Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Alphabe-Thursday Letter B



Good morning class! I'm so glad to be back among you for the letter:


Before we begin, though, I must first apologize for my younger sister.


I had a small emergency and I needed a substitute. She insisted she would be nice but I've heard rumors that suggest she was not.

But I'm certain you do not care about my personal family drama with my sister, so we shall just start or usual Alphabe-Thursday class.

Ahem.

Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Wednesday morning, please let me know, because it is important to me to make sure you know I've visited you! This will avoid you trying to skip out on doing your assignment as well.

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Class is dismissed you beautiful Buckaroo's. Please feel free to bee-bop over and and link your post now!

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Reading between the lines...

So...

Yesterday Mr. Jenny brought the mail in and said, "You have a rejection letter from the New Yorker."

Hmmm...

I opened the envelope up and here's what was inside.


I feel pretty certain this is not a real rejection letter and here's why:

1. My name is not on this letter.

2. I got this letter two weeks after sending in my little short story manuscript. Sure, I sent it in the world's coolest envelope with the world's coolest little insert to be sure and catch their eye, but I've heard that they take around 6 weeks just to get through the backlog of submissions.

And 3. There are teeth marks in the upper left hand side of this letter. You may have to click on the letter to see them, but they are definitely there. OK, there is a small possibility the teeth marks are mine, but still.

I'm certain, in fact, that the wrong letter got inserted into the envelope they had addressed to me.

This is the letter I'm positive they meant to send:

Dear Jenny,

Your writing was so amazing we do not feel our publication is good enough to publish it.

We were astonished you would lower yourself to send it to us.

We will be forever grateful.

Sincerely and with highest regards,

The Editors
The New Yorker


See? It's all about reading between the lines.

I feel so much better now.

Sigh...

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Beautiful Blue Window

We have several stained glass windows in our house. My favorites are these...


There are two of them flanking the stone fireplace in our family room. In the afternoon the light glows through the cobalt glass and makes my heart smile.

And listen. I made this super short so you can take the time to visit an excellent "A" link that only got three comments! It's a longer post so to save time, just run over there and don't even bother to leave a comment here! I'm cool with that! Click here to read it if you can spare a moment! - it's long but a wonderful read.

This post is linked to Alphabe-Thursday's Letter "B". To read other links JUST CLICK HERE!

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Story Time Tuesday - Writing Fiction - Chapter Four

Jenny Matlock
If you missed where this story started just click here to read it or click on the Story-Time Tuesday link at the top of my blog to take you to previous chapters.

Writing Fiction - Chapter 4


My plan started in a pretty non-dramatic way. I took a shower, shaved my legs, washed my hair with shampoo, twice, and conditioned it. I put lotion on. Not the lotion my ‘M.I.A.’ husband had liked. If he didn’t want me to wear that lotion, he should never have left me for the ‘great bakery in the sky,’ right? I defiantly applied the vanilla scented one he’d said made me smell like a cookie. Cookies are good. I don’t know why he never liked it, anyway.

I brushed my teeth three times. They looked pretty good, but nowhere near the dazzling white I would eventually need for interview and photos ops. My skin looked passable, well, except for the bags under my eyes. Judging from the size of them, it looked as if I’d packed them to go on a three month European tour. I couldn’t even begin to deal with the amount of gray that had propagated overnight on my head. I turned away from the evil mirror to get dressed.

I encountered one little snag while putting something on other than my flannel nightgown: somehow the waistbands on all my pants had shrunk. Isn’t that just the oddest thing? I knew my butt had been getting bigger, but I thought that had been the extent of my carbs-for-comfort damage. My Bermuda shorts may have been uncomfortably snug in the rear, but I couldn’t even fasten them around my middle. Eventually, I stretched out flat on the bed, sucked in my gut as much as possible, and managed to get my favorite jeans zipped up. When I wiggled up from the prone position, I noticed that everything below the waistband looked pretty good. I waddled over to the mirror to look and realized that above the waistband, I had a monstrous muffin top. Gasping for air as I struggled to get the button undone, I realized how much I’d learned yesterday doing my blog research. Two days ago, I would have told you it was just fat bulging out the top of my waistband. Now I knew it was a muffin top. That does sound a lot more charming, doesn’t it?

Eventually, I resorted to putting on a pair of sweat pants. I figured that would put me ahead in the whole blogging game. Yesterday I’d learned a lot of bloggers just wear their pj’s all day. I wanted to be a bit more formal than that, though. When I eventually did my ‘world’s most famous blogger interview’, I wanted to be able to say I’d walked into the endeavor fully prepared and suitably dressed.

I started to leave the chaos of the bedroom and realized that would be a horrible way to start my new blogging life. It took me only a short time to hang up all the too tight pants and make the bed. While I was at it, I dusted the dressers and stuffed the mountain of crumpled up Kleenex into the overflowing trash can. Then I actually opened the drapes for the first time in months and tried, unsuccessfully, to push the windows up to let in some fresh air. Neither window would budge. I tried hitting them with the palm of my hand. Nothing happened. I tried using the side of my fist. Nothing happened. For some reason, this really annoyed me. I’d asked my husband over and over again to fix those windows. Instead of getting them repaired, though, he’d always just smiled at me with an ‘I am the MAN in this house!’ mischievious look and a smirk in his storm-blue eyes before pushing the windows up easily.

I never thought of it before, but that was really kind of a jerky thing to do, don’t you think? Just leaving me all alone to cope with windows that won’t open and treasure hunts for light bulbs. Just abandoning me for a ‘road trip to the great beyond’ and leaving me to cope with blogs and hiccuping daughters and, and, and…

I sat down on the bed. I took deep breaths. I tried to control my anger but somehow it just grabbed me by the throat and galvanized me into action.

“Darn, darn, darn!” I said as I stomped around the room slamming drawers and throwing towels into the hamper. “Darn, darn, darn!” I yelled after I stubbed my toe on the overflowing trash can. The Kleenex scattered across the carpet like mutant snowflakes and rolled under the bed into the dust-bunny storage area. “Darn, darn, darn!” I screamed as I shoved as hard as I could on the stupid! Irritating! Dumb! Obnoxious! Horrible! Ridiculous! Freakin’ window frames! I pounded. I pushed. Nothing happened.

Panting now, I raged across the room and yanked open my stupid husbands stupid top drawer. It clattered to the carpet and the contents exploded into the bedroom. Great! Just great! I threw coins and old watches and expired credit cards and screwdrivers every which way until I finally found the item I needed.

The dull silver blade glinted in the morning light. My anger had gotten so out of control, I didn’t pause for a second in my intent.

