Book Blurb Friday #13

Oh, how I love Fridays...especially during final's week, when I get the luxury of an actual lunch hour rather than twenty minutes!!!

Thank you to Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff for hosting Book Blurb Friday and also for forwarding this week’s picture to me so I could see it! I do have a Firefox update to install that I’m hoping will help me to see pictures again. In the meantime, Ms. Ricard Claro presents us with a challenge each week to write a blurb (150 words or fewer) to go with the pretend book cover. Am not quite as crazy about my blurb as I am the beautiful picture, but at least I made the limit at 150 words!

Welcome to Marie Sterling Wilber! I find her blog helps me learn about an art form I’ve always admired—photography—but never explored well enough. It’s worthwhile just to look at the pictures!

~Silent Night, Deadly Night~

Jason Rasmussen was handsome, intelligent, and married to his childhood sweetheart, the lovely and gentle Elise Rasmussen. But on Christmas night, Jason seemed to disappear into thin air.

Investigations revealed that Jason was medicated for bipolar disorder and Elise had had an affair with the boy who bagged her groceries. Had Elise had something to do with his disappearance? Yet it was Jason who had recently taken out a life insurance policy on Elise, and she had broken off the affair six months earlier with the claim that she still loved her husband. Had someone else had something to do with his disappearance? If so, who?

Most disturbing of all was the fact that absolutely nothing indicated Jason had even left home at all—there were no missing car and no tracks in the fresh snow…nothing. Or was there?

Silent night, deadly night
All is calm, nothing is quite right….

“…the rock-bottom requirement for any good partnership is that you want what’s best for the other person.” ~Gloria Steinem

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #18

Cute Guy
“Guess who likes you?” my friend asked me. “Who?” I asked. I wrinkled my nose out of habit.

For Valentine’s Day, I got a card from a friend. Two little girls were on the front. “Johnny likes you,” says one.

“Paste-Eating Johnny, or Booger-Eating Johnny?” asks the other. I wish I could find what I did with it, because I can’t remember the punch line. Something about enjoying my options, I think. But the point is, that’s how I feel. Amazingly, it was neither Paste-Eating Johnny nor Booger-Eating Johnny. It was…could it be??!!!

Cute Guy.

I squealed. “Really!?! Are you sure?! Did he tell you, or do you just think so? Does he like me, or does he LIKE me like me??!!” I made her repeat every single word that passed between them on the subject. Twice. Then of course I made her add in any facial nuances he may have used to convey the message. Then I giggled and danced around a bit.

Cute Guy is more than cute. He is smooth. He has chunky-but-clean man hands and a warm handshake and a winning smile. He smells good. Not good as in too-much-aftershave-good, but good as in his personal scent is good. Not that sharp, I-can’t-walk-up-a-hill-so-I’m-turning-red-and-emitting-sour-sweat personal scent. But a clean skin smell. That one. Oooh….

Then she mentioned his age. Oh. Oh crap. He is quite a bit younger than I’d hoped. I told my friend my age. Maybe it’s that she’s only seen me in darkened rooms, or maybe the fat distracted her from the wrinkles or something, but she thought I was younger. Oh, she says. Oh. She knows it, too—it’s too much of an age difference. And truthfully, I don’t blame him a bit. I wouldn’t date someone that much older than I am. I don't think I want to date someone that much younger than I am, either.  Some people can do it. I can’t. I want someone my own age.

Still. I’m unaccountably happy. Like the birthday card, I do have some pretty fun options. And age? I’m still giggling like a twelve-year-old.

Cute Guy liked me!



Welcome and thank you to new blog follower Dorothy Evans!

Improper Poll: A Day in the Life

Friday after work I checked out the news and found out I only had one day to live. Where did this come from?  I thought we had until 2012.  So all of a sudden I had to think about how I would spend my last day on earth.

I thought about things like drinking and smoking and trips, but in the end, I spent my pretend last day on earth almost like any other weekend, and I think that’s just what I’d choose. 

Except…my son is now home from college.  His mess follows him home like Schultz’s Pigpen, a pile of wet-clothes clutter that grows until it engulfs our house and garage like kid-kudzu. Kidzu? Krudzu? There are paper plates of petrified pizza and fingerprints and smeary half-filled glasses all over the house.  He shoots Nerf darts at his sister when she’s forced to pass his room, so in addition to the random shrieking, there are things like little darts all over. 

So I think if it were really my last day and I had time to plan, I would have hired a maid service.  And I did buy chocolate—the creamiest, milkiest chocolate I could find.

But here is today, one more day, a miracle no matter how you look at it.   

How would you spend your last day on earth?

Book Blurb Friday #12

Amazing that the week has gone by so fast and it’s another Book Blurb Friday already!  If you are unfamiliar with Book Blurb Friday, please check out Writing in the Buff, where Lisa Ricard Claro provides us with a weekly fictional book cover. The challenge is to write an accompanying blurb of 150 words or less. Mine for this week came in at 149 words. And welcome to new blog follower Liz Davis! Thanks so much and hope you visit often!

 ~Contra Band~

2111 A.D.: Funding for education has been cut so much (because who cares about children who can’t vote?) there are no longer any teachers—merely Educational Facilitators who screen for weapons and make sure that the children are getting their government-approved H-Tel Imagery lessons properly streamed into their nervous systems.

The arts are expendable, too, of course—except in certain government-approved E.C. Facilities—but art made of metal? Metal is too precious and must be used for important things like technology.

When sixteen-year-old Denver Bishop and his fourteen-year-old sister Fantom move to a new subcity, however, they find a storage facility for antique art that somehow missed being surrendered to the government…and there they find old-fashioned musical instruments thought to exist only in museums. Will Denver, Fantom and their friends be able to learn to play in secret? Or will the government find out and destroy it—and them?

Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang but the best. ~Henry Van Dyke

Improper Poll: Taboo Love

Here’s the thing. I am positively known for being conservative in some ways…especially when it comes to dress. Still, I harbor a secret love of…don’t tell…tacky watches. How they twist and curl, some of them quite literally snake-like, whispering “pick me” to some inner yearning!

Recently I found the mother of all tackiness. It beckoned from its eBay page, drawing me back again and again for stolen glances at this, my porn of the wrist. And there it was, so beguiling in its size, its sheer glittery-ness. And the colors!

I am weak, I admit it. When I gave in and ordered it, I was trying to fool myself into believing that maybe I could sneak it into normal life, tuck it under a sleeve so no one would know.

