Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Microfiction Monday #33

Susan at http://www.stonyriver.ie/ host a weekly writing prompt
Write using only 140 characters
I got carried away and wrote 3 micro's
It must be this hot weather


THIS IS THE PICTURE PROMPT:


#1
This is your last warning Ferdinand
If I catch you abusing your power
one more time
the only fire you'll have
is from eating jalapenos

#2
Are you telling me Ferdinand that you actually
thought you could preach Fire and Brimstone?


#3
Ferdinand, really
It's gauche
to heat up wienies that way














Monday, May 24, 2010

Magpie Tale #15


hosts a weekly writing prompt.
Write a vignette or poem

Write using the below photo as your prompt.


Fish, the ancient sign for Christ. I will make you fishers of men.
Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days.
The feeding of the five thousand with fish and loaves.
These images come into my mind as I peruse the items on the table of this New Age shop that is going out of business;carved wooden fish strewn across the distressed oak. As these thoughts enter me I am overcome with complete and utter sadness, aware of the emptiness that dwells within me dragging me down further and further each day. My body becomes overwhelmed with intense longing.
Dusty Bible passages from my youth seep into my mind as I pick up the fish and roll them around in my hand:
Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.
Cast all your cares upon Him, for He careth for you. Tears perch on the rims of my eyes.
Had He really heard the groanings of my soul, or is it the hunger in my belly having not eaten much in the last three days that I feel?
I take the fish to the register to ask the price,telling the girl the thoughts that had come to my mind regarding them.
"These aren't ours," said the nose pierced girl at the counter.
"But I found them on the table over there."
"Well I can call my boss, but I never saw them before."
"Don't bother," I say, putting them down, "I don't need the wooden fish anyway."
As I exist the store I turn back to take one last look, my last five dollars still in my pocket -a dumpy, going out of business, New Age shop
...where I found something that wasn't supposed to be there.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Microfiction # 32

WELCOME TO AMERICA,SUSAN!!

Susan at http://www.stonyriver.ie/ host a weekly writing prompt
Write a piece using only 140 charcters or less



This week's photo prompt.


I was surprised to see Book monks at the dollar store.
 Made in India it read on the bottom.
Shouldn't they be Book Buddhas?

124


Friday, May 21, 2010


The sun came out a bit and I was able to walk in the garden and putz
putzing...oh a wonderful artform
where mind and spirit hold hands
I pulled a few weeds
listened to the bird chatter
watched a few baby bunnies eat my new gaura...oh well
while squirrels trapezed across the trees
I sat and listened to the wind chimes and prayer filled me
I feel my energy returning under the arbor under the Japanese Maples
Putzing....a wonderful artform
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010


My babysitting duties are over,my friend is at peace,my husband's sister has made a miraculous turn around,the sisters-in-law have gone home to Arizona.
My mother's dear companion is slipping away day by day and this is quite a heartbreak for all of us. He is a delightful fella who has been a good friend and companion for my mom for 10 years. But the book of life .....soon he will be called home to be with his Lord. It is a hard thing seeing your mother suffer. I want to protect her and I can't. I am taking her to a charity dinner on saturday with my girlfriend and I hope to take her mind off of waiting. My girlfriend loves my mom and she will make sure that she is laughing and sipping red wine.
But I have to confess that I am wiped out. Don't really know why I feel so drained...physically. The soulbell is going off and I must heed it. Take care of your inner self! Sometimes I feel like I'm swirling in unfocusedness..is that a word?
The bookmark valentine I made says it all.....I need an inner peace love affair.
begin again,Susan
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Monday, May 17, 2010

Microfiction monday # 31

Susan at http://www.stonyriver.ie/ host a weekly writing prompt using only 140 character or less.

 

This is the photo prompt for this week:
I almost forgot about it 
  just whipped this up now...phew!



Today's moms balance work,soccer practice,and doctor visits,
no apron required.
But drop a jar of canned beets
and only the glass breaks.

137 characters....

