Author Archives: The Tuesday Prude

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About The Tuesday Prude

I always told my husband I fell in love with him before I know his last name. Good thing, too. I'm beginning to enjoy my unusual and sturdy married name. Klumpers are almost as rare as prudes. However, in an effort to make it a more common household name I bore 3 sons, all Klumpers, and a recent Klumpers grandson has been added to the lists. In an effort to make prudishness a more common household virtue, I have created this blog.

Prude Approved Reads: Dandelions on the Road

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‘Dandelions in the Road’ tells the story of fourteen—yes, 14—people and their search for true love via a local TV station’s version of ‘The Bachelorette.’
After enjoying success with a program called ‘Accept This Dandelion’ (also Ms. William’s first book in the series) centered on a bachelor and a dozen potential female significant others, the producer decides to try his hand at a spin-off with a spin. For ’Dandelions on the Road’ he chooses Eva, one of the runners-up from the first show, to sort through a bevy of eligible and hopeful men. The twist? They’ll shoot various competitions at various locations in America’s heartland.

Eva is beautiful and loves animals and is a great friend and ideal employee but for some reason has not connected with true love. Now she gets to choose from twelve handsome men. She should be able find a heart-mate among the bachelors on ‘Dandelions on the Road,’ Right? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Besides, you’re just itching to know who the 14th love seeker is, aren’t you?

PRUDE APPROVAL: Brooke Williams does an excellent job of keeping the love scenes wholesome with just a sprinkling of spice.

PRUDE PEEVE: While not a raging feminist, I wonder why we found it necessary to adopt the French term meaning ‘little bachelor’ for unattached women. While the French have shared many worthwhile words ending in the suffix ‘ette’ such as
‘barrette’ (little bar to keep one’s hair tidy)
‘dinette’ (a dining set newlyweds with little money can afford)
‘cigarette’ (because a little cigar is infinitely preferable to a ‘megacigar’) and
‘videocassette’ (meaning ‘good luck finding something to play that in’);
but ‘bachelorette’ has no place in the enlightened New World.
PRUDE APPROVAL: Instead of choosing glamorous locations like Vegas, Hollywood, or New York City (all of which, when I was growing up, were referred to as ‘Sin City’) the author has her producer bring his cast and crew to hiking trails and adventure parks and ranches in Nebraska and Iowa and Texas. What these states lack in flamboyance they make up for in solid common values and sense.

PRUDE APPROVAL: The author has imbued each of the bachelors with distinct personalities. There are some flaws—not every male is a perfect male—and Eva is all the more likable because she is willing to overlook little idiosyncrasies to discover the worth of each man.

GET TO KNOW BROOKE:
I asked Brooke for a short autobiography and then gave her some questions to answer. (Those of you looking for potential mates feel free to use any of these questions. Knowing the answers could save you a lot of grief down the road.)
Brooke Williams is a former radio producer turned freelance writer/author. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her two little girls, Kaelyn and Sadie, ages 6 and 2. Brooke has been married to her husband Sean since 2002. Today, she specializes in romantic comedies and some of her titles include: Someone Always Loved You, Wrong Place Right Time, Accept this Dandelion, Dandelions on the Road, Mamarazzi, and Backwards Christmas.

Links:
http://www.authorbrookewilliams.com
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBrookeWilliams/

Why do you write?
To me, writing is like breathing. You know how the doctor tells you to exercise in order to stay healthy? That’s how I feel about writing. On the days when I don’t get a chance to write, I don’t feel as good! It’s become a necessity in my life. So I write because I love it and because I can’t NOT write! I never start a novel unless the idea and/or characters are bugging me so badly I HAVE to write it to get rid of them!

What book made the biggest impact in your life?
Yes. Haha. I honestly can’t pinpoint one single book. I absolutely love to read and as soon as I finish one book, I’m on to the next one. I enjoy fiction of all different kinds and like books that surprise you in one way or another.

