Friday Snippet 45

Apparition of the Face of Aphrodite
by Salvador Dali
print for sale at art.com

You guessed it. Its just a shell yet again. I'll do my best to get the snippet pasted in tomorrow.

Meanwhile...

You can catch up or review via the links to the first eight parts available below.

Thanks for your patience.

Home Is Where the Horror Is
by Joy Renee

(part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six; part seven; part eight; part nine; part ten;)

Remembering Uncle Don and Daddy.

Today was my Daddy's birthday. It is the third one we have celebrated without him since his passing September 24, 2005.

Yesterday, I got the news that Daddy's older brother, my Uncle Don, had passed that morning.

In honor of the two of them I am going to post an excerpt from a TT I put together in honor of Daddy on his birthday last May and a couple of photos.

Above circa 1990: My Dad and his brothers. From left to right: Uncle Dean, Uncle Don and Daddy aka Richard. Pictured below is the brothers with their parents Fay and Jean on their farm in Idaho sometime in the mid 1930s. My Dad looks 4 or 5 years old. Don would have been approximately two years older and Dean two years older yet. Faye is wearing the overalls. Thought I better clarify since both names can be either gender. :)

The excerpt is one of the thirteen memories of Daddy that I shared for TT that day and Uncle Don has a starring role in it:

Me, Joy Renee, age 3. Taken the spring or summer of 1961.

The event related below probably occurred in July of that year as it was before my brother turned 2 that August 6.

When I was about three our family went camping with his brother's family near a lake. I am remembering the name White Horse for some reason but I don't know if that was the name of the lake, the camp ground, a nearby town or a toy one of my cousins had with them that day. It was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, most likely southern Washington or Northern Oregon. This was in the early sixties.

I remember this grassy slope and feeling perfect delight in it. My cousins were rolling down it, which I had been forbidden to do. So instead I started running. Ah, the joy of running down a hill. Possibly my joy in running began that day. It is certain that it is my first clear memory of associating delight with running.

I remember the sound of my Daddy's and my Uncle's voices calling to me to stop. I remember intentionally ignoring them. I was getting close to the bottom where the ankle high grass suddenly got taller than me when suddenly I was swooped into the air and was looking down on my Daddy's face from over the top of my Uncle's head.

I remember feeling disconcerted that I could not interpret Daddy's expression. But from today's adult viewpoint, I am pretty sure it was a combination of emotions vying for dominance along with the exertion of running, for he hadn't quite caught up with his taller, more athletic brother. Fear and relief were probably the two strongest. for I can now interpret the view I had from atop my Uncle's shoulders. A shimmering carpet of sky and clouds rolled out from the other side of that tall grass which I had not quite reached. That tall grass which was probably growing in the water at the edge of that lake.

I learned from my mother after posting the above that White Horse was the name of the park and it was on a river not a lake. She can't remember the river's name. Mom also remembers it as being further south than Eugene which is about half-way between the north and south borders of Oregon and possibly even east of the Rogue Valley here in Southern Oregon where I am living now. After she told me this last December, I meant to Google Oregon maps for White Horse but I haven't done it yet.

Thursday Thirteen #87

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Thirteen Things I'm Wondering About the Story I'm Reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

1. What is the name of the principle narrator/protagonist, daughter of the historian and diplomat Paul?

2. Why has this otherwise meticulous narrator neglected to introduce herself by name after over 200 pages? (I was blaming my own bad memory for not being able to remember her name from my first foray into this story last October so I was careful to watch for it this time.)

3. What is going to happen next?

4. Will a romance bloom between her and the young Oxford student, Barley, assigned as her traveling chaperon when Paul is called away urgently while he and his eighteen year old daughter were visiting the college?

5. Will/did Paul ever find the whereabouts of his mentor Professor Rossi who disappeared over twenty years earlier? And if so will he/was he living, dead or undead?

6. Will Paul's daughter ever learn the rest of that story her father was doling out in dribs and drabs over three years before he took off, leaving behind a note saying he had gone to look for her mother whom she had always believed was dead?

7. Did a romance ever bloom between Paul and Helen the young Romanian grad student who joined him on his search for Rossi because she believed Rossi was her father?

8. Is Paul's daughter named Helen and thus why she, as narrator thirty odd years after the events she lived through, has been withholding that?

9. Why did Rossi fail to mention to Paul his visit to Wallachia in the 1930s to track down the tomb of Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler aka Count Drakulya nemesis of the Turks in the mid 15th century, although he had been seemingly meticulous about that part of his research and adventures he did relate and had assured Paul that the envelope he passed on to him the night he disappeared contained all his notes and materials related to his search?

