Today's Prompt: Imagine a young boy about six, pale with reddish-brown freckles and big blue eyes that are unusually shiny. He has a red nose and red hair cut short so that his ears seem big. Two of his front teeth are missing, so he has a tendency to lisp when he talks. He sits on the steps in front of an inner-city brownstone. Who or what is he waiting for?

If there was ever a day made for baseball, this was it. Of course, it would help if it had rained during the night, because then the pollen count would be down and he wouldn't have to wipe away the blur that clouded his vision after a sneezing bout. But sometimes, when Scott was really in the zone, he could sneeze and wipe his eyes and keep right on playing all the while, not missing a beat.

The air was soft with spring warmth, and the trees were fully leafed now. He knew the ball diamond down at the park was completely green, and just a couple days ago when he and his mom were on the bus, he noticed that they were painting lines and putting out the bases. They too were clean and bright, but in just a matter of days they would bear the marks of scuffs and dust, and Scott longed to be the one to put his mark there. He imagined the sun on his head, the bat heavy in his hands, and the woosh it made as he swung and the crack that meant a good hit. His toes curled at the thought. The winter was over. He had waited out the long and dark and dismal winter and here it was--springtime and time for baseball.

He heard a door slam and jumped, then turned wide-eyed to check the door behind him. He held his breath waiting for the knob to jangle and the door to burst almost completely off the hinges. Momma would have a fit if she found he was sitting out here. She thought it wasn't safe for him to be out here alone.

She didn't seem to understand that he was invisble. Not a single person who went by had so much as looked at the steps, much less at him. The birds flew by without a change in pattern. The cars scurried by intent on where they were headed. A girl had skated by to the rhythm of the music coming from her earphones. An old lady--a familiar old lady--passed by on her morning walk with her dog. Not even the dog glanced his way. No matter when he sat here, or for how long, that seemed to be something that never changed.

He had to come out on the step. Out here it was easier to imagine things. The walls inside their house were beige that turned kind of yellow at the top. The floors were all tiled in cream vinyl squares. The furniture was brown, the bedcovers deep brown--everywhere he looked it was as though winter stayed in their house permanently. The air carried the weight of three nights' worth of dinner, wine, and cigarrettes. There was no way to breathe deep and let his mind play unless he took himself out to the step.

Here he could think that maybe his Dad would come today. Maybe he would start walking five blocks away from the brick store with the blue awning that still had Woolworth's in the faintest of lettering above the awning but below the upstairs windows. He would take long and confident steps down the sidewalk, past all the light poles with the art festival banners, and past the few stoops where the older ladies would soon replace the dead plants in the heavy cement planters with new flowers. Stopping at the red light on the corner of West and Starr, he would tap his foot and whistle. Scott would be able to see him clearly at that point, so his dad would grin in that sly and playful way he had, all the time holding a present behind his back, so that Scott didn't even have a hint at what it might be, even though there had been no money and less time to wrap it properly.

Scott would use every ounce of determination he had to stay on the step and pretend that none of it mattered. Dad needed just a little taste of what it was like to expect one reaction and get another. So he wouldn't run out and throw himself in his arms and feel a giant hug wrap around him like Grandma's quilt. No, he wouldn't even start out to meet him at a slow and controlled walk. He would just sit here like it didn't matter. But when Dad stood in front of him and looked right in his eyes and said, "Hey, Sport" then Scott would grin. Even though he knew it made his freckles pop and his ears stand on top of his cheeks (or so they constantly reminded him at school), he would look into his father's eyes and give back what he found there in full measure. Then he would wind his arms around the man's neck and feel those arms wrap him up. Scott would smell the leather and feel it poke into his back while he was being held close in that bear hug. He would know that Dad had bought him a new mitt before he heard, "Ta da!" and or saw it dangling in front of his eyes.

It wasn't totally about imagination though. Between now and the imagination coming true, Scott could listen to the birds sing and the cars honk and sizzle over the streets and see what else he could figure out about the strange world he lived in. There had to be a reason that things were the way they were, but no one seemed to want to talk about it. He knew his dad had to spend his time somewhere, but he could imagine that to be any old place, because Scott had never been there.

Sometimes he thought his dad must be a special agent, and imagined him sleeping on a black leather couch in a small square office where he worked when he woke up. Other days, Scott put him in one of the large houses he'd seen from the train on his class trip downtown; he imagined that his father had this tremendous debt that a mean old man said he had to pay off before he could life with his wife and his son. His dad had no choice but to do what the man said or he'd be killed. And of course it embarrassed both his dad and his mother and that was why no one would talk with Scott about what was really happening.