I grabbed the paint spattered black plastic handle and jammed the putty knife into the window frame and pushed with all my strength. Nothing happened. Darn! Freakin’, stupid, idiotic, piece of crap window! I wiggled the putty knife. Hard! Harder! Darn! And then, before the window frame could budge at all, even a tiny bit, the putty knife broke into two pieces.

I threw it across the room as hard as I could. I stood there. Red face flushed with anger. Fists knotted into tight balls by my side to keep myself from slamming them through the glass.

And then, just like that, my anger left me. It was exactly like someone had pulled the plug and all the red hot emotion drained out of me into a boiling puddle of fury on the floor.

I looked around the now wrecked room. I sank to the floor and leaned against the wall. And somehow, for me anyway, boiling puddles of fury always seem to be followed by copious amounts of tears. I added a lot to the puddle right then. By the time I was through, my face was soggy, my sweatshirt was soggy. The crumpled up Kleenex within my reach were sodden piles of soggy, shredded sadness.

What was I thinking? How was I supposed to go make a stupid blog when I couldn’t even open a stupid window? What was I going to even call this blog? ‘Blog of a Zillion Tears’? ‘Tales of a Dark and Depressing Life’? ‘Pathetic Pearl’? I sat there for a while longer. I had that hollow, cried out, empty feeling. You know what I mean? You’ve shed so many tears your body feels like a void. A negative space, unable to feel anything at all. It almost feels like your entire being is suffering from a hunger pang.

Hunger pangs, real or imagined, I can usually deal with. But in that exact moment I realized I had something that even a wheelbarrow full of cupcakes wouldn’t heal. I had a broken heart.

I began picking up the room for the second time, exhausted. It felt like a week had elapsed since my hopeful awakening, and it hadn’t been a good seven days. Starting to cry again, I shoved all my husband's stuff back into the re-inserted drawer. I asked him, for the hundredth time, how he could’ve up and left me like that to go to the ‘great hardware store in the sky’. The empty room offered no answer. I gently closed the top drawer, trapping the memories inside. I needed to be careful with those memories now. After all, I wouldn’t be making any more with him. All I had now was the stockpile accrued over the years of our marriage...and there weren’t enough. There weren’t nearly enough.

How do you make peace with the fact you never treasured all the little things that didn’t seem worth a memory? How do you reconcile your heart to the truth that every silly story, every irritating toilet lid being left up, every time he came home from the barbershop looking freshly sheared and handsome has vanished. “Darn, darn, darn,” I whispered now from the doorway of the silent space.

I rapped my head gently against the doorframe, hoping to knock some purpose into myself, and headed downstairs.

I had a plan to implement. I just hoped I had enough energy to do what needed to get done.

To be continued, Tuesday, October 5.

(c) 2010 Jennifer R. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Jennifer R. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Jennifer R. Matlock. All rights reserved.

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Monday, September 27, 2010

Olives

On Saturday I went to Trader Joes to get a few groceries.

It is a wonderful store.

They have the best maple leaf cookies in the existence of purchased cookies. I kid you not. They are delicious. Crispy and just maple-y enough with this amazing creamy maple filling. See?


BUT.

I did not buy a box.

I resisted the siren pull of maple cookies even though it is almost October.

Instead I bought a jar of green olives.


What a poor, pathetic substitute for maple cookies.

I know you are dying to know why.

Aren't you?

What? You don't care? How can you say such a thing after all we've been through together.

I bought the olives because I went to the Cherokee Healer lady on Friday late afternoon.

Yea.

I have stories.

Lots of stories. None involving a sweat lodge or olives.

However, after she did the spirit thing and blew pollen on me and waved sweet grass all around me (I'm not making fun of this...it was totally amazing and I can't wait to tell you all about it) we did the 'sit in the chair and I will tell you what I read from your spirit guides' part of the visit.

And she told me this. "You have been eating some wheat flour haven't you?"

I jumped guiltily. How could she have known that I hid a box of maple cookies in my office and have been eating one every single day telling myself that, technically, the pure maple syrup counteracts the whole "never eat sugar and flour thing". Hey, don't judge me here. I've been under a lot of stress. So, yea. Denial. Not just a river in Egypt anymore.

How she knew I wasn't suppose to eat flour totally eludes me. But she knew. It was woo-woo scary.

So I made Mr. Jenny eat the rest of the maple cookies.

And on Saturday, even though I looked at the enticing boxes of maple cookies, I bought a jar of olives instead. Olives are good. Sure, they're not sugary and maple-flavored but they're pretty tasty.

I'm hoping this appeased my spirit guides in some small fashion.

And I'm still figuring out how to condense a 90 minute Cherokee Healing visit into a manageable post. It was pretty jaw dropping and amazing.

But for now...olives is all I've got!

Sigh...

And...

By the way...

Olive you for putting up with me!

Double sigh...

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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sweets to the Sweet Pea!


Hi fellow sweet pea enthusiasts!

The winner for the little sweet pea giveaway is Miss Brenda who left this comment:

Brenda said...
I am a follower and I love sweet peas. I finally got some perennial sweet peas to take off this year in my boarder. I had a spot at my previous home where the sweet peas came back every year for the almost 30 years I lived there and who knows how many years before that they had been growing. We moved in the winter and I always wonder if they are loved as much now as they were over the years we took care of them. My daughters made sweet pea hair wreaths and picked so many for me each summer I always had a little cup or jar with some in it on the counter top. Memories.


Congratulations, Brenda. Can you e-mail your mailing address to: jennymatlock at cox dot net!




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Sundays with Steve - Goofy Made us Do it!

Since I’ve started writing “Sundays with Steve” I’ve been thinking about vignettes of my life growing up in North Idaho. I realize the town where I grew up and the life I lived with my family is really a classic, all-American story. Perhaps you will recognize some of your childhood in these writings. And perhaps you will recognize the town you grew up in, too, and some of the characters you knew. Mrs. Steve has encouraged me to write these as attempts of “creative writing” as opposed to the more factual journalistic style I was trained in and practiced in my early career, all those years ago. So my apologies if I stumble a bit here and there trying to blend the two styles together

SMALL TOWN MUSINGS - Goofy made us do it

It was those Mickey Mouse cartoons and the insidious Mickey Mouse Club programming that spelled trouble, deep trouble for Brother David and me. It was Goofy’s fault, that a spanking was coming our way.


Television was not the dominant media in our Northern Idaho town in the 1950’s. We spent very little time in front of the tube. Our first television was a boxy affair, mounted on four spindly metal legs with images projected only in black and white. I think My Dad brought it home around 1954. Over the next few years we became fans of Howdy Doody, the Lone Ranger, and the Mickey Mouse Club.

