NEW~"You're Out Walking"

I'm reading "Do Try To Speak As We Do" (it is so good--I want to own this one) and there is a word game in the book, played among the characters; I immediately thought of our blog.

There are 5 questions. When at least 5 of us have answered these questions, I'll post the interpretive meaning of each question.

1. You're out walking. You come upon a house. Describe the house.
2. Inside, there's a table. There are three objects on the table. What are the objects?
3. Outside you see a bear. What do you do with the bear?
4. You find a cup. Describe the cup.
5. What do you do with the cup?

Can't wait to see what you all write! Chrissy

(image from www.alfeldstein.com)

20 Things minus conscience

1. Call the babysitter from bed on my cellphone at 7:30 and beg her to come over and watch the kids so I could sleep in.
2. (Past item, like wish I would have...) Keep the $1100 I found blowing around the CVS parking lot.
3. Not feel bad about all the music I ask my husband to download.
4. Not mouth "sorry" when I pull out in front of someone.
5. Be as sarcastic as I am in my head OUT LOUD to the annoying moms at my art studio.
6. Just walk away when someone boring starts chatting me up at a social function, or for God's sake, the grocery store. That's not even a function. It's a necessity!
7. Paint a big sign that says THESE PEACE LOVING JERKS KICKED MY SON OUT OF THEIR PEACE LOVING SCHOOL and protest right next to the owners of the Montessori School who protest the war every Monday night in our little town.
8. Oh my God! Get over yourself annoying mom who wants art lessons RIGHT NOW even though the class is FULL!
9. Get my nose pierced.
10. Tell my in-laws off.
11. When I meet a phony, tell them as much.
12. Call an old flame's dad and find out where he is now.
13. Use said info to contact old flame.
14. See old flame.
15. Strike up old flame.
16. Become a chain smoker. Metaphorically. See #15.
17. Relive my glory days of sneaking into concerts and begging beer off cute guys.
18. Admit to my Christian friends that I really like General Hospital and chick lit.
19. Tell someone how I'm really feeling on the days when good, great, fine is so far from the truth.
20. Pretend I'm sound sound asleep when my daughter wakes up at 2am so my husband has to get her. Oh, wait. I already do that! Bad mommy!

KEEP READING!

Well. I've read the "20 Things" lists. And, I must confess that I've actually done a number of the things on Christa's list--now, you figure out which ones! HA! The lists ALL made me LOL!

IDEA: I'm going to add each of you to my links line on my personal blog--I should have done this already, but time...yeah, you know, time. I regularly read my linked blogs, so this will be a sure way for me to get to know everyone better. What do you all think of this idea--adding each other's blog links to the blog we write on most frequently? Personally, I've been "comment poor" lately and this has me planning pity parties with my daily coffee, which it should NOT, but if PMS is present I am not responsible, lol. (nice run-on sentence). I could use the support and maybe some of you could, too. I 'think' I've been dissed by a popular blogger and have lost half of the women who were reading & commenting. But, again, the PMS might be at work in my slight paranoia.

OK---my LIST:
1. Not get out of bed. For as many days as I wish not to get out of bed.
2. Tell the children to feed themselves, all day long.
3. Wear tank tops just to spite my husband, who thinks my arms are fat.
4. Use my preschool teaching salary to fund a Follow-Keith-Urban-all-over-the-country-on-his-next-tour Plan.
5. Skip the dentist visits for the next few years. (actually, that would cost a fortune in the long run--scratch that)
6. Go on the invitation-only Rick Springfield cruise next Feb. All by myself.
7. Work the system to get my second son into the gifted program at school.
8. Write a juicy novel about all of my friends and not disguise them.
9. Stop tithing and use some of the $ to pay the Kindergarten tuition.
10. Compulsively Google my old boyfriend and drive-by his home.
11. Somehow become friends with his wife.
12. Use the savings account to visit LipoDissolve centers and erase the fat arms, rear cellulite.
13. Get pregnant.
14. Stop biting my tongue at singing practice and let it fly right back at---.
15. Blame someone I love for all of my shortcomings.
16. Eat nothing but ice cream.
17. Scout the subdivision on trash day and glean.
18. Visit display homes and totally lead the realtor to believe I had a true intention to buy.
19. Tell my family that I'm leaving for a week to go to a beach resort.
20. Lie on my resume.

TTYS, Chrissy

A Family is a Work of Art

Sorry everybody. I just started a blog (jillypoet.blogspot.com please read!), but I'm still figuring it all out, and since I only have the GOYAW blog and my own, I accidentally posted to you guys instead of my own. Like you care about weddings. Or maybe you do. Could this be a new writing prompt? Anyway, sorry for this!