Tomorrow Scott might read another book and make up a whole new reason why they wouldn't talk to him, why they wouldn't explain why they didn't live together, or why his father had to live in an alien world where Scott couldn't even visit. Or he might read a book that would give him the courage to start asking questions and simply not stop until someone gave him an answer.

Until then he'd wait. Because there was one thing he knew for certain. Things changed. If you waited long enough, things changed.

I have to say thanks to all of you who are making this blog the most popular part of my website. If you would, please take a minute to introduce yourselves. I have to know who these patient and kind-hearted people are. Sometimes these pages are full of nothing much, and still you come by and look, and I appreciate that.

I slept in this morning. After I made two trips to the grocery store where my son bags groceries. First to drop him off and the second to take him the lunch he so diligently packed and then let sit in the refrigerator. I can't blame him. It's Friday. He's worked a lot of overtime this week too, one day staying till almost 4 in the afternoon. That's a long day for anyone! Then he comes home and tackles geometry, and the kid hates math. Almost as much as me. I worked with numbers all day yesterday and was just as drained as I could be come nighttime. Numbers, while they never surprise, haunt or get stuck on you, are ruthless and demanding. They take a toll on me.

I came home with every intention of tackling the house that I didn't lift a finger on yesterday--taxes are just about finished, yay!--and to that end I took out trash, emptied the dishwasher and put a roast in the crock pot (with onion soup mix and 1/2 c red wine. The smell is making my stomach growl as I sit here), seeded the next load of dishes with a few strays lying about the kitchen and living room and then I hit a wall. Nothing to be done but go back to bed. I caught a glimpse of the day out the window in the laundry room--it's a half window and all I see is sky and trees and the top of the neighboring house--and everything was gray and shrouded. It reminded me of the old black-and-white movies when they do the close-up of the flawless actress and it's blurred just a touch.

The rain started in earnest shortly after I sunk in. It was a perfect lullabye. And don't tell my son, but I slept till 10:10. How indulgent! But you know, I feel better now than I have in days. I have always been a strong advocate of having at least one day a week on which my children could sleep until they wake up. I think it's a nice policy for adults as well. Sometimes the body just needs that little extra rest to rejuvenate.

It is still raining on and off, and between bouts there's slashes of sunshine. The clouds are winning though. We have had some of the most gorgeous spring weather imaginable. It's not even been that windy which is saying something in Oklahoma. But tonight it's supposed to turn cooler, with the threat of severe weather along with it. And then all weekend long we get a flashback to fall, with nighttime lows dipping into the 30s. I'm dying to buy flowers but with this in the forecast I've made myself hold off until the temperatures rebound again.

So I think I'll call this today's blog. I have a series of errands I need to run and I might as well do them while we aren't under a tornado watch. Plus I have to make myself finish up those dad-burned numbers. The bad thing about me is that when I feel so good about yesterday's progress I'm tempted to "treat" myself too soon (procrastinate!) and then I'm under the gun again. At any rate.

Enjoy the day, love your writing, and take a minute to comment and say hi! Hugs!

Well at least I'm driven to do this. I came across the sidewalk from the garage to the house after dropping the boy wonder and running a few errands (boy are the streets easy to negotiate when no one is on them! and thank goodness for drop boxes) thinking, "Now I get to write. In the quiet. I can begin my day with my favorite thing to do and a strawberry cheesecake cappaccino." (The Total station beckoned me in the course of my errands. LOL!)

Here I am about an hour later, having sorted through various e-mails and articles from the newsfeeder, and I'm thinking I should have waited to do all those things because my mind isn't in it's sing-song creative voice anymore. It's packed with facts and practicality which don't lend themselves very well to letting the words spill on their own and line up according to their own constellations. Instead I want to control them--mix and match them to my specifications. That's a better job for the editor, but not the creator. Perhaps reading already-edited material should be reserved for after the creating is done for the day.

I woke today feeling suprisingly fresh. That's what getting into the flow does for me, no matter what the project. Not only is the paperwork for this year's taxes pretty much in order, I have a good jump on next year's as well, because I developed the system to work for both years. As I sort, I'm sorting every piece of paper that has been thrown in the receipt drawer and I feel more in control today than I have for weeks.

