Janet Reid is having another flash fiction contest, to win a copy of Donna Everhart's The Education of Dixie Dupree.
Per our Supreme Hostess, the rules:
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
dixie
eleven
lies
home
mom
So this is why I am up at this ungodly hour. I've been writing ...
"Eleven replies!"
Mom was frantic about the wedding. Cakes, invitations. She wasn't joyous, it was just her job to do, her attention to get, her show, her stress.
How had this become about her?
It became my way to prove her wrong. We’d have more than a pot to pee in.
But we couldn't even afford toilet paper. The last week before our first anniversary, dad drove 500 miles to help me move back home. OJ's slow chase on the TV. Rodney and I queerly relaxed. Dad wasn’t.
Hope crushes easy as a Dixie cup. We couldn’t afford those either.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Four
In a couple or three weeks, it will be Penelope's fourth adoptiversary. In some ways, Pen feels like she's been with me always, and yet the memories of our early days never quite fades, either. It was a hard time for both of us, but great ZOT you never saw an animal more eager to please or learn or just be utterly OSUM than my girl.
Goss is like any cat. He came fully assembled - no litter training, and cuddlesome and highly portable. He is gorgeous and hilarious and boyish and sleek (and you never saw nimbleness the like of his; I sure haven't, and I've had four cats now).
Ahh, but my Pen. The Yellow Poobah, the bestest girl-thing, the bestest dog, the bestest yellow thing in the history of ever.
I knew I was going to love this little maniac, but geez how MUCH I do.
Four and a half or a hair more by now, she has become a powerhouse of a magnificent canine. Just the most beautiful dog I've ever owned; even Sid, who was gorgeous, did not have quite the ineffable dingo-ness that is Penelope's magic. Sid was more wolf, more a dog I was familiar with from the word go. She was aristocratic and majestic. Calm.
But Penelope is the ur-puppy, that elemental dogness, a breed little mucked-around-with by mankind, my ghost from an Egyptian stela, my swamp thing, my Carolina dog, my Yaller Dawg, my Dixie Dingo, my unexpected living ancient. There is something both ineffably alien about her and everything else overwhelmingly PRESENT about her. She is the most *here* animal.
Her alacrity is of course legend among her friends. "Sit, you say? I can sit for you. Look, I've sat. Ooh, and I can also 'down' for you. I'm down. See? Down. Ooh, but wait. I can 'belly' too - see this? This is my belly!" It's unbearably endearing and extremely funny, and of course being a boring old PERSON, I try to train her out of this. "That's not sit! Gimme sit. Good girl."
Her alacrity in greeting is also pretty legendary - and, unfortunately, is the main reason others don't tend to love Penelope as I do. Doing the ignore-her-turn-around-till-she-calms-down thing is all very well and good, but the effusiveness of a happy pup is not so easily to be gainsaid every time. Bless her bones.
But age has been working upon her of late. At four, she's hardly old, but she's much more capable of checking her OWN energy now. When even her "grandma" comments, "Penny has been good" - you have to know, that dog has been dadgum near perfect.
Milestones of note: a week or so ago, I ordered pizza, and when I told her to sit and to stay, that dog sat AND she stayed. First time ever. No "A FRIEND HAS COME TO THE DOOR, BEARING FOOD NO LESS, I MUST THANK THIS FRIEND AND PERHAPS GO SOMEWHERE WITH THEM IN THEIR CAR" greetings.
Pen's effusiveness, and I know it, owes a lot to her doggy-mommy's own mental energies, and when someone is coming to the house there's some skein in my awareness that amps up, even if I'm not thinking directly "the dog's going to wig", and even if I behave calmly.
I worry less now. Pen wigs less.
It has not been my habit to compare Pen with Sweet Siddy La generally. (Yes, I've done it here and am now, but in daily life I don't go looking at Penelope and seeing my late dog.) But as she reaches the age Sid was when I adopted her, Penelope reminds me more of Sidney than she ever has before. And Sid was universally LOVED by my friends and family. A great sitting-at-your-feet-and-napping dog.
Which Pen has always been, but she punctuates greetings with *such* emphasis, few people know what she's really like.
If they are fortunate, they'll see.
My dear yellow soul. I'm lucky she said, "ADOPT ME" when I met her.
Awwwwwww. and when I went to find an image of an Adopt Me vest or a pup wearing one, I found this along the way. That very first pic could have been my Poobah on the first day we met. That pure, perfect coat, the white-white teeth, clear eyes, and black-black nose. Even better than a labeled-for-reuse graphic. Please click.
Goss is like any cat. He came fully assembled - no litter training, and cuddlesome and highly portable. He is gorgeous and hilarious and boyish and sleek (and you never saw nimbleness the like of his; I sure haven't, and I've had four cats now).
Ahh, but my Pen. The Yellow Poobah, the bestest girl-thing, the bestest dog, the bestest yellow thing in the history of ever.
I knew I was going to love this little maniac, but geez how MUCH I do.
Four and a half or a hair more by now, she has become a powerhouse of a magnificent canine. Just the most beautiful dog I've ever owned; even Sid, who was gorgeous, did not have quite the ineffable dingo-ness that is Penelope's magic. Sid was more wolf, more a dog I was familiar with from the word go. She was aristocratic and majestic. Calm.
But Penelope is the ur-puppy, that elemental dogness, a breed little mucked-around-with by mankind, my ghost from an Egyptian stela, my swamp thing, my Carolina dog, my Yaller Dawg, my Dixie Dingo, my unexpected living ancient. There is something both ineffably alien about her and everything else overwhelmingly PRESENT about her. She is the most *here* animal.
