Writing assignments

My dear friend Peter has challenged me to a couple of writing assignments. We both like to write, but actually donning the title of "writer" still doesn't feel right. So for the past couple of weeks, we've been challenging each other to these writing assignments. Sometimes they're the same, sometimes they're slightly different. But I thought I'd share some of them here. 


The first assignment was the 55 fiction. The challenge was to write 3 discrete stories in exactly 55 words. There is a website dedicated to this style of writing. It is almost like haiku, the way you have to write them. Here are my attempts:

Complications

Approximately one and a half hours, the oncologist had said to both he and his wife, unless there were complications. The conversation replayed in his mind:  likely benign, labs have false positives, nothing on imaging. Each phrase evaporated with the minutes ticked off in the waiting room. At hour three, his focus rested on "complications."

On his tab
Freesia scented air filled the honeymoon suite. His absence was most often heralded by the scent of what had been her favorite flower. Apologies and promises yet to be broken were written on the card. Coolly, she set the flowers outside the door. Then she methodically emptied the contents of the minibar down the drain.  

Sleeping Beauty
The baby emerged with the epidural fully numbing her nethers. She feared it numbed her heart also. Should maternal instinct kick in automatically? Instead she felt only fatigue. When the infant was ultimately deposited into her arms, she thought she should kiss it. Like the princess awakened by true love’s kiss, her heart did too.  

The second assignment was to write a 500 fiction. The other stories were shared on my Facebook profile, but this one seemed a little too on point for that website. Here it is:

 500 fiction:  Was It Real?  

The thing about this kind of break up is that there are no obvious signs to anybody else. After all, he’s married. You’re married. You haven’t even seen each other in real life.

But there is Facebook. That modern marvel that has replaced the tension filled 10 year or 20 year high school reunion. Facebook has robbed those events of their great draw:  to see who is in the lead now that we’ve all had time to try our hands at life. Who still looks young? Who got rich? Now, all those questions are answered well before you even step on your tread mill to lose those stubborn 10 pounds to fit in that size 6 dress you bought for the occasion.

So he found you. Initially, it was a sweet surprise to find that the braces were gone from his teeth, his slender lanky arms have filled out and his shoulders are just as broad as you remember. He showered you with compliments. That you’ve grown ever more beautiful. That your husband is a lucky man to have you. That your children are lovely, just like their mother. That teen aged girl you had forgotten about? She swoons again at his charming words. How does he have that effect on you?

You don’t even notice that now you log in to your Facebook account daily when previously you’d go weeks before ever looking. Whether you know it or not, you’re generating content just for him, hoping that he’ll see it and comment. You scan your news feed to see what he’s up to. You stare at his picture to remember the first time you kissed when you were kids. You’ve relived every date and fumbled awkward embrace you shared back then. You think about how you could show him what age and experience has given you.  You’re worked up into a lather well before the reunion date.

Fool.

It wasn’t as if you didn’t see this day coming. His texts became infrequent as the date approached. But still you held out hope that he was truly, “just busy.”

When did you first know? When he wouldn’t tell you where he would be staying? When he didn’t call from the airport? When he didn’t pick up his nametag at the reception? Yes, that was it. You finally knew then. Every imagined fantasy of how you thought the weekend would go, the imagined debauchery with this man gone with that simple act of not picking up his name-tag.

Funny how his 18 year old picture smiles up at you from the table.

You try to enjoy the festivities, reconnect with your old friends. But he was the only one you wanted to see, and now, there is no point.

You do what any rational woman scorned does. You delete his contact information. You block him from your phone. You unfriend him from Facebook. You convince yourself that none of this happened in real life. You resign yourself to forget him. Again.

The most recent challenge was a 750 fiction. Notice the trend? But the challenge this time was to write something from 3 different points of view. Tricky, this one. 

750 fiction:  Taco Sauce 

Gloria:
As far as first jobs go, it is  pretty good. Especially the late shift. There’s hardly anybody here. My friends come in and make fun of my black polo shirt, black slacks and Jack in the Box baseball cap, but that’s okay. I totally rock this look.
Soon I’ll be old enough to work at a *real* restaurant. My older sister works at Red Robin and they make tons of tips. Same stupid shirts, but they get real money. She told me how some nights she’ll serve a “five topper” and make like $12 in tips! Awesome! I wish they’d tip here.
“Gloria, go check on the condiments and napkins,” comes a call from the dickwad manager.
“On it.” Great, Herr Manager noticed that I wasn’t busting my ass for half a second. Why does that guy hate me? It isn’t my fault that he’s old and still working at Jack in the Box. I bet with my sister’s recommendation, I could get into Red Robin when I turn 18. Damn, the taco sauce dispenser is out.
“Hey Gabe, could you grab me a new thing of taco sauce?” I flash him a smile. Gabe is such a sweetheart. He goes to my high school but I’ve never seen him there. Bet he hangs with the emo kids.

Gabe:
I get to work with the hot chick again tonight, I mean Gloria. Right now she’s asking me about the taco sauce. It can’t be out. People don’t use the taco sauce that much.
Frick. This is going to mean more work for me, isn’t it?
At least I get to look at her. Who would have thought that black slacks could hug an ass just right. Damn.
“I just refilled it yesterday. It’s empty? You can’t just push on the pump.” I say. She opens the dispenser and pulls the pump too hard. It splatters taco sauce all over her. She’s laughing.
Oh what I’d do to lick her taco sauce. Heh.
“Gabe! Bring me a towel?”
“Just use the napkins,” I suggest. But if I bring over the towel, would she let me wipe sauce off of her?
“Gabe, fix the dispensers. Gloria, mop the dining room,” the manager yells. He used to be cool but now he’s kind of an a-hole.
“Okay,” I tell him. Wiping sauce off of Gloria’s chest? That’s going in the spank bank.  

Manager:
What do I have to do today? I can swing by the WalMart after work and pick up the baby’s medicine. Have to drop it off at Mom’s house. Maybe sleep a little there. I should be able to visit Monica at the nursing home. I wonder if she’ll know me today. Then off to the job site.
How the hell am I going to keep this up?
I hope that I can keep paying for the nursing home until Monica’s brain wakes up again, the docs say that it can happen. My wife lives in a place that smells like urine and disinfectant. How can that be?
I didn’t know having a baby could almost kill you.
Pay is better at the construction site, but I need the benefits. Glad to know that my BA in Business came in handy for this Jack in the Box swing manager job.
In construction, the men are hard working. You tell them once, the work gets done. Over here, all I see is what I don’t want my little girl to grow up to be -- vapid and work averse.
Feels like all I do is tell Gloria what to do. She thinks her job is to look pretty for the customers. I can’t wait for her shift to be done. I used to be able to tell Gabe, “keep an eye on the front,” and all the jobs would be done. Now that Gloria is here, I have to remind him that he’s not getting paid to watch her ass. I should train her to work the back so that I’d have at least one good worker but I can’t stand the thought of spending more time with her than necessary.
She’s laughing. I’m in hell.
“Gabe, fix the dispensers. Gloria, mop the dining room,” I bark out the orders. They act like kindergartners on teen age hormones.
“Okay,” Gabe walks out there just as Gloria rolls her eyes and goes to get the mop.
Pick up medicine, drop it off at Mom’s, sleep, visit Monica, then work. Rinse, repeat. 

Dear Catholic Bishops & President Obama

I just wanted to let both of you know that I'm Catholic and I use birth control.

Sincerely,

Tess

Catholic Bishops Oppose Obama Birth Control Compromise

Cookies

I don't know why cookies are such a popular fund raiser. What a terrible thing to fling at middle aged parents! I'm trying my best to get ready for my high school reunion this coming fall and I've got to wade through a fund raising mine field.

Shoot, the Girl Scout cookie sale is in March. That shouldn't be too terrible considering that the cookies are all in sealed boxes so I never have to actually be confronted with their delicious yumminess. Cookies are one thing, but cookies with a good cause thereby making you feel like you're doing the world a favor -- well, that's just hard to resist. Both of the girls are taking cookie orders right now so if you're looking for cookies, they can hook you up.

Last fall, my hubby ordered 3 tubs of cookie dough from my friend's kid for his soccer club. It keeps well in the freezer so despite them telling us that the dough was ready, we've avoided having it in our house by never picking it up. It's been a good arrangement. We pay for the cookie dough and we don't have to actually eat it.

But... two things happened at the same time this past week. 1. I was at my friend's house. 2. She remembered about the cookie dough that has been taking up freezer real estate.

Shucks.

My husband had ordered peanut butter, chocolate chip, and snickerdoodles. I'm not really much of a cookie eater. None of this really phased me at all. My hubby's real Achilles' heel is the snickerdoodle. He just can't get enough.

As far as I can tell, it is a sugar cookie with a slight tartness from cream of tartar, and covered in cinnamon before it is baked so you can see the fissures in the surface as the dough spreads from the heat of the oven. Kind of like skin on the aliens from the movie Alien Nation.

When I discovered that a big snow storm was on its way, I decided to cook up the cookies. It would be good to have prepared food on hand for the kids just in case we lose power. It has happened for over a week for us before.

But I decided to stick the snickerdoodle dough in the freezer.

Lil'T couldn't understand my reason at first.

Me:  I don't like us having cookies around much in the first place because I know your daddy might sneak them. He can probably resist the peanut butter and the chocolate chip, but snickerdoodles are his favorite. I don't want it to easily available for him to eat.

Lil'T:  We'll a-course he's gonna sneak them. They are SNEAKerdoodles!

I'm so totally not making this conversation up. My baby girl is hilarious. She made up a joke all on her own.

Genius.

Better living through plastic

When I got my first iPod, my husband suggested that I get a Zagg  to cover it. If you're not familiar with this product, basically it is a plastic scratch resistant skin that you place on it. The advantage of such a product is you don't have a case that adds to the profile of the device making it bulky for your pockets and your purse. The other thing is that a scratched up display or touch screen will simply bug the crap out of me. To the point that I will obsess on that blemish and get irritated every time that I use the device. I know. It is neurotic. What did you expect?

You have to clean the device meticulously with the enclosed lint free cloth. You mist it with water. Then you take the sheathing and carefully, not letting your fingers touch the adhesive, place it on the iPod. You take the enclosed squeegee and push out air and water bubbles. If you do it correctly, you've got a gorgeous application with a surface that keeps your electronics from getting banged up. The neurotic person within me is saved.

It took me hours to wrap my iPod in it's Zagg protective sheathing. The most challenging part was the two concentric circles for the controls. I think part of my brain went up in smoke that day.

Despite that, the results were phenomenal. The iPod still looks brand new despite being obsolete in some ways. It only has 4G of storage so I can only have about half of all the music recorded in the last century stored upon it. Unacceptable.

Anyhow, when we got our new Samsung Droid phones, I went ahead and got the Zagg screen protector for it. This time I really missed that part of my brain that went up in smoke with the iPod installation. I couldn't get it right. I kept having to reposition the thing and by the end, there were all kinds of nasty pock marks in the sheathing. It has been bugging me for the past year. Seriously, I'm a wreck of a person.

Yesterday though, I found a new kiosk in the mall. There was a young man sitting behind the counter saying that if I would like to replace my old pock marked screen protector, he'd give me it since it is a lifetime warranty. He would only charge $5 for installation unless I wanted to do it myself.

Best $5 I had spent all day!

The only distressing thing is that the company would like to see why people are returning the films so he took my used cover and stuck it on a white piece of paper. It was horrifying. It was so brown it was practically black. That I could see the screen of my phone at all is remarkable. And the thought of the microbes making their nest on my smart phone screen conjures up memories of the South Park episode where the sea monkeys became sentient beings in Cartman's room. It is a good thing that no sea men were involved with the maintenance of my phone.

My phone looks brand spanking new. I think it actually works better. No joke! And this kid installed it in less than 10 minutes. 

I can't keep myself from touching it. 

Rodents

My mother is visiting. One of her most quoted quotable was in relation to my pet rats. I told her that we bought them from the pet store and she said, "You *paid* for them?" Did she really think that we went outside, trapped some wild rats, stuck them in a cage and told the kids, "Here's your new pets!"?

This morning when we were talking about the rats and how I still missed them, I told Mom that unfortunately we can't get pet rats anymore. At least, not as long as we have Holly in the family. She asked why.

Me:  Holly is a rat terrier. Rats are her...

Hubby: racial enemy. Holly gets an extra hit die roll against them.

Forcast

My dear friend Susan is encouraging me to join her on a half marathon in May. Things you should know about me, I am not a runner. I am not a jogger. I am barely a walker. But I like the idea of running. I think maybe this could be good for me. At least I feel glad to go for the walk because my dog needs the exercise anyway.

Then I remembered that I live in the Seattle weather zone. By that I mean, we share the exact same climate as Seattle. Famous for its rain, we get it too. Just not the fame. Nor the traffic. But I think I'm veering off course. I'm trying to stay true to my training schedule so this half marathon thing isn't as daunting a goal.

I wasn't totally unprepared.  Despite it being rainy and awful, I put on my running shoes and an allegedly waterproof coat. I even put a coat on the dog. (A note about clothes on the dog:  Holly barely tolerates wearing her collar. She is joyous when we take it off at night. So when I do put a harness on her, she's already sad. But when I reach for her coat she is positively stricken. She'll stand there, stock still, with her ears pinned so far back that they touch in the back of her head and her eyes look at me pleading. They seem to say, "What did I ever do to you? Why do you torment me so?" But it was raining pigs and cows today, so despite her protests, she wore the coat and was much drier for it.)

I had to pull Holly out of the car when we reached our destination. She knew better than me that this was no weather for walking. But out into it we went and she endured. I tried to do that thing that Susan told me to do, walk for 2 minutes then jog for 10 - 30 seconds, rinse, repeat. But Holly stopped me as soon as we got to the grass, quickly did her business and then looked at me with those pleading eyes again. "Did my thing. Let's go home. Can't you see that it is wet out here?"

But against my dog's better judgement, I started out with my walk/jog training regimen. 7 minutes into it, my feet soaked, my pants soaked, my allegedly waterproof jacket turning out to be a passable sponge, my fingers freezing and my job approval ratings from my dog reaching an all time low, I turned around and headed back.

Later that day I managed to go for a more leisurely walk with another friend. At least I got out. But this time I wore waterproof boots, woolen socks, ski pants, ski gloves, a touk, a properly waterproof coat, poly-pro long johns, and carried an umbrella.

I was still cold.

Days like this have me questioning the life choices I've made that led me to live here instead of where I was born:  Hawaii.

I heard a conversation on the radio today that while meant to be funny, kind of turned a knife in my gut. Some woman called in and asked, "Any idea what the weather will be like tomorrow?" The DJ said, "Well, considering that tomorrow will be a day between September and May in Seattle, I'm going to take a stab at it and say that it's going to be rainy."

I know, I moved here with eyes wide open. Who knew I was such an idiot when I was in my twenties?

Dinner

Me:  Today is the Feast of the Holy Family.

Him:  We get to eat the holy family?