Home Again

Home again and a mammoth laundry had to be done first so we would have clothes to wear. The grass was not so tall that mowing couldn’t wait. The refrigerator was empty but a little milk and relying on the freezer would keep me out of the grocery store for a few days.

Coming into town, a town known for the vibrant hues of maples trees in the autumn, we could not help but notice the absence of color. The summer had been so hot and dry that the few trees that were beginning to change showed on russet where scarlet usually waved. Some leaves are crispy dry and will have no color this year. A few yellows tinge the edges of trees, but we were ever more thankful of seeing the pulsating and flamboyant shades of the West’s autumn.

The air here is like the mountains now. The mornings are a tad chilly and the sun warms up the afternoons. It is gorgeous weather really and so like the perfect days on our trip. The mornings are darker now though. The dawn is dark enough I can’t go out to read on the deck until later in the day. I hate that. But the pictures and memories of the West will wrap around me for a while, extending the pleasures and taking me into the coming winter days.

Way West, Day Seven

We are wearing down earlier now. In the mornings we start the day a little later, go a few less miles. It is okay. This trip was intended to be slow and full of leisure. So far, our travel has been true to plan.


This morning we got up and hung around Chama. We have ridden the steam train here a few years ago. It was a wonderful ride, my favorite steam ride yet. The main part of town is maybe three blocks. We found a sweet train shirt for Baby Simon, had a glass of iced tea, and headed up the road.

I had marked Dulce as a next stop. Dulce is the headquarters of the Jicarilla Apache nation. Their reservation is somewhat different than the pueblos south of them. A Plains Indian, they did not use the high rise rock and adobe homes. Those on this reservation live in traditional homes now; their schools are beautiful. A sharp young Apache mother invited me to apply for a teaching position with the tribal schools. She had reared three children as a single mom and had two in college and one in sixth grade. She was proud of her mothering and rightly so!

This woman guided us to a 17 mile gravel road to Pagosa Springs. We took it and the land held its own beauty but was rough. The Apache reservation is one more example of how an indigenous people was pushed on to worthless land to live. About halfway through the back road, we pulled over and ate a picnic lunch. There was not one sound…silence was beautiful.

Then we pulled in to Pagosa where we were so tired we registered at something akin to the infamous Bates Motel! Knowing the room was not going to be very comfortable, we took a dash into town. We visited a couple of antique stores, a wonderful independent book store (and no, I could not leave without a book in hand!), visited a park with a stream running through it, and then stopped at a local joint for an icy Coors and onion rings. Neither of us wanted a meal. Then back to the rough but cheap room for sleep as both were tired.

Day Eight

This morning I made tea in the room, but I longed for my own deck. Like old people, we were thinking of home and its familiar comforts! But we are packed up and headed East now. Oh, what beautiful day! The aspens were beginning to turn and the cottonwoods were bright saffron! We climbed to the top of the Continental Divide where we found the Lobo Trail. It went up three miles to a meadowy mountain top where we once took our children. The drive is narrow and rough. We found a spotted Paint with a halter on...strange. We tried to feed her an apple, but she wouldn’t have it. Finally, she let us pass. Once at the mountain top, we ate an early lunch and just soaked up the sun. Coming down, we talked to a hunter who was saddling the Paint that had wandered away from his hunting camp. The hunter had taken a five point elk and had seen a bear with her cub in doing so.

A leisurely drive on into Alamosa, Colorado where we rest for the night…and finally have some internet connection!

Day Nine

It was up and to the train station early this morning. We rode the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad out of Alamosa to LaVeta.

It was chilly at first, but warmed up some on the 3 ½ hour ride. At two hours the train stopped and unloaded part of the passengers at an outdoor theater for a concert of local musicians. The rest of us rode on to La Veta, a tiny berg about two blocks long. There were a few gift shops, a potter, and a local library that has earned a five star rating for what such a tiny library can do. Also on Main Street was the Friends of the Library book store where everything was volunteered and all proceeds went to this nice library. DH and I bought a few! The only other thing I bought in the town was 3 lbs. of Anasazi beans.

