Tag: writing

Writing

Football

Sally3 Comments

Just to be clear, this post has nothing to do with altruism.

Altruism is the prompt for JusJoJan.

True story: I don’t follow American football. Not even a little. Honestly, I’ve never really understood the game. It looks like one people-pile after another. They talk about downs, which are different from people-piles, although it sure does look like a lot of people go down in a people-pile. Then there’s the whole scoring thing: some things earn 6 points, other things earn 3, and still others earn 1, or is it 2. I don’t know.

I coached swimming. The first person to touch the wall won.

My kids played soccer. If they kicked the ball in the goal, they got one point.

Easy and straight-forward, right?

I knew my son and his family were watching some Buffalo Bills game on Saturday night, so I half-watched about 5 minutes of it. Some guy caught the ball, but another guy ripped the ball right out of his arms. The whole thing didn’t look fair. I later told my brother about it, saying (again) that I really don’t understand football and wondered why people watch it.

“You need to watch this,” he said, and he directed me to a video of a guy running back-back-back, pushed by a bunch of guys from the other team, and he throws the ball — a long long pass to a guy waiting in the endzone and they scored.

Running backwards AND throwing accurately impresses me.

All this goes to show that an impressive bit of athleticism impresses me.

Is it altruistic?

No. The fact that I can’t easily find a video that shows this shows how UNaltruistic American sports are.

It’s all about the money, right?

These things happen in a vacuum accesible only to those who sell their souls to something.

I did. I watched some inane advertisement to see that video.

So now the fact remains that I am NOT a football fan, and it has nothing to do with understanding the sport. It has more to do with the $$-wall around the whole thing.

family · Writing

A Large Family

Sally9 Comments

Don’t get me started.

Family size is a personal decision.

I can’t tell you the number of rude things that have been said to me because of the number of children I have. I have eight.

“When are you going to stop?” — said to me by a woman at church when I was pregnant with #4. She later said to me after that baby was born — a daughter after three sons, “You got your girl, thank God. You can stop now.”

Another woman told me, “You have too many children.” This was when I had, I think, six. I responded by asking, “Which one should I get rid of?” I received no answer.

I haven’t gone to high school reunions, in large part because I didn’t want to spend my evening answering questions about my family size. That — plus the fact that while my classmates went on to pursue careers, I chose to be a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t really want to spend an evening at reunion answering the question, “What do you do?”

I chose to be a mom.

And it was, without a doubt, the right choice for me. It shaped me. It allowed me to be creative and loving and strong. I developed patience. I learned that I LOVE taking care of people.

So much so that I took care of my parents, too.

Did I resent doing that? Never. Not even for half a second.

Now, while my age-cohort is retiring, I’m just a few years into my first full-time job since 1984.

I have an office where I work. People stop in a lot to say hi, to talk, to complain, to suggest. I have an open door. Just the other day I was telling someone how being a mom prepared me for the constant interruptions of having an open-door policy in my office. When you’re a mom, you learn that your interruptions ARE your work. The same is true for me today.

A man stopped in my office yesterday. He often pokes his head in to say hello. He was a caregiver for his disabled wife the last few years of her life. He used to bring her to the gym and wheel her around in her wheelchair so she could have contact with other people.

Then she died.

And it turns that by coming to the gym he was building his own support system. He comes every day — not to work out so much as to visit with people. He makes the rounds, and I’m on them.

Anyway, he poked his head in, chatted about nothing, and then asked about my necklace. My youngest daughter gave it to me and I always wear it.

It has three discs: one that’s a tree, and two progressively larger ones with the names of my children around the edge. When you have a large family, you have to be creative about mother’s jewelry.

I explained the necklace to him.

“You have eight children,” he said incredulously.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Did you adopt some?”

“No.”

“Did you have twins or triplets?”

“No,” I told, “they were born one at a time.”

I turned around to grab the photo I have of them on my bulletin board.

“There’re all adults now,” I said, showing him the photo.

“You have eight children?!”

“Yes, this is them,” I said.

He was shaking his head. “You have eight children?!?!”

“Yes –”

He was backing out of the doorway. I was feeling rattled and small and angry and sad.

“You have eight children?” he said again. “I need to process this.”

“I’m still the same person you’ve been talking to for a year,” I called after him, but I don’t think he heard me.

Don’t get me started.

There are so many things that can define a person. Mistakes made while young. How they invested their life over the past four decades. What they are doing today.

I have eight children. They are amazing people and I’m so proud of them.

Really. Don’t get me started.

This overly-wordy post is my response to the Stream-of-Consciousness prompt: don’t get me started.

Linda Hill got me started on a rant.

Blather · Life

Before HIPAA

Sally3 Comments

I’ll admit — it’s a semi-irrational fear that I have of getting a fishhook stuck through my skin.

