The blue and the white (cars)

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Boy, do I know how to hold the red flag up for Karma! Last November, I wrote about having only ever been in two car wrecks. Karma thought that wasn’t fair. Because now, I’ve been in three. I refuse to use this for my Trifecta entry. RE. Fuse. Oh hell, I’ll probably use it for Trifecta, but with more details and stuff. This one is just the nitty gritty of ‘how I spent my 14th day of my kids summer vacation. Everyone is fine, in both cars. My grandfather said that any accident you can walk away from is a good accident, and I have to say I agree with that assessment.

Briefly. The kids wanted to swim, Chewie has gotten pretty well crate trained, and the whole thing sounded brilliant. Dog in crate with water and a bone, kids out to the car, and off we went. There’s this weird intersection where we live. The big road is Eastern Blvd. It’s a four lane highway with turn lanes. But it’s got a little feeder road that runs down either side of it, parallel to the main road, so you don’t always have to sit through all the stoplights to go half a block. And that’s great, except that AT the stop lights, things get confusing. People on the feeder roads never really have the right of way, always have a stop sign, and yet still have to make it through the intersections. The people crossing the main roads and feeders (the perpendicular streets) always have the right of way, but it’s hard to see them coming.

So.  I left the house, and lined up at the stoplight to go straight. I made it across the feeder on one side of the road and Eastern Blvd. itself, but not the second feeder road.  I saw one car shoot across the intersection as I crossed. And I knew there was a car behind him, but that car appeared to have stopped. It hadn’t. The second car couldn’t see me, didn’t realize the light had changed, and banged right into my passenger side. Where Caroline was sitting.

 

She is fine. I am fine, though my arm and neck are sore. Sam is fine. The other driver is fine. But our cars? Not so much. He struck at my front passenger wheel and came to rest embedded in the passenger door. Everybody had a seat belt, the seat belts all did their most sacred jobs, and there isn’t a bruise to be seen unless this sore arm turns into something else. (I’ll get my chiropractor to take a look at it if it doesn’t chill out.)

He is the at-fault driver, but that doesn’t mean I blame him. This intersection is just from hell. It’s all kinds of dangerous, and I can’t tell you how many times I have nearly caused this accident exactly. You just can’t see the cars that have the right of way coming. At all. And so I know what happened to him, and I feel for him.

 

Bang

Bang

Boof

And here's what my door looked like after we removed the added car.

 

Here’s where it gets weird. This isn’t his car. He works for (wait for it)…. a body shop. Yes, I said a body shop. Because of this weird road configuration, the body shop has the misfortune to exist on both sides of the feeder road on either side of the boulevard. The car was in for repairs, the repairs had been completed, and they were moving it back over to another part of the lot, which required driving along the feeder road. So I have not only the contact information for the other driver AND the contact and insurance information for this hapless other car owner who was nowhere near his vehicle at the time of the crash, I ALSO have the information for the body shop, because it’s a good bet that this is who will wind up fixing my car. Doesn’t it sound like the punchline to a bad joke?

I get the real sense that everyone wants to be responsible here, from the other driver, to his boss, to the car owner, to both insurance agencies. I want to document the hell out of everything, and tomorrow I’ll be off to rent a car. But seriously, Karma? Car gods? It’s OK to move on to somebody else now. Because we also found out that our other car, the red one, has to have a new compressor for the air conditioner today.

And yes, this message IS rather rambling because it was composed under the influence of alcohol. Because after all that? Shit, I needed a drink.

 

Extinction is only temporary

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Inside me lies a dinosaur in slumber, recumbent and half submerged. I try to keep her this way, because that terrible lizard roars destruction. But sometimes, no amount of medication can keep her from snorting to the surface, her enormous size swelling up through my skin and out my mouth. And on those days, I feel the boil. I thrash to free myself from the scalding heat. And my mania has teeth. She will seize you as gladly in her jaws as me. Or she’ll take us both down, hold us burning together until she ebbs back inside my skin.

