Category Archives: writer’s challenge

mama kat, writer's challenge

The Spitting Image of the Bear

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

1.) What’s cooking in YOUR crockpot?
(inspired by Joss from My Irish Twins)

2.) Find your one very favorite picture of Summer and write a poem about it.
(inspired by me)

3.) Pay tribute to a favorite blogger! (And while you’re at it link up and enter to win an adorable pettiskirt. I want it.)
(inspired by Kacey and Fran from Mayhem And Moxie)

4.) When I look in the mirror…
(inspired by Liz from Loving Mom 2 Boys)

5.) The top ten things I’d rather be doing than having sex with David Letterman
(inspired by Happy Hour Sue from Happy Meals & Happy Hour) 

With a hey-nony-nony and a hi-dee-ho, it off to the races we go. (Nothing like a misquote of Jeeves to give a lively start!)

#1 – – Nothing at the moment, but sometime in the near future there will be a pot of bean soup simmering away. Nothing like a mixture of beans and spices and  tomatoes, simmering for hours, to make a cold house feel like a warm home. I think I even have a ham bone in the freezer I can throw in for that extra bit of flavor.

#2 — When I first read this, I had a lively debate with myself over why Mama Kat wanted us to dig up a picture of Summer from Le Musings Of Moi and then write a poem about it. Then I realized it was a bit like that canonical grammar book title – Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach To Punctuation. I suspect that Mama really meant to use summer as in the season rather than the proper noun Summer as I first thought. In any case, my mental confusion is probably more amusing that any  poem I might crank out.

#3 — This is one where taste comes to the fore. I am an uber fan of Matt Springer and his blog Built on Facts. Matt is a graduate student in physics at Texas A&M and writes great reality and mathematics based vignettes for the lay and student audience. (My description sounds really boring, but the actual writing is anything but boring.) My favorite part of his blog is the Sunday Function every week. You should really visit to see if it tickles your blog reading funny bone.

#4 — When I look in the mirror I hear my mirror screaming out for me to clean its dirty face. Once I am able to tune the mirror and the streaks out, what I see is a function of the time of day and mood of the moment. If I have my glasses on so that I can actually see anything at all, then I generally see the me I see in my mind’s eye but with gray hair and less of a hairline than I remember inside my head. Unfortunately, comparison to pictures from yesteryear shows that I never did look like Robert Redford in his heyday. Heck, even in my younger days I would have been lucky to pass as Bob “the bear” Hite from Canned Heat. A bit like this;

Bob “the bear” Hite
1943-1981

#5 — As a heterosexual male, I think that *anything* would be better than contemplating sex with Mr. Letterman. That said, here is my quick list:

  • Chew glass while listening to Oprah
  • Stand naked in the snow in subzero weather
  • Watch commercial TV
  • Undergo a root canal
  • …without anesthetic
  • Eat roly-poly bugs
  • Walk on a bed of coals
  • Speak before an audience of thousands armed with projectiles
  • … in my skivies
  • Get ready for a colonoscopy
writer's challenge

Everyone I Needed To Meet, I Met In …

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

1.) How did you meet your best friend?
(inspired by Kati from Country Girl, City Life)

2.) What are you feeling guilty about? or Memories of your childhood home.
(inspired by Josie from Sleep Is For The Weak)

3.) Tell why you are ecstatic “The one that got away” got away.
(inspired via twitter by Jay from Halftime Lessons)

4.) Have you found your bliss? What path did you take to get there? or are you still searching)
(inspired by Carma from Carma Sez)

5.) Create a conversation between one of these three couples:
(inspired by myself)

Since I have a bit more time this week, let’s take a stab at all five topics.

#1 – How I met my best friend applies to most of my friends. The candidates for best friend are all people I met in school – be it grade school, junior high, high school, or college. Given that school is also how I met L, it seems that everyone in my life must have some connection with school.  I’ll limit my description to my friend Tom.

Tom and I first met in grade school via wrestling and football. He attended a different grade school and so his team was one of the rivals of my team. In junior high school, we drifted into a state of apathetic “non-entity-ship”. It was strange because I was also developing a respect for him. We’d have discussions on the team bus back from matches and he seemed to have a more interesting outlook on life than most ne’er-do-wells. (Which even Tom would admit described him at the time.) 

Tom and I went from apathy to dislike to outright hatred over the course of high school. I attribute much of that to the effects of Tom’s growing alcohol addiction. Of course I didn’t have a clue about the alcoholism at the time. The relationship reached its nadir when I almost killed him one day our sophomore year.

