"Stop shouting. It's not that loud. I want to make sure Marley can hear it."
"Marley?"
"Yes. Bob Marley."
"Uh, not to be a stickler for the small details ..."
"Oh, but you are."
"... but isn't he dead?"
"Dead? How can you even say such a thing? Don't be an arse. Look at him. Full bloom."
"You named the willow tree Bob Marley? Why?"
"Well, I think it'd be obvious. Because of the dreadlocks!"
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Head over heels.
I was watching where I was going.
And there you were, with your momma by your side.
And there I was.
Fawning over you like a screaming Beatles fan.
You, with your brown doe eyes and long lashes.
Completely oblivious to what you were doing to me.
You had me at that first wobbly step into my view.
I slowed and waited patiently as your mom crossed the road in front of me.
You, cautious and afraid, rightly so of the loud rumbling beast took one step and then curled up into a ball, trying to be invisible, just as your momma taught you.
I stifled a laugh, knowing that at any minute traffic could come from the opposite direction and terrify you even more.
"You can do it," I whispered. "Come on, get up."
Your momma came and stood over you, glaring at me, daring me to rush you.
I turned off the engine, waiting patiently for the silence to comfort you.
You peeked at me. I saw you. Your eye opened, your ear flickered, then slowly you lifted your head and looked at me.
"You can do it," I whispered again. "Come on, get up."
Slowly you stood. Took a step. Your momma right there next to you. Then another step, and another.
A flip of your tail and you disappeared into the brush.
I sighed, that long, slow sigh of someone who just fell in love at first sight.
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"Wasn't she here yesterday?"
"No, she usually just comes on Mondays and Fridays. I haven't seen her since last week when she came to fix our meals for the weekend. When she didn't show up on Monday, I assumed she was ill since she wasn't answering her phone either. I arranged for one of the restaurants in town to deliver all of our meals for the week."
"Ahh, that's why they tasted so much better."
"Why must you always be such a difficult arse all the time? That was really quite unkind. Mary's meals are quite delicious."
"Yes, on Mondays they are. And sometimes on Tuesdays. But by the time Wednesday evening or Thursday rolls around, they are sometimes a tad stale and flavorless after being in the refrigerator or freezer all week. This week they have been quite fresh and delicious. I've enjoyed them immensely."
"Well, if you were willing to get off your arse and learn to cook something other than your thicker-than-oil coffee, you might be able to have fresh food more often."
"Humph. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Have you rung her yet today?"
"I have, but this time her daughter said that she never came home on Friday. She assumed she had been staying here for some reason I don't understand. Why on earth would she be staying here? Do you suppose Mary has another job that she hasn't told us or her daughter about?"
"More like she has a secret paramour she hasn't told her daughter about."
"Don't be absurd! Mary must be in her 80s!"
"Don't be daft! She might be in her 80s but she's not dead yet, and I certainly hope to still have paramours when I'm in my 80s."
"Still? You mean you have them now?"
"Don't change the subject. When was the last time you saw Mary? What was the last thing you said to her?"
"Oh, so this is all my fault? She asked if we had any more jam, and I told her there might be some of grandmama's in the cellar."
[Both of them at once.] "The cellar!"
"You don't suppose ..."
"Surely it has to have died by now ..."
"You will have to go check ..."
"Me? You were the one that sent her down there."
"You were the one that said if we ignored it long enough it would just starve to death."
"Well, we haven't had any problems with rats in a very long time."
"I thought that's what we had the cats for."
"We have cats?"
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"Excuse me?!?!?! Are you now seeking knowledge from moi? The foolish Jeopardy aficionado?"
"Well, you know everything else. Was he?"
"I doubt that he was, but he may have experienced the effects of it as a child."
"Oh, so he was a child addict?"
"No, that's not what I said. Or meant. Opium production from poppies began as early as 3400 BC but by the late 19th century when he wrote the book, it was peaking in the U.S. as laudanum."
"So he wrote the book when he was a child?"
"NO! He wrote it when he was 44 years old. But he had a great deal of health issues when he was younger, and may have been given laudanum to help him rest. Especially after having a possible psychogenic heart attack when he was 14."
"He was psycho? No wonder there were flying monkeys and oompa loompas."
"NO! I don't know why I even try to educate you at times! And there weren't Oompa Loompas in The Wizard of Oz! That was Willy Wonka! There were MUNCHKINS in the Wizard of Oz!"
"Jeepers. Don't have a house fall on you over it. I was just messing with you. So Baum was a psycho child drug addict?"
"Argh! No. Frank essentially had an anxiety attack at a military boarding school when he got severely punished for daydreaming. and they allowed him to go home after that. But he likely experienced being given laudanum during his childhood for his health issues and knew how it would make users fall asleep."
"Hmmm. I don't know. Flying monkeys. Munchkins. Lollipop Guild. There might have been some recreational use going on there when he got older."
"Get out. Just get out. You are an uneducated, and unstable dweeb."
<SLAM>
"I don't know what he was all bent out of shape about."
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"Oh boy, wait ... Alex, I'd like to select Useless Bits of Knowledge for 300, please."
"Well, never mind then if you are just going to be a sarcastic arse about it."
"Alright by me."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Right."
"Right."
...
"Just get it over with. What is it?"