Her alacrity is of course legend among her friends. "Sit, you say? I can sit for you. Look, I've sat. Ooh, and I can also 'down' for you. I'm down. See? Down. Ooh, but wait. I can 'belly' too - see this? This is my belly!" It's unbearably endearing and extremely funny, and of course being a boring old PERSON, I try to train her out of this. "That's not sit! Gimme sit. Good girl."
Her alacrity in greeting is also pretty legendary - and, unfortunately, is the main reason others don't tend to love Penelope as I do. Doing the ignore-her-turn-around-till-she-calms-down thing is all very well and good, but the effusiveness of a happy pup is not so easily to be gainsaid every time. Bless her bones.
But age has been working upon her of late. At four, she's hardly old, but she's much more capable of checking her OWN energy now. When even her "grandma" comments, "Penny has been good" - you have to know, that dog has been dadgum near perfect.
Milestones of note: a week or so ago, I ordered pizza, and when I told her to sit and to stay, that dog sat AND she stayed. First time ever. No "A FRIEND HAS COME TO THE DOOR, BEARING FOOD NO LESS, I MUST THANK THIS FRIEND AND PERHAPS GO SOMEWHERE WITH THEM IN THEIR CAR" greetings.
Pen's effusiveness, and I know it, owes a lot to her doggy-mommy's own mental energies, and when someone is coming to the house there's some skein in my awareness that amps up, even if I'm not thinking directly "the dog's going to wig", and even if I behave calmly.
I worry less now. Pen wigs less.
It has not been my habit to compare Pen with Sweet Siddy La generally. (Yes, I've done it here and am now, but in daily life I don't go looking at Penelope and seeing my late dog.) But as she reaches the age Sid was when I adopted her, Penelope reminds me more of Sidney than she ever has before. And Sid was universally LOVED by my friends and family. A great sitting-at-your-feet-and-napping dog.
Which Pen has always been, but she punctuates greetings with *such* emphasis, few people know what she's really like.
If they are fortunate, they'll see.
My dear yellow soul. I'm lucky she said, "ADOPT ME" when I met her.
Awwwwwww. and when I went to find an image of an Adopt Me vest or a pup wearing one, I found this along the way. That very first pic could have been my Poobah on the first day we met. That pure, perfect coat, the white-white teeth, clear eyes, and black-black nose. Even better than a labeled-for-reuse graphic. Please click.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Collection
Here's a link I hope Jeff Sypeck will see, after our conversation about cars not so long ago.
Just in time for Hallowe’en! Culture versus costume arises for someone other than Sexy Indians or Sexy Asians this year … witness the Maui costume from Disney. Because I guess someone thought we needed more diversity in bigotry. At least the character design for Princess Moana doesn’t look as inhumanly thin and malproportioned as other Princesses. One wonders how much she is allowed to speak in her own eponymous film.
Although apparently the word "three" has been transformed to mean something else here, I *will* say that, as a longtime eczema sufferer, I'll try anything ... "We found one particular gene which showed the biggest difference. And what's interesting is that we know this particular gene is involved in three specific diseases: depression, asthma and eczema, and cancer. This is a really striking finding." On the wonders of turmeric. Hey, beats taking drugs.
"Even neolithic art gets fat-shamed" ... The History Blog's piece on the recent Turkish find of a mother goddess figurine. Bonus goddess, from the comments section, a pre-Christian Cybele found in Anatolia.
Finally - this isn't a full blog post's worth of thought, but I have been struck a bunch of times lately by odd moments of synchronicity. Today, I read the article about turmeric above, and less than twenty minutes later when I went for lunch, one of the dishes on order was stewed chickpeas in tomato with cumin and turmeric (and, I suspect, the magic of nutmeg). Extremely good. Not half an hour after I got my lunch, the chef, whom I have NEVER seen on our floor before, just happened to come down the hall. So I got to tell him how good the chickpea dish was. It's interesting how things fall into place together sometimes, isn't it?
Just in time for Hallowe’en! Culture versus costume arises for someone other than Sexy Indians or Sexy Asians this year … witness the Maui costume from Disney. Because I guess someone thought we needed more diversity in bigotry. At least the character design for Princess Moana doesn’t look as inhumanly thin and malproportioned as other Princesses. One wonders how much she is allowed to speak in her own eponymous film.
Although apparently the word "three" has been transformed to mean something else here, I *will* say that, as a longtime eczema sufferer, I'll try anything ... "We found one particular gene which showed the biggest difference. And what's interesting is that we know this particular gene is involved in three specific diseases: depression, asthma and eczema, and cancer. This is a really striking finding." On the wonders of turmeric. Hey, beats taking drugs.
"Even neolithic art gets fat-shamed" ... The History Blog's piece on the recent Turkish find of a mother goddess figurine. Bonus goddess, from the comments section, a pre-Christian Cybele found in Anatolia.
Finally - this isn't a full blog post's worth of thought, but I have been struck a bunch of times lately by odd moments of synchronicity. Today, I read the article about turmeric above, and less than twenty minutes later when I went for lunch, one of the dishes on order was stewed chickpeas in tomato with cumin and turmeric (and, I suspect, the magic of nutmeg). Extremely good. Not half an hour after I got my lunch, the chef, whom I have NEVER seen on our floor before, just happened to come down the hall. So I got to tell him how good the chickpea dish was. It's interesting how things fall into place together sometimes, isn't it?
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