Travel theme: Sculpture

Don’t miss Ailsa’s latest travel theme post – she has a wonderful assortment of sculptures of all kinds! Meanwhile, here’s my interpretation –

Oh. Wait a minute. I’m not sure you can see the sculpture very clearly in this photo – this poor soul who’s waiting so patiently for a ride is blocking your view. Let’s move a few yards down the street and try again…

That’s better.

Silent Sunday – June 16, 2013

Arrrggghhh, Part 2

So, last Monday raindrops kept falling on my bed. And the roofer was too busy to come fix anything until next Monday (day after tomorrow, now).

(This is going to be one of those good news-bad news jokes, only not very funny.) The good news? Yesterday morning, the roofer turned up, discovered that a large branch from the maple tree next to the house had punched a hole in our roof, heaved the offending branch out of the way, and repaired the hole. That left us with some water stains on the ceiling, but basically life was good.

Until about four o’clock. I was just settling down to read other people’s Friday Fictioneers stories when I heard a loud rumbling thud, or thudding rumble – a very strange noise. What was it? The sound of a chunk of ceiling splattering itself over the floor and the nightstand and half of the bed. Oops.

It took about five hours to clean up the mess of wet wallboard and wet insulation and to patch the hole by covering it with a four by five foot piece of plywood (with help from our local son, who came over and helped his father hold the plywood over their heads while bolting it to the ceiling joists). It’s kind of odd, right now, to walk into the bedroom and smell freshly cut wood.

Well, at least now all we have to do is move everything out of the room and find a drywall contractor who can rebuild the ceiling and parts of the walls (unfallen, but wet). It hasn’t been a good week around here, and we’re still luckier than the tornado victims in Oklahoma and the flood victims in central Europe and the hurricane Sandy victims at the Jersey shore.

Friday Fictioneers: Dedication

Friday! Time for the Attack of the Fictioneers!

We’re mostly harmless, really. We’re only a vast swarm of storytellers set in motion by Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s weekly choice of – usually  strange – photo prompts. All we’ll do to you is expose you to a huge assortment of hundred word tales…and, just possibly, infect you with the irresistible urge to join in.

How do you do that? Easy – go to Rochelle’s site and you can read all the details, and then start typing away. Come, transform yourself into a Fictioneer. It’s fun! (Or, of course, just go to Rochelle’s Linky List to read all the other stories of the week.)

Dedication

Our music teacher was very dedicated, but kind of strange. Ten or fifteen years of teaching kids with three left feet to march, plus battling with the school board over money for new instruments (the band and the football team got into an argument) – it all wore him down.

So when Mr. Dolber showed up at the dress rehearsal for the school musical, the English teacher who was directing didn’t even blink. Three-tone saddle shoes with floppy green bows? Plaid knee britches? Hey, he always looked like that, or worse. “Emory, this piano’s a mess. Can you tune it?” was all she said when he walked in.

Mr. Dolber always did throw himself into his work.

* * *

(With apologies to high school music teachers everywhere! And to Emory Dolbers, if there are any.)

What is so rare…

…as a yesterday in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days…

(“If ever”? Clearly Lowell was a bit cynical about the weather – but yesterday really was a lovely day, not too hot, not too cold, with a light breeze and a glorious deep blue sky and a handful of white clouds and rich green everywhere.)

Wordless Wednesday

Arrrgh.

Mateys, I’m in a bad mood today. A bit piratical, out for revenge, ready to hoist the Jolly Roger and set sail and chase down the weather and make it walk the plank. It deserves it.

We had a whole series of very heavy (as in, “no, you can’t see to the other side of the street right now”) rainstorms yesterday here in the Philadelphia area. A nuisance, but there are worse kinds of weather. No, what fried my Cheetos was going upstairs in the late afternoon and discovering that it was raining inside the bedroom. On the bed. Turns out that, sometime during the recent storms, our roof developed a hole.

Arrgh.

So here’s my pirate photo. Please picture me pacing the poop deck with a pair of pistols. And a cutlass in my teeth, not that my dentist would approve.

(All right, this isn’t a pirate ship. It’s a reconstruction of one of the ships that brought colonists to Jamestown, Virginia, back in the 1600s. But it’s the best I can come up with. Give me a break, okay?)

And yeah. This isn’t just a first world problem, it’s a lucky-part-of-the-first-world problem. There are lots of people in Oklahoma right now who would be glad of a house with a roof that only leaked in one room (or glad of a house with a roof, or glad of a house) and lots of people in Central Europe who would be delighted with water that gurgled away down the storm drains within ten minutes of the end of the storm instead of sticking around rising higher and higher.

But I still have a soggy bed.

Susie Still Strong!

I don’t know how many of you follow Susie Lindau’s blog – but she is just recovering from a bilateral mastectomy. She’s even starting to feel well enough to tell us how things are going – http://susielindau.com/2013/06/08/the-boob-report-iv-coming-out-of-the-haze/.

I wasn’t home to participate in last week’s “Susie Strong” support project, so I’m posting now to wish her a quick and uncomplicated recovery, a successful round of postop treatment, and a long, happy life.

Breast cancer can be beaten – over the past couple of years, two friends of mine have been through this siege and came out the other side triumphant. Meanwhile, all of us other women should be sure to get our routine breast checks, and once again, I want to send Susie my best wishes. ♥ ♥ ♥

Friday Fictioneers: Poor Pitiful Pobble

This is my longest Fictioneers story ever, even after trimming – more than twice as long as the desired hundred words. Ah well. How else could you get the chance to meet a pobble?

Thank you to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting our strange tales!

Poor Pitiful Pobble

The pobble is a fascinating animal, shy and eager to please. Rare, though, very rare – we think. What does it look like? Let me tell you a little story.

A few years back, a pobble wandered into our town. It made one big mistake: it spent the night snuggled up against the wall of a school. Morning came, and with the sunlight, lots of eight-year-olds excited about their trip to the zoo the day before.

“I wish I had a zebra with lots of stripes!” So the pobble changed its hindquarters to be black and white and stripey, because it wanted that child to be happy.

“Who wants a zebra? I want a tiger to chase the zebra.” And the pobble’s middle was covered with orange and black stripes, so it could please the second child.

“Well, I want a giraffe with a great big long neck and I could sit on its head and see right over the top of the school.” Feeling its head shoot high into the air made the pobble dizzy.

“I wish I had an elephant with a long long trunk.” That was too much. The pobble was too shy to trumpet like an elephant, but it couldn’t help letting out a faint unhappy “Bleep”.

Animal control rescued the poor thing, of course. No, you can’t see it. It’s been invisible ever since.

(Belated) Friday Fictioneers – Fairy Tales Come True

I’m just under the wire this week, but here’s my Fictioneers story at last. (Oh yes – what is this Friday Fictioneers business? Well, every Wednesday the talented Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts a picture for inspiration, and anyone who wants to can write a hundred words (or a few less, or a few more), post their story on their own blog, and put a link on Rochelle’s list. Want to try? Come on in – it’s June, and the water’s fine!)

Fairy Tales Come True

“She was so lovely,” the prince sighed over breakfast.

The young king and his wife grinned at each other. True love after a ball – it brought back fond memories. “But who was she, brother?” asked the king.

“That’s the trouble. I don’t know!”

“What did she look like?”

The prince thought. “A rose-colored gown – but she wouldn’t wear that today. And she had such wonderful hair.”

The pink gown dangled from a balcony inaccessibly high above the street. The queen looked pleased. “Ella, you’re up to something,” the king said.

“I know who lives here, that’s all.” She stood in the middle of the street, hands on hips, and stared up at the balcony. “Rapunzel! Come out here!”