I think it was the Mickey Mouse Club that had way too much influence over our young, impressionable minds.

Wes and Dorothy Tollenaar, my parent’s best friends and our favorite non-related adults, lived across 3rd Street and down a ½ block. This childless couple owned a camera store in downtown, and over the years Wes taught me how to take pictures with a Bell & Howell box camera. It was my pride and joy for many years. Wes and I would review every picture I took, critiquing each for angle, composition, subject, and lighting.

The Tollenaar’s added television sets to the store’s product line in the mid-50s.

It was an event when the Tollenaar’s received the first color television in our town. It came just in time to show the first broadcast of the Wizard of Oz. Wes and Dorothy invited 25 or 30 customers and friends, us kids included, to come downtown to the store to watch this amazing broadcast.

We watched television in black and white at home for maybe ten more years. It didn’t matter as virtually all TV programming then was in black and white. Color didn’t start popping up until the mid- 1960s. Remember clips of all the JFK assignation and funeral coverage? The space shots of the early 1960s? The old TV commercials? They were all in black & white.


One of the greatest fascinations of 1950’s television for us little kids was watching magicians. We were intriqued with how they would make people disappear while waving a cape in front of them. Or when they would magically move objects, such as a ball, from one side of a table to the other! Of course pulling a rabbit out of a top hat was truly amazing. But the magic that really caught our attention was when the master magician locked his pretty female assistant inside a full sized box, with her head sticking out of the top so you knew she was still there. The magician would then run long swords through the box! Presto, Chango! We were always amazed and astounded that the assistant was never harmed.

I think that particular trick was on every kid’s show we watched in those years. But when Goofy did it one Saturday morning on the Mickey Mouse Club, we knew we had to try that, too.

So we did.

We didn’t have a pretty female assistant to run the sword through, or a large box to lock the assistant in, or even a sword. But we had the next best things.

In those post-war years, 75% of adult Americans smoked including my parents. Dad was partial to Chesterfields and Mom preferred those new fangled cigarettes called Virginia Slims. There was always a carton of each on the kitchen counter.

And under that same counter was the drawer where the metal ice pick was kept. The ice pick, to our young minds, strongly resembled a long sword.

A cigarette, we knew, was vulnerable and easily harmed, just like a pretty female assistant. And we had two whole cartons of them.


It stood to reason, then, that if Goofy could run a sword through a box with an assistant inside and not harm her, we could run an ice pick through a carton and not damage the cigarettes inside. Perfect logic.

We knew we couldn’t run the sword through the box too many times, just a few, because there was a chance that the sword might accidentally hit a cigarette and damage it. So if we did it just a few times, the magic of Goofy would work and protect the vulnerable cigarettes.

We stabbed the carton only a couple dozen times. With great finesse and expertise.


But nothing happened. We could not tell if we were successful or not, for when we opened the carton to look, it was filled with unopened packages of cigarettes. There were some holes in those individual packages, but we were certain we had caused no damage.

We quickly lost interest in our magic experiment and returned to Saturday morning television.

Until my father came in about an hour later. He was not happy. He was, for lack of a better word… irritated. My father was a kind man, a nurturing man, a generous and a gentle man. But not that day. He was not impressed that Goofy and any other magicians on TV could do the sword trick. “Just because they do something on TV,” he said sternly, “doesn’t mean that you can.”

Spankings were rare in our house growing up. But on occasion I suppose they were called for. That day, whether called for or not though, spankings were administered.

Damn that Goofy and Mickey Mouse. Those two were nothing but trouble for Brother David and me.

Trouble #1 nd Trouble #2. David left. Steve right.

See you next Sunday.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The bad thing about to-do lists is...

...that you actually have to kinda/sorta do the things on them or they officially become 'darn, I forgot lists!"

Last week I wrote a guest post for Beth Zimmerman in honor of her 31st Wedding Anniversary.

And I totally, totally meant to send you all over there to congratulate on her this amazing accomplishment.

But...alas, I did not.

So now I'd like to share the link with you in hopes that you can take a moment to read the post and to wish Beth and her husband congratulations!

Thanks!

Just click here to go to Beth's blog now!


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Saturday Centus - Happy Birthday to Tom!

He never dreamed when he blew out the candles on his cake that total humiliation would be close behind.

Tom had been gloating for decades to his Centusian Club friends that not only did he still have all brain cells firing with the high-wit settings of his younger years, but that he was still in posession of his own teeth and hair.

Imagine his dismay when words failed him moments after his dentures, accompanied by his toppled toupe, splatted into the birthday cake frosting like a tacky picture from a gag gift catalog.

Whatever the reason for the subsequent melt-down, club members turned away in uncomfortable silence as Tom regained his composure.

**********************************************************************************
Jenny Matlock

This 100 word story is linked to week 21 of Saturday Centus. The prompt words are in bold.

And, yea...Happy Birthday Tom! You know we all love you!

To see other offerings from this SC, just click here.


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Saturday Centus - Week 21

Jenny Matlock
Welcome to week twenty-one of Saturday Centus.

STOP! If you didn't read the end SC's from last week, please take a moment to do so. Just work backwards until you find out where you left off. I feel really bad that the people at the end don't get read.

Thanks!

Now on to regular SC biz...In case you've forgotten...

This is a themed writing meme.

You can use UP to 100 words (not including the prompt) to tell your story. You cannot use pictures to illustrate your story. It can be fact or fiction. The only restrictions is the prompt must be left intact WHICH MEANS you cannot split up the words in the prompt.

You have the entire week to link your work to the meme and you can link more than one story if you like.

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

I would suggest that since these are so short, if you can't think of a title just use your blog name as the title in the Linky.

Try to visit each one because there are some amazing writers participating in this meme. Since the links are so short they are also a fun and quick read.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

On Wednesday of this week one of our regular Centurions is celebrating a birthday! I'm not sure how old he is but I suspect it's 39! So the prompt this week is in honor of Tom Goette's Birthday (let me know when yours is and I'll be sure to make you fidget as well!)

Happy Birthday, Tom! This prompt's for you!


WEEK 21 PROMPT

He never dreamed when he blew out the candles on his cake...


This link will be live until next Saturday morning around 7 am. And please, remember to link to your SC URL...not your main blog. If you are unsure how to do this please leave me a message in the comments or e-mail me and I'll help you through it! Have fun!

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Friday, September 24, 2010

Hey sweet pea? How about a little gardening giveaway?

You know how Autumn is raising it's lovely head for many of you? The gold, amber and red leaves are starting to glow on the trees? The scent of bonfires and pumpkin linger on the air and that faint, almost intangible fragrance of cold weather coming makes you dig out your sweaters and stack up your firewood?

