Sub Notes: The Fire Drill

I’m subbing in a high school that never warns subs about pre-scheduled fire drills. Which is just mean.  So of course this particular school has them all the time.

Fire drills are a nightmare for subs. Imagine being charged with keeping track of 27 people you’ve never met before who are pretty much trying to lose you. And they’re all the same age and look surprisingly alike. And they know the surroundings much better than you do.

When you’re a sub, the problem with fire drills isn’t getting the kids out of the building. It’s keeping track of them while you do, then knowing where to take them. And getting them all back in again, of course.

Subs pretty much have to follow the kids, at least enough to know which are theirs and where they meet up outside. So once I tried following a girl in a red shirt. Later I found out I had managed to pick the only new student in the classroom. She didn’t know where she was going any more than I did, so we both ended up getting lost. If you’re lost, you are considered unaccounted for, and the fire department has to plan to go in after you. It’s all pretend, of course, but the fire department doesn’t enjoy even pretending to go in after you. Which is understandable.

One problem is that when you’re my age, they all look alike. If you decide to follow what looks like a distinctive plaid shirt, for example, when they all come pouring out of classrooms in thundering droves, suddenly there will be at least ten distinctive plaid shirts. And high school kids are big. They block your view.

So one of the last times I tried to follow several students at once. I kept repeating to myself what I was following. I kept repeating dreadlocks, flower-and-skeleton shirt, t-shirt with the word “bong” on it, girl-who-looks-like-the-girl-who-plays-Bella. Lost Bong Shirt immediately. Dreadlocks walked away, but I managed to track him down. Kept Bella Look-Alike in sight, but she was petite, so that made it hard.

In the end, I made it to the right place thanks to Flower-and-Skeleton kid, who was big. Hooray! But it turned out Flower-and-Skeleton had Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. He realized I was following him and took it personally.

He never forgave me for it.

Most people fail in the art of living not because they are inherently bad or so without will that they cannot lead a better life; they fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide. ~Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man; Its Genius for Good and Evil

Improper Poll: Full of Rocks

I have a small hobby that most people never notice—except, ironically, middle school aged boys. It’s ironic because I imagine middle school boys don’t notice much about me at all. But what they invariably notice is that I often wear…rocks. Sometimes it’s been a little game, to see which rocks I have on today and if they can name them.

While many of my friends grew up dreaming of diamonds, I dreamed of jaspers with distinct veining. And now one of my personal indulgences is wearing rocks. That’s why my little avatar wears turquoise (or more likely dyed howlite or aventurine).

Do you have a weird hobby most people don’t know about?

Book Blurb Friday #31

I’m finally back to Book Blurb Friday, a great meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff. The challenge: “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.”

I’m into colons this week, by the way. The punctuation variety, of course. My colon-laden offering this week is 147 words.

~ Option: Survival~

A.D. 2111: The Sentient 350s are classified androids designed for “experimental sport” by a group of scientists. Secret scientist-toys, in other words.

The catch: Sentient 350s are “choice-makers,” programmed to believe that they are human.

The goal: To design a droid who is able to win the game by making the best choices to achieve a life on Edenne, a small island in the Caribbean. Droids that lose are destroyed.

The problem: Daniel has just found out what he is. As if that weren’t bad enough, he can’t let his programmer, Zeus5, know what he knows…which is that each choice he makes—no matter how small—will result in certain preprogrammed outcomes which may lead him to paradise…or death. So Daniel must make every choice very, very carefully.

The paradox: Daniel wouldn’t even choose to live on Edenne.

The bottom line: It’s better than being a dead droid.


I dreamed this one the other night, by the way. It was a pretty creepy nightmare, let me tell you. I was the one who found out that my life had been programmed for sport by some unknown gods. Each choice I made triggered a predetermined outcome that I actually saw on a holographic computer screen because I had a fever and it somehow messed with the program. For example, I’d walk into a room and see a book sitting on a table, and then this would flash on the screen:

Option A: subject thumbs through book...Outcome A: subject gets option to join garden club.

Weird...yet lots of fun to think about.  (Outcome B: subject gets Book Blurb Friday idea.)

“It is not our talents that determine who we are, it’s our choices.” ~J.K. Rowlings (Albus Dumbledor)

Sub Notes: Little Deers

On one classroom wall was a mounted deer head. I surmised by the tiny sticks just emerging from his head that he was young—a teenager deer. He was mounted in such a way that he appeared to be shrugging as if to say, “I’m about to be killed and stuffed, but what can ya do?” Even his eyes looked a little sad and red-rimmed. I named him Marty because he looked like such a martyr.

On the back white board, under Things to Think About for your Science Project, an eighth grade girl had written, “I think about giving head all the time.”

I vaguely wondered about her misplaced modifier. Did she think all the time about giving head, or did she think about this activity becoming her primary occupation?

What bothered me most was the self-esteem of a little girl who finds herself obsessing over how to please others because she thinks it makes her desirable. It made me sad.

I looked at Marty while I erased.

“What can ya do?” he asked.

“…on those occasions when speech was necessary he had a way of compressing large thoughts into small, cryptic packets of language. One evening, just at sunset, he pointed up at an owl circling over the violet-lighted forest to the west.

‘Hey O’Brien,’ he said. ‘There’s Jesus.’” ~Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

Improper Poll: the Future is Now

I recently got to teach George Orwell’s 1984…which I first read around 1984, when everyone was either reading or rereading it. Of course it made me wonder, as such things always do, what the future would be like. What now would be like. Remember The Jetsons? Cartoon or not, how I used to covet that little TV that Elroy wore on his wrist! I used to think that if my kids someday had tiny TVs like that, they would be the Luckiest Kids Ever.

One of my all-time favorite school assignments was in sixth grade. We were supposed to predict what life would be like in the year 2000. I still remember picturing myself with poufy hair and a poufy dress. In reality—go figure—the only poufy thing about me is my stomach.

A lot of kids said we would fly to school on our desks, but considering the condition of the desks in my school—not to mention the recklessness of some of the kids—I figured that would be a scary thing. I remember predicting that people would wear disposable paper clothing and celebrate our birthdays all on the same day so that The Birthday could be made into a Monday holiday.

The closest thing I ever predicted, though, was when I had a dream that earrings and rings would have tiny transistor radios in them.

Have you ever made any predictions about the future that have or haven’t come true?

Sub Notes: Touched

She looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. Her teacher was on maternity leave, and I suspect she hated me simply for being the wrong person. As if that weren’t enough, Erica was a very large child for seventh grade—almost adult looking. But the thing that stood out the most was the fury on her face.

When I gave an assignment, Erica ignored me. When I talked, she talked. I was never able to catch her doing something positive. When I tried to talk to her about it, the hatred burned hotter on her face. I almost felt stung.

One day she came in the room crying softly. She took her usual seat in the back and looked miserable. It was the first time I saw a look on her face that wasn’t hatred. It forced me to realize that even though she was bigger than I was, Erica was still a little girl. I waited until the rest of the class was working, and then I knelt beside her and gave her shoulder lightest of pats. Did she need anything?

She turned to me as if bitten and then shook her head. I withdrew my hand and thought, Oh, crap, I’ve done it now! Has she been abused? Will she hate me even more now? Is that even possible? Will she try to claim I assaulted her?

But the next day, she gave me a different look. I was sure there wasn’t so much hatred. I smiled at her. Her mouth…twitched. It was a start.

