Piddler on the Floor

It's been a long absence from writing. Since daddy died, I just haven't had it in me to write, daydream or even read. My husband has been worried about me, constantly asking me if I'm okay. Plus the holidays add an extra sting into the mix, like pouring lemon juice on a festering wound.

Dad wouldn't want me crying, or gazing off for hours out the bedroom window. He'd want me to live, laugh and write. He'd want me to enjoy life to the fullest. And so I'm trying. To be honest, some days I'm not trying very hard.

And then fate stepped in to help me along. A friends Lab had puppies and Kyle decided we needed one.

It took me years to get over the lost of our last dog, but since January of this year, I started picking up interested in having a dog again. Not a puppy, I told Kyle. I want a dog from a shelter who needs a home. I'm not sure it was a serious request, neither did Kyle and so months went by and still no dog. Our life is easy and selfish with just us. We can leave on vacation at any time and not worry about an animal being left behind. But when a heart is hurting, what better way to distract the pain than having someone or something to care for.

Enter Molly.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving my husband Kyle and I drove to La Canada and picked out a sweet 7 week old black lab puppy. We purchased a large crate, several hundred dollars in chew toys, squeaky toys, collars, leases, and other dog accessories.

When we bought her, the family had a ping pong table up in the back yard with a family tournament going on. My father loved ping pong. We played it like some father's play catch with their kids.

"See," my husband says with a smile on his face. "This was meant to be!"

The drive home, she cried, obviously nervous for being away from her parents and litter mates. When we got her home and realized how much we had gotten ourselves into, I think we both had buyers remorse. The idea of my father placing the dog in our lives faded away.

Every hour she needed to go out. Of course, it's cold outside, the ground littered with wet leaves no one, man or beast wanted to leave the house. As we stood out on the grass at 2:00 in the morning, our breath billowing out in white clouds with every exhale, our bodies shivering as we waited for this adorable black pup to relieve its self- we thought, crap, what have we done.

But I've had out of control puppies before. Barkers, whiners, chewers and so far she's none of those. Keep in mind that she's only 8 weeks old. She's learning to come when we call her, to sit and fetch her favorite toy, a Santa Monkey. So far she fits into our life style nicely. She sleeps alot and likes to watch TV. Dog Whisper and the Ipad commercial seems to be her favorite, though her tail wags at the Geico commerical with the woodchucks.

Despite the change in our lives, she gives so much love it warms my heart. With that said, how could she not be a gift from my dad?

Goodbye Poops!

It's been a month to date that my father passed away. I might be bias, but he was the greatest man ever! I called him Poops. My nick name for him was a long time running joke. I misspelled Pops on a birthday card and the name just stuck. How can he gone?

Though my mother is alive, I feel like an orphan. Why is lossing your father so devistating? I still at times feel numb, angry, disbelief but most of all just sad. Sometimes I feel all those emotions at once.

If you read back on this blog, I wrote about the adventures that he and my mom had. The time they went to the grocery store and my blind mother wondered off and my father left without her-then came back a moment later when he got in the car and realized she was missing-only because it was quiet.

And then there was the time they reported the car stolen and for days thought the worst of humanity-how could someone take their car? It took days for them to realize they had forgotten that they parked the car in a different space at their condo unit. When my father found it, he called me laughing, leaving a classic message on my machine, "if you want to hear the funnest story ever, call me."

And then there was the time I was to meet them for my birthday dinner. We both sat in the main room, eight tables from each other not realizing the other was there. I sat there for over an hour waiting, worrying. It wasn't until I heard my mother telling the waitress they were waiting for their daughter who was over an hour late that we found each other. The three of us felt so dumb. One, that we never got up to look around and two, that we all filled up on bread!

My God we're an observant bunch!

To be honest, i thought I'd be prepared for his death, at least a little bit. I wasn't.

I miss him so. My father was my greatest fan and supporter, no matter what it was. He kept score at my soft ball games, clapped with pride at my dance recital and watched with enthusiasm only a parent could have at all the shows I put on in the back yard. My world feels empty without his laughter, his eternal optimism and ever gratefulness. He was such a quiet, gentle man, who smiled through the pain of gout, and frustration of diabetes and the loss of his hearing. If I'm broken hearted, how must my mother feel, dealing now with the loss of a man who slept beside her for 65 years.
I'm homesick for a time I can't go back to, for a person I can no longer call mine. I want to lash out, scream in anger that the world continues on, not caring in the least that a wonderful, kind, generous gentleman like my father is gone. I guess that's part of the grieving.