Tom and some friends were teasing and riding me all through biology class that day. We we seated alphabetically by last name and they were behind me. We didn’t get along well before this day, but it was more the normal nerd / alcohol crowd disjunct than anything personal. It takes a lot to make me mad, but this day they succeeded. When the bell ending the class rang, I was determined to have a word with all three of them. Unfortunately, I had Tom by one arm when the other two decided to try to get around me and out of the room. Without even thinking about it, I tossed Tom across the room as I reached to stop the other two. Even more unfortunately, there was nothing to slow Tom down as he flew through the air, broke the glass, and proceeded out of the second story window. I was immediately sorry. Tom went to the hospital and got some stitches, but thankfully had nothing broken. Tom and I were dedicated enemies from that point on, at least on Tom’s part. I just felt bad that I had let anything make me lose control like that. It was interesting that I had enough of a halo (top of class, football player, national merit scholar, vice president of the Colorado Wyoming Junior Academy of Science, etc.) that nary a word was ever said by the school administration about the whole affair. Which just made me feel even guiltier.

Fast forward about 20 years. L and I were at a New Year’s Eve party shortly after moving back here from LA. Tom was there as the designated driver for a different group. So Tom and I were sitting at the bar sipping club soda and began to talk. I told Tom how bad I still felt about the incident from long ago. He laughed and said not to feel bad, he deserved that and more. We forgave each other and talked. Tom pointed out that he had hit bottom and had already been clean and sober for 7 years at that time. To make a long story short we become friends over the next year and have remained so now more than 15 years later. When Tom’s son wasn’t going to attend college, it was me that convinced him he could and should do it. When my son needed to live on his own before gong off to college early, it was Tom’s basement he lived in. Tom and I are friends. Sometimes enemies can become friends, and high school enemies have the advantage of sharing a very formative time in their lives.

#2 – I’m not feeling guilty about anything at the moment so that is a non-starter. The childhood home could refer to any of several abodes that I remember from roughly age 2 up. We lived in the basement of a house with big wagon wheels for a fence in my earliest memories. The wheels fascinated me and were painted white and green. Although the house still stands, the wagon wheels are long gone now.  The first house all our own was a small stucco house with a paned picture window that overlooked a dry-land wheat and sunflower field. I remember flying kites and playing with the neighbors. I also remember that the rural paper delivery guy kept trowing the paper through the picture window, breaking the glass panes all the time. That house still stands, but has been remodeled to the extent that is is almost unrecognizable. Then just before kindergarten, we moved to a small town in Nebraska. But that is a story for another time. (If you are interested, here is the story of my first day of school in the small Nebraska town.)

#3 – I’m not sure that I really have one who got away. I was lucky and got the one I wanted when I me L in high school. I suppose the closest to the one who got away would be a young lady named Loretta who went by the nickname Lori or (when she wasn’t in the room) Luscious. I met her at a summer science institute in my junior year of high school. She lived in Denver, and we carried on a {*gasp*} snail mail correspondence for about a year. I only saw her once more after that summer, and that was when I was in Denver with another friend from the science institute and we dropped by her house to say hi. I think she was trying to impress us when she answered the door in her cheerleader uniform. {*grin/2*}

Why am I thankful that Luscious got away? Let me count the ways:

  1. She was only four feet tall. I am 6’5″. Let’s just say the chiropractor’s bills would have been stupendous.
  2. She was always correcting my Latin declensions in the post scripts of our correspondence.
  3. And last but not least, she went stark raving bonkers. The last time we talked was a phone call while I was in graduate school (and already married to L) in which she was undergoing a psychiatric schism in the telephone booth at a truck stop. She had somehow found me via her mother (who was a Bell Telephone operator) and talked for several hours. Then she abruptly said she had to go and that was the last time I ever heard from her.

#4 – I don’t think anyone ever truly finds their bliss. The very act of finding bliss leads to a redefinition of what bliss is. Trust me on this one. Bliss is a lot like quantum mechanics – when you think you understand is when you are most likely to be wrong.

#5 – Couple conversations.

She: Just because you are 7 feet tall, weight 400 pounds, and are built like a brick outhouse doesn’t mean you can stare at my butt! My boyfriend will pound you to a pulp!

He: .

He: I tell you there was a sprinkler head right here yesterday!

She: I don’t see one.

He: But there was! I think the neighbors stole it last night.

She: Do I need to call your shrink again?

She: What do you think you’re doing?

He: What do you think I’m doing?

She: I have too much to do at work to fool around. Stop it!