If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?
In grade school I wanted to change it to She-Ra. Luckily I matured and settled on Christine later in life. But my parents named me Brooke for whatever reason so I’ll just stick with that!
You’ve been writing all day. You don’t want to cook. You do want to get out of the house. Do you get pizza, burgers or Chinese?
Burgers. But I never get to write all day. I have a 2 and 6 year old that are constantly on the go!

What is your favorite sport?
Gymnastics
What is your favorite song?
World’s Apart by Jars of Clay

What three items would you take if you knew you were going to be stranded on a tropical island for a year? (FYI: It has fresh water and plenty for you to eat and a flush toilet)
My phone. 🙂 It has endless books on it for entertainment. Chapstick. I can’t live without it for an hour, much less a year. My girls. They’d love the sand and water!
If you could learn any new skill, what would it be?
I’d love to be good at a musical instrument. I used to play the marimba and other mallet instruments, but they are expensive and since I don’t have one I can’t do it anymore.
You are offered a huge contract to write a ‘How To’ book on your area of expertise. What would it be about?
How to play with two little girls. 🙂

You can choose any author you want, living or dead (well, they wouldn’t be dead when you met them), to be your writing coach. Who will it be?
Richard Paul Evans
What chore do you absolutely hate doing?
Cleaning in general. So I write instead… 🙂
What is your favorite form of exercise?
Walking, but I run on my elliptical machine most days

Do you personally find yawning contagious?
Oh heavens yes. I just yawned from the word, believe it or not!
Where do you write?
At my computer in the desk in the kitchen.
Music or silence while you write?
I prefer silence but my youngest has music playing in her room when she naps so I hear that through the monitor.

Skittles or M&M’s or…carrot sticks while you write?
M&M’s—are you kidding me?! Obvious choice there! 🙂

Could you toss me that roll of ellipsis tape?

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Writers have a host of tools at their disposal*
In their box of power and hand tools, writers may use any or all of the following:
– The Synonym Screwdriver, with interchangeable tips, also called bits.
– The Sneer Quote “Hammer”
-The Adjustable Active Voice Wrench by which passive voice sections are removed
-The Comma Unsplicer is a great tool, it helps even the most novice of writers look as though she passed her grammar classes.
-I would also recommend that the Unnecessary Words Extractor should be found in any writers’ toolbox as it is very useful for tightening up sentences that drone on and on.
-This particular writer refuses to get rid of her Nuts and Bolts of Miscellaneous Adverbs no matter how vociferously anyone pronounces them obsolete.
Oh, and my up and coming favorite—I highly recommend this one—the Em dash Staple Gun. Holds sentences together.
But today we will examine one of my favorite tools of all time.
A roll of Ellipsis Tape. To cover something that for some reason we don’t want to write out.
An ellipsis is easy to use. Look:   …
3 dots. On the computer it is even easier than by hand.
Just depress the period key 3 times.
If you want to make more than one ellipsis, you can, but you have to refer to them as ‘ellipSES’ and you run the danger of over-kill taping.
But…or did I mention this already…ONE NEEDN’T BE A WRITER TO OWN AND OPERATE ELLLIPSIS TAPE!
Ellipsis Tape can also cover something we want to imply without really saying it.  ‘OK, honey, if you think that shirt you bought in 1984 still fits you…”

Ellipsis Tape can extend a grievance indefinitely. “Even Wilma Flintstone and Aunt Bea have garbage disposals. Why I still don’t have one, I have to wonder…”

Ellipsis Tape patches together the disparate thoughts that zing simultaneously through our heads as we struggle to communicate. “Drive carefully, watch out for deer and drunk drivers, and…you’re wearing THAT to go out tonight?”