**just under the wire!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Magpie tale # 14



hosts a weekly writing prompt


 
using the below photo
write a vignette or poem


The skin on the turkey is golden and the brown sugar glaze on the sweet potatoes is bubbling filling the house with the distinct smell of Thanksgiving. The candles are lit and the Blue Willow dishes are set out on the table as they have been every holiday for 40 years. When the children were little they loved to tell guests the story on the plates,how the two lovers were changed into birds to be together forever. Forever. I used to believe in forever, but now I sit waiting for the doorbell to ring,still not knowing who is coming for dinner.
I called them and left messages on voicemail and sent them each a reminder card.
What I really wanted to do though is tell my side of the story, unzipping my long held silence regarding the infidelity of their father.
But, instead I collaged the prettiest cards with the most heartfelt thoughts on gratitude, inviting them to come to my new home, small as it is, for the Thanksgiving feast.
They are still angry about our divorce... so am I.  Forty five years is a lot of one's life to just walk away from;but I wasn't the one who broke up their family,he was.
That morning, one year ago, he came and sat down next to me as I was sipping my cup of coffee. He folded his hands in his lap and simply and coldly said, "I want a divorce." It was one week before Thanksgiving.
As I sit here peeling potatoes I remember what he said next.
"You'll be well taken care of." He actually had the nerve to say that. I asked if there was someone else, but of course they all say,"no". Cowards.
We had are usual Thanksgiving meal and the children barely noticed that anything was off. Instead they huddled around their father as he indulged them with stories of themselves as little children. What would he know about them as little children he was hardly around, always working. The stories he told were my stories.
Bitterness and tears were mine for the next three weeks, deciding in the end to make it easy and just let him go. Our children were grown and married with children of their own. They tried to talk to me about the divorce,but I refused to speak on the subject, barely able to hold my composure. How could I tell them the father they held up on a pedestal wasn't the man they thought he was...all his talk, all their lives about honor and family. So I just kept my mouth shut and suffered in silence letting them have the father they knew. He really was a good man, who happened to break my heart.
The little pop up on the turkey tells me it is done and all I have to do is mash the potoates and I am done. It is nearly 3pm,they should be arriving about now, we always ate at 3.
It is now 5pm and the turkey is cold. One by one I put the things away hoping that this will bring a ring at my door, but it doesn't. As I reach for the Blue Willow dishes I bite my lip so hard it bleeds and I feel the pain straight through to my aching heart. My finger runs along the rim of the dish then stray to the two birds flying together over the bridge. "Forever" I whisper to no one but myself and the tears that have set on the rims of my eyes fall onto the plate near the bridge near the pagoda where the young woman was fenced in by her father.
"You'd never do that Daddy, right?" my youngst daughter onced asked her father with a shaky certainty in her voice.
 I pour myself one last glass of wine before turning in for the night. I think of calling them and wishing them a happy Thanksgiving, but that would be a lie. What I really want to do is unload...tell them what I really have been through all year,but that would be like blaming them in a way. I made the choice to protect their father's pedestal. Devastation fills me and for the first time all year I realize that my family is fractured. I finally surrender, turn out the lights and lock the door.
The bedroom is cold as I enter it. I put on my PJ's and slip between the chilly sheets, turn out the lights and lay in bed thinking. The phone rings and my first impulse is to run to it like a heartsick teen. But I am a grown woman on her own and I let it ring. Tomorrow, I will pack up four boxes. They all deserve to have some Blue Willow in their lives, including him.   

Friday, May 14, 2010

I let the grief in....and found life



Our dear friend ,Susan ,has been gone a week now, and it is sinking in. We could not go to Shiva the day of her funeral because my husband thought his sister near death. So we came home and all week we have been concerned about his family and Susan was gone from my mind. But no she wasn't.
At the funeral I found out that she was many years older than I thought. She would have hated us knowing that. I wondered who made the decision to snitch.
She was raised Catholic but married a man of Jewish faith and her daughters were raised in the Jewish tradition. I know her Catholic girlfriends from high school saw her through her ordeal.
At her funeral both traditions honored her. The Cantor's singing of the Psalms made me cry. A Jewish prayer or blessing was sung at the end of the service...it was very touching. But we could not go to the Shiva house. The above picture is the only picture I have of her. She is the long haired blonde on the left. That is me and hubby dancing in the middle. We had the best time that night.
.She had the most wonderful dry wit...I will miss that...I will miss how she joked about her husband... rolling her eyes....I will miss her
Shiva..meaning seven. Seven days a person sits mourning in their home that they shared with the deceased. Where their soul loved. You come to their home and sit with them...words not necessary....they are not your hosts..you come for them. The food I believe is circular.....eggs beans....so much meaning in circles.
The funeral honors the deceased, Shiva comforts the loved ones in their raw mourning.
 But why Susan...why not me?
The hairs on my head are counted and the day of life's end is written in the book of life...
the book of Life
Praise be the Lord
the book of Life
and I am comforted.
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Thursday, May 13, 2010

See

Do you see what I see?
I'll bet M.Heart does.
signs
signs everywhere
This past week has been squeezing the ---- out of me
I can't even say it..don't want to give in to such negativity
but this morning...after the rush of nicety
I walked out into the wet garden....dismayed at the lack of drainage in some parts
and then I saw it........
You do it out of love...remember that..... a sign
all this will pass
and all will be well....
and it all drained from me
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Monday, May 10, 2010

Magpie tales # 13

Willow at magpietales.blogspot.com hosts a weekly writing prompt



Using the below photo, write a vignette or poem:

Here's my take.
I can only say maybe it's because it's the 13th Magpie!



 The glass eye hidden in the collage intrigued her. One could almost miss it, but she hadn't. In fact, she had felt it from the moment she walked into the gallery... a strange tide like pull... to the large frame ocean themed work of art.
Since her breakup with her boyfriend she had discovered so many new things, like art. She had been lucky to get away from him; men with a temper like his were sometimes hard to get rid of.
Tonight she was meeting her new boyfriend at the art gallery. Arriving before him she decided to walk over to the large collage and further study it, curious about the eye hidden in among the coral, shells, and sea horses all laid out, layer upon layer. There in the midst was the turquoise blue iris eye staring out and into her. At first she tried to ignore this mysterious pull, walking past it with barely a look. But as she passed by she felt the eye watching her...following her. She turned back quickly to look at it and it seemed to blink. Her knees began to shake and her breathing hastened. Surely, she thought,she was imagining this. So she walked up closer to the collage and searched for the title or artist's name.
Very clever she thought as she saw the title, I SEA.  Then she noticed a drop of water on the wall below the frame and looked up to the collage. Tears were dripping from the glass eye. She spun around ready to call out to someone,anyone, to tell them what she was witnessing...but she felt the eye's intense stare on her back and  turned around this time putting her face as close to the eye as she could without touching it.
"What is it you see?" she spoke to eye.
Suddenly she heard loud screaming and turned around to see her old boyfriend rushing through the gallery toward her  brandishing a gun. He said not a word, but she saw hatred and jealously in his eyes as the gun went off hitting her in the chest. Like a slow motion movie clip the world around her began to spiral and her body hit the canvas then slumped just below the now blood splattered work of art, the glass eye breaking loose and shattering on the floor, to see no more.

**

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Microfiction Monday #30

Susan at http://www.stonyriver.ie/ hosts a weekly writing prompt using only 140 character or less.





Write using the below photo prompt

I followed
three saffron robed men
and I still never found
the way
past mellow yellow

*

Wednesday, May 5, 2010


If it wasn't for the whimsy I keep in my life I wouldn't be able to bare the hard days of life. Which usually includes death.
The last time I saw Susan we were at Gibsons stuffing our faces on prime rib and tira misu. Today is her funeral. A brain tumor took her away from all that loved her. So much of her daughter's lives she will miss and this makes me so sad. Your mom should always be at your wedding and the birth of your first child. But God had different plans and the day that was written in the book of life for her has come.

My mother's dear companion of 10 years is nearing the end and this is weighing on me for her.
They were so good with each other. I see her more and more as a woman and not as my mother....and I grieve with her and know her heart is breaking again. But she will do fine....she is a strong woman.

My husband's sisters are coming in from Arizona today...his sister here is dying. These girls and my husband shared a very sad and lonely childhood. It is him today I worry the most about. All that crap being drudged up again.

Whimsy....all around me...now I have shared my secret with you how I get through it all. I see the world throught the eyes of little joys that comfort me. And God is my constant companion who always has his ear bent to listen to all my groanings.

So..get through it all today...and tomorrow and who knows how long....All will be well.

And Sara.....I have you in my thoughts too.
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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Microfiction Monday #29

Susan at Stoneyriver:a writing life host a weekly writing prompt
Write using only 140 characters.


This week's photo prompt:
"How did you get the cool tights?...  I got issued these nerdy socks."
 "Easy, I did it the Chicago way. I paid the alderman."


*

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Magpie tale #12



Willow,over at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/
hosts a weekly writing prompt using a photo.
Write a vignette or poem

This weeks prompt:



He saw her looking at it on his desk,"It does the job," he said,"...paper weight...get it..see..it holds papers down.  Then he moved it on top of a pile of worksheets.
She walked around his desk and picked it up. "Heavy little sucker, where'd you get it?"
"None of your business, now if you don't mind, I have work to do."
"Sure, sure," she said stroking the back of his head then shilly shallying back to her office.
He wasn't about to tell some office twit the importance of the beautiful glass object.
It was his own personal reminder that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, despite looming danger, you might just get stuck that way forever...taking fake breaths of life and going nowhere.
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