iPhone

Did you get your iPhone yet? I didn’t. Not because they don’t look cool and wouldn’t be a great thing to tote around instead of a full sized computer when you travel. They are just too expensive for me. When you add up what I’d have to pay Sprint to get out of my evil contract with them, what I’d have to pay AT&T to sign up for an evil contract with them, and the cost of the phone, it’s coming close to a thousand bucks.

But the iPhone represents a major change in the way things are going to be done. Who needs a home computer simply to do email and surf the net anymore? Who needs an iPod anymore? Who needs a camera around their neck anymore? . . .

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Klezmer

A squeaking clarinet and an overenthusiastic drummer in a klezmer band in the corner of the courtyard gave the craft show a kind of manic cheerfulness that made me want to hop from booth to booth in a effort to keep up with the frantic beat of the music. I could hardly think about the crafts I was examining with an eye to spending my money to support these talented craftspeople.

Here were some gorgeous pots, glazed with a favorite glaze of mine: maybe yellow. I tried to pick a bowl but my mind bounced with the fervor of the music and I couldn’t make a decision. . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “klezmer.”

Favorite song

I was listening to Lucinda Williams tell some unsatisfactory lover to get lost because “you didn’t even make me come on.” Come on? Veiled, barely hidden songs about sex have been around forever. This song reminds me of an old bawdy ballad by Elsa Lanchester that went, “if you can’t get in the corners you might as well give up.”

I love some of the old blues songs by women that were lightly hidden odes to sex. But I guess my favorite song in this category is Bonnie Raitt singing . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “favorite song.”

Perfectly fine

“I’m perfectly fine,” she answered with enthusiasm. She didn’t need me, is what she meant. She was doing great all on her own. She dug deeper with, “I’m having a great time.”

I hung up the phone and pondered the pain of letting go. Or the hubris of thinking that her happiness somehow depended on me. I wasn’t perfectly fine, . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “perfectly fine.”

Bad Habit

I know a lot of these people. They think that if they contribute to what you are talking about by telling how the topic applies to them, they are adding something important. But they are not. It’s a bad habit, an interruption. Suppose you’re on the phone with a tech support person, explaining something about your modem. Do you want to hear a story about their modem? Or you’re telling your pharmacist about that nasty itch torturing you. Do you need to hear about their itch? . . .

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Biddy

The biddy down the hall
Is really off her rocker
9-1-1 is her favorite call
To report an imaginary stalker

Some of us other old gals
Have searched the place for men
Even checked with other pals
And we just can’t find a way to sin

But the cop who comes by
To soothe and calm the crazy coot
Makes everyone heave a sigh
Maybe I’ll report a stalker on a toot

After learning from Going like Sixty that a biddy is a chicken, I invite you to write your first 50 words on the topic “biddy” in a comment.

Lemonade

Remember selling lemonade as a kid? Or maybe home made cookies? Getting sweaty waiting for other sweaty and hot people to happen along with money for a cold drink? Life was easy. You hung out on the street for a while and ended up with money to spend at the candy store or the dime store.

Early entrepreneurship in action. Especially if your parents were capable of tough love and made you buy the ingredients out of your profits.

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Bataan

I’ve been reading We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth Morgan. I’ve had yearly reminders of Bataan because I’ve lived in New Mexico where there are events and memorial bridges honoring the soldiers who were there. But I’ve not read anything about the nurses who were there. This book is fascinating. If you have any interest in WWII history or merely in what a woman can overcome . . .

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Illegal

Sara shouldered her pack full of papers to grade, wrapped straps around her pant legs and pedaled for home. Behind her she left a posh private school and clean, quiet streets. Ahead of her was her loud and cluttered neighborhood of low rents and immigrants. She suspected many of her neighbors might be illegal residents, but she didn’t care. She loved raucous mix of languages on the street, the smells of chile and curry and grilling octopus that drifted through the air in the evenings.

Her apartment was not air conditioned, nor was anyone else’s. Evenings were spent on the stoop, where everyone met everyone else as they tried to find a breath of cool air before going to bed.

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “illegal.”

Pueblo Dwellings

I live in a part of the US that is dotted with the ruins of ancient Pueblo dwellings, cliff dwellings, and other signs of Native American life going back as far as 10,000 years. I’ve been to Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and other sites, but never before to Bandolier National Monument. The ruins of the village in the photo are in a canyon with a year-round water supply in the form of Frijole Creek at Bandolier.

It’s a wonderful place to visit. Kids especially enjoy the ladder climbs into caves and the weirdly wonderful volcanic rock formations. Not far from the . . .

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic “pueblo dwellings.”