Ellipsis Tape is a temporary fix for faulty memory. “I could have sworn I had enough gas to get us there…”

Ellipsis Tape can make one look more intelligent than one really is. We can appear to mull over a significant notion when really we just totally lost track of what we were about to say. “I was just reflecting the other day that…ah…hmmm…yes…deep reflection. Deep…deep…”

As a chatterer and a long-winded writer, I use my Ellipsis Tape all the time because I never know how to close out a conversation or a scene.
A period puts a direct and speedy end to a thought, idea, comment, or statement.
But the ellipsis lets me put that thought, idea, comment or statement on limitless hold until I return with something else to stick onto it.

If anyone wants to borrow my Ellipsis Tape, let me know…

*DISCLAIMER: IF A CERTAIN TOOL FALLS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX, CERTAIN WRITERS MAY BE TOO LAZY TO FISH IT OUT. HENCE, BAD WRITING

I See Your Lek and Raise You a Qindarka

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How do you like those fracti?

 

You immediately knew what is wrong with the title of this post, don’t you?

Since a qindarka, as anyone in outer Albania knows, is equal to 100 lek, this would be a pretty lopsided game of poker.

And you no doubt had a pretty good yock at my expense.

But does it hurt my feelings that you laughed boisterously at me? Nah. I’ll just boff heartily along with you.

Your ordinary man-about-town may not recognize the above bold-faced words, but a devoted Scrabble player who is eidetic (possessed of vivid recall) will have at least a nodding acquaintance with some.

That which is pyic is often xanthic, which means pus-ish stuff tends to be yellow.

If you see a chacma in a cwm on the side of a jebel you are, in the non-Scrabble world of language, looking at a baboon in a hollow on the side of a mountain.

You want to write a scathing commentary on the state of humankind via analogy using the chacma stuck, through no fault of its own, in the cwm which is stuck, through no fault of its own (but rather the fault of a cold and heartless glacier) in the mountain.

But with one thing (preparing to celebrate the yahrzeit—anniversary of the death of an ancestor celebrated by Jews) and another (you are part of a busy and creative krewe, a private group participating in Mardi Gras) your magnum opus has shrunk to the size of a opuscule (a minor work).

Fracti are ragged clouds and gjetost is hard brown cheese and a fyke is a bag-shaped fishnet and all are acceptable in Scrabble.

pfft and psst and sh and hm? Legit.

Alif, bubu, and a thousand others have no meaning but are still recognized. No doubt some ambitious Scrabble player with connections in the Scrabble Word Approval Department begged for them.

The Prude plans to cozy up to someone with clout at the Scrabble Dictionary and get ca approved. It’s the sound made by the chacma trapped in the cwm.

Christmas and the Crack in the Cosmos

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When Adam and Eve threw God-given sense to the winds and dug their teeth into a death-lnfused piece of fruit, they didn’t drop dead. They. Didn’t. Drop. Dead.

What they didn’t know, what they couldn’t see, was the enormous, universe-long crack in the cosmos between creature and Creator.

As long as one doesn’t drop dead, one can adjust to almost anything. Adam and Eve dug weeds and watched the sky for rain, hoping it would start or stop. They hugged and kissed and etceterad, and had babies. Life, even painful, drudging life, was the new normal.

When one of their beloved babies grew up to kill the other of their beloved babies, they might have felt they were falling into the crack, or at least that their hearts were splitting. Somehow though, they didn’t drop dead. Life continued, more babies came. They were too busy to notice the small crack splintering off the giant, uncrossable crevice between God and humanity.

Since that initial brutality we’ve continued to whack away at the crack.

The first time a man slept with someone other than his wife another fissure appeared. But the cheating husband didn’t drop dead. Neither did the mistress, so couples and families continued to split and divide and society tries to sidestep the consequences.

We are fast learners. We only needed to see once that lightning didn’t strike the first woman who chose to abort her baby for the sake of convenience, the first father who chose to use his child as a punching bag, the first youth who chose to mock the ‘otherness’ of another. Instead of running from the chinks opening up at their feet, we snatched at their sins and expanded them.