10. Why did Rossi reply to the letter Helen's mother sent him announcing her pregnancy by claiming there must be some mistake as he had never been to Wallachia nor met her? Was it to protect her from the mysterious stalker(s) of his research efforts? Or was it someone else claiming to be Rossi who was in Wallachia poking around Vlad's castle and asking locals about the stories of Vlad and local Vampire lore?

11. Why are there so many librarians, researchers, and archivists in institutions all over the world where any information about Vlad or vampire lore is housed or handled who end up dead, disappeared or sporting strange paired puncture wounds on the sides of their necks?

12. Were the two ancient leather covered books with dragons on the cover--the first falling into Rossi's hands and the second into Paul's hands when they were grad students in the 193os and 1950s respectively--a kind of recruitment gambit? And if so were they being recruited into the exclusive brotherhood of Vampires? Or into a brotherhood of Vampire hunters?

13. When can I get back to the story to start finding answers to these questions?

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Raise Him Up

In prayer. And all his family with him.

The news today that Ted Kennedy has a malignant inoperable brain tumor was sobering.

I, like many in my generation, mark my personal time line by certain events involving the Kennedy family. John and Robert's assassinations and their funerals. John John's (he will always be John John to me) plane crashing into the ocean. Ted's run for the presidency. Maria Shriver's wedding.

I remember the week of the JFK assassination with the most vividness in both visual and emotional memory for it was one of the few times I witnessed my mother weeping. I had just turned six. She was sitting at her sewing machine working on an outfit and listening to the radio. When I noticed her tears and stood by her, patting her knee she explained to me that someone had just shot our president. At that time, living in a home with no TV and having never been to the movies, I did not understand 'shot' and really had an inaccurate concept of 'our president'. I imagined it must be a relative like a cousin or uncle.

In a sense, maybe my child mind was not so far off the mark. The Kennedy family has been America's family since John John and Caroline graced the White House with their laughter and tears in the sixties.

The news of Teddy Kennedy's diagnosis is especially poignant for me coming as it does two days before my Daddy's birthday--the third one we will celebrate without him. Less than two months before he died he had a small brain tumor pressing on his optic nerve removed. One of many tumors that metastasized through out his body from the original colon cancer he had fought for nearly two years. They removed the brain tumor not to save his life but to preserve his vision for his final months.

Of all the many things Ted Kennedy accomplished in his years in office, the one our family is the most grateful for is his advocating for the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Toasted Air

The title of this post is borrowed from the first line of the haiku I wrote yesterday for Monday Poetry Train. The art print I found to go with it features a campfire and that is the perfect analogy to what the last several days have been like. Like standing too close to a campfire where the air itself singes your skin and the inside of your nose and inhaling its smoke is unavoidable.

The smoke isn't imagination induced by an over-extended metaphor. They (not sure who this they is the other theys mean but it sounds like an officially sanctioned activity) have been doing something called a controlled burn in the hills west of us and the smoke from it, no different from the smoke of a forest fire, has been suffusing the valley, adding to the misery and the sense that each breath is a weight to be lifted.

As a response to the heat, we bought a new fan to replace the small stationary two-speed fan we had. The new one is about nine or ten inches in diameter to the old ones six. It has three speeds and oscillates. Its relief now reaches me as I sit at the laptop on the edge of the bed.

A second line of defense was to get rid of my hair. It had nearly reached my collar bones again from the jaw length cut I'd got in February or early March. I have very thick hair and it is like a blanket. A blanket that can stay sweat-soaked around the clock!

I described Rachel Maddow's hair to the hairstylist as best I could--about inch and a half on top, tapered down the sides and back, off the ears and off the neck. What I got isn't a perfect copy of Rachel's, which I had been looking at with increasing envy every time she showed up on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olberman lately, but it is close. Though I can't carry it off as well as she can. She has much that I don't have and I much that she doesn't. She has the poise and grace and youth. I have a hundred pounds over her--at least.



Today only reached the mid nineties. A slight relief after three days near or over 100 degrees F.

What seems imaginary is the snow we got last month!

They (yet different theys) say we should only see mid eighties tomorrow and possibly seventies. And then Wednesday might sink back into the sixties! Which means the next time it shoots back up will probably be just as miserable as this time as it takes several days to acclimate. It typically takes me a week of temps above 87 to start finding a sense of normality and feeling any sense of energy to go with whatever ambition hasn't melted.

Today, I did manage to spend hours with my hands hovered over the toasty warm keyboard of my laptop in order to get my Friday Snippet finished and pasted into the shell I put up Friday. That was accomplished less than an hour ago and as soon as this is posted I'll be free to pick up The Historian for awhile.

