Sub Notes: Fill in the Blanks

It was summer school, and it was in a rough part of town. I had them filling out pretend job applications.

A girl’s hand went up. “Under ‘Father’s Name,’ what do you put if you don’t know who your father is?”

Even for a tough school, some of the kids acted a little shocked. “You don’t know who your father is?” someone asked.

She lifted her chin several inches and looked him straight in the eyes. “No,” she said, a little too loudly.

I liked this girl. She was tough, yes, but she had a core of goodness in her. I felt a flash of protectiveness. If anyone was going to mess with her, they’d have to go through me first.

“Oh,” I said. “Yes, thank you. I forgot to mention that. If you don’t know who your father is, put N/A.”

N/A? It was a ridiculous thing to say, I know, but I was desperately improvising while trying to sound casual, and I’ve never been a quick thinker.

But at least nobody gave her a hard time after that. Maybe they sensed they would have had to go through me first.

Oh, and she inexplicably mails me a cactus every Valentine’s Day. And I’m like, “Thanks a heap, coyote ugly. This cactus-gram stinks even worse than your abandonment.” ~Juno MacGuff of her biological mother in the movie, Juno

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Hope you're having a wonderful St. Patrick's Day.  I'm off trying to get in some celebrating that I feel as if I've earned.  This is a re-post.  

Ten Seven TEN Things for Losers to Do on St. Patrick’s Day!

1. Don’t go to the bar on St. Patrick’s Day. Go to the dentist.
2. Wear a t-shirt that says, “Kiss me, too, I’m Portuguese.”
3. Kissing the wearer o’the green is so trite. Kiss the wearer o’the brown instead.
4. Kissing is so germy. Instead, go up to everyone wearing green and simply stroke their sleeve a bit. Don’t forget to use hand sanitizer afterwards!
5. Beer is so...working class. If you want to be REALLY classy, sip green wine instead. Make sure it's an Irish one. If you want to impress people with your wine drinking technique, gently gargle with it. Smack your lips and exclaim, “Ah!” This is called “embibing in the brogué.”
6. Parades get so darned crowded. Instead, stand on a street corner and wave at random people. When an interesting vehicle or weird looking person goes by, clap.
7. Instead of wearing shamrocks, wear a leaf associated with your ancestry. So if you’re Canadian, wear a maple leaf, and if you’re from Guam, wear a banana leaf, or if you’re from Nebraska, wear a corn husk, etc. Or if your ancestry is really mixed, simply wear salad. Or better yet, wear a fig leaf and explain to people that we’re all descended from Eve.
8. Can’t find your shamrock pin to wear? No worries! Simply wear your “slut” pin instead.
9. Spontaneously giggle at the dentist’s office because you suddenly remembered that you own a “slut” pin. Don’t ask.
10. Take a picture of your “slut” pin for your blog.

May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future. ~Irish toast

Improper Poll: Television Tribulations

For some time now, I’ve been forced to deal with television providers who seem to have decided that the way to deal with the bad economy is to trick money out of their customers.

I dealt with a company I’ll call Charmer Noncommunications, who not only boosted its prices every year while their packages shrank, but they overcharged my bill for eight—yes, EIGHT—months in a row. Every month they’d give me a convoluted excuse for why my bill was wrong—which essentially meant,“your bill is wrong this month because it was wrong last month.” One young customer service rep even sighed that…tsk…DUH!…if I’d just pay the wrong bill, I would straighten it all out!

Now I have one I’ll call Dish It Out Netword. Last night I saw a commercial where Dish It Out Netword was making fun of Charmer Noncommunications. Are you kidding me? They taught them everything they know. Because even though Dish It Out's salesman told me they “haven’t had a price increase” in just ages, my price went up after a year. Now they tell me what the salesman neglected to mention: It was a one-year deal only. So they’re not raising their prices! They’ll give me a new package! According to this salesman, the new package includes taking away CNN, A&E, and ABC Family (etc.) and replacing them with Hunting Channel, Country and Western Channel, and Gospel Channel.*

Nothing against folks who’d like those channels, but this caused me to try to think of

TEN CHANNELS I WOULD WATCH EVEN LESS THAN THE ONES DISH IT OUT NETWORD IS OFFERING ME (I have to say this was hard, because, although I’m not a big TV watcher, I will watch almost anything):

1. Animal Abuse Planet
2. Colicky Baby Wars: The Loudest Screamer
3. Hell’s Bathroom
4. Ice Loves Cocoa Krispies Way Too Much
5. Stuart Loves His Goat, Ester (Okay, I would watch this once but wouldn't admit it)
6. Grooming for Old Folks TV
7. Say Yes to the Pajama Jeans (This one’s for my critique group)
8. Shopping for Dickeys (Ditto)
9. Taxidermy TV
10. Nothing But Boils

What channels would you refuse to watch?

*Post note:  I contacted the BBB, and within two business days, Dish It Out Netword remedied the situation by giving me my agreed-upon package back.  Hooray for the Better Business Bureau!

Book Blurb Friday #54

Hooray for Book Blurb Friday! Every week, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff presents us with a picture for a pretend book jacket. Our challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words or fewer to go with it. I hope Sandra Davies will forgive me for the liberties I took with her beautiful and inspiring picture. My blurb has 150 words.

~The Upstairs Window~

1812: It seemed so long that she had dreamed of his return. Daily she watched for him, but all she saw was people who looked so strange. Occasionally they shouted and pointed up at her until she hid.

If he didn’t come back, she would jump.

2012: It seemed he had dreamed of her so long. Now he was looking for his first house. And when he looked at the upstairs window, there she was looking down at him. He turned to the Realtor. Someone was up there! A beautiful woman. Had she seen?

Oh, there’s a legend that the place is haunted, she said. A woman named Georgiana had supposedly waited in vain for her true love to come home and then threw herself out the window. Silliness, of course. What did he think—was he home?

“Home,” he whispered, looking up.

“Home,” Georgiana gasped, tears in her eyes.

"Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Improper Poll: Evolution of The Purse

I just switched purses…which means I cleaned out the old one. I had to announce this because it is, in fact, that big a deal.

When I got my first purse in junior high, I had nothing to put in it. So I stuffed it with tissues the way I’d heard some girls stuffed their bras. (Which I never did, by the way—only because I can think of too many potential disasters created by tissues-gone-awry.  And let's face it, I just seem to attract that type of disaster.)

In high school and college, The Purse became a place of sanctuary. Mysterious things may or may not have hung out in there, but I wasn’t willing to let anyone else see it. Except my female friends, of course, because theirs were just as bad.

When I had children, my stuff disappeared and the children’s took over. The Purse morphed into a diaper bag. It was huge—a mini suitcase, really—and contained all of the provisions necessary to sustain a toddler for one day while preventing as many tantrums as possible. It contained clothing items and snacks and toys. The only thing I carried for myself was money, and even then I can remember forgetting my checkbook once because I was so concerned with loading in emergency backup Nuk-Nuks. I still remember flailing madly in my purse with one hand as I drove because one of my children needed a tissue NOW—and it turned out that the emergency was that Barbie was cold and needed a blanket.

Now I’m embarrassed to admit that The Purse is becoming a traveling pharmacy. Granted, I’ve been sick lately, but I have medications to manage almost any imaginable illness, discomfort, upset, or eruption. I have glasses that make up for the fact that I can’t see close up and ones that help me see farther away. I have little note pads for jotting what I can’t remember, because, although my phone probably has an app for that, I'd have to mess with finding my glasses in order to see it.