Eons of jolting drunkenly from crater to rupture to fracture have convinced us that we are actually walking an even keel. If everyone else is lurching along at the same list, who notices one’s own totters and teeters? Especially if, after swearing or slapping or stealing or selfishness or lusting, nothing seems to change. We haven’t dropped dead.

Meanwhile, the cracks widen. Under our feet, every so often we hear an ominous crunch, a warning rumble. Wars and rumors of wars, genocide and infanticide and suicide bombers and school shooters and mall shooters and kidnappers and garbage islands floating in the ocean and families who tear themselves into pieces and pastors who peruse porn sites.

It’s too late. It’s been too late ever since a lousy piece of fruit and self-aggrandizement trumped walking and talking with the Lord and Master of the Universe. The crack that divided us and Him has been widening and we are just one  chink away from crumbling into nothingness.

The mess is our fault, folks, and there is no way to undo it. What a hopeless, clueless crashing bunch we are, bumping along on the brink of disaster, and no law or power or boots on the ground or presidential candidate will be able to hold us together.

A disintegrating world and cracked cosmos. Why doesn’t God just discard it all? Certainly that can’t be worse than watching us destroy ourselves. For some reason our fickle, damaged hearts can’t understand, He chose to insert His beloved Son into the splinters, via the fragility of a womb into the roughness of a manger.

‘In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.’*

When the fullness of God lives with the self-destructive rebellious people of earth, the shifting chunks of brokenness respond in amazing ways. Water becomes a walkway. ‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;’**

Instead of sending us headlong into the chasms yawning at our feet, He uses them to loose the mountains who skip like lambs before Him and burst into song. The trees and rivers are freed to clap their hands. A star, released from position, guides the powerful and the meek to a feedbin filled with a baby.

Only a few decades after that, our own particular star stopped shining. A tree was torn from the unstable ground and its clapping silenced when the Creator was nailed to it. The earth trembled and split when He died. At the darkest time, when the mountains should have fallen on us and the earth ruptured into a million pieces, the healing began.

When God the sin-hating Father joined hands with God the flesh-clad Son, the breach in the cosmos narrowed and compressed and fused together. Reconciliation, glorious and grace-filled is ours in spite of ourselves.

The universe is still crumbling and humans still sift through each clump of solid ground searching for more goodness to pulverize. What we don’t know is that the ultimate power to destroy our world lies with the One who made it, and He is the One who will make it over. When He does, He guarantees it will be crack-proof.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

*Colossians 1:19 & 20
**Luke 3:5

The stumble after the fall

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Decades of experience have proven that a blessing can, conversely, work as a curse.

Take the old Irish benediction ‘May the road rise up to meet you.’
Think about it. One is walking, in a carefree, guileless manner along a road/path/sidewalk/carpeted hallway, and it rears up to meet one in the form of a bump/stone/protuberance/wrinkle.
What happens then? Anything from a face plant to a gyrating series of stumbles, bobs, weaves and windmilling arms. It’s never pretty. If you ever see me do any of the above—please be kind and pretend you didn’t. Don’t offer me a hand up or ask if I am all right.

Because pride hurts worse than the fall.

What is worse than the physical pain of bruised shins, bloodied knees or chipped teeth?
Metaphorical falls.
They occur, with irritating regularity, on the twisting, booby-trapped, buckling road of daily life. We are tripped up by bumps of:
-forgetting stuff
-mispronouncing stuff
-acting out of ignorance
-making faulty judgements based on incomplete facts
-speaking loudly and publicly and foolishly using those faulty judgments
-social blunders
-at a baby shower, during a game,  announcing ‘Myrtle’ as a name to  never name a baby, forgetting the hostess’s name is Myrtle.*

Unless you are a hermit, perfect, or have the gift of flight, you can no doubt remember one or two figurative stumbles of your own.
When we fall—spraining hubris, skinning egos, and banging up pride, we hope no one noticed.