 

This week, Velvet Verbosity is asking for 100 words on slumber. And I’m always up for a word game.


 

 

Because elephants should live forever

Posted on by February 25, 2020

After my grandmother lost her vision to glaucoma, her engagement ring went missing. We tore up the house, but it was gone. She talked about it all the time, but talking couldn’t bring it back. When she eventually entered her final decline, she had a few tests run, more for the rest of us than herself, to make sure there was nothing at all we could do. The doctor called my grandfather over and said what everyone expected, but added, “she has something lodged in her intestinal tract.” Nobody had the heart to tell her we’d finally found the ring.

Look at me, 100 word songing 2 weeks in a row. Who are the elephants in your life?

Spiderweb

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Who’s the new lady friend?” Russ Simon’s officemate Joel nodded at the redhead who had just walked over to the Hors d’oeuvre table.

“That’s my sister Karen.”

“Ohhh.”  Russ waited out Joel’s pregnant pause. Finally,  Joel said, “She seeing anybody?”

“Married.” Russ wanted to punch the people who had asked that question, all four of them so far. He hated office parties. And he hadn’t expected the single men to circle his sister like a bunch of goddamned sharks. In fact, Joel’s red nose suggested he had been partaking a little too heavily of the cash bar.

Karen came back with two crackers coated in something pink that looked suspiciously fishy.  She offered one to Russ, who declined.

“Hey, Russ, glad you could join us!” The office administrator’s peppermint squeak preceded her arrival next to Joel.  “Who’s… OH! This is your sister, isn’t it?”

Russ nodded. “Maggie, meet Karen. Karen, this is…”

Maggie cut him off. “I recognize you from your wedding picture!” The woman spoke in exclamation points and question marks, every sentence ending in a register at the outer range of Russ’s hearing.

Karen crinkled her forehead, “I have to ask,” she said. “Where have you seen my wedding picture?”

“Russ has it up in his cube.”

“I’m touched,” said Karen. She leaned over and kissed Russ’s suddenly hot cheek.

Maggie chirped on. “Karen, you and your wife have the cutest little girls! I would just die for freckles like those.”

Beside Russ, Joel blew out a breath. He muttered,  “Damn. She doesn’t look a thing like the dyke on your wall.”

Russ turned slowly to face Joel. “What did you say?”

“It’s true. She’s got real long hair now, and…”

Russ punched Joel, then watched the blood blossom under his colleague’s nostrils. He wiped his knuckles on Joel’s shirt as Joel brought his hands up to his face. “You hit me!”

Russ shook his head. “I knew I should have never come to this damned party.”

__________________________________________________________________

There’s a NEW word at Trifecta this week. And it’s somewhere in that story up there 😉

 

 

The Marriage At The Rue Morgue

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

When the search for an abandoned orangutan leads to the death of their best man, primatologists Noel Rue and Lance Lakeland find themselves in a wedding quandary. Police suspect the ape, but Noel and Lance know better. They cannot call off or delay the big day, and they must juggle their search for the real killer with last minute details like convincing half the family the wedding isn’t cursed just because it’s being held at a former funeral home.

This cozy mystery set in a fictional town in Northwestern Ohio shows the inner workings of a primate sanctuary, even as it explores deeper questions about the secrets we keep from each other. As the story progresses, Noel and Lance begin to realize they don’t know anyone as well as they thought, not even each other. In fact, just about the only thing they know for sure is that even though the orangutan is innocent, the only way they can prove it is to find the real killer.

About the Author:

I have a Master’s degree in English from the University of Kentucky. Additionally,  my novel Divorce: A Love Story was released in electronic format by Throwaway Lines in December 2011. My short mystery “End of the Line” was published in Idea Gems magazine in May 2012, and a ghost story “Terms” will appear in September 2012 in Diversion Press’s anthology After Dark.  Thanks so much for your time and interest. I look forward to talking to you soon.

