Archive | October 2017

Battle Scars

Oct25

Who knows how it happened. But there I was lying on the living room floor in a puddle of water, sand, glass and flopping fish. Hadn’t Mama told me to stop chasing around? Maybe she had, but none of that mattered anymore. I opened my mouth and let out a long, loud wail. Not only had I ruined something nice, but I was scared and uncomfortable.

Everyone in the house must have heard the crash and come running to see what had happened. If they hadn’t heard the glass break, they certainly heard my fire siren howl. Mama picked me up off the floor and gasped, “Oh my goodness! The glass cut your left arm!” Holding me away from her a little she added, “Ugh, you’re wet and fishy smelling!”

Mama firmly directed me toward the bathroom for a bath, bandaging and a change of clothing. Before leaving the room, I looked back and saw my sisters and brothers picking up glass, mopping up the water and sand. I saw small orange fish on the gray linoleum floor wildly flopping about. The sight made me feel so sad I began to wail again. Continue reading →

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Too Much

Oct18

My belly rumbled as I picked up the restaurant’s menu. Ordinarily, I enjoyed eating out, but today when I scanned the meals listed, nothing excited me. The menu was filled with bright pictures of juicy hamburgers, steaks, chicken, soups and eleven different kinds of sandwiches. It even offered all day breakfast meals, so the problem wasn’t a lack of dietary variety.

Arnie and I had been on vacation for the past week. Every single meal since leaving home was at a restaurant. When we left home I’d thought eating out all week would be like a dream come true. There would be no meals to cook, nor dishes for me to wash. All I had to do was lean back and enjoy myself.

The first thing I discovered was my dear husband had turned into a dietary camel sometime during the previous twenty years since our wedding vows. He loved to eat huge breakfasts early in the mornings, but then didn’t want to stop to eat anything else until six or seven in the evening. I, on the other hand, like to graze for most of the day. I needed at least a bowl of soup or fruit every four hours. I ended up furtively snacking on candy bars to keep from passing out.  Continue reading →

Listing Right

Oct11

I dropped into my desk chair and pulled a note pad toward me, remembering a comment that a friend had once made. She said, “If you have a job you want done, tell a busy person to do it.” What my friend said was true. When my life was busier, I was always able and usually willing to add extra jobs to my already full days.

After a moment of thought, and a few doodles on the corner of the pad, I began to scribble a list of things to do. I wrote, ‘write letter to Barb, call Rosie, wash-dry-fold laundry, rearrange living room, clean kitty litter pan, weed flower bed.’

I have always liked making lists. Being able to cross off the items as I do them makes me feel good. Non-work items show up on my lists, ‘sit and read the newspaper’ and ‘soak in bath tub’. Some people wouldn’t write those things down, but I do. Just because they’re not house maintenance, doesn’t make them unworthy to be listed! Continue reading →

Mountain Ash Pub

Oct4

Twilight rendered the headlights of my car to be totally useless as I headed home. Were they even on? Along the road I saw heavy mist close to the ground in low areas. More ethereal on higher ground a thin, silky veil sinuously wrapped itself around shrubs, trees and farm buildings. The word, ‘gloaming’, an old-fashioned word for this time of day came to my mind. It made me think of things spooky and mysterious.

Shivering, I turned up the heat. My car instantly responded by blowing a steady stream of warm air from its vents. Bright yellow leaves on trees along the road looked like patches of sunshine the day had forgotten as it so quickly departed moments before. The day had been warm, but now the chill and mist was so typical of fall evenings. Continue reading →