That Was Fun. Let's Do it Again.

The black old lady stretched and yawned, rolling her neck from side to side and blinking her wide, green eyes rapidly to chase the sleep out of them. Her bed was a nest, soft and cozy, positioned inches from the radiator. This should be a good day, she thought to herself. A cheshire grin crept on to her cheeks. As usual, her mind turned to murder.

That nasty little girl, the one they brought here--to her HOME, mind you--the Interloper...certainly that childish little brat was gone by now. Surely! There were traps set all over the house, and she grinned as she imagined the Brat falling into any one of them while the rest of the world slept peacefully. Drowning, electrocution, hanging, poisoned food...any one of those would do. All of them were too good for that kid.

She ambled to the door, stretching again for good measure. She asked to be let in, softly at first, then more insistently. Finally, the door opened, and she darted in. Ugh. What was that smell? Why wasn't everyone crying and wailing over the death of the kid? What was going on anyway?

From behind the door, the kitten jumped onto her back and they rolled, all hiss, teeth and claws, across the kitchen floor. Curses! She was still here! And alive. Another day begins.


The prompt, from Write Starts by Hal Zina Bennett: Find Your Inner Cat.

5 Minute Friday: Remember

Remember when you were her whole world? Just the two of you, all day long. Anyone who wanted to be in her life had to go through you. If there was a kid who didn't play nicely, they were cut out of the picture. Just like that. No mercy. You didn't care a whit about that poor mom's insecurities, the problems she was facing or that child's socializing deficits. Chop. And you didn't have to do no 'splainin' to nobody.

Now? You don't get to chop. You send her out into the world for seven hours and forty-five minutes, give or take. Not to mention weekends, sleepovers, trips to the mall. If someone's mean to her, you have to stand back and "guide" her, in all your flawed and insufficient wisdom. You grasp for that just-right piece of talk-show advice, that encouraging nugget from that parenting book you read so long ago...What was it? What was it? "You teach people how to treat you."

And then you bite your tongue until it bleeds.

It would be so much easier to chop.

Joining the writers at over here today for five minutes of unedited free writing in five minutes, based on the prompt: Remember. Fun!

Merry Christmas Ya'll!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

What did you do today, mom?

So I'm reading a post today about blogging written by my new favorite writer crush. The post is entitled "Focus." I am laughing all the way through the post. Not because it was a comedic piece. Mainly because I'm reading it like a 5-year-old reading about the birth of the universe. I know such a thing exists, this mysterious focus (woooooo), but I really can't grasp the concept. Take today, for instance. I had the whole school day to do anything I wanted. No obligations, per se, no appointments. I thought, YEAH BABY. I'm going to sit down at that computer as soon as I finish my breakfast, & I'm going to WRITE. Nothing will stop me. Here's what happened instead:

1. Clean kitchen from last night. (I had to watch The Voice.)
2. Re-do sour laundry that didn't get dry because of Adam Levine obession.
3. Make beds, pick up upstairs
4. More laundry
5. Change clothes four times. Who invented shorts?
6. Resolve to lose weight & get in shape.
7. Situps after remembering I can't work out today due to sprained muscle resulting from yesterday's resolution to lose weight & get in shape.
8. Start a new food journal.
9. Sit down at desk, finally!
10. Make a snack because I can't concentrate over my stomach growling. 10 almonds and half an apple, see #6.
11. Clean up papers and mail obscuring my laptop from view. Grumble about thieving children who steal my office supplies. Wonder if this would make a good blog post.
12. Obsessively open and read all new email. Possibly open a virus.
13. Panicked calls to Cutie Pie for help. Must wait for him to get out of a meeting.
14. Run virus scan and install updates.
15. Read about celebrity deaths, DUIs, Beyonce's butt and other uplifting & inspirational news while running virus scan.
16. Lunchtime!
17. Back at my desk, finally.
18. Run upstairs to find Tums to counteract lunch.
19. Open a document and start writing. Hooray!
20. Hear the cat throwing up in the next room. Shoo her outside to avert disaster.
21. More laundry.
22. Sit down at desk, finally!
23. Hear the bus. Sigh loudly.