__________________________________________________

This is my entry for The Lightning and The Lightning Bug’s pitch perfect prompt. A couple of notes.

1) Lance, I apologize for the name thing. I have been writing this since last year before I started reading your blog I swear. But I’m not changing the name.

2) People? I’m shitty at this part of the writing. This feels about as blah as it can get, even though, when I talk the book, it gets a lot of interest. My elevator pitch is SOSO much better: “Noel Rue and Lance Lakeland’s best man has been murdered, and the only thing they know for sure is that the orangutan didn’t do it”. Advice is welcome, and for God’s sake, shred the thing and inspire me to do better.

3) The book is finished, and in answer to an earlier question by SAM (who tagged me in the Lucky 7 meme awhile back, but I was too paranoid to post my own work at the time, only now I’ve decided to get over myself) Page 77, line 7, and continuing for seven lines goes like this:

It had not.

So I turned Lance’s own words on him. “I’m not going to change my mind,” I told him now, as I opened my door and swung down onto the parking lot asphalt.

He got out of the truck and came around to join me. “Neither am I,” he said. “And I don’t think Art would want us to stop now.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” I said. And then I started crying again because we were already speaking of our dearest friend in the past tense.

On trains

Posted on by February 25, 2020

It wasn’t the first time. I want to travel. I  want to ride Eurail and sleep on the Berlin Night Express. I want to wear metal shoes, let scream my brakes, and chuff down the line to forever.

This weekend at Trifecta, we get to add our 33 words to the five “It wasn’t the first time”.  In case you wonder, because Madame Syntax would, the tense change is deliberate.

And hey, notice anything DIFFERENT? Looks nothing like my test, does it? That’s because I got awesome feedback about what looked good and what didn’t. And it’s also because the amazingly generous Marie Nichole of My Cyber House Rules made me a header and a button.. It’s a gift I could never have asked for, and it’s seriously something that would have been out of my budget. Especially one this perfect. She also gave me some excellent specific design tips. I’ll be tweaking with a couple more of them in the next few days. Please, share the love with her from me, because her work has shaped the blog design from top to bottom. Thank you Marie. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

Posted on by February 25, 2020

When we went to Florida last year, we stopped at a gas station to pee. Because it was Florida, the station doubled as a tourist trap, as they all did, and I typically darted into the toilet only to emerge to quell the ‘I wants’. Except it wasn’t an ‘I want’ at this particular station. It was “Mom, LOOK, this shirt is perfect for you!!”.

I'm Grumpy, Don't Make It Worse

And she did this with the wide eyed innocence of the truth speakers. (I was in the midst of a hell med change during that whole summer; I’m not surprised at this perception.) (Naturally, and unlike when she ‘I want’ed me, I bought her something. And her brother.)

And that is how I came into possession of the perfect shirt to wear when I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman tonight. (Because I couldn’t wear the night shirt that says “I’m AWAKE, what more do you want?”). I should clarify right up front that I HATE Disney’s Snow White. But I love Grumpy Dwarf, because he’s such a jerk. He’s the only one whose performance pleases me in that damned cartoon. I harbored secret hopes that the dear princess might die in this version. Or, that failing, that they might toughen her up. Yes. I was cheering for the evil queen going in. And, by the end, yes, I was rooting for Snow White

The filmmakers did give Disney a couple of classy nods. Often, in the Disney flick, the evil queen is presented as a face against a white background. In Huntsman, the queen did this weird bathing in milk thing, and as she descended into the bath, her face was framed against the white background for just an instant. Later, there’s a shot of Snow White’s face that is unmistakably intended to mimic the Disney version of the girl. (But I will say, I got at least one thing I wanted. This Snow White was not anybody’s sniveling housekeeper.) There was also a total Beastmaster moment. Snow White is trudging around in a dangerous spot and she gets approached in the mist by these bat-like creatures (and one giant bat) that absolutely resemble the giant monsters that wrap victims in their arms and suck out their bodily essence before spitting out their wasted carcasses. (Fun!)