Just in case though, we take ridiculous measures to maintain some semblance of dignity. Instead of rising to our feet, smiling ruefully and taking note of what precipitated the fall so we don’t repeat it, we might:
-make excuses for our forgetfulness so we don’t appear at fault
-stubbornly cover slips of tongue or mangling of words so we don’t appear less than clever
-huffily defend ignorant behavior so we don’t have to appear humble
-bluster through wrong assumptions so we don’t appear ignorant
-blather on with foolish pronouncements so we don’t appear…foolish
-grumble past our social blunders as if society where at fault instead of ourselves
-refuse to apologize profusely for an unintentional personal insult because we might appear vulnerable—i.e.—mortal

A fall is embarrassing and it can hurt. But it happens, and it isn’t irremediable.
Unless.
Unless we pretend we meant to fall.
Unless we sacrifice others to save face.
Unless we blame the road instead of our own inattention.
Unless we never look at what caused the fall to avoid it in the future.

The stumble after the fall is worse than the accident itself.
It compounds the topple, hurts the onlookers, and ensures we’ll continue, in spite of bobbing and weaving and windmilling, to fall flat on our faces.

Let’s stop deluding ourselves. Clumsy, prideful, defensive methods to make certain no one noticed serve to only prolong the stumble.
Let’s turn that curse back to a blessing.
When the road rises to meet us, grin, and thank it for pointing out that the clumsiest of humans can rise after the fall, a better person.

*An all-too humbling real-life experience that occurred in the distant past of the Tuesday Prude.

The perennial middle child

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Know what prudes don’t like? Short-shrifting months.
Know what short shrift means? To give little consideration to.
Know where it came from? A shrift was the penance imposed by a priest to provide absolution.
Death row in the good old days of jolly old England didn’t last for years.
Usually one went from the trial to the sentence to the gallows.
So they only had time to perform a short penance, or shrift, before facing the hangman.
Every cloud has a silver lining.

The short-shrifted month to which I refer is, of course, November. Squeezed right on the back of Halloween, most participants in November are too sugar-dazed with trick-or-treat candy to notice its arrival. This year it has the ignominious distinction of being the first day when the sun set before Sunday brunch was digested.

Poor November grew up believing its real name was ‘Only a few dozen shopping days till Christmas.’
The typical middle child. Sandwiched between the over-achiever and everybody’s favorite.

November isn’t much to look at, at least in most parts of the northern hemisphere. October is a flamboyant exhibitionist, with its “look at me, everybody!” attitude.December gets grace and affection and enough twinkle lights to give Jupiter a migraine. But the eleventh month is drab and modest and unmemorable. It shies away from weather extremes. Every few years it works up a doozy of a blizzard, or a few balmy, halcyon days, but they are soon forgotten in the gray chilliness.

No matter what November does, its reputation is set. It is the awkward, frumpy month. Occasionally it can be found huddling with March and grousing about ingratitude and kiss-up months like May and June that everyone likes even though they have no major holidays to commend them.

November may be disgruntled at times. It might indulge in spates of self-pity and drizzle its misery all over our windows, but it still has reasons to hold its head high. Cheer up November. Look what you’ve got to offer!

Veterans Day
After a shameful period beginning about 50 years ago, when the armed services were treated with disdain, veterans are finally, in some quarters, given the homage due them. November is the perfect month to recognize these men and women. Humble enough so as not to obstruct their honor under a plethora of picnics and three day weekends. Sturdy enough to support them on matching 11/11 legs.

Deer Hunting Season
While the season has been extended so far that Pilgrims are now applying for licenses, its apex is November. The quiet sky (bereft of birds that have sought out the warmer fraternal twin of November somewhere ‘down south’ ) is filled with the ringing of shotgun blasts. The drab woods are brightened with jackets, vests, hats and pants in that glowing color affectionately known as ‘blaze orange.’

