Thursday Freewrite








I'm not going to set a time limit for this freewrite. I'll write until I damn well feel like stopping. You stop reading when you damn well feel like stopping. Even Steven?

The picture to the right is a close up of the bulbs of my pregnant onion plant. My pregnant onion is the coolest plant I've ever had. It's almost a "plant pet". I've never seen one for sale in a store. There's a few on eBay. We bought this one fifteen years ago at a garage sale full of houseplants. It was the first spring we lived in our house. It just belongs here, like the trees and the yuccas out back. Like me.

We're planting dozens of perennials against our new "We Hate Our Neighbors" privacy fence. Maybe some will still bloom long after we're gone, like the flowers my mom and grandma planted. If when I die someone says, "she grew pretty flowers," I'd be thrilled.

This is me and my sister Nancy in July, 2009. She's on the left. Eleven years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, she thought she had it beat. About six months after her first "good" test results it metasticized to her brain. In the past several years she's undergone two conventional brain surgeries and a gamma knife surgery. Her oncologist told her she is in stage four and to just go home and wait until it's time to call hospice. She found another oncologist. She's undergoing her umptyninth round of chemotherapy now, still with her chin up, but not as high as before.

We talk on the phone several times a week. She has slid into a an understandable depression. We talk about her current health situation, but mostly we talk about that winter Daddy built us those igloos, or the summer we all went to Colorado and she jumped in the river. We wander around on the memory lane where her daughters were little girls who loved to climb trees and fish. Sometimes I hang up the phone after one of our calls and put my face in my hands and cry, already mourning for the part of her that is already gone, aching for the part of her that is still here and so wants to live.

FIVE MINUTE FREE WRITE

This is a new challenge that's taking the "other" writing place by storm - free write. This is my first attempt.

If it's this cool already, can winter be far behind? I don't even like to think about it. My loathing of winter causes me to also dislike Fall because it's whne everything begins it's headlong fall - pun intended - into death. Things aren't waking like in spring, but dying, turning brown, not green. Getting brittle, breaking off, crumbling. It's too cold right now to have a door open, to push a window up. It's September 2? More like October 2. In Octoboer is Halloween and the day after Halloween is Christmas, or so it seems.

There is nothing on the regualar channels this year that even sounds vaguely good. I was shocked a few nights ago to realized I don't watch any fiction series on the big three networds. The closest I get is House, and I think he's on USA or Fox. I watch 90% reality, yet I read 95% fiction.

Reading may get batter. After the White Queen I couldn't settle into another book but yesterday I got In the Comapny of The Courtesan at the library. So far - 50 pages or so - it's pretty good. Not Tudor England, but the early 16th century in Italy. I have the Elizabeth movies to watch with Helen Mirren to watch this weekend.

Seasons Pass

The late summer flowers are lush.

Tomorrow will be the first day of the new school year. Can Halloween be far behind? My best friend and I did some front porch sitting with her grandchildren last week.

My grandmother didn't have a scooter.

Summer

Is summer leaving Missouri early this year? It seemed late in coming. I had hoped that meant that it would linger longer. The breeze on this unseasonably cool day feels like Fall is creeping in. I'm never ready to surrender summer. Here are a few photos of summer in my world.

Was There Life Before Air Conditioning?

What did we do in all those years before air conditioning became the norm for every house?

I thought about that today because the summer rain shower suddenly stopped and the sun popped out. Steam rose from the street and the humidity felt like a wet warm fog in the air.

We used to sit outside much more, hoping to catch a breeze in the shade. Inside, the whir of the big green fan was a constant drone. My Mom made pallets from quilts and we'd lay down in front of the fan and she read to me. Was I the only four-year-old to have heard Gone With The Wind in its entirety?

Iced tea was our main beverage. Pre-air conditioning my parents drank coffee until about 10 a.m. After air conditioning they drank coffee all day.

Our tiny movie theater had excellent air conditioning. Just spending two hours almost shivering was worth the admission price of 35 cents, no matter what was playing. But what was playing? My first time there I saw "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." Through the years ... GI Blues, Dance Macabre, Blue Hawaii and many more flickered across the old screen while I sat in refrigerated air, my arms wrapped around my summer tan legs to keep warm.

The Rexall Drug store had a great air conditioning system, too. The fountain was the hang out for teens before and after "the show." At other times, teens were discouraged, albeit in a friendly way, from congregating in the narrow aisle around the counter. A small cold Coke was 5 cents. A small cherry Coke was 7 cents. That sort of astounds me to write, but I was there!

We take air conditioning for granted, now. Many of my neighbors never open a window, even on cool spring and autumn days.

I still enjoy a hot sun beating down on me from time to time. I love the electric feeling outside just before a summer thunderstorm. But I'd never go back to a time without air conditioning.

This is Daisy Marie, cockapoo extraordinaire.

A friend of a friend told me that she knew someone that wanted to sell her three-months-old Bichon Frise. The dog was perfect, but the owner had been diagnosed with throat cancer. She was a single Mom, working full time with two kids. She just couldn't handle a pup, kids and a job on top of radiation treatments. My friend knew I love dogs and that I'd mentioned how much I'd like to buy a Bichon Frise.

It was a below freezing evening in December when my friend of a friend took me to a house on another side of town to see the puppy. The wind was biting and there was a fine mist of sleet in air.


Inside the puppy owner's house it was warm and tidy. In her quiet, shy voice the lady of the house assured me that the dog, who was now at my feet, belly up for a scratching, was indeed a purebred Bichon Frise. She said that she had the AKC papers attesting to the dog's lineage, she just couldn't locate them at the moment. She told me that as soon as she found the papers, she'd call me so I could pick them up. I wrote her a check, delighted to be getting a cute, white fuzzball of a Bichon Frise.

You've probably already guessed the "rest of the story." The lady never found the papers because the papers never existed. The sweet little white dog I named Daisy is not a Bichon Frise in any way, shape or form.

My daughters were the first to say that they thought Daisy didn't look quite right to be a Bichon. After a little web surfing of dog sites, it's a one hundred percent chance that Daisy is a cockapoo - a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel.


Although my family still likes to rib me about my "Bichon," we all love her and wouldn't trade her for a hundred pedigreed dogs.


Oh, and the Christmas we bought Daisy? We delivered lots and lots of clothes and toys from "Santa" for Daisy's former home, including things for the Mom. All because of Daisy, it was a Christmas season I'll never forget.


We have two other dogs: Shorty is a pound find and he is a cross between a Shetland Sheepdog and a Pomeranian. He's one of the prettiest dogs I've ever seen in form and coloring. His name perfectly suits his personality and Napoleonic complex. We've been loving him for seven years now.


Piglet is a full blooded Pomeranian. I bought him from a young mother who was trying to take care of a small dog and a toddler in the same house. He was originally supposed to be a puppy producer, but instead of being the "runt" of the litter, Piggy was the opposite - he grew bigger than the Pom standard and so ruined his future as a father of AKC champions. For our family, he's just the perfect size. He is just big enough to jump into our laps and he is a lot of dog in a compact package.

One of these days I'll write about each in more detail and I'll talk about the two Keeshonds we shared our lives with before these three little characters came to stay.

We Hate Our Neighbors

We hate our neighbors. We didn't intend to hate our neighbors. We don't even enjoy hating our neighbors. It was just one of those things that happens late on Friday nights when the bars shut down.

My BFF Sharon and I were sitting on my front porch at 1:30 a.m. when the truck next door swung into its driveway. The truck's headlights must've shown the pair inside the truck that there were a couple of women sitting out, enjoying the night air, and chewing over some life decisions on that Friday night.


Now, for the sake of - that's how life is - my friend had just remarked on how quiet and serene my street is late at night. Yes, it is, usually.


Out of the truck came the couple who live next door. I don't even know their names. That, however, doesn't make me hate them less. I have my own personal names for them. Anyway, they piled out of the cab of their truck and she went up the steps and opened the storm door. He said, from somewhere in the vicinity of their tiny front lawn, "What the f--- are you doing up there?" She charmingly replied, "I'm trying to get the f---ing key in the door. What the f--- are you doin?" "I'm takin' a piss!" he growled at her in the dark. "Stop that in front of the neighbors," she said. "F--- the neighbors," he slurred. She got the key to work and disappeared inside. As he went up the stairs he turned around and gave my friend and I the finger and yelled, "F--- You, Bitches!"


Now, that made me angry. I wasn't upset just because of an unprovocted attack, but it also embarrassed me in front of my friend. She'd come over to spend time talking about some serious things and to enjoy the beautiful evening on my porch. Getting the finger and yelled out hadn't been in her evening plans.


A few nights later almost the same scenario played itself out. I was on the porch letting my dogs enjoy the evening while I read. We were all waiting for my husband to get home at 11:10. The neighbors came home, had a screaming match with each other in the front yard, yelled at me to shut my dogs the f--- up and the male half of the couple gave me the finger again and yelled "F--- you!"


My husband got home a few minutes later and was getting pretty angry at my description of the actions of the neighbors when someone knocked on our door.


At the door was two of our finest, The Hannibal Police Department. Our neighbors had called 911 on our dogs for barking at them too much while they fought on their lawn. I was livid. My husband, Van, was a little beyond livid. One of the officers told him to calm down twice.


While it made Van angry, it scared me. What if the guy decides to get rid of my dogs by throwing a little poison hamburger over the fence, or maybe he'd unlock the gate and let them out into the world and onto the highway.


To cut to the chase, we're getting a 100 feet long privacy fence installed as soon as possible, maybe in the next couple of weeks. I'll feel some safer letting the dogs out alone, in case this idiot does have some sort of vendetta against them. My dogs won't bark at them if they don't see and hear them fighting. I don't think Robert Frost was entirely correct with his "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors," but instead should have been, "Tall fences cause less homicides."


The more people I meet, the more I love my dogs.

The Purpose of My Blog

That line should be, "What the heck is the purpose of this blog?" I suppose the best answer to that question is this - I've had writer's block since my Mom passed away in December. The reason might be because I usually write things as I see them through my skewed sense of humor. Since Mom died, although if you talked to me you wouldn't notice, somewhere down deep inside, my sense of the ridiculous has left me. Maybe I can find it again writing here when I can.

I'll always label a fiction piece "Fiction:" so no one will think I actually am a high-roller in Vegas or a little girl in the Middle Ages. Those are just a couple of stories swirling around the campfire in my brain. Scoot in closer, get a weinie stick and let's talk and tell stories. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, it's always summer on my blog.