This morning dawned so beautiful that I feel like waxing eloquent. If I fail, I’d appreciate you not mentioning it. Thanks.
What I experienced on the morning of Friday June 2, 2006. By Kelly Klepfer
Today started like most days. I flopped one leg over the bed and slapped the snooze on my alarm. Again, just a few short moments later, it squawked. The other leg hit the floor, the hand automatically smacked the alarm, and I was committed.
I slept as I scrubbed – kind of like hitting the snooze, but wetter. Then I Frankenstein-walked into my eldest daughter’s room to wake her for our standing coffee date. Boy, did I need some coffee! She began her sleepwalking ritual (we’re related that way) and I made the mistake of sitting down to put on my shoes. A few moans and groans later, we were off to the magic elixir. Yay! Frozen mocha elixir.
A bright blue sky greeted me as I opened the front door. And songs of assorted birds soothed my eardrums. A robin, perchance, sang with great gusto. I rolled down the windows of my van and let my hair whip into a mess. Sweet aromas, freshly cut grass, a bush in bloom, tickled my nose.
Coffee, six different varieties blending into nose candy, awakened us as we yanked the door. The line moved quickly.
We bowed to pray and my daughter prayed that I would be richly blessed. I was.
The sense enrichment didn’t end there. Ice water suddenly flooded the table which we sopped up with at least a hundred napkins while we giggled. The coffee hit our blood stream. We parted to begin our days.
I take X-Rays as part of my day job. One patient crabbed because she had to take some of her clothing off. I had told her that she didn’t have to take much off.
“Not much – that’s half of what I have on.”
“But I’m trying to keep the glass half full.” I told her. She laughed.
And as I finish the morning out, the sun still shines brightly, and we now have a clean refrigerator.
Two doctors are gone today, and the old fridge with the tiny freezer coated with ice begged to be taken care of -- the door wouldn’t close all the way.
Pumped full of caffeine and the promise of a quiet day, I flung open the door, turned it to defrost and let it melt.
Everyone has stopped to take a turn and removing ice chunks. A doctor even got his hammer from his office and found a screwdriver to chisel with – not only scary, but also a great picture of private practice. I suggested I query a medical journal and see if they wanted a story of the real life of private practice doctors.
And to top it off, I had procrastinated a phone call, and finally took care of it today, and it turns out that the situation was solved.
Ahhh. The little joys of life.
Hope you all have an excellent – richly blessed – glass half full – laughter peppered – situation resolved -- smell good weekend.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Scribbles and Scrambles - Pat - It's a Bird, It's a Plane - No, I'ts a Knee.
Let me remind you who Pat is. He is my sweet, big-hearted, gruff and grumbly Dad.
I visit him at work on occasion. The first question I ask his new co-workers is, “Has he made you cry yet?” This would be the gruff and grumbly part of his personality.
They usually look at me with the tilted head, confused puppy look. Then the next time I see them, they laugh and say, without me having to ask again. “Yep! Or Not yet!”
Pat has a special noise machine he and his male co-workers use to release tension. I’ll say no more about that. And he’s prone to practical joke-ism.
One of Pat’s very special tricks needs no accessories. He possesses a flying knee.
Mom and I have decided there is no purpose for the knee. It seems to be some sort of warning device like the white tail on a fleeing deer.
Here’s how it works: someone trips, or stumbles or teeters, crashes, falls or careens into something – and this somehow triggers the knee to an airborne position. Whether standing or sitting, Pat flies the knee. No one is certain if it’s a panicked warning of impending danger, or if it’s some lame attempt to protect. Even Pat is unsure.
Just like a mom will fling her arm out straight across the passenger seat at a sudden stop, is the reactive knee. And just as amusing as a mom “protecting” an empty passenger seat, or a bag of groceries, is the flying appendage.
Sometimes the knee is an outward, upward thrust, others a sideways swipe. Never backward and never have I seen Pat actually connect or protect anyone or thing from a tumble.
But sometimes the grasshopper-like hop he does is a nice diversion.
Pat maybe really does have super knees. I’ve seen him drive with them. Yep. He steers with them.
So maybe his hip-hop, jump, shimmy knee fling is some sort of directing move. Like a sheep dog guides the sheep with a growl or a nip, Pat wields a knobby hairy leg.
I visit him at work on occasion. The first question I ask his new co-workers is, “Has he made you cry yet?” This would be the gruff and grumbly part of his personality.
They usually look at me with the tilted head, confused puppy look. Then the next time I see them, they laugh and say, without me having to ask again. “Yep! Or Not yet!”
Pat has a special noise machine he and his male co-workers use to release tension. I’ll say no more about that. And he’s prone to practical joke-ism.