Thanksgiving
The shining jewel in November’s dowdy crown. The holiday that exempts us from buying gifts, sending cards, and untangling two hundred miles of twinkle lights. The holiday that only requires us to cook our turkey till it reaches an internal temperature of 165°, include at least one menu item that vaguely resembles a vegetable, and watch football games through a poultry and carb-induced stupor.

November is waving its unprepossessing hand and wants to say something.
Don’t forget to be thankful. Don’t forget to articulate the thanks. If you have the breath of life in you, there is something to be thankful for.
November remains out of the limelight and lets Thanksgiving take center stage, and Thanksgiving will gladly step back and showcase what really matters.
Gratitude. Hearts filled and overflowing and bursting with so much thankfulness that voices are raised to God and hands outstretch with shared bounty.

Never give the middle child a short shrift. A meek nature can hide a heart of gold.

The Evolution of Rewrites or, Can I have that conversation back please?

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Forsooth! Toss that dog-eared word back to me and I’ll send back its better!

Commenders recommend, viewers review, tractors retract, and writers rewrite. It’s what we’ve always done. Somewhere out there are the perfect words to express the abstractions roaming our brains.
Between the rough draft and the final draft are more do-overs than Kardashian relationships.

This isn’t a new problem. With few exceptions, writers as a breed can’t leave well enough alone.

Cave Writer: “Ooga, hand me some charcoal. I’m changing this bull to a reindeer. It adds some vulnerability to the wall, don’t you think?”

Aesop: “I should have left it an elephant in donkey’s clothing. So satirical. But I had to revise it and now I’m out of papyrus. A wolf in sheep’s clothing! What was I thinking?”

Shakespeare: “‘A nose by any other name might as well bleat.’ No no no. Bring me another bit of parchment! ‘A nose by any other name could smell feet.’ Good, but not perfect. Rose! More parchment! Bless you dear Rose, you’re sweet. Say…”

Mark Twain: “The Adventeres of Tom Sawyer. That doesn’t look right.” (Unrolls paper. Crumbles. Inserts fresh sheet. Rerolls.) “O.K. The Adventures of Yo, Saqyer. Blast these newfangled typewriters! Who put the letters in that order?”

Agatha Christie: “Dear Ms. Christie, Thank you for the submission of your most recent manuscript. The mystery is engaging and we are all stumped. Really stumped. When you whited out the name of the killer (Spelling error?) you neglected to re-type it. The entire office at our publishing company has placed wagers on the identity of the villain and we hope to hear from you before the Gaming Commission hears about us.”

Stephen King: #sickofwritinghorror #newstyle #rewrite #CookingwithCarrie

The Bright and Distant Future: “I can’t believe I said that. In front of all my friends. Awkward syntax, inane content, and way too many ‘uh’s.’ I’ll just recall that conversation, erase it from my friends’ memories, and substitute deep, cleverly worded, effortless sentences”

Writers know the clean joy of the rewrite. The pleasure of taking not-quite-right words and replacing them with choice tidbits of wisdom, perfectly balanced alliteration and assonance, and deft bits of punctuation.

Writers, at least this writer, are less impressive in face-to-face conversation. We grasp for words, mutter cliches, and embarrass ourselves with injudicious, frivolous, tedious pronouncements.

We want the power of the re-articulation. The super power that would allow us to recall every insipid word, replace it with the synonym of choice and no one would be the wiser.
I look forward to the day, friends.
We can dream, and anticipate.
We long for the era of a word fitly spoken.

Until then, this particular writer could try to speak less, listen more and hope against hope that conversation-mates will allot an extra measure of grace to season my plethora of rough draft words.

Camping with Ancient Philosophers

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The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. So says the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, and who am I to argue with him?

Well, nobody. But I manage to confound this proverb in ways that would make the venerable Lao spin his mustaches.

I take that single step a thousand times over and never get further than my front door.

Any guesses as to how many diets I have begun? Calculate how many days in three plus decades and you’ll be close.
Maybe you’d like to see the knitting project I’ve undertaken with a single row of stitches, pulled out and started over. And over. And over.
The weekly house cleaning schedule has been attempted and abandoned partial week after partial week for most of my married life.