When it arrived, it had been shipped all the way from Hong Kong in a little box covered in stamps. Cost of shipping? Five dollars. How can that be? At that price I can’t help but picture somebody paddling very fast on a raft.

And then…oh, gracious. It is the hoochy-coochy dancing watch of all time, this glob of gaudy goodness. But worse—much worse—is the size. Huge, yes, but the hinged metal cuff size is made for Asian women. And although I am very small boned for an American of European decent, it puts me in sadistic watch-bondage, cutting off the circulation and corseting me in like Scarlett, leaving my wrist in an hourglass shape that would put Marilyn herself to shame.

Alas, I may have to come up with another use for it, such as decorating yet another thing on my desk. Still, I know that I just can’t give it away. So here it is.  Not the best shot, maybe, but it's surprisingly hard to photograph your own wrist.  You can see that it is creating dual muffin-tops on my wrist, which I had previously thought was about the only relatively fat-free body part I had.  I can't even show you the front.  I am too ashamed.

Do you have an object you love and just can’t explain why?

Book Blurb Friday #11

What annoys me most about Blogger’s being unavailable this week is that it just happened to coincide with the times that I was. So now I have some major catching up to do. Am starting with Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday—a meme which challenges readers to come up with a blurb of 150 words or fewer to go with a fictional book cover. I barely made it this week at exactly 150 words (not counting the title):

~Buried Past~

Eva Leighton led a quiet life. So quiet, in fact, that researching her family tree seemed like the perfect hobby.

But when her research uncovered a mysterious ancestor who shared her first name, Eva was driven to learn more. This other Eva had roared during the Roaring Twenties and then seemingly vanished. That she turned out to be her biological great grandmother was the least of Eva’s surprises.

Unidentified bones of a woman had been found in the Mojave desert, buried near a rusted Model A Ford. Eva transformed into a sleuth who, together with the handsome detective who was willing to reopen a very cold case, had uncovered far more than a family secret.

Eva had unearthed her great grandmother’s murder. But who had killed her? As she worked to learn more, it became clear that Eva’s life would never be quiet again. In fact, would history repeat itself?

“In the desert, an old monk had once advised a traveler, the voices of God and the Devil are scarcely distinguishable.” ~Loren Eiseley

Improper Poll: Ten Things I’ve Learned as a Mother

When I was pregnant with my first child, I naively believed that I would have soap opera children. You know—clean, quiet children who make an occasional appearance and stare in rapt attention while being taught valuable mom things? And then they would go nap.

If you are a seasoned mother, and even if you are not, you are now cringing because you know that God got me back for that big time. Ha ha! That silly God sure has a sense of humor!

As soon as my children were born, and in some ways before, they promptly taught me these things:
1. I am an utter and complete idiot who knows nothing.
2. My children do not belong to me. They taught me they belonged to themselves even clear back when my abdomen woke me up in the middle of the night for the nightly kidney-pummeling.
3. We have more to learn from our children than we have to teach them. If we’re lucky.
4. My children were the only ones I knew who did not nap from age two on. Ever. And they did this not merely just to torture me, but as direct punishment for wanting soap opera children.
5. I would not have a good night’s sleep again for the better part of a decade, and then they would interrupt my sleep again when they hit adolescence. I’m still not sure when I’ll get to sleep again.
6. I need to remember that the most valuable words I can utter as a mother are, “What do you think?” I should probably carry a roll of duct tape for my mouth along with my own private cue card printed with those words, because it’s surprisingly hard for me to remember.
7. When you are a new mother, and some older woman gasps and says (with judgmental horror), “Oh, I see you do it that way? Well, I guess the baby will be okay,” learn to laugh and ignore her. (And Lord help me never to be that woman!)
8. The best advice I ever got on mothering came from a parenting magazine, and I wish I could remember the author. It was to say these words when the child whines: “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand that voice. Could you talk in your real voice, please?"
9. Mothers don’t really teach. At best, we guide. But mostly we just love, and that is the best lesson there is.
10. I may be an utter and complete idiot who knows nothing, but still, by the absolute grace of God and lots of prayer and a few understanding friends, I still managed to get great children.

So today’s Improper Poll question is:
What have you learned either as a mother or from your mother?  Happy Mother's Day!

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. ~Ambrose Bierce

Book Blurb Friday #10

This week I am especially grateful for Writing in the Buff’s Book Blurb Friday, in which Lisa Ricard Claro presents her readers with a fictional book cover as a challenge to come up with a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it.

This is my second blurb for this picture. The first one I wrote went with a children’s series I (literally) dreamed up years ago. And now, thanks to Ms. Ricard Claro, I am seriously thinking about getting back to it. So many, many thanks to her already! Whether I really do get back to that book or not, it’s been a lot of fun to think about again.

Anyway. I put that one away for now and came up with this one, trimmed and chopped and hyphenated to a mere149 words (not counting the title):

~The Miracle of Esterbrook Pond~

Ten-year-old Ray-Hope Fenwick made a discovery out by Esterbrook pond: a lady that only she could see appeared in the fountain every morning. What’s more, the lady told Ray-Hope that she would perform one miracle on May 6, 2011. Ray-Hope was so convincing that the crowds began to gather. Who would receive the miracle? And what’s more, who should?

Would it be Milos San Raphael, wealthy businessman seeking a cure for his Lou Gehrig’s before the disease progressed? Or the humble Grady family, hoping to heal their child? Would land-owner Elmore Esterbrook cash in on the water? And if the waters were miraculous, why didn’t little Ray-Hope cure her own brother of his autism?

Or had the child simply made it all up?

Follow twelve families in this masterpiece of good and evil as they struggle in the fountain’s waters…and discover for yourself the true miracle of Esterbrook.

(P.S. May the miracle today be yours!)

Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen. ~Saint Augustine

Grief Divided

It was a beautiful day when I stood behind her in the Walmart line. She had a false-cheerful tone to her voice that bothered me without reason. And then I realized there was a reason. I knew that voice.

I always seem to get the worst news on a beautiful day. I’ve looked longingly out hospital windows at a flawless afternoon, where the birds kept on singing and the sun kept on shining from a startlingly blue sky as if to say, “No, everything’s fine with us, thanks!” Meanwhile, my own life slumped in agony at my feet.

Funerals for me have never been like in the movies, where umbrellas seem to sprout from the gloom like black flowers. In my life, the day has always been heartbreakingly beautiful as if to taunt me. The message is the same: Life goes on. You are alone.