Tomorrow I plan to dedicate to catching up on over a week of meme visits.

Monday Poetry Train #46

Dance to the Heat Wave
Photographic print
by Leroy Drumm
for sale at art.com

All I have in me today is a Haiku. The heat is sapping me. I'm only dreaming of dancing.

Heat Wave
by Joy Renee

Toasted air.
Sweat drips in my eyes.
Each breath weighs.

Sunday Serenity #56

What's better than being carried away by a story? That has always been a reliable serenity inducer for me. Even stories about scary things like vampires.

I am deep into The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova this weekend. Again. I started it last October just before our library system reopened and then set it aside to participate in NaNo. I was over 300 pages in.

I was planning to pick it up again immediately after NaNo but December was taken up by a trip to visit my family followed by holiday events. I did take it with me to Longview WA but probably read five pages the entire two weeks.

Then the first two weeks of January was all about the room makeover I blogged about then. You might have seen the book in a starring role in the photos I took of the room as I was putting it back together. I kept it close to me throughout the month of January and into February. Until the reopening of our Phoenix branch library in its new building on the sixth. After that it was a combination being distracted by the library books and the difficulties imposed by three viruses I fought through the end of April.

Last week my frustration with myself came to a head and I ruthlessly sent back nearly all of the library books due in the next two weeks and all of the novels due in the next three, clearing the way to devote my attention to The Historian again. If two weeks isn't enough time, I will do it again. I am determined to finish it this time. All 640 odd pages.

I found the first 380 pages the most exquisitely crafted prose I've ever encountered. Each sentence like a savory dish. The plot was intricate and the characters complex. And to top it off the protagonists are bibliophiles of a sort, being historians by education and temperament. Many scenes take place in libraries and ancient manuscript archives and museums.

I had to start it over of course. Even though I remember every scene once I am involved in it again, I got too confused trying to start where I left off. I am enjoying the reread of the first half as much, if not more than the first time through. The first time I was pressuring myself to finish before NaNo and was frustrated that I couldn't read it as fast as I had anticipated. Partly due to the savory prose that I just had to--well--savor. Mostly due to desperately needing new reading glasses which I got the week after Thanksgiving. This time I am taking my time, putting enjoyment of the story above all other considerations.

I should never have set it aside for NaNo. That was a self-imposed rule that I'm not going to impose on myself again. I believed for years, after a college writing teacher pointed out to me how my prose style changed from scene to scene and even in the middle of scenes and I then traced those changes to the prose styles of the novels I happened to be reading the day I was writing the scene, that I mustn't be reading fiction while I was writing it.

I have, just recently realized that was a huge mistake. Not only does it force me to choose between two loves--the reading of stories and the writing of stories--but it deprives me of fodder for the muse and the best source of how-to any aspiring writer can access: the successful stories themselves.

So I've lifted the ban on reading fiction on the same day I'm writing fiction, trusting myself to know how to smooth out the style hiccups on re-writes. Imagine asking an artist to stop looking at art.

But now I've got to learn or re-learn how to balance the reading of fiction with the writing of fiction. I was supposed to be working on the snippet that was supposed to be posted Friday. And now here it is closing in on midnight Saturday...

I can put part of the blame on the heatwave we're having that makes close encounters with laptop keyboards quite miserable. But, not all as I woke in plenty of time this morning to have worked four or five hours before the heat got unbearable. I picked up The Historian first instead.

Join us for a moment of serenity.

Friday Snippet 44

Apparition of the Face of Aphrodite
by Salvador Dali
print for sale at art.com

Update: The snippet is now pasted in. The story returns to the time frame of the first three parts, the morning Crystal woke in the strange motel room. A year after the events covered in the last six parts. If you are lost, you can review or catch-up with the links below.

This is was a shell sans snippet again. This week it's the heat wave that is making it hard to get the scene written. It reached 103 F here today. I can't stand the heat coming off the keyboard as I'm typing this paragraph. We have a fan with a 6 inch diameter blade to cool our room.

I will get got the scene pasted in as soon as possible Monday night.

Meanwhile...

You can catch up or review via the links to the first eight parts available below.

Thanks for your patience.

Home Is Where the Horror Is
by Joy Renee

(part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six; part seven; part eight; part nine;)

Still holding the three Polaroids in her had as she debated whether to confiscate the two she was in and thus forfeit her chance to spend another night in this motel room, Crystal's eyes darted around the room looking for her own duffel in case she needed to make a quick getaway. She needed her beach sandals too. She bent over to look under the bed again and that is when she spotted the distinctive red beach bag with the gold buckles. The same bag carried by the young Latino woman who had sat down on the sand a yard or two from where Crystal had been eating her lunch and watching the seaguls play Chinese jump rope with the surf.