Then it was another 3 ½ hour ride back to Alamosa. But we had singing cowboys this time. What fun! They played guitars and fiddles all the way back down the mountains.

Day Ten

We slept really well last night due to the wind and sun on the train ride. We took a slow start to the day knowing that we were heading home. Now the road meandered past Colorado ranches, pastures filled with well-fed horses. The colors took another slight change, adding more russet and sienna foliage to the yellows and oranges. How I wish I could gather up the color and hand it to my friends. Gorgeous stuff!

We rolled through towns that were mere crossroads. Some were pristine and neat, others rugged and almost ghost town in nature. We stopped at a few antique stores where there were more branding irons, calf weaners and spurs among the dishes and collectibles than at home. DH found a small tea set for a cheap price. I did not need it, although it was pretty. DH thought it a too much a bargain to walk away from, and read to me is was English. When he read bone china too, I was sold. We brought it home.

By early afternoon, we turned and faced the broad expanse of plains vistas again. Nothing sadder than seeing the jagged beauty of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in your rearview mirror! Reluctantly I blew a kiss to the Spanish Peaks, and I took a turn at driving. I was like a saddle horse who knows he is heading for a bag of oats in the barn. The ride was over and I could only focus on home. I drove seven more hours. Adding that to DH’s own six, the thirteen hours put us way past the smelly feed lots of Dodge City. Tomorrow we will see Wichita again.

This has been a lovely trip, a reward for the ugly summer we put in here in Missouri. Driving on the highway today we counted up what we had done this summer for fun. Our list held next to nothing…no fishing, swimming, picnicking, biking, travel, and only ONE tea on the deck. So despite the horrors of Summer 2011, we have had some nice experiences in the West before heading into winter!

Way West, Day Six

A slow rising this morning, but DH wanted to see the Chapel of Loretto again. We had seen it years ago, and he never believed the staircase in the chapel was a miracle. But he wanted to check it out again as he is amazed by the carpenter’s craftsmanship. Oh, it is a beautiful place!

Since we had another good parking place, I took another turn at the vendors under the portal. I was glad I looked again because I found several nice things with vendors different from the day before.

About noon, we got some crackers and a drink to eat on the road north. We took our time, took some side roads again, and visited Abiqui where Georgia O’Keefe painted. We got tied up with a local storyteller who was a dandy. His stories will be shared another day. He told us how to drive the mile path that O’Keefe walked while she lived in the village. It was interesting to see.

The rest of the afternoon was moseying through O’Keefe country. We did not make it very far, coming into Chama about 4:30. But we had had nothing to eat other than crackers so we were quite hungry! We stopped at a small grocery where we found cooked chops, potato salad, bread, and paper plates we took to a motel room for our lunch/supper.

Day Seven
 We are wearing down earlier now. In the mornings we start the day a little later, go a few less miles. It is okay. This trip was intended to be slow and full of leisure. So far, our travel has been true to plan.


This morning we got up and hung around Chama. We have ridden the steam train here a few years ago. It was a wonderful ride, my favorite steam ride yet. The main part of town is maybe three blocks. We found a sweet train shirt for Baby Simon, had a glass of iced tea, and headed up the road.

I had marked Dulce as a next stop. Dulce is the headquarters of the Jicarilla Apache nation. Their reservation is somewhat different than the pueblos south of them. A Plains Indian, they did not use the high rise rock and adobe homes. Those on this reservation live in traditional homes now; their schools are beautiful. A sharp young Apache mother invited me to apply for a teaching position with the tribal schools. She had reared three children as a single mom and had two in college and one in sixth grade. She was proud of her mothering and rightly so!

This woman guided us to a 17 mile gravel road to Pagosa Springs. We took it and the land held its own beauty but was rough. The Apache reservation is one more example of how an indigenous people was pushed on to worthless land to live. About halfway through the back road, we pulled over and ate a picnic lunch. There was not one sound…silence was beautiful.

Then we pulled in to Pagosa where we were so tired we registered at something akin to the infamous Bates Motel! Knowing the room was not going to be very comfortable, we took a dash into town. We visited a couple of antique stores, a wonderful independent book store (and no, I could not leave without a book in hand!), visited a park with a stream running through it, and then stopped at a local joint for an icy Coors and onion rings. Neither of us wanted a meal. Then back to the rough but cheap room for sleep as both were tired.

Way West, Day Five

 We got up early so we could find decent parking near the Plaza. Stopped in some early shops and then checked out the Indian jewelry spread on blankets under the portal at the Palace of Governors. The local First People compete in a lottery for the right to sell here, and they must be juried worthy of participating first.

Then DH sat in the Plaza square while I burned my feet running store to store, mostly just to see. Everything was too expensive for my blood. I found the proverbial tourist tee shirt; in the dress shops I saw a tee top for $465!!! It stayed right there too. A knitted stocking cap was $150.

For lunch our favorite local place on the square was closed for remodeling. So someone on a park bench directed us to The Shed, local food for nearly 50 years. It was good. DH had his with no chile of course. I had mine served Christmas, that is a little red and a little green. Both chile sauces had a nice bite.

After lunch we were getting tired but drove down Canyon Road. We passed on going into the galleries and wound our way through Santa Fe’s crooked streets to our motel for some reading and resting. Later after a sandwich in our room, we went out to check out the Cowgirl Bar and Grill. The guide book said it was a good place to people watch in Santa Fe.

This was true. Since we had no desire for a full meal, we sat at the community tables with a nightcap. There we were entertained beyond belief by all local fellows. One fellow was a wee bit in his cups already, but he was interesting. He was a great great- descendent of a man who traveled with Coronado and who later received Spanish land grants. The family had raised sheep until the sheep/cattle wars when they changed to cattle. Daniel said it was safer for them! There were other great stories from the others as well, but when Daniel decided he wanted to take us home with him, we decided we better return to the motel for the rest of the night.

Way West, Day Three

We left Guymon, Oklahoma and headed west. The expanse of the land was amazing, sky blue beyond belief. We could drive the highway for a hundred miles and only meet maybe seven cars. The sage gave way to spiny cactus and pointy yuccas. The earth showed shades of cinnamon, sand, and rose. Gradually pronghorns appeared. They are shy creatures and skittish. I was lucky to get some good snaps today.

One stretch of road turned to gravel for seventeen miles, but it was some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. The grass was irrigated and green as a cucumber. It was open range and we spotted a small group of gorgeous buffalo.

At Folsom, a village with a population of 85, we stopped at the local museum. It was a rugged little place, but trying to preserve and present the local history. Their claim to fame is the Folsom Man and Folsom arrow point are named after this village.

Ten miles down the road the National Park service hosts visits to the Capulin Volcano, a now dead volcano. A two mile drive to the top of the cone is beautiful and amazing. One can see other cone shaped volcanoes active during the same period as Capulin. It is highly possible that Folsom Man walked and hunted the area and heard the eruptions of Capulin.

On down the road, through the Cimarron canyon where we found a mule deer in the road, and a night’s stop at Eagle’s Nest, New Mexico for some sleep.

Day Four

It was 33 degrees when we got up in Eagle’s Nest. Burr! We headed out early looking for wildlife. Gradually the temp rose to the 60s and hit 81 before the day was done. We traveled in an area we had been in before, but we took all new roads, back roads. They were beautiful and sometimes challenging. One narrow back road brought us right to an alpaca farm outside Mora. Those animals were darling romping across the fields. Mora has a weaving studio, and the alpaca hair must be handy!

We then took a twisty road through a forested mountainous region that feed into the High Road to Taos. Part of that High Road we had been on before and recognized the turn into Chimayo. We went to see the Chimayo church which we had seen before. Nearby we bought some fresh dried chilies from Hatch, New Mexico. Chimayo had been so dry all summer with water shortage, the farmers were denied the right to plant chile fields. Then we had a lovely lunch at El Rancho de Chimayo. The day was perfect for dining on the patio where we ate regional foods.

Then we continued working towards Santa Fe. This trip we took the time to visit several pueblos, Santa Clara being the first. We passed on San Indelfonso due to a fee just to drive in and more fees for camera, etc. It looked like the rest so we passed. We drove through Tesuque pueblo and on into Santa Fe for the night.

Way West, Day Two

Day Two ...Driving was lovely today as we moved across Kansas. The fields of row crops and corn stalks the color of tea stain waiting for harvesting gave way to sage and desert looking soil. I caught a glimpse of a pheasant which is hard to do these days. I wished we could have gone back to watch him a while.


In Mead we drove by a one-time hide out of the Dalton Gang. We were too early for a tour. Supposedly the outlaws used an underground path from the house to the barn to escape the law.

In Liberal we looked up the air museum again. Enjoyed it all over one more time and missed seeing a B17 by three weeks. The big item of interest here is a B 25 Mitchell,,,also a plane like the one President Geo. H. Bush flew and crashed into the WWII Pacific.

Way West, Day One

Day 1---It seemed a bit unfair to have survived the horrid heat and draining drought only to face sheets of rain water once we finally decided to go somewhere, but that was the scenario when we drove out, when we headed West. The temp dropped as well down into the chilly 50s, and buckets of rain dimmed our view. We pushed on, held on to optimism but three hours later near Beaumont we decided to cancel the Cow Town visit. Then only fifteen minutes later we watched temps rise ten degrees as we drove under diminishing clouds. We went back to plan A.

We drove straight to Cow Town noticing how dead downtown Wichita was on a Saturday. It was sad because any city should have some bustle on the weekends. The museum areas did have some business though, and we had company at Cow Town. This reconstructed western town of the late 1800s has been open for over 40 years, but we had avoided it, thinking might be a commercial touristy place. But being in an Old West mood, it was my pick to visit. It was not disappointing.

A small entrance fee let you into the grounds where you could walk not only among but into the buildings, some brought in from other Kansas areas. The streets and board sidewalks looked authentic. It was wonderful to walk about and even go down to a typical farm of the era at the edge of town. While visitors could buy a soda or bags of snacks in the saloon, nothing else was for sale there. Even the horse and wagon rides were free. I could have ridden a lot longer. The horses were Percherons, bred for the Kansas plains and draft work. Their feet were huge and their shoulders thick, but they stood shorter than regular Percherons. The driver said these horses were used for pulling in the area up until the 1950’s.

Then it was time to go to our son’s and see the grand dog. It has been nearly five months since we had seen either. Storm is a lover and welcomed us royally!

Steam, It's a Man Thing

The Steam-O-Rama is a fifty year old celebration of steam engines in Republic, Missouri. We have always wanted to go, and this year thought we would stop after lab work in Springfield. Usually the weather is a might warm, still summer-like. Today it was chilly and damp, then the wind came up a bit and made the day feel and look like winter. The weather is still a character here who messes with our plans!

But DH and I snatched the time to make a quick round of the grounds of the Steam Show today anyway. Oh, the old time machinery was magnificent. The puffs of steam, the toots of steam whistles took us back to an earlier time. There were also booths of flea market type tables, old trucks, and a huge collection of tractors like John Deere, Case, and International. We saw how steam powered municipal water pumps in the 1920s, watched sugar cane readied for steam powered sorghum making, and even a model steam train.

1915 Case steam engine.

                                                1919 steam engine

There were lots of old gents around remembering how farming used to be. Stories were exchanged, tall tales told, sales made, and the smell of hot dogs, popcorn, and funnel cakes wafted over the grounds giving the place a carnival atmosphere. Despite the cold, DH and I got some popcorn and sat a short spell watching the people milling about the grounds. What was the most striking was how everyone was enjoying themselves. The men who loved their own machines were delighted to show and tell others about them. It felt so good to see people enjoying a simple hobby; their love of old time tractors and engines radiated among the sporadic and billowing puffs of lily white steam!

                        Cleaning cane to make sorghum.

                   One booth with important things for sale...a man's dream shopping!

Short List of Fall Writing Ops

The weather continues to flip flop faster than an old lady's house slippers! Yesterday it was 100, and now the air this morning has slipped to 64 degrees! It is very autumnal out there, damp with a ring of coming winter. Yikes.

Busy making plans to see our children, working around some duties and hoping for some fun on the way. I would hope some writing inspirations would creep in along the way. Below are a few writing ops that have come my way. Maybe they will entice you to submit!


************
Mason's Road is an online literary journal sponsored by Fairfield University's MFA in Creative Writing. Run by the graduate students in the program, each issue focuses on a writing craft theme. Contributions are accepted in Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Art, and Audio.


As a literary journal with an educational twist, Mason’s Road aims to focus each issue on a particular element of the writing craft. For our upcoming issue, we are looking for submissions that engage us in considering the opportunities and complexities of “image”— whether you’re building a two or three dimensional picture in our mind’s eye, developing an abstract metaphor, or creating your own interpretation only limited by your imagination.

The reading period for Issue #4 is August 15 – November 15, 2011.
Submissions Link:http://masonsroad.com/submissions/
**************
Esquire and Aspen Writers' Foundation Present THE SHORT SHORT FICTION CONTEST

http://www.esquire.com/fiction/short-short-fiction-contest-2011

Win a trip to New York to study with Colum McCann, and a scholarship to the Aspen Summer Words Fiction Workshop. If you can beat Colum McCann (in 78 words).
http://www.esquire.com/promotions/contestandsweeps/fiction-contest

It is closer to poetry than it is to fiction. Everything matters. Just a simple paragraph break can have enormous narrative consequences. This is not a Twitter game. This is the search for a white star of language.
*********************
Call for submissions: Artichoke Haircut

Artichoke Haircut is currently accepting submissions for its Winter 2012 issue.
We accept fiction, poetry, memoir (though very little, so make it good), and artwork.

Submissions will remain open thru Dec.19th.
Guidelines for submission to our magazine are fairly open. Send up to three poems of any length, or one prose piece not to exceed 3,000 words. We do not have style guidelines per say, but keep in mind we are a magazine with tendencies more toward newer and experimental modes of seeing. That being said, we only really have one rule of thumb: If it's good it goes in, if it is not it doesn't.

Send all submissions to (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail), making sure to include contact info in the body of the email (please no cover letters, bios will be requested upon acceptance), and the type of submission (e.g. fiction, poetry, art, nonfiction) in the subject.
You may find more information at: www.artichokehaircut.com

Free Writing and More

I thought retirement was to be calm, quiet….fishing from a gently rocking boat. Lately, I have been busier than a coon in a corn crib. Yesterday’s calendar held five items. I canceled one; another was canceled for me the night before which made the day a little more manageable. Last night was a tight schedule, but all worked out well when I got to attend both the Writers’ Guild meeting and a Distinguished Writer series at PSU.



Two people visited our guild last night which was fantastic and energizing for all. I hope they return, and one has said she definitely will. Our guild always does an in-house Halloween story contest in October. So with that in mind, I introduced writers to free writing with autumn or Halloween in mind. Last month I talked about free writing and most had not heard of it. The two that had felt it was not beneficial to them. I forged on this month anyway.


Almost any writing book will suggest beginning with free writing, journaling, note-taking, memo-making, or listing. Julia Cameron, who has written extensively on creativity and writing, advises Morning Pages. That is, starting every day with two or three pages of just your thoughts and priming the pump of your mind so to speak, letting creative ideas appear. Monica Wood, author of The Pocket Muse of Endless Inspiration, recommends changing prompt words every 45 seconds in free writing. Elizabeth Lyon in her Manuscript Makeover proposes Riff Writing, yet another form of free writing applied to your own written material. Last night I used a composite of all suggestions for a guild activity.


Free Writing is a timed writing exercise where writers jot down everything that comes into the mind, whatever it is. No punctuation, no spelling worries, no lifting the pen for any reason. If the mind is blocked, just write the word Blocked until something else comes. Last night we did a six minute free writing. I prompted with a new word every 45 seconds. We started with thinking about autumn, hoping to generate ideas for next month’s contest stories. Several members were quite enthused for writing at home when the exercise was finished.


Then DH and I raced 40 miles to PSU so we could hear Thomas Fox Averill read from his new book rode. Averill is a prolific writer and a professor at Washburn in northern Kansas. His newest book, one his agent called his best work yet, was inspired by hearing the old ballad "Tennessee Stud". He loves the song and knows it by heart, sang it to his children while they were growing up. He began to research the song, to travel the states the hunted man took in escaping his lover’s family, and the novel grew. Averill read some wonderful passages from this book last night. I shut my eyes and enjoyed being read to by this bearded teacher who happens to play the bagpipes for fun.


Averill said although his agent and publisher both said the book was wonderful, they could not sell it in the present market. He nearly gave up when he tried University of New Mexico Press, who took accepted it right away. The book has some settings in New Mexico, but the whole story touched the editor who also likes ballads, was a lover of music, particularly "Tennessee Stud".


Averill also impressed me when he told his audience he had about given up the battle of writing to earn money. Instead he just writes for the love of the experience and what wordsmithing satisfaction he gets personally. I bought a copy of his book and expect it to be as good throughout as the passages he read aloud. The setting and story definitely have a western flavor, the tale rich with both outlaws and a romance just like the old ballad.


If you are a writer, do you practice Free Writing?

A Different Writing Woe!

Today is a new day. I am awake early after a night filled with busy dreams. The weather has been lovely this week. The cool air and dazzling blue skies filled with gauzy cirrus clouds act as a balm for bodies, minds, and souls that have been burned to a crisp this summer. Now a gentle rain to refresh the earth would be nice, but it is nowhere to be seen here at the moment.



While the weather has been lovely, activity here has been challenging. The Storm Country project rattles on. Now the chosen writers are posted on the web site. About 300 entries had to be whittled down to the range of 70 pieces. I am glad I was only a first reader, that other and more experienced readers followed to make decisions. Too many good pieces, poems and stories, had to be discarded, like prized possessions left out of covered wagons on trails West. Storm Country was headed for publication and something had to be abandoned.


Now notices had to go out to those writers. I found than sending a rejection notice was harder that getting one, especially if that writer’s work had special appeal, a clever line or two, or revealed an underlying pathos that rung a heart. But there just wasn’t room for every writer! So the painful process of rejection had to be done.


After hours of sending notices, my mail program threw a fit. My computer is new and everything should have been working smoothly, but problems arose. The mail jammed, things were erased, the program shut down. I was so tired I thought it was me. Just as I was ready to stop for the day, emails started coming back saying their note was blank or worse, they had someone else’s mail. Add frustration to tiredness. I stopped and ran a virus check and while no virus, Webroot found some ugly things to be removed.


Not every writer took the rejection news well or graciously. At the end of the day yesterday, I returned a call to a writer who had left messages all day on my machine. Locked away in my office with the odious rejections most of the day, I knew the writer wanted news of her own writing’s status. She had called numerous times during this project. I had to tell her that her own work was not used. She got disgusted and hung up on me. Ah, if writing is hard, editing/publishing isn’t easy either! I have a new respect now for those people on the other side of the desk.


All hours were not murky and trying though yesterday. DH and I left for a couple of hours to ride with friends to a local orchard. Oh, the ride was nice with the fresh autumn air and brilliant skies. Labor Day has always marked the opening of apple season here in southwestern Missouri, and it was a season where we took kids and dogs for a ride to fetch apples, pumpkins and autumn things. Yesterday the first apples were Galas and Jonathans. There were still a few peaches left too. We bought a new kind of peach, China Pearl, a lovely white flesh peach that is extraordinarily sweet.