I have to say, the movie was awesome. But I have gripes. (I always have gripes. Few indeed are the films that don’t leave me with at least a small list of annoyances.) So rather than go and recite the plot and give half of your hearts angst about spoilers, I shall proceed with a list of things that I loved and loathed about the film. (I personally love spoilers, but in this case have enough to talk about without divulging anything too unexpected.)

Things I loathed

At one point, Snow White takes a dangerous and unexpected swim. (She throws herself off a cliff.) I won’t complain about ‘hey, why the hell wasn’t she dashed on the rocks like any other human being?’, but I will question why she could jump into the water in this heavy-ass dress and not either drown or have to take it off? Why could she emerge from the water half a scene later and have the dress only yanked down around her shoulders instead of completely torn from her body?

Then, when she drags herself to the safety of the shore, there is a white horse just sitting there waiting for her. A random white horse. Did the bad guys figure she needed some help and try to give her a head start? Did the forces of nature sense her coming and put in her path to salvation the animal which would make her stick out the most in a barren landscape? If the baddies, why give her a horse? Why not hang out with a sword? If the goodies, why not make it a black horse at least? Why send your least camouflage friendly animal into battle with your very mortal potential savior? I don’t get it.

Then, even though Snow White had the occasional smudge of dirt, and there were a few truly filthy scenes, everything was generally too clean. At one point, a sewer tunnel is in play, but nobody is markedly stained by their wade through shit. (And, when complaining about this, and doubtless to avoid an R rating, somebody says ‘poo’. POO. It’s SHIT people, and no battle stained warrior (or butch princess) would call in POO.) But then again, these were people living in a ravaged land, who had been suffering for at least ten years under the evil queen’s rule who had the whitest teeth on the planet. I mean, who brought the Crest to the middle ages? (I saw my dentist as I left the show. Honest, I did. He swears it wasn’t him.) Between them, there wasn’t a single missing tooth, and there were only a few crooked ones. Seriously?

And finally, the huntsman goes through this whole film in a leather jerkin. Or possibly just leather armor. If that. At one point everybody, Snow White included, is wearing mail of some kind. Except he’s not. And I want to know both where they hid all the silver shiny stuff in this age of suffering that they could pull it out and stuff it on the serfs when the time came, and why they didn’t have enough for this single central character. The Huntsman never gets an armor upgrade. It seems deliberate. It is annoying.

But that’s a short list of gripes for me, and by and large I loved the film. The acting was solid, the scenery was good, the music rocked, and I think the horse scenes were probably done well. (I haven’t heard my equestrian friends howling yet, at any rate. Dad, have Shari and Elise seen it?)

Huntsman was chock-full of strong female characters. It wasn’t just Snow White and the evil queen. At one point, we are introduced to this whole secret city of women who have disfigured themselves (um, by doing bumpy makeup, I think) and their daughters to save them from the evil queen’s roving eye. They have to do some fleeing, and also, they provide Snow White with a convenient outfit change. (Yes, she does manage as many costumes as the evil queen, not all of them so plausibly obtained.)

There was also this wonderful black/white symbolism going on, whereby the blonde evil queen was pitted against the raven-haired snow white. But this wasn’t just a color reversal. Because the evil queen used a lot of black glass and black crows to symbolize her evil. And Snow White got the White Hart and a bunch of white butterflies to symbolize good. (And the contrast did work very well for the film.)

Finally, the evil queen could, by power of her magic, heal herself and others with a touch. It’s implied that her ability is dangerous and unnatural. Snow White can do the same thing, but where the evil queen parses out her healing, reserving it for herself and her brother, Snow White heals things simply by being around them. She is Nature Girl in the truest sense, and the nature analogies actually worked for the character in the film (unlike her Disney predecessor).

