My Two Cents Worth

It’s Saturday Centus time again! Jenny Matlock has created this wonderful meme to help all of us sharpen our writing skills. We are given a prompt and must write a little story or a poem using the prompt - in 100 words of less. Intrigued? Clink on her link at the bottom of this page to got to Jenny’s and find out more.

This week’s prompt is "Did you notice Elizabeth in class this morning and how forlorn she seemed?" Perhaps I will write her a comforting note, I thought.

Below is my take on it, and you will find the prompt in italics.


"Did you notice Elizabeth in class this morning and how forlorn she seemed?" Perhaps I will write her a comforting note, I thought.

“Don’t enable her,” said Val, a judgmental scowl on her face. “She has no business trying to rejoin aerobics class so soon after her son’s death.
It’s unseemly.”

“In her defense, she is only trying to help herself.”

“Piffle! She has always loved the spotlight, and losing Tony is just another excuse for her to milk us all of every modicum of pity we have.”

My cell phone rang. It was Mac, Elizabeth’s husband.

“I hate to say this on the phone, but I wanted you to hear it from me. Elizabeth came home from aerobics and hanged herself.”


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Meet Me on Monday

June 27, 2010
It’s already Meet Me on Monday again. Where does the time go? Each Monday, Java posts five questions for us to answer about ourselves. Click on her button right here on this page and join in the fun of learning more about each other!


Today’s Questions:

1. Are you a collector of anything?
I’m not much of a collector. I do have every book Ellen Gilcrist ever wrote, so I guess that counts. When I was younger, I collected thimbles, and I still have all of the silver ones.

2. Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
Clutch the pearls! I am an aging Southern Belle with one hole in each
ear lobe and that’s it.

3. What is your favorite salad dressing?
Bleu cheese mixed with honey mustard. Don’t wrinkle your nose up until you’ve tried it!

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Some Cheerios, dry and right out of the box. It’s my bedtime snack nearly every night. Call me weird. I don’t mind!

5. What was the last movie that you saw?
It’s Complicated. I laughed so hard, I almost wet my drawers!



This post is linked to Meet Me on Monday. Button on left of this page!

Going Back to Work

My Big Fat Goal


Goodness, I have an important goal.
Going back to work it is.
It takes forever to make it
through the confusing maze of paperwork
after that the mandatory drug screen
‘Cause if you flunk you go
no farther. I will pass that
silly test, already peed in a
little plastic cup and gave it
to the nurse. She said gravely
“We’ll call you in three days.”
This is day three, so maybe
they will call to set up
a physical exam and other stuff
like a criminal backround check and
being fingerprinted. I look like a
shady character, that must be what
they think. A sixty-two year
old grandmother who sells drugs, maybe.
Not! A good nurse who wants
to work in Hospice - a lot!

All you bloggers out there please
cross your fingers for me and
pray if that’s what you do.
I need all the help I
can get with this frustrating goal.



This post is linked to six word fridays!

CLICK ON THE CROSSED TOOLS UNDER SIX DAY FRIDAYS ON THE SIDEBAR WITH THE OTHER BUTTONS!! (Still working on a swf button)!

What If?

W is for........

W is for :What If?”

*What if I had been born on another continent?

*What if I were of another race?

*What if I didn’t write?

*What if I didn’t have any friends?

*What if my parents were still alive?

*What if I had cats instead of dogs?

*What if I were 5’10 instead of 5’3?

*What if I had never met Clint?

*What if my son didn’t have schizoaffective disorder?

*What if, suddenly, a world wide peace broke out?

*What if I had been named for someone other than

my father?

*What if there were not hunger on this planet?

*What if I could paint?

*What if I had become a teacher instead of a nurse?

*What if everyone lived by The Golden Rule?

*What if there were no pancakes?

*What if I lived in New York instead of Georgia?

*What if every TV set in the world failed to operate

for just 24 hours?

*What if the iPod had never been invented?

*What if there were no blogs?

*What if we took all the gadgets away from our 

children for a week?

*What if George Washington had never been born.

*What if Proust had not written A La Recherce du 

Temps Perdu?

*What if I weren’t reading it?

*What if dinosaurs were still alive?

*What if all the water drained out of all oceans?

*What if I we lived on a different planet?

* What if if I blogged on a PC instead of a Mac?

* What if there were no flowers?

*What if there were flowers in everyone’s abode?

*What is nobody thought up the idea for NASA?

*What if all politicians were honest and good?

*What if there were no California?

*What if there were no cigarettes?

*What if we could find a cure for cancer?

*What if I had cancer?

*What if I broke my leg?

*What if I didn’t volunteer at the free clinic?

*What if the sky were green?

*What if Clint and I had made a baby?

*What if nobody thought up the vibrator?

*What if I could play the cello?

*What if a whale walrus lived in your back yard?

*What if your back yard were the Pacific Ocean?

* What if every family on my street spoke a different

language?

*What if Jenny had not invented Alphabe-Thursday?

*What if your started your own list of “what ifs?”