I never realized what a control freak I was. I think it gets worse with age. But then, I'm not nearly as bad as my dh. For example, I love crepe myrtle bushes but he can't stand them because he can't chop them into neat little round bushes. We inherited crepe myrtles at two of the houses we've lived in since we moved back to Oklahoma, and I've been livid watching him and his handy-dandy electric branch-chopper prune off the blooms to "shape" the bushes. I wish someone would take this man by the hand and tell him when to prune things, but I doubt he would listen to them either. I just know he pruned an apricot tree to death. I'm so glad we sold that place before I cried over that. Apricots!

And so here I ramble, listening to Tinker's planes thunder overhead and the swish of the dishwasher as it does my work. Occassionally my youngest sighs in his sleep. The ice maker thunks decisively every so often and my timer on my computer rings--reminding me just how long I've been on here and that the "House Needs Attention." Boy howdy does it ever. I need a maid for tax season. Maybe I should save up.

Nah. The tax refund is going toward a hotel room for the OWFI conference just weeks away. I have to stay. I thought about not doing it. Our bank accounts are dwindling and I live in the city where it's held for heaven's sake. Almost actually--I'm in a suburb of OKC, about a 15 to 20 minute drive away. But staying at MicroTel for the conference is such a treat for me. I love spilling the conference packet out on the bed I don't sleep in and sorting through all of it. I love plugging the computer into the wall and using the "Microtel" dial-up settings and then staying on just as long as I like before taking myself off to supper and perhaps a roam through Garden Ridge. I have been known to get very, very brave and take my not-so-little self, complete with blindingly white skin down to the hot tub and sit for awhile. (Love it when my sis could come and share that part--we sat in there and talked almost too long!) I have a place to crash in lengthy break periods when I'm over-peopled and need some time alone. And above all I don't have the distractions of mounting laundry or dirty dishes or the demands of people who think, "Well she's home, let's see what we can have her do for us, since she's not done a thing in that regard all day long!"

I find staying in hotels luxurious and I so want to treat myself to this once-a-year escape. We'll see how the bank balances are in a week or so.

Better get busy on the rest of the day. Ramble over. :)

Workshop Write
Today's prompt:

Remember your elderly lady from April 3? What is standing in the way of her dream? Make a list of people, things, places, circumstances that could be fighting against her.
Her dream is to have people in her life again.


*Her health makes it difficult for her to get around. She tires easily. Or her feet/legs/knees/joints hurt too much most of the time to get around without some sort of assistance.
*A community that believes wrong things about her or her dead husband and avoid her.
*She's been shunned for taking an unpopular view in the close-knit rural community
*No vehicle
*A fear of spending money
*All of her friends have moved in town
*All of her friends are dead or bedfast
*She has developed a fear of leaving the house.
*Some young people love to torment her and so she stays home to avoid them
*She's opinionated and difficult to get along with
*She neglected her friends, and it has come back to haunt her
*Her memory isn't what it used to be--people come but she can't remember they've been there.
*Her children don't want her to sell the house and move to town because it will diminish their inheritance
*She had an argument with her children when their father died and won't speak to them.
*Her children have convinced a court that they needed to handle her financial affairs and they hoard the money. She can't get her car fixed, can't afford to buy gas for it, can barely afford food.
*She believes that Edward appears to her in the house and she's afraid she'll miss him if she leaves.
*None of her clothing fits anymore--she's lost a lot of weight and is too embarrassed to be seen in public.

ding ding

For the past month I've been driving my son to work at 5:45 every morning. Until the time changed it had begun to get light as I was coming home at 6:05/6:10, but it wasn't always like that. And now we've been plunged back into the world of black streets and yellow/orange streetlights.

The birds are in fact early--they trill and call through the darkness that is still and hushed and waiting. I'm not often truly awake till I step out the kitchen door and I'm reminded that the atmosphere everywhere doesn't match my house. Weather is going on out here--either a gusty wind from the south that threatens to rip the door right out of my hand and send me flying off the step, or like this morning a chillier nip in the morning air than we've been having. Yesterday I walked out in shirt sleeves and was cold all morning. Today I did remember my cordouroy jacket and was able to enjoy the rain-touched chill that brushed my face and woke me up fully.

We pull away into the night and our neighborhood is quieter than it will be all day. There are very few cars on the road and several of them I recognize. We have become part of a world that has just begun it's daytime routine, and so far little or nothing has messed it up. Yet. We generally pull away from the curb at our house at 5:50, and if we make the corner of Midwest Blvd. and Reno by 5:55 there will generally be a city bus sitting at the bus stop. I've discovered that the driver often runs into the McDonalds there on the corner to pick up breakfast.