I pray I never forget the sound of his voice, the feel of my hand in his, or the tightness of his embrace the last time we hugged.

I love you, Poops. I know one thing, if I hadn't have been your daughter, I would have wanted you as a friend. Thank you for everything!

Is it that time already?

Here it is already, the last week of June. Wow. I'm still telling people Happy New Year. How is it the days go by so fast? My, how time flies!

I've slowed down on my writing, not from lack of trying either. I just sit here staring at the computer screen. Maybe my mind is constipated. I'm 31,000 words into it and have a plot line, though it's not totally solid yet. I'm not worried about that though. This is a sequel, so the characters already know who they are and what they want. If I step out of line and write something they don't like, I hear about it.

Maybe they're on vacation, tanning themselves somewhere on the sunny beaches of Hawaii sipping some fruity drink. Huh. Why didn't they invite me?

Confessions from a bathroom stall

I've never understood why people talk on the phone while they're peeing. Or doing the other. Aren't some times in your life in need of a little get away "me" time? Anyway, the bathroom was tiny and over lit with only one stall. As I head for it, my arm stretched out to push back the stall door, I hear someone talking and realize the stall is occupied. Okay. Fine. I can hold it.

As I'm standing there, I look around at the unpainted tile in the ceiling, trying not to look at the set of pigeon-toed black pumps pointing toward me. I instead study the tiny flecks of yellow paint flicked carelessly on the ancient ceiling fan this quiet whisper comes from the stall.

"Carol, are you sure he was dead?"

I freeze staring slack jawed at the door. The person in the stall begins to move around, hunting for toilet paper before she adds, "Calm down, you're freaking me out."

I wanted to blurt out-"You're freaked out?"

A normal person would leave, right? A clear minded individual would find another bathroom. Not me! I can't, I gotta go. I'm already doing the pee pee dance. I have the bladder the size of a pea. No, make that several pees, all about fifteen minutes apart. I spend my life excusing myself to the bathroom. TMI? Sorry, but I digress.

"It's no big deal..." I didn't catch the rest of what she said because she flushed. I couldn't believe it, at a moment like that, she flushes! Anyway, she pushes open the door open with a shove, still clutching the phone.

I lowered my eyes and rushed in, angry at myself that I didn't get a look at her. Even if I did get a look, what was I going to do? I had a flash of myself at the police deptartment giving a statement. "yeah, well, I was waiting to urinate and this woman in the stall I was waiting for said..."
I hear her wash her hands and the conversation turns more bizarre. "Did the clown ever show up?"

What the hell do these people do? With that, the woman walks out, still jabbering away and I'm left standing there in the bathroom stall slack jawed and wondering...so did the clown ever show up?

Random Musings by an Alien experiment

Have you ever just sat and stared? Okay, I've done that, we've all done that. I mean really, really veg out. Slack jawed, dry eyed vegetative state. I've been doing it all month. I start to do something then I stop and stare. I've started to write this blog about five times, the only good thing about that is I have a bunch of saved drafts that I don't even remember writing.

I don't know what I'm staring at. It might be out the window, at the computer, at the t.v. It's really bad when it happens at work. I started folding laundry last week, the pile is still half done on my couch. I was folding a pair of socks and something drew my site out the window. I stared for so long my left leg went numb.

My sensitive husband sees me vegging out and pokes me. "hey, I'm going to the store." When I didn't answer, he poked me again. "Okay?"

I poked him back. "Okay."

He came back with several bags of groceries and I was still standing in the kitchen, the rest of the unfolded laundry strewn around me. I don't think he even noticed. He's thinks I'm odd anyway.

My question is, where do I go during that time? Maybe I'm being abducted and brought aboard the mother ship and random experiments are tested on me. Maybe they're feeding me fattening foods and that's why I'm gaining weight! Yeah, that's it, that's gotta be the reason! Aliens are making me fat.

"Let's see what happens when we make the earthling consume mass quantities of Carbonated caramelized sugar water within a ten second period of time."

I'll tell ya little green dude, I'll belch, that's what!

Okay, enough vegging out. It's Saturday night almost Sunday morning and I need to get back to chapter eight!

When characters go bad...

