All Cooped Up!

As you may remember, a while back I posted that we were getting ready to get chickens.  If you missed it, or need a refresher, just click HERE !

At any rate, we spent last weekend finishing up the chicken coop.  Foolishly, I thought the hardest part was done: making the base and the basic structure of the coop.  I had completely underestimated the aggravation involved in attaching doors that weren't square to a structure that wasn't square.

I also completely underestimated a reciprocating saw's usefulness as a dental tool.

Specifically, it can rattle the fillings right out of your teeth.  Good to know.

Also, when attempting to use a reciprocating saw to cut plywood that's balanced on two milk crates, if you have not braced it appropriately it will bounce all over, cut the crap out of everything EXCEPT what you intended to cut, and threaten to remove several of your hubby's digits.  Which he won't appreciate, by the way.

We've got a few little housekeeping details we need to take care of (like nesting boxes, for one), but we are basically ready for chickens!  Between now and the end of March we're going to finish up those little details, and then...we're buying chickens!

Here it is - the ugliest chicken coop in North Carolina!

Persephone's Hope

This post is a continuation of Persephone's Tears - you may want to pop back and read that story first!

Anise climbed out of the shaft carefully, pulling the heavy skid up behind her.  The water beginning to flow in through the opening helped the skid glide more easily over the loose rock.  If she’d taken any longer in the shaft, she would have been forced to leave it behind.

Once she was clear of the rocky coast, the skid moved freely on the ever-present red sand that covered most of Persephone.  She made a wide circle to approach the mining camp from the south.  It wasn’t likely that any of her fellow miners would be interested in the natural shafts that dotted the coast, but there was no sense in taking that chance.

Anise could feel the small packet she’d placed those three precious Tears in pressing against the underside of her breast as she walked.  She needed to get into town, to give the stones directly to the government assayer. The assayer was a construct—a robot designed to look enough like a human to make people comfortable dealing with it.  It was incapable of cheating or giving short value to a find, and the credit was uploaded to the government network immediately.  Her indenture would be paid the moment the transaction was completed.

“Hey girlie!  You gonna skip getting’ paid today?”  The rough voice sounded in her ear, and Anise had to fight to keep her hand from checking the hidden packet.

“Not a chance, Piggen.  I figure I got enough for a bowl of soup,” she replied calmly, turning toward the assayer’s tent.  The man lounging inside would have tested the four-hundred pound weight limit on her skid.  Bathing facilities were in short supply out in the mining camps, but Piggen was filthy even by their standards.

“Ha!  We’ll see about that!”  His thick hands made quick work of the haul in the skid, sorting the contents by relative value according to the current market.

Anise struggled to hold her tongue when she saw him place several stones of moderate value in the lower value bins. Unlike the miners, Piggen wasn’t there to work off a debt.  Rumor had it he’d been given a life sentence (for what wasn’t known), and he was serving it out on Persephone.  One thing was certain, if he wasn’t getting off Persephone, neither was anyone else.  Not one miner in their camp had ever managed to earn enough to go home on Piggen’s assays.

When he handed her just enough credits to buy a ration bar—the cheapest food option offered to the miners, and despised for its awful taste—the look in his eye dared her to complain about the short value he’d given her find.

“Thanks, Piggen!” she chirped with false cheer, and had the pleasure of seeing a flash of confusion cross his flushed face.

“No doubt about it,” she thought as she dragged the skid to her tiny tent at the edge of camp.  “Gotta find a way into town if I want to go home.”

This post is in response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write about an Anti-Hero.  I liked Anise when I wrote about her the first time, and I decided that she really needed an Anti-Hero.  Thanks for stopping in to read, and please leave a comment below!

Devil With A Blue Dress

Picasso - Girl In The Mirror

One of my best friends was getting married, and I needed a dress, so I bundled up my baby boy and went down to K-Mart to find one.

I'd been pregnant for approximately forever, and I still had the extra roundness from that in addition to the excess weight I typically carried.  My body felt alien...squishy and lumpy and ugly.  I loved being pregnant, and I loved being a mother, but I hated my body with a passion.

I browsed through the racks of dresses with the baby snoozing quietly in the car seat.  I wanted something pretty.  I wanted something flattering.

I wanted something that would make me skinny.

A blue dress with tiny white flowers caught my eye and I carried it and the car seat into the dressing room. The dress was pretty...it had tiny white buttons that ran down the front, and the back laced up to tighten the bodice without emphasizing the pooch my tummy still sported.  I was sold.

Getting dressed for the wedding, I felt good about what I saw in the mirror for the first time in a very long time.  Hubby and I loaded the ourselves and the baby into the car and headed over to meet a couple we were friends with.  They knew where the church was, and we didn't, so we were going to follow them.

I stayed in the car while hubby went to the door to let them know we were ready to go.  The baby was talking cheerfully in the back seat, bubbling and giggling about the toy swinging from the arm of his car seat.  I fussed with the buttons on the dress a little, pleased with that little detail.

Then the door to the house opened, and the couple came out.  The hubby, looking dashing in a gray suit, and the wife—the skinny wife with the perfect body—in my dress.  Only sixteen sizes smaller, and without the leftover baby pooch and big ass and flabby arms and flat hair and washed out complexion and bitten nails.

It was like a horrible before and after shot for one of those makeover shows...and I was the "before."

When we got to the church, I couldn’t make myself go into the sanctuary.  I couldn’t stand the thought of being compared to perfection when I was so far from it.

I missed the wedding.





This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write about a time when we compared ourselves unfavorably with someone else.  This is, unfortunately, something I know a lot about.  If it were an Olympic sport, I'm pretty sure I'd take the gold...or at least the silver.

I loved that blue dress, right up until I saw it on someone who was a size 2.  I never wore it again.  It didn't matter how many times I told myself it was stupid, every time I tried to put it on I got an image of that size 2 and compared it to my size 18 and took it right back off again. 

Stage Fright & Other Fun Things

Play Information: Click Here!

I haven't written much these last few weeks, but I have a really good excuse - I'm in a play with our community theater group, and our opening night is TOMORROW.  Not that I'm panicking or anything.

OK, that was a lie.  I'm totally panicking.

As with most things that freak me out, there are a couple of layers to this panic.  Kind of like a wobbly layer cake, waiting to crumble.

The first layer is simple - stage fright.  In rehearsal I am confident, but I know from my experience with the handbell choir at my church that when it comes time to do anything in front of an audience my knees turn to Jell-O.  Actual Jell-O.  Sweartagod.  And just like that jiggly wiggly stuff, the shaking works its way from my knees through the rest of me.

I'm the first one out: I walk out all by myself onto an empty stage and speak the first lines of the show.  I know I won't walk out and just stand there like an idiot...but what if I'm so nervous that my voice works itself up to chipmunk range and shakes uncontrollably?  That'll be fun.

The second layer is my weight.  Ironically, the play centers around five friends who decide to take control of their lives after losing their good friend, Vonda Joyce.  Vonda Joyce had spent years telling them that "as soon as she lost the weight" she was going to...well, fill in whatever.  Unfortunately, she dies before she does any of it.

I'm terribly self-conscious about my weight (even though I'm slowly but surely losing it), and there are plenty of things I choose not to do because of it, but I'm trying to change that.  Of course, that means walking out on stage with that little voice in my head yammering away about how awful I look.  I'm trying to beat that voice down, but it's like playing Whack-a-Mole - smack it down over here, and it pops up over there.

At any rate, this little adventure is the reason I haven't been writing.  My brain is so wrapped up in the play (and my lines, some of which I would kill to re-write), that I haven't been able to sustain a thought long enough to write even the shortest of short stories.  We've got three shows this weekend, and three shows next weekend, and then I'm done and I'll be back to writing.

Promise!



The play is called "Hallelujah Girls" and I'm playing Carlene Hart Waldrip Mukewater Travis - a woman who's been widowed three times and given up on any kind of romantic life.  If you are going to be in the Asheboro, NC area this weekend or next, come on by!  The other ladies (and the two men) in the play are AWESOME, and it promises to be a fun night!

Changes

For Original, Click Picture

Rebecca struggled to lift the baby’s car seat out of her two-door car.  Little Emily was only three months old, and light as a little pink feather, but when she was in that damned car seat the entire package felt like it weighed at least a hundred pounds.

The handle of the car seat finally popped past the door frame and the edge of the plastic seat jerked forward and slammed into Rebecca’s hip.

“Shit!” she hissed, then glanced down at Emily.  She’d have slapped a hand over her mouth for good measure, but they were both full with the car seat, diaper bag, and a hastily wrapped gift.  The baby slept on, peacefully unaware of her mother’s slip of the tongue.

Rebecca juggled everything up the walk to the Fisher’s front door and then stopped, trying to figure out how she was going to ring the doorbell.  Before she could decide what to put down, the door swung open and she was confronted with Brenda Fisher's ever-smiling face.

“Oh my, you’re really loaded down aren’t you?  Here, let me take that package for you.” 

Rebecca followed her through the house to the party that was already in full swing.  She worked her way around the edge of the room, horribly aware that her body had not exactly rushed to drop the weight she’d put on during her pregnancy.

To make things worse, she hadn’t had the time to put on any makeup and it had been months since she’d had her hair cut.  A glance down at her nails revealed cuticles that would probably make her manicurist cry, several broken nails, and a few that showed signs of being bitten.  Her gaze was drawn to a spot on her blouse that she hadn’t noticed, and since none of her pre-pregnancy slacks fit, she was wearing her fat jeans.

Looking around at the other women, she remembered last time she’d been to one of Brenda’s Summer Saturday parties, nearly a year ago.  She’d worn lemon-colored slacks in a size four, and a silk blouse in stripes of green, yellow, and orange.  She’d been to the salon and her hair and nails were done to perfection.  She’d fit in…before.  Now she was the ugly duckling in a pond of swans.

A small sound from the car seat pulled her eyes from the flock of women to Emily, beginning to stir.  Rebecca reached down to unbuckle the baby and lift her free of the seat. 