When you live in Arizona...yea...not so much.

This time of year we are planting our second gardens and trying to pretend that at some point before December we may actually get to wear a sweater...once.

But I'm not bitter.

Well, not too much.

And the reason I'm not totally angry and hostile over the continuing 100 degree PLUS weather is this...


...and this...



...and these!


I adore sweet peas! They are just amazing, fragrant, beautiful, perfect little blossoms that make me think of Grandma's and cherry pie and home-made bread.

And I know the best place in the universe to buy sweet peas seeds.

See my garden?





See that spot to the right of the tomatoes and garlic volunteers, to the right of the violette beans, to the right of the what-was-I-thinking 6 cucumber plants?

That bare area of sweet dirt?

That's where my sweet peas go. And they go all around my garden and climb up my little metal fence and cover it in heavenly blooms that smell like...ummm... heaven.

OK. Leave me alone. I can only wax poetic for so long before I run out of steam.

So the amazing place I buy my sweet pea seeds from each year is called The Fragrant Garden up in Oregon.

And I want you to be able to plant your own amazing sweet peas, too.

So I'm having a little giveway for a $25.00 gift certificate. If you live in the desert you can plant your seeds now, if not, just order them and store them until the proper planting time in your area.

FOUR CHANCES TO WIN. DRAWING CONDUCTED ON SUNDAY NIGHT, MST, AFTER 6:00 PM.

Chance one. Be a follower of this blog and tell me you are in a comment.
Chance two. Visit The Fragrant Garden and tell me one of your favorite sweet peas.
Chance three. Ummm... Tell me the next word to the lyrics of this song: 'Oh sweet pea, won't you be my _________"
Chance four. Put up a link to this giveaway on your blog.

I know, I know. All this hoopla for a teensy, weensy gift certificate.

But did I mention, it is for sweet pea seeds?

Prepare to oooh and aaaahhhh...


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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A is for Acupuncture

Short Version:
A is for Acupuncture. Try it. The needles aren't that bad. It worked for me.


Thanks for stopping by. This post is linked to Alphabe-Thursdays letter "A". To visit other "A" links, just click here!

Long Version:

My first experience with acupuncture was about five years ago. I did not go gently toward the idea as a medical solution. I forced myself (kicking, screaming and panicking) to embrace ancient Chinese healing practices…something that up until that time I had equated with chai tea toting yuppies wearing organically grown cotton clothing.

OK. Don’t get all offended. I’m just telling you how I felt at the time. And I like chai tea. And organic cotton. So there.

I had gone through an ovectomy that February on an emergency basis and ended up a total physical mess. That surgery set off a debilitating spiral of extreme physical problems that specialist after specialist had been unable to fix.

I was desperate. We spent a ton of money and time going from one recommended medical center to another. And specialist after specialist had added even more suffering to the mess I was already trying to deal with. I had been having a severe headache daily for over four months, was covered in hives, was experiencing hot flashes and panic attacks from he**, combined with chills that cracked my molars and made me beg Mr. Jenny to smother me.

The day my fate collided with all those needles was actually Mr. Jenny’s Birthday. “Yea, Happy Birthday to you…now who cares what day it is, can you smother me now please?” was probably not what he wanted to hear, but he is a really great guy.

Which is why, instead of freaking out when I had a total melt-down in his office telling him that if someone didn’t help me soon I was going to crawl out into the desert to die, he and my Mom found an acupuncture place close by the house. I called them. I had a little difficulty with the language but I didn’t take any offense that the guy kept calling me “Yenny”. Hey, Yenny, Penny, Zenny, Jenny…. I could care less what you call me, if you might be able to help me. I don’t know if it was my hysteria, begging or weeping but they agreed to see me in an hour.

Then it hit me. Wait. What was I thinking? Acupuncture? Me? Needles? One hour? Holy cow… but shortly after that thought, more hot flashes, panic attacks and scratching frenzies made me rethink the whole process ! Acupuncture ! Of course ! Who cares if there are needles as long as I get one iota of relief ! An hour? Heck with that, I’m leaving now! Mr. Jenny, (God Bless this long suffering man) moved his schedule around and escorted me there…. warned me vehemently in advance that he refused to watch the treatment, and graciously accepted my pathetic and weepy Happy Birthday wishes.

We drove a short distance to a strip mall. I hadn’t written down a suite number so we just went into the little office closest to the car. Uh oh. It was fairly dark in there with sort of weird music playing and what appeared to be small, dark windows on three sides of the space. It wasn’t too clean. There were kind of scummy looking signs scotch-taped to the walls about how much it costs to get a massage. Hmmm…. I tell Steve I am leaving. He says “maybe we have the wrong place” and I think, “gee, no wonder I love him, he is definitely a genius”. I stand by the car, and he goes to the next office and then motions me over. Definitely better. This is a very, clean white space with a glass display area neatly merchandised with unknown potions, pills and bottles. A tiny oriental woman sits behind a long counter. She looks up. She is fifty or sixty years old with beautiful and kind eyes. I immediately start crying.

She walks around the counter and says to Mr. Jenny, “You are too fat,” and then she tells me, “You are too fat, too, but you have bigger problems and we will deal with fat later.” For some reason neither one of us is offended by this statement of the obvious. Mr. Jenny tells her we had gone to the next office by mistake and she replied, “Oh, massage place…very, very bad.”

I tell her I am Jenny….. “Oh,” she says, “Yenny…” and hands me a clipboard and a pen and instructs me to complete the forms. They are sort of standard but perhaps a little more vague then traditional medical forms. I write. I cry. I have several hot flashes. I write and cry some more. I attempt to pound my head on the wall to relieve the headache but Mr. Jenny pats my leg. I tell him I am sooo sorry for being such a burden and cry some more. I tell him “Happy Birthday” in a sniffly whine.

The nice lady comes over and goes over my information. She is the doctor…. Or puncturer or whatever they call it. The language is a little difficult but after some time I think we have most of the facts basically straight, more or less. She says “OK, we begin” and with great trepidation I follow her into a square, spare, austere white room with white shelves close to the ceiling. Mr. Jenny comes too. There are two white gurney-type beds in the room covered with tightly tucked in white sheets. She motions to me to lie down. Gulp. I do.

She comes and shows me some very thin, very long needles in sterile wrap. She tells me about the sensations I may feel: small pinching when the needles go in, a feeling of pressure in the muscle, heaviness in the limb and the tingle of electricity. Why am I doing this again? Another hard hot flash reminds me. OK, I take a deep breath.