In the weeks that followed, she did her first assignment since I’d been there. She colored a map, and she’d done a great job. I slapped that map with the biggest “A” I felt I could get away with and hung it on the bulletin board, front and center.

I moved her seat up front “so I could see that smiling face.” And miraculously, in the weeks that followed, that face did smile, and often. I will always think of Erica as one of the greatest miracles I’ve ever encountered in education.

Who knew the power of one little touch on the back?

Only connect. ~E.M. Forster

Improper Poll: Baby Rodents

Here is an interesting fact I noticed years ago: nearly everyone has at least one story about baby rodents. Here’s an example from my own past. When I was a kid, my friend got a pet mouse. A female...and it turned out she was pregnant. When tiny pink lima beans appeared in the cage, one of the younger sisters decided to take them out to show her mother. She carefully placed them on a pillow and took off up the stairs. It was a huge house with very long stairs…so as you might imagine, the size of that mouse family was reduced considerably by the time she got where she was going.

Another friend found a nest of baby mice holed up in her desk, of all things. Her young son had a friend over at the time, and the friend excitedly asked if he could take those baby mice home. He thought they were the coolest things ever. “Sure!” my friend said. She was mean like that. She got him a nice box and set it up all cozy, then giggled the whole time he carried his prize so carefully home. Then she waited for the phone to ring.

Another friend had a three-legged gerbil named Stumpy. Stumpy’s mother was dumb even by gerbil standards and built her nest in the wheel. So shortly after giving birth, when she decided to run…well, you can guess what happened. Poor Stumpy ended up catapulted on the other end of the cage where he got stuck in something or other and tragically earned his name.

What are your baby rodent stories?

In Loving Memory of Buddy, April 1996-September 14, 2011

Our beloved black lab and terrier mix, Buddy (aged 15 1/2), went into heart failure last night. Today he passed peacefully and at home with the help of the House-call Vet, who even waited for my son to get here from out of town. It was a gentle end to a wonderful, long life. He will be dearly missed.

This was printed in Chicken Soup for the Soul What I Learned from the Dog, © 2009.

Best Dog in the World

by T’Mara Goodsell

Years ago, I owned the very best dog in the world.

I was a child when we got her. She was a graceful brown hound, a foundling who taught me that our pets are not purchased, but ordained.

She romped when I did and knew how to smile in that funny way that only some dogs have. She grew up with me, always there when I needed her. My grown hand still remembers the sleek bump on the top of her head and that gentle divot just past her nose that fit my index finger just perfectly.

She passed away during one of my college vacations. My heart broke then, and I knew that there would never be another dog like her, and there hasn’t been. I was sure that I could never love another dog as much as I’d loved her.

Fortunately, I was wrong about that part.

My next dog came into my life when I was married. My husband traveled for a living, and I was often lonely. This dog grew into a lumbering wolfhound/sheepdog mix who taught me patience. He was a large, grizzled sentry, that dog. He rarely left my side until the children were born, and then he became their guardian, too. I can still feel that swirl of fur along his back and the weight of his chin when it rested in my lap.

When he passed away, my heart broke. As much as I had loved that childhood dog, I had been wrong. This was the very best dog in the world. There would never be another dog like him, and there hasn’t been. I was sure I would never love another dog as much as I’d loved him.

I was wrong again.

We got the next one, a loping black lab-and-terrier mix, when the children were little. He taught me the importance of adapting. He was everyone’s dog from the beginning, and that was just as it should be. When he played tug of war with the children, he dragged them across the kitchen floor as they shrieked with laughter. He always seemed to sleep in the room of the child who needed his company the most.

These days his face is expressively gray, and he spends more time with me since the almost-grown children aren’t around so much. The other day my oldest, home from college, played tug of war. We all laughed—just a little—as the dog was gently pulled across the kitchen floor.

He is, of course, the very best dog in the world. I will never forget that exquisitely soft tuft of fur behind his ears or the tickly feel when he nuzzles. There won’t be another dog like him.

And that’s okay, because we will never be at this point in our lives again.

Sometimes I’ve wondered why two species that get along so well should have such different life spans. It just doesn’t seem right. And then I wonder if that’s part of the lesson: To teach us that love itself has a spirit that returns again and again and never really dies.

It’s amazing, in a way, how they bring to our ever-changing lives exactly what it is that we need at the moment. They make room for one another, this family of dogs who has never even met. And they fit—into our families, into our lives, into our memories, and into our hearts—because they always have been and always will be the best dogs in the world.

One’s first love is always perfect until one meets one’s second love. ~Elizabeth Aston

Improper Poll: Nasty Mom Food

Sioux over at Sioux’s page has some entertaining reflections on bread worth checking out. She reminded me about Friendship Bread. Remember that? You had to “feed” it and keep it warm, and it was supposed to bubble and grow before you cooked it. That was way too Little Shop of Horrors for me. I like my food to be a little more subdued. 

Coincidentally, I had just been thinking about my own family’s history with food. My grandmother was a perfectly lovely person and a wonderful cook. But every now and then, she would eat…are you ready?...pickled pigs feet. I know this because I once opened her refrigerator and discovered a jar that belonged in the back of a science room. The ones where intact animal parts float suspended in murky liquid. In her refrigerator. I literally screamed and ran.

My mother’s nasty mom-food was sardines. She would hide them and cover them up, but still—you knew they were lying in wait side by side in their little can.

And then the other day I bought…I’m embarrassed to admit this…Vienna Sausages. My grandmother used to give them to me when I was little, so I bought them for old time’s sake, but it struck me as I was sneaking them that they are, in fact, my version of nasty mom-food. After all, who knows what they really are, not to mention what that gelatinous substance surrounding them is? And any meat that has to hide in a jar or a can is just afraid it won’t really qualify as meat.

So 'fess up.  Or am I the only one who eats disgusting food?

Book Blurb Friday #28

Hooray for Book Blurb Friday! In this fun meme from Writing in the Buff, Lisa Ricard Claro invites us to come up with a blurb of 150 words or fewer for a pretend book jacket that makes potential readers feel compelled to purchase. Mine this week is 108 words.

~Dumped~

Marlie was about to be dumped by her dumpy husband of 14 years—by way of a dumpster. Fortunately for her, she had a few modest talents in this world. One of them was a recurring dream that had warned her...and showed her what to do. The other was that luck was on her side. There was a little twist to the hit man her husband had hired to kill her.

He was a friend, and he was there to warn her. Together, they used the dumpster to concoct a plan that would help both of them…while making sure that Marlie’s husband’s dumping days were over. Forever.

“Throughout the history of mankind there have

been murderers and tyrants; and while it may

seem momentarily that they have the upper

hand, they have always fallen.”

~Mahatma Gandhi

Sub Notes: Rynallison

The following took place at some point across the country between 1982 and the present. All names have been changed.


The two of them were a pair all through middle school. They were Samneric. Bert and Ernie. Mutt and Jeff. They were Ryan and Allison. Rynallison.

Yet they couldn’t have looked like a less likely pair. Ryan was big and ruddy and handsome, with thick hair and perfect teeth and a huge smile. Allison was tiny and pale and quirky, like a cartoon come to life. She had glasses that were too big for her face and tiny ears that stuck straight out like rudders that were trying too hard to halt her forward motion.