With the ease of repetition, she cradled the baby and tossed a light blanket over her shoulder.  Reaching under the blanket, she rearranged her shirt and bra, settling Emily against her breast.  As the baby latched on and Rebecca felt the comforting pull of the nursing baby, she smiled.

Who cares if my stomach’s not flat and my hair is.  Look what I can do! Rebecca thought.

She settled back on the couch and prepared to enjoy the party with her baby girl.





This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge - we had to pick four numbers, and those numbers told us what we were writing about.  My numbers gave me a new mother for my character, a party for my setting, summer for the time, and reminiscing about how things change for the subject - with a 500 word limit.

As always, please let me know what you think of this short story in the comments, and thanks for taking the time to read! 

Say What?

“Ms. G, can Tre come sit in the office with you a while?”

I looked up the long hallway toward the four-year-old classroom.  The daycare I worked at had about two hundred kids, and this sort of request wasn’t at all unusual.  I walked back to the room to retrieve Tre.

“So what’s up with Tre?” I asked.

“He fell out,” the teacher stated, frowning down at the little boy.

I gasped.  “He fell out of his chair?  Is he OK?  Did he bump his head?”

The teacher and the child stared at me with matching expressions of confusion.

“Nooo,” she said slowly, giving me a look that clearly indicated she’s thinking I’m the one who’s hit their head.  “He fell out.”

The extra emphasis wasn’t helping.  I still had no idea what had actually happened, and I was too embarrassed to ask again, so I just nodded.

“Anyway,” she continued, “his mama done told him if he falls out again, she gonna tear up his little behind.  So I’m gonna give him a chance to settle.”

“OK, Tre, come on up with me.”  I led the way up to the office at the front of the building, and sat the little boy in the chair next to my desk.

A few minutes later, the center’s director came in and stopped at my desk.

“What’s Tre done?”

I kept my eyes on the report I was working on.  “Don’t know.  His teacher sent him up for a little bit of quiet time.”

“OK, but why?”

I could feel a blush rising up my neck to my cheeks.  “She said he fell out.”

My director looked from me to Tre, who shrugged and tried to look innocent, and then back to me.

“You don’t know what that means, do you,” she stated, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to one side.

I shook my head, and my blush intensified when she started laughing.

“It means he had a tantrum,” she said, taking little Tre by the hand.  “I’ll just take him back to his teacher for you.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and put my head in my hands when I clearly heard the both of them laughing as they walked down the hall.  

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write something on colloquialisms and dialects.  This was not the last time I had to have a phrase explained to me, and it was not the last time my confusion gave my co-workers a great deal of entertainment.  I can't think of any phrases like that when I was growing up in Wyoming, but after we moved to North Carolina, there were times when I felt like I was trying to learn a new language that sounded like English, but didn't always mean what I thought it meant.

Walls

Liz pushed the door open and stepped into the cool silence.  The walk, meant to give her some time to regroup and relax, had lasted longer than she’d meant it to.

The house felt empty and still.  A quick glance through the kitchen window confirmed that Sam’s car was gone.  She knew his suitcase would be gone too, and the empty space in their closet mirrored the void in her heart.

“I love you, Liz, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep trying to prove it!”  His words replayed in her head until they squeezed the air out of her lungs.

“I know.  I’m sorry,” she whispered the words she wished she’d said, hoping they’d chase away the memory of his frustration, but her stifling fear remained.

She loved him…more than she’d ever thought possible.  But it wasn’t enough.  Her walls were just too high, too thick, to deeply rooted to be torn down.

Liz knew the distance those walls created hurt him.  They’d served a purpose, once—something she’d never thought she’d be able to share with anyone, until him.  He’d made her feel safe.

Her fear of losing him, losing the miracle that was his love, would drive him away just like it had this afternoon.  She wondered if this business trip would be the one he decided not to come home from.

She sat on the couch and rubbed her arms, chasing a chill that resisted the warm sunlight dancing through the windows.  Her words and his repeated in her head, each iteration magnifying the misery that squeezed her heart but wouldn’t let tears fall.

It was instinct that had her turning to the stereo, hoping to drown out both their voices.  The yellow sticky note took her by surprise, freezing her hand in midair.

“PUSH PLAY” written in his familiar, blocky hand.

The CD player whirred to life, the first strums of a guitar flowed through the room, and Jimmy Buffett’s husky voice followed.

From the bottom of my heart

Off the coast of Carolina

After one or two false starts

I believe we found our stride

And the walls that won’t come down

We can decorate or climb

Or find some way to get around

‘Cause I’m still on your side

Joy and relief soothed the ache in her heart.  The walls weren’t gone, but if he wasn’t giving up, neither was she.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write about how a character reacts to music.  Jimmy Buffett is one of my all-time favorite artists.  I have very diverse musical tastes, but Jimmy is the only person or group I've ever waited in line to see live.  His music - the lyrics, harmony, everything - can inspire an incredible range of emotions.  And, he's just plain fun.   As always, please let me know what you think of this short story in the comments!