Some of the greatest beauty in my life has been refracted through tears, like looking through glass blocks, because of course it’s not really crying if you hold your eyes wide open and refuse to let the tears spill out. We can’t be expected to bother others with our grief when it isn’t theirs to bear. That woman’s voice made me ache. It’s the voice I’ve forced out of my own mouth when something horrible had happened and I was struggling to function normally in a world that was lucky enough not to have to share my pain.

I looked up, and for just a split second, our eyes met. The abject agony I saw in her eyes at that second haunted me, haunts me still. She had Prison Camp Eyes.

I’m still upset, though I’ll never know for what we grieved, are grieving. I’m sending her my best wishes. I want her to know that life doesn’t really go on, unconcerned. Sometimes it stops and grieves too because it knows that we are all in this together. After all, we’re really only taking turns.

You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not. ~Epictetus

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?

Book Blurb Friday #9

As I’ve mentioned before, I can’t always see blog photographs (whether mine or those of other people), or I see them and then they disappear. For some reason I still can't see Writing in the Buff’s pretend book cover for this week’s Book Blurb Friday. Horrors! Fortunately our beloved Southern hostess, Mizz Lisa Ricard Claro, was kind enough to send it to me personally so that I didn’t have to suffer. And I’m so glad she did, because I think this one is very close to my pretend book—that is, the one I pretend I am going to write someday. Here it is, three words under the 150 word limit including...ahem...the rave reviews.

~Rhoda’s Trip~

Once brilliant Rhoda Homewood of Grand Island, Nebraska had stuffed her wild side into a suitcase when she married, forcing herself to become the perfect wife, mother, and art teacher. Now her youngest child was leaving home, and Rhoda’s life was turned upside down by the discovery that her husband had been funding breast implants for a miniature golf instructor named Echo. Rhoda’s old suitcase flew open—and the conservative trip to Hilton Head that she had been planning with her husband turned instead into the road trip of a lifetime with her former high school best friend, now a radical librarian, and her neighbor, an accountant by day and female impersonator by night.

What this trio of middle aged misfits discovers along the way is almost as much fun as the trip itself.

“Saucy satire…absurd humor.” ~G. I. Journal
“Comic and absorbing…but with heart.” ~ Savannah Sun

When a woman steals your husband, there is no better revenge than to let her keep him. ~Anonymous

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

Improper Poll: Improper All Over Again

It’s been a loooong week, so I’ve decided to reprint my Easter post from last year. It’s my all-time favorite. Do you have any entertaining suggestions on how to celebrate? And to help make up for my obnoxious sense of humor, I will end with a great quote. I wish you a holiday filled with peace and joy.

Back By Unpopular Demand! 10 Things for Losers to Do on Easter:

1. Try dying scrambled eggs instead. Practice making puking noises as you eat.
2. Put marshmallow bunnies in the microwave facing each other with little toothpick swords. Turn on the microwave and watch them blow up and stab each other. (See illustration.)
3. Make an ecologically friendly basket by recycling old margarine tubs. Use dryer lint for grass or better yet, go green by using real grass (and just pick out the ants and wood ticks). Substitute lima beans for jelly ones. I find that dried work better than canned.
4. For an extra special treat, hide the basket a year early so you really don’t remember where you put it.
5. As a creative and festive surprise for children, experiment with hiding other boiled proteins, such as crab legs.
6. All that candy spells u-n-h-e-a-l-t-h-y. Try filling baskets with less sugary substitutions for jelly beans, such as fish oil and flaxseed capsules.
7. On a budget? Instead of wasting eggs, experiment with dying other items in your refrigerator, like bologna.
8. For an amusingly ironic twist, fill children’s baskets with rabbits’ feet. For a REALLY amusing twist, add a sign that says, “Good luck, from the Easter BAHHHHHH!!!” Then sing, “Here comes Peter Cotton Tail, hobblin’ down the bunny trail….”
9. Crash a little kids’ Easter egg hunt, shout “Gotcha, you sum’ bitch!” and club the egg thoroughly with a baseball bat. Hold up the remains and ask someone to take your picture.
10. Mount half an eggshell on a trophy plaque and hang it over your fireplace. Next time someone comes to your door to tell you about their religion, invite them in and keep interrupting with, “Want to see what I bagged on my last hunt?”

When one has purified oneself, by the grace of God, to the point at which one can truly love one’s enemies, a beautiful thing happens. It is as if the boundaries of the soul become so clean as to be transparent, and a unique light then shines forth from the individual….The effect of this light varies….The bearer of the light…most often will be unaware of these effects. Finally, those who hate the light will attack it. Yet it is if their evil actions are taken into the light and consumed….The process may be painful to the bearer of the light….This does not, however, signify the success of evil. Rather, it backfires. ~ M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Book Blurb Friday #8

It feels good to get back to blogging with Book Blurb Friday, hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff! Each week, she posts a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. I really struggled with picking one quote this week...so finally settled on two.

And thank you so much to Sioux of Sioux's Page for the award! I hope to pass it along in the coming week along with Donna's "Sisters of the Quill" award, which I never got to pass along before my dog got sick.

Here's my Book Blurb Friday, at 139 words.

~Soul of Stone~

Annie thought she had married the sweetest man. But right after the wedding, it seemed as if her husband’s pleasant exterior crumbled. It wasn’t until much later that she realized appearances were all that mattered to this effigy of a human. Like a statue of Narcissus, the husband she had once loved knew only how to pose in order to manipulate others like chess pieces. Underneath it all, her husband was stone cold evil who never truly loved, but viewed others solely in terms of himself.

When she filed for divorce, Annie learned about the rest: the cheating, the tens of thousands of dollars he’d stolen outright, and always the lies he used to cover it all up. Yet again, he portrayed himself as the victim. She learned that divorcing a Narcissist means the worst is yet to come.

…most people are unsuspecting and are unaware of the degree to which they are being taken advantage of, used and abused. This unawareness is not due to a general lack of intelligence in people, but to their tendency to project their own range of normalcy onto others. Hence, their disinclination to suspect someone so profoundly depraved to be in their midst, carrying on an existence that is fundamentally and thoroughly alie (sic). But the character disordered conveniently regard this trait as evidence of intellectual inferiority and will take a twisted delight in the knowledge that they have so many fooled. ~Doug McManaman, “Narcissism and the Dynamics of Evil.”

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul, preducing holy witness,

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart.

O, what a goodly outside a falsehood hath!” ~Shakespeare, Act one, Scene 3, Merchant of Venice

…And it IS Happy

Today is Buddy’s official 15th birthday—at least the one we pretend is official, even though he probably turned 15 a while ago. Just two days ago, I wasn’t sure if he would make it.

