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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 801 May 17th, 2016 Prompt: How strong is your taste imagination? Have you ever felt the taste of any food inside your mouth just by thinking about it? Write about this.  I've had the opportunity to travel. One of the best part of going anywhere is to sample the locate cuisine, especially if its another country. International travel becomes some what of a food odyssey with certain dishes and tastes become as much as part of the memory of a place as the sights and sounds. I spent a lot of time in Mexico and my favorite tastes have been from all corners of that country. I had been warned about eating "street food" but the best things I've ever eaten where prepared on the streets Mexico City, in the zucalos of Oaxaca and sold from vendors at aromatic, if questionable, open markets. There is nothing in the world like the taste of tacos el pastor at 2am in the heart of the zona rosa after a night of dancing and tequila. The meat is savory and a bit briny, the spices straining it a terracotta red. The vendors cut it off from the vertical machine that slowing spins, cooking the mass of dripping meat, slowly, crisping the edges to perfection. They wrap the chunks of greasy pastor in fresh, warm corn tortillas that are topped with fresh cut cilantro, onion and lime. The combinations are so well balanced, and the taste sensation explodes on your tongue and settles in your stomach with a deeply satisfying heat. It was during the La noche de los rábanos (Festival of Radishes) in Oaxaca that I first tasted blue corn tortillas stuffed with the bright orange pumpkin squash flowers and Oaxacan string cheese. It was an exotic combination, sweet and savory on the tongue. The colors contrasting, beautifully vibrant. Washed down with lukewarm coca cola in those little glass bottles, these quesadillas would rival any gourmet creation anywhere. The old woman grilling the tortilla crisp on her wide iron skillet was as much a part of the night as the oddly beautiful sculptures of radishes lined up around the town center. The sights, sounds and tastes of that evening in Oaxaca will stay with me always. If I had to pick one dish from Mexico that stood out as my favorite among so many, it would easily be Elotes. Elotes are great ears of large kernel corn, about a long as a human forearm. They are sold in alleys, from carts in village streets, from vendors outside busy nightclubs and ruta stations. They are speared on wooden sticks, roasted to perfection and covered with crema, cilantro, chile pepper, lime juice and spices. They are messy and visually chaotic but they are in a word...spectacular. The first time you bite into one, the kernels pop from the cob and fill your mouth with flavors of the culture around you. The taste is all at once buttery, spicy and sweet. You can taste every element on your tongue, uniquely blended, somewhat familiar but amplified somehow in their combination. Elotes are simply the best thing I've ever tasted, ever. I did do a lot more than just eat in my travels but clearly eating was as much a part of my experience abroad as visiting the ancient historical sites, touring the towns and villages of coastal Mexico and dancing in the streets of Veracruz. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1280 May 17, 2016 Let's talk books : What's the last one that you made cry? What's the last one that made you laugh? What's the last one that made you furious? Do/ can books give you all of these emotions in one story? Regrettably I do not get as much time to read as I used to. My literary exploration these days is limited to listening to audio books on my way to work most mornings. I miss the habit of crawling in bed to end each day with a chapter or two of whatever volume I've borrowed from the library that week. The last book that made me cry was a classic, "Of Love and Other Demons" by the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This passionate, moving book tells the story of a young girl who is sequestered away in a convent, isolated and marginalized after being bite by a rabid dog. Tragic and moving, Marquez's story is about a love and longing that left me aching and sad. I'm currently listening to the "Summer of Night" by Dan Simmons. Simmons writes about a small town in 1970 and the band of boyhood friends during the summer following their graduation from 5th grade. They are typically boys, roaming the streets and woods, patrolling with their bike brigade. They are a charming if motley crew, and I've found myself laughing out loud at their antics numerous times. Of course, all is not mirth and sunshine and as with other such tales like "Stand by Me" or "It", danger looms and evil lurks. Something dark and ominous waits in the shadows to test this group of friends beyond their limits. I think its possible for certain books to evoke a range of emotions in me. I recently read James Lee Burke's "Wayfaring Stranger" and there were days when I experienced anger, joy and sadness over a span of chapters in that beautiful saga that began with one boy's chance encounter with the infamous Bonnie and Clyde. Books can deliver the goods. They can take us places. They can make us feel in many ways on a deeper level than watching something on the screen. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 795 May 11, 2016 Have you ever wanted to run a B&B? Write a poem, short story or what ever you want about it. Some days, when the strain and stress of my day job gets to me, I entertain a fantasy of moving away to run a small B&B somewhere down in the keys. It's a lovely thought, running a business like that. I like the idea of having a part in building someones vacation, of providing a place of escape and relaxation. I see an main house with a wide, wraparound porch, bordered by quaint little seaside cottages. There would be a small, bright beach dotted with white and blue umbrellas with soft sand and turquoise surf. Nice, tranquil. Dreamy. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1274: May 11, 2016 Prompt: May 11 is Twilight Zone Day . Write something that is weird, surreal, mysterious, and/or scary in celebration of this day. Have fun. Something weird and surreal I'm currently working on...loosely titled, "The Legacy of Madness" Alexia peered down the dark shaft at her feet. It was an inky black chasm, not much wider than the span of her thin hips. She strained, her ears listening for the music that had seemed so prominent before. It was silent. The music had come floating across the yard, a chorus of voices, right through the window of her bedroom. It was so distinctive, her eyes could almost follow the notes as they floated in the air. It drew her out of her house and into the yard. Alexia had followed the sound all the way to the back of her yard, behind the big maple that marked the outer boundary of her family's property. There, just beyond the old tree, she'd found the hole. Alexia was fairly certain it had not been there before. As she stared down into the darkness, the toes of her keds resting at the edge of the hole, the music had abruptly stopped. Alexia looked back over her shoulder at the house. She could hear her grandmother talking on the phone, animated and distracted. She quickly dropped to her knees and leaned into the shaft, trying to see anything. A pungent odor filled her nostrils, something sweet and fermented, like the apple tobacco her grandfather sometimes smoked in his pipe. She debated running back to house to get her grandmother, to tell her about what she had found. Alexia dismissed the idea immediately. Her grandmother was a serious woman who did not traipse into the back yard to look at holes that spewed music and smoke. Alexia's grandmother did not subscribe to anything that did not involve church or school or anything but the mundane routines of life. She had lost a daughter, Alexia's mother, to madness and folly and had no tolerance for such things. Alexia knew very little about her mother Alice. She had gone to live with her grandmother at the age of eighteen months after her mother had been institutionalized. Shortly after her daughter's birth, Alice began suffering from hallucinations and insomnia so severe that she would go without sleep for weeks at a time. She became obsessed with keeping time, wearing watches on both her arms and constantly asking the orderlies if their clocks were set correctly. Alice had slowly deteriorated until she had dissolved almost entirely into a raving lunacy, screaming about the red queen and covering her room with charcoal drawings of terrible winged creatures and misshapen dwarfs. Alexia had been sleeping peacefully in her grandmother's arms when her mother had, desperate to free herself of the madness griping her mind, had barrelled through several sets of orderlies to throw herself off the balcony of the mess hall. Seconds before her death plunge, witnesses had reported hearing her mother talking about the blue butterfly and being "out of time". Her grandmother had told Alexia more than once, that as a young girl Alice had let madness it and it had never let her go. In her grief, Alexia's grandmother had crafted a safe and practical world for her granddaughter to grow up in. There would be no fairy tales, no princess, no red queens...and no holes that appeared as if by magic in the back yard. Alexia thought she saw a sudden flicker of light in the darkness, something flashing bright in the depths. She craned her neck to peer down, leaned over the shaft just a little more. All at once, the ground under her knees gave way and she felt herself dragged forward into the hole. Her hands scrambled for purchase in the earth above but gravity took over and she fell down, the hole eagerly swallowing her as she dropped. To be continued... |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 793 May 9, 2016 Prompt: What, do you think, creates the most delightful usage of language in literature? Descriptions, dialogue, rhetorical devices, style, voice? Anything else? The authors that I admire the most are the ones I believe to be descriptive artists. These writers can describe a place or setting with such exquisite detail and attention, that I am virtually transported there through the magic of their phrasing and use of language. For example, when James Lee Burke writes about the bayou in New Iberia parish, I can see the tall cattails swinging at the water's edge in that moonlight southern night. He delivers me in an unparalleled way to a place I've never been but can come to know through his words. "I drove north along Bayou Teche to Carmouche's home. The house was dark, but next door the porch and living room lights were on at the Labiche house. I pulled into the Labiche driveway and walked across the yard toward the brick steps. The ground was sunken, moldy with pecan husks and dotted with palmettos, the white paint on the house stained with smoke from stubble fires in the cane fields. My face felt warm and dilated with alcohol, my ears humming with sound that had no origin." An excerpt from Purple Cane Road, James Lee Burke In much the same way, Stephen King masters the task of taking me into dark places. King has so often found the right mix of words to describe his disturbing nightmares so compellingly that they take life. You can feel the terror as a visceral thing in your gut, leaving you uneasy hours after you close the book. Who can forget the lasting impression Pennywise made on them the first time they read about that manic clown? "And George saw the clown’s face change. What he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke. They float,' the thing in the drain crooned in a clotted, chuckling voice. It held George’s arm in its thick and wormy grip, it pulled George toward that terrible darkness where the water rushed and roared and bellowed as it bore its