In my new arbitrary ratings scale, I give it three triangles up. (The Jester’s Cap is basically a floppy crown. Mine happens to have four triangular points.) It loses a triangle for strange plot gaps and a lack of grime, but the other three are well earned for strong acting, a good script, and kickass music.

 

 

Oedipus, Oedipus, Mom

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Until I get my new theme installed, this refuses to show big enough.  Just click the picture a couple of times to make it work. Sorry.

When The Morning Comes

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Here we go with the 100 word song! This week, it’s OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass”.

 

Since Tuesday, I’ve watched this video twelve times with Sam. He finds something new every time. I’m trying to teach him to step back, when his heart explodes, to breathe and say ‘this too shall pass’. I know I’m doomed to failure. My Mom pressed “Let it Be” on me in the same way, but I can’t let anything be. Nothing at all. So I know that Sam has to find his own song to speak peace to his heart. And yet he sings it, and when he sings, I hope it will pass, so he can enjoy his childhood.

Sorry – the video sucks. I forgot that it turns sideways, I’m using random downloaded software that turned out not to be free unless I allowed the weird watermark, and you can BARELY hear him, AND he refused to sing the whole phrase when I was filming.

 

And you’d better play. Or else Lance’s blog will TOTALLY beat up your blog. (Lance, the humor in this does NOT get old for me.)

One Lovely Blog Award

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Happy day for me, I just won a blog award! Marie over at My Cyber House Rules passed to me the One Lovely Blog Award. I have won three blog awards now (one of those twice!) I need to compose my ‘awards’ section. I just feel so vain doing that!!

In the meantime, this award comes with fun rules.
First you must thank the giver: That one is easy. Thank you Marie. I owe you more than thanks for this, too, as you have sincerely saved me from the blogging dilemma of the century. But I’ll unveil that surprise on its own day. The award just made my day so awesome.

 

Second I need to share seven possibly unknown things about myself: This one is slightly harder, because I was born to embody the term overshare and there isn’t much unknown about me. Here goes.

 

  1. I refused to wear a veil at my wedding because of the sexist implications. (Not unexpected, but not necessarily known.)
  2. In a similar vein, I hated the imagery of being given away for my wedding, so I instead walked with my grandfather down the aisle. And it was the only time during the wedding that I nearly cried, because it was genuinely touching.
  3. I do not accept the conventional wisdom that rejects swear words. I think that rejection is simply a rejection of the emotions behind the swears. And I say ‘fuck that’. (You’d probably figured that out about me)
  4. My son’s name is NOT Sam. He’s actually Scott Jr. But we call him for his initials so that he has his own unique identity and he can choose, as an adult, whether to be a Scott or a Sam.
  5. I can outrun a bolting fifty pound dog. I didn’t know that one until Sam accidentally let Chewie out the front door tonight.
  6. My favorite artist is René Magritte.  My favorite picture is Time Transfixed, where the locomotive bursts out of the empty fireplace.
  7. My eyes were blue until I was five, when they suddenly went hazel.

 

Third I need to share this. I’m supposed to share with 15 other lucky bloggers. I’m going to agree with Marie that “Fifteen is a lot, and I believe the huge amount simply reduces the value of those who get an award”.  So I’ll reserve most of my tags for another day, and I’ll try to tag folks I’ve never tagged before. For today, let me introduce you to

 

I Spy With My Idiosyncratic Eye: Because she has an ongoing series right now about these baby birds that literally fell into her flat through the plaster. The pictures are delightful, the stories are hilarious, and seriously, for almost a full week, she and her husband found a bird a day!!

 

649.133 Girls, the Care and Maintenance of: Janel is an academic librarian who assigned her blog a dewey decimal name. I’m also a librarian in one incarnation, and I delight in this craziness. This is one of the first blogs I ever followed, and I L-O-V-E it. Plus, she was just syndicated on BlogHer. SWEET.

 

The Lightning and The Lightning Bug: This was the first writing meme I ever participated in, and I still love the site.