The nice puncturer lady starts on my right side and sort of “taps” each needle in. It doesn’t hurt. Some of them give me a sensation of a small electric shock. I have my eyes tightly closed but I feel her walk by my right side. Then she inserts needles into my right hand, I feel a strange shock run into my fingers and they immediately start twitching. It doesn’t hurt, it just feels very odd. 7 or 8 needles are inserted between my right thigh and the heel of my right foot. Then she starts down my left side. It is very quiet in the white room. She doesn’t talk at all…. but makes a tiny humming noise. I find myself babbling…. She whispers “hush” to me. Mr. Jenny is awfully quiet. My head is throbbing and I feel another hot flash starting. My left side is more sensitive…. No pain, just odd sensations and when she gets to my left foot I feel something like a bolt of lightening fire out of the bottom of my foot. It hurts and I cry out very loudly. She explains something about “energy release” and does something to the same needle and another jolt shocks me…. I cry out again.


I am a bit stunned. After I catch my breath for a moment, I realize my headache is gone. I wait a few seconds to see if this is my imagination. No, it is not. My long time nasty companion has left the building, my headache is no more. I am astonished. I tell the puncturer lady, I tell Mr. Jenny…. I am definitely babbling. She tells me to “hush” again and to not move. I don’t listen and try to scratch my eye and a very weird, unpleasant sensation goes up my hand into my bicep. I decide to just let my eye itch.


Then she pulls my shirt up to examine the hives and leaves the room, humming softly under her breath. She returns in a few moments and starts rubbing some kind of ointment on the hives on my stomach. The ointment burns briefly but then it stops burning and stops itching. Mr. Jenny is sitting beside me and he says something like “wow, the red is fading”. I couldn’t actually see so I tried moving again and again got that unpleasant sensation.

The nice puncturer lady turned out the lights then. She told me to close my eyes and not move. I wiggle a little bit (because I’m that kind of a rebel) and look around the room. I try to tip my head to see what’s on the shelves, but they are too high. I look at the white painted ceiling and the white drapes she has pulled partially closed around my white sheeted bed. There is no noise in the room. I realize I am cold. I realize I have stopped having hot flashes. My headache is still gone. After some time goes by, even my feeling of anxiety starts fading away. It is gradual, but I suddenly realize I am not feeling panic and not feeling any pain.

I lay in the white room for what feels to be a short time, but Mr. Jenny tells me later it has been a little over an hour. The nice puncturer lady returns and starts removing the needles. Two of them feel very sensitive and the one in my left foot makes me cry out again, but much more softly. I lay on the white bed feeling very drained. My muscles feel very heavy, but my limbs feel very light. It is just a very odd sensation. The lady massages one specific spot on my skull and then takes my hand and places it there. She tells me to massage that spot during the day. I feel very different.

After I sit up and get my bearings, we return to the little waiting room. On the counter are several little bags of something and a little bottle full of something and a tube of ointment. She explains what I am to do with each one. She talks about releasing all the poisons from my body. We make an appointment for the next afternoon. I am still feeling a little like I am not really present, but I am definitely feeling much, much better…. No pain, the itching where she has rubbed the ointment is gone but the itching on my back where she did not rub the ointment is driving me crazy.

I shake her hand and thank her. We go out to the car and Mr. Jenny just keeps saying how different I seem. He says he can tell a lot of the pain is gone. He says he has been feeling horrible for me going through such torture. He says “boy, those needles sure seemed long coming out” but I decide that is enough detail and I really don’t want to know anything else about needle specifics.

On the drive home I keep tapping my head to see if I am just imagining that there is no headache. I pay close attention to the fact that I am not having any hot flashes. My anxiety is greatly reduced and I have stopped crying. We get home and I apply the rest of the ointment to the hives that the doctor missed. I line up my little teabags and potions on the counter and try to figure out what they are.

It has been months since I have felt so little misery. I feel almost reborn even though I shallowly continue to wonder how far those needles are actually inserted.

I’m afraid if I don’t find a way to make up for my previous misconception about acupuncture being only for chai tea toting yuppies wearing organically grown cotton clothing, that the magic will somehow stop working.

I’m willing to celebrate this healing in a ritual of burying the needles in the center of some vortex while celebrating the karma of healing? Or something.

But for that moment, I was just exhausted. Rituals could wait. I definitely needed a nap.

This very long post is also linked with Alphabe-Thursday's Letter "A". Click here to read other "A" links.

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Alphabe-Thursday "A"

Good morning class! Please pay attention. I am Mrs. Matlock's more fashionable, but much crabbier, younger sister. I was warned that this was a rowdy bunch, but trust me. I will not put up with any hooligans in this class.


I know you're excited to be starting Round 2 of Alphabe-Thursday, but you need to calm down. I'm glad you are all enthused about your summer break, but really, do I look like the kind of teacher who will put up with these shenanigans? Trust me. I am not.

Now. Pay attention.

We are starting with the letter ...and you must post about something related to or starting with the letter "A". Do not try to fool me here by linking to a post about bananas or something. I know the alphabet extremely well.

My sister told me I had to finish up a little Rainbow Summer School business from her ridiculous Rainbow Summer School Extravaganza! Settle down, please, and I will announce the winner. Drum roll please...

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1
Max: 51
Result: 15


Link 15 was this one from Creative Decorating on a Budget! Hi Bonnie! Congratulations! Please e-mail your address to: jennymatlock at cox dot net so I can get your Rainbow prizes out to you right away. I will not tolerate screaming in this class so please confine your joy to a simple smile. That will be fine.

There may be random prizes as we continue through this round of the Alphabet and there may not. It just depends on how you all settle down.

I have also been made aware that my sister was an extremely EASY grader. That will not be the case this year. Do not just assume you will get an A+ because you have linked. You may only get an A this year. This does not mean I don't like you. It just means I recognize that my sister was a pushover. As well as a horrible dreser. I mean, seriously, that hat was just atrocious, don't you agree?

I was told that you have been trying to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can certainly visit more. This will continue to be acceptable to me.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Tuesday night, please let me know, because it is important to me to make sure you know I've visited you! This will avoid you trying to skip out on doing your assignment as well.

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise and that will just make me even crabbier.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you because my sister said I have to.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Class is dismissed. Please feel free to post your link to your "A" post now:

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My Granddaughter's smarter then your Granddaughter!

Nya, nya, nya, nya, nya!

Wow! That wasn't very nice, was it?

I'm sorry for gloating, but it's just that...

...well...ummm...it's true.

On Monday afternoon, little Miss Morgan and I were swimming and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas.

With no hesitation, she replied, "I want a back-scratcher, Grandma."

Hmmm....I'm liking the sound of this gift list. I'm going to get off super cheap this year in the four year old gift department.

I queried her further, though, just to be sure. "OK, that sounds good. What kind do you want, Mo?"