One of Pat’s very special tricks needs no accessories. He possesses a flying knee.
Mom and I have decided there is no purpose for the knee. It seems to be some sort of warning device like the white tail on a fleeing deer.
Here’s how it works: someone trips, or stumbles or teeters, crashes, falls or careens into something – and this somehow triggers the knee to an airborne position. Whether standing or sitting, Pat flies the knee. No one is certain if it’s a panicked warning of impending danger, or if it’s some lame attempt to protect. Even Pat is unsure.
Just like a mom will fling her arm out straight across the passenger seat at a sudden stop, is the reactive knee. And just as amusing as a mom “protecting” an empty passenger seat, or a bag of groceries, is the flying appendage.
Sometimes the knee is an outward, upward thrust, others a sideways swipe. Never backward and never have I seen Pat actually connect or protect anyone or thing from a tumble.
But sometimes the grasshopper-like hop he does is a nice diversion.
Pat maybe really does have super knees. I’ve seen him drive with them. Yep. He steers with them.
So maybe his hip-hop, jump, shimmy knee fling is some sort of directing move. Like a sheep dog guides the sheep with a growl or a nip, Pat wields a knobby hairy leg.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Serials and Scenarios - Kathryn Mackel - How'd She Come Up With This....
Happy Wednesday.
Minterview - Mini Interview with Kathryn Mackel (feel free to use my clever word melding)
Kathy writes suspense/thrillers/sci-fi/fantasy. Her newest is The Hidden.
She played along and finished a story starter - see below.
My instructions were to build on the red italicized line with a couple of lines of her own.
She suggested I might be crazy, limiting a novelist to a few lines. Told me I was lucky I didn't get 40,000 words. The bold blue are all hers.
Hmmm. She also mentioned recovering from surgery. I suggested that the pain relievers might be hallucinogenic. Thanks for playing Kathy.
Check out The Hidden which I haven't read - yet. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1595540377
But my review for the first book in her Outriders series is here.
http://novelreviews.blogspot.com/2006/02/kathy-mackels-outridersreviewed.html
Lauren stared at the clock. Eleven forty-five, if only it read ten forty-five. Everyone should be allowed one do-over hour in life.
“Do you really believe that?”
“Huh?” Lauren’s attention jerked to the tinny voice snaking up from her feet.
“You heard me.” A tiny man in top hat and black tie stared up at her from the bottom of the wastebasket.
Lauren resisted the impulse to jam a phonebook into her trash, and thus obliterate what had to be the corniest hallucination in history. “Who’re you?”
“Wrong question.”
She couldn’t even get her own phantasms right. “What’s the right question?”
The tiny man buffed his fingernails with a file the size of a pin. Someone so miniscule had no right to play hard-to-get. He took off his top hat, bowing with a strange grace. “In regard to the do-over?”
Maybe Lauren should just go to the ladies room and try flushing the last hour away.
Instead she leaned closer, swallowing back the notion that she was about to pull an Alice and plunge down a rabbit hole. With her luck, it’d be filled with snakes, spiders, and sad-eyed clowns.
“What about it?” she said, not displeased by her snappish tone.
“The correct question is—were you able to have a do-over…” The tiny man grinned, showing oversized eyeteeth imbedded with diamonds.
Lauren reached for the phonebook. She killed houseflies for less.
The tiny man straightened his lapels with a loud sniff. “The correct question in regard to the do-over is: what would it cost me?”
Lauren leaned back in her chair, trying to mask the pounding of her heart by bouncing on her fanny. “If I were interested in a re-do…and I’m not saying I am…but if I were.” She tried to stop her question but her throat was too clenched to swallow it back.
“What would it cost me?” Lauren winced at her own pathetic eagerness.
Suddenly he was in her face, still tiny yet impossibly overwhelming. Poised for this heroic moment of decision and destiny, in which he whispered.,..
“Only that which you have no use for anyway.”
Minterview - Mini Interview with Kathryn Mackel (feel free to use my clever word melding)
Kathy writes suspense/thrillers/sci-fi/fantasy. Her newest is The Hidden.
She played along and finished a story starter - see below.
My instructions were to build on the red italicized line with a couple of lines of her own.
She suggested I might be crazy, limiting a novelist to a few lines. Told me I was lucky I didn't get 40,000 words. The bold blue are all hers.
Hmmm. She also mentioned recovering from surgery. I suggested that the pain relievers might be hallucinogenic. Thanks for playing Kathy.
Check out The Hidden which I haven't read - yet. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1595540377
But my review for the first book in her Outriders series is here.
http://novelreviews.blogspot.com/2006/02/kathy-mackels-outridersreviewed.html
Lauren stared at the clock. Eleven forty-five, if only it read ten forty-five. Everyone should be allowed one do-over hour in life.