‘How do people get to this clandestine Archipelago?’
Will I ever find out?
It would mean reading all 682 pages of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece “The Gulag Archipelago” (received in 11th grade when I was going to change the world one teardrop at a time).
Does it count to read that first sentence 682 times?

We-as-in-I resolve each New Year to do that savings program where you put aside a dollar for each week of the year. By Christmas there is extra money to spoil grandchildren. One dollar on week one is no problem. Coming up with thirty dollars to add on week 30 makes me long for those single-digit weeks of January. So I take the mere $28 in my purse and use it for pizza night and give up the entire project, comforting myself that I will try again next year.

Good intentions, great resolutions, magnificent goals.
They begin with one refused donut, one saved dollar, one important book.
However, an unconsumed pastry, a buck in the pot and “Vanity Fair” on the night stand do not
make me healthy, wealthy or wise.

What I need, and what I propose, are way stations on this journey of a thousand miles. I could camp out each night at the spot I’ve progressed to with my single step. Instead of heading back to my comfy bed with stout-hearted but never realized ambitions to take two hundred steps tomorrow, I will spend the first night on my front doorstep.

The next morning when I wake up, maybe once again I’ll refuse the French cruller, even though I couldn’t resist the cheesecake at dinner last night. At least I am not taking two steps back.

Monday washday is under my belt but in the past I never conquered Tuesday ironing to get to Wednesday cleaning. By Saturday I face a household of streaked windows and rapidly proliferating dust bunnies, and the doggone laundry is piling up again. (I realize few people will relate to my desire to iron. As my then-college son once said “Wrinkled is the new pressed”).

The point is that those of us who struggle to make progress also struggle with our failure to progress in a perfectly predetermined pattern.
If we fail at one point we fail at it all, give up and go to bed with a pack of Oreos, because a few more crumbs and another set of dirty sheets will never be noticed.

How about instead I camp out beside those stacks of clean laundry—or better yet the folded clean laundry? My first step the next day might be an organized drawer or even, because the sky is the limit, a color coded closet.

(This wasn’t intended to be a how-to post but Prudes are bossy and can’t help giving advice.)

I haven’t been wildly successful at that dollar saving scheme but when I throw loose change in a jar and leave it there because it is too heavy for my purse, by December I dump it into Tupperware, take it to the bank and get a nice little bounce to my holiday budget.

I might have trouble getting past the first sentence or paragraph or chapter of a book everyone swears I need to read. And while not every classic is for every person, some things—think coffee, blue jeans and sneakers—deserve my effort. I needn’t consume “War and Peace” in one sitting. Maybe I’ll try to read it consecutively, and cumulatively.

Old Lao was on to something here.
Let’s take a thousand mile journey, my friends.
Let’s get there a step at a time. One after another after another.
Let’s meet at the roadside campground tonight. I’ll bring the hotdogs.

Pity for those beyond the pale

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The phrase “beyond the pale” dates back to the 14th century, when the part of Ireland that was under English rule was delineated by a boundary made of such stakes or fences, and known as the English Pale. To travel outside of that boundary, beyond the pale, was to leave behind all the rules and institutions of English society, which the English modestly considered synonymous with civilization itself. (Urban Dictionary)

I tremble for my husband.
He isn’t on facebook.
I try—you won’t believe how I try—to keep him current. Relevant. Self-aware and safe. But he insists on existing in that nether-world outside the protection of social media.

“Don’t lock the car with the remote!” I holler as he points the fob at the vehicle. “Always lock manually because facebook says thieves are nearby and can copy the code on their cell-phone. Or something.”