Last week, I saw our dear dog crumpled and shaking on the floor and called a vet-who-makes-house calls. And then I lay next to him and sobbed my goodbyes.

But the vet—who called Buddy "beyond old"—said that what he has might not be fatal. Truthfully, we still don’t know. Since then, I’ve slept on the floor to keep him from hurting himself, cooked him special foods and then hand-fed them to him bite by bite, awakened every few hours around the clock to carry him outside in a towel (not so easy with a 60 lb. dog), run home during my half-hour lunch breaks to let him out, rearranged the furniture and rugs to help keep him from falling, kept records of his potty breaks, and cried with joy when he picked up a toy and barked out the window once more at a passerby. Yesterday he ate his first meal in almost two weeks.

And he’s been improving in tiny increments each day. He still has to be helped down the two stairs to the backyard and whines/barks whenever we try to sleep—I am beyond tired right now—but we’re hoping those too will improve. I apologize for having neglected your blogs these past two weeks.  Am hoping to start reclaiming my life.

Throughout it all I've been soothed by your prayers and good wishes. There are times I am certain I can feel them. I simply can't express how much that means to me.

I know that, no matter what, it’s only borrowed time. But the older I get, the more I realize it’s all borrowed—all of it. Now this one borrowed thing is all the more precious to us. As long as living isn’t a burden to him, we hope we have him around. When it’s time to give back our borrowed loved one, we’ll know we did the very best we could with what we had.

Now that’s a birthday gift.

Which reminds me—Chicken Soup for the Soul My Dog’s Life coincidentally came out last week just as we were dealing with Buddy’s illness. My story in it is called "The Last Gift."  If you are so inclined, please read the book and consider posting a review on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, and thank you!

And welcome to new blog follower Josh Hoyt!  Don't forget to stop by his blog and diagnose your characters.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. ~Kahlil Gibran

Improper Poll: Meanderings of a Muddled Mind

Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts and prayers for our beloved dog! They really mean so much. He ate a tiny bit yesterday, which we’re taking to be a very good sign.

This week’s medical crisis reminded me that I just don’t handle exhaustion well. Not only do I get clumsy when I’m sleep-deprived, I make mistakes. Weird mistakes. Once after way too little sleep, I sprayed Bactine in my hair only because it had a green top like my hairspray bottle. And I’m sorry to say that’s not the only weird thing I’ve sprayed in my hair by mistake. Let’s just say roll-on deodorant can be a good thing. And if my coffee pot didn’t have a timer, I hate to think how often I would make either waterless coffee or a pot of hot water in the morning.

Now that I often use eye drops when I wake up, I find that I must hold up a mental sign that says, “Check the label, Forrest!” Needless to say, I could never be a medical resident. Am I the only one, or have you ever done anything goofy when you’re half asleep?

Book Blurb Friday #7...and Surviving

You know how it is when your normally hectic life gets a crisis added to it so that you go into Survival Mode? I've been in Survival Mode all week. Was sure our beloved dog Buddy was a goner with what I thought was a stroke. According to the vet, however, dogs do not have strokes. In fact, he’s certain that it’s an inner ear issue that he says has a chance of improving within the next week or so. In the meantime, Buddy can’t stand up or walk on his own without falling over or eat without throwing up.  It's been like caring for a newborn again—a really big, heavy, stubborn newborn. We could use your thoughts/prayers/crossed fingers that either the medicine kicks in or the motion sickness kicks out. I don’t know when I’ve been more grateful for a Friday in my life.

Which brings me to the beloved Book Blurb Friday, hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff! Each week, she posts a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. Here’s what I came up with last week at a skimpy 65 words.

~Quench: Poetry for a Thirsty Soul~

Just as a brook murmurs its song that refreshes the inner spirit, so does this marvelous collection of soul-quenching poetry speak to the thirstiest of 21st century readers. Prepare to immerse yourself in such poems as “Outcrop,” by T’Mara Goodsell, and “Exhaustion” by T. Powell Pryce.

Allow this marvelous collection of poetry to wash over you. It will quench even the most parched of spirits.

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. ~Nietzsche

Improperness: Then…and Then…and Now

The other day, Donna of Donna’s Book Pub discussed some forgotten words and phrases for writers including scrivener, scribe, and quill driver in an interesting post entitled "Forgotten English Word for the Day." I gathered that some of these were considered vulgar and slang words in previous centuries.

When she mentioned “brother of the quill” as a definition, the “Sisters of the Quill” award was born. The phrase alone gives me shivers, and lo, Donna has bestowed this coveted award…upon me! I’m so honored to be a “Sister of the Quill!”   **shiver….**  Thank you so much to Donna, Sister-of-the-Driven-Quill Extraordinaire! 

The whole thing got me thinking about slang words and phrases that have gone out of style. Years ago I learned it was a huge mistake to explain the colloquialisms of my own era to my children. Something about the language shift automatically caused us to switch roles. The one I mentioned was the 1980s phrase, “Gag me with a spoon.” I think my two children were maybe in 6th and 3rd grades then. I honestly thought they would giggle until they fell off their chairs or something. Instead, they horrified me by being silent for a while, as if contemplating the stupidity of my entire generation.

“A spoon? Is that possible, to gag a person with a spoon?” one of them asked.

“It would hurt,” the other contributed. “Why a spoon, I wonder?” For a moment I swear I thought one of them was going to use the word, “indeed.”  Then they merely shook their heads in shared disgust.

Of course it would have been much less insulting if they had fallen out of their chairs laughing. So today’s Improper Poll question is: Do you have any favorite words or phrases from the past?

Book Blurb Friday #6

Thank you to the lovely Lisa Ricard Claro for hosting Book Blurb Friday! Each week, she posts a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. Here’s mine, at 140 words.

~To the Ends of the Earth~

“Mack” Maconis and his wife Betsy spent the entire 42 years of their marriage planning a trip around the world. On the evening of Mack’s retirement party, just as all that they’d worked for was finally falling into place, Betsy unexpectedly died. The world that Mack had formerly yearned to see now seemed to crumble. How would he go on?

But odd coincidences kept happening. Old love letters turned up. Tickets appeared where they shouldn’t be. And finally, a poem Betsy wrote years ago convinced Mack that she somehow still had plans for him to follow their dream and take the trip, anyway.

This moving epic novel follows Mack through the stages of grief and self-discovery as he takes a journey that is as spiritual as it is literal. What he ultimately discovers will make you glad you went along.

Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous. ~Albert Einstein

Can't Say I Wasn't Warned

It’s tornado season here in the Midwest. A few weeks ago, the sirens went off in the night. Tornadoes are supposed to come around dinnertime. It’s just common courtesy.

I have to get up at a time that qualifies as “night” in my book.  We also have a geriatric dog who occasionally decides that the bunnies under our deck require emergency, middle-of-the-night bed checks. So when I am awakened by yet another thing, I assume some sadist has devised more evil plots to keep me from sleeping. First I have to become coherent enough to figure out what the noise means, then I have to tackle the complex project of figuring out what to do about it.

What I did about it was what those legendary idiots do: I wandered out into the backyard to see if I could hear or see a tornado.  Then I turned on the TV to see if they really meant it. By that time my daughter had joined me in studying the map of the area that was painted in alarming swaths of color with a big red circle in the middle. “Why is it I feel like they keep drawing a big red circle over our house?” my daughter asked. It was because they were.

After consulting a while, the winds were picking up, so we decided to awaken the dog. This can be quite a project. When he’s not up conducting pre-dawn rabbit patrol, he is sometimes sleeping so deeply that I have thought he was comatose. This dog is no Toto; he’s a lab mix. After jiggling him for a while, we waved dog biscuits under his nose like smelling salts. This made him twitch and wag, so we had to stop and giggle a bit over those dog biscuit dreams.

After that entire process, which required more dog biscuits to lure him to the basement (because those old guys are experts at biscuit extortion), we remembered that we needed blankets and pillows….which were quickly usurped while we struggled with the ancient downstairs TV. Those old pups are also experts at finagling comfy places to sleep.

Thank heavens it wasn’t an actual emergency, because the whole thing took us about 20 minutes. They were giving the all-clear just around the time we were getting settled, so we hauled everything upstairs again…only to discover that it wasn’t the all-clear, after all, but a second round of tornadoes moving through.

The next day I discovered just before leaving for work that we had lost part of our fence. I found the dog standing on my neighbor’s patio with their newspaper in his mouth.

Sometimes that lab thing comes in real handy.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. ~ Sign I saw in a gift shop (Wish I knew the original author!)

Improper Poll: …and Putrefaction

Once again, Val Thevictorian anticipated this week’s Improper Poll topic. I mentioned this before in a St. Peter’s Journal column years ago, but when we lived in Savannah, Georgia, my daughter once informed me—via scream—that she’d found a mummified lizard in her bedroom. The clincher was that I had been carefully cleaning around it (this was back when I cleaned house) because I thought it was one of those rubber things you throw against a window to make it stick.

Also, here is a confession. I fairly recently blogged about our pond frogs. And I mentioned one of the original two just couldn’t figure out how to navigate the net I put over it in fall (I’d left a back way in). I wanted to believe he hopped away to someone else’s pond…but a couple of months ago, I found what appeared to be a frog-shaped piece of beef jerky sitting right outside the net. I keep thinking of Scarlett O’Hara’s line in Gone with the Wind right after she shoots the Yankee. “Well I guess I’ve done murder.” I truly feel awful about it.

Any more petrified critters out your way?

Book Blurb Friday #5

Hooray for Friday, hooray for shortened days at school (especially when they fall on a Friday), and hooray for Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday! Each week, she posts a pretend book cover. Our mission, should we accept it, is to write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. This week I tried to write a romance.  I really did.  But this is proof, I guess, that I am just not terribly romantic.  I counted 147 words.

~Tangle~

Nonia Capreolata was a young lawyer who had just moved to a small town where everyone whispered murky warnings about the forest where she liked to go jogging. Yet no one could give her any logical reasons to stay away.

When she met a tall, handsome stranger named Acer while out on one of her runs, she was immediately and uncharacteristically besotted. Now on a regular basis they met in the forest, where he seemed to live without having any real home. Odd, she knew, yet here she was, running like a woodland sprite on fleet feet, her breath quickening at the sight of him, majestic in the clearing, tall and strong.

She wound her sinewy arms around him, their love like a red red flower. “I can’t let go,” she whispered. And that was when she realized she really couldn’t. She literally couldn’t free herself from his poisonous embrace….

And so evil is parasitic. Its host is always a good. And since evil is a kind of non-being or nothingness, pure evil is impossible. Pure evil would be completely nothing, and nothing is not evil; it simply ‘is not’. Evil is a privation that requires a subject in which to inhere.~Doug McManaman

Improper Poll: Petrifaction

Many thanks to Val Thevictorian of Unbagging the Cats for inspiring this week’s Improper Poll question with her entertaining tale of a mummified MacDonald’s cheeseburger (see “Gone Furniture Fishin’"). That incident reminded me of the year my college roommate unearthed a petrified pizza slice from beneath her bed while moving out for summer vacation. Just as Val stated, it was perfectly preserved but shrunken, like a voodoo shrunken head of the food world.

Years later, when my daughter reached the age where they get those little kitchen sets with the rubber food, she would own a rubber pizza slice that reminded me a whole lot of that petrified pizza. Have you ever found mummified food?

Book Blurb Friday #4

Thank you to Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff for hosting Book Blurb Friday! Each week, she posts a fictional book cover (as opposed to the cover of a fictional book!) so that we can write a blurb of 150 words or less to go with it. Here’s mine, at 148 words.

But first, thank you to new blog followers Margo Benson, who is very clever with writing prompts, and Sandra Davies, whose blog is richly layered and artistic. Welcome!

~Unhappy Berthday~

The brochure promised dinner and an exciting melodrama performed with audience participation onboard the “Romantic Railway’s Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre.” Jane Miller thought it would be a fun way to celebrate her 40th birthday—while putting a little excitement back into her stale marriage to Tom. Little did she know that they would plummet into adventure like a runaway train….

When the character named Miss Eliza Pettypants turned up murdered in Berth 19, everyone marveled at how realistic the actors had made it look…until they realized that the unfortunate Miss P. wasn’t acting. Worse, the authorities seemed to suspect…Tom. Good old trustworthy Tom? What Jane would uncover while trying to solve who really killed Miss Eliza Pettypants was more remarkable than any theatrical production. And worst of all, Jane kept arriving back at the same destination like a circling train: Was Tom really a murderer, after all?

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. ~Buddha

Le Bon Voyage

My daughter recently left for her senior trip to Paris. We stood in the black predawn in front of her school while some of the fathers loaded luggage, and I watched her getting ready to go off and have the experiences that I hoped would make priceless deposits into her bank-of-life. Oh, the flashbacks!