It may date back to the days when my father’s office was just off the Emergency Room. HIPAA hadn’t been born yet. I would cut through the Emergency Room to get to his office.

Which was a trailer.

Yes, it’s what you picture — the kind of structure that fills trailer parks.

When I got into the trailer, his office was on the left, opposite his secretary’s desk. Sometimes she was transcribing his dictated notes and would let me listen to his voice on the transcription machine as he said things like, “The patient was a white female, age 47, who presented with…”

Clearly another HIPAA violation. But HIPAA wasn’t a thing then. And I wasn’t paying attention to the words as much as his voice.

True story: These days I recognize people by their voices. More than once I would have walked right past my high school boyfriend had he not greeted me by name.

The other day, another person that I knew years ago walked past me and said, “Hey, Sal!”

The words got my attention, but the voice identified the speaker. I immediately knew him.

I mean, seriously, most men over the age of 70 look remarkably similar to me: gray hair or balding, scruffy beard, blue jeans, etc. Add a baseball cap and I’m sunk — until I hear their voice.

But I digress. I guess that’s how it is with stream-of-consciousness writing.

So, as a kid, I would cut through the Emergency Room on a daily basis. My pattern was to swim at the gym after school and walk to the hospital for my ride home. I would wait for my father to finish his day and we would walk together to his vehicle which was ALWAYS parked in the farthest spot available.

“It’s good exercise,” he would say as I complained about walking to the car.

One time, I saw one of my classmates in the ER. He had stabbed a pitchfork through his foot. Actually, through his work boot, and his foot, and out the other side. He was crying and cursing, obviously not having a good day.

I remember his name — but I won’t say it here. HIPAA and all that, you know.

The fishhook thing must date from those days. I think I saw someone in the ER with a fishhook in their cheek.

My father said, “They’ll just push it through and cut the barb.”

He made it sound easy.

But then, he didn’t have a fishhook in his cheek.

I remember my father explaining to me how the manure pitchfork through the foot presented a particular problem because of the risk of infection. Should they just pull it out? Cut the tip and pull it out? I think that’s what they did.

It doesn’t matter. The prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday wasn’t pitchfork. It was hook.

I can’t decide if I like stream-of-consciousness writing or not. It feels like a bunch of blather.

What do you think?

gratitude

TToT — June 30

Sally7 Comments

I looked back and saw that I haven’t done one of these (Ten Things of Thankful) since March! Yikes! Here we are on the brink of July!

I won’t bore you with my excuses. I’ll just tell you ten things (in no special order) for which I am thankful.

I got a new hip!1 I think I’ve mentioned it elsewhere in posts, but not in a thankfulness post. I am truly thankful for the wonders of medicine. I reported for surgery at 6 AM on May 21, was taken into surgery at 8 AM, have very fuzzy memories of them getting me up to walk on my new hip at I-don’t-know-what time, and was home by 2 PM. Tomorrow I have my 6 week check-up. It’s all so amazing.

I have a new granddaughter!2 Little Polly was born a little over two weeks ago. She’s pretty wonderful. She is more wonderful than a new hip, and that’s saying a lot. Parents, sister, and Polly are all doing great.

My sister came to visit!3 She stayed ten days to help me sort and organize stuff in this house. It was really nice to spend time with her. We talked. We drank wine. We went to visit some of my kids and all my grandkids (Polly included). We drank wine. We ate at favorite local restaurants. We drank mimosas. We got together with our brothers. We drank wine. We also sorted and organized stuff. I am so so so thankful for her visit.

I went to a Celtic Fling. Wait, wait — let me back up. I went to a graduation.4 My last child in college graduated back in May. I’m so proud.

Now I have 8 children who have all graduated from college AND are working in their chosen field, which leads me to…

    I went to a Celtic Fling.5 The lovely graduate pictured above was a theater major in college. She got a job at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire working in production. I went to see her this weekend where she was managing one of the stages. First, I LOVE Celtic Music and sat through three sets at her stage. Second, I loved seeing my daughter at work.

    The college graduation was pre-hip surgery. I was so worried about driving to Virginia on my own — but my oldest daughter offered for me to ride6 with them. A fair amount of that ride was spent in the back seat with my granddaughter, Willow.

    Willow was so much fun. It turns out that she loves the song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” When she got antsy in her car seat, we would sing and she would be happy.

    Also, during this interim of TToT posts, I witnessed Willow’s first visit with the Easter Bunny.7 I think it says a lot that she was not even remotely intimidated by a 6 foot tall rabbit.

    I’m thankful for the birds8 whose songs I hear every morning. Mr. Robin tends to dominate the chorus.