But weirdest of all is the pens. I can never find a pen. I will dig, flail, and rattle around—nothing. Yet…guess how many pens I found? Just guess! Five? Ten?! NO!! FIFTEEN pens I found in there. I found them in crevices, under flaps, and in pouches I didn’t even realize were in there. I’d find some and think it was a lot and then discover another hidden cache of them. It was like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat—impossibly large numbers of rabbits that just keep going and going. There were disposable pens and rhinestone ones and flowered ones and cheap and expensive pens and ones that attach somehow and little ones designed just for purses.

So I dumped all fifteen into the new purse where they magically submerged and disappeared, only to reappear the next time I switch purses.

What weird things do you carry with you?

Book Blurb Friday #53

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

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

Today’s blurb has 150 words.

~Tea with Miss Nabbity~

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

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

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

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

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

“Taken your shirt off?”

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

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

Sub Notes: Metamorphosis

I was subbing with mentally retarded high school kids. He fixed me with his winning smile and pointed in the direction of the book, asking me if I’d read it to him.

The other teachers and aides smiled. His favorite, they all said. He asked everyone to read it. So I got it out of the backpack he indicated at the back of his wheelchair.

It was a book about a happy puppy dog. The reading level was maybe first or second grade.

When I finished, he grinned, “Guess what? I was on TV once!”

“Wow!” I said. “How come?” I thought I was going to hear about Special Olympics.

“I was in a car accident!” he smiled. He might have been telling me about the toys Santa had brought him. “I used to be smart,” he said. “I got a 32 on my A.C.T.! But I got a head injury and got in this wheelchair. They did a whole special about me on TV!”

“Wow!” I said again. I mumbled something about what a great attitude he had and how he sure had reason to be proud. Then I busied myself with putting the book back in the carrier attached to his wheelchair. It took me a long time to put away.

It was a book about a happy puppy dog.

Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them—these are the best guides for man. ~Albert Einstein

Improper Poll: Wave Away

Years ago, an elderly man used to stand next to a busy street near here and hold up a sign advertising roses. He’d wave as people drove by. It was quaint. It was sweet. And it was so impressive that a man his age could withstand the elements—not to mention holding his arm up all day—that he was a bit of a legend in my area. The local paper even did an article on him. We always waved back. He was our friend even though we’d never met him. He was affectionately known as The Rose Man.

I haven’t seen The Rose Man in many years, but apparently before he left, he went forth and populated our town with waving, sign-holding Progeny-from-Hell. They are everywhere.

Yesterday I drove down that same busy street, which is admittedly even busier. We passed dueling, dancing rival pizza slices on either side of the street, some tax people, the person holding up a sign advertising “We Buy Gold,” someone in a gorilla suit (no idea why), somebody holding up a sign that might have been for birth control services or possibly against them, I couldn’t tell which, and someone else whose sign was much too small for me to read and might have been picketing something. All of them were dancing around and/or waving.

At the risk of sounding crotchety, all that leaping and gyrating and sign holding and waving annoyed the hell out of me and made it hard to drive. It was like having a bunch of little kids scream at the top of their lungs at the same time, “Look at me! No, me! Me me me!!!”

The worst was one I saw the other day. I don’t know what she was advertising, but I got a good look at her from behind while waiting for my light to change. She was obviously so cold and so tired that she’d hold her sign up a while and then let it drop, then stumble out what might have been a half-hearted little jig or possibly a foot that had fallen asleep. Either way, it looked painful. And it made me hate the company she works for, honestly, for making a person suffer through that.

So my improper questions for today are, do you have those waving, sign holding people in your area? And if so, do you feel obligated to wave back? Do they really get your business, or do they drive it away? Do you wave at little kids going by on amusement park trains, and why do we pretend that’s a parade when it isn’t?

Improper Poll: You Might Call Him Mr. America

As a substitute teacher, I often find myself wandering around classrooms while kids work. School posters are frequent contributors to my beloved quote collection.

But often my mind wanders, and some things should never wander too far or they will just get lost. For example, when you look at a poster of all of our presidents, some of them were kind of cute. I know JFK was known for being adorable, and a lot of people think Clinton and Obama are good looking. And both Bushes weren’t too bad in their younger years. But if we’re talking about younger years, Google “Gerald Ford football” sometime. Oh, gracious!

I have to say, though, when judged at the time they served as president—James K. Polk wasn’t too bad if one is able to ignore his precursor-to-the-mullet-hairdo. And Franklin Pierce had almost an aged Johnny Depp look in some of his portraits. And really Thomas Jefferson was pretty cute in a distinguished way. But by far my favorite president either on currency or not is Andrew Jackson. Yes, he has that long face, but even the $20 bill captures that sort of rock star quality—a gentlemanly rock star quality. It’s almost as if someone off camera just said something of such great concern that he is readying himself to take flight via his enormous, winged eyebrows.

Today's Improper Poll question is, of course, should the presidential race have a swimsuit competition phase? And who do you think was our cutest president?

Book Blurb Friday #51

Book Blurb Friday is a great meme hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff . The weekly challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 145 words.

~Wieners and Losers: the Adventures of Special Agent McGee~

Special Agent McGee was Chicago P.D.’s greatest enigma. An absolutely legendary undercover officer, he was rumored to be, in civilian life, a Great Dane. Others whispered that he was really a wolf. Still others had heard he was a 46-year-old former marine from Milwaukee.

One other thing they didn’t know: who had murdered Oscar Meyer and dumped the body in Lake Michigan, and why. Was it notorious thug, Jimmie Dean, over an ongoing rivalry? Or was Mrs. Butterworth not nearly as sweet as she appeared to be?

And what about Mr. Meyer’s life partner, Colonel Mustard? True, the two seemed like the perfect pair, but they had supposedly engaged in quite an altercation in the library the night before Oscar’s death.

One thing was certain: Special Agent McGee, under the guise of a lovable wiener dog, was sure to sniff out the real killer.

People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do. ~ Stephen King, On Writing

Senior Sex(less) and the City: #21

The Old Boyfriend
The name was so familiar, it didn’t seem at all out of place in my inbox. Yet when I thought about it, I realized I haven’t seen that name in—could it be?—thirty years?! And when you figure how long I’ve known him, we go back even further than that.

He lived on the other side of my neighborhood, so we were practically children together. A friend of Joe’s, I think. What was I—15, 16 when we first met? I know I thought he was cute. But he had a girlfriend. Later, after they’d broken up, we dated off and on for years.

And now here he was emailing me. Did I remember him? Ha. To me, he looks exactly the same, right down to that scar I loved because it somehow added a slightly rugged defiance to those almost-too-pretty features. And how I loved his conspiratorial grin, the way he leaned in as if we alone got the joke….

What I remember most for some reason is the time he picked me up for a date and I asked him what he’d done all day. He told me he’d been mowing lawns after work. I guess I asked him if it was a job. His mother was widowed and I knew he mowed his own family’s grass. He answered that he always mowed his neighbors’, too. Wasn’t that a job, I asked? I still remember the way he said it. “No,” he shrugged. “They’re old.” As if that explained it. And it did. I believe I fell in love with him just a little bit at that moment.

After we emailed a few times, I sent him my number so we could catch up. He is recently divorced. Although neither of us is from this city, we both live surprisingly close now. And I could no longer use the excuse that I’m not ready to date someone new. Technically this isn’t someone new, is it?