When she discovered that her first name is French, we had to check out language books at the library. One year she wanted a computer language course so she could study over summer. To this day we still speak what I call “Pepé le Pew”—a mix of the words and phrases I remember from junior high and high school liberally interspersed with English and made-up words that I’m sure should be French. But over the years she grew to instructing me, gently and politely, and recently I’ve noticed that her Pepé is completely lacking in Pew….

One year it was the Madeline books, the dolls, and the clothing. She painstakingly constructed a replica of the Eiffel Tower out of tongue depressors for a school project, and I found myself going on late-night emergency tongue depressor quests.

Once when she was little she proudly announced, “I know how to French kiss!” I stared at her gap-toothed grin and tried to sound nonchalant. “Oh?” She leaned in and gave me a peck on each cheek. “That’s how French people kiss!” she chirped. How I smiled back at her, bigger and bigger! “Yes,” I said. “It is, isn’t it?”

She is no slacker, working hard as she has at various jobs to earn money for the trip (in addition to paying for things we can’t afford since the divorce), while still putting aside some for her college. For nearly a year now, she’s been getting gifts with a decidedly French theme. She’s slowly accumulated new cameras and passport holders and luggage tags and gadgetry. We’ve been through the paperwork and the checklists again and again.

Now I hugged her close in the dark parking lot. She has become La Tour Eiffel, this thin, strong girl who towers over me, and I now am L’Arc de Triomphe. It might be her bank-of-life, but I was the one who felt rich at that moment. And I kissed her cheeks au revoir, and I sent her off to become her own fine (French!) future self.

“…little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.” ~Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Improper Poll: Gone Furniture Fishin’

I recently had to dig through the sofa cushions to look for a highlighter one of my kids had borrowed. I was shocked. Counting both the sofa and the loveseat, I found: 2 pens, a very smashed dryer sheet (they are evil and they follow me), a small Christmas bow, a piece of ribbon, 1 pink Easter jelly bean, a chocolate-scented colored pencil, a tiny black decorative feather, the remains of a candy wrapper, and (amazingly), the highlighter I was looking for. Guess I should be checking under the cushions more often, but I had no idea that you could hold a scrapbooking party out of the booty obtained…beneath our booties.

So today’s improper poll question is…am I the only one with gross sofas? Or have you ever found anything interesting under your cushions?

Book Blurb Friday #3

Many thanks to Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff for hosting Book Blurb Friday! Each week, she posts a picture of a pretend book cover so that we can write a fictional blurb of 150 words or fewer to go with it.

But first, welcome to new blog followers Tony Benson (who is giving away books in a blog contest), Ellie Garratt, who currently has some great advice for writers, and Dominic de Mattos, who writes science fiction and so much more!

Here’s my #3 at 114 words:

~ Meeting Eddie ~

Stellah Rescher was a pampered debutant living a quintessential life of ease until everything she knew was shaken by the discovery that her biological father is really Eddie Frye, an alcoholic former candidate for the priesthood who is in and out of mental institutions.

Now this veritable stranger needs a life-threatening favor of Stellah, one that she doesn’t know if she can deliver.

In this delightfully gripping exploration into identity, responsibility and growth, the reader is invited to embrace this complex cast of characters as they struggle with the question of what it means to have a rich life. Meeting Eddie is more than a tale. It is a date with the human spirit.

“A very wise friend once told me she believes part of our journey here on earth is to forgive our parents….” ~Becky Povich

Improper Poll: Inner Rumblings

I have a noisy stomach. Okay, it’s not my stomach that’s noisy, but my whole digestive tract. The noise seems to be completely random in nature and is not associated with illness or any other forms of urgency. It’s as if my innards just occasionally decide to throw loud parties which involve lots of celebratory shouting without consulting the landlord, as it were. The medical term for this, which a friend told me and not a doctor, (because I’d be WAY too embarrassed to mention this to a doctor), is borborygmus. Apparently I have borborygmus.

So anyway, once in a small, intimate college classroom during a particularly quiet discussion, my evil borborygmus tenants decided it was a major holiday.

“What is the significance of the peach in that scene?” the professor asked. “Bbbllllorrrgglllorrrglorrgeeewww?” my intestines answered.

Really. What can you do? I couldn’t blame it on someone else. They all knew it was me. If I’d sat there just turning various shades of red to red-purple, that’s just pathetic. I had no choice but to laugh. I also apologized. People smiled and nodded. Ah yes, close to lunch time…but of course we all knew they were really just being kind because it wasn’t my stomach growling, but my intestines. My borborygmus. And it wasn’t so much of a growl as it was a drunken-sounding shriek.

The professor waited politely for the topic of my noisy digestive tract to die down and took another stab at it. “What does the narrator mean by saying….”

“Bbluggglelugglelugglegrrrrorrrrglloorrrg?” my intestines interrupted. This time, everybody else laughed. Except the professor. He didn’t laugh.

Should I have excused myself? I still wonder this. But that just seems like running away, which is exactly what it would have been, and all I could think of was that if I ran away, at some point I would have to show back up. And then I would be the Girl-With-Borborygmus-Who-Also-Ran-Away. Because-of-the-Borborygmus.

So I just sat there and laughed again—while turning various shades of red to red-purple—and mentally stomped on the floor of my intestines to warn them to shut up and stop throwing wild keggers because the rest of us were trying to have a quiet, serious discussion up here. Alas, the intestines paid no attention though the classroom became focused on nothing else. Everyone was eventually engaged only in listening for the next entertaining noise my digestive tract would make. The professor released the class early in disgust.

So I have the enviable distinction of possessing intestines which are able to cancel school. And you’ll be happy to hear that’s not my only bodily function story. So today’s Improper Poll Question is: Do you have a story about bodily functions, either your own or someone else’s?

Book Blurb Friday #2

So far I am really enjoying Lisa Ricard Claro's "Book Blurb Friday!"  This is only #2, but I've begun to look forward to it as my TGIF break after work.  I believe she posts the new ones on Thursday nights, but I don't allow myself to look until Friday, and then I write whatever immediately comes to my head.  I guess a little like a writer's Rorschach...which is literally a scary thought this week.

~The Groveyard~

The large Overton family couldn’t wait to move from the traffic and crime of the city to their peaceful new home in the woods.  But they soon found out that it wasn’t the pastoral escape they’d once believed.  One by one, the pets began to disappear.  Were they really all running away?  And then, when the family decided a tire swing was just perfect for that big apple tree out back, the unthinkable happened….

