Magpie Tales posts a visual prompt each week and invites others to write a short story or a poem about it. Check it out here.
The two older women sat across from one another at the small kitchen table, coffee cups close at hand. With just a slight turn of their heads they could each view the sunny courtyard on the other side of the twin windows. It was going to be one of those rare perfect days. Warm, but not too hot.
“How are you holding up?”
Annie looked up at her friend Ruth and slowly shook her head. “If I have to move one more time I think I’ll just…."
She didn’t know what she’d do if she had to move again so she let her answer drift off unfinished.
“They always say they’ll help, but they don’t. My seven year old grandson Tommy was more help than all of them combined.”
Ruth nodded her head in agreement. She knew exactly what Annie meant. The younger generation seemed to abhor physical labor. Their intentions were sincere and true, but they all had lousy follow-thru.
“Where is Tommy?” Ruth asked.
“He’s next door playing. They have a couple of kids around Tommy’s age, which is handy. Now he’ll have something to do when he comes over to visit. Grace is going to pick him up later tonight.”
Annie put her hands on the tabletop and pushed her stiff body up, joints creaking. “Gawd, I’m too friggin old for this shit!” she muttered as she shuffled over to the counter. Every muscle yelled at her. She moved the sugar canister and grabbed the pint of brandy from behind it.
“Want some meds?” she asked, waving the bottle a little.
They each poured a little brandy in their coffee. Annie started quietly singing as she added some sugar to her cup.
“Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, medicine go down… “
Ruth inspected the room.
“Looks like you’ve got everything put up or put away.” She turned her head to look at the whole room again. “Where’s your great grandmother’s plate?”
Ruth was talking about the blue willow plate Annie had always guarded with her life. The one Annie’s mother had handed down to her with great ceremony.
“I don’t have to worry about it any more.”
Ruth’s question displayed on her face. “huh?”
“Well, I was in my bedroom and Tommy was helping by putting things in their proper room. I heard this loud crash and rushed out to the living room to find Tommy standing over a pile of blue and white shards. He was paralyzed with fear. He knew how important that plate was to me.”
“oh no” gasped Ruth.
“Oh Ruthie… you should have seen his poor little face. He looked like someone had just told him that he had killed Bambi!”
“Ohmygawd… what did you do?”
“What could I do? I said Thank you."
Ruth just stared.
“I told him Thank You! I’ve been worrying about that plate for years and years. Now I’m free. Thank you very much! I don’t have to worry about it any more.”
A small smile spread across Ruth’s face as Annie continued.
“I made him clean up the mess, of course, then we walked around the corner to the little café and had a treat. Afterwards Tommy looked at me very seriously and said if I ever needed anything else broken to just let him know and he’ll take care of it for me. I thought that was very sweet of him.”
The two old ladies chuckled as they lifted their cups to toast Annie’s finest hour as a grandmother. And to bid farewell to the blue willow plate.
I don't usually promote a charity but I came across this site and it struck me as a terrific idea. 800 Charity Cars. Check them out HERE. They help struggling families with transportation in the form of giving them their own cars. It looks like they accept cars or you can donate money (scroll to the bottom of the home page for $$ donation link.)
If you don't have a car to donate now, maybe you can bookmark it. Later, when your neighbor is trying to figure out how to unload his hooptie you can come to his rescue and give him the link.
I just know from personal experience how difficult it is to raise a family without personal transportation. Doctor appmts, emergencies, getting to the stores with the best sales... sometimes just getting out of the house for a short drive to keep a mother from leaping off Insanity Ledge.
(for those who may not be familar with a "hooptie", just think of a car costing $500 or less.)
The room was dim. The light from the computer monitor was the only illumination. The old woman put on her reading glasses and leaned in closer to the monitor.
What the hell… she thought to herself.
She sat back and continued looking at the image on the screen. A slow grin appeared.
What kind of weirdness is this? Geesh, Willow likes to set a good challenge, doesn't she. Crazy woman. Where does she get these images from anyway?
The woman, hair askew, leaned forward again to study the image as she tried to think of a story line.
“Fried eggs, anyone?”
“Wait a minute… I wanted my eggs scrambled!”
None of them worked for her.
Well, that’s okay, the wrinkled woman thought to herself. Its all voluntary and I just won’t volunteer this week.
Without moving her body, the woman turned her head slightly to the right and stared over her shoulder at her readers. “Okay… then you do it. You write a tale. Just let me know by leaving a comment. I want to see what YOU come up with. K?”
Things are boring around here. The group (daughter and her 2 boys) have been gone for almost a week so its been very quiet.