Her lunch had been half of a hamburger she had grabbed out of a waste can seconds after witnessing someone drop it in. The woman had been hard to miss with that bright scarlet bag with buckles that caught the sun and scatter shot it. The woman had laughed at the antics of the seagulls swarming around a picnicking family whose children were throwing French fries up in the air. When one child, a girl about three, had been too slow letting go of her French fry, a daring bird and swooped in and snatched it out of her hand, flapping his wings hard around her head as he perched on it, talons gripping her hair, launching itself skyward with strands of it still wound around them, the fry sticking out of its beak like a limp cigarette.

When the little girl screamed until she lost her breath, the woman with the red beach bag said, "Well, there goes another potential fan of Hitchcock's The Birds."
.
Crystal had looked around for who else she might have been speaking to but there was no one else within earshot of them. She hated that the woman had sat down so near, that she had focused her attention on the same family Crystal had been watching and was now trying to engage her in conversation. All of which made Crystal's chances of unobtrusively rescuing their lunch discards from the waste can before anyone else dumped something nasty on top of it. Families with young children often tossed out enough in one meal for Crystal to make three meals of it.

Crystal had just looked shyly down at the sand under her crossed feet and shrugged, she couldn't have made a relevant comment in any case, not having a clue what Hitchcock's The Birds was. A music group maybe? The need to think up something to say was preempted by the arrival of a man the color of fresh brewed coffee, carrying a large fast-food bag and cardboard tray holding three drinks who sat down on the beach towel beside the Latino woman. Crystal had not been able to take her eyes off the bulging muscles on his forearms and calves as he squatted down and handed off the bag of food to the woman and then lowered the tray of drinks to the sand in front of him. Divested of his burden Crystal could now see the front of his camouflage print T shirt and the words Semper FI in gold over the gold Marine Corp emblem. The same shirt she had fished out of the bed in this motel room earlier.

Suddenly Crystal was shaking uncontrollably and sinking to her knees as she remembered how he had handed one drink to his friend and taken one for himself before reaching across and setting the third one down on the sand by her knee. When she turned to him with eyes startled wide, he said, "Don't pretend you don't want that. It's a long walk to the nearest water fountain and people don't throw out as many half-drunk sodas as they do half-eaten sandwiches and those they do don't often land upright."

Crystal remembered staring at the waxed cup, mesmerized by the the drops condensing on it before her eyes and running uselessly into the sand. She had whispered a thank-you that the surf seemed to take as a refrain as she picked up the soda and filled her parched mouth with biting bubbles. When she set the half empty cup back down there was a whole, still unwrapped hamburger setting there.

As Crystal had unwrapped the hamburger with fingers trembling with as much shame and embarrassment as hunger, the man introduced himself as Michael and his friend as Gabriella. Crystal remembered having said something about archangels and someone laughing, maybe herself. But, squeezing her eyes shut as though that would squeeze out more memories, she could not remember anything of what followed with any more clarity than a fever dream.

She pulled the red beach bag from under the bed by its strap. The edge of a white sheet of paper stuck out of one of the side pockets. Crystal pulled it out and found herself staring at herself. It was a photocopy of a picture taken over a year ago. Below it read HAVE YOU SEEN CRYSTAL? REWARD! CALL 1-800-CRY-STAL.

Hot! Tired! Cranky!

We're having our first heatwave of the season here this week. It reached the high eighties yesterday and the mid to high nineties today and tomorrow is expected to hit the triple digits. I can barely stand the heat coming off my laptop keyboard.

It wouldn't be so bad if it had crept up by increments over the last couple months but we were in the mid seventies last weekend and the nights still cooled to the low fifties and lower in some parts of the valley. It was a long cool spring by our usual standards.

I might be handling it better if I hadn't woken at five this morning because I fell asleep before nine last night.

I knew I should have done my post this morning! While it was still cool and I was feeling ambitious and somewhat energetic.

Instead, I used those hours to read another chapter in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. A library book that was due Monday but which I held onto because I was in the middle of a chapter when Ed made the library run for me Monday afternoon. He was going to take it back the next morning but decided not to. So I made sure to read another chapter. And another. After all, if you are renting a book for twenty cents per day you might as well read twenty cents worth of pages.

This was a book that I had been on a waiting list for weeks, maybe months. And my turn came while I was still sick with the flu. This is a dense, footnoted academic treatise. Not quick reading. I was plowing through it at about ten pages an hour. There are sixteen people in line behind me now. And only the one copy in the system you can reserve. The local college library is part of the county library system and has a copy but I suspect it is being reserved for students in a class. If everyone takes a full three weeks with it I won't get another turn this year.

I didn't spend the entire morning reading that book though. I spent some time getting other books ready to go to the library because Ed had the day off and we were planning to head to the library at ten to get that overdue book in the drop box before they opened at eleven and maybe not be fined for Wednesday, a day our Phoenix branch isn't open. While preparing books going back, I decided to be ruthless with the ones I'd had had for over six weeks already--renewed twice in other words--and were coming due over the next ten days, meaning though the Monday after next. Especially all novels and all NF that wasn't fairly light reading and short. That meant most all of the Shakespeare materials checked out before I got sick. I had ordered all those books in February when my ambition and energy was high; before two colds, a jarring fall and three weeks with the flu zapped me. of the energy if not the ambition.

I had a particular motive for paring down the library books, divesting myself of due dates for the next week and a half or so. I am determined to return to the novel I began in October and set aside over three-hundred pages into it (just over half way!) on the first of November for NaNoWriMo. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I raved about it here in October. I was reading it for many of the hours of the Read-a-Thon in late October. I was loving it. And then...

Ed and I did reach the library nearly an hour before it opened and we took books to read while we waited. I took The Historian. Between that forty minutes or so and another hour or so after we got back home and before the heat stupor hit me, I read nearly fifty pages. I had to start over. But I don't mind. The prose is delicious like the exotic cuisine Kostovo folds into the story at every turn.

Well it is eleven o'clock and I've been ready to sleep since eight. But I still need to go wash the dishes. I just couldn't bear it after dinner was over at seven. I think it might be doable now. At least more so and I don't want it hanging over me for the start of my day tomorrow. Bleh. That would be worse than sweating over them a little now.

Thursday Thirteen #86

Thirteen More (Hey We're Only to the F's) Silly Book Titles

Fortune Telling: Crystal Ball
Fred Can Philosophize!: Immanuel Kant
Free Willy by Freda Wale
French Cars: Myra Neault
French Overpopulation by Francis Crowded
Full Moon by Seymour Buns
Gambling by Monty Carlos
Gangway!: Hedda Steam
Gardening With The Ex-President: Rose Bush
Geez, It's Hot!: Mike Hammeldyed
Genie in a Bottle: Grant Wishes
Get Moving! by Sheik Aleg
Get Out There! by Sally Forth


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Julian Pavone the Baby Drummer

This is another of the talented kids featured on Oprah Monday. Julian Pavone, now age 3, started showing real talent with the drumsticks before his first birthday. There are more videos of him posted at YouTube following his progress from more than a year before he graduated out of diapers. This one was taped last September.

My fascination with this kid is enhanced by my own fascination with drums going back to early grade school at least. As I've mentioned here before, my first choice of band instrument as I entered sixth grade was the drums and neither the male teacher nor my parents even paused to contemplate before delivering emphatic 'nos'. All of them opined that girls did not play drums. My Mom's most strenuous objection was their noisiness but both my parents also wanted me to learn an instrument with which I could glorify God and could not envision the drums in that role.

Oh, well. Just because I was intrigued by them didn't mean I had any talent for them. Still, I wonder sometimes....

I'm posting another talented kid video tonight mostly because it is easy. I've been feeling for several days like I'm coming down with another cold while hoping that it is 'just' allergies. Either way it is zapping me of energy I really couldn't spare in the first place.

Charice Pempengco Can Sing!

Charice Pempengco was one of the gifted children featured on Oprah today. Her voice brought tears to my eyes and since I'm sure they weren't tears of sadness they must have been that other emotion that induces tears--joy.

It was mentioned on Oprah that Charice as well as several other of the kids had been YouTube phenoms for sometime. So I went looking. I found and listened to several YouTube of Charice and was about to move on to one of the other kids but YouTube wouldn't let me save the Charice vids to my playlists or favorites because they were doing site maintenance. I then realized that by posting them I could not only save them but also have tonight's post. So here they are.

The first one is of Charice on the Ellen Degeneres show last December. She sang two full songs that really show the range of her voice and her stage presence. Remember she is only fifteen!

In the second one she is singing and dancing in a group and I have no idea where or when but the song, Joyful, Joyful is one of favorites.

Monday Poetry Train #45

A Mother's Day Musing
by Joy Renee

Have you ever noticed,
while flipping the pages
in a family photo album,
how often
mothers seem to not be
in the picture?

Even though we all know,
if we consider for just
one moment,
that every breath

every bite

every step

and every bright
smile

depends on her
involvement.


Maybe it's because
she was the one
taking the picture
or so busy making
stuff happen
or just
making stuff--
from matching outfits

to fully outfitted
snowmen


from flapper dresses

to wedding dresses


from birthday cakes


to wedding cakes;

picnics,

stage props,

rag curls,

curly tops,

smart bow ties

and...

matching eyes.

There needs to be,
don't you agree,
more than one day
each year when
the one who makes
it all happen,
who makes home
feel like home,
who frames all the pictures
of our earliest
memories,
is given her rightful
place
right in the middle
of the picture?

Sunday Serenity #55

These are the pictures I took down by Bear Creek last Sunday. A perfect place for a serene moment.

This is aimed down onto the bike/hike trail from the top of the ramp. The creek is to the right and the trailer park we came from is to the left but we live in the middle of it and had to walk up to the road via the park's exit which is over a block to our left. My goal that day was that tiny white speck at the foot of the ramp which you see close up below. It is a raise manhole over a small tributary coming from the hills to the west. One of several directed under ground to the west of town.

It took at least fifteen minutes to get this far. It usually takes about five. I sat here taking pictures and reading for fifteen minutes or so while Ed walked on up the trail with Sweetie to give her a workout and to smoke out of my airspace.

This is taken from my seat on the manhole aimed south to the road and the bridge over the creek. Below I turn and aimed about halfway between straight right and straight ahead. I like the shape of that clump of trees. The last time I saw them the were still naked.

This paved trail is used by bikers, hikers, scooters, skaters, skateboarders and joggers and dogs on leashes. It stretches for 21 miles from Ashland OR about 12 miles south to Central Point OR about 10 miles north of us.

Above is aimed straight ahead at the blackberry brambles obscuring sight of the creek which I could hear from where I sat. Below is aimed to the left/north. The tiny figures are Ed and Sweetie. I should have taken that one first before they had gotten so far.

Below are three pictures Ed took from the bridge on our way home. I waited at the top of the ramp with Sweetie. I was too shaky to trust myself alone on the bridge and we didn't think it wise to take Sweetie onto that narrow walkway. At least not if one of us could not give our full attention to her. So Ed took the shots per my instructions because I had taken three shots from the center of the bridge in March and wanted the same three shots--to the left, to the right and straight down the creek. My goal is to have a set for all four seasons by the end of the year.

That was my first excursion out of the yard on foot since I got sick the week after Easter.

I posted pictures of the same areas taken in March when there was no leaves on the trees yet. I was going to hunt that link down so you could compare but I need to get back to work on my snippet. Here it is closing in on midnight Saturday and the shell I put up last night is still sans snippet.

Maybe I'll update this with that link later but anyone curious can find them in my March archives or by Googling this site for Bear Creek. Once I track down that post I will add the label Bear Creek to it. There will be more as I am planning to get pictures of the creek in all of its seasonal moods.

Friday Snippet 43

Apparition of the Face of Aphrodite
by Salvador Dali
print for sale at art.com

The snippet is pasted in. It's nearly dinner time Sunday and suddenly feel the need for a shower. I feel dirty after writing this scene. I've been avoiding it for several weeks. And thus wondering whether I'm qualified for the storytelling business: If you can't stand the heat....yadayadayada.

This is essentially the climax of the THEN thread. The back story for the story that opened a year later with Crystal waking up in a sleazy motel not remembering how she got there or who she had been with. I meant to alternate back and forth with the NOW thread and the THEN thread but I stayed with the back story all these weeks because I was avoiding some nastiness in some upcoming scenes there. Now I haven't much choice.

This discipline of putting up a scene hot off the keyboard each weekend is working a kind of miracle though. Even though it is extremely rough and full of mistakes and things I want to change my mind about, having made the commitment forces me to focus on progressing the story by stumble and by fumble though it is.

The final draft will have the past and present threads interwoven and the breaks may not be in the places they are now. It is hard to resist going back and redoing everything from the beginning every time I see something I want or need to change. Some examples: the description of the pool area in this scene should have been included in the first THEN scene which had Crystal doing her homework beside the pool and then taking a swim. In that same scene I said Crystal had five siblings and then I forgot to write the twins who came between Jade and Winston into the story.

I want to change their father's first name. The vehicle they rode from church to home in is a van but when I had the father unlocking the passenger door behind the driver's seat to remove Winston's car seat last week, well, umm I'm not sure I've ever seen vans with passenger doors on the driver's side.

I want to give Jasper more personality and I want to introduce the mother in a scene with Crystal. Probably I need to add a scene between the dinner table scene that ended with Crystal heading upstairs with a tray for her mother and last weeks drive home from church.

That is just a few of the things I am itching to get my fingers and mind tangled up in but I'm denying myself the satisfaction until I get the bare essentials of the story laid out like the fabric of a dress that I can then cut and shape and stitch its seams.

Speaking of dresses... Last week it was established that Jade and her sleepover friend Nadira had traded outfits. Jade is still wearing Nadira's. I did some research to help me visualize better and found this incredible site. Below are links to the homepage and to the image I settled on:

Traditional Kurdish dresses.
Nadira's dress.

You can catch up or review via the links to the first eight parts available below.

Thanks for your patience.

Home Is Where the Horror Is
by Joy Renee

(part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six; part seven; part eight; )

Father stood aside in front of the gate to the breezeway between the house and garage, aiming a remote key at it. As the lock clicked he nodded Jade to lead the way. Jade pushed the gate inward and at Father's nod Crystal followed after her down the narrow walkway bordered on either side with potted dessert plants, cactus, aloe, sage, chicks and hens with a scattering of other herbs. Overhead hung several large buckets containing tomato plants growing out of their bottoms; each bucket a different variety--Romano, cherry, yellow pear, beefsteak among them. This was part of Mother's kitchen garden. Since there was no place for a normal garden plot she found places to grow things in all the nooks and crannies inside and outside the house--on the decks, around the pool, in the window sills inside and in window boxes outside, in pots all over inside and outside the house.

Crystal heard the gate slam behind them and lock shut again. Father must have shut it with his foot. She watched Jade make her careful way past the prickly plant, carefully holding back the folds of filmy fabric that hung from shoulder to ankle in layers. Its pastel colors a misty rainbow embracing the still curveless body. Crystal imagined Jade must be feeling like a princess ever since putting on Nadira's dress this morning. Nadira had explained that this was a common style among her mother's people, the Kurds on the border between Iraq and Turkey. Crystal and learned this morning--overhearing Jasmine's mother introduce her brother's family to Father--that Nadira's mother had been raised in a Christian community in Erbil, Iraq. Jasmine's Uncle, whom she had never met, had gone there as a Missionary over ten years ago. He had just brought his family out because of the troubles there.

As Jade reached out for the gate at the opposite end of the breezeway its lock too clicked and she pushed it open. Both gates would swing either way so they could be pushed by the hips, elbows or feet of someone with their hands full. Crystal followed Jade out into the pool area which was essentially the entire back yard. This gate was the only entrance or exit from the back yard without going through the house itself. Several rooms had patio doors opening onto the poolside, including Father's study, the kitchen and the Family room downstairs and the Master bedroom upstairs that opened onto a large deck that overhung the area outside Father's study, providing shade from sun and those occassional fierce Southren California rain showers.

There was no lawn here inside these twelve foot fences. Except for the pool itself and a yard or two of deck surrounding it every square foot contained some kind of plant. More of Mother's 'kitchen garden'. There were two avocado and several citrus fruit trees at poolside. There were a lot of flowers too all mixed in with food plants though it was hard to draw a definitive line between food plants and 'just' flowers as Mother used many of the flower parts in various recipes. She also scattered fresh flower arrangements all over the house, took several to church every weekend and sent them to neighbors and church members on any occassion and no occasion. Nearly every guest at the Garnet home went away with a vase of flowers or cuttings from a plant they admired while there.

Unsure of what was expected of them, both girls paused a few steps beyond the gate and Father pushed past them carrying Winston's carseat to the edge of the pool and setting it down at the 5 foot marker facing the water. The still sleeping Winston sighed deeply but otherwise did not stir. Father turned then and said simply and softly, "Both of you, jump in." There was no anger in his tone but granite firmness was in every syllable.

Crystal understood immediately and knew that arguing would only make this worse. She reached for Jade's hand and tried to warn her with a squeeze and a tug to just join her quietly. But Jade stood there in rigid shock and said the very worst thing she could have said, "But that might ruin Nadira's dress!"

Father said only, "Now. Or I'll give you something more important than female frippery to fret over." and he placed the sole of one foot on the back of Winston's car seat.

Crystal jerked on Jade's hand and half drug her to the edge of the pool on the deep side of the car seat. Without pausing she jumped, pulling her wailing sister in with her.

By the time the girls surfaced, Father was standing at the shallow end of the pool, Winston's car seat at his feet beside a stack of beach towels. He tossed two bars of soap into the water. "Jasper and I will be taking the van to a car wash and then having dinner. After I leave here you are to put all of your clothes into this garbage bag and then suds and shampoo thoroughly before going inside to rinse off the chlorine. Help your brother do the same.

"Once you are dressed you will proceed to strip all three of your beds to the mattress and launder the bedding including the pillows. After the first load is in the machine you may fix lunch. Then Crystal, you will precede to steam clean the carpets in all three of your rooms."

He turned now and spoke directly to Jade, "You are to remove every item of clothing from your room and Winston's to the laundry room where you will remain to operate the machines until every item of bedding and clothing is clean, dry and put away appropriately. Crystal may advise you on correct method for sorting, machine setting etcetera but that is all.

"I expect this will take until at least this time tomorrow so I will excuse you from school. There will be no music or other form of distraction while you work." he paused. "Am I completely understood?" Crystal nodded but Jade just stared up at him with trembling chin and unblinking eyes.

"The next time someone tracks mud into my home, I will scrub them clean myself and strip their room to the bare wood, furnish it like a nun's cell, including the wardrobe." He turned on his heels and entered the house via his study door.

Party Animals

Sweetie in a hole she digs every year in the rose bed. It is still fairly shallow. By July it'll be twice or thrice as deep.

Merlin in a cave he makes for himself in a pile of blankets. If they are not already in a pile he tries to make the pile first. There are three separate blankets visible here but there are at least one or two more out of site under and behind him. It is the funniest thing to watch him make his bed.

These are two of the pics I tried to find a way to include in yesterday's TT photo essay about planning to party hearty. I considered the one of Sweetie for the 'guest list' and this one of Merlin for the morning after instead of the one of him in the box with the laser eyes. But the words 'shrimp party' on that box made it irresistible.

Poor Merlin is probably feeling a lot like making a cave right now. I slammed his tail in the door on the way back in the house after we had been in the yard for nearly an hour. Blame it on my eyes and their not adjusting quickly from bright to dark.

Have you ever had a cat scream in your ear? Aiiyiyi!

I was carrying him over my right shoulder and reached back with my right arm for the door handle and the door was falling outward. I grabbed the handle and gave it a tug and let go as I moved on into the hall. I didn't move fast enough. I was still on the move when the door slammed shut. Merlin's tail was still outside. Poor baby.

I'm posting these tonight because I needed something quick and easy to put up. Today is another a bit on the rocky side. It seems that a good day is usually followed by a bit lees good day. The easy fatigue is the only symptom left from that flu bug and though my energy and strength levels are steadily improving I have learned to respect the need to listen to my body's demand for rest. This reminds me an awful lot of the aftermath of Mono when I was seventeen. For years after that, every time I had any kind of virus there would be a long aftermath of severe fatigue.

Anyway, I had hoped to post my Friday Snippet tonight and break that habit of putting up a shell place holder on Fridays and then not paste in the snippet until Saturday or Sunday or like last weekend not until Monday noon! But no dice. Maybe tomorrow. I also owe a lot of visits for TT and may have to choose between making them and preparing the snippet. I'll see how tomorrow goes. If I do choose one over the other tomorrow then the other will take priority on Saturday.

Egads. I just reread that and it sounds whiny and I absolutely do not feel whiny. Emotionally and mentally I am feeling quite well. On a gratitude/resentment scale I am way into the gratitude zone.

Compared to two weeks ago, things are looking up indeed. Then I still needed help climbing in and out of the shower. This week I've gone out to the back yard three times with Merlin, a stack of books and the camera. Sunday Ed and I walked down to the creek and back where I got pictures I'm planning to post for Sunday Serenity on Saturday.

Thursday Thirteen #85

Thursday

Thirteen

Thirteen Things to Consider If You're Planning to Party Hearty This Weekend

For goodness sake, put the kids to bed early. Or better yet get a sitter!









Be sure to hire an accredited clean-up crew.















Keep the cab company number on speed dial.












Consider the guest list carefully.















































Begin with a dip in the chips.











Then dive into the bags











Yummo











Yo! Grrrrrrt!















Well maybe just a taste












Arrrrrg! Where's the pepto











Someone please turn out that light!!!!!











<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The last seven pics were of Merlin and taken by me. All the rest were gleaned from those ubiquitous email fwds so my apologies if I'm infringing on anyone's copyright.


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Let Me Count the Ways...

I'm slowing down.

I once typed 80 words per minute on a manual typewriter. Many many moons ago. LOL. I was timed in a high-school typing class but I'd been typing since I taught myself on my Mom's typewriter at age eleven and then was given a used portable Underwood that was older than me for my 13th birthday. So I'd been typing for years without ever worrying about speed before I took that class.

Around age 30 shortly after getting my first PC, a Tandy 1000EX, I timed myself at just over 100.

Neither rate was anywhere near competitive with those who pushed the boundaries, won type-a-thons etc. But I was content.

I knew I was slowing down. But really!