cargo of storm debris toward the sea. George craned his neck away from that final blackness and began to scream into the rain, to scream mindlessly into the white autumn sky which curved above Derry on that day in the fall of 1957. His screams were shrill and piercing, and all up and down Witcham Street people came to their windows or bolted out onto their porches." An excerpt from Stephen King's "It". Description, for me, is one of the most powerful forces in literature. I have tremendous respect for those writers who have perfected tool. They are artists with words. The power of their descriptions transcend time, and even translate across language barriers. For example, in case of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for whom English was not the language he wrote his masterpieces in, his descriptions are so acute and beautiful that they read perfectly even after suffering translation into multiple languages. “Then, for more than ten days, they did not see the sun again. The ground became soft and damp, like volcanic ash, and the vegetation was thicker and thicker, and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude I spend a lot of time thinking about description in my own writing. I think about how a place or situation affects all my senses and then try to convey as much of that experience into words that justly represent those qualities. It isn't easy though these writers I've mentioned make it seem effortless. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1272: May 9, 2016 Prompt: Title: A Popularity Contest. Take this any where you want. Write a story, a poem, an essay, or a rant. Have fun. Be creative. Clara glanced at her phone to check the time. She had less than an hour. She raised her eyes and confronted the tired, unadorned face in the mirror. She groaned aloud. She looked every bit like a woman pushing forty-three who spent far too little time in the gym or the cosmetic department for that matter. Clara rubbed concealer under both eyes in a last ditch effort to mask the dark circles before applying the rest of her make-up. She stopped midway through her mascara to call up to her daughter. "Jenny, we are leaving in five minutes." She prayed Jenny's six year old mind had reasoned that sneakers, and not white patent leather heels, were proper footwear for a play date at a playground. It had been a discussion she had failed to have with her in advance of today, one of several she thought about now. Clara went back to her face. The blush and gloss and bit of color on her lids did make some improvement and she felt her mood, if not her anxiety, lighten a little. Having waited well into her thirties to have Jenny, Clara was one of the older Moms among Jenny's circle of friends. She was also one of the few that worked full time, a discrepancy Clara felt more acutely than the age difference. Most of the other moms showed up to school for pickups looking fresh from the or comfortably dressed, ready to engage with their children over how their day had been. Clara, on the other hand, often rushed in at the eleventh hour, hobbled by her heels, her work clothes rumbled, her cell phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear. She tried to disconnect, but often failed miserably. At school functions, her phone often buzzed so loudly despite being on silent mode, that she was certain every parent, teacher and administrator could hear the offensive noise. The truth was, Clara had worked hard to find the balance between raising a child and having a successful career. Most days she felt she was doing a pretty good job at both but still felt the judgment every time she walked into a PTO meeting late, or had to skip school function for work. There were also the days she felt inadequate. The other moms always seems so much more youthful and engaged, free to be more... cool? Was that the word? Jenny's best friend was a girl named Samantha, "Sammie" as she was known to all her peeps. Sammie's mom was definitely the "cool mom", sporting a nose ring and a cherry red jeep with a "Shoreline Roller Derby" sticker on the bumper. Clara often saw her striding across the parking lot at pickup, instantly envious of her black hair tied in a knot at the base of her neck, her doc martins and torn cut-offs. Gabby's mom was the other end of the spectrum. She never missed a PTO meeting or a chance to volunteer. She was indelibly cheerful, smiling warmly at Clara over the bake sale table as she accepted her tray of store-baked cupcakes, careful not to let the judgment show on her pretty, Mary K perfected face. "Mom...let's go!" Jenny appeared in the doorway, bouncing in excitement, her pretty features glowing. Clara was relieved to see the pink sneakers on her feet. Three minutes later they were in the car, headed to the park. Gabby's mom had organized the play date as soon as the weather had turned warmer. She had billed it as a relaxing afternoon when the Moms would be able to "hang out", while the girls played in the park. Clara didn't feel relaxed though, she felt nervous. As she drove and Jenny fiddled with the radio, Clara agonized about finding common ground with the other moms and being the "odd mom out". She realized with growing dismay, that this play date felt more like an audition for a part she knew she wasn't 100% right for. It felt like a popularity contest she could never really win. Jenny found a song she liked and was soon dancing in her seat and singing along with all the carefree abandon of a happy six year old. Jenny was happy. Clara thought, "I have a happy child, who has a lot of good friends." Clara thought that had to mean she was doing something right after all. As she rounded the bend, Lighthouse Park came into view. She pulled in along side Sammie's Mom's jeep. Without waiting, Jenny bolted from the car, racing toward the little group of girls. She stopped just before reaching them, turned, and ran back. Clara's heart burst with gratitude as she realized her daughter was coming back for her. Jenny slipped her hand in Clara's and looked up, smiling. "Come on Mom, let's go find the other Moms for you." Clara looked down at her daughter. "Yes, she thought, I am definitely doing something right with this amazing kid". |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1269 May 6, 2016 Take an inanimate object and give it life.... as the subject of a story whether it be poetic or a short story in your blog. Remember it is completely from the object's perspective. Have fun I had a short piece of prose that fit this prompt too well not to use it! Forgive me for re-purposing!