We slide past the post office where there is a car or two with parking lights on in the lot. Past the park and the ball diamonds and the empty-but-not-for-long pool. With a right on Harroz Lane we're in the home stretch, usually about 5:57 where we pass the mechanic who is waiting for the bus that trails us. I pull up in front of the fire hydrant just because I can and my son gathers his things and thanks me for driving him (every morning without fail. He's a good kid.) and then I'm off. I generally take a different way out of the parking lot every morning just to shake the routine up a bit (rabble rouser that I am). I might drop off a library book on the way home, or fight the urge to stop for cappuccino or even sneak a donut while I have a few delicious minutes all to myself. The bus pulls in to Harroz Lane to pick up the mechanic as I make my exit and depending on what I do, I may see him stopped in front of Target before I leave that busier section of town and get into the residential area and home.

During the day when I'm out and about there are too many people to recognize routine like this. It's a rather rhythmic way to start the day and it gets my writer mind flowing. I might miss it when he gets his drivers license. I guess I'll know if/when I'm up before dawn for no apparent reason.

I'm feeling it and I'm afraid. This isn't a character talking; it's really me.

March was an unbelievably full month for me. My sister was married mid-month. I had a bout with an upper respiratory infection that laid me pretty low. And our congregation built a new place of worship in the last week of the month, having preceded the all-out building effort of that week with several months of preliminaries so that the groundwork was set and everything was ready to go up. It was a glorious, meaningful, spiritual month, and I would not trade the experience for a dozen easy, everything-falls-into-place months. The experiences are too rich to put into words yet, but they are there, simmering, and ready to go into written record when they are digested and the time is right.

The result however is that I'm not at all ready for April. I don't want to set goals. I don't want to submit manuscripts. I'm tired of writing practice but too tired to get busy on a project. I have my April guidelines, April contest, April assignment sheets sitting there in my goals folder and all of them seem too wieldy to handle. Like a sword that is heavy and my arm is weak. I need a light and easy sword that will cut through the weariness.

But if I'm weary, should I be resting? But if I rest will it break the flow. I've written more this year in the past three months than I did all of last year, and I've loved it. I've met interesting people that may someday become characters. I've had the joy of playing with words and ideas. Even today I sat in the parking lot waiting for my dear son to finish his day's work, and I picked up a pen and wrote from the prompt for today--seeing how many of the details of the picture I could remember. I need to notice detail more. I can train myself to do that.

In the end I wasn't very happy with what I wrote. I'm too busy telling. But it's what came first and it bled out of experience, and someday I may go back and re-read it, and a story will bloom from it like Black Olives did from notes I jotted after making a salad. We just don't know when things will gel.

And so here I am waffling. Should the goals be normal? Light? I don't want to lose the edge I've developed, but I don't want to be so stringent with my routine that I burn out and lose the enjoyment in what I've gained. Where is the balance?

Okay everyone out there. Don't LET ME STOP! :)

But for tonight, this is it. Rest well.

Use as many of the words in the following list in your freewrite today as you can. Any form of the word will do. Read through them first in case you have to grab a dictionary before you start.

begin, river, tunnel, slick, stomach, mark, stairway, machine, city, generator, draggle: To make dirty by dragging over ground, mud, dirt, etc. verb intr. 1. To become dirty by being dragged. 2. To trail or follow. [Frequentative of drag.]

We were far away from the city and it's machines, and I watched my father's hands that had stayed busy for so many years coaxing the generators to continue pumping electrical current through a deteriorating metropolis. He seemed to be doing well at the moment. The fresh air agreed with him. His color was good, and his eyes were sparkling. Thankfully, it was his turn to ride, but he wouldn't stay on the wagon for his entire turn. A wheel would wobble or a hinge would snap and he'd be down to do what he could to fix things so that we could continue at full speed to the river. Our goal was to cross it during the last of the daylight hours.

We had been through the worst of it. At the beginning I had worried about wearing man's pants. Got over that. Then I worried about the hems of the legs draggling as we scurried like rats through the city's underground tunnels. Had to get over that when we were forced to crawl on our stomachs over slick rock through an opening that had almost been obliterated during the last quake.

I worried so about him then. I had to fight to bring him along. He was just over the age limit that our leader wanted to include in our escape team, but my conscience wouldn't let me leave without him. My mother had passed away just a few months ago, and he relied on me so fully still that leaving would have killed him. So I begged and pleaded. He was in good health. Slender and strong. Not to mention his skill. My father had always been able to do anything with nothing. Whether it was fixing or creating or innovating, his mind was as clear and steady as any man in his prime. Already he had proven well worth making the exception.

