Take a walk.
Soak up sun for the vitamin D; looking to cure my SADD.
What an acronym.
This winter has been bad. Must be old age.
Try not to get old.
Make a vet appointment for the dog, grooming appointment, too.
I’ve done the crossword, not had breakfast. I’m reading the newspaper.
An inspiring story about a man in So Cal who’s taught Afghan women to drive. More Afghan women drive in So Cal now than in Afghanistan.
Not surprising, but still inspiring.
Small, good deeds keep us young.
I wish the dog would poop. I have things to do.
Category: Family
A Word From the Wise
My mother-in-law treasured words. Scrabble was her game. Precision, patience, strategy. Tiles that scored both ways or landed on a triple made some sweet satisfaction. Sometimes points weren’t the point; defensive play wins games while openings encourage neophytes and friends. When she spoke, a few words said it all. Most often she meant to be kind. An invitation, a suggestion, wise words, sometimes firm redirection, sharp, if necessary.
She held onto words until the end. She gathered them slowly. It took time to retrieve them. They balked, hidden away from memory, supplemented by smiles and nods. The sentences were short. The meaning was clear.
Cash for Teeth
“Guess what the going rate for teeth is,” Marjorie said.
“Uh, three dollars.” Angie thought that was an outrageous sum. She’d once got a quarter for a wisdom tooth from a boyfriend. A joke. The Tooth Fairy gave her a dime for each.
“Six and change.” Gotcha, her grin said.
“Oh, c’mon.” Angie thought Marjorie exaggerated to get attention.
But later, Angie ran across an item in News of the Weird. Six was the average. Some kids got a Benjamin for each tooth. She said to her mother, “You ripped me off.” Then she told her how.
Mom laughed. “Inflation.”
Wishing on a Glass Slipper
Cindy earned while her stepsisters played. Her stepmother said retail work builds character. And isolation. Cindy was the only one in the shoe store when a Ren Fair guy came in and asked for glass slippers.
“Like in fairy tale land? No. Never seen anything like that.”
“They carry you away. Wherever you want to go.”
“But I don’t think we have them.”
“Worth checking. Wish come true.”
Cindy found one pair, her size, on a dusty shelf. From thin air it appeared.
“You mean these?”
“Try them,” he said.
They were hard, slippery, “I can’t walk.”
“Wish,” he said.
Things My Father Never Said
Growing up, Christmas decorations consisted of a tree we cut ourselves, tinsel, lights, bulbs, a star. Dad didn’t spring for expensive yard displays, but loved driving around to look at other people’s. The brighter, the merrier; the more Santas, reindeer, elves, and Nativities; the better. So on Christmas Eve we would bundle into the car and gawk at the four or five big neighborhood productions.
The year my parents retired to Florida, we made a Christmas tour. A bigger, wealthier town, there were many huge displays. Dad kept saying, “Look at that.” But he meant, “We earned the American Dream.”
Sensitive Princess
“Priscella, the way you fuss, no prince will have you.” Spoiled. The king brought her silk from abroad. The Queen disapproved. “How many times has the royal seamstress made a pretty gown, only to have you give it to the chambermaid?”
“It itches, Mama. So bad.”
“But the ball’s tonight.”
“I have…”
“Not that old thing. The rag barely fits.”
“I won’t go. The canapés are disgusting.”
“Don’t you start with umami again.”
“Anyway, I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“Try the dress, Lola, there is not a pea in your mattress.”
“Must be a rock.”
“Show me a bruise, then.”
Witches: Part Two
She saw him coming, saw him in the future, saw the pain and the pleasure, the sad ending to a tale she might have rewritten if only he hadn’t stirred in her the promise that she could be, for once and only, like other girls. A woman, not a witch.
She carried the child. Raven black hair streaked white, the mark of witches. Intuition stirred through her to foretell truths that no one would believe, the Cassandra gene.
Some don’t believe us. Some call us witches. We know their vision is blurred by greed and power and they are wrong.
A Dog Who Purrs?
Kohnan is a dog, though at times we think he’s a cat. Like when he luxuriates in the sun and, swear to God, purrs. Snout out, a rub on the rug, all two feet of him stretch, roll, vigorous arch, turn over and repeat. Pure pleasure.
I rub his tummy and his neck. He deigns to hold court on the comfy rug because he’s royalty. Devotion is his due, right? His liquid brown eyes melt me.
But when I leave the room, he foreswears sunshine for my sunless office and settles at my feet. I guess he is a dog.
Autumn Chill
The dawn light has changed to a grey gold cousin of the blue brilliance that brightened my summer. Max's golden lab fur blends into the tawny tall grass. He looks at me. “What do you want? The works? Right.” He pees again, strolls to the center of the meadow lawn, and squats to do his business. His business is to please. It is the thing he does best, most naturally. Despite arthritis, his portly, chunky body seems to yield. Face aging white, he's older than I am. Seventy-seven. At seventy-two, cranky and arthritic, I won't age gratefully or graciously.
Roads Traveled
Gretel did these interviews reluctantly. She hadn’t been a saint, far from it. She did what she had to after her stepmother kicked her and Hansel out. “We were homeless.” The reporter looked into Gretel’s eyes and seemed to reach into her soul. It was an uncomfortable moment. The reporter’s face softened. “But you… Somehow…”
“There was an older woman. When she died we made a go of the bakery. We built a home to shelter runaways.”
The woman wiped away a tear. “She was my sister. The black sheep in an old Wiccan family. She wasn’t all that kind.”
Monica's Monday Morning Flash 