Okay, this is weird. I want to know how many writers have had this happen.

I'm working on chapter three of my sequel. Well, actually finishing up chapter two. Like the Orca at Sea world, my main male character is not behaving. He's been pissed off in every scene, forcing me into rewrites. It's odd. I'm the fricken writer and yet he's dictating how I write him. So, last night I was finishing up a scene where he's doped up on Laudanum and whiskey and he announces in front of his wife's family that he doesn't want to be married. WTH? I rewrote it and the same thing came out.

So, I began doing an exercise from a writing book where you start interviewing your character. It's suppose to help you get to know them a little better. So, I start off interviewing him for his hopes and dreams and he tells me that he wants to go back to fort Laramie and leave his wife either here or with Hazel Henderson back in Cheyenne. I was floored.

First off I didn't even know Hazel lived in Cheyenne. I've never established her residence, but he has. Second, I tell her he can't leave her that they're married now. He retorts by telling me that I should know he never wanted to to get married, he's said that all along and now he's saddled with his second wife when he never wanted the first one. He goes on to tell me he married out of duty and now he wants out. And do it quickly before she gets pregnant. So, I asked him if he loves her. He says yes, but and when he's around her he can't think right. And then get this crap. He doesn't feel a man is a man when their heads are all muddled with thoughts of love, that his beautiful wife strips him of his power, of his anger, that he doesn't feel like himself anymore.

By this time I'm having a full on convo with the guy. I tell him that she's going to be hurt if you just up and leave. The bastard shrugged. He says he doesn't want children and she's trying to get pregnant. Plus, he's hiding some secret that if she knew, she would have never married him in the first place. What secret? I never gave you a secret!

Who does this guy think he is?

Well, I have to go back now and try to figure out what the hell is his problem so I can move onto my outline.

Good Golly Molly

I broke up my day of researching sutures and surgery/medicine from post Civil War era to go to a baby shower this afternoon. I was so into my quest to find information about ether and the use of Chloroform that I worked past the time I was nearly due to leave. As always, I hadn't bought the gift yet or the card. Still thinking of my coming scene in chapter two, I rushed to the store to pick up a card and some wrapping. I buy a cute card and decide on gift cards to a baby store.

I don't know about you, but I can never write anything worthwhile on a card. Some people write these great touching words that bring a tear to ones eye. Not me. Here I am a writer but put a card in front of me and I suddenly can't spell or remember the persons name I'm writing to. I think secretly people all long to come up with a saying on a card that is so terrific that the present is forgotten, the card passed around so other's could read the brilliance of your words.

Case in point. Here I am, already late, sitting in my car outside the store, pen in hand, gift wrapped and pen poised. I blank. Come on, come on, I tap the pen against my steering wheel. Come on, just write something! Anything!

Molly, I write...

Okay, got her name down, spelled correctly, looks nice as well. Okay, she's having a baby, say something about the baby. So, what do I write? what wonderful, inspired sweet, touching thing could I come up with?

Hope she's beautiful. What?! I wrote that on her fricken baby shower card? I stare at it. I can't believe I wrote that. Hope she's beautiful? I might as well have written "hope she's not butt ugly." "Hope she doesn't make people gag." "Hope she doesn't look like your husband."

I'm so late I contemplate just leaving it and hope my friend has a sense of humor. Not about her baby she won't, not bloody likely. With a big sigh, I toss it onto my passenger seat and head back inside for another card. I'm still thinking about how to rework my scene as I run back out to my car again.

This time I play it safe. I merely write her name at the top, date it and sign my name at the bottom. I stick it in the envelope, seal it and write her name on the card, done. If I can drive 80 on the freeway I won't be too terribly late.
As I'm driving there, the lime green envelope next to me catches my eye. I look at the card addressed to Katy. Katy? Who the hell is Katy? Damn it! I wrote my characters name on the damn card.

Sigh. I'm not buying another card, not at three or four dollars a pop. Maybe she won't notice. Going through so many presents and cards, she'll just pick mine up and open it without realize the name on the card isn't hers. Not even close.

I worry about it through the entire drive, coming up with elaborate scenarios to explain away the wrong name if asked. As it turned out. No one asked, I spend the whole afternoon way in the back talking with friends. When she got to my gift, she opens the card, reads it and then very loudly thanked "Judy" for the gift.

Jeesh. Doesn't she know my name is Julie?