This post is linked to 

Meet Me on Monday - Week Two

Meet Me on Monday - Week 2



1. How many brother and sisters do you have?  
               I have one surviving brother, Paul.  He's an accountant, and he is 14 months younger than me.  My big brother, Harry, died in a farming accident in 1960 when he was 14.  My baby     brother, John, a writer,  died of kidney cancer in 2000.  He was 45.  I miss them every day.

 2. What is your favorite thing to do?
        Why, writing, of course!  I also love knitting and reading and walking and travel.

3. What countries have you visited?  I have been to Mexico, Canada, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France and Italy.

4. Are you a morning or a night person?
        Oh, I'm not sure.  Probably a morning person, because I get more done, even though I like to sleep until 10:00.

5. What's your favorite cereal?
        Cheerios!


This post is linked to Meet Me On Monday. Button on the left!

The Crash

06/19/10



It's Saturday Centus day again!  Our Prompt:  

It was Fathers Day, 1984, when I heard that voice in the hallway... You will find it in italics in this little story I wrote around it.




We didn’t know our daddy.  He died in 1955 when I was six, and Mama never forgave him, wouldn’t even grieve.  I never heard her utter the word “dead” in the same sentence with his name.                  

It was Fathers Day, 1984, when I heard that voice in the hallway... It was my baby brother, my favorite, John, now a father himself.   Then came the crash.

I scurried to the hall to find Mama, on her knees, arms wrapped round herself, rocking and weeping, surrounded by a pool of red stones.

“What happened?”

“She finally let it go, and her heart crashed onto the floor and broke into a million pieces.”



This post is linked to Saturday Centus. Button on the left!

Appetite

Friday June 18

The heat has taken mine away,
only water melon appeals to me.
At the store there are some
but they don’t look ripe enough.
So I speed to the farmer’s market
and pick out one of theirs,
race home to refrigerate this treasure
and count the hours until it
is cool and I can cut
into its lusciousness and eat.
Cool and juicy, it drips down
my arms and off my elbows
as I stand over the sink
slurping and sucking like a pig.


This post is linked to Six Word Fridays (http://www.makingthingsup.com/category/six-words/)

Meet Me on Monday

Here's more fun stuff! I'm participating in Meet me on Monday, a way for bloggers to get to know each other better. Each week, we get 5 questions to post, and here are the ones for this week:
Questions:

1. What kind of computer do you blog on?
A MacBook, white with a pink cover. I do pink everything because I support the Avon Foundation's Breast Cancer Crusade by either walking or crewing in one of their walks each year.
2. Do you wear perfume? If so, what kind?
I used to use Anais-Anais, and I don't know why I stopped. I think I should go out and buy some since I am reading NIN. I have occasionally used Wings by Georgio.
3. What do you do for a living?
I am a registered nurse looking for work in a Hospice facility. I thought I had recession-proof skills, but it is proving harder than I imagined to get back to work after the death of my husband, Clint, last year.
4. Do you have any pets? If so, what are they?
I have two wonderful dogs. Honey is a Lhasa Apso, and Belle is a Boxer.
5. Are you going anywhere for Summer vacation? If so, where?
Pinching pennies this year. Have a free place to go on Sea Island but no definite dates.




This post is linked to Meet Me on Monday. Button on the left!

V is for Vivaciousness

This is my first post for Alphabe-Thursdays, and today's letter is V. Read on to see what I did with it.



V is for the vivaciousness in our lives, for the people who bubble over with energy and spark and give us permission to unabashedly push our laugh buttons. These are the people who bounce back and take us with them.
Our vivacious pets, their paws morphing into springs, sparkle with animation and love when we return, whether we have been at work all day or on a 15 minute errand or a week's vacation. They are always smiling and available.
Vivacious food, primarily chocolate mousse for me, not only feeds our bellies, but also our souls. Think French fries and red Jello and pimiento cheese and bright green grapes. Imagine the smell and taste of freshly made (by you) marinara sauce, poured over angel hair pasta and dusted with freshly grated Parmesan. A deep red Chianti gleams in your favorite crystal glass.
Flowers in bloom feed our need for vivaciousness. Think yellow daisies, red roses, purple violets and orange marigolds. I dare you to look at a blooming cherry tree and not smile! Grab a bunch of sunflowers at the market and put them on your table in a bright container. Vivacious!

Red shoes are vivacious and sexy and satisfying to wear. Red lipstick oozes vivaciousness, as does a red dress. Rubies, sparkling in a necklace send out vivacious laser beams to meet our eyes.
Alphabe-Thursdays bring out or vivaciousness and sends us off in all directions.






This post is linked to Alphabe-Thursdays. Button on the left!

Daddy

I'm back to Saturday Centus after missing last week due to brain drain. It's a great creative exercise, so please click on the link below to join the fun.

This week's prompt is in italics.




It’s true, the smell of freshly mowed grass can stay with you for years, for decades, settle into your core. When I was little, my daddy cut the grass with a hand-push mower, the clippings flying up behind the primative machine, leaving a bordered trail where the grass had been.

These days I need only to look at my daddy’s picture - even the one in his Navy uniform - to be overcome with the perfume of freshly cut grass.

And when I am out walking or riding in my car and smell grass being cut, I see my daddy’s face.


This story if linked to Saturday Centus. Button on the left!