It was really nice when I started to explain a situation with someone we both used to know…and I didn’t have to explain. Not only does he already know the people involved, but he went through something similar himself. He understood my feelings exactly, and from more than one perspective. It’s a situation not many people understand. He’s experienced his own losses, and they’ve given him depth and character. Wisdom.

Once again, it’s the scars I’m drawn to. What an unexpected comfort it is, this intimacy, like something we alone get. I believe I fell in love with him just a little bit. All over again.

My friends are my estate. ~Emily Dickinson

Sub Notes: Gallery of Youth

Homely little statue of the goddess Laurel, who is supposed to represent poetic inspiration

 I subbed in a high school library recently, which means I got to stand behind a desk sometimes and just watch them.

The librarian was watching them, too. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked, echoing exactly what I was thinking.

I was recently discussing this with a friend. “Even the not-so-pretty ones are still pretty,” she’d said.

Yes. They have fat, glossy hair and thin, glossy bodies. They are tall and strong and new and gorgeous.

They are works of art, these children, captured through the centuries, through eons even, firm in that age-old conviction that they are the first ever to be young. They are, and possess, every sense of the word, “ideal.” They are the infamous Waterhouse model and Queen Hatshepsut and sculptures of Roman gods riding off to war and Lord Leighton’s titian-haired princesses and Aztec sun gods.

“They have no idea how beautiful they are,” the librarian said. I think she was right. Youth has such irony to it. They know youth creates idols, worshiped in part because of its brevity, but they are still insecure in their newness.

Which is a good thing, I guess. And of course the not-so-new among us have beauties of our own that these children won’t discover until it’s their turn. And somebody else’s turn—for the briefest of moments, anyway—to make youth eternal.

High school boy asking me for a restroom pass: "Can I go number...." (Turns to friend and shouts across room), “ Which one is pee? One or two?”

Me: "That’s okay. You don’t need to specify. Really."

Improper Poll: Halleluiah

The sun is out, and I don’t get to see sun much during the work week these days. So I’m taking a break from true impropriety today…and maybe for the next couple of weeks. There’s a scene in Eat Pray Love (the book; haven’t seen the movie) where Elizabeth Gilbert describes a few hours when the pleasure she’s been seeking just seems to settle on her during the sweetest, simplest times.

That very thing unexpectedly happens to me from time to time. I don’t mean ordinary, run of the mill happiness, but an overwhelming thrill that threatens to bring tears to my eyes. I used to try to capture life in art. Now I’m starting to see life as art. What’s more, I used to think the goal in art was to channel the divine. Now I think the goal in life is to channel the divine.

Every now and then, out of nowhere that almost overwhelming happiness just seems to appear and flutter down and nest into my soul, and while it’s there, my heart just soars. This time of year, it’s the way the sun angles through the tree limbs and sends blue stripes of shadow on the road. Or it’s the sculpture of bare trees against a cobalt sky.

Or maybe it’s the little vase of hyacinths on my kitchen table. Or the damp-earth smell of early spring.

What do you see as art? What makes your soul soar?

Book Blurb Friday #49

It’s Book Blurb Friday! Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff hosts this fun meme in which the weekly challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 147 words at last count.

~Trials of a Salem Witch~

They had the technology, however top secret it was, to obtain proof. Pharmeceutical toxicologist Ivy Wilson was one of a team of researchers testing the theory that the events of the Salem Witch Trials occurred as a result of hallucinations brought on by ergot poisoning of rye crops. Ivy’s job was to go back to 1692 in order to collect grain samples for testing.

All she had to worry a bout was being seen.

But an error in calculations sent her back into the farmer’s home instead of his field. Not only was she seen, but a startled observer was nearly killed. So Ivy did the unthinkable: she brought him into the future to save his life.

And now what? Had she just changed the course of human history? Or was Ivy the original “witch” who had set into motion the deaths of more than nineteen innocents?

“For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.” ~Jennifer Donnelly in Revolution

Improper Poll: Way Past Prime Numbers

 

My daughter is a renowned expert on expiration dates. So when she isn’t here, I am defenseless against those little stamped numbers which are often hard for me to read even if I can distinguish them from mysterious product codes. Does 022012 mean February 20th of 2012 or just February in general? Usually I only remember to check during canned food drives, because I wouldn’t want to give someone else expired food.

Here is a confession: The other day I knowingly drank expired coffee. It was a powdered instant mix, and really, how much could powder degrade? Still, I was worried enough that I warned my daughter ahead of time in case that special, relaxing “me” time from the commercial became non-relaxing rush-me-to-the-hospital-time and she needed to know what to tell the paramedics. It smelled and tasted fine, though. And I lived. Oh, and the expiration date was a year ago.

I was going to have a contest to see who could locate the Most Expired Food Item in their pantry, but I was afraid no one would want to participate.

Or that I would lose.

You’ll be pleased to know I’m not going to tell you what’s in the back of my refrigerator. In fact, I am not even going to look! Instead, I’ll ask this: do you have expired food, or am I the only one?

Book Blurb Friday #48

Not only is it Book Blurb Friday, but gracious Southern hostess and Belle-of-the-Blurb herself, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, has chosen my picture to use as this week’s cover! It’s an extreme close-up of ‘Miami Rose’ plumeria that bloomed for the first time this fall and has been brightening up my sunroom ever since, so it’s been fun to play with possible plots for it. The weekly BBF challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 150 words.

~It Also Means Goodbye~

They couldn’t have been more different. But Connecticut accountant Charlotte Wilder and Hawaii nursery owner Mimi Rose Ebert began their internet friendship with a similar passion for plumerias.

Perhaps because they felt safe at such a distance, the unlikely friends began to share more than plumeria cuttings with each other. Mimi knew how much Charlotte hated her job…and Charlotte knew that Mimi was planning to leave her controlling husband.

When Mimi unexpectedly killed herself, Charlotte was shocked to find her friend had willed her a gift: a one-way ticket to Maui. Mimi’s grieving husband insisted it was Mimi’s last wish to have Charlotte come to the funeral and choose a plumeria to plant near her grave.

But when Charlotte arrived and met Mimi’s handsome brother Scott, she learned she wasn’t alone in thinking that Mimi’s death was suspicious.

Now that she was in paradise, was her life in danger, too?

Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends. ~Euripides

Sub Notes: Science of Scary Hair*

Tarzan, or Newton's Untamed Descendant?

*Or:  Why English Majors Should Never Be Allowed to Teach Science

Today's Improper Poll evolved. Perhaps it's because I’ve been teaching science lately, so nothing has been normal for me.  But teaching science also means I am occasionally bombarded with pictures of various scientists from the past. I've developed a theory that science does weird things to your hair. 

Newton

Because have you ever noticed that scientists from a few centuries ago appear to have discovered interesting ways to sprout hair? Sir Isaac Newton, whom I suspect was a model for the cartoon Tarzan, has always reminded me of 80s hair bands or else 60s go-go dancers. His head is proof of Newton’s little-known discovery that a large mass of hair can actually defy gravity and therefore expand within the universe (m=1,000,000xhair²).

Copernicus

Copernicus, on the other hand, whose buoyant bob appears to have fallen in bouncy body-liciousness, spent many hours working on the hypothesis that the universe, in fact, revolves around his hair (otherwise known as the Hairiocentric Theory).






