goes, but I couldn't clean my desk without compromising crucial Post-It note placement, so I didn't.

And thank you to Jules of Trying to Get Over the Rainbow, whose posts always seem to touch me deeply whether they are funny, serious, or—amazingly enough—both at once. In her case, I understand that I am supposed to tell you four truths and one lie. See if you can guess the lie:

1. I once partied with Grace Slick.

2. People have always told me I should be a singer.

3. I was on a show called Romper Room when I was four. The teacher had a mike around her neck with a long cord, and I remember tripping on it and choking her a little bit and almost pulling her over. At the end of the show, she had that Magic Mirror thing she’d look through and say, “I see Johnny, and I see Beth, and I see….” And I squinted and stared and searched, and she couldn’t see anyone. She was lying! I was horrified.

4. I didn’t grow hair until I was about three. Once I finally got hair, though, no one touched it. Maybe they were afraid it would fall out again if they messed with it any. So my hair just sat there, unbrushed, and grew longer and longer. A knot formed at the nape of the neck that became legendary in my family as “The Rat’s Nest.” As the hair grew longer, the rat’s nest grew bigger.

My sister called it “circus woman hair.” I was enormously flattered. I thought circus women were the most beautiful creatures in the world, and in fact aspired to be The Lady Who Dangles from Her Hair. She had this big, boofy hair, and they attached something to it and hoisted her up and spun her around in her sparkly costume like a human disco ball. It was the coolest thing in the whole world.

I figure The Rat’s Nest existed from age three until I was hospitalized for pneumonia at age ten and an ambitious candy striper insisted on combing it out. In addition to the agony I went through, what she extracted from my head resembled a small poodle and looked big enough for a whole family of rats. My hair was half its size when she got done. I figured there went my career.

5. I learned to juggle as part of a midlife crisis and still have a bit of a circus fixation.

And now, I pass these awards along to:

Valthevictorian at Unbagging the Cats.  I’m so proud that my nose-picking post inspired deeper analysis. And her Toenail Rug made me laugh so hard, my whole screen shook because I forgot to take my hand off the mouse. And the malcontent story….

Ella over at Ella’s Edge is a mother, poet, artist, and probably lots more I haven’t discovered yet...but I'm looking forward to reading more.

Sioux of Sioux's Page is either a kindred spirit or maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I always get a refreshing laugh at her clever, fun posts.

There were more I wanted, but I currently can't see anyone's followers including my own, and it's very frustrating that this has happened on top of not being able to see a lot of pictures.  If anyone knows what the deal is, please let me know! 

I hate, hate, hate being left out. Whether it’s not being picked for a team or being picked for a team and then showing up and realizing that the team doesn’t exist or that the sport doesn’t exist. I should have known…poop ball. ~Michael Scott, “The Office”

Brevity is the Soul of Wit, but Limbs and Outward Flourishes are Funner

Friend and wonderful writer Becky Povich recently had her September blog contest. The rules were: using the scene in the photo (reprinted with Becky's permission, below), write a story of 100 words or less. I don’t enter contests very often, but Becky gives some great prizes. Problem was (and always is) that word count. I just could NOT do 100 words. The leanest I could chop was 112. So after struggling far longer than I could spare, I gave up. Here it is, because now I don’t know what to do with all 266 words. Happy fall, y’all.

It was Cactus Day at the “Life is a Bed of Roses” nursery, and Berta Ebbercamper was feeling a bit prickly. So she tossed on her blue Ask Me About My Grandbabies t-shirt and headed on over.

When she saw the life-sized dragon sculpture out front, though, she knew it would look cute as a button next to some windmills on her front lawn, with maybe a cement goose in overalls underneath.

But when she reached for the door, Berta felt something hot on her back. Whirling around, Berta realized that it hadn’t been a lawn dragon, after all, but a real North American Brownbeard merely posing as one!

Berta hadn’t lived with Ed for 42 years for nothing. She knew ornery. She tripped that dragon with a pot of sedum ‘Autumn Joy,’ then beaned him with chrysanthemum ‘Golden Splendor.’ Berta, once a horticulture major on a fencing scholarship, fought the dragon off with the nearest carnegiea species, eventually pinning him with ferocactus horridus. Didn’t slay him, though. Berta was a practical woman and knew a real dragon might come in handy when Ed’s back was out.