The man is clueless about how to detect a two-way mirror in a public restroom or bedbugs on a hotel mattress.
Without facebook via his wife, he wouldn’t know that potatoes aren’t—no, are—wait, maybe aren’t, good for him.
He doesn’t know the color of his personality, what state suits him best, or which Disney Princess he is.
Poor guy. He thinks vinegar only has one use and looks at baking soda in the same way. ALL THE TIME. He throws away toilet paper tubes instead of saving them to use for THIS awesome hack.

Does he know the clean joy of watching a dyslexic octogenarian juggle Polident tablets while catching a wave on his handcrafted surfboard and singing ‘Let it Go’ backwards?
He does not.
Never will he have the satisfaction of liking twenty baby photos, seven memes, a half-dozen happy statuses, two political rants and a dancing baby elephant, all in five minutes.

I’ve given up hoping he’ll learn how to fold a fitted sheet or t-shirt in under three seconds, because three of his friends shared the youtube demonstrations yesterday.
He won’t even try to turn a 2×4 and a laundry basket into the greatest child’s toy ever.

Without me he would not know who is pregnant, engaged, in a relationship, or complicated.
What if I go away for a few days? Who will fill him in?
Would you believe that he has actually and in person MET everyone he calls ‘friend?”

How can his magnanimity grow when he doesn’t even know one Human of New York?
I myself, virtually acquainted with oodles of New York Humans, am magnanimous to the core.

Secretly I am often relieved he never has to worry that if he doesn’t share This Post he isn’t a patriotic, red-blooded Bible Believer.
Anxiety at being the only person not performing the Cold Water Challenge will never gnaw at him.
He needn’t fret that photos of his grandchildren being adorable don’t get anywhere near as many likes as those of Prince Charles’s grandchildren.

It follows that he never experiences overwhelming guilt at wasting spending thirty-five minutes catching up on the facebook news feed.
I could almost envy him that extra time every day.
Then I remember.
I have 401 friends who are waiting for my likes, comments, birthday wishes and shares. Those relationships take time.

How can I begrudge a man with no basic understanding of his personality type? (He’s ESTP-T. I took the test for him.)
The man is blessed with a wife who knows how to unstick a lid using half a tennis ball, hold a nail in place with a clothespin and clean headlights with toothpaste. All thanks to facebook.

Which also tells me how to survive a bear attack.
Face it.
The man needs the protection only facebook and his wife can provide.

Can Bombs Burst in my Hair?

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Bonny

Here is my pup.

Awwww, you say, she is so cute!
What doesn’t show up on photos is the yellow streak running down her back, her lily liver, or her chicken attitude.

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The little girl is a coward.

Now firecracker season is upon us and I’ll spend the next several days trying to convince the pup that the Fireworks are Not Out to Get Her.

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The pup won’t believe a word.

We’ll head out to fireworks tomorrow night. Without her. We’ve learned from the experience of the last several years.

We would weigh our options:
1) Take her along into the thick of the battle, where at least we can hold her and try to comfort her?
Or
2) Leave her home alone, where she can hear the bangs and booms, but in a more muted form?
When she is home and hears the pop of a gun, a backfiring car or–heaven forbid–continuous fireworks set off by patriotic neighbors, she panics and tries to insert herself into the smallest hole in the deepest corner of the house.

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If she could, she would stuff her paws in her ears.

We worried that someday we would return from fireworks to discover the dog with only her nose sticking out of a toilet paper tube.

So we would take her along.
This is what ensued:

Family: “Oh look, Doggie! Fireworks in the sky! Far away! Aren’t they pretty?
Family Dog: “Not again! We just went through this 7 dog years ago!”

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Family: “You’re OK! See? We’re cuddling you tight!”
Family Dog: “If you really loved me you would throw yourself of top of those bombs.”

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F: “It’s almost over! You can make it!”
FD: “Possibly…if that gopher over there will share his hole with me…”

F: “All done! Let’s go home!”
FD: “Could you check and make sure I still have all my extremities? Oh, and by the way. You’ll be hearing from my SPCA representative.”

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We’re leaving her home this year, and working on a new business venture. Soundproof pet cages.