However, the city would miss him rather quickly. His services were crucial. When they missed him, would they miss the rest of us? How long would it be before they decided to search? Or to pursue?

In the end he had requested a two-week leave of absence that was unexpectedly granted and that appeared to be a sign not only to me, but to the others in charge of making the final decision. In two weeks when he didn't show up, we would be well into the mountains, if not beyond them, and virtually impossible to find.

Still he was older. Had there been a way to siphon my strength into him, I would have gladly done it. I had plenty to share, thanks to the adrenaline pumped through the escape and the eagerness to start a new life. But that was impossible, and there was no escaping the fact that his energy gave out before his will did. His hip disliked climbing stairways, much less rugged terrain, and my heart caught in my throat whenever he seemed to draggle at the back of the group, struggling to hide the limp that set in whenever he had had enough walking. I was so relieved when we had acquired the one wagon when we were well outside the city, deep in the countryside where we were able to slow our pace somewhat. Not to mention that it was well stocked with provisions to keep us fed and dry as we continued on.

There was one other besides Dad that had teetered on the edge of acceptance into the plan--Trelease Cinders, five months along with child. Her husband Bernard was a ringleader of our group, and had grown increasingly concerned for his family as our plans were delayed by natural havoc in the city--the quake and then the continuous rains that had filled the underground tunnels that constituted our escape route. As each month passed she grew heavier, and naturally slower. I knew her personally and how she had continued walking and doing all she could to remain limber and healthy enough to make the journey. Had we had to wait another month, they would have had to stay behind. Not only would she have been too slow, but what if the baby came before we reached our destination?

She too had held up well during the early stages of the run, but tired long before Dad and had so much at stake. She and her husband --a ringleader of our group--wanted desperately for their child to know something besides a life of slavery and poverty. So it was Trelease and my father shared the buckboard of the wagon at the present time, but there would come a time when others would want a turn. I prayed that something would keep my father pinned to the seat until it was really time for him to leave it. He needed to rest as he could before we hit the mountains. We would be traveling all night to reach them.

dinkum (DING-kuhm), also dinky-di, fair dinkum, adjective

True; honest; genuine.

extramundane (ek-struh-mun-DAYN) adjective

Beyond the physical world.

wowser (WOU-zuhr) noun

A person regarded as excessively puritanical; a killjoy.

septentrion (sep-TEN-tree-on) noun

The north.

Well I was searching through words and prompts and what-not looking for something to write today because I'm resisting. Didn't like the prompt--and I can say that because it's my own--and couldn't find a word that set me off. But I did find several (above) that didn't sound like they should mean what they did. :) I'm feeling obtuse today I guess.

Dinkum doesn't sound like anything true, honest or genuine. It sounds like someone who tinkers or a small spot of something. Or the little sugary confections that are sprinkled on Pop-Tarts or ice cream cones. Something true or honest or genuine deserve a majestic, big name because it's so rare today, difficult to find. Instead I have dinkum diamond earrings and it really is a good thing!

Extramundane--going simply on the way it sounds--should describe my life. Especially during tax season. Or when the house is falling apart as it generally does and only I seem to have the "extramundane" (my definition) qualities that it takes to piece it back together. Everyone else in the family doesn't see it or doesn't have time. Or thinks it's "extramundane" (again my definition) and their lives should be spend on more exciting pursuits. According to the true definition--out of the physical world--they would rather be doing something extramundane. Like flying without wings or booking a passage for space travel.

And then we come to wowser. Wowsers--I guess this "version" of the word is why the definition threw me. Was that expression (wowsers) made popular through Inspector Gadget cartoons? Or was it in the original gadget spy sitcom and why can't I remember the name of it? I can see the guy--Maxwell Smart! that was him--and his good-looking assistant (blank again). Did he say wowsers? And did he know that a wowser was really a killjoy, someone excessively puritanical? Did he know it was a noun? That when it was pluralized he'd wind up with a group of puritanical killjoys who probably wouldn't be a whole lot of help solving a mystery and probaby would never approve of all those gadgets he employed?

Septentrion is north? No not north, but The North. Is this another name for the Arctic? Or Greenland? Maybe Iceland. Good thing it's not the direction. Go three blocks and turn septentrion. Hmmm. I can't remember "north" when I hear it. Oh, the army is coming from Septentrion. Which country is that? It's a secret, but it's north!

Well I'm done for today. This wasn't much. Some days are like that.