Weddings are typically a time to put your life in perspective, remember what true love is really about, find that old spark, remember what true love looks like, see how far you've come since your wedding, wait! true love? what?, see old friends and family, wonder if the happy couple is truly in love, and just plain have a good, old, loving time. Truly. So, in light of that, it is small wonder that my son and I sans hubby and baby girl, barrelled (quietly, of course! I am teaching him manners, after all) through the back doors of the church , the church where I got married, in fact, just in time to hear the minister say...I now present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Honey. A bit anticlimatic, sure, but, hey, we made it. And all the relatives thought we were just in back because I was thoughtfully trying to keep the little guy quiet during the ceremony. Of course I told my mother the truth.

The little guy was dually unimpressed with the bride and fascinated with the bride's father's oxygen amchine, the bubbles we got as we walked out and the prospect of cake later. And so, off we went to the reception, by way of picking up hubby who appeared from the depths of my parent's house, hair mussed, sweat pouring down his face, bemoaning the fact that the baby didn't nap and did he really have to wear a shirt and tie? I'm telling you--weddings--the ultimate family get-together.

Which brings me to family. The bride's mother's family all look alike. The groom's mother looked like she must have had him when she was twelve, and my long lost (read: estranged) aunt was there in true Aunt C. form, acting like she hadn't shunned the enite group that was assembled for 7 years. Oh, and my other cousin has a brother 23 months older who he just met 7 years ago. If I was in the market to write fiction, I sure could. In fact, I think any aspiring writer should just drop by a wedding reception, maybe even the ceremony, and chat up a few of the party-goers. The interesting thing is, everyone acted most hospitably. There were no scenes, no drama. It was the unscripted, unspoken undercurrent that intrigues me. Maybe that's why people write at all, to get to the heart of the unspoken, to speak it, so to speak.

It wasn't until later, back at the lake in the paddle boat with my mother that we spoke the unspoken. My mother filled in the backstory of the brother newly revealed. He, too, and his birth, adoption, etc... is the stuff of novels. My cousin M. broke up with her high school boyfriend and moved to Maine. Few (including the guy) knew she was pregnant. She met another man, fell in love, got married, had the baby and though the new guy would have loved the baby as his own, she gave him up for adoption. In retrospect, probably wise, as she was young and unready for a child. However, my 2nd cousin S. was born just 23 months later. M. went on to marry and divorce several times, eventually leaving the area and the family proper. The adopted son, at the prompting of his wife, looked her up, sent her a letter in Texas, and that same week was sent on a business trip to...Texas. Clearly the universe at work.

I write all this not to bore my many readers (ha!), but to illustrate what is so un-illustratable about families. They are not picture perfect. They can not be drawn without erasing, and starting again, and again. They are like abstract art with a little fauvism (wild beasts) and impressionism thrown in. A family is a Jackson Pollack splatter painting with some VanGogh wind swirls running through it in white-washed blue. A Monet waterlily pond, up close a discordant jumble of so many little dots in harmonious colors, built up to render, when seen from afar, a sturdy bridge. And, of course, in true wild beast (Fauves) fashion, a stand of red trees, branches stretching high off the page, roots fading into orange. Thus, the theme for my meandering blog this evening: a family is a work of art.



And just in case you were wondering, after our whirlwind trek to the Adirondacks and back, my nuclear family is sun-kissed, bug bit and happily intact. Truly.

Thanks for reading.

WHO KILLED THIS BLOG???????

Hello??? Does my breath stink??? DO I have a booger on my face?

Most memorable...

Since we have written about our vacations and lists, I thought we could write about our most memorable July 4th memories.

I actually have two, but they are rather short.

The first one happened when I was 9. My dad was stationed in San Franscisco, and we lived in a circle. That is our houses were set up around a well it was actually an oval, but we called it a circle. There was a large island like area in the middle of the road and this is where we played, and the night of the 4th where all the families set out chairs and watched the fireworks. By the Golden Gate bridge is where they set off the fireworks from the water. We could see the bridge clearly from where we were and it was spectacular. The fireworks looked like we could reach out and touch them. And right before the end of the show, it went dark and quiet. We looked toward to bridge and a waterfall of color came down. It was the most beautiful fireworks display I have ever seen.

My other favorite memory is when Dh and I finally lived together in North Carolina. He told me to get dressed up a little, and took me out to a womderful dinner. And then he drove out to an old parking lot pulled out a blanket and we sat on our jeep. Soon the fireworks started. They were not that spectacular, but it was the moment that made it memorable. I loved every minute of it...even it I was wearing a dress!