Does the devil have a conscience?
Portrait of gramma captured just after one of her power surges and just before shot of scotch.
I told you its been boring around here. These guys were high for a while, but they didn't do anything crazy. I couldn't work in high places. I always seem to want to jump and that can't be good.
Magpie Tales posts a visual prompt each week and invites others to write a short story or a poem about it. Check it out here.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. That was Bob's motto to live by... and it was evident by the decor of his shabby little apartment.
He stood in front of the fish bowl and watched for a while.
"What do you think, Dorothy. Will it brighten up your life?"
Dorothy refused to answer. In fact she purposely ignored Bob and just kept swimming angrily back and forth, but Bob was use to it. He waited for her to calm down. She didn't. Finally his shoulders slumped and concern showed in his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I'M SORRY, DOROTHY! I just... I just didn't know what else to do with a broken lava lamp."
Did you ever meet a young child that you just didn't like for no apparent reason? Say, for example, you met a five year old towheaded, blue eyed little princess... and you just wanted to sock her in the nose. Have you ever had that happen?
What if she was a snitch and a tattle-tale, or a manipulator who whispered in the other kids' ears telling them to go ask for this or for that? What if she was perfect and to make sure you knew it, she would yell out "I didn't do any of that! I was a good girl" when you were chewing out the other kids for some infraction or another? What if she had to know everyones' business, be they adults or children, and she watched your every move.
Have you ever met a child that caused negative feelings to be felt? No? Yeah. Me, either.
My sincere intention was to use another photo of a clown and produce a magnificent drawing of said clown. It ain't gonna happen. (source photo from wetcanvas.com/portrait/April Challenge) I couldn't catch a likeness, I couldn't get myself in the zone, so instead I went for a blind contour drawing. Only I peeked. A lot. I tried two times. Results below.
On a different note, 5 yr old Vyron was showing me a toy he had. He said he had borrowed it from his playmate Aubrey. He waited a second and then said "I've been borrowing it for 5 years."
(Over at Magpie Tales a weekly photo is posted and those who want to can write short stories or poems that may be triggered by the photo. They then post their link to the story at Magpie Tales. I thought I'd give it a try this week. How about you?)
The click of her heels on the tile floor echoed through the empty house. Well, almost empty. Placed in strategic locations were a few large and colorful bouquets. Silk flowers.
The woman walked to the mantle and adjusted the placement of the vase by moving it off center. She stepped back to view it. Yes. Off center was best.
When she had first started using flowers to bring some warmth to an empty room she used real ones, but it didn’t take long for her to see the folly in her ways. The real flowers triggered allergic reactions in a couple of viewers so she quickly switched to silk. Besides, they could be used over and over again. It saved her money.
The woman turned and looked around critically at the space. Everything looked in order for the open house. A card table with four chairs sat in the corner out of the way. Flyers were stacked neatly and flowers were placed for dramatic effect. Sunlight flowed into the rooms. All was well.
There was one last thing to do. The woman walked over to the table and grabbed a black walking stick and took it into the den. She leaned it up against the wall. If she was going to sell this house she would, indeed, need a miracle. Who knows, perhaps a viewer would remember the movie and the importance of the walking stick and what it represented. Stranger things than this have triggered a sale.
“Besides” she thought to herself, “this house screams for a walking stick. Its on 34th street, for gawd sake!”
OMG, You've got to check out this paper art. Its amazing... at least to me. Lorraine Nam.
There are others who do awesome things with paper, too. Check out Dude Craft's blog. He shares things he's come across and its amazing what can be done with paper.
I checked out wetcanvas.com, in the portrait section (see April 2010 'challenge'), and decided to try to do the April challenge. (Sorry, I don't remember exact words... challenge or some other word.) They had posted a couple of photos and I liked the one of the child dressed as a clown.
Here's a WIP that went horribly downhill from this stage. Its a Try it again, Crusty, 'cause this ain't gettin' it.
Here's the original photo.
On another note, 6 yr old Darius has another milestone going on, he's losing his front teeth.
His front tooth has been loose for a while. Last night he was drinking from a pop bottle and somehow got his snaggled tooth caught in the opening. I think he said he bumped his tooth hard. Anyway, it was bent back and looking sad. This morning he came out to show me his treasure. He had his tiny front tooth in the palm of his hand. D said it came out during the night and we both agreed he was lucky to not have lost it. A Tooth Fairy alert has been sounded.
One of my grandsons had his fifth birthday party this past weekend.
He doesn't look a day over four.