He: Fool around? I was just licking off the grape jelly junior smudged on your neck before you left for work!

error, late, writer's challenge

The Case Of The Missing Post

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

This weeks topics:

1) If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

2) Moxie is defined as the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage; bold energy. Describe a time when you showed moxie.

3) Write a poem about a loved one who has shown you moxie. What have you learned from them?

4) If you were a super hero, what would your super power be and why?

5) A superhero can save you from what ails you….what is your request?

(I got this far last night before heading off to a meeting. When I got back from the meeting, I laid down and didn’t wake up until this morning. In the panic of getting going this morning, i completely spaced finishing this post. So for this week, please journey over to Mama Kat’s Linky and read away. Thanks.)

mama kat, Molly, writer's challenge

What I’d Really Like To Know

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

My time is short as I sort out junk priceless items for our garage sale this weekend. After all, who knew I had more than twenty old mice in a cupboard, even some that might be computer antiques. It is not like I will be using them in the future – some of them even have the old serial port interface. Try and find a modern computer with a nine-pin serial port in this day and age. {*grin*} But someone may find them useful for building their next robot!

Because of the time situation, I am going to break with my tradition and only going to address one of the topics this week. But you should hurry over to Mama Kat’s and join in the fun while I dredge yet more junk priceless items up to display and sell.

4.) If your pet could talk, what would you want to know? (inspired by KK from Kamp KK (but not the KKK))

First off, i suspect Molly would take issue with the idea that she can’t talk. After all, if someone can gaze at you with these guilt inducing peepers, how can you claim they can’t talk?



In any case, here are three things I’d really appreciate Molly deigning to answer for me. It’s not that I haven’t asked her, it’s more that I haven’t been able to grok the answer. (Go ahead and look that word up, we’ll wait. To all the Heinlein fans out there who caught the reference, let us share water!)

The first question is simple: Why do you find it vitally important to try and herd the birds and squirrels in the back yard? It’s not like you have any purpose in bouncing around like mad trying to get them to obey you. Admittedly, it may serve as your doggie version of a daily aerobics class – after all, jumping higher than your head a few hundred times a day has to keep you in pretty good shape. But you are a much smarter dog than that. You have to have figured out by now that you cannot reach the power line where the squirrels run to and fro and you certainly can’t catch the birds as they twit back and forth.

The second question is a bit more philosophical: What do you think about as you spend hours scanning the horizon? I know that you are hoping that a bunch of sheep will suddenly materialize in front of you to fulfill your inbred herding fantasies, but like me and my fantasy of a beautiful harem of lovely ladies suddenly appearing in my den, it just isn’t going to happen. We’re both old enough to realize that now. So why do you sit and stare for hours like this?

And finally, what is it that turns you from she-who-must-investigate-everything and she-who-must-protect-all-in-her-domain into the quivering mass of nerves acting like a needy 2 year old when there is thunder in the area. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the quivering wet nose on my leg. It’s not that I dislike the whimpering and the putting of your head and then paws on me to make sure I’m ready to give you reassurance. But it just doesn’t fit in with the fearless way you investiate every thing you see and the protective way you guard L and myself from the unknown. Besides, it leaves you so worn out after the storm. It’s really hard to see you looking so wasted after the storm has passed.

 
mama kat, writer's challenge

I Dream The Imaginary Dream

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

1.) What does marriage mean to you? (inspired by Jon Gosselin) 🙂

This is a timely topic for me since we celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary on Sunday. So even though I may not be able to supply the perfect definition of marriage, I at least get to enjoy experiencing one!

Marriage is many things. It is a partnership through life, not just the good times but the bad times too. It is having a friend that knows you and your deepest darkest secrets and still wants to spend time with you and the converse. It is having someone you are still attracted to long after the bloom of youth has started to fade, and the attraction is not simply physical or purely mental.

It was once explained to me that (and I believe it to be a good explanation) there are a finite but not necessarily small number of people you can love and who can love you on the journey through life. The one you marry is the one you *are* in love with when you get the urge to be married. But, and it is a big but, from that point on it is part of each partner’s duty to the marriage to stay in love and grow closer together. I think the crucial point is that both people have joined in a partnership and are dedicated to working together to advance that partnership.

Does that mean that marriage never has its travails? Of course not!