She thought. She thought hard. She put her finger on her lip and scrunched up her face. And then thought some more.

After great deliberation she finally answered me, "Grandma, I want a rainbow striped back-scratcher...hmmm... you know the kind?"

And I replied, "Well, I don't know if I could find one with rainbow stripes but I could try really hard."

"While you're looking," she continued, "Find one with candy stuck all over it. Then I could scratch my back and eat some candy. And scratch my back some more and eat some more candy."



...

...

So do you see what I mean? I told you she was mighty smart.

And just think, I'm going to have to file a patent for the "Snack and Scratch" soon before someone else steals this innovative and excitingly awesome idea.

So, what's that you say?

Can you say it louder?

Just a bit louder?

Yea! My Granddaughter's smarter then yours! I'm glad you understand now.

Sigh...

OK, OK. Don't get huffy. Your Granddaughter's really, really smart, too.

Double sigh...

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Story Time Tuesday - Writing Fiction - Chapter Three

Jenny Matlock
If you missed where this story started just click here to read it or click on the Story-Time Tuesday link at the top of my blog to take you to previous chapters.

Writing Fiction - Chapter 3

You know how sometimes you make a grand announcement like, ‘This time I’m going to stick with my diet, no matter what!’ and people give you that ‘knowing look’ three days later, when they see you coming out of the cupcake store on the corner? And you’re sure that they’re thinking, “Yeah, yeah…I see how long this diet lasted.” You know how you feel a little ashamed getting caught, but you don’t really care what they think because you really, really needed that cupcake?

As soon as my big, fat lie about starting a blog left my lips, I knew I couldn’t ‘cupcake out’ of this commitment. After all, this was my daughter. And she’d been crying. With a hiccup. Because she was worried about me.

“Pearl,” I told myself in a steely voice, “You are not going to ‘cupcake out’ of this. Get to work!”

So I did.

I dragged my laptop out to the living room where the Flying Nun was still smiling perkily on the muted TV screen. “Listen Nun,” I said, “I’m starting a blog,” then I let her stay and keep me company while I quickly learned that I had everything to learn.

I grabbed a legal pad and started making notes.

I discovered there were over 47,396,000 blogs in existence on the internet. OK. So my blog was going to be number 47,396,001. I scribbled a note to check that figure once my blog was up and running.

I learned there was a blog for just about every purpose: dog haters, dog lovers, people haters, people lovers, blogs about depression and couponing, being a Grandma, a bride or a widow. I learned that people wrote blogs about their art and their writing, about their troubled children and about collecting Q-tips.

I found fancy blogs with all kinds of blinking cats and blooming daisies. I saw plain blogs that seemed rather forlorn. Some blogs made me jump in my seat with the sudden start of loud music. Others offered a little arrow to click which brought a tiny movie to life on my laptop screen.

I made notes. I made fun. I made myself dizzy with my stupid, grand announcement. I wanted a cupcake really, really badly. And then I remembered that little sniffly, hiccup and I looked at blogs some more.

I read blogs that explained how to create a centerpiece out of twelve cotton balls and a baby food jar; and other blogs telling me it was totally lame and so ‘last year’ to use a centerpiece made out of twelve cotton balls and a baby food jar. There were blogs that seemed to poke mean fun at people , blogs that poked fun at mean people and some that seemed so sweet I wanted to invite their owners over for tea and conversation. Then there were blogs I didn’t even understand, yet I was too enthralled to heave myself up on the couch to find a dictionary.

After awhile I began reading the comments people left on blogs.

Apparently, people who like your blog may become ‘followers’ and read every word you write. I thought that interesting. Like having an audience. Almost all the comments people left seemed nice: “Oh, Sue, you’re such a gifted writer. Your words really speak to my heart,” or “I’m sorry to hear you’re having a bad patch. I hope things will get better soon for you.” Some bloggers even receive comments in foreign languages. I saw a lot of those in Chinese or Japanese. That seemed pretty neat. I don’t think I’d want any of those comments, though, because I can’t read Chinese or Japanese; how would I even know what they had written?

I read “Pink is the new black”; “Budgeting is the new black”; “Mocha brown is the new black”. What does that mean anyway?

Throughout my reading, the Flying Nun cavorted about in her crazy, happy way on the muted TV.

It was only when she disappeared and the screen was filled with an infomercial, featuring a bunch of skinny, perky breasted, spandex-wearing women with broad, blindingly white smiles, I realized how much time had actually elapsed.

I grabbed the remote and un-muted,only to discover that I, too, could have a six-pack and be lean, sexy and energetic. I hit the off button. I had enough problems at the moment, without worrying about getting bigger, whiter teeth and a body fat percentage of negative three.

When I staggered up from the couch, I realized I’d been sitting there reading blogs for almost four hours! If that wasn’t amazing enough, I also realized I hadn’t even eaten the contents of any small bakeries for that entire length of time. And I hadn’t starved to death.

What I had determined in those four hours, though, was that I was in big trouble. I figured I had three days, tops, before the next phone call, and I was determined there’d be no tears or hiccups when in the next conversation with my daughter.

I went to bed and tossed and turned. In my nightmares, I was stuck inside my computer, trying to get out of Blogland. I traveled down a maze of streets marked, “Cat Lovers Lane” and “Writers Way”. One way streets jumbled my already limited sense of direction and somehow “Plain and Boring Boulevard” never got me out of “Lit Up like a Christmas Tree Circle”.
I finally fell asleep, tangled up in my sheets and sweating from the terrors of trying something at which I was obviously going to fail.

Somewhere during the night, though, my slumber became peaceful as I dreamt about being interviewed on a big talk show. I was sitting on an over-lit set, perfectly made up with my healthy, shiny hair gleaming in the lights. “Pearl, what preceded your meteoric rise to success? Your blog has changed the way America thinks and we’d all like to know how you did it,” the brittle, anorexic-looking interviewer asked me with her perfect diction.

Before I answered, I dazzled the audience with my broad, blindingly white smile. I wish I’d thought to peek under my lovely, custom-made suit jacket to see if I’d also managed to magically achieve the six-pack abs promised by the infomercial. I’d just opened my mouth to answer her question, when the interview lady interrupted me, “Pearl, I just want to compliment you on your dazzling smile! May I speak to you about your dentist after the taping?”

I graciously nodded and then regaled the audience with fascinating story of my rise to my success. The interviewer was spellbound; the audience, captivated. I calmly outlined how I’d entered the blog world to comfort my daughter initially but then I realized blah, blah, blah. I was feeling awfully confident on that talk show.

As soon as the sun streamed through the window in the morning, I woke up. I felt prepared to enter Blogland! After all, if you can succeed at something in your dreams, that has to mean something, right?