    I’m thankful for blogging challenges9 like the Unicorn Challenge or W3 which usually get me to write at least twice a week. Such nice people. Such talented bloggers and poets. So much encouragement.

    Lastly, I am thankful to you, dear readers10, especially when you post comments. I don’t always respond because I feel so overwhelmed with… hmmm… gratitude? Undeservedness? Bashful humility? I don’t know what to call it, but I know that it leaves me speechless.

    So, thank you.

    fiction

    Riding the Bus

    Sally5 Comments

    I climbed onto the bus and smiled. We don’t have buses like this where I come from. As a newby traveller, I was determined to make my way places using public transport.

    I only spoke English. “Should I learn their language?” I asked my friends from home.

    “Nah, everyone speaks English,” more than one person had said.

    It turns out that not everyone speaks English, especially in the smaller, more isolated cities.

    The bus was mostly empty. I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes listening to the rumble-hum of the bus, the psssssshh of the airbrakes at each stop, and the murmur of words I couldn’t understand.

    Suddenly I recognized words whispered in English.

    “Your job is to grab the old lady and tie her up,” said a male voice in a gravelly whisper.

    “Hush,” replied another male whisperer.

    “She’s the only one in earshot,” said the first voice, “and I doubt she speaks English. Besides she’s sleeping.”

    As they reviewed their plans to rob a rich woman in her home, I listened in horror.

    Quickly I came up with my own plan.

    The bus stopped in a crowded market area. The men behind me got off. I followed.

    “Excuse me,” I called. They turned, and I snapped a photo of them on my phone.

    “I’m scheduling a ‘send’ of this photo to the police. Meet me here tomorrow at this time with my cut and I will cancel the send,” I said, and slipped away.

    This is my contribution to the Unicorn Challenge. The rules are easy: 1. Use the photo for inspiration, and 2. No more than 250 words.

    Sometimes Most of the time my ideas are bigger than 250 words. That’s the hardest thing. I don’t think I did this idea justice, but I did bring it in at 250 words!

    fiction · Writing

    Skeecher

    Sally12 Comments

    “Mom! I can’t find Skeecher!” Jeremy yelled.

    Mom turned from the sink. This was the third time this week that Skeecher, a strange statue that Jeremy had unearthed in the garden, had gone missing.

    Last week when she had sent Jeremy out to pick rocks from the newly-tilled soil of the garden, he moaned about the work like any normal 10-year-old. But when he came running in holding this dirt-covered statue of pot-bellied humanoid, he was anything but annoyed. He was delighted. Why Jeremy named it Skeecher was as much a mystery as the thing’s origins.

    “Did you look on your dresser?” It sounded like an obvious place, but that’s where Skeecher was yesterday when they went to look.

    “No! I looked there. AND the window sill. AND the closet,” Jeremy said, listing off Skeeter’s previous hiding places.

    “I’ll help you find him” she said, drying her hands and heading down the hall. She opened the door to Jeremy’s room, and there was Skeecher standing in the middle of the floor.

    “Is this a joke?” she asked.

    Jeremy didn’t say anthing. He just scooped up the figure and hugged it.

    The next day, while Jeremy was at his friend’s house, Mom heard noises in Jeremy’s room as she passed. She opened the door to see 6-foot tall Skeecher leap onto the desk and shrink to his normal size.

    She ran in and grabbed the statue. His body still felt supple. His eyes blinked open and met hers.

    This is my contribution to the Unicorn Challenge. It’s a challenge with only two rules: 1) no more than 250 words, and 2) inspired by the photo.

    I know, I know — I’ve been MIA, but the creative tank has been low. Life.

    And I realize this is an incomplete story. Again – life.

    Don’t you think life is just one big incomplete story?

    gratitude

    TToT — January 4, 2025

    Sally8 Comments

    Ten things for which I have been thankful over this past week:

    1. New Year’s Eve games — If you didn’t get to play games with 5 year old New Year’s Eve, you missed out. We played Magnetic, which involved magnets and strategy, Hurry Up Chicken Butt, which is like Hot Potato with a twist, and The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel, which had game pieces shaped like acorns. Betcha I had more fun than the people who got rained on in Times Square.
    2. Morning Reading — Here’s a quote from Art and Fear, By David Bayles — “…becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your voice, which makes your work distinctive.”
    3. Best comment/conversation on my blog — with Kristin (Finding Eliza) following my Unicorn Challenge story “The Big House” —
      Kristin: Did he get away with it? If so, then what?
      Me: Ah, but that is the fun of a 250 word limit. Your imagination has to take over now.
      Kristin: Grandad and grandson go on to become the robin hood jewel thieves of whatever country they’re in. Stealing from the wealthy and starting a string of food pantries and soup kitchens for the down and out. Eventually they expand and buy big houses to house the homeless. The well known ballad “They did it for us” was based on them.
    4. New word learned: whinge. Whinge definition: British : to complain fretfully : whine (Thank you, CEAyr. I will TRY to stop whinging.)
    5. Sgeoil’s ode to the Sun
    6. Last night’s crescent moon with Venus very visible next to it.
    7. A difficult decision that I made. Once something is decided, it’s so much easier, right?
    8. A long swim on Thursday. Everything feels better after a swim – my hip and my psyche being most affected in a positive way.
    9. Cats — It’s so nice to be greeted when I walk in the door.
    10. Adam — one of my friends from the gym. He sent me this video of comedian that is one of his personal friends. It made me smile.