They’d met in first grade, Allison once told me, and had been close friends ever since. They always sat together when it was allowed, and they laughed, the two of them, always. At everything. When Ryan left the room, she deflated somehow and looked frail. But with Ryan there, she came alive in a shimmer of bubbles. And when Allison left the room, Ryan lost a certain glow. I would have to reprimand them sometimes, but deep down I couldn’t help but marvel over the strength of that human bond.

Then one year I saw Allison, in high school now, sitting primly and quietly. She was bigger, and her glasses fit her face better, but there was something wrong. And then I realized what it was: she was missing her Ryan. Where was he? I asked. Different high school, she said. It came out in a whisper, almost.

And broke my heart.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Improper Poll: The Shirt of Worms

While moving my daughter into college, the subject of theft came up. And this reminded me of my all-time favorite article of clothing, ever, which was unfortunately stolen at college along with some others. My Favorite Article of Clothing of All Time was a souvenir tee shirt from Worms, Nebraska.

Yes, there is such a place, though I’m sorry to say I have never actually had the pleasure of visiting there. I admired a friend’s shirt so much that she gave me one as a gift. Her father was a farmer who used to drive to Worms for some reason. At the time, I believe she told me that the population of Worms was somewhere around 25 people. There was a church and a bar. The bar was appropriately called “Night Crawlers.”

What is your All-Time Favorite Article of Clothing?

Book Blurb Friday #27

It’s time again for Book Blurb Friday from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff! This fun meme invites readers to come up with a book jacket blurb of 150 words or fewer that makes potential readers feel compelled to buy the book. I struggled this week but managed to come up with around 114 words. Be sure to check out the others here!

~Waiting~

The well-known talk show host and former stand-up comic, Jack Blattstone, told one too many jokes. He officially insulted al-Qaida members who called for his assassination.

What people didn’t hear about was the families of Jack’s wait staff—and also his limousine driver and private pilot. What would their families go through just because they were associated with Jack Blattstone?

Would it matter that the pilot’s wife—whose landscape firm Jack had hired to redesign the courtyard in his California house—was Jewish?

Just as everyone was beginning to relax, a note was left on board Jack’s Gulfstream and another just outside the house. And that was when the real fear began.

I guess you want to fly the plane? Well good luck pressing “Take Off,” then “Autopilot,” then “Land.” ~Carol on 30 Rock

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #20

Joe Cool
Joe is cool. He’s so cool, in fact, that all he has to do is say what his job is. Then he leans back and awaits the praise. I.T. Joe is IT.

I ask him about his job. I’m not intending to pry; it’s just all I have to go on, and Joe and I are sort of isolated on one end of a table with no one else to talk to. Joe’s response is to give me a “look” to tell me how stupid I am. Joe’s job is so cool, I should know all about it.

A woman sits down next to us and Joe is too cool for her, too. So we talk to each other. She is a child psychologist and very nice. But when she goes to the bathroom, I sneak a look at Joe’s face because there just isn’t much else to do. Joe has a goatee that doesn’t go. It might go on some people, but it gives Joe the look of an aging evil genie. Joe’s goatee makes me wonder if the word “goatee” has something to do with goats. To me Joe’s cool goatee looks a little like pube art sprouting on his evil genie face.

Joe is popular. He’s so popular, in fact, that he texts his friends at the table during the middle of dinner. Don’t you have a phone, Cool Joe asks?

I have to stifle a giggle while addressing Joe’s facial pubes. “I yell at my children when they do that,” I say, indicating the texting at the table. He rolls his eyes to show how very uncool I am.

I yell at my children when they do that, too.

Improper Poll: Flashes of Non-Brilliance

In honor of college starting, I can’t help but think of the time I walked clear across a college campus with my blouse unbuttoned. As in, seriously unbuttoned. I don’t know which is worse—the fact that I didn’t detect the breeze, or the fact that my flashing attracted so little attention that I didn’t notice until I got home.

Have you experienced any wardrobe malofunctions?

Book Blurb Friday #26

I’m late this week for Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff. This fun challenge invites readers to come up with a book jacket blurb of 150 words or fewer that makes potential readers feel compelled to buy the book.

I struggled with this week’s, so I apologize in advance. But at least, with 129 words, I’m under the word limit!

~Dallas, But Not That One~

By Wanda Goodjob

Come listen to a story ‘bout a man named Dallas
A rich businessman, kept his family in a palace
Then one day he was enjoying autonomy
Then-boom!-he lost his job in a depressed economy!

Downsized, that is. Sacked. Pink slipped.

Well first thing you know old Dallas was so poor
Mortgage company said, “Dallas move away from there”
They said, “tarpaper shack is where you ought to be”
So they loaded up the U-Haul and moved to Valley.

City, that is. North Dakota. Low unemployment rates.

Well now it’s time to say goodbye to Dallas and all his family
‘Cause they’ll soon freeze their butts off in the northern territory
Y’all are invited back, but please leave your car
And don’t forget to drop some money in the jar!



After you've checked out the clever book blurbs, be sure to stop by Donna's Book Pub to enter her Cactus Country Anthology giveaway!

And welcome to Beth Wood of I Digress!   

If you show enough houses, you learn all the tricks. Every realtor is just a ninja with a blazer. The average burglar breaks in and leaves clues all over the place, but not me. I’m completely clueless. ~Phil Dunphy, Modern Family

Being True

I am driving to the college, my car packed so full that we had to make portholes between pillows and piles of clothing. I amuse myself by wondering with what profound words I can leave this child. It seems necessary somehow to have an important parting sentiment.

I think about Polonius’ famous parting words to his son Laertes, “This above all: to thine own self be true/And it must follow, as the night the day/Thou canst not then be false to any man." And I think about what I’ve tried to get across to my children their whole lives: Respect yourself and others. Seek balance. Play fair. Look at the big picture. Make good choices. “Make good choices” became a joke among us. A half-joke. We were kidding but we meant it.

You’d think with all of the goodbyes I’ve said in my life, I would be better at it. Most of my married life, we moved a lot. Every time I had built a life that I loved and lived in a house that represented all I had built, we moved. And every time we’d drive away from a place that one last time, I would mean to turn around and look back so that I could store that memory in my brain like a photograph that I would take out and reminisce over. At least that was the plan. But what happened every time was that I was always too busy to look back.

Which was okay. Sometimes it’s better to look ahead.

In the end, we hug somewhat awkwardly, and I say something that is not remotely profound. The words of wisdom I blurt out are, “Have fun.” Like I say, I am bad at goodbyes. Have fun? What kind of lame thing is that to say to your teenager? Do I really want that?

Well, yes, yes I do. Of course I do. Not the kind that hurts anyone, of course, but I do want my children to have fun, happy lives. Are my parting words really that bad? Who knows. These are responsible people who do, by the grace of God, make good choices. Now is not the time to teach them anything I’ve never taught before. So I drive away, thinking of the tall, wonderful, surprisingly self-possessed young person I’ve marveled over lately, and while I am smiling over that, I forget to look back.

And I realize as I am driving away that I’ve just left a person whose job it is to find their own wisdom. Which is, of course, what it’s all about, anyway.

Navajo proverb: “We raise our children to leave us.”

Improper Poll: Blog Award Time!

Jules at Just Trying to Get Over the Rainbow gave me a lovely award Friday! Thanks so much, Jules! Problem is, I can't get the actual award to post.  Nonetheless, the answers Jules gave were hysterically funny. Here are my answers. They are also your Improper Poll questions should you decide to accept them, so pay attention to the questions!

Are you a rutabaga?
I don’t know what this means, but yesterday I drove out of town, so I’ll say I feel more like a Winnebaga. And I lovelovelove summer festival time.


Who is your current crush?
I have one! I do! A real live person this time! That’s all I’m sayin’. ;)


A picture that makes you smile.

Pretty much anything on Awkward Family Photos.  The pictures—along with the titles and captions—never fail to make me giggle uncontrollably.

Oh, and also this. It’s all over the Internet, but for good reason. Who can resist a bowl of kitties? Especially a wash bowl? Add those expressions…. It doesn’t matter how often I see this picture. I melt every time.


When was the last time you ate a vine-ripened tomato?
Today, thanks to my friend John who gave me two big bags of them, along with two big bags of peppers from his garden. And they are incredible!  I didn’t grow them this year and have regretted it every day of tomato season.

Name a habit that causes other people to plot your demise.
Here is but one. I sneeze about ten times in a row after I eat. It makes some people very uncomfortable. Me too. Though once when it happened at lunch with a friend, I was apologizing in between sneezes. She merely shrugged and gave me this sage look she has and murmured, “gustatory rhinitis.” I looked it up when I got home and as usual, she was right.


What is the weirdest most disgusting job you have ever had to do?
I did product demonstrations in college. When it was food and I was in a grocery store, I had to wash up in the meat department. Butchers have to be the lustiest group of men on earth, giving new meaning to the term, “meat market.” They could be counted upon to ask for my phone number, probably because, in contrast to everything else in their workspace, I was female and human and alive. The back of a meat department is enough to make you a vegetarian—which I un-coincidentally was at that point in my life—and has to be one of the most un-romantic places in the world. So I was standing there shivering in the cold and struggling not to dry heave while surrounded by the stench of raw, dead animal flesh and little globs of fat and pools of blood getting on my shoes, and some old guy in a bloody apron surrounded by cleavers would be coming onto me. Trust me, it was disgusting.

Where da muffin top at?
Forgive me for boasting, but I bet I could produce a muffin top around any cinched body part. Case in point.


Describe yourself using obscure Latin terms.
Besides Gustatory Rhinitis, which sounds Latin to me, Vetulus Pectoris, Ploutizo Pneuma. According to something I read, it means “poor souls, enriched spirit.” I heard it in reference to artistic types. In case that’s not obscure enough, I speak gardening Latin such as clematis triternata rubromarginata.

I never know how people feel about awards, so I officially pass this one to anyone who wants it. You have been polled! Thank you again to Jules!

Book Blurb Friday #25

Time for Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff. This fun challenge offers a picture for inspiration. Our job is to write a book jacket blurb of 150 words or fewer that makes potential readers feel compelled to buy the book.  This week I came up with 126 words.

~Grand Land~

Decker “Deckhead” Worthingless was a spoiled trust fund baby who decided that the best way to get his parents’ attention was to ignore them. Going home for Christmas vacation with his Princeton roommate, the brilliant and eccentric Larry Squirell from Grand Island, Nebraska, seemed just the thing.

Despite the name, Grand Island is neither grand…nor an island. Yet Larry affectionately referred to his small, prairie-grass-roots home town as “Grand ’Land.” What Decker found in Nebraska surrounded by the Squirell clan—Helen, Chuck, Grandpa Winslow, and Larry’s quirky sister Evelyn—was indeed something grand that would change more lives than just Decker’s…especially when Decker made a mistake that no trust fund could buy off.

Fortunately for everyone, what happens in Grand Land doesn’t stay in Grand Land.

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. ~John Powell

Timeless

When I was very, very small, my grandfather would hold up his watch. Hear it? He’d say. Hear the tick tick tick?

He was born on this day in 1889. And when my own son was born in 1989, I was proud to hold up that same watch that I’d wound for just that purpose.

My grandfather had several gifts to give: the wisdom to know what to pass along, the inclination to pass it, and the talent to do it well. He was a former teacher who knew that life is a lesson and a game, both, and he possessed the divine sense to give these gifts to any child who would take them. He died when I was too young yet to thank him, so I try hard to pass along what I remember and hope it is thanks enough.

Now I look at my son who is studying to be a teacher. Born 100 years after his great grandfather. Learning to be a real man in his own right, nurtured by teachers, coaches, his girlfriend’s father who is both. Hear the watch, my son?

I believe he did. He heard.

And only now do I know. That tick tick tick was the sound of immortality.

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of. ~Peter Ustinov

Improper Poll: (Don’t) Give Me a Hand

I recently read an article on weird dreams and what they mean. Nowadays I tend to have nightmares about things like my air conditioning going out. Which did, in fact, come true. And yes, it was a nightmare!

But it got me thinking about my Weirdest Dream Ever. It was a toss-up between several, but this is the most recent. I dreamed I’d moved to Boulder, Colorado and wanted to have a party to meet people. My neighbor suggested that if I wanted to be really cool, I should serve as an hors d’oeuvre the latest delicacy: human body parts. I thought that was gross, but I also happen to think some kinds of sushi are gross, so I called the contact she gave me. He told me he had a nice shipment of hands coming in. I asked him how one prepares human body parts, and he told me it would come precooked and everything. Hooray for convenience food!

Fast-forward to party day. I went to pick up my hors d’oeuvre. The Body Part Guy proudly pronounced my prize “a real nice one” and pulled back a piece of foil, and there, on a plate, was a slightly roasted man’s hand. To this day I can’t type this without shuddering. It was a decapitated hand with fingernails and little hairs and everything, and I was so horrified that I awoke with a gasp and couldn’t get that picture out of my head.

I eventually realized the dream was meant to be what it was: a hefty little wake-up shove from my subconscious mind…in this case about some parenting issues. It’s easy to get lazy as a single parent. Parenting is hard work even when there are two of you. With one, you really are forced to work twice as hard to do a good job, yet there’s no one to back you up. And the great paradox of single parenting: if you make a mistake, it’s your fault for trying.

What I realized was that I was allowing my teenaged son to do something only because some other parents I knew allowed it, but that didn’t make it right. (I can’t remember now what it was. Nothing major, but child-rearing is never a truly minor thing, is it?) That dream was the equivalent of my subconscious mind asking me if I would jump off a cliff just because some other parents were doing it. And would I serve human body parts as food if that were the latest craze, too?

I tell you, single parenting…bites. Because you could always use an extra…hand. Ack! Do you have a really weird dream you’d be willing to share?

Book Blurb Friday #24

Have you ever had a week that simultaneously dragged and flew? That describes my week and my body, come to think of it. I’ve felt like a really fast zombie. School started like gangbusters, and no one seemed prepared…including my immune system.  I promptly caught a cold. Plus months ago my daughter and I decided her graduation party would be more of a bon voyage party right before she and her friends set sail on the winds of their various futures. Which turned out to be this weekend.

So…am sorry I’m so behind on your blogs this week, but I hope to get caught up now that I’m almost over the hump. Till then, thank heavens for caffeine and Book Blurb Friday, a meme in which our delightful host, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, posts a picture of a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer to sell the book. Mine is a petite 80 words. 

~Embracing Nice~

Carolyn Sweeting was nice. And nice, of course, is practically synonymous with nerdy. Nice is the oatmeal, the mouse brown, the canvas tennis shoes of virtues.

