Mastodon bones

I stood in the dusty and fly-blown museum before a display of mastodon bones. All the tiny building’s doors and windows stood open to the blazing July heat radiating from the ancient Italian rocks lining the street outside.
The stone floor echoed with the clicking of high heels. I looked up to see a chic woman [...]

Read Full Post »

Code A

Okay, then. You want the Code A plan? The phone salesman looked at me expectantly. I realized I hadn’t listened to his last five minutes of sales pitch.
Code. That’s the thought that kept sticking in my head. If I could dream up an outgoing voice mail message that was in code, then the one [...]

Read Full Post »

Candlelit

A candlelit dinner
Grade A+ presentation
Ample pasta and
Thick hunks of
Garlic Bread
Sounds so romantic
But it’s just
Carbo-loading
For tomorrow’s
Half-marathon
I’ll make it
I know
Not first and
Not last
But all the way
All the way

Read Full Post »

The best

The best time I had as a child was playing hide-and-seek in my grandmother’s three story rooming house. With the basement and the front porch thrown in, the house was a treasure chest of hidden alcoves, narrow stairwells, obscure corners and roomy built-in cabinetry. You could move silently from floor to floor on the downhill [...]

Read Full Post »

Lingering whiff

She held the box under my chin. I poked my nose in the Celestial Seasonings package hoping for a clue about what to expect from the Blueberry Zinger. Instead I inhaled a lingering whiff of hand soap. The smell of skin and soap seem much more interesting than the aroma of the tea, so [...]

Read Full Post »

Seniors in love

Who woulda thunk that Anthony Hopkins would become a romantic leading man in his older years? But he is in the movie The World’s Fastest Indian, a wonderful story about achieving lifetime goals. There’s an undercurrent of seniors in love (or at least in bed) in the story.
The highlight of the movie for me (not [...]

Read Full Post »

Shoot to kill

Darlene stopped at the ticket booth and Junie crowded up beside her. “How many tickets you want to get?” Darlene asked.
“I’ve got ten bucks,” Junie said.
“Okay.” Darlene turned to the woman in the tiny ticket booth. “We’ll each take ten bucks worth.” A wad a tickets came snaking out at them and they turned to [...]

Read Full Post »

Flaming lips

She’s a stubborn old poot. Set in her ways and prone to blast with flaming lips at any opinion that differs from her own. It’s no wonder she lives alone; there’s no way another human could put up with her 24/7.
Since I don’t live with her, I’m free to enjoy her friendship. The benefits [...]

Read Full Post »

Unshaven

He presented his library card to me with a trembling hand. He smelled of alcohol, and was unshaven, dirty and disheveled. Yet for all that, he didn’t appear to be homeless or drunk. He was intent and concentrated and something about him made me believe he was trustworthy. And, after all, he did have a [...]

Read Full Post »

Public speaking

There’s nothing more terrifying to a shy person than opening your mouth in public. All the more reason to be a writer, no? What do you do when you want to be sitting quietly in the back row, yet you find yourself standing in front of the crowd, expected to speak? And even to make [...]

Read Full Post »