I definitely had a plan.



To be continued, Tuesday, September 28.

(c) 2010 Jennifer R. Matlock
This publication is the exclusive property of Jennifer R. Matlock and is protected
under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws. The contents of this post/story may not be reproduced as a whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without consent of the author, Jennifer R. Matlock. All rights reserved.

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Monday, September 20, 2010

Quick! Call the Police!

You've been robbed!


And you probably aren't even aware it happened!

Oh man. I was going to have the best Monday post. The absolute most spell-binding, rivetting, cool post today. But things went awry.

I'm kind of new-age about medical stuff. Sure, I see a regular doctor and all that but I also have a naturopath and have been known to do acupuncture, health regressions and cool open-minded medical things like that.

On Friday I had an appointment with a Cherokee Healer named Lisa. I was kind of disturbed her name was Lisa instead of 'She Who Heals at Dawn' or something.

Don't spit out your coffee like that. It's not very attractive.

So, yea. I was pretty excited about the whole thing.

Part of the 'preparing' stuff for the appointment was no lotion, no deodorant, no jewelry, no hair products, no make-up.

I took my shower like usual, slapped on all the general stuff like always, and then realized I needed to take another shower.

So I did.

I told Mr. Jenny goodbye. He was all kind of weirded out by the whole concept, but hey, it's my health, right? I think he was leary because of the time I went to the little old French lady Healer, but that's another story. (and a good one, too, for another day!)

On my way to the appointment, the healers assistant called me to tell me Lisa had been paged into work for something urgent.

I'm assuming this means the Healer has another job, too, or maybe it was an urgent Healing 911 call. I'm not totally sure about the whole thing.

But now I have to wait to re-schedule the whole Cherokee Healing situation.

Which means you have been robbed of a really good story.

I apologize for this inconvenience.

Sigh...

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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sundays with Steve - Vote for Me!

Since I’ve started writing “Sundays with Steve” I’ve been thinking about vignettes of my life growing up in North Idaho. I realize the town where I grew up and the life I lived with my family is really a classic, all-American story. Perhaps you will recognize some of your childhood in these writings. And perhaps you will recognize the town you grew up in, too, and some of the characters you knew. Mrs. Steve has encouraged me to write these as attempts of “creative writing” as opposed to the more factual journalistic style I was trained in and practiced in my early career, all those years ago. So my apologies if I stumble a bit here and there trying to blend the two styles together

SMALL TOWN MUSINGS - VOTE FOR ME!

It occurs to me, as we were talking last week about the Rocky Mountain oyster feed at Eagle, Idaho that several other events occurred in Eagle over the years that you might find of interest. Here’s one:

I mouthed-off for many years that I thought most people should volunteer for community service at least once in their lives, to really contribute to their communities in meaningful ways: schools and school boards, zoning commissions, libraries, water districts, volunteer fire departments, whatever is needed.

I don’t think that I anticipated that high-minded principle would apply to me. But it did.

It was 1985 when it came time for me to put up or shut up. I was 36 years old, and some neighbors, undoubtedly under the influence of alcohol, decided I should run for an upcoming city council seat in our small town, population about 2,400.

The kids were small, business was doing ok at the time, the neighbors were friendly, it was a pleasant town to live in. “Maybe I should”, I thought, ”maybe I should.”

Why me? The answer was simple, need. That winter was unusually harsh, the snows deeper than usual, and the country road department that was charged with keeping our streets open was hopelessly overwhelmed. It was days away from sending the plows to our corner of the county when that first storm hit. The county said, “sorry, there is nothing we can do.” That irritated me a great deal. But instead of complaining, I took charge. I hired a private plow to clear the roads and driveways of our neighborhood, a subdivision with about 2 miles of streets and 70 houses. I put a note in each mailbox asking the residents to contribute to a fund to keep the roads clear for the winter. Most did. My recruited plowman dug us out two or three times that winter.

In the spring some of the neighbors thought my reward for the snow plow effort was to join the city council. Geez, that wasn’t much of a reward. When I took my little plow on my little garden tractor to clear out the adjacent houses’ long driveways that winter, the rewards were chocolate chip cookies and milk. Those rewards were really much more satisfying than public office.


Mrs. Steve and I found the election file the other day, and reviewed it with amusement: I had 49 signatures on the election petition, virtually all residing in the subdivision where I lived. I must have walked door-to-door through the neighborhood gathering those, although I don’t recall that.

I spent $341 on the election, and raised about $300. It cost me then $41 to try to get a job that paid $125 per month. Was it a forerunning of expensive elections to come? Was this the start of my political career?

I held a fund-raiser, an open house, with 30 or so people showing up in response to a newspaper ad and telephone calls extending the invitation for wine, cheese and Triscuit crackers, in return for a suggested political contribution. (That’s what the grocery store receipt that Mrs. Steve found -- Triscuits! If I were to it again, I think the menu would be a bit different.) Most contributions were in the $10 and $20 range. It must have been the Triscuits that held the dollar amounts down. Maybe it was the bad wine, but no, I firmly believe it was the cheap Triscuits.

It was non-partisan election, so no party affiliation had to be declared. An old school chum of mine from Lewiston, David Leroy, was running for governor that year, and he joined our little open-house fund –raiser, as a hanger-on. It didn’t work, he lost to the Democrats.

An organization out of the big city – Boise, just eight miles up the road – did a pre-election poll for small towns in our state. They put me comfortably in the lead of this six person race for two open seats. Why was I in the lead? I didn’t have clue.


It is rather an ego trip running for public office like that, even in a little tiny town. I saw my photo often in the daily and weekly newspapers that circulated through our area, being quoted on this or that. There were some endorsements and that generated more publicity. There was a television news interview or two (that probably lasted at least 20 seconds of air time).

We put up some small signs around our town (it didn’t take many to cover all the two or three main streets), and I sent a letter to each registered voter, all 1,000 of them. As I recall, the postage was the largest campaign expense.


Election Day came, and I won in not-quite-a- landslide, but with the exact 43% margin that poll predicted.

Then it was time to go to work on the mundane job of governing a small town. We did have some fun: Over the next four years we annexed everything in sight, growing our town acreage by 4000 percent or so. We cut taxes. We exacted Federal monies to build a new library and city hall. We irritated a few people in those years, and we gave a lot of people exactly what they were looking for.


One of those who were elected with me was indicted late into my term for embezzling city funds. The dumb ass, I’m still mad at his stupidity. But that’s another story for another time.

The mayor of our little town resigned in my last year on the council, and filling that spot with a temporary mayor, the largest vote getter of course, is another story for another time.