    #TToT

    Blather · poetry

    Two Roads — FWIW

    Sally5 Comments

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
    (I should be telling this with a sigh)
    Stood at that fork and took it
    Hey Yogi! Hey Raffi!
    Look it! Look it! Look it!
    You know what came next?
    (What came next?)
    A knife and spoon!
    (clink, clink)
    So I kept on walking down the road
    With a fork-knife-spoon as my load

    On Saturday I was supposed to go to a poetry reading. Mind you, I have done that only once before in my life and it was a terrifying experience. Thankfully an excuse presented itself and I bowed out. The friend who had invited me offered to read my poems for me. I gave her two — neither of which had been the poem I planned to read.

    She messaged me later, telling me that the poems were well-received, that I was a rare talent.

    To prove her wrong, I’m going to go ahead and publish last week’s tripe, my response to the W3 prompt. The POW gave a lovely challenge: to use 1-2 lines from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

    Unfortunately Yogi Berra infiltrated my brain regarding that poem. Yogi once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s one of many Yogi-isms for which he is famous. Like, “It ain’t over, ’til it’s over,” and “You can observe a lot by watching.”

    Suddenly, too, while writing, I was doing battle with Raffi, who kept singing at me (in my head) about a time he went for a walk.

    Sheesh.

    Sometimes the muses either just aren’t there or are a couple of clowns.

    Anyone else struggle with this?

    Blather

    Weird

    Sally5 Comments

    The Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS) prompt for today is “i before e.”

    Earlier today, I had had a conversation with someone who remarked how he still remembered and leaned on that rule.

    “Kind of weird,” I said.

    He didn’t get it.

    Weird is such a great word — and it’s weird that it doesn’t follow the rule, even when the rhyme is completed — “or when sounded ay as in neighbor and weigh.” We don’t pronounce it wayrd. Weird.

    I looked the rule up to make sure I was saying it right. There is funny stuff out in internetland.

    How about this one: “I before E unless you leisurely deceive eight overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits.”

    Weird, right?

    Ooh, ooh! Here’s another: “I before E except when your foreign neighbors Keith and Heidi receive eight counterfeit beigh sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.”

    I had to look up the word beigh: a provincial governor in the Ottoman empire. I suppose an alternate spelling to Bey.

    Or maybe they meant beige.

    Or maybe I misread it — I am, after all, trying to do stream-of-consciousness writing, not look-up-funny-things-and-copy-them writing.

    Good golly, there are a lot of them. They refer to overweight reindeer and beige sleighs involved in heists.

    I kind of stream-of-consciously wrote this last night and meant to post it, but I fell asleep.

    Weird.

    poetry

    Oh, to be a flower

    Sally19 Comments

    “Please select
    Me!” She wanted to direct
    The gardener as he scanned,
    Hand

    Already
    Full of flowers, gaze steady.
    He looked for one final bloom.
    Gloom

    Just settled
    Over her. Her gold petaled
    Head drooped in an oh-so-sad
    Bad

    Way. Downcast,
    Rejected, again outcast,
    Passed over. But then he stopped
    Dropped

    His pruner
    “I wish I’d seen you sooner,”
    He said to her. “You are sweet!
    Meet

    Your sidekicks.”
    [snip!] She joined the spray, transfixed
    By the beauty around her.
    “We’re

    Delighted
    You can join us!” She sighted
    A welcoming rose and mum.
    “Come!”

    This is for the W3 challenge this week. Heather (Sgeoil) challenged the participants to do a little personification. I had an idea for a flower being plucked from the garden for a bouquet (inspired in part by the bouquet that was on my bedside table when I stayed at my son’s house). My idea involved going in that sacrificial direction of losing life for the sake of something bigger. But, as you can see, it went in a totally different direction.

    I wish I understood my own process.

    AND — because I like Celtic forms, I went with a Deibide Baise Fri Toin, and Irish form with aabb rhyme scheme and syllable count of 3-7-7-1 for each stanza. The first two lines rhyme on a 2 syllable word and the last two lines rhyme on one syllable.