He got some pretty good gifts. This was the only picture I could find that did not show the chocolate around his mouth and cheeks and on his shirt sleeve.
The two brothers could not be more opposite. D is slow moving, tall, and stocky like a linebacker. V is short and slender like a little firecracker. V doesn't just walk across the room. He shoots like a rocket and then just flops his body down on the couch. Sometimes he misses. Other times he just stands in place doing mini jumps, you know, just to release all his pent up energy. "Where'd he come from, anyway?" said the slug-like grandmother to the empty room.
He will never ever have to worry about putting on extra weight. His may be the opposite concern, how to keep the weight up.
Those of a certain age will get the humor. Those younger, not so much. Tim Hawkins - Old Rock Star Songs.
I pilfered this from Coal Creek Farms dot com. Hey. I'm a Gatherer. What can I say? I go out and gather things and bring them back home. Blame my ancesters, k?
Angela tried to suppress the laughter that she felt bubbling inside as her 13 yr old daughter shared her dramatics. "I fell, mom. I tripped and fell UP the stairs while everyone laughed at me. I can't go back there. I will NEVER go back there again!"
"all i did was listen" is the name of a blog I came across that contains a very colorful character and wonderful examples of what can be expressed with a simple line and lots of color. I was impressed with how many different feelings could be felt from just the lines. No facial features at all.
*When we would have family gatherings the kids (adults) would reminisce about their childhood, usually with a lot of laughter, and most of it at my expense. One time my son was talking about how, if they asked to do or go somewhere, I would say ‘no’ and then continue on with an explanation of why.
“We couldn’t ever get just a ‘no’… she always had to explain why.”
Then others would join in with examples and lots of laughing would follow. But I’m here to say that I was being efficient. Any mother knows that when you tell a child no, the next thing out of their mouth is always a loud, whiny “why not?” I just eliminated that step.
*Manipulation. My then teenage son came to me one day to share that he was smoking. “I want to know if I can smoke in front of you. Isn’t it better to be up front then to sneak around and do it behind your back?” I told him he couldn’t smoke in front of me. I couldn’t stop him from smoking when he was away from home, but I was not going to make it any easier for him smoke by allowing him to do it in front of me. The wind left his sails. (he smoked in his late teens and early 20s then he quit. I continued.)
*I learned about party phone lines when I was around seven, I guess. Three short rings was my grandmother’s line. I would sometimes quietly pick up the phone and listen in to other people’s conversations. I didn’t do it more than a couple of times, not because I got caught, but because the conversations were boring.
*Playing kick-the-can after dark. The streetlight was home base.
*My grandmother seemed to always have on an apron. I remember clean sheets and towels on the clothesline fluttering in the breeze. Those same sheets would feel cool and fresh when I climbed into bed in the guest room.
*I can remember the shocked look on my grandparent’s face one time when I was spending the night. I must have been around six or seven. It was about 6:30pm when I asked my grandmother if I could go to bed. It was a surprise to have a child ask to go to bed… and that early in the evening. Lawrence Welk made me yawn. (The downside to this is that I’d wake up before dawn and have to be quiet for hours.)
*Saturday afternoon matinees at the neighborhood theater. $0.25. After spending a couple of hours in a dream world, walking out the side door into the alley was always a shock. (I can even remember the name of the little theater. It was the Bob White theater. And I never once wondered who Bob White was.)
*I thought Elvis was corny as were The Beatles.
*Bucky Beaver sold toothpaste in ads.
*Romper Room called my younger sister once. We were watching tv and the Romper Room lady picked up her magic mirror to look out at the audience. She’d call out different names, and then she picked up the phone and dialed a number so she could talk to one of us. Our phone began to ring. Mother and I were practically shouting at my sister. “The phone. The phone is ringing. Go answer it, sis. Its Romper Room calling!” (I don’t remember what happened next.)
How often does a mother, or grandmother, hear that request? Not often at all. In fact, about the only time one would hear that is if it comes from someone who is not responsible for cleaning anything. A child.
There was only V and me at home at the time. I was ready to surf the web. V was ready to interact with me in a very engeric way. When he asked if he could do the dishes I said sure. I figured I would simply clean up the mess afterwards.
When I went to check on him I was a little surprised at his style. V has his own style of performance sometimes.
Have you sent in your Census form? I misplaced mine for a while but came acrossed it last night. Its completed and waiting to be taken to the mail box.
A little bird told me that if you don't send it in the government tracks you down and harrasses you until you scream UNCLE...UNCLE SAM, STOP!
We had a monsoon yesterday. Today is just normal rain. Cold rain at that.
"…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” –Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarschall
