Writing Prompt

I participate in a writing group that meets Wednesday evenings. Time got away from me today and I missed the meeting. I am totally bummed. I really look forward to that weekly event.

When we meet, the leader of the group reads out a short prompt. The group members spend 3 to 5 minutes writing something incorporating the prompt, the pieces are shared, and we progress to the next prompt.

Writing prompts are also e-mailed once a week. Since I missed the meeting, let me see what I can do with the e-mailed prompt of: These are the things I remained silent about...

My fear of heights, my colorblindness and the torn ligament in my shoulder that had never healed properly. These are the things I remained silent about, the things I elected not to disclose on the personal information sheet. How was I to know that this year's summer scout camp was to include repelling down the face of a cliff? I couldn't possibly disclose the information now. Not here at the top of the mountain. The other guys in my patrol would think I was chicken. Refusing to look behind me,I allowed myself to be backed up to the edge of the rock where the undergrowth thinned to moss growing in crooked tendrils from the crevices in the stone. My left foot slipped on a thick patch of springy moss. The rope had not yet been fed through the metal rings on my harness. Falling backward, arms pinwheeling, I finally summoned the sense to grab for the rope. I grabbed with my right hand. It was my right shoulder that had never healed. The pain was like an electric shock. I hung there, parallel to to the ground a hundred feet below, one heel hooked on a crooked piece of stone and one failing hand clinging to a rope. It was then that I noticed the approaching string of clouds that looked like a herd of galloping horses. Maybe they would arrive in time to rescue me.

Before signing off, let me point out this is a fictional piece. There is absolutely no factual basis for the five minute story.

Return to Post-Summer

The signs of post-summer are popping up everywhere.

(For those of you who are new readers, when I moved to the beach area I took the liberty of renaming the seasons of the year. The four seasons as I now know them are pre-summer, summer, post-summer and Christmas.)

Morning dew on car windshields, hay bales and dried corn stalks decorating front porches, and mums blooming in all of their flower button glory all announce the change of season.

Motivated Mom has hung Indian corn on the front door and decorated the mantle with strings of colored leaves.

This time of year used to leave me down in the dumps. I would begin thinking of the dark evenings and barren trees soon to come.

I'm taking it all with quiet acceptance this time around. Just another shift in the unstoppable march of time. Soon enough I'll be announcing the arrival of pre-summer and all will be right with the world.

A Short Break

I'll be away from the internet for a couple days.

Look for a new post on Wednesday, Sept 30.

Cat Scratch Weather

We have a cat, Ginger, who, scratches at the door like a dog when she wants to go out. That was one of the reasons we installed a pet door - so that our cats could come and go as they please without the human folk having to act as doormen.

This morning Ginger refused to consider the pet door and went back to door scratching accompanied by mournful howling.

So, being the attentive doorman that I am, I slid the patio door open.

...and Ginger just sat there.

I finally figured out what the problem was. It was pouring rain and Ginger didn't like it. She had obviously been hoping the human folk door would lead to better weather than the cat door.

When that proved not to be the case, Ginger gave me an accusing stare - as though the weather was my doing.

Then it occurred to me that Ginger very well may believe I have the power to change the weather. After all, I can change darkness to light with the flip of a switch. So why wouldn't I be able to switch the rain on and off as well?

Nascar City

It's Nascar weekend at nearby Dover Downs. I'm always amazed at the city that springs to life for Nascar events. The surrounding fairgrounds, empty for much of the year, fill with campers of all types.

Pickup trucks with aluminum homes that drop into the bed, trailers that transform into tents on wheels, and forty foot long mobile castles begin to converge on Dover Downs as much as a full week in advance of the big event.

The transformation reminds me of the magic of a circus. Only circus magic occurs overnight rather than over a week. One day there's an open field, the next a community of tents, wagons, entertainers, animals and more.

Personally, I'll take the circus over race cars any day - but to each his own.

Dream Scream

We've all had them. Dreams where we are trying to escape something but can't make our legs move. Dreams where we are walking up to something we don't want to see but can't turn away.

Last night I had a dream in which I was trying to scream at the approach of something terrifying but couldn't. I tried and tried but just couldn't force the scream out of my mouth.

Except that I did. Motivated Mom shook me awake and asked my god, what's wrong?