On the opposite pole is Charles Darwin, who was actually cute in the years before survival of the hairiest evolved him into Santa Clause’s scarier brother.

Darwin Before

Darwin After

And don’t get me started on Einstein. Discover a middle ground, people!

When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

~Mark Twain

Improper Poll: I have a dream

This morning I awoke with an extra weekend day. It is glorious, this beloved freebie plunked down right in the middle of January just when I need it most. It’s like a snow day, only planned, so that I can do things like make dentist appointments and not have to worry that I’ll get there at the end of the day when the dentist might be so sick of looking at nasty mouths that she’s grown hardened and insensitive to my worn enamel and tooth sensitivity.

I will accomplish so much! I will organize my photographs left over from March…of 2010! I will make helpful financial charts using Excel. I will learn how to use Excel! I will paint, glue and decoupage my old encyclopedias into attractive furniture items! I will clean out my underwear drawers and throw out the really comfortable underwear I’ve dubbed the “crotchless (but not in a good way) panties.”

I will read entire novels while lounging in the sunroom with a fat-free iced cappuccino. I will clean out my entire basement. I will see if my treadmill still works and then go out and buy a whole collection of Zumba dvds, and then come home and work till I lose maybe a pound or two. I will diagnose and fix the phantom flushing problem in my toilet rather than blaming it on ghosts. I will select, iron, color code and arrange clothing for the upcoming work week.

I will write a short story for a contest, revise and then submit those essays I’ve been meaning to get to and start my novel. And I’ll do this right after I finish putting down the mulch I’ve been meaning to finish since last fall. But first I’ll go to the hardware store and buy it. And replace the wheelbarrow tire while I’m at it. Maybe pick up a few paint chips because I’m thinking about repainting the hall. And then I’ll cook a whole gourmet dinner where not one single item came from a box, and only a few came from bags.

What I will NOT do is hang out in pjs all day reading blogs. No sir!

What is your dream?

Book Blurb Friday #46

It’s finally Book Blurb Friday again! This is due to Thursday’s snow day. Well, really it’s due to BBF’s talented and illustrious hostess, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, but the snow day was welcome and beautiful for those of us who could stay home and get caught up without having to drive. There were times when it snowed with the sun shining so that the flakes looked just like glitter. One of many times I wish I were better with a camera. Anyhoo! The weekly BBF challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week is 149 words.

~The Summer of Twilah Moon~

Summer at Lake Obochobi came alive for Kari and Brian the year that Twilah Moon moved into the next cabin. Not content to sit for long, Twilah explored everything. The reason, she confessed, was a secret alien microchip implanted in her brain that was designed to transport information about Earth back to her home planet, Nevaeh. Someday soon, her native people would be calling her home.

Kari and Brian weren’t sure how much they really believed, but life beside Twilah came alive with diversions they’d never known, from the things that happened in other galaxies to the Nevaehan scanners that had been placed under the pier. And there was no denying that Twilah was sent away for days at a time and came back looking awful. Was she really getting microchip placement scans that left her drained from the Cytoxian radiation, or did she have a more frightening secret?

Problems are the soul’s invitation to transform. ~Lynne Forrest

They Also Wield Blog Awards

Thank you to Lynn of Present Letters for the lovely and coveted Versatile Blogger Award!! Lynn’s epistolary writing, addressed to the mother she lost when she was young, is moving and inspiring in so many ways. Lynn is also a fellow W.W.W.P. (Wild Women Wielding Pens), described in more detail below.

I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that are not included in my blog. So here goes (and if I’ve mentioned any before, sorry):

1.  My mother used to put our Great Pyrenees puppy in the playpen with me, so I literally grew up with dogs. In fact, if I speak a language, it would have to be a very small amount of Doggish. But only if my teacher is very patient with me.

2.  Am not originally from Missouri. We moved around a lot due to my former husband’s job, and this was the place we lived the longest. A few years ago I chose to move back to the St. Louis area. It’s not just the “Gateway to the West.” To me it possesses a sampling of nearly every part of the United States, and I love that. St. Louis has so much variety, there is something for everyone—culture, history, sports, children’s activities, outdoor activities, scenery, weather (ha!—maybe a little too much weather variety, but I’ve definitely lived in much worse) etc. And it’s affordable. Love it.

3. When I was a kid, I used to play Cowboys and Indians with a little boy on the next block named Stevie. Stevie and I got along well because he wanted to grow up to be a cowboy and I wanted to grow up to be an Indian.

4. I spent every possible moment of my childhood without shoes and have always felt fortunate that my mother let me.

5.  Also when I was a little kid, I thought clowns were a race. People still used the phrase “colored people” then, and let’s face it, clowns are colored.

6.  I have Hannibal Lecter’s sense of smell (without his sense of taste—ha!) and collect fragrant plants. Below is a picture of one of the delightfully fragrant viburnums that’s been blooming out of season since December because our weather’s been so warm.  This one is burkwoodii 'Mohawk.'

 And below is plumeria ‘Miami Rose’ that’s been blooming in my sun room all winter, followed by the orchid that a dear friend sent me for my birthday over two months ago. Not only is it stunningly beautiful, it’s still blooming!

7.  I once attended something called Laughter Therapy. The idea is that laughter causes wonderful things to happen in the body and the brain, so you laugh without reason if necessary. It was supposed to provide the body with the equivalent of several hours of exercise and leave you feeling refreshed. The small critique group I joined last year is like laughter therapy, but way better because the laugher (and the people) are genuine. Although our senses of humor range from the naughty to the nice—sometimes all in the same person—those brilliant, witty, talented, spiritual, raunchy, silly, wise, genuinely fun women provide the reason for the laughter in addition to first-rate writing advice. And sometimes, they even provide chocolate…which is another thing we all have in common. So thank you again to Lynn, a fellow W.W.W.P.

I believe I am supposed to pass this award to four awesomely versatile bloggers. The problem is that not only are all of you awesomely versatile, but some people don’t like awards. So I've chosen two who've given me awards in the past and are also awesome and versatile, too.  I'm hoping two others will consider it passed to them as well.

I love Trying to Get Over the Rainbow  because Jules leaves me feeling uplifted and refreshed by her amazingly unique—not to mention hysterically funny—perspective.

Donna’s Book Pub always has advice, opportunities, contests, interviews and other wonderful tidbits for writers. I'm always glad I stopped in.

Enjoy!

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ~Ed Cunningham

Improper Poll: Switching Channels

I’m not a big television watcher, but over the holidays I watched a bit more than usual while wrapping Christmas presents. And I am surprised at what’s out there.

There’s “Ghost Adventures,” an oxymoronic show if I ever saw one, because, really, how adventurous can dead people be? But the show must be incredibly popular since it seems to be on all the time every evening. In this case, grown men appear to walk around shouting insults at dark buildings. Don’t get me wrong—I grew up in a haunted house, which makes it hard not to believe in ghosts, but these particular ghosts just never seem very lively. I watch, though, because I keep hoping at least one of them will show up for their television debut.

Then I discovered that there is such a thing as “Barbie Channel.”  Channel.  'Nuff said there.  

Weirdest of all was something called “Nighttime Programs for Baby.” Apparently television sets are now a staple of baby’s layette, and we must start training little crib potatoes as soon as they are just this side of the womb. I actually watched Nighttime Programs for Baby until the music made me feel colicky. It wasn’t too strong on plot, but it appeared to be made up of trippy little vignettes that were sort of artistically appealing in some cases. On the whole, though, I thought it insulted babies’ intelligence.