"No, really. It's nothing."
"TELL ME!"
"Fine. Mist, while it looks similar to steam over the water, is something entirely different. Steam is created as water evaporates when the temperature reaches a boiling point. Mist is created when there is warm air over water that suddenly comes in contact with a cooler surface of land."
"So what is fog?"
"Fog is when there is cold air, and the surface is dry. Rain falling through the cold air evaporates and causes the dew point to rise and the saturation becomes fog."
"So which one is it where vengeful dead pirates appear to kill the descendants of their murders? I always get that confused with the creatures from another planet that take over a small New England town and kill off everyone outside of the supermarket."
...
...
"Oh, shut it and leave me alone, you arse."
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Losing her "identity."
A stolen purse and loss of her driver's license and work badge.
A lost wallet and missing identification.
The latest one, she was back living at her father's house in Florida, sorting through piles and piles of mail and papers looking for a replacement ID card that can't be found. Arguing with her father about his lies and deception and how it had affected her. How the job she had taken at his insistence was one that she hated, and how he had known all along that it would make her unhappy which is why he wanted her to take it.
Each morning she woke wondering what it all meant. Why, after all this time was she dreaming of being back at his house, and the hurt that she felt when his ego put her in the middle of his lies to "her." Why, after all this time was she feeling inadequate, that her job wasn't good enough for his approval ... again. Why was she suddenly wondering who she was ... weeks away from turning 62, shouldn't she know that by now?
It was a little late to change direction now. Her entire future ... retirement anyway ... rested on this job that she was in now. Regardless of whether or not she was happy in it, she was stuck. What was she to do? Risk it all to take a leap of faith that who she was ... what she was ... was a writer? An author? A novelist?
Rather than just posting images of my 100 days of artwork, for these last 37 days, I've decided to incorporate the prompts and images into short ~ or long ~ stories depending on where the prompts lead me. While the artistic creation process is a great stress reliever for me, I do want to get back to my calling ... wordsmith ... storyteller ... magic creator.
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"What?!? That's nonsense. Where on earth did you read that? Thistles don't stick together, although they do stick to just about everything else."
"No, they don't. But in the 13th Century, the Norse were planning an invasion of Scotland to take the lands for themselves. At the Battle of Largs, in Ayrshire on the shores of Firth of Clyde, they left their ships at night planning to sneak up on the sleeping Scots. Wanting to be as quiet as possible, they removed their shoes.
"Unfortunately for them, one of them stepped on a thistle, and his shout of pain woke all the Clansmen who defeated the Norsemen."
"Oh, I see. And so that's why you said the thistle was the first Lego toy. Because stepping on one of them barefooted has got to be the most painful thing ever."
"Exactly! Which also makes the thistle the first-ever burglar alarm."
"You do know that you spend far too much time on the internet, right?"
"You are just jealous that I would do better than you at playing Jeopardy."
"Ha!"
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| Image Credit: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust |
I'm prepping tonight for a lovely colonoscopy in the morning.
While the prep process has gotten much easier than the first one I had some 20+ years ago, I feel like my body takes it much harder. I'm exhausted. Hungry. Violently projectile vomiting. I haven't had solid food since Friday, or my meds since Saturday morning. Taking them on an empty stomach would have made me even more sick, much sooner.
I think I would much rather have mammograms. Every day for a week.
Some exciting things are in the works (other than the solar eclipse), but I will wait until everything is in writing before sharing the most exciting part.
Here are this week's 100-days pieces. I'm trying a different size paper, and doing less watercolor, more pencil and ink.
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Late Friday evening I realized that Charlie had quite an uncomfortable infection in his ... posterior glands. A dangerously raging infection. So at almost midnight, I was leaving messages for his veterinarian's office and emergency line making sure I could get him into the office soon after they opened.
< That is him, still very sedated after they worked on his rear end for over an hour to make sure the abscess and infection were cleared out. Now he will be on antibiotics and pain meds for ten days ... for another week from today.
So the art class I had signed up for was missed, but my fee was applied to another one coming up in April.
Saturday afternoon was spent sitting next to him on the sofa downstairs doing a Netflix chill and making sure he was coming around from the sedation and not going to be sick.
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Ages ago, when my pug, Tink, was on frequent meds for her liver shunts and bladder stones I had a metal one. When this one arrived, however, I was a little surprised at how small it was. My bad for not looking at the measurements, (I was more concerned with cost and how fast it would get here) but it still works as desired. I was just expecting it to be all grown up when it arrived and not a baby.
The full moon and I guess a lunar eclipse this week have brought the drama llamas, werewolves, and vampires out. I'm more than a little over it all at this point and have been on a warpath. I'm more than ready for April to be over and done with and have my life back again.
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I've been wanting to sneak up there since I moved here in 2020, and finally did last weekend.
I didn't spend a lot of time up there and didn't get close to the houses. The NO TRESPASSING signs with CAMERAS IN USE made me a little leery ... as well as the musky smell of bears and skunks. I was not interested in taking that scent home or waking up someone's nap.
I was tempted to get close enough to peek in the windows but didn't. Going in the summer would mean the risk of snakes, and again, skunks. I'm afraid the pictures I took from a distance may be as close as I get ... until next winter anyway.