After loading up with fruit, we all went in for a nice lunch at Bootleggers which is housed in a restored bank building. The vault is used for their microbrewery. Many other features of the old bank are still in use as a cashier’s station, bar area, and diners eat in various rooms of the bank. Tin ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and original woodwork are distinctive building features of another time.


But now it is today, the morning lightens…time to brew a pot of tea and tackle whatever this day holds. I hope that includes a working computer!

Labor Day Weekend, 2011

Missouri weather knows nothing but extremes. This morning was quite chilly for a while…our deck said 60 after nearly 100 yesterday. It is wild here, but the cool is a fitting relief.

All summer this gerbera daisy made it through the feverish heat and parching dryness with nothing but green foliage, nary a bud. So imagine my surprise when this one lovely flower appeared on Labor Day weekend, saying goodbye to summer is my guess.


The begonias and Mexican petunias are still thriving while ferns look a little wan. One lantana is left for hummers and butterflies, but all else is gone. Occasional small pumpkins appear at the farmers’ market, another sign that summer exits.


Labor Day always meant the return to school for me those many years ago. It was exciting seeing farm friends again, wearing new penny loafers, plaid school dresses, and carrying a new zippered notebook. (Oh, how uncool today!) The weekend opened up the season for football games, sweatshirts, and I could look forward to my birthday in October.

I don’t remember white pumpkins when I was a kid, but I certainly love them now. The first tiny pumpkins this year are white ones. They were four for a dollar on Saturday, and though I can’t make a pie with them, I had to have a couple to sit about for the season.


Apples are coming on and a friend has asked me to ride to the orchard with her this week. When our children were small, we stayed off the busy highways on Labor Day, but sometimes we took boys and dog for a short ride to the Missouri orchards. While I will love the ride with friends this year, I will miss both tots and dog.

Keeping with the tradition of sticking close to home on this holiday, DH and I savor our deck, under umbrella heat yesterday and autumn cool today, for reading. The fruity teas of summer changed to malty black and a cranberry one this morning. Last night was popcorn and a re-watching of Dances with Wolves. It has been so long since we had seen the movie that it was fresh again, the scenery dazzling and the story heart-rending.

Saturday means Centus Day, and Jenny tossed out one that sounded hard to me. No great inspirations today, only one idea that formed. It is below. 100 words were hard today with  "What kind of pizza is this?" presented for a prompt. My character found out there was more to his pizza than meets the eye! For full rules and more links to Centus to read, go to http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2011/09/saturday-centus-what-kind-of.html. I hope everyone has a good Labor Day weekend ahead!

                                                  Black Olives
Sebastian looked at his plate speckled with black orbs and then lifted his face to stare across the table at his wife.


“What kind of pizza is this?”


“Pepperoni with double black olives.”


“You know I hate black olives,”


“So, pick them off,” she said, chewing eagerly on her own slice.


What had happened to Maura, his biddable and submissive wife, the woman that made his life proceed smoothly? She used to do everything for him and suddenly she’d become fractious about everything he asked of her. His days were no longer comfortable, to his liking.


The olives ridiculed him; he knew his marriage was over.

Book Blurb/Transformations

Last (HOT) Friday in August! So it is Book Blurb day and 150 words to use. For complete rules see Lisa's blog at:http://www.writinginthebuff.net. She gave us an interesting picture this week for our writing prompt. See below:

                                              

                                   Tranformations
Geisel never once thought about being a nun. Too much obedience required, even though she was a compliant girl, a submissive woman. Now she paused midlife with everything she once knew gone- through death, abandonment, or change. She passed the convent and wondered how those women were doing inside? Was their marriage to Jesus more lasting; was God more reliable than beings she knew?



She’d been a dutiful daughter, a biddable wife, and a devoted mother. She had done it all. Now she wondered why? She ended up alone and empty anyway.


She passed Holy Name every morning on her way to work. Then one afternoon, without realizing she’d made the turn, Geisel parked beneath bowing archways. She turned off the ignition switch and stepped across the chat.


What would Geisel Channing find inside of this stone building? Comfort? Guidance? Love maybe? Answers would surprise this open-minded, searching woman.