Of course, even that plot might just be better than the show called “Best Bra Ever,” but I can’t bring myself to watch that one, even as valuable blog research.

Last but not least of entertaining show names involved the Naughty Channels. I don’t subscribe to those, but apparently my satellite provider thinks it will tempt me by showing me the names. And I have to admit, some of them make me laugh myself silly. Problem is, I found very few I'd feel comfortable posting on my blog. Fortunately my personal favorite was the publishable “Naughty Golf Champ.” I imagine this one was specifically made for those men who wish to combine their passions, so to speak, much like the Seinfeld episode where George tries to combine sex and deli meats.

Have you discovered any weird TV programs lately?

Sub Notes: Noticed In Passing

The other day, Tom mentioned different aisle-blocking behaviors. He mentioned that women are the only ones who walk in a line, thus blocking those behind them from getting around.

I’ve been thinking, and that is not always a good thing. Because…I'm about to make poor Tom sorry for asking perfectly nice rhetorical questions.  Part of my job in high schools is preventing hallway blockages during passing periods. And those minutes add up. So I’ve begun to think of myself as somewhat of an anthropologist of adolescence. And what are schools but teenaged microcosms?

True, several males never travel in a straight line the way females do. I think it’s a dominance thing. A straight line is cooperative in nature.

Girls form cooperative packs. It’s what we do. Some girls do use those groups to dominate others. Movies like “Mean Girls” are legendary for portraying the negative aspect of girl groups. But I’m convinced that the tendency to form cooperative groups is hugely beneficial to women. It allows them an opportunity for mutual nurturing, protecting, and empowering of the members—and their children. No question those female groups encourage, in lots of different ways, successful child rearing. And anyone who doesn’t realize how vulnerable women can be on their own has never been sexually assaulted, groped, or harassed.

Girls and women will engage in cooperative behaviors that you’d never see boys and men do, like fix each other’s hair or whisper or apply each other’s makeup. They’ll also stand up for each other. Fiercely. And men know this.

Boys are just as legendary for tryng to establish dominance over other boys. When they stand together in a large group, their behavior is almost always competitive. They’ll give each other playful shoves. Or if a small group is sitting in the classroom in a casual mode, I’ve noticed one boy will often try to sit on the desk to raise himself higher than the others. (I never let them. Not only do I not want them breaking the desks, but I want to keep them in a psychologically cooperative group with myself as the one in charge.)

Mixed-gender groups have a whole different dynamic. Sometimes several boys will walk side by side if girls are in the group. I think it’s that they have to submit in a sense in order to join. If a girl tries to sit higher than a group of boys, sometimes I do let her for brief periods of time. I’m not trying to be unfair. I think there’s a weird little paradox going on that says she is accepting the boys by diffusing any threat. I don’t remember ever seeing a boy try to sit higher than a group of girls when no other boys are present. Groups of women are, as Tom mentioned, intimidating. And they are supposed to be. Groups wouldn’t give women a sense of safety if they weren’t.

Once I subbed in PE and a male teacher asked me to monitor the girls’ locker room “to make sure they don’t kill each other in there.” I laughed to myself. If a girl is mad enough at another girl to attack her, she won’t do anything as nice and simple as attack her. She’ll make her life absolutely miserable by attempting to ruin her social status and kicking her out of the group.

Anyway, Tom asked if those aisle-blocking women are trying to get attention or what. I think they’re just doing what comes naturally and are so focused on their little group that they just don’t think about the larger group out there. But what of those women who habitually block aisles on their own using just their grocery cart? I hate that! Or did, till I thought about it and realized I’ve caught myself doing the same thing—when I was so heavily focused on a small group that I was shutting out the rest of the world. That small group wasn’t even there, either. It’s called “family.”  Go figure.

“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.” ~Orson Scott Card in Ender’s Game

“We are no longer the knights who say ni! We are now the knights who say ekki-ekki-ekki-pitang-zoom-boing!” ~Monty Python

Improper Poll: New Year’s Resolutions!

People keep asking me if I’ve made my list of New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps it‘s a hint, but here‘s the thing. I’ve spent most of my life working on my worst faults. If whatever's left over isn’t fixed by now, it’s not likely to get there in one puny old year.

Besides, if this old dog is going to learn any new tricks, the reward had better be pretty big and juicy.

So I prefer either to think of resolutions for OTHER people…or else pick one easy thing for myself to do. I am happy to report that a few years ago, thanks to help from my daughter, I accomplished my resolution to overcome a Fear of Oatmeal. Want to know the secret? Here it is. First clear your mind of all thoughts relating to snot and boogers and paste and curdled throw-up. All clear, then? All righty! The secret is that you must pretend it’s a seriously undercooked oatmeal cookie.

Hoo boy, that was a lot of work! Frankly, I’m still working on it and have been too pooped to think of a new one till now. But here’s the new one I just thought of. I am going to scale back on my exclamation point use in personal correspondence.

Surprising, right?! I know!

I’m generally okay in public writing, but I am a closet over-exclaimer. And guess what one of my pet peeves is? You got it. I am a hypocritical, closet over-exclaimer. If I were editor of my own emails, they wound be bleed red ink.

Years ago, there was a book series that every high school girl carried. I won’t say the name of the series, but I once tried to read the first book and it was torture. The unnecessary exclamation points alone set my teeth on edge. It read like this:

I went down the stairs! I went into the kitchen! I sat down!

And that was it. Notice I am not exclaiming here, but I want to. Because what any idjut knows is that you just kept waiting for a creature to jump out and eat the narrator or anything at all that warranted those stinkin’ exclamation points, but there was nothing. Why we were supposed to be excited over the walking down the stairs and the sitting is still the biggest mystery of the book to me. I don’t think I ever finished it, either. Eventually all I could do was count those vile exclamation points.

So my fear is that people do that with my personal correspondence. Yet I once knew a woman—another writer and enthusiastic exclaimer—who used to hint that I must be depressed if I wasn’t exclaiming like a school girl. And I guess that’s what it comes down to. Like or not, in real life I have an exclaiming personality.

And after all, isn’t that part of what makes me who I am? Other than the anal retentive need to spell and punctuate text messages correctly? So on second thought, maybe a better resolution would be to ask my writing friends to forgive my over-exclaiming and be done with it.

By the way, happy New Year!!! Do you have a resolution for yourself or others?

Grocery Store Mafioso

I was just emailing with a friend about how hard it is to deal with pushy people, especially over the holidays. My friend graciously invited the woman behind her (who was invading her space) to go ahead of her in the grocery store line since the woman was holding only two items. The space-invading woman promptly brought over her daughter and an entire cartload of food. In the end, my friend didn’t say anything and just found a new lane.

So we were discussing this. Is the high road a strength or a weakness?

I often wish there were such a thing as Dial-a-Guru, a person we could all call with such questions. Free of charge, of course. Or a Hogwarts class. Defense Against the Dork Arts, maybe.

The whole thing reminded me of the time a woman cut in front of me in the grocery store line. I actually knew her, having volunteered with her once. She was the stuff of which sit coms are made, and I’m sure she really did think her time was much more valuable than mine. Honestly, the thought of what kind of character she would make was enough to keep me plenty entertained as I waited.

