The loss of innocence....

This post is a themed writing project challenge taken from Jenny Matlock from off on my tangent.

Jenny says we can use UP to 100 words (not including the prompt) to tell our story. It can be fact or fiction. The only restriction is: The prompt must be left intact WHICH MEANS you cannot split up the words in the prompt.


Below is my story, the prompt is in BOLD italics…


I remember eating lunch watching my mother sob as she sat on the couch in front of the TV.

In the early afternoon November 22, 1963 mothers, people everywhere doing the same thing.

A bright young soul taken from us, his leaving so unexpected it cast a glaring spotlight on the vulnerability of an entire nation.

My mother held us tight that cold November day.

I stood frozen in front of the flickering images on my TV , a sunny September 11, 2001 knowing I was witnessing something far worse.

My first thought was gathering my loved ones to keep them safe and protected.

But I knew that wasn’t possible.

Not anymore.

"Walk toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you"

My Golden Girls....

Friday morning usually finds me hanging out with my Old Dolls, a group of women who live in a private senior home close to me.

I go there to do their hair.

So for five years..

for five whole years,

this is my Friday morning....

"HI MISS JOSIE " I say, greeting my first client.

"Oh hi" she stares at me.

"Are you here for me?" she asks.

"YEAH, I'M HERE TO PULL ALL YOUR TEETH" I say "I'M THE DENTIST".

"HUH???...what's wrong with my teeth?" she asks.

"NO, I'M THE HAIRDRESSER, REMEMBER ME, I COME EVERY WEEK TO MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL". I remind her.

"Oh yeah, where do you want me?"

I begin waving my hands like they do to guide an airplane into the hanger.

She follows my lead, pushing her walker.

"Where do we go? she asks.

"IN HERE, FOLLOW ME, BACK THIS WAY, FOLLOW ME, FOLLOW ME" I wave her toward the shampoo area.

She makes her way into the small room and up onto the big black shampoo chair.

"Do you want my glasses?" she asks, every week for five years.

'YUP" I say.

"My hearing aids?" she asks.

"YUP" I say, holding out my hand.

"My sweater?" she asks.

I let her fumble with the buttons of her sweater, and take it off herself.

She is, after all, a grown up.

"Anything else?" she asks, sounding a bit tired of giving up her things.

"IF YOU'RE NICE, I'LL LET YOU KEEP YOUR UNDERWEAR" I tease.

And every week for five years she laughs at this same corny joke.

"This paid for?" she asks before I lay her back to shampoo her pretty white hair.

"YEAH, YOUR SON PAID FOR IT" I answer.

"HE'S A GOOD SON" I add.

"Yeah" she says " a good son."

"This paid for" she asks while we wait for the water to heat up.

"YEAH, DON, YOUR SON, PAID FOR IT" I answer.

"My son paid for this?" she asks.

"YEAH, DONNIE PAID, YOU'VE GOT A GOOD SON" I answer.

"Yeah" she says "a good son".

"I don't have any money" she says.

"YOU DON'T NEED ANY MONEY" I say.

"This is paid for?" she asks.

YEAH, ALL PAID FOR. YOUR SON PAID ME TO DO YOUR HAIR...BUT HE USED YOUR MONEY" I say (as her family instructed me to).

"He's a good son" she says.

I agree and for a moment she forgets that she forgets that her hairdo is paid for.

"That's enough" she says when I scrub her head a bit too long.

She was an independent woman who did her own hair, she remembers that she doesn't like it being done, but she doesn't remember that she used to do it.

'LOOK HOW NICE YOUR HAIR LOOKS" I say, spinning her around to look in the mirror when I've finished combing it out.

"Yeah, that's nice" she says " but I would like it better if it wasn't so white".

"YOUR HAIR IS BEAUTIFUL" I say "BUT IT WOULD BE EVEN BETTER IF IT WASN'T SO WHITE".

"You took the words right out of my mouth" she says, laughing.

"SEE YOU NEXT WEEK" I say.

"Thank you" she says, then turns back to ask...

"Will I see you next week?"

"YES, I'LL SEE YOU NEXT WEEK. STAY OUTTA TROUBLE, OKAY!"

"That won't be hard to do" she says as she maneuvers her bulky walker around the corner.

Suddenly she stops...

"What do I owe you?" she asks.

"YOU ALREADY PAID ME, IN KISSES...DON'T YOU REMEMBER?" I yell to her.

"Oh good" she says and walks toward the dining room for lunch.

Miss Josie and the rest of the gang enjoying a snack.

My journey is filled with delightful surprises....

I'm a major quote lover..I've lots of saved Documents filled with favorite quotes.

And notebook upon notebook littered with them too.

Quotes I want to remember, quotes I want to use when I write, when I speak, quirky quotes, sentimental quotes, quotes about quotes.

Today when I sat down to (I'm just gonna say it) pee... I saw this in my pants,

Life is a journey, not a destination....one of my favorite quotes.

Why though is it in the zipper part of my pants?

I guess the manufacturers of these pants thought us such a busy society that they could get to us when we are at our least distracted???

I really appreciate the thoughtfulness..and in the future, if I purchase more pants made from the same place I may not have to remember to grab reading material when I use the latrine.

And soon we may look forward to common sense warnings...

"Wipe front to back"

For those going commando... "Be sure to tuck before you zip"..

And my very favorite common sense warning of all..."Pads go adhesive side down".

I may have to copyright this idea.

Two sides to every story....

I spent last night in the ER with my grown up baby girl. She started on a regiment to help cure the bacterial overgrowth they have determined is in her belly making her sick.

Yesterday was her first day on the pills and after each dose she felt like crap.

She is taking 18 pills in all per day.

Too much medicine for a little 4ft 11inch,  90 pound spitfire.

Last night she took her last dose of the day, sometime around 1:30 am she came to tell me that she was having difficulty breathing.

After some back and forth, she saying she didn't want to go to the ER and me saying "maybe we should"...we layed on the couch and I rubbed her tiny feet and tried to calm her.

I wondered if it were her asthma, and asked her to take a couple of puffs of her inhaler.

I didn't want to scare her, but breathing issues can get serious fast...

When the inhaler didn't appear to be helping, she agreed that we should go to the ER.

Once we got to the hospital they got her into triage pretty quickly.

More proof that breathing issues are not to be played with.

She ended up needing some Benadryl and a steroid shot.

While we waited, there was moaning coming from the next small room.

Those ER privacy curtains do nothing but hide bare butts, everything else is fair game in the ER.

The moaning was starting to worry both of us.

It was loud and painful just to hear.

We couldn't understand why no one was responding, why no one went rushing in when she yelled "I can't breath...why doesn't anyone believe me?"

The moaning continued.

Suddenly I remembered Daddio and I once being at the ER and being placed next to a woman who was also moaning and hollering and threatening and whatever else she could do to gather the attention of the doctors and nurses.

Daddio, who was being seen for a respiratory ailment insisted that the nurses take care of the woman first.

The nurse poo-poo'd Daddio, telling him that the woman was a prescription drug addict who came to the ER at least once a month.

The nurse didn't care at all that she was blasting this woman's business, and frankly, I was glad that she did, cause it was a concern that her cries were going unanswered, and that explanation helped us to understand why.

While we waited for Googie's meds we overheard one of the doctors say to another "how are we ever gonna know if she is ever in any real pain?"...

Ahhhh, now I understood.

The nurse came and gave Goog a shot and the Benadryl, then left us alone to allow the drugs to do their job.

Soon Googie's breathing was up to par and she was released.

On the way out of the ER I said what I usually say "Praise you Lord, thank you".

Later at home, I gave my kid the once over, a big kiss and a hug and went to my own bed to get a bit of sleep before I had to get up and ready to leave for work.

Laying there, unable to sleep, I played our ER visit over and over in my head, thinking how thankful I was for the blessings of medicine.

I thought too of the mother of the moaner we heard in the ER and how they are not so much a blessing for her child.

I was so sad, I almost cried.

A gifted wordsmith....?

Saturday Centus time, a themed writing meme. The challenge is to write 100 words to add to the prompt started by Jenny Matlock from off on my tangent.


The writing prompt is in (bold) itallics...

“It was a dark and stormy night"…Brilliant…What a perfect start to her first literary masterpiece.
 
Pouting, darling Julia used her eraser to gently, but thoroughly scratch off the beginning sentence.

“Your incipit must be original” Mrs. Langford instructed just as Julia had written hers.

Julia was smart, but was she really smart enough to be taking up space at Davidson Academy?

Time would tell.

“Originality will set you apart” Langford continued. “None of that it was a dark and stormy night business”.

Julia squeezed her brain for words….”It was a light and sunshiny day” she scribbled, her flowing cursive flawless.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease...

or possibly a Stalking Charge?

You ever really want something?

Really, really want something?

And think that with a little hard work, your wish could be granted?