What? I asked, realizing I already knew the answer to that question.

Motivated Mom informed me I had emitted a series of blood curdling screams.

I don't think that's ever happened before - achieving in real life what I couldn't accomplish in a dream.

I wonder if this is the start of a trend. Will I start waking to find myself running through the house to escape whatever is chasing me?

I'm going to be really concerned about those dreams where I find myself in a public place without my clothes.

Is It Enlightenment?

I've been writing all day today - working on my novel.

Time goes into hyper drive when I'm writing. Hours pass in minutes - sometimes faster.

I sat down this morning with the intention of working until noon and the next thing I knew I had to turn on the light to see my keyboard.

I'm sure I did things other than write between dawn and dusk but memory of it escapes me. Today the real stuff, the important stuff, was how the characters in my book were dealing with the latest obstacles that had befallen them. Their lives, and therefore mine, took place in fields of winter wheat, abandoned houses, and church rectories. The office space around me might as well not have existed.

When the day disappears the way today has - eight hours gone by in the span of forty minutes - I find myself wondering if I have made the mental shift that shaman, yogis, and wizards achieve. The shift into transcendentalism that allows those learned people to see life for the dream that it really is. The realization that time is a farce.

Absolute Absolution

Oops! I missed a day after committing to getting back on a regular posting schedule.

I guess I better hope for absolution. Fortunately I can afford it.

What, you ask, absolution can be bought?

Uh-hum, yeah, ah, well that was one of the crazy turns my mind took this morning when I saw the neon sign advertising Absolute $29.99.

I got to thinking what if the sign were to be in front of a church instead of a liquor store, and what if Absolute were replaced with absolution?

Would the church be filled to capacity? Would people be willing to spend $29.99 to have their slate wiped clean?

I'm guessing they would - unless absolution mandated keeping the slate clean afterward. Then I'm thinking the response would drop dramatically.

We've become a society that wants instant gratification. Having to work at holding onto the sense of well being following gratification doesn't seem to be on our agenda anymore.

A Boatload

At some point we have probably all used the expression: a boatload of..... to express an enormously large quantity of something.

Well, yesterday I really did see a boatload of bananas.

Sunday was one of those sunny, blue sky, see for ever kind of days. Motivated Mom and I were at the beach enjoying nature's gift. On the horizon the western coastline of New Jersey stood out more clearly than I can ever remember having seen it before.

I dug out a pair of binoculars to see if I could zoom in on anything more specific than the lighthouse at Cape May. Just when I nearly had the binoculars in perfect focus, something obstructed my vision.

Making the necessary magnification adjustments, I found myself looking at a cargo ship. Emblazoned on the hull of the ship was the word Chiquita. The ship was loaded down with metal containers that could only be filled with bananas.

I started counting containers, wondered how many tons of bananas a single container held, how many individual bananas were in a ton, and started working on hypothetical equations.

After losing my place in the multiplication process for the third time I decided I didn't need to know the exact number of bananas. Boatload was good enough

Sweatin' Dad

I couldn't help but overhear the interactions of a family sitting behind me in a restaurant tonight.

It was a family of four. The young boy, somewhere around eight years old I would guess, had a serious case of the squirms. Mom was trying to keep her son occupied by asking him an extensive list of questions.

What's ninety-nine plus one? What's fifteen plus ten? What's your favorite color? Who's your favorite mother?

The young boy shot the answers right back as quickly as the mother could rattle them off... until...

Who's your favorite father? the mother asked.

The question was followed by a prolonged silence.

Mom repeated the question but still there was no answer.

I pictured Dad tugging at his shirt collar as beads of perspiration collected on his forehead. He must have been worrying over the delay. Why was his son not pronouncing him dad of the year?
What terrible secret was about to be revealed?

"My father is my favorite father," the young boy finally answered.

Whew! Disaster averted.

Speak of the Pirate

I was in the convenience store today when who should walk in but a whole crew of pirates.

Speak of the dev... eerrr pirate.

I thought the motley crew had come to haul me away for disclosing the secret of their rich but not so famous lifestyles.

It turned out they knew nothing about yesterday's post. I didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Relieved that I wasn't going to be made to walk the plank. Disappointed that my blog wasn't read by those sailing under the Jolly Roger. Wireless internet is fairly prevalent these days after all.

I asked the swill drinking group if they were out promoting National Speak Like a Pirate Day. Turns out they knew nothing about it.

They must have been pretenders.

Pirate Day

Shiver me timbers. I've been told that Saturday is national talk like a pirate day.

So ahoy there matey and avast ye swabs, let's talk about them scurvy devils.

Pirates seem to always be portrayed as the worst of the lot. Even when they're not on the high seas doing their plundering, it seems they're always in dimly lit taverns tugging on the skirts of frightened serving wenches.

My question is... why?

I suspect that the poorly groomed and inarticulate persona pirates present is just a front to scare the poor folks on the ships about to be ransacked.

Once they heave to and put to shore, I would imagine that with all their ill-gotten loot pirates would be living in secluded estates, not hanging out in dingy taverns. There would have to be a household staff to attend to things while the looters and pillagers were away. So when the pirates returned home there were surely enough servants to cater to their every whim. They wouldn't need to go yanking on the skirts of ... well, okay, maybe there is a need to tug on some skirts after months at sea.

Me thinks that for all these years, pirates have been pullin the sailcloth over our eyes.

A Finding Opportunity

When I sat down at my computer I knew exactly what today's post was going to be.

By the time my blog site loaded, the flash of creative brilliance that was going to awe my readers had disappeared like a spark being sucked up a chimney.

Opportunity lost - which makes me think of opportunity found.

Just such an opportunity - a finding opportunity - presented itself to College Dude when he was visiting the other week.

College Dude, Language Lass, Motivated Mom, and Queen Bee had gone to the book sale at the local library.

And what did College Dude discover there but a first edition printing of Jerle Shannara Isle Witch, a novel by Terry Brooks. Talk about finding the proverbial needle in a haystack!

Sometimes magic works and we find ourselves the recipients of incredible good fortune.

College Dude is an avid fan of Terry Brooks so the finding of the book was indeed a thrill for him.

Maybe the magic will work again and College Dude will have the opportunity to have the author sign that first edition.

Multiplying Flies

Fruit flies must be the fastest reproducing insect in this world.

Somehow I manage to forget that from one year to the next.

There is always a basket of fresh fruit sitting on the counter in our kitchen. The basket is laden with whatever fruit is in season along with the ever present bananas.

Every year about this time three or four fruit flies appear. And every year my memory fails me. So I fail to react to that first insurgence. I neglect to immediately move the fruit to the refrigerator - to cut off the food source.

It only takes a day for four fruit flies to multiply exponentially.

So every year about this time, I reach for a piece of fruit and stagger backwards as a tornado of insects rise in a spinning mass from that treat I was about to consume.

...And since the annoying little buggers continue to multiply exponentially, I battle with the things for weeks on end.

Washington Diplomacy

Representative Joe Wilson was "rebuked" for shouting out during the President's speech??!!

I don't usually touch on religion or politics in my blog but...

Wasn't this country founded by esteemed gentlemen voicing their displeasure with the status quo?

Okay, shouting out you lie to the President of the United States is a little uncouth. But surely such a goof is the sort of thing usually handled behind closed doors. You know, a private meeting between esteemed gentleman where someone asks, Jeez Joe aren't you getting any right now? Maybe you should find a female intern who likes cigars.

Of Cats and Screens

Life was hectic today. I was juggling multiple priorities and almost missed the frozen cat outside the patio door.

The cat was fixed in a museum quality pose - ears slanted forward, teeth exposed in a fierce snarl, front leg permanently locked in what might have been the tail end of a vicious swipe, and fur standing on end as though a hundred kilowatts of electricity had just coursed through the animal.

Incredibly lifelike I thought before hurrying on to my next task.

Wait a minute. That was our cat.

I turned back and discovered I had caught only half the picture. The neighbor cat was in the opposite corner of the deck, locked in a similar pose. The two felines looked like prize fighters waiting for the bell to ring.

I opened the patio door and - neighbor cat took off at a dead run. It ran right through the screening of the screen room on the patio below.

Had it been a carton, the screen would have had a hole in the shape of a cat with four appendages splayed out like an X.

Cartoon it was not, the screen offered momentary resistance before giving way in a six foot long diagonal tear.

I guess I'll be dining with the mosquitoes this evening.

Shack in the Back

Motivated Mom and I were out doing "empty nester" spur of the moment stuff today.

We're not really empty nesters yet, but the planetary alignment was favorable to being spontaneus.

In downtown Rehoboth Beach we spotted a home that had escaped our notice before. The one-and-a-half story building sat at the back of a narrow lot and looked to be the perfect size for a pair of fairy tale creatures - maybe two of the seven dwarves.

The white clapboard house had gingerbread trim painted sky blue. The roof slopped so steeply that I could imagine an elf skiing down the incline on a January afternoon.

If I were single, I thought, that would be the perfect home.

Then I remembered a childhood friend who had lived in such a house. He called it The Shack in the Back. Chip and his mother lived on a property with a small A-frame building in the backyard. The A-frame had once served as a studio. When Chip hit sixteen years of age, the studio became his home. He was the envy of every teenager in the area.

Come to think of it, two people could have lived comfortably in that converted studio.

When Motivated Mom really do become empty nesters, maybe the fairy tale home in Rehoboth Beach will be available. How cool would it be to live in a cottage that was half a step distant from the everyday world - a house where daydreams come true.

Golf Futility

I was heading out in the pre-dawn hours today and spotted some cars in the parking lot of a nearby golf course. Surely the cars had been there all night. I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to play golf when the sodium lights in the parking lot were still on.

I was wrong. Four men were pulling bags of golf clubs from the trunks of their cars.

Now I realize that, unlike me, there are some folks who are just naturally early risers. But I failed to see the point in arriving at a golf course before the sun.

I wondered how the men would find their golf balls. Were the balls painted neon colors? Did they have tiny microchips that sent out homing signals?

With rain in the forecast, it all seemed like an excercise in futility to me.

Early Morning Demons

I looked out my window this morning expecting to find I wasn't in Delaware anymore. I was certain my house had been sent spinning through the sky while I slept and had landed in some locale where logic did not apply.

That was the way it sounded in the early morning hours. A combination of driving rain and howling wind had me wondering what the wind shear rating was for the nails that held the shingles to the roof and siding to the walls.

The sound of rain pounding horizontally on the wall behind my headboard woke me somewhere around 4:00 a.m. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and a thousand demons shrieked outside my bedroom window. Well, okay maybe a hundred.

It's usually on a cold winter's night that I am grateful for the warm blankets layered on my bed. Last night I was grateful for warm blankets, sturdy roof, and solid foundation.

First Assignment

On Tuesday I made note of my expectation that the first day of school would result in parent homework. My expectations were met.

My nephew's junior high teacher went a little bit further than the standard emergency information forms. She sent an actual honest to goodness homework assignment home for the parents of each of her students.

Write a 500 word essay about your child. The assignment was accompanied by the explanation that since the students had just advanced from elementary to junior high the teacher had no past history with the students. The parent essays would allow the teacher to quickly build a knowledge of the kids in her class.

Now I'm fairly comfortable with putting words on paper - but I can picture the horrified expressions on the faces of any number of parents. An essay? Me? You've got to be kidding!

I know exactly what my father would have done. He would have lowered his newspaper, flicked the ashes from the end of his cigarette, taken the assignment paper from my hand, mumbled incoherently but vehemently, and dropped the assignment in the waste basket.

And if I had moaned about a resulting black mark on my record, my father would have said from behind his newspaper - If your teacher thinks she's sending homework home to me, she's got another think coming.

Certainly times have changed since I was waist high to an adult, but I'm betting better than fifty percent of today's parents would view the assignment as an inexcusable incursion on their time. Hopefully I'll find out from my nephew and hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

Whose at the Corner?

I was heading out for an appointment yesterday afternoon when I noticed groups of people gathered at the entrances to local developments.

The groupings certainly weren't school kids waiting for the bus... were they? My internal clock has been out of whack recently but surely I hadn't misplaced an entire half day. No, of course not, it would be pitch black were it three-thirty in the morning.

They certainly weren't students returning home. Kids scatter the minute they're off the bus. They don't linger on street corners.

Once I was close enough to make positive identification I realized the groups were comprised of adults.

A light went on. These were parents of elementary school students waiting for their children to arrive home from the first day at school.

I reasoned they had children in first or second grade. By third grade the novelty wears off. Come to think of it, by third grade parents get blown off. Hi Mom, Dad, got'ta run Tommy and I agreed to meet by the swings right after school. See ya.

Back to School

Media Girl heads back to school today. The first day of her senior year in high school. Where does the time go?

Of course this means Motivated Mom and I will have homework tonight - forms of all kinds to complete. Emergency contact info, authorizations to participate in functions off of the school grounds, offers for life insurance, etc.

At least it won't be as bad as when we had two children who were in both elementary school and after school childcare. Back then it was emergency contact forms in triplicate (not carbon copy but three separate and distinctly colored forms requiring completion of the same data) health histories, checks for lunches and snacks. All of this was required for school and childcare both. So we were looking at four informational packets.

Motivated Mom and I never could figure out why the information couldn't be entered into a database and reprinted or forwarded as needed. Computers were fairly commonplace after all.

Looking back on those times, I can't imagine what it would have been like to have had three or four children in school at the same time. Either Motivated Mom or I would have had to take a vacation day in order to get all the paperwork completed.

Parting and Promises

College Dude headed back to Pittsburgh today. Parting with my son at the end of a visit is always a difficult time for me - though I get better at dealing with it as time goes on. I always find myself feeling like we should have talked more, should have done more things together, etc.

Usually our visits are exactly what they need to be, a periodic opportunity to acknowledge our continuing love for one another (an enormous gift really). Sometimes we truly do have too little time together and I am left bemoaning the geographic distance between us. Occasionally we are together long enough that I am reminded why it is that children go off to lead lives of their own.

This past visit was better than too short and less than too long. We had the opportunity to banter over margaritas, briefly discuss work and school, enjoy a day at the beach, and simply be around one another. I could almost say, in the words of Goldilocks, it was just right.

And yet that desire to have had just one extra hour still lingers.

I guess that's a good thing really. It has me looking forward to the promise of another visit, another opportunity for companionship.

Lest I leave her feeling like the odd person out, I must make a point here of saying that I also enjoy the opportunity to visit with Language Lass. Since she benefits from a solid family base of her own, I trust she doesn't feel slighted but appreciates the unique relationship between parent and progeny.

Kitchen Tables

The most important thing about kitchen tables is not the food that gets put on them but the conversation that happens around them.

There's something about a group of people pulling chairs up to a kitchen table that generates camaraderie, remembrances, and just overall warm feelings.

Such has been the case this evening. College Dude, Language Lass, Motivated Mom, Queen Bee, and I were reliving experiences as varied as the flavors listed on the board of a Ben and Jerry's ice cream parlor.

We talked about College Dude's formative years, pets who have since departed, friends who we speak with less often than we'd like, movies we enjoyed.... the list goes on.

These are the kinds of discussions that warm the heart and make us glad for family. While such talks may move to other rooms in the house, it seems they invariably start in the kitchen.

Home may be where the heart is, but the kitchen table is where the pulse is found.

I learned tonight that in some ways this blog is a kitchen table for College Dude, a daily pulse check. I had no idea. In fact I am flabbergasted. I now find myself feeling guilty about my recent lack of consistency. I can think of no better impetus to get back on track.

Just Doesn't Belong

There's a song on a program for children that goes something like: Some of these things don't go together, one of these things just doesn't belong.

Those verses went through my head today as I was passing a driveway. There were signs at the end of the drive that definitely didn't go together.

The first sign to catch my eye was a placard painted in pretty pastel colors announcing that Miss Paula's Place (not the real name) is a quality daycare facility.

Just behind the flowery sign was a less attractive one. The second sign had an orange border and bold letters advising BEWARE OF THE DOG.

I think Miss Paula needs an advertising consultant.

Fashion Bookmarks

A sudden change in the weather has triggered the unique fashion trend of flip-flops and sweatshirts.

It occurs to me this ensemble bookmarks the season of summer.

Pre-summer brings flip-flops, those almost shoes with a rubber post that slides between the first two toes, out of the closet as folks look forward to hot summer days despite the lingering chill that prohibits the shedding of sweatshirts.

Those same summer loving folks who bring the summer footwear out in April hate to see the flip-flops return to the closet. So it's back to the sweatshirts in post-summer for the warm embrace that will allow the minimal footwear to remain a fashion accessory for as long as possible.