When it was finally my turn to check out, the cashier mentioned the incident. This is an older man who's been in the business a while.  He assured me under his breath that he would “get her” next time. Get her! Those where his exact words, too. I told him please don’t. Really, not a problem. But I’ve always wondered what he meant by that. Charge her for the organic instead of the generic? Manhandle her Bunny Bread? Give her plastic instead of paper?

Or did he mean something more insidious? Would she wake up to find prepackaged cow tongues in her bed? Expired ones? For a while I was half afraid they’d find the self-appointed, divinely righteous Ruler of Volunteerism floating in the lobster tank, her head weighed down by tater tots and turkey giblets and bags of Yukon Golds….

Okay, so I got a bit carried away. It comes from spending too much time in lines. This week as you’re shopping for your holiday festivities, be reeeeeal careful. And if somebody cuts you off in the shopping line, just know that somebody way more scary than Santa Clause might be watching.

Just remember that…mistletoe is not an excuse for sexual assault. ~Andy Bernard, The Office

Christmas Memories

Here is a charming Christmas memory to warm your heart. Every year, my grandfather would get a twinkle in his eyes. My grandfather had more than a sense of humor. He had a sense of fun. So the best stories started with the twinkle.

“Know what I’m going to do?” he’d ask. “I’m going to take a greeeat, biiig bag and sit up all night long and watch the fireplace for Santa Clause. I’ll hide behind this chair, and when old Santa comes out of that chimney…I’LL JUMP OUT AND CATCH HIM!”

At this point, my grandmother would yell at him, “Oh, Homer, stop that! You’re scaring the children!”

He wasn’t scaring me at all, though. I secretly thought it was a brilliant idea! Why had no one thought of it before?

Sad to say the only thing I worried about was whether or not it would work. What would my grandfather do with Santa once he was in the bag? Would Santa be forced to live with them, or would my grandfather let him go at some point? Wouldn’t Santa be mad? And since Santa is magical, might he have secret magical defenses against just such assaults? Plus there was also the question of whether my grandfather could take him. They were both old, yes, but my grandfather was clearly much thinner; would Santa’s extra fat slow him down or give him an advantage?

Somehow my grandfather never accomplished it. He always fell asleep waiting. This was Santa’s real magic, I decided.

So that’s my heartwarming Christmas story. At least you know where I got it.

The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly. ~G.K. Chesterton

My First Sub Job, Part VI

The last day of school was hot. I was desperate to get through it. I still had grades left to enter and would end up staying very late that day. I told the class good bye.

And then she said it. The girl who sat in the back and said very little the entire time I was there stood up and spoke up.

“We liked our other teacher because she let us mess around,” she said. “But I guess you did teach us stuff.” And then she stepped forward and hugged me.

I remember being so floored, I didn’t know what to say. I must’ve stood there like a cardboard cutout. The thing I regret most now is that she will never know how valuable those words were to me. How I cherished them. How important they were to me—not just then, but in all the years since.

Since then I’ve been surprised how often it’s that kid in the back—the one who never looked up, the one who never smiled, the one you thought was completely oblivious to your presence or even hated you—who later tells you that you touched them somehow.

Not for the first time, I cried on my way home. But this time it was for a different reason.

God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God. ~Hildegard

Improper Poll: Bad Santa

When I was a kid, Real Santa always went to one particular department store downtown. Going to see him was a big production because we’d go at night to see the lights. He had his own floor of the department store and sat on an enormous throne surrounded by elf helpers and glittering snow and a cute little miniature train that wove around the animated reindeer. He was truly jolly. You could even see where his beard actually grew out of his face. It was magical.

Loser Santa was found at the little mall. They just sort of plunked him down by himself on a folding chair in front of a plywood house next to the cheese display. He had B.O. and a black five o’clock shadow peeking out from under a beard that had visible ties in back and was slipping off. I can still remember the way my mother giggled when I told her about the beard. And my mother was not a giggler.

Worst of all, he lacked proper Santa Clause enthusiasm.

I know he was probably some underemployed guy who had to put up with obnoxiousness all day long, but oh wait, that kind of describes a significant portion of the workforce. Bad Santa still reminds me that every day is a new chance to do a good job in spite of it all.

Did you ever have a bad Santa?

Sub Notes: My First Sub Job, Part V

Max possessed two talents that I’ve never seen before or since. The first of these was the ability to say something truly funny in class. Usually if students try to crack a joke, it’s immature. Inappropriate. But this young man kept it appropriate, respectful, and impeccably timed. He was witty. Once after he’d made me laugh, I shook my head. “I can see you being famous someday, Max, but I’m just not sure as what,” I blurted.

“Max can dance,” a girl offered. The others nodded with looks that told me it was impressive. So I asked him if he would perform for my theater class. He shrugged in that way that meant sure, whatever, and we arranged the appointed time.

I still think of those simple words, “Max can dance.” They could not possibly have prepared me. In all fairness, I don’t think any words could have.

There is right now a viral video of a man who is an impressive dancer. I honestly think Max was better. He was a magician. Before my eyes his bones dissolved. He bent in places no human being should bend. His movement wasn’t fluid; he was fluid. He melted and become rubber and elastic and oozing syrup all at once. He was ragdoll, then puppet, then robot, then top. He defied gravity. He glided and floated and flew. He danced with his ears and pores and fingertips. Dance wasn’t something he did, but something he was.

And all the while there was a look of boredom on his face.

I sat dumbly while watching him, though I’m sure my mouth hung open. Because there just were no words. There still aren’t.

The thing with students is this. You always try to find good in them. Sometimes you find wonderful that you never forget, and that is how it was with Max.

He had something going on with his health. I never did find out what, but it made his eyes disturbingly yellow and it made him put his head down sometimes. When I would ask him if he needed to see the nurse, he’d tell me it wouldn’t do any good. He couldn’t go home because he had too many absences. If he missed anymore school, he wouldn’t graduate.

He graduated, and I have wondered about him since. Looked for him—on television, anywhere. Just now I Googled him. I never seem to find anything. I hope somewhere out there he knows. He is special. Many years and thousands of students later, even more so.

(Next week: Part VI)

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Improper Poll: Hangin’ with My Uglies

I’ve been rooting around my basement looking for ugly Christmas ornaments. This is the best I could do, but it’s not my favorite. My daughter decorated this year and I couldn’t find the one I wanted. For her sake it had just better be hidden in the back, because if she threw it out, she is in some big trouble. How I cherish those Charlie Brown ornaments, those ghosts of Christmas Past that were fashioned so carefully from hands that were just learning to cut and color and glue!

I remember being her age; I too thought the point of a Christmas tree was to be pretty. My mother used to insist on hanging a Santa Clause that she’d had since she was a child. It was scary and emaciated and looked more like an old guy you’d see hocking loogies in a downtown alley with a bag made of brown paper. This guy’s lap would be one of the last places you’d want your children.

Now that my mother is gone, I get it. And I sort of wish I had it if only for those memories—not to mention the joke about the really ugly Santa.

Do you have an ugly-beloved ornament?

My First Sub Job, Part IV

The Friedrich thing started in study hall. He was out of his seat. I told him he needed to go sit down and get to work.

Freidrich was a tall, tall kid who moved syrup-slow. He strolled up to me and stood close enough to show me that he towered over me. And then he looked down. “You know what we do to teachers who give us homework,” he whispered.

I flew by the seat of my pants then. Maybe I always do. My pants launched me forward, toward Friedrich. I grabbed his arm and grinned up at him. “I bet you send us thank you notes for helping you to get so smart that you go on to get wonderful jobs and live happy lives,” I said.