But Carolyn’s not-so-nice husband gave her the only real gift of their lives together: the realization of what it was she valued most in this world. So when the children moved out, she divorced him and left behind her former soccer mom life in order to move to…where else? Nice. Nice, France.

It was only when Carolyn embraced nice that she found sometimes…nice can be a lot more exciting than anyone ever seems to think possible.

“Just like your mother, you’re unfailingly kind—a trait people never fail to undervalue, I’m afraid.” ~Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Improper Poll: Haggaday

They say it as I’m leaving Costco: “Haggaday!” Bank tellers say it, too. “Haggaday!” I just heard it again as I was leaving the grocery store: “Haggaday!”

I’m not making fun of them; the words are bound to slur together when people utter the same sentence hundreds of times a day. The thing that makes me giggle is the logo that always pops into my head:

Do you ever hear a silly pronunciation?

Book Blurb Friday #23.

Time for Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff.   We are challenged to use the picture for inspiration to write a book jacket blurb of 150 words or fewer that makes potential readers feel compelled to buy the book.  Mine this week was 77 words.

~Rain, Rain Go Away~

By Rob R. Duckie

Terrorism.
We feared it would rain down on us as bombs.
We feared it would rain down on us as plagues.
We feared it would rain down on us in the form of poisonous gasses.
We even feared it would rain down as poisoned food and water supplies.
What no one foresaw was that it would rain down on us…as rain.

Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day
Or we’ll all die in a horrible way….

(This is kind of ironic since we are currently getting the first significant rain we’ve had in ages. I actually danced a little jig of hooray-I-don’t-have-to-haul-the-hose-out happiness. A real-life rain dance!)

“Why?” ~Purported last word of Rebecca Schaeffer right after a stranger ambushed and shot her

Senior Sex(less) and the City: More Single Women!

Chatty Cathy
I got stuck next to her during a single’s event where very few people showed up. Thing I learned : don‘t ever, ever sit on the end at a single’s event where you know no one, because on the end, you might only have one person seated next to you, and then you’re trapped.

“…cousin, who’s friend is a professional hairdresser….”
“…next house had only two bedrooms….”
“…was a drunk, and so was his brother….”
“…vet. So I picked up Fluffy….”
“…go, ‘No way!’ And she goes, ‘yuh huh,’ and….”
“…Wicked Witch of the West! No kidding…."

I kept zoning out and coming to, wondering things like how she breathed and so forth, so that I just heard fragments. It didn’t matter, because there wasn’t enough of a pause to allow me to respond, anyway:

“…shift starts at 9:00, but I always….”
“…from cirrhosis of the liver….”
“…houses down? Or was it three….? Anyway, he goes….”
“…barked. It was the cutest thing! So….”

I finally got “sick” and had to leave. She probably still hasn’t noticed.

From Modern Family:

Phil [about their son, Luke]: He’s one of those kids you get him a gift and all he wants to do is play with the box.

Claire: One year we just got him a box, a really nice box.

Phil: And we made the mistake of putting it in a gift bag.

Claire: So he played with the gift bag.

Phil: We can’t get it right.

Improper Poll: When Memory Serves

Along the lines of “when I am old, I shall wear purple,” I’ve decided that I shall buy mismatched plates to use according to my mood. And in an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, I recently ran across a china pattern that my late grandmother had. On sale.  I took it as a sign.

I bought two place settings. Every time I see them, I get a little giggly thrill because I’m instantly transported to my grandmother’s house. The emptier those plates are, the fuller I feel.

Her birthday would have been this week. Or would you say, “is” this week, since the day still exists even though she doesn’t? Go figure—that wasn’t even my question, though I would love to hear how you’d phrase that.  Also, for me the photo is creating the optical illusion that the center part protrudes rather than recedes.  Is it just me?

Anyhoo.  My question is: Do you have something that reminds you of a loved one and just makes you feel good inside?

Book Blurb Friday #22

It’s Book Blurb Friday! This fun meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff challenges us to take each week’s picture and use it as a prompt for a book jacket blurb of 150 words or fewer that makes potential readers feel compelled to buy the book. Mine this week has 147 words.

~Listening Lydia~

“And these voices,” said Dr. Sullivan, “do they tell you to do anything?”

“Even weirder,” said Lydia, twisting her tiny white hands together, the bones looking oddly like bird wings. “It’s all nonsense. Like scraps of conversations here and there. Things like, ‘guess that’s what you call a coop de grass.’”

Marcy Sullivan’s head snapped up. “What did you say? Don’t you mean ‘coup de grâce’?”

Lydia’s hands kept twisting. “No, that’s what I mean. It doesn’t even make sense. The voices in my head are as crazy as I am.”

Marcy looked down at her own hands this time. What was it her brother had said at dinner last night? That their mother had finally decided to have the henhouse torn down and planted with sod. “Guess that’s what you call a coop de grass,” he’d joked.

Were the voices in Marcy’s schizophrenic patient’s mind…Marcy’s voices?

All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation. ~Stephen King, On Writing

When Last We Meet

 My children have been involved in the neighborhood swim team since they were practically toddlers. The wonderful coaches taught them to swim. Amazing to me that I have now watched them grow up to be lifeguards and coaches themselves.

Monday night was our last regular meet. As in, last ever. Of course I’ll miss it. I’ll miss the way the pool goes from blue to fluorescent turquoise at night and the way splashes briefly explode against the evening lights like liquid fireworks. I’ll miss the lazy background lull of cicadas and the smell of chlorine and the spidery brown children with bleached hair. I’ll miss the familiar chant of the starter, “Timers clear your watches. Swimmers take your mark. Go.”

Now that we’ve come full circle, I can’t help but notice how our worlds kept widening like ripples from a water droplet in a pool. When my children were little, I cheered for them. Then I learned to cheer for the ones on our team. Lately I’ve found myself cheering for all of them—especially the ones who need cheering the most. At some point I stopped noticing who was on what team.

Lo and behold, all those years I was growing up, too. And now I have the real prize—I learned in the end what winning really is.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.~Epictetus

Improper Poll: Petty Potty Peeves

The commercial said to talk about what we really want in toilet paper. What I want most is the good old days when toilet paper came in a roll that fit on the spool. I bought it and it performed its intended duties.

It’s the deception that bothers me. When my pleasantly-plump toilet paper went on a diet and started coming out of the plastic looking as lean and wiry as if it had been running the Boston marathon, it bothered me that paper companies tried to pretend it had always looked like that. My toilet paper formerly-known-as-normal then became known as the “Double” or "Mega" roll.

Quite often the packaging hides the size of the roll. Remember the old commercial about squeezing? I’ve become such a squeezer that I really do worry that passers-by will think I have a creepy need to feel up toilet paper. Squeezing taught me that some sneaky companies were simply rolling them loosely. They looked like a double roll, but it was all an elaborate toilet paper ruse.

The thing is, I fight enough with my family about changing the roll. I don’t want something that’s half gone before it ever gets going and has to be changed twice as often.

So after careful squeezing, this is what I bought the other day (above, right). When I took it out of the opaque packaging, it was clear that although the girth of the roll was plenty plus-sized by today’s standards, the spool was a full ¼ inch shorter than it used to be. They’ve come up with new ways to shrink my toilet paper! And now I'll have to grope it in multiple directions before buying.

Note to toilet paper companies: I don’t want perfumes, cosmetics, or lotions. I don’t care about how the plies are knitted together. I don’t need little designs. I don’t consider strength to be an issue. I don’t particularly enjoy going…anywhere that involves toilet paper. I just want my stupid toilet paper roll to fit on the stupid roller and not have to be changed everyday. And I don’t want you to pretend there hasn’t been shrinkage.

Crapiche?

Do you have a pet peeve about household products?

Book Blurb Friday #21

It’s Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Lisa Ricard Claro’s Writing in the Buff in which 150 words or fewer must sell a fictional book. I found this week’s picture compelling from so many standpoints that any accompanying plot just had to feel meaningful. The gentle hints of conflicting emotion playing on that tear-streaked face make the statue as enigmatic to me as the Mona Lisa herself. Lisa once made the comment that “some weeks the plot resonates more than others.” This is one I really would like to write, so thank you to Lisa and to Sioux for the inspiring photo!

~Fall from Grace~

At the intersection of love, mystery, fantasy and legend, there is Grace….

Distraught over dealing with his mentally ill mother, Jayde Calvert took a trek with his buddies to Our Lady of Sorrows Cemetery one night in drunken pursuit of "The Gray Girl”—a statue legendary among high school students. It was said that to climb up and kiss the tear-streaked statue of The Gray Girl meant that the stone’s suitor would be issued one wish. But as Jayde wished for emotional peace, he fell and struck his head, leaving him in a coma.

What took place inside Jayde’s suspended mind was a fantastical journey that is not to be missed, a soul-embracing tryst with the amazing, flesh-and-blood Gray Girl, Grace Lamp, that would forever change more lives that just Jayde’s…whether or not he ever awoke.

Don’t miss Book II, Amazing Grace, and Book III, Saving Grace.
(147 words)

In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own. ~Steven Kloves (screenplay), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004, spoken by Albus Dumbledore

Improper Poll: Father May I Have More Characters

Last Friday, Lisa Ricard Claro made a comment about my character who avoided marriage because her father had told her that men were evil. Where I grew up there really was a little retired schoolteacher in my neighborhood I’ll call Miss Amelia Plimpton (name has been changed, but not much). Miss Plimpton lived in a huge, historic home all by herself and had never married due to her father’s dire warnings about men.

The irony wasn’t lost on children, even.

I know about her reasoning because my mom was into taking “poor old souls” under her wing. Apparently there was a long list of things that “Father” found dangerous, but another memorable one was left-hand turns. My mother tried taking Miss Plimpton to the doctor, but driving trips had to be plotted at length and executed with enormous care in order to avoid the dreaded left-hand turns. It’s an understatement to say that when my mom returned from outings with Miss Plimpton, she looked rattled.

At times like that that, my dad brought on the Miss Plimpton impression. “Oh horrors, Father always said that toilets were dangerous because you might slip and fall in, so I use coffee cans, but only the slow roast, because Father didn’t like instant….” And my mom would do that thing where she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scold, so she did both: “Oh hush!”

Miss Plimpton was far from the only unusual person in that neighborhood. Maybe it’s because I grew up with so many, but once I reached a certain age, I started attracting characters. And that’s okay with me.

If I got on a city bus and there were two seats left, one next to a businessman immersed in his laptop and one next to a woman wearing a garbage bag over her clothes and an aluminum foil hat, more often than not I would choose the foil-hat-lady as long as she looked harmless and I didn’t have anything pressing I needed to do during the ride. I told that to a friend once, and she clearly thought I was very strange. But what an opportunity!

Did you grow up with weird characters? And do you think they helped shape you as a writer? Which one would you sit next to on the bus?

Book Blurb Friday #20

Welcome to Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Writing in the Buff. Each week, Lisa Ricard Claro posts a picture of a fictional book cover, and the challenge is to come up with an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer. I counted120 words this week.

~At the End of the Rainbow Bridge~

Father had warned Dorothea Cumberton about the evils of men, so Dorothea, ever the good daughter, never married. Yet she was devastated when she lost her beloved Irish terrier, Leprechaun. When she tried to retreat to her bed to forget, she was plagued by dreams of meeting Chaun at the foot of a bridge—and always at the end of his leash was The Man with the Kind Face. Was Dorothea’s dear dog trying to give her one last gift from beyond?

Dorothea would find out when she went to have Chaun’s headstone carved and met Pat O’Gold. But Pat, it seemed, had a mystery in his past. Was Father right? Was he evil in spite of his kind face?

A good friend is a connection to life—a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

New Leash on Life

A while back, I mentioned that our 15-year old dog had a large, benign eye growth that the vet said couldn’t be removed because a general anesthetic was too risky. It grew to be so enormous, it looked like he was missing an eye. He was pawing and rubbing at it constantly, not just because it was obstructing his vision, but because it was irritating the eye itself. He’d even occasionally rub parts of it off, which would buy him a few days of semi-relief. It also meant he bled all over his eye, us, and the house. I can’t imagine the constant discomfort he must've had.

It just happened that I found another vet who thought he could sedate Buddy enough to cauterize the growth with a local anesthetic, but on the day of the procedure, I got a call. After taking a better look, the vet realized that the thing was rooted in too massively for cauterization. It would have to be cut out under the riskier general anesthetic.

Fortunately this vet and his associate have both worked at emergency clinics. He assured me they were “pretty good with” anesthetics. Buddy not only made it through the surgery, but he did so well that the vet gave him a partial tooth cleaning (free of charge) and a good nail clipping. If only he’d given our rather dandruffy dog a bath….



One day after eye surgery

 That was one week ago. It was clear almost immediately that Buddy was much happier, even with his eye shaved, swollen and stitched together. Now the swelling is almost gone, and Buddy plays with toys and wags his tail again. He pranced yesterday. Pranced!


Six days after eye surgery

Many, many thanks to Dr. Brad Waltman for improving our dear Budster’s quality of life. And as always, thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Friends are God’s way of taking care of us. ~ Anonymous

Improper Poll: When Bugs Attack

Last week's responses reminded me of the many bug encounters I’ve had throughout my life. One of them was when I was a teenager and a cicada flew into my hair while I was sitting around a campfire in the woods. My so-called friends did not rescue me, but instead ran away, pointing to my head with horrified faces. If hair came with an eject button, I would have detached the whole river-soaked business off my head and started over with a fresh, cicada-free batch right then and there.

But the most frightening was when I lived in Richmond Hill, Georgia, outside of Savannah, and was laying sod. I’d pick up a slab and slap it against my torso and walk it to where it needed to be. One of those times I dropped the sod, a furious mass of fire ants was left. On my chest. Like a bib you might wear for eating lobster, but picture the lobsters eating you instead, hundreds and hundreds of them, in miniature perhaps, but vicious and venomous and really really angry that you just moved their house, and with no rubber bands on their little pincer claws.

I had never encountered fire ants till I moved down South. But when I did, I was shocked that Southerners matter-of-factly train their children to avoid “fahr ant” nests and then go about their business as if it’s normal to have these subjects of a sensationalistic National Geographic special living all around you.

Fire ants masquerade as normal ants, but they have a bite that stings like fire, furious dispositions, and a talent for working with their brethren until they are one oozing mass of killer destruction. I admit that even as an adult, I couldn’t resist the temptation to poke sticks at fire ant hills just to watch them come boiling up out of the bowels of hell like a mini-volcano spewing a molten mass of teaming ant-fury. If the children were bored, sometimes we’d go on fire ant expeditions in the backyard. I know it was a horrible thing to teach my children, but those creatures never ceased to fascinate me.

Which is perhaps why I was always blundering into their nests.

During the Sod Incident, they were moving en masse up my shirt, mere inches from engulfing my face like the victim in a bad horror flick. As if in a nightmare, I remember trying to scream and nothing came out but a strangled little sound. “Urk.” Which is probably a good thing, because I didn’t need to attract attention disrobing there in my front yard. I was also flailing and running faster than I’ve ever run in my life. Once in my garage, I flung my tee-shirt as far as it would go and did a heebie-jeebie dance that lasted not only through a hot shower, but through the better part of an hour, and then returned periodically throughout the day…and ever since, as a matter of fact. I am in fact heebie-jeebieing right now.

Because although that was about ten years ago, to this day I panic a tiny bit when I see an ant, even the benign Northern kind. You never know if they’ve mutated….

Have you ever been attacked by bugs?

Book Blurb Friday #19

Welcome to Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Writing in the Buff. Each week, Lisa Ricard Claro posts a picture of a fictional book cover. The challenge is to come up with an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer. This week I counted141 words.

~Dead Lines~

Jonathan and Emma congratulated themselves. In spite of being young newlyweds, they were smart enough to be able to buy Seabaugh Farm, a place they never could have afforded if it weren’t supposedly haunted by Audrey Seabaugh, the town’s legend who had murdered her sister’s fiancé in a fit of jealousy and then killed herself.

But after Jonathan set up an office in the barn as a place to work on his novel in his spare time, the letters began appearing in the old typewriter he found in the loft. “My Dearest Johnny Boy….” It had to be a joke, of course, but the letters were so juicy and enticing that Jonathan played along. Did his wife really have such a raunchy side?

But it became clear that the letter-writer not only wasn’t Emma, it was someone who wanted her dead….

The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is not a lack of talent. It’s the lack of a deadline. ~No Plot? No Problem, by Chris Baty

Ten Things: Yet MORE Good Things About Getting Old!

21. We can get away with more stuff. Old people are stereotypically so harmless that no one suspects us of anything. I think it’s because we sometimes don’t have the energy to be really awful. Or maybe because we look too much like someone’s mom.

22. I feel so empowered because no one yells at me anymore. They’re all younger than I am and are a little scared of me.

23. At school, I can leave my coat out and no teenager will steal it because it has cooties of sorts. Though a male teacher did walk off with it once thinking it was his.

24. Young people—even girls—hold doors for me.

25. It’s harder to see those chin hairs with my eyesight going.

26. It’s harder to see the backs of my legs due to my increasing decrepitude.

27. I don’t mind writing entire blog posts about my intestines.

28. My friends apparently don’t mind reading posts about my intestines, bless them, and even leave comments so I don’t feel like I’m the only one.

29. I’ve been through enough awful stuff that it takes very little to make me feel happy and lucky.

30. That hair that’s growing where no hair should grow becomes less noticeable because—as if the aforementioned isn’t bad enough—it’s turned white.

Improper Poll: Waiter, What is That in My Soup?

Last week, Valthevictorian mentioned she ate Hair Soup. But it was a clean hair.

No offense to Val, but that’s just not remotely gross in my book. We have a dog that sheds so massively, I hate to think how much of his hair probably makes it into our food. And I wouldn’t call it clean, either.

But the worst thing I ever ate was when I made some stew. The recipe called for ground pepper and paprika. After I’d eaten most of a bowl, I noticed that the pepper looked too…uniform. And it had an odd sheen to it. Let’s just say that, after I examined my stew (and then the paprika) with a magnifying lens, I lost my appetite. For at least ten years—at least when it came to stew. I still can’t touch beef stew without examining it closely.

Have you ever found anything disgusting in your food?

Book Blurb Friday #18

What a week! Won’t get into it now, but life’s been crazy enough that it’s made me a bit late for Book Blurb Friday, a meme from Writing in the Buff. Each week, Lisa Ricard Claro posts a picture of a fictional book cover. The challenge is to come up with an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer. This week’s came in at 149 words.

~Blind Draw~ 

by Annie Up

When they were engaged, Tom joked to Tina that he would have affairs after they were married. Tina merely smiled and promised Tom that if he did, she would have three for every one of his. How would Tom dare to risk those odds? Tom traveled as a professional poker player, true, but Tina never hurt for male admirers when she wanted them.  And...she was psychic.

Years later, when Tom (“The Seven Card Stud”) had come to realize that there was far more to Tina than met the eye, he would be forced to look at their son and realize that his own actions meant he now had to question the boy’s paternity. The young man was, after all, nothing like Tom.

And Tina was always honest. Had she meant her promise? If so, who were the three? Tom couldn’t make any accusations without pointing the finger at himself.

My philosophy, like color television, is all there in black and white~Monty Python

Senior Sex(less) and the City : #20 The Other Side : Single Women!

Witchy Woman
I first talked to her because she couldn’t really be as scary as she looks, right ? Silly me! I can’t say a word about this one because I am scared of her. In fact, I suspect she is lurking somewhere, shaking chicken blood on mysterious little symbols. Shh…I don’t want one of them to be my name!

***
I used a short one because I have a favor to ask. I can’t tell you how flattered I am that some of you seem to think I should compile my Sex(less) in the City segments into…something. My question is, what do you think that “something” should be? It’s way too big for an essay. A chapbook? Chapter or section of a larger book—possibly a divorce guide for older women?

Or should I try to come up with more on the single women I’ve met and make it for all divorced people? Or should it somehow not be about divorce at all?

Thank you so, so much in advance. Needless to say, if this somehow makes it into print, this is my "Acknowledgements" page in the making!

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light. ~Albert Schweitzer

Improper Poll: Very Un-Playful Possum

Number one on my list of things to do this morning was “Dispose of dead baby possum on the patio.”  Not a fun start to my day.

I first discovered it when the dog showed me last night. I hoped it was playing possum as they say, but I kept conducting possum checks through the window, and if it was pretending to be dead, it sure was convincing. I enlisted the kids’ help. One of them surmised that the dog might have “squeaked” it, but we're not entirely sure how he could have caught it in the first place, being deaf and as legally blind as Mr. Magoo. 

I admired its acting ability when the rain came and it was still playing possum, but when the hail fell, it could have been nominated for an Academy Award. The flies this morning were the clincher, though I left the plastic bag open in the garbage just in case.

What’s the grossest thing you've done lately? (Sorry if this is lame. I had another question for you, but I've decided to save it till Wednesday.)

Book Blurb Friday #17

I was excited about Book Blurb Friday, so I’m posting a wee bit early.  For this meme from Writing in the Buff, Lisa Ricard Claro posts a picture of a fictional book cover.  The challenge is to come up with an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer.  I loved this week’s picture the second I saw it.  Yes, it was like a big old carrot dangling in front of me, and yes, I obediently followed…with 122 words. 

And welcome to Susan! Susan, I’d love to see your blog but can’t find it. Am I that technologically challenged? Definitely.

~The Sort of New Adventures of Really, Really Old Christine~

By Steve King

The last time Christine fixed her own dents and chugged her way out of the junkyard, she realized her fenders just couldn’t take much more.  Could it be true?  It was.  Killing young boys just wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. It was time to drive herself down to Boca.  Maybe buy a little garage and play some Mahjong with some Cadillac Coupe de Villes.  

Relax with Steve King’s less scary sequel focusing on Christine’s retirement years, during which her radio plays e-z listening tunes such as:

I Lost My Grille Climbing Blueberry Hill

Highway to Purgatory

Tow Truck to Heaven

Ain’t Killin’ Nothin’ But a Few Hound Dogs

Baby Got Trunk

Come On Baby, Rub My Tires

Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, about a romantic weekend she’s planning: “I’m taking underwear that isn’t gray!”

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #19

The Gargoyle
I had just walked into a single’s dance. At a church, no less. I bet I hadn’t been sitting for two minutes when he swooped in, lurking beside me. “You’re new,” he accused, hunkering down into the chair next to me, uninvited. He was petite and creepily serious. And he fired off a lot of questions, but not the polite kind. Where had I come from? Why was I there at a single’s dance?

He started babbling, and for some reason he blurted out that he used to have dogs, but he didn’t have room for them anymore, so he had to have them all put to sleep. Four of them. He was really upset about it of course! I stared in open-mouthed horror, too many responses warring in my head, and all of them so angry that I finally just turned my back on him. It didn’t keep him from talking, though.

He would dance with me, he said, but he couldn’t. He had filed a worker’s compensation lawsuit for an injury. If he danced, they might take pictures to use against him in court. They send out spies like that.

I’d better watch it, he told me. There were people there who’d take advantage of me. He just wanted to warn me! Some men—not him, of course, because he was just looking out for me—some of those men might pounce right on me. I looked around. My friends were all dancing when I’d come in. He was the only one who even seemed to have noticed my presence. He had a peculiar intensity about him. Why, they might just look at me as another notch on the old belt!

So, why was I there, he demanded again. I tried to look as innocent as a person over 40 can look. Oh, just looking for another notch on the old belt, I shrugged. You know. But not him, of course! I would NEVER take advantage of him, so no worries there! And his injury and all. He was perfectly safe from me for sure!

Then I got up and went to the bathroom because, besides wanting to get away from him, I had to giggle. The look on his face before he retreated into the corners of the room was enough to send me back into the bathroom several times to get the laughter out of my system. Fortunately our table filled up and there was nowhere for him to perch from then on. But I could see him hovering most of the night in the shadows….

Next week: Mr. Name Dropper

Improper Poll: Best Dad

I will always have a soft spot for Lorne Greene because I used to watch Bonanza with my dad. I remember almost nothing about the show itself other than the fact that Adam always wore a black hat, and if any of the boys fell in love, the girl was doomed to die within an episode or two. My father used to mutter, “Uh oh—she’s a goner” whenever one of the Cartwright boys kissed a girl.

What became memorable for me was the way my father and I would greet each other for the rest of his life, no matter how old I was. “Howdy Paw,” I’d say. And he would respond, “Howdy Lil’ Podner.” He even signed his letters “Love, Paw."

In the end, those were our last words to one other. And that’s fine. Somehow those words said it all.

Who was your favorite TV dad?

Book Blurb Friday #16

It’s time again for Book Blurb Friday!  Each week, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing inthe Buff posts a picture of a fictional book cover.  The challenge is to come up with an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer.  This week’s blurb has been whittled down to 150 words (not counting the title).  Happy weekend!

~Worth a Chocolate Mint~

by Candace Barr

Dr. Cheri Van Illa was considered one of the country’s foremost experts in language and communication, called in to help determine what it was the alien wanted.

She had been prepped, vaccinated and briefed all week. She knew he was humanoid, but what they hadn’t told her was that he was possibly the most gorgeous creature in the Milky Way with skin like milk chocolate and eyes a soft mocha that glowed under the rich, dark semi-sweet curls of his lashes. His hair was the palest green.

Her heart pounded as he wasted no time approaching her. His hand reached out and brushed her hipbone, then disappeared inside her pocket and withdrew the candy bar she’d brought back from her last study in France. She’d been saving it for her lunch.

Just before she tackled him to the ground, she heard herself scream, “NOT…THE…CHOCOLATE!!!”

Hadn’t his people heard of PMS?

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. ~Kurt Vonnegut

Not So Glad Topic That Keeps Rearing Its Ugly…Feet

My post about shoe gluing made me realize that maybe it was time once again to try to replace the precious B.U.S.es (butt-ugly shoes; thank you, Sioux, for giving them such an appropriate name in the comment section of this post). Although they were so very comfortable, there have to be other comfortable shoes in the world, right?

I was hoping the replacement I got would do double-time. Couldn’t cute also be comfortable? The box said they could. These were sort of gladiator-style shoes with incredibly soft soles made of suede that feel like they have memory foam underneath. Ahhhh.

Yet…I knew the straps on them felt a little tight, but they would loosen up, right?

Ha. My gladiators are at war with my feet. They are vicious opponents. They grab hold of my toes and keep them bound into submission like slaves to their torturous leather straps that cut like whips. At the end of the first day I wore them, I emancipated my feet while still in the school parking lot and let out a small scream of horror. My feet had been lashed, slashed, gashed and mashed in such horrible ways that the sight of them scared me a little bit.

The next day I was limping. I’m too old to have shoe-wars. My dearest Butt Uglies, I embrace you yet again…but not too hard because you’re falling apart. Pass the glue.

My momma always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they go, where they've been. ~Forrest Gump

Improper Poll: See Jane

Remember those little storage boxes shaped like books that were popular a few years ago? I’m not making fun of them, mind you (have one myself), but I once saw one whose title was “Jane Eyer.” So not only was it a fake book presumably designed to make its owner appear well read, but this was a misspelled fake book. That name still makes me giggle, because I always want to picture this alternate Jane as a be-monocled female Mad-Eye Moody. Or maybe a female Sherlock Holmes complete with magnifying glass.

I thought of that this week because my daughter and I went to see the newest Jane Eyre movie. I hadn’t read the book until college, but she recently read it in high school. So when we discovered that the movie was still playing at a theatre across town, we went for it.

It was playing in the wealthy part of town. The very wealthy, old-money part. The perky girl who sold us tickets also sold concessions. Would we care for a nosh? The gelato was delicious! And for drinks, might she recommend an “Arnold Palmer?”

My daughter and I exchanged looks that said, “No guzzling of Slushies and Whoppers and greasy popcorn tubs here! They nosh! On gelato and mysterious drinks with cocktail names!!! Golfer cocktails!!!”

As we settled in the very back of the small theatre with our noshes, I realized there was nothing but a sea of white hair ahead of us. Not only was my daughter obviously the youngest person in there, I was probably second youngest. And they didn’t talk before the movie, let alone during. Also, no one had bothered to take our tickets. In fact, there was no security whatsoever. Who keeps people from sneaking in? Then we realized: There is no such thing as gangs of hoodlums waiting to sneak into Jane Eyre!!

What an amazing experience. The movie, of course, was wonderful. How could it not be, in a peaceful, cool theatre on a hot summer afternoon where we were so thoroughly tucked away from the real world beneath this cushy-thick layer of delightfulness?

Anyway. In honor of Jane Eyre and all of those white haired gangs of ladies who viewed her movie with us (The Jane-Eyers?), this week’s question will be only ever so slightly improper:

Have you run across any fun misspellings lately?