Where was little Nikky Overton?!

Just when things couldn’t get any worse, a mysterious child began to appear in the swing with a message:

Don’t.  Touch.  The Apple Tree.

(105 words.)

Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who. ~from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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”

Improper Poll: Multiple Pick Jackpot

I dearly love the frank honesty of a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless, but whose birthday is today—HAPPY BIRTHDAY). We were discussing nose piercings, and she commented that she would never want a nose stud because it would impede nose picking. I agreed that would be a hazard. In fact, I’d worry that the inner apparatus would actually trap boogers, thereby necessitating further pickage.

I think I have the wrong look for a nose piercing, anyway. When my daughter was in middle school, one of her friends told me I look like my name should be Carol. I was shocked. No offense to Carols—it’s better than looking like a Tammy, mind you (because of course Tammys wear frosty blue eye shadow and tend to burn down the trailer court when they throw flaming frying pans at their common-law husbands)—but still. A Carol? The horror—she was right. And a nose ring just wouldn’t go on a Carol. If I had even halfway-good abs, though, I’d definitely get a navel piercing.

So today’s Improper Poll question is a multiple, and you get to pick (ha, get it?!) one or more to answer:

Would you get your nose pierced?
If your nose is pierced, is picking difficult for you?
If you had to have one piercing other than the ears, what would you pick and why?

Book Blurb Friday

First...oofdah, what a week! I hope to have time to blog about it later, but for now, please know that I can't wait to get back into blogland and check out all I missed this week.

And now I'm excited to try a new meme begun by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff. Every Thursday evening she'll post a photo of a pretend book cover. In 150 words or less, we are to write a blurb that should go on the back of the book. Then we link from/to her site.

I thought I would play with this too long, but when she posted the photo (below), I wrote up something right away and giggled my way through it. Thanks, Lisa!

~The Deadly Sins~

Envie Prideland was a sixteen-year-old shoplifter who was tired of living in the poor part of town…until she accidentally stole the diary of snooty classmate Sinclair Greedly.

The secret that Envie discovered about Sinclair and her charming surfer boyfriend, Luston Slothby, would not only cause her to rethink her kleptomania and her struggles with poverty, it would leave Envie struggling to save the life of the unfortunate new girl in town, Gluttoni Angership.

This must-have young adult novel…will steal your heart.

(81 words.)

And welcome to new blog follower Ella of Ella's Edge!  I'm so flattered you stopped by and decided to come back!

“I used to be fun, but I had to give all that up. You can’t have two fun parents. You know that kid, Liam, who wears pajama pants to school and pays for things with hundred dollar bills? Two fun parents. Mark my words.” ~Claire in “Modern Family”

Improper Poll: Breakfast of Non-champions

I am sort of known for eating rather unusual things for breakfast. Except during pregnancy, that is, when I actually craved normal breakfast foods at normal breakfast times. So the other day I was sitting at my computer eating Chipotle flavored cashews for breakfast, and it occurred to me that perhaps this might seem odd to a normal person. Am I the only one? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten for breakfast?

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #17

Mellow Dude
I met Mellow Dude at a Valentine party called the Red and Black Party. If you felt optimistic about love, you were supposed to wear red. If not…well, you get it. My sweater was red and black. Mellow Dude drifted along the shore of the sea of red and black sweaters wearing…a blue, beach-style, summer shirt. “Gets hot dancing,” he later told me.

The party was held at a wild casino bar. The music was hard rock and loud. People either went home early or wandered off to gamble. I looked around, and the only person left was Mellow Dude. He didn’t ask me to dance so much as he cocked his head at the dance floor and shrugged. I shrugged back. What the hey.

Hours and hours later, we closed down the place with a reluctant, sweat-soaked farewell to the band. My feet would ache for days, but it was worth it. During the breaks, Mellow had told me a little about himself. Doesn’t drink much. Never danced in his life until he discovered recently that it’s a nice form of exercise. Likes dogs. Is close to his children. Likes reading books on spirituality. He shrugged again. It fascinates him. Go figure. He didn’t talk too much. Asked a few questions—but not so many that it was prying—and listened to the answers.

Hard to pinpoint, this Mellow Dude. Not a hippie. Not an aging surfer. Not really rural. Not urban. But he didn’t seem controlling, needy, dramatic, insecure, patronizing, or immature. On the dance floor, he wasn’t a swooper, a flailer, a showoff-er, a pretend dance instructor, a St. Vitus Dancer, a bowl-people-over-er, a spin-you-like-a-topper, or a cop-a-feeler. Just smiled dreamily and danced. Not a bad thing, this mellowness. In fact, it was a little like relaxing on a beach after you’ve been through a hurricane.

The next day, I got a better look at the sweater I’d been wearing. And I discovered in the light of day that it wasn’t red and black, after all. It was really red and navy.

Improper Poll: Along for the Ride

Since I'm officially tired of "Stuff," I’ve decided to start a new thing called Improper Poll.  Improper Poll is just an informal poll, usually about goofy things that have happened. Each week you will be invited to respond to a new topic with a short story or comment of your own. The only thing truly improper about Improper Poll, however, will be the silliness.

It'll be on Sundays. There won’t be a quote.

So here’s the first one. It comes from an incident that happened to me the other day when I discovered at work that I’d been walking around all day with a dryer sheet bunched up in my sleeve. I’m sorry to say this was not remotely the first time it’s happened, either. In fact, I have had the dryer sheet fall out of my pants leg in front of entire classes of teenagers, an event which I figure probably boosts my coolness quotient about a bagillion points to these young people, who probably can’t wait to be middle-aged themselves because I already make it look so cool.

Anyway. That got me thinking about a friend who once told me she often went all sorts of places after work, including swimming, so she used to keep entire changes of clothing in the trunk of her car. She told me she went to a party after swimming once, and a pair of panties fell out of the leg of her jumpsuit in front of everyone.

So today’s Improper Poll question for you is: Have you ever found something bunched up in your clothing?

Happy Sunday and have a great week!

Love Song: the Next Stanza

I was so deeply touched by what you all said about the Love of My Life!! Some of you thought I should go try to get back in touch with him. He’s married, and obviously to someone with a heck of a lot more sense than I have.

If he ever finds himself single, he’ll contact me. Or, in the words of Princess Buttercup, “My Wesley will come for me.” But I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. And frankly, I’m still plenty happy if it doesn’t.