I will never forget the corners of Friedrich’s mouth, the way they twitched and then slowly, slowly turned up and broke first into a grin, and then a laugh. An indulgent laugh. Friedrich was humoring me. Giving me a break.

Which was okay with me. I desperately needed one.

We walked, the two of us, arm in arm, back to Friedrich’s seat. And he indulged me again by sitting down.

From then on, Friedrich was my ally. A very valuable ally. He was big and commanding and popular with the other kids. If I told someone to sit down, Friedrich made sure they did. “Miss G says sit down,” he would rumble, and they would sit down.

I took it.

(Next week: Part V)

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. ~Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Improper Poll: A New Season of Hoarding

Here is a confession: I hoard ideas. Just like the people you see on those hoarding shows. My computer is a metaphor for some of those houses. A computer expert friend of mine once commented about how I have a lot of “…ah…folders and…items” on my computer. It was clear during those pauses that he was choosing his words very carefully so as not to insult me about my stuff. My junk.

And he was right. There’s stuff everywhere. Word stuff. Words from songs and little kids and religious leaders and friends and posters and cartoons and famous people. Some are possibly your words. I started to say, “some of the greatest minds in history,” but they are all great minds in history. The thing that makes a mind great is the way it happens to fit its time—the relevance of the connections it makes. And all of them are relevant. Every single one makes me think or laugh or reflect or feel.

Just like words are supposed to do.

So. Do you have a favorite quote you’d care to share?

My First Sub Job, Part III

There are things I would handle so differently now. Take Marta, who was in her third trimester of pregnancy. She wanted to eat in class, which I didn’t allow. Now I would let her eat, but I would make one requirement: None of those vending machine Doritos. It must be healthy. I’d even bring snacks for her if necessary.

I had one student who had to have his assignments sent to prison. He was 18, so he’d been charged with rape as an adult and his family couldn’t make bail. I don’t know his story, but he never felt threatening to me in the slightest. In fact, he seemed like a very nice kid. Only one student in that school truly scared me.

I never knew if Rolfe's instability was natural or induced or what, but I always felt I had to have my “spidey sense” tuned to his direction when he was around. Once it was not…and another student rested his long legs in the book basket under Rolfe’s chair. Rolfe lost it so badly that I was afraid of what he might do to the other kid.  I had to move his already-up-front desk positively next to mine so that I got the joy of being next to him every day.

As if that weren’t bad enough, he never turned in his work on time, so he got detentions with me on a regular basis—so I got extra time with him as well.

He wrote his final essay on why he wanted to kill a police officer.

(Next week: Part IV)

Conversation overheard between two ninth-grade girls while one was putting makeup on the other: “Just cake on the makeup, because I like a lot. Did you know you’re not supposed to share makeup with other people? I used to share makeup. But not really, because it was just Haley, Madison, Taylor, Brittany, Micah and Sierra, and we were all best friends. But I got a sty. It’s probably because I never washed my eye makeup off. You’re supposed to do that, too.”

Improper Poll: When Bears Attack

My kids have been home for Thanksgiving, so of course I’ve been distributing the items that my daughter calls “Momish.” You know—winter coats, cold medications…and pepper spray.

I purchased the pepper spray in a large sporting goods store. I couldn’t figure out what sport required pepper spray, however, so I asked at the front desk, where the girl told me it was in the “huntin’ department.” She said it like, “Duh.” Like any fool knows pepper sprays are part of hunting.

So what I want to know is, what animal does one hunt using pepper spray? Are there really hunters out there chasing after deer and frantically squirting? I have a hard time envisioning this.

So I asked my daughter. She said she heard they really do sell it as a defense for bears. Yes, bears. I think if I were going to get so close to a bear that I could reach it with pepper spray, I would want a more effective weapon. “Better than nothing,” my daughter said. Maybe, but presuming one is in the woods at the time, wouldn’t a rock be better? Or a strategically placed stick? Even running away. Or playing dead—which I’ve heard is the proper response for bear attacks, anyway. Do you play dead and then squirt if they are sniffing you to check? Or if they aren’t fooled?

So today’s poll is less a poll than a serious question. Do you know what gets hunted using pepper spray?

Book Blurb Friday #39

I guess today is BLACK Book Blurb Friday, thanks to Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff. Her weekly challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.”

So I hope you will buy this book, which I think went on sale at 40% off if you bought it at 1:00 A.M. today only.  The blurb is 150 words.

~The Black Friday Games~

It was considered the best reality show ever. Fifty top shoppers—one from each state—were chosen to compete for $50,000 in toys and electronics awaiting the winner who could ascend Mount Bluelight Special and be the first to claim the prizes.

And Margie Poffenburger of Iowa, the self-described Bargain Barbarian, knew that among the toys was the coveted (and back ordered until February 2012) Botox Britnee doll that her granddaughter wanted.

Contestants, armed only with shopping carts and assaulted with piped-in soundtracks of screaming babies and an endless loop of “Winter Wonderland,” were stuffed with turkey dinners and then released at 2:00 AM with only one day to scale the mountain.

Though outright murder was ostensibly frowned upon, contestants were allowed—and even encouraged—to maim and wound fellow contenders at will.

Murder and mayhem were no problems for Margie; the question was, could she haul herself up 9000 feet?

About The Nutcracker Suite: Who believes that a young girl on the brink of womanhood would fantasize about a hideous wooden kitchen tool with a mustache and beard? It’s like having a crush on a whisk. Why can’t he look like Baryshnikov from the start? ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

My First Sub Job, Part II

I was subbing for a woman who had obviously had a nervous breakdown after her husband left. But it was the kids who told me she had also started dating one of her students. I told them it wasn’t nice to spread rumors, but I later found out it was true.

A lot of bad stuff had gone on, and I was under a great deal of pressure to restore order.

When my last class of the day finally filed out, I breathed a sigh of relief. There, on my desk, was a folded piece of paper. A welcome note! I thought. Yes, I actually thought this. Have I mentioned I was fresh from college?

I carefully opened my note. I still remember the exact spelling, even. It read:

We goan cut you all to pesc.

Now I know enough to save it. But at the time, I gasped and threw it away as quickly as possible. And found myself looking at my empty hand. I think I was looking for blood.

And they tried. Gracious, how they tried, some of them. On the way to work each morning in those first few weeks, I used to think how much I wanted to turn around and drive home. Every bone and fiber of my being wanted to drive in the other direction. Drive to Mexico, maybe. Every cell, every hair, every molecule wanted to run. All the strands of my DNA. Every atom. On the drive home, sometimes I would cry.

During that time, my father had a stroke on top of it all. It was the first time in my life I felt positively assaulted from all sides. And unfortunately, not the last.

(Next week: Part III)

Those things that hurt, instruct. ~Ben Franklin

Improper Poll: More Embarrassing Checkout Experiences

It's that time of year again for purchasing Thanksgiving groceries. I like to pretend that my grocery purchases are somehow sacred and that the store workers don’t notice what I’m buying. But I once went through the lane with nothing but a box of tampons and a large bag of chocolate…and the Checkout Dude and the Bagger Dude exchanged giggles.

This was a few years ago, so by now I figure they’re old enough to be married. And I hope their wives send them to the store for the chocolate and tampons, and I hope the checkers laugh.

Have you had any embarrassing Checkout Experiences?