Now the dragon sits nicely on a hay bale next to a garden gnome and two pumpkins, cradling some dried corn husks and a sign that says, “I ♥ Autumn.” Berta named him Ferdish, because it sounded like a fancy name, just like her real North American Brownbeard.

“Ferdish!” says Berta, “You go on an’ haul that wheelbarrow full of pea gravel out back, will you?”

“Yes ma’am,” says Ferdish.

Yep, dragons can go nicely in the garden sometimes.

You must bring us... a shrubbery! ~ Knights who say Ni (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Caught by the Principal

In honor of school starting again, here is the true story of something that happened to me last year.

I’d dealt with an incident involving several high school kids. Although everything had worked out as well as it possibly could have, it’s always a good idea to document, so I started a rough draft of my documentation on a piece of scratch paper I had with me.

Earlier that day, I had been helping out in a history class where the teacher had been showing a PowerPoint presentation on Vietnam. Not having anything to do at the moment, I doodled.

I am a doodler. So I started doodling the picture of this Vietnamese dude. I know I should know the name, but I don’t. I’m sorry—I’m not a history buff. And I certainly mean no disrespect to anyone’s leaders. But the thing is, I was working on the guy’s beard when the teacher switched slides…so my doodling hand had to improvise. And I just don’t feel terribly responsible for what that doodling hand does.

The beard became a long braid.  Then I added a polka-dotted bow. Then earrings and a nose ring. I surrounded him with helicopters (á la M*A*S*H), palm trees, and for no explicable reason, volcanoes.

So these were the notes I used to draft my documentation. Except…just as I was finishing up the rough draft, the principal showed up at the door and asked to see me in the hall. He was happy with the way I had handled the situation, but he needed the names of the children who were involved. I started to check my notes and told him I had been drafting a statement.

“May I see it?” he asked. Um. Well. I sort of hid the paper behind myself, guiltily.

“I need to recopy it,” I explained. “But first I could just check the names….”

He told me that was okay—he could just read my draft. He held out his hand. I stood there like an idiot. “I’ve drawn all over the page,” I blurted out. “It’s a…habit. It was Vietnam, and I….It might be hard to read. Why don’t you let me recopy my notes quickly?”

He wasn’t buying it. He needed to see it, please. Now.

So I shuffled my feet and looked at the floor. Here I was, a forty-something-year-old-teacher, summoned by the principal, admonished to hand over a paper with silly drawings on it. I handed it over.

I watched his eyes dart around the page, and the corners of his mouth quivered ever so slightly. Still, I have to hand it to him, he held his face as still as possible and read my notes without giggling. Then when he was done, he sort of winked and said, “I’ll let you get back to Vietnam.”

In all fairness, it could have been much, much worse. I’m partial to silly hairdos, and I’d given the guy a sort of modified “Betty Boop” earlier but had erased it off because it just wasn’t the look I was going for.

I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam ~Popeye the Sailor Man

Downer Hill Skiing

I recently visited the website of sillyswedishskier who sounded eerily like a younger version of me…I, too, like to peel things! And I am compelled to peek behind shower curtains at parties!

Except that she calls herself a skier. That’s where we part ways. Dramatically. In fact, just the word brings back traumatically suppressed memories….

Warning. This is long.

I’ve snow skied twice in my life. Once was in Nebraska, where I’m from, so it probably only counts as half. In Nebraska, you basically ski down into a giant hole. Since I didn’t have the slightest idea how to ski, I snapped on those contraptions and just went, thinking it would somehow come naturally. It didn’t. My legs were locked perfectly straight with fear, which makes you go really fast. I managed to stay upright due to the same force that kept my legs so rigid—sheer terror of falling. I had no idea how to stop, but the good thing about skiing into a big hole is that you automatically stop when you start to go up the other side.

So I had done that once in my early 20s and thought it was a good beginning.

Then in my late 20s, I moved to Denver for about three years. During that time I only skied once. It was enough. I went to Breckenridge with my friend Deb, who is also from Nebraska, but Deb had truly lost her ski virginity due to having skied on an actual mountain before. Whereas I had maybe only been felt up by one. Deb and I both got instructors, but hers was more advanced than mine.

In hindsight, I should have known that things were not going to go well when Deb got Jean-Claude as her instructor and I got Bob. (Note: These are actual, non-made-up names.)

Bob was proud of the fact that he could teach any beginner to ski. He kept telling me his statistic: “I’ve never been unsuccessful in teaching someone to ski!” I have to hand it to Bob, he stuck with me for a long time—even after he had to take away my poles because I narrowly missed impaling him—long, long after I begged him to stop. But even Bob eventually gave up and left me in a snow bank along with his former record and the shame of being the one person who had broken it.

The rest is sort of hazy because it was so traumatic that my brain actually blocked it out. I believe nuns were involved, or maybe that was my mind playing tricks on me, but I don’t think so, because my mind was too exhausted to actually make things worse. I do distinctly remember these smiley older women zipping past me, and when I would fall and flail about in the snow like a stranded June bug, they would stop long enough to help me up. That’s when I’m sure one of them told me that she and a few of the other sisters were on vacation from some convent in Iowa. But I also think she told me it was their first time skiing…and then she zipped off again. She was about 60.

The EVENT happened, I think, when I was getting off the lift. Or maybe trying to get on. The memory is gooey from the horror of it. I just remember not jumping at the correct time and getting stuck, and then getting tangled maybe, and somehow dropping like a lead weight. I do know that I landed on people. I also know that a little girl was one of the people I landed on, but I also know everyone assured me she was just fine and that there were no serious injuries! Really!—and I know for a fact no ambulances were called—but I also remember that it was scary for a while when they shut down the entire ski lift and had to untangle the big pile of people. Oh, the screams, the horror, the pandemonium.

Because of me.

So nuns were involved in the story, but not in the actual mayhem. I’m almost 100% sure they weren’t using the lift then because I don’t remember their smiley nun faces. Unless they were buried under the pile of human rubble. So at least 60% positive for sure.

But that’s really all I remember, other than searching for someplace that sold alcoholic beverages after that. I do know I never found a toasty ski lodge with a fireplace and cute guys in casts sipping hot buttered rum like you see on TV. I seem to remember a picnic bench, and beer. And I discovered that you can cry pretty effectively behind sunglasses as long as you wipe the tears when they escape from underneath and also if you are careful not to sob much.

What I remember most is vowing NEVER to ski again. My guess is the nuns prayed on it as well.

“In the foster home, my hair was my room.” ~Erin in “The Office”

That's the Ticket

I would like to thank Becky for nominating me for this most distinctive and prestigious of awards!!!
Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks again, Bec!)
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you.
4. Tell up to 6 outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth. (The key here is the "up to" and the "at least." Some people are just born liars!)
5. Nominate up to seven "Creative Writers" who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on the "up to" seven blogs you nominate, letting them know you nominated them.

Here goes:

1. In high school, I started a job at the local Squinky Pinky, but it didn’t go well. First they put me in the deli, but I stank at cheeses. Then they put me in produce. Things got out of hand when I dropped a load of bananas, and they really came to a head in the cruciferous vegetable department. So when they moved me to the bakery and I had that flour incident, I thought I was going to get sacked for sure. Instead, they put me out in fertilizers because they found I could really shovel poo.

2. I was once mistaken for the Exorcist girl on a studio set.

3. My Great Uncle Joe was an actor who was the first voice of Porky Pig. He really did stutter.

4. One of the men I’ve met lately steams out his brain fungus using a vegetable steamer, a tarp, and an ionizer.

5. I once strolled into a store with a date, and a man with flaming orange hair, a flaming orange pantsuit, and a flaming orange personality ran up and planted an impassioned kiss on my date’s mouth. When he finally detached and spotted me standing there very awkwardly, he shrieked, “OH LOOK! You have a girlfriend! A QUAINT little GIRLFRIEND!!!”  The thing that bothered me most about the incident was being called "quaint."  Quaint?  Puh-leez.

6. A friend wanted to set me up with an attractive man who had just broken up with the Bromo Seltzer heiress.  The Bromo Seltzer heiress was married, and her husband wanted to cause this guy more than indigestion. BUT, the friend said that Mr. Former-Bromo-Boy had once been in prison, because someone had sneaked drugs on the private plane that Bromo-Boy was piloting, and “you just don’t turn these people in and live.” So Former-Bromo took the rap and went to prison. The friend wanted to know if that bothered me. Bothered me? OF COURSE it bothered me. I was horrified. A pilot? My former husband was a pilot. Bleah.

I nominate Christy! 

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. ~Mark Twain