The day after Valentine’s Day I picked up the book I’m reading, Eat Pray Love. Today’s quote is what I really, truly did read. I just can’t add a thing, except that I was so uplifted by all of your good, warm wishes for my true love and happiness. May your kindness come back to you a hundredfold.

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with your soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. ~Richard from Texas, as quoted by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love

The Love Song

If the soul truly has a mate, he was mine. It was clear from the beginning that he was Yogi to my uncertain consciousness, guide to a restless spirit. He surfaced and resurfaced several times through the years, but always I was about to embark on a new phase. Bad timing, I told myself. Bad, bad timing.

He even wrote me a song, sung in his deep and honeyed voice, a going-away gift. I treasured that song and put it away for safekeeping, but at some point over the years I forgot where it was.

One of the things that summed him up best was his response when a beautiful, renowned boyfriend-stealer threw herself at him right in front of me. That was the first time I took a step back and realized with a small shock that he was physically lovely as well. Virtually every other guy I know would have flirted back at the very least, but he was cool to her and a little disgusted. When she finally backed off and left, I fished. Didn’t he think she was pretty?

He was careful. He hesitated, felt for the right words. He finally said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think she’s pretty on the inside.”

Goodness, how I loved him then, and forever, in a way that didn’t end when I married someone else. I will forever think of him not just as someone I loved, but as one of the people I admire most in the world. And now I admire him even more because I’ve lived enough to realize how rare he really was.

Some people continue to uplift and inspire us, as I said in another post, and some comfort us. He did both. Does both. When I look back, I realize it wasn’t that the timing was wrong. I wasn’t ready. And I can’t regret. Knowing that people like him exist in the world is enough. Having known him at all is enough.

The other day I was looking for some paperwork for a project, and there was the song, just in time for Valentines Day. This time the timing was perfect; it sings to me again after all these years. But then again, love that comes from the soul is timeless.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~Sophocles

Stuff from Around My House: The Love Notes

My daughter went through a stage where she made little love notes for me. I knew that stage wouldn’t last forever, so I saved every one and stuck them up all over my office. One day my (then) teen-aged son asked me why I cherished those weird little scraps of paper so much. I told him those weird little scraps remind me that I am loved, and there is no better gift than that. He told me I should just know that I am loved.

What followed was a lecture on What Women Want that I hope he found at least as instructive as all that biology stuff. And I got one love note from my son. It was hurriedly scrawled on a scrap of paper, but still—to this day, it remains carefully taped to my printer with the others.

 He once asked me when I plan to get rid of my love notes. I said, “Get rid of them?” When they eventually disintegrate, I will laminate them. Yep, I’m a dork. But I am a LOVED dork.

And P.S. Welcome to Val Thevictorian!  Val, do you have a blog?  If so, I couldn't find it.  Thanks for becoming a follower!

Do I only have two pictures total now?!  Arg!  This is so frustrating!

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. ~Kahlil Gibran

A Story of Young Love

He was my first husband.

We married on the church steps. My friend Chris was the minister. He kissed me—on the lips—and everyone giggled, including me. He gave me a ring that turned my finger green. I gave him a lock of my hair.

He was the new kid in a school that rarely got new kids. He was tall and handsome and exotic.

One day his mother came to school. She was statuesque and graceful, like a dancer. She picked him up and he left. I never saw him again.

I grieved. Anger is a part of grief, so I angrily buried the ring in my backyard. He hadn’t even said goodbye. Later, when I had moved on to the acceptance stage, I tried to dig it up again. I couldn’t find it. So I grieved over that, too. Honestly, I sort of still do.

And now, as an adult and a mother, I have to wonder what made his mother leave so quickly. And I grieve now for her...maybe most of all.

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle in their journey.

Thank God and them for the opportunity to walk this leg of their journey with them.~Anonymous

Totally Random Tuesday: Life

Sometimes life is a violin and sometimes a fiddle, and sometimes both at once…but it’s all beautiful music.

Stuff Around My House: Pet Memorial

I had no idea what to write about today since I was going to make sure everything had a love theme until Valentine’s Day. And then, as usual, I was inspired by reading your blog posts.

First, Linda O’Connell  posted about the various dogs she’s loved in life. It reminded me about my Pet Memorial. I got the idea from my mother, who used to have a shelf in her bedroom with little figurines representing all of the dogs she had loved. In many cases, the figurines had been painted to look just like the pets themselves. She even affixed some masking tape to their undersides where she’d lovingly written their names and the dates they’d lived. I think one of the paradoxes of today’s society is that it is getting both more necessary and more difficult to cherish and preserve our pets’ memories. So I thought I’d share the idea.

The tough thing is when you’re a fan of mixed breeds like I am. Our lab mix is represented by an oversized Jack Russell that’s painted black, and our female vizsla mix is captured by an obvious male with the docked tail of a weimaraner. Still, when I look at these little statues, I smile.

You may notice there is even a turtle on the upper shelf. That was a gift from my sister, who understands the value of both the pet turtles and the shelf. How I wish someone made little hamsters! (Yes, I know.  I am a terrible nerd.)

Also wanted to welcome my newest follower, Judie of Rogue Artists. Judie, I've become a follower, but I have ceased to show up in people's Followers area and no one seems to be able to tell me why.  In yet another paradox, her blog, with its desert Southwestern header, somehow reminds me of a watering hole, an oasis of art. Be sure to scroll down to look at the paintings. I loved one of her comments so much that I am quoting her. Judie, I hope that’s okay with you! Also hope my little brackets are okay.  I took out just a couple of words in this instance because I thought this lovely statement applies to our beloved pets as well.

I have been sitting here trying to think about [those] whom I remember warmly, and I think that the one thing they all have in common is "selflessness." They never do the right thing to make themselves look better—they do it for…love…. ~Judie of the blog, Rogue Artists

It Keeps on Giving

In honor of Valentine’s Day month, I was going to write about some of the greatest loves of my life. But a blog post inspired by my long-ago friend Marcus turned into a writing frenzy that’s lasted for days…and what I ended up with is not a blog post, but something that feels necessary and complete and much too dear to my heart to send into the world just now. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but right now I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed being snowed in for the past few days! Okay, except for the shoveling and pushing my daughter’s car out of a snow bank (thanks to the help of a kind stranger), that is....

Why is it that with some people we’re left feeling bleak and drained, and with others, even their memory is forever uplifting and inspiring? And what is it that inspires you?

May you find yourself surrounded by warmth—warm people, warm surroundings, warm memories, warm hearts.

Friendship is a sheltering tree. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge