Yearly Archives: 2012

Notes from the road: Under Boston

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I’ve been scheduling my posts for the last week or so. If it works as well as it has been, I’m going to keep scheduling about half of them. I’ll still do plenty live, but if I can keep ahead of the flow, it will help when life (or grading) become crazy and I have to go to earth.

For example.

I’ve been on vacation since last Thursday, so I scheduled all my posts a week out. (Poor Roxanne at The Good Luck Duck noticed my prescheduled cow post on Facebook when I screwed up my scheduling function. And the accidental early publication attests to the fact that I’m telling the truth to say I totally scheduled that before Trifecta gave us a cow in the road prompt.)… Read the rest

The Right Buyer

Posted on by February 25, 2020

When she saw the house from the road, Leslie Weiner groaned and stopped the car. She hadn’t driven up to this end of town for years. She was beginning to remember why.

The house was old. Parts of it were supposed to date back to the Civil War. But it was a strange structure, built in one era and added onto at two other times. The front part of the building was all brick, but the middle and rear sections were covered with white wood siding. At least, Leslie thought, it used to be white. Now it was more moldy green.… Read the rest

Stages of a relationship

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Our relationships are delicate things, fragile and in need of constant repair. Put enough strain on love, and quite often, it breaks. If it doesn’t break, though, if, in fact, it survives, then it often collides directly with the next strain. Any of the situations described below could be used to describe The End for a couple. Of course, these situations could also highlight the ways in which humor can shelter a love through stress. But we would know nothing of that here, would we?

Dating

It’s not you, it’s me

_________________________

Marriage

It’s not me, it’s you

_________________________

Therapy

It’s not you, it’s us

_________________________

Kids

It’s not us, it’s them.

… Read the rest

Ballet camp 2012

Posted on by February 25, 2020

For the second consecutive year, my kids participated in the Montgomery ballet’s Fairy Tale Ballet Camp. It’s a compromise between doing summer lessons and skipping ballet over the summer, and it’s one Sam and Caroline both enjoy. It buys Scott and I a good measure of sanity, because Caroline’s age group meets three times a week (M-W-F from 9-12) and Sam’s meets twice a week (Tu.-Th. 9-12). Although it means having to have a kid up there every single day for three weeks, it also means a morning spent with only the other child at home all morning.

Also, they put on an adorable little performance at the end.… Read the rest

Edgy

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Dad, it’s time to stop edging.”

Rick was middle aged. Maybe forty five, perhaps even fifty. His father Andrew did not stop pushing the edger along the sidewalk, neatly partitioning grass from concrete.

“Dad, you need to turn off the machine.”

Andrew let go of the trigger, and silence descended to the street.

“Thank you!”

“Oh! Hello Rick! Good to see you.” Andrew eased himself down to hands and knees and used a stick to work loose a chunk stuck in the blade.

“Dad.” Rick pointed to the machine, “You need to put that away.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The old man used the handle for support and got back up.… Read the rest

We do things a little differently around here

Posted on by February 25, 2020

With all the talk about the loss of paper journalism in New Orleans, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what my local newspaper meant to me growing up. If not for the Brown County Press, I would never have enjoyed such notices as this one:

This is a real notice Mom sent me last week. I actually screwed up and posted it in learning how to schedule my posts. It is completely independent of last weekend’s Trifextra prompt!  It is emblematic of some of my favorite clippings over the years, though nothing can surmount the joy of reading about a car-deer collision in which the deer fled the scene.… Read the rest

On Twitter

Posted on by February 25, 2020

One would think that someone as twitful as my husband would love an organization like Twitter. I mean, it has his nature in the name. But no. Scott will never twit me on Twitter. And I have to say, my viewpoint isn’t so very different from his.

For him, there’s just no reason to type something you could as easily say.

I want to like Twitter. But for me, the problem is that I could not just as easily speak my tweets. Tweeting is, for me, the ultimate act of self-censorship. To contain myself to 140 characters, I must slice an idea down to its barest grains, and then break it again, until scant fragments remain.… Read the rest

Scriptic 24 hour challenge: Potted Plants

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Potted Plants: A Play In One Scene

CHARACTERS

NATALIE SMITH (NATTY): 80 year old woman

GINA SCHULER: Natty’s 25 year old granddaughter.

MARLENE SCHULER: Gina’s 50 year old mother. Natty’s daughter.

FRANCINE DRAKE: Natty’s next door neighbor and attorney

LESLIE: Natty’s Neighbor

JEAN: Leslie’s teenage daughter

LESLIE and JEAN’S DOG

TIME

Late afternoon

SCENE

 

(A pair of rocking chairs flank the door on the back porch.

 There is a porch swing hanging at one end, and

a small table with four chairs are halfway between the

door and the other end of the porch. Three stairs lead

down, and the sidewalk runs the length of the stage.… Read the rest

Where It’s At

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

Club Aqua burned on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning, the DJ and bartender were celebrities. Val, the DJ, wasn’t pleased. “I didn’t do anything,” she protested.

But Larry the bartender disagreed. “Listen, that whole fucking ceiling was coming in, and you was standing out on the floor directing traffic just like you was calling a square dance or something. If you hadn’t had your shit together, those people would have flipped out and stampeded. We’d all be dead.”

“OK, I wasn’t the one carrying people out on my goddamned shoulders,” Val snapped. “All I did was tell people where to find the doors.… Read the rest

An invigorating afternoon

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Today was Caroline’s first volunteer day at the pound . We walked Mandy, who jumped on everything. With her, we practiced, “Off!” A wire terrier named Sammy hated being taken out. We couldn’t walk him. But we sat and held him, teaching him the big world might not be so bad. Then we walked Angelique who was anything but angelic. She practiced “No,” and “C’mere.” And also, she trained us on leash escape tactics. Finally, we went into the cat room, where we found out Booker hates to have his neck scratched. All in all, it was an invigorating afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is my entry for Velvet Verbosity’s 100 word challenge this week.… Read the rest