The town had a population of 2400 or so then, 25 years ago, it has about 30,000 I’m told. I think much of what we did in those years laid the foundation for that growth.

So I put up, and I didn’t shut up (still an occasional problem), and I did my community service. I found it hugely rewarding. When my term was drawing to a close I told both the local Republican and the local Democratic parties, both of who had approached me to run for the state legislature, that no, thank you for the compliment of asking, but no, I wasn’t interested. I didn’t run for another term in Eagle or any other public office since then.

Once was enough. Maybe.

See you next week.

Saturday Centus - Week 20

Thanks Tina for the prompt this week. It is in bold.



“Home, sweet Home,” she thought sarcastically as she entered the cheap apartment where her family now lived.

The sour smell of failure wafted through the room like a recession-scented air ‘freshener’.

Each day when she got home from her part-time job at Wendy’s, she tried to scrub another nasty area of the disgusting place she refused to call home.

Turning on the small TV screen for distraction, she filled her bucket in the discolored sink. “Government advisers are heartened by the upward economic trend…blah, blah, blah, blah…”

"This is never going to come out," she thought as she scrubbed at the spot on the worn carpet.

“Oh, yea,” she contemplated bitterly, “I am most definitely heartened by this phenomenal, upward trend.”



This post is linked to week 20 of Saturday Centus. To read the other short stories, just click here!

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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Saturday Centus - Week 20

Jenny Matlock
Welcome to week twenty of Saturday Centus.

STOP! If you didn't read the end SC's from last week, please take a moment to do so. Just work backwards until you find out where you left off. I feel really bad that the people at the end don't get read.

Thanks!

Now on to regular SC biz...In case you've forgotten...

This is a themed writing meme.

You can use UP to 100 words (not including the prompt) to tell your story. You cannot use pictures to illustrate your story. It can be fact or fiction. The only restrictions is the prompt must be left intact WHICH MEANS you cannot split up the words in the prompt.

You have the entire week to link your work to the meme and you can link more than one story if you like.

Please display link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

I would suggest that since these are so short, if you can't think of a title just use your blog name as the title in the Linky.

Try to visit each one because there are some amazing writers participating in this meme. Since the links are so short they are also a fun and quick read.

Please e-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Tina contributed the prompt this week and I think you're really going to enjoy it! Thanks Tina!

WEEK 20 PROMPT

"This is never going to come out," she thought as she scrubbed at the spot on the worn carpet.


This link will be live until next Saturday morning around 7 am. And please, remember to link to your SC URL...not your main blog. If you are unsure how to do this please leave me a message in the comments or e-mail me and I'll help you through it! Have fun!

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Friday, September 17, 2010

Here's what happens after...

...you take five seconds from your frantic morning to find a pen and a sticky note...

...to write some simple words to someone you love...

...to place inside their lunchbox so that later in the day...

...your child will read what you wrote in that moment you thought you didn't have...

...on that morning you were crazy busy like always.


When my children were small I bet I wrote 100 notes and put them in their lunchboxes. And sometimes when they would come home from school they would remember to tell me they got the note...but mostly I just wrote it and I never had the pleasure of seeing their faces when they read them.

Yesterday morning I was driving our youngest Granddaughter to pre-school and she was quite busy in the backseat sifting through her backpack and chattering away about nothing and everything.

She suddenly let out a high-pitched scream of excitement.

Alarmed, I immediately looked into the rear view mirror and there she was holding a little piece of paper.

"Morgan, are you OK? Are you hurt?" I said.

Our eyes met in the rear view mirror and this beautiful, little girl was absolutely glowing in excitement. She had the most amazed smile on her face.

"Oh, Grandma," she breathed, "I have a note in my lunchbox." Her eyes never left the little slip of paper held carefully like a treasure in her hand.

"Oh Mo, how neat!" I replied, "Do you want me to read it to you?"

"Grandma, I can read it!" she said with great reverence in her voice. Her lips moved and moved and finally she 'read', "Morgan, I love you! Mommy." And then she held that little slip of paper to her heart for a brief second.

Yea.

It doesn't sound like much does it? It doesn't seem that finding those random seconds in those last minutes before they head off to school matters, does it? Or that taking the extra few seconds to send them off with a hug and a smile can really make a difference.

But yesterday I saw what happens in the AFTER of those few seconds.

And it is totally worth it.

While you may never get to see their face when they open that note you penned, I was lucky enough to see how one little girl reacted. I suspect all children react pretty much the same.

And it humbled me.

I am amazed how just a few seconds can define a day.

And how it is always and forever totally worth it.

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Thursday, September 16, 2010

My little Rainbow Girl


This post is linked to Rainbow Summer School. To read the rest of the links just click here.

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Rainbow Summer School Extravaganza!

Good morning class! Welcome to the Rainbow Summer School Extravaganza! It is the last and final week of summer school before we return to Letter A next week. Since there are no colors of the rainbow left, this week will be focused on:
Your link this week can consist of anything that relates to any color, including black OR Rainbow Stripes in any way, shape or form!

We have an amazing grand prize for this meme worth thousands of pesos. Prepare yourself to behold the amazement that is the final prize.......

I have personally travelled at great personal expense to put together this assortment or Rainbow treasures. The first is a Rainbow mug ... oooohhhhh aaaaaahhhhh.... next we have a Rainbow cow bank .... oooooooohhhhhh..... aaaaahhhhhh.... and finally we have a Kai-Lan Rainbow Chinese Checker set .... which comes in a super cool little metal case ....OOOOOOHHHHHH.... AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

I know, I know! I was beside myself with excitement, too!

To qualify for this amazing prize package worth thousands of.... ummm pesos...simply link to this final week of the meme!

And to add to these riches, we also have a winner from last weeks VIOLET Rainbow Summer School. (ha! Don't you feel silly saying Ooooohhhh.....aaaaahhhh all by yourself?!?)

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1
Max: 67
Result: 27


Link 27 was this one from The Craft Housewife! Hi Crafty! Please e-mail me your address at: jennymatlock at cox dot net so I can get your violet prize out to you right away.


NEXT:

We've been trying to do the five links before and after for visits. How is that working. Are most of you getting at least 10 visits? I want to hear how this is going.

PLEASE try to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can certainly visit more. Just because it's "Summer School" doesn't get you out of this fun homework!

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. I noticed a blog today where my comment didn't show up. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by Tuesday night, please let me know, because it is important to me to make sure you know I've visited you! There were several blogs I could not get onto last week. I'm hoping that problem is straightened out this week.

If you have any difficulties with your link please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find them otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit the 5 students before and after your post at minimum. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Class is dismissed. Please feel free to post your Rainbow Summer School link now with your myster color:

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