Sub Notes: My First Sub Job, Part I

I wasn’t just the sub. I was, by the time you reasoned it all out, the sub for the sub’s sub. Third person in line not counting the teacher, about whom no one spoke. I was the non-singing Sister Maria, come to save inner city Friedrichs and Liesls and Brigittas, those little imps.

And there were a lot of people not speaking about why the teacher was gone—representatives from the school board, administrators. They had gathered to meet me, a fresh-from-college girl who was, when you figure that I started school a year early and some of my students were a few years behind, shockingly close to some of her high school students’ ages. It would be…a challenge, they warned me. There hadn’t been much…discipline. I didn’t like the way they exchanged glances or the care with which they chose their words.

The teachers were less shy. “Nutjob,” they mumbled while gulping chewy cafeteria tacos in the teachers’ lounge. The worst was her study hall, they said, because it was right outside the lounge and no one wanted to have to hear the kids during their only down time. No discipline at all, they told me. I would have to come down hard on them.

By that time I already knew there’d been something terribly wrong with the teacher. The teacher next door filled me in on a little. Youngish woman. Had a small child. Had a husband, but the husband left. This is where everyone clammed up and began using euphemisms. She struggled. Had a hard time. Her work suffered.

There were no grades in the grade book. Nothing written in the plan book. When I asked her students in each class what they’d been working on, they said they’d been having discussions. About what? I’d asked. This was English class, so there were only a few choices. A book? A story? A poem?

Like if you’re in a relationship and the person leaves you, they said.

Each hour I heard the same scenario. Each hour I got a chill when they said it.

My last class of the day was theater. And what had they been working on? I asked. Improvisation, they said. Snort. Still, I was a tiny bit heartened. It sounded like an actual theater class assignment. What kind of improvisation? I asked.

Like you pretend you’re in a relationship, they said. And the other person leaves you.

(Next week, Part II)

“You missed it. Yesterday was ‘Talk Like a Trucker’ day.” ~A.P. English student talking to a friend who’d been absent

Improper Poll: The Writing is…Everywhere

Anytime you get writers together, conversation inevitably turns to reading. Writers always seem to read more than one book at once. Usually there’s a short, light read for travel purposes, another light book that’s kept at home, the not-so-light read, the one they’ll talk about for a while, and the next one in line. Sometimes there is even a bathroom book, á la that-one-Seinfeld-episode, which is usually an anthology.

I can’t read that many at once. Three is my absolute upper limit, and that’s counting the inspirational book I still have in my car leftover from the days when I had to drive my children everywhere.

How many books do you read at once? What are you reading right now?

Book Blurb Friday #37

Hooray for Book Blurb Friday, a meme hosted by Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff! The challenge is to write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) to go with the pretend book cover.  The goal is to write a blurb so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.
My offering this week is 141 words.

 

~Survival of the Finnest~

Twelve-year-old Ian Spindly was not tough. He was the sort of boy who preferred to stay indoors and read. When his father forced him to join the Fun in Nature (FINs) club, they both knew it was really an attempt to keep the bullies at bay.

But during the big campout, Ian got separated from his group and went missing. When the day turned into weeks, no one held out any hope that Ian could survive.

Ian Spindly had a secret weapon, however—one that everyone underestimated: a thorough knowledge of Jack London, Gary Paulsen, Jean Craighead George, Scott O'Dell and others. Ian, it seemed, wasn’t quite as helpless as everyone thought.

Survival of the Finnest is a story of parents who must survive a decision that probably killed their son…and about the remarkable boy who must survive so much more.

Mind what you have learned. Save you it can. ~Yoda

Sub Notes: Classroom Clairboyant

Many years ago, while I was subbing in seventh grade, I got the children working and then walked around to make sure they didn’t have questions. One little boy raised his hand as I walked by. “What day is your birthday?” he asked.

I’ve always thought that was worded oddly. Not “when is your birthday,” but “what day.” But the weird part was—that day was my birthday.

“Today,” I blurted out, shocked.

The little boy nodded sagely. I didn’t want to encourage him to ask personal questions rather than doing his work—anything to get out of working for some of them—so I kept walking around the room.

Then I realized how weird that was. I didn’t know the kid or anyone related to him. I hadn’t said a word about my birthday to anyone. It's not a question people typically ask, let alone children.  I backed up. “Why did you ask me that?” I asked. He smiled shyly. Then he just shrugged. "No kidding," I said.  "Did something tip you off?"  He just shrugged again.

Kids say the darndest things.

An open mind is the beginning of self-discovery and growth. We can’t learn anything new until we can admit that we don’t already know everything. ~Erwin G. Hall

Improper Poll: Out of Sight, Not of Mind

So last week when I mentioned Halloween candy, some people responded that they freeze their candy or end up throwing it out when it gets stale. I can’t quite grasp the concept of having chocolate long enough for it to get stale. The exception was the healthy chocolate that was almost 100% pure cocoa. As in, they’d barely added any sugar or creamy stuff to it, so it was lean and black and dense and bitter. Mean-bitter. Chocolate should never be something you have to fight. It was so wrong.

So anyway, to get rid of my remaining Halloween candy, I resorted to standing at the end of my driveway (in bedroom slippers) and hollering at passers-by, “Does anybody want the rest of this bowl of candy?!” Which, under any other circumstances, would have made me the Lady-You-Run-From. As it was, one adult politely took a piece the way you would do with a crazy person you were trying to humor.

Usually at that time of night, all that’s left is teenagers. And sure enough, I eventually stalked a gang of them and practically forced it on a large but slightly scared-looking mouse.

Then I had some birthday cake last week that I tried to foist off onto friends. “Just freeze it,” they said. People always say that, and I don’t get it. What is the point of freezing? Do some people not know how to open a freezer door? Because I do. It’s almost as easy as opening a refrigerator door. And frozen cake is still cake. In fact, it’s sort of good frozen. I’ll even try setting up obstacles for myself by double-wrapping with the really clingy stuff and then sealing it in various containers so that I have to really want it to get through all of the barriers. Problem is, I usually do want it that badly.

Do you have a food you just can’t resist?

Book Blurb Friday #36

I’m off work today and grateful for the time to get caught up. I was going to (unofficially) attempt NaNoWriMo, but so far it’s NaNoWriNO. Is it possible to get caught up when you’re this far behind? It’s a question I ask myself a little too often these days.

But for inspiration, it’s time once again for Book Blurb Friday, a delightful meme hosted by the equally delightful Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff. The challenge is to write a blurb of 150 words tops to go with her pretend book cover. I apologize to the talented Christina Claro for the changes I made to her beautiful photo. My blurb this week is 127 words.

~Suburbway~

When neither her mother nor social services would help Sheba La Grande after her stepfather tried to rape her, 15-year-old Sheba got on a bus and stepped off in Cincinnati, where she ended up living in the city’s abandoned and little-known subway. There, Sheba found herself adopted into a new family that consisted of the blind Mother May-Eye, the kind but delusional Fredo San Luci, the microwave-cart-wielding Princess Diva, the ghost of Mr. Finkelstein, and a pet squirrel named Justin Beaver, among others.

What resulted was the story of an incredible—and incredibly successful—family. A family that grew out of necessity and love.

Welcome to Suburbway, where you may find yourself redefining the meaning of dysfunction—and having a jolly good time while you’re there.

Close friends become family and family is the true center of the universe. ~Dave Marinaccio