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAy 790 May 6, 2016 Lots of cool things happened on this day in history, share something really cool from your neck of the woods with us. I've included a link in case you can't think of anything. There are more things than the channel tunnel, which is pretty cool in itself. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/english-channel-tunnel-opens Unfortunately, a very notable aviation disaster happened on this day in 1937. In New Jersey the Hindenburg, the largest airs ship of its kind, crashed killing 36 passengers and crew. For those of us who work in aviation, disasters like this are as much a part of the history of flight as are the triumphs like the Wright brother's first manned flight or the Spirit of St. Louis. Taking a moment to look through the photos and news reports from this day in time, I am sobered by the horrible, tragic nature of the accident. I recall again how much respect I have for aviation and for how far we have come in the aspects of safety and engineering. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 787 May 3, 2016 Prompt: “Unconditional love is unprincipled love… if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge?... It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times,” says Amy Dunne, at the end of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. What is your take on this different way of looking at unconditional love? Gillian Flynn's character of Amy Dunne remains one of my absolute favorite villains. Unapologetically fierce and sadistically driven, her take on the concept of love aligns itself perfectly with her persona. For her, lovers have the responsibility to be the best versions of themselves and the concept of "unconditional love" has no place in a marriage. Why settle? Why agree to accept someone without conditions when you can impose the best behavior, when you can demand the best traits and the highest of standards? Luckily, Amy Dunne is a rare monster. Most people at least believe in the theory that love should be unconditional and boundless. I do think we all begin our journeys with romantic love in that way, but it is a very difficult state to maintain. There are too many variables, too many outside forces to keep love so limitless. The only truly unconditional, unprincipled love I believe it is that between a child and parent. Once you become a mother (or father), its like you can finally see what loving someone without limits feels like. You look down at the face of your sleeping child and think "I will never love anyone more completely, more deeply than this child." "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1266 May 2, 2016 Prompt: What does "Fraying at the Edges" mean to you? It's your story, your blog and I am looking forward to your response. It wouldn’t be long now. At some moment, very soon, he would burst through that narrow, paneled door and…she squeezed her eyes shut and violently shook her head to erase the thoughts. She replayed the scene of her own death so frequently, with such graphic horror, that it had become unbearable. Shari wriggled her wrists again, the bonds still tight and unforgiving. Her arms ached and the ropes had worn angry welts into her skin. Her tongue felt think and swollen from hours of trying to loosen the shredded linen gag in her mouth. Sometimes she would feel a strange peace settle inside her, a warm floating feeling and she would be thankful that she was at last dying and welcomed the release with thankful tears only to wake up hours later and bitterly realize she was still alive. She was still held captive in a rotting old house by a man she’d never seen but hated so fiercely that in her moments of rage and strength, that Shari fantasized about killing him with her own hands. The primal drive gave temporary life to her fight and she would struggle anew against her restraints until once again she was exhausted and her energy depleted. Her body jerked awake. She could sense him standing over her in the dark. She shrank back in terror as he leaned down. The eye holes of the white plastic mask were misaligned and thick ropes of matted hair swung toward her face. He reached for her, and hauled her to her feet without a word. He spun her away from him and sliced through her bonds, shoving her forward into the room and toward the open door. Shari's sudden release temporarily stunned. It took a few moments for her engage her new freedom but as blood rushed into her arms, her limbs came to life. Adrenaline propelled her out the open door, up the wooden stairs and out. Into the night. Shari bolted across the clearing, headed for the trees, certain he was at her heels. She zigzagged through the woods, crashing through the underbrush, her arms windmilling out in front of her. Shari could hear her own breathing, a ragged and frenzied wheezing, punctuated by frightened sobs. "Move" she commanded her feet. After what felt like mere minutes, her lungs on fire, she spied an old tree with a dark hollow that looked just big enough for her body. Shari squeezed inside. It smelled like rot and decay but she was grateful for the respite. She tried to slow her pounding heart, straining to listen in the dark. The night had gone silent around her. Silent. The strangeness of that silence gave life to