I can remember a time nearly thirty years ago when L and I sought out a marriage counselor since we did not seem to be able to grow closer together. The major problem was the clashing world views of a rationalist and a humanist. Add to that the job related stresses and living half a continent away from each other for a period of time and you can see that some work was timely in order. Going to counseling helped us to be able to see the world from the other’s point of view, and thus allowed us to continue growing as a couple without the festering of perceived slights. Heck, we still remind ourselves of the lessons we learned then even today

2.) Scaredy Cat!!! (inspired by Brandi from Not Your Average Soccer Mom)

There are few things that can still provoke the all out fear reflex in me. I suspect part of that is reaching an age where the boogie men can catch me if they really want to and there is little I can do about it if they are big and strong enough.  That said …

I have reached the age where I don’t quite have tinnitus yet, but I hear things. When I go to bed at night and it is very quiet, my mind and ears seem to amplify every ambient noise and creak to the point that i am convinced someone is in the room with me or is creeping down the hallway.

Now add to that an overactive mind that creates patterns even when there is no pattern to be discerned and you have some interesting nights. Especially in the winter when the rushing sound of the furnace pushing air through the heating vents acts like a white noise mask and I hear voices. Objectively I know there is no voice talking, but my mind and ears reconstruct it as a voice talking just below the level of audibility. I’ve been known to get up several times in a night “just to be sure” that there is no one talking down the hallway. For a while I seriously considered the idea that the furnace duct work was picking up a local talk radio station. Add to this the fact that for a number of years I was on 24 hour call and trained myself so I could answer the phone, solve the problem, and not wake up, and you get some really strange moments.

I suspect that is why God inflicted men with enlarging prostates as they age so that they have to arise every few hours in the night. That keeps them from going insane hearing things that aren’t there. {*grin*}

3.) List the pieces of you that have come from those around you? (inspired via Tweet by Angela from My So-Called Chaos)

Where should I start?

I have the small round sunken eyes of one of my maternal grandfathers side of the family, otherwise know as the Pyle pig eyes. I have the Dumbo sized ears of both sides of the family. And from my father’s side of the family I got that classic Jones build: a beer barrel perched on short stilts with gorilla arms and a neckless bowling ball head. Thus I can blame my huge paws and head on that side of the family.

Now there are some pieces that I have no clue about too. Where did my giant clod-hoppers come from? No one else wears size 16’s. No one knows.

And, of course, one would be remiss not to mention the diabetes from dad’s side of the family. Dad had 5 brothers and sisters; all of them that didn’t die young were/are diabetics. Likewise his mother. What more could one ask for in a family tree?

But I also got a keen curiosity about the world and very high IQ from both sides of the family. My grandfather was an inveterate inventor who taught himself electronics via correspondence school and my dad was amazing at math (which is all the more amazing considering that dad never graduated from high school). My mom was the first in her family to graduate from a community college and I was the first to get a graduate degree. So one gets the good along with the bad. Something to keep in mind the next time you carp about your inheritance!

4.) The first day of… (inspired by Mama Kat. again.)

The first day of snow is not far in the future. The nights are getting cooler and the days shorter. All clues that whisper to me that one of these days it is going to freeze. I keep hoping that it will delay until mid October, but mom and others are betting on a much sooner date. And anytime after that first freezing day, it might snow. Some years the first day of snow comes before the trees have shed their leaves and other years it delays until December or January.

I love that first day of snow. The joy of shoveling, that feeling of comfortable exertion and warmth. The pleased feeling of being able to set aside a few hours and curl up with a good book and a cup of soup. The unbridled joy of all the bugs dying off – no more insecticide needed to work in the underbrush. The smell of wood smoke in the air. The way that falling snow dampens all the sounds of the world, making it so serene and peaceful to be out walking. When I was in college, I used to go to a tower by the observatory and sit in the open top and watch the snow plows miles and miles away down in the valley as they battled to keep roads clear. There is nothing like a late night hike in the snow when the wind is howling and the temperature is dropping – especially when you know that you can get warm and curl up with a good book when you get back home.

Here is one of my favorite winter scenes from many years ago when the Son was but a tyke. It was taken on our driveway during the kind of snow storm of my dreams.

5.) Transcribe a recent entertaining conversation you recently had with someone. (inspired by Mama Kat…I’m so inspirational for myself.)

Me: Dan speaking.
Caller: Is there?
Me: This is Dan.
Caller: Is there?
Me: Yes, this is he. (with at least a little hint of disgust)
Caller: No, I’m looking for . Is he there?
Me: This is he!
Caller: Are you sure?
Me: Yes!!!
Caller: Never mind. (Hangup and dialtone)

I’m pretty sure that the Caller believed I wasn’t me because I don’t mispronounce my own name like he did. Oh well, I figure he was a trade rag magazine solicitor – probably from Puerto Rico given the accent and traceback number.