I want to build the loveables a new kitchen.

And I need help.

And the help I've decided I need is Oprah Winfrey's good friend Nate Berkus...(you know the very nice, clean cut guy that is always surprising people on her show with makeovers of their small spaces???)

I need Nate Berkus' help.

And I want it so damn bad, I can taste it.

Now, how to get Nate Berkus to decide to pick us as a pet project?

That my friends just may be the million dollar question.

How do we con him into choosing us out of all the people that ask for his help???

I asked a gifted young woman photographer I work with to take a couple of pictures our pathetically dreary little kitchen.

Old cinderblock walls painted a dreadful pale yellow. Cupboards that are chipped and many missing doors. Poor inefficient plumbing that has caused sink drain water to backup onto the floor and loosen the homely tiles that cover it.

That damn kitchen is ugly.

Butt ugly.

But oooooh, if those walls could talk.

They would tell such tales.

Stories of laughter, and learning,

and an almost daily realization that we are all not as bad as we sometimes may seem.

The little kitchen doesn't reflect what really goes on in there.

In my mind's eye I see brightly colored walls, and pretty cupboards.

I see inspirational art work, whispering messages of hope.

I see a counter big enough for us all to gather round.

And a floor that looks like we've mopped it after we have in fact mopped it.

A couple of friends of mine located Oprah's address.

And soon I will have picture proof of our need.

I will have one of the artistic loveables decorate an envelope...one that screams " PICK ME TO READ" from the pile.

I plan to start the letter...

Dear Oprah and Nate,

They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one....

Wadda ya think?

PS...if anyone reading this post is Oprah or Nate's cousin, lifelong pal, old classmate, FB friend, next door neighbor...could you please pass along the link to this little blog?

...Merci xoxo

When Trouble came knockin.....

When Googie first began dating Trouble there were all kinds of things I found "wrong" with him.

Things like no tattoos and a perfectly planned out future.

I also thought him oddly well groomed and really too polite even for his own good.

Ooooookay... so the truth is that when Trouble first came knockin there was really nothing wrong with him, except for the fact that Googie was craaaaaazy nuts about him.

And that Googie was nuts about him and wanted to spend all her time with him really was the problem.

I was jelly-azz.

To the core.

So once we established the ground rules, the most important one being..."Googie loves me best and always will" things started looking up.

All kidding aside....

we've been blessed beyond belief since Trouble came knockin.

It's apparent every single day.

He stops at Krogers and buys the things I've forgotten.

He offers to run the vacuum when the Boss is on his way home and I haven't done it yet.

And he is the only one that will eat pretty much every thing that I place in front of him...and he even usually asks for seconds.

Most importantly he treats my daughter like a Queen.

On Monday Googie had to have a horrible medical test.

She choked down some poison syrup and then suffered the after effects when the syrup had to makes its way out of her tiny body.

I think it took 25 tries to get it all out.

Trouble was by her side, well, not literally....but he was there every time she exited the little girl's room.

He rubbed her back and feet (for hours) and heated up (numerous times) the bag of corn feed she uses as a heating pad to help her poor belly.

I think I called Trouble from work a total of about 10 times Monday to check on Goog.

"We're in trouble Trouble when she goes into labor you know" I told him, looking forward to a future pregnancy.

I was referring to me driving him nuts.

He never acts like I drive him nuts.

Which earns him major brownie points.

In the fridge the day after the test I saw a beautiful long stemmed red rose, it had a stem of baby's breath with it and was wrapped in pretty flowered paper.

I asked Googie about it on the phone "Trouble brought it for me. He also got me a candy bar and some Gatorade, for after the test".

Daddio and our men children like Trouble too.... his treatment of their "girls" (that includes me) makes it impossible not to like him.

When Trouble first came knockin and they would leave for a date I would give him a little warning "Ummm, not a hair had better be harmed".

Meaning...you had better take damn good care of my girl.

Now when they leave I just look at him and say one word "Trouble....."

and he responds " not a hair".

Who would have thought when Trouble came knockin that it would be a good thing???

Googie is one lucky girl that's for sure.

And so are Daddio and I.

We love Trouble and are very very blessed that out of all the families that he could have joined it was ours he picked.

(PS to Trouble who reads each and every blog post I write and even lets me know when I get a new follower... "You are a true true blessing to our family and we appreciate you more than words can say, I hope you know that.")

(PSS I'm slowly getting used to sharing Googie, and it's truly truly not as bad as I thought it would be).

xoxo