a new fear building inside her. The woods weren't just quiet they were devoid of sound of any kind. Shari began to question her true nature of her situation. Why had her captor suddenly just let her go? After days of threatening her with torture and death, he just cut her bonds and threw open the door, why? She was fairly certain he had not chased her, that perhaps had hadn't even left the cabin at all. She didn't think she had not heard him pounding up the stairs after her. He had stayed behind and just let her run out...into the woods. "Into the woods", as Shari thought those words a cold panic seemed to wash over her. Then she heard it. It was moving through the undergrowth to her right, slow and deliberate. It sounded bigger than a man, broader somehow. "Bear?" she thought, with alarm. Her body began to tremble. It was making a snuffing sound, no Shari realized, not snuffing. It was sniffing. She heard it draw nearer to her tree, passing around behind it. Every cell in her system told her not to look, but she had to know what she was up against out here in the dark. She twisted her head to peer out the slit in the bark, she could see sky and ground. She waited, watching the spot of earth within her line of vision, listening to the sound of it moving in the dark. Then, it was there, stepping into view. It was not a bear, not a wolf, not anything she had ever thought possible. It was a hulking, hairy beast that walked on two powerful legs, so broad they looked like logs. She could make out the slope of it's back, saw the tendons in its thick neck twist as it turned its head toward her. Shari felt her sanity flaying at the edges as she got a look at the creature head on. The werewolf, because that is what she now understood it to be, stared back at her with red eyes. It's muzzle was elongated and its lower jaw hung at an odd angle, as if the impossible number of ragged fangs prevented it from fully closing its mouth. The saliva ran in thick bands from either side, soaking the fur of its massive chest in dark rivers of foul wetness. Shari shrank back against the tree, covering her mouth with both hands to keep from screaming. It sniffed the air again and began to keen, a sound that was ten times more horrifying than the sniffing had been. All at once, it raised it's ugly head toward the sky and howled. Shari's scream tore from her throat, and echoed endlessly in the woods around her. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1261: April 28, 2016 prompt: today is a free day.... I give no direction on what to write.... but right something fun. I was thinking this morning, that I might be a bit quirky. Now that I've reached a comfortable middle-age, I feel I can examine my life with a little more honesty. I think I have a pretty good handle on my flaws...and they are not small in number. I have a bad temper for one, a quick to fire response that burns hot and fast. I tend to be bossy and controlling, fallout from honing a type A personality for most of my life. I also tend to be too trusting, a personality trait that has often transformed me into a doormat too many times than I'm comfortable admitting. I'm too easily frustrated and I yell too much. While that's not a comprehensive list, it represents a few of the "biggies". So flaws yes, but also there is that quirkiness thing...I find myself thinking or saying things lately that make me briefly wonder about myself...and how these little eccentricities have managed to take root in my otherwise practical and normal routines. For example...I am highly suspicious of yogurt. I force myself to eat it to fend off occasional threat of yeast infections during rounds of antibiotic treatments...but I loathe it. I can't get past the fact that its a living organism or that it can appear runny and weirdly smelly and still be perfectly ok to ingest. Or, and perhaps even more telling, my mother-in-law routinely makes homemade yogurt from expired milk. Yes. Yuck. No thank you. So aside from the yogurt thing...I am completely creeped out by anyone touching my belly button. When I was pregnant I remember hating idea of someone rubbing my belly and inadvertently touching it. I had a friend who once told me that I had a special scream reserved for whenever he would try to touch my belly button. He really found humor in tormenting me with that. Quirky, right? Then there is my absolute fear....okay if I'm being totally honest it qualifies as a phobia...of praying mantis. If I find myself in the vicinity of one, I become almost completely incapacitated, immobilized in visceral fear. I break out in a sweat, my legs buckle and I feel sick to my stomach. Eventually, I will bolt, screaming to put as much distance between me and it as possible. I know that they are a mere bug. I know that they are harmless, even beneficial. I know that they are also illegal to kill and that some say they bring good fortune. I know all that and it doesn't matter. My response is as involuntary and immediate as taking a breathe. As you might imagine, members of my family find this spectacle extremely entertaining. During the long summer months, a praying mantis appearance at one of our family parties is akin to a gift from the humor Gods. The last time, my mother and Uncle called me over under the guise of needing my help, only to step aside and reveal a tiny praying mantis sitting on the hose reel. Their peels of laughter echoed my screams and followed my hastily running feet. I nearly took down my own toddling child in my effort to get away. Funny? Not really. Not if you are me and you can't enjoy those humid days of summer without looking over your shoulder or glancing constantly up into the eves of porches and under picnic tables. I have always been more of winter person, I half wonder if this is the reason why. These are just a few of my quirks. I discover more and more as I age...I supposed that is only natural. God bless my good friends and family who accept me, quirks, flaws and all. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 782 April 28, 2016 Prompt: Have you had any bad experiences with gardening or planting flowers? Let's talk about them. I am, at best, a novice gardener. I enjoy it though, the planting and eventual harvesting of my own string beans, tomatoes, baby eggplants and more. My daughter loves eating the cherry tomatoes and green peppers right off the plant. For the most part, our family has had good experiences with growing our veggies and keeping our property pretty with perennials. The only bad experience I've ever had with a plant would be the summer I discovered that I was highly allergic to poison ivy. It was during my first marriage and we were bent on clearing the yard of our new home. We worked for hours to clear the overgrowth around the detached garage and under the porch. Because we were newlyweds and concerned with such things, we took a break to cadoodle and mess around at bit. Anyway...a few hours later I began to feel funny down there...actually, everywhere. Within an hour, both my eyes had swollen to slits. My lips burned and my tongue felt to big for my mouth and everything south of my belly button raged with an insanely, ravenous itching. We must have come into contact with the plants while we worked and our other activities had spread the awful oils all sorts of inconvenient, painful places. The doctor felt terrible for me. He said the shots would give me some immediate relief but that it would take some time for the oral meds to reduce all the swelling and drive the itching away completely. It took four full days, one bad reaction to Cipro, countless oatmeal baths, a pair of dark sunglasses and a whole lot of angry cursing to get through that experience and come out on the other side. Never again. I steer as clear away from anything remote resembling poison ivy as I do praying mantises! |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1260: April 27, 2016. April 27 is National Tell a Story Day. Tell me a story. Be creative and have fun. I wish I had a bit more time to do something more complete but my free time allows for just a beginning this morning... ************************************************************************* Isabella Ranking sat alone on a cold stone bench contemplating the ruin of her life. She thought there was a slight chance she was being overdramatic about things. Still, sitting alone in the almost rain by the ragged edge of the coast watching the somber gray waves, it certainly felt like her life was over. Behind her back, the impressive façade of Graystone Mansion rose up into the colorless sky. Five Stories of old New England elegance perched high on the prettiest stretch of coastline, Graystone had made the transformation from a once-upon family residence to the administration building of an accredited state university. She had loved that building once. Today, Isabella could barely bring herself to look at it. She felt it’s presence bearing down on her shoulders and knew she would no longer find any beauty it its dark windows and sharp angles of unforgiving stone. Isabella felt the wave of nausea hit her and turned her face into the wind to fight the sour fit in her stomach. She breathed deeply of the salt air. Her newly minted sense of super smell also picked up the cloying scent of decay from the seaweed clumps rotting between the rocks exposed at the low tide mark. She coughed, and spit. The taste of rot suddenly metallic in her mouth. Not for the first time, she found her hands folded protectively over her middle, covering a phantom bump that was not visible. How had she managed to end up here? With all her ambition and drive? She had been the first of her family tribe to go to college, the shining example to her younger siblings. Isabella imagined the look of anguish on her father’s face when she told him she was dropping out, when she told him about the baby. She felt as if she was going to vomit and the urge drove her to her feet and into motion. She began walking the brick path that wound along the coast and through campus. Forcing herself to keep moving while she wiped at the silent tears coursing down her cheeks. Fortunately the campus was almost deserted on this eve of the trimester break and she could pass unseen among the few students who raced about making preparations to leave. She was stalling, not ready to go home and face what was coming. She had briefly considered putting it off, she could go another few months without her pregnancy becoming too obvious. Isabella had quickly abandoned that plan. Her mother would take one look at her and know everything. It had always been that way. Her mother had an uncanny ability to ferret out everything little thing her children had ever tried to keep hidden, especially her oldest daughter. Isabella had reached the door of her little red Subaru. Heavy-hearted, she pulled it open and sank down behind the wheel. She looked out over the sound before her. White caps roiled in the choppy seas now, mirroring, it seemed, the tempest raging inside her. She took one last, long look and turned the key feeling the car shudder to life underneath her. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 776 April 22, 2016 This seems to be a very controversial issue here in the states, I've included a link for you that do no see the craziness in our news. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fights-break-out-over-first-gender-neutral-bath... What are your thoughts about this occurrence? Do you agree or disagree? Like most of the nation, I've been watching this news and trying to decide where I sit with the issue. As it is with so many things, this issue has been heavily politicized, with soundbites, news stories and video clips designed to support the agendas of one group or another. My feelings are mixed because I've personally known a transgendered person and I came to believe that to be born transgendered was a form of birth defect, and not, as many speculated, brought about by abuse, trauma or social pressures. I learned about what it means to be diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria. I place a lot of faith in science and I feel the scientific community may be very close to proving that the process of determining gender identity as birth can be biologically corrupted in the same way that produces other birth abnormalities. The fact that transgendered births exist in every culture since the dawn of time further supports that evidence. I believe that a true transgendered individual can be born with the sexual organs of one sex while mentally identifying as the opposite sex. I believe for these people, existence is a challenge few of us could ever comprehend. This is a route issue I have with politicians passing laws restricting the use to restrooms to one's gender as assigned by birth. I believe transgendered people are born of both sexes, one physical and one mental. I'm uncomfortable with anyone claiming the authority to decide for any one group what laws and standards are placed on something I believe we only marginally understand. Having said that, I understand the counter argument as well. I can see that by removing the restrictions for one group, limits the perceived protections of another. I'm a mother of a young girl myself and while I would not be concerned with her using the same restroom as a transgendered person, I am extremely concerned about those individuals who would take advantage of such laws to indulge their perversions. I see this legislation allowing for loopholes for the undesirable and criminal acts by people merely posing as transgendered and that is not acceptable. That will not work, not for the transgendered community nor anyone else. These people using the law as an excuse to perpetrate crimes against others, they are vile opportunists, anomalies in the system, a system that has given them a unique opportunity. These people propagate the misconception that gender identity has something to do with sexual preferences or perversions...that simply isn't an accurate assessment of truly transgendered people in my opinion. Several years ago I was approached in a human resources capacity, by a long time and well respected employee who was about to begin transitioning. It was my first introduction to someone transgendered in an industry that could not be more old fashioned and patriarchal. This individual was over fifty, married and had adult children and grandchildren. He talked a great length about having struggled his entire life to conform to a gender that was assigned to him at birth but did not match what was inside. He had made the difficult decision to transition to female in what I believe had to be one of the hardest environments to do so. It was journey we were all to participate and one that proved to be very revealing for me. Over the course of two years, he transitioned to she, in a very public and very physically demanding ways. There were painful conversations, difficult confrontations, multiple surgeries and very hard recoveries. There was a lot of trepidation and fear but also there was joy. There was fulfillment. For each thing she endured, she emerged stronger and more truly and completely the person she always believed she was. The bathroom issue came up in our company as well. The solution came from the employee herself who felt it would be most comfortable to everyone is she simply used the unisex single bathroom at the top of the hall for the time during her transition. After her gender reassignment surgery, she sometimes used the same bathroom as I did and I honestly I never thought about it even once. It was just a bathroom and she was there for the same reasons I was, to use the facilities and then go on with her day. As these laws are written, they are not going to work. In an attempt to resolve an issue, as a society we have over-corrected to the point of generating a bigger problem. Designating an additional bathroom as unisex or gender-free respects the transgender community in the same way having a Family restroom respects Dad who don't want to take their daughter's into the Men's room or Moms who have young boys. It is an alternative. It makes sense. I fail to see the issue with having a unisex bathroom added to the choices available. Why take something away? Why not simply add an alternative, inclusive choice? And for those transgendered individuals who have fully transitioned to male or female by undergoing sexual reassignment surgeries, why do we even need a law? They should be entitled to use the restrooms corresponding to their biological sex even if it came to them, not at birth, but through their choice and medical science. Just my opinion... "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1255 April 22, 2016 I love the word generator! Can you write something with these words? judgement, burning, fashion, cynic, consumer and bloodthirsty The world lost another great musical icon with the recent passing of Prince. One local station is dedicating their air time to playing his impressive catalog of music over twenty-four hours in a tribute to the artist. While most of the world remembers his huge talent and innovation, the bloodthirsty cynics await confirmation of their varied theories alleging everything from AIDs to drug use. Why are some so quick to assign labels and pass judgement, particularly on those that possess an obvious genius or an unique talent? Whatever the reason, at 57, he was taken too soon. In that brief lifespan, Prince established himself as an true icon. His music, his fashion, his artistry, his commitment to his individuality left an indelible mark across the art and entertainment industries. How few performers can claim both an Oscar and Grammy wins and secure a coveted spot in the Hall of Fame all while building a musical catalog so vast and impressive and entirely under their own control and autonomy? Life certainly wasn't finished with Prince, only heaven can bear witness now to that burning desire inside he had to create, compose, define and revolutionize. RIP Prince. May you join Bowie and Michael happily in the great beyond where we can only dream about the epic jam sessions you must all be having. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 774 April 20, 2016 Prompt: "Imagination is the only weapon we have against reality." Alice In Wonderland "Bewitched is distorted from reality and nothing is as dull as constant reality." Agnes Moorehead What is your take on this? I spent a lot fewer days in my imagination these days. To engage my imagination seems to take a concentrated effort now. I think it used to my preferred vehicle for escape as a child. When you grow up and have more responsibilities, its harder to justify daydreaming or sometimes dreaming of any kind. I don't find reality dull but it is not as technicolor vivid as my Wonderland used to be. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1253: April 20, 2016 Prompt: Write a tribute to someone who inspires you. In the the tribute tell why the person inspires you. There are no shortage of people to admire in my life, and to pick just one is difficult. In these last few years I've watched my husband grow into an amazing father. He has always been a hard worker, one of the hardest working people I've ever met. He would do whatever it took to provide for his family and to make our home a safe and comfortable one. I've watched him tackle home improvement projects on our aged colonial that would make most seasoned contractors cringe. I've witnessed him spend hours routing out a problem, determined to find the solution even if it meant sitting for hours on the kitchen floor surrounded by pieces of mismatched pipe and rusted valves. With very little experienced, he's put up fences, patched walls, refinished floors and built nesting shelves. He's made our home more beautiful and more efficient, project by project. It is in his nature to work hard for us. My husband, with little experience, grown into an amazing father. He has become a loving and empowering force in our daughter's life. She is his forever princess and he lavishes her with affection. They have similar personalities, more subdued and reserved that other's around them. They can just be quiet together in a way that is very touching. I watch them a lot, sitting together or walking side by side in the woods, and it is very calming and reassuring. I'm very proud of the husband and the father he has become. He continually overachieves, delivers on promises and strives to make this life as full and as rewarding as it can possibly be. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1248 April 15, 2016 BCOF: Tell us about a place you pass by every day, ...does it make you happy or sad? There is a place that makes me both happy and sad. I don't pass by it every day but I used to live there years ago. When I was a resident, I drove by it every day. After I had finally found the courage to leave my husband and our home, I took a summer rental down along the New London shoreline. It was a small cottage, not on the water but with beach rights to the private beach at the top of the street. I lived there for almost nine months and the beach was where I often started and ended most of my days. It was a small, crescent of white sand that looked out over Long Island Sound and the red, brick lighthouse that marked what locals called the race. I lived there with my boyfriend and best friend and in those first few months, it had been every bit like the life I had so desperately. We had parties with lots of laughing friends, we cooked amazing meals side by side and we decorated as much as we could within the bonds of our lease. We were not two people who lived under the stigma of having had an affair that ended a bad marriage, but two people who were building a life and a future together. We were able to live and love out in the open and experience the good life with our family and friends. We walked hand and hand on that beach and sat watching the stars together at night. In the early hours of dawn, I'd find Seth down there, waist deep in the water, gracefully casting his surf pole out to where the birds worked in the dim light. I loved watching him like that, so at peace with his environment, so connected to that place where even his demons couldn't find him...or so I had thought. It would only be a matter of time until that idyllic existence would crumble around us. Before the lease ran out on my summer rental, Seth began losing the battle with bottle in earnest. Those wonderful nights and serene mornings disappeared, replaced by raging arguments and days full of bitter disappointments. The life I thought we were making was built on a foundation that was too fragile to support the weight of his sickness and our futile dreams. The relationship would continue after our time there was over but those nine months would hold the moments that were among the finest and darkest of our time together. That place is forever embedded my permanent memory bank, etched there by the love, the tears and the pain. To this day, I can't drive past it without the onslaught of emotions those memories invoke, both happy but also extremely sad. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 769 April 15, 2016 We all have those days.... you know the ones where you bite your tongue more times than not Where do you go to hide out from everyone? Is it always the same place? Random? I've had a lot of those days lately actually. Honestly, with a six year old in the house, there are few places I could actually hide with any decree of success. I'm not sure it matters where, but as long as I am writing, I am someplace that is uniquely and wholly mine. Is it hiding? I'm not sure. In a way, I suppose it is an escape. |
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