So what were we talking about? Oh yeah, focus. To heck with it. I'm going to Starbucks.

Deep

I was reading something about love today. Deep-heart love. A funny way to describe the indescribable. I had a vision of a body, stumbling off a cliff head over heels into the abyss. As she hits the water with a piercing crash, it envelops her and closes over her head, filling her ears with its great silence. She swims down, down, down, like the Little Mermaid...no need to know what is ahead or even to draw a breath. The deep, dark unknown.

My picture of Deep is the ocean, so much of its vastness never seen by the human eye, nor touched by a ray of light and yet life is present there. Life happens, whether we know it or not, whether we've seen it with our own eyes or not.

True love is down deep also. We may think it's up on the surface, on the bright pink raft, with the fruity adult beverage in our hand, the sun on our faces. But it's really under the surface, way under, where everything is not so apparent. The deeper you go, the more pressure is applied. It's not easy to go deep, but most things worth having are not...

There is always something new to discover in the Deep. The reward of going there is being the first to see what there is to see. You may get eaten by a shark. Or you may fall down the rabbit hole into a new country, the delights of which you have never known. Either way, the deep holds secrets that I want to know.

The Don't Wannas

Sometimes we don't want to go to school. It's fun there, most of the time. But sometimes it's scary. There are people there who rub us wrong, and there is food we don't like to eat, and there are problems we don't know how to solve. It's also frequently loud and and sometimes unfair. People don't do what they are supposed to do. People ask us to do things we don't want to do. Sometimes we're mean to each other. Sometimes we say things we didn't intend to say.

Come to think of it, school is just like home. Or the office. Or church. Or anyplace a bunch of people cluster and rub up against each other.

I'm going out of town soon. Because going to school is ruining our lives, I told Small Fry I'd come to her school lunch, but she had to make me a promise. If I came, no crying when I had to leave. Because it would make me cry, too. You know how that goes.

She promised.

After we ate our saltines and turkey slices and drank all the juice and sweet tea, it was time to say good-bye. And do you know what that turkey did? She lets out a big wail - Nooooooooo - and throws herself onto my lap. Great, I'm thinking. How am I going to get out of this?

Suddenly she pops up, one finger in the air and a smile on her face.

"But I'm not crying," she said. "I'm just shrieking."

Love that kid.

Taking Love

I really enjoyed this beautiful post about falling in love, all over again:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/the-4-minute-marriage-habit-how-to-make-2012-the-year-you-fall-madly-in-love-all-over-again/

It reminds me of taking love.

Sometimes Cutie Pie gets claustrophobic when we cuddle up. I know, right? This is a source of great entertainment to me, especially when he tries so gentlemanly-like to scoot out of my hot embrace. I can always make him laugh by clinging on for dear life and breathing hotly on his neck, refusing to let him escape. We call this "taking love." Sometimes he does it to me, when I'm in a give-me-my-space-I'm-trying-to-read frame of mind. He does it to the pets sometimes, when they try to climb out of his lap or jump out of his arms. He holds them ever tighter and pets them over-enthusiastically, exhorting them to take love.

He does it to our kids too, when one is crabby and sulky. He scoops the offender up into his arms, gangly legs and arms shooting out at all angles, and tries to rock them as he did when they were babies, shaping them into the little footballs they refuse to become again. Back and forth, tighter and tighter, telling them to take love.

It's just a silly thing that makes us laugh, but there is something profound even in the silly things. Aren't we grateful for those people in our lives willing to reach out to us in our prickliest times, when we are all Push Away and Grumble? Those who determine to remind us: We are loved. We are loveable. Even when we don't act like it. Even when we don't feel like it.

I know well that God puts those kind of people in our lives for a reason - to give us a glimpse of Himself. And because He delights in giving us good gifts.

Take love, He insists. Will I?