“Do you really believe that?”
“Huh?” Lauren’s attention jerked to the tinny voice snaking up from her feet.
“You heard me.” A tiny man in top hat and black tie stared up at her from the bottom of the wastebasket.
Lauren resisted the impulse to jam a phonebook into her trash, and thus obliterate what had to be the corniest hallucination in history. “Who’re you?”
“Wrong question.”
She couldn’t even get her own phantasms right. “What’s the right question?”
The tiny man buffed his fingernails with a file the size of a pin. Someone so miniscule had no right to play hard-to-get. He took off his top hat, bowing with a strange grace. “In regard to the do-over?”
Maybe Lauren should just go to the ladies room and try flushing the last hour away.
Instead she leaned closer, swallowing back the notion that she was about to pull an Alice and plunge down a rabbit hole. With her luck, it’d be filled with snakes, spiders, and sad-eyed clowns.
“What about it?” she said, not displeased by her snappish tone.
“The correct question is—were you able to have a do-over…” The tiny man grinned, showing oversized eyeteeth imbedded with diamonds.
Lauren reached for the phonebook. She killed houseflies for less.
The tiny man straightened his lapels with a loud sniff. “The correct question in regard to the do-over is: what would it cost me?”
Lauren leaned back in her chair, trying to mask the pounding of her heart by bouncing on her fanny. “If I were interested in a re-do…and I’m not saying I am…but if I were.” She tried to stop her question but her throat was too clenched to swallow it back.
“What would it cost me?” Lauren winced at her own pathetic eagerness.
Suddenly he was in her face, still tiny yet impossibly overwhelming. Poised for this heroic moment of decision and destiny, in which he whispered.,..
“Only that which you have no use for anyway.”
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Scribbles and Scrambles - Conclusion - Swing Batter Swing – Fish Story
It was a long walk back to the car. Especially since Grandma hooted and snickered in a ladylike manner. My rotten friend and Grandma had bonded nicely on the way out to retrieve me, and their happy conversation buzzed around me like an annoying cloud of ravenous mosquitoes.
I’ve blocked out the discussion I had with the doctor. No doubt he asked me how I had managed to crack my collarbone. I believe if I strain really hard I remember my mother laughing, and the doctor attempting to swallow his amusement.
I got to wear a contraption around my shoulder for awhile. The details of this have been buried deeply with another personality, also. Suffice it to say it scratched and annoyed and made the usual steamy June even more unpleasant.
The high point of my convalescence came with an invitation to go camping with my said friend and her mother -- in a motor home. What a treat that was going to be. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to swim in the lake we were visiting, but that was okay.
We rumbled down the road in the RV and found a breezy tree-lined spot. This was going to be great. “Friend” did a lot of swimming. I passed the time with her mom or dangled my toes in the cool water, working on my positive attitude skills.
Finally, friend developed a great idea involving Styrofoam surfboards -- I don’t know the usual purpose of a Styrofoam surfboard, and why they would sell them in the Midwest – but the plan was to use one and just keep my torso out of the water. It was a great idea in theory. Did I mention that I lack coordination skills?
I paddled out with my good arm, and paddled, and paddled and rested. It was a little exhausting to keep one shoulder lifted away from splashes and yet manage to get where I wanted to go. A group of kids my friend had amassed came over to meet me. They’d heard all about me, obvious from the smirks on their faces.
One very kind young man even brought me a welcoming gift. A dead fish he’d found floating near the shore. The fish and I got very intimate as I tried to hang onto the surfboard with my good hand while removing the fish without getting my shoulder wet. A fun day was had by all.
Ah yes, the joys of growing up.
I’ve blocked out the discussion I had with the doctor. No doubt he asked me how I had managed to crack my collarbone. I believe if I strain really hard I remember my mother laughing, and the doctor attempting to swallow his amusement.
I got to wear a contraption around my shoulder for awhile. The details of this have been buried deeply with another personality, also. Suffice it to say it scratched and annoyed and made the usual steamy June even more unpleasant.
The high point of my convalescence came with an invitation to go camping with my said friend and her mother -- in a motor home. What a treat that was going to be. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to swim in the lake we were visiting, but that was okay.
We rumbled down the road in the RV and found a breezy tree-lined spot. This was going to be great. “Friend” did a lot of swimming. I passed the time with her mom or dangled my toes in the cool water, working on my positive attitude skills.
Finally, friend developed a great idea involving Styrofoam surfboards -- I don’t know the usual purpose of a Styrofoam surfboard, and why they would sell them in the Midwest – but the plan was to use one and just keep my torso out of the water. It was a great idea in theory. Did I mention that I lack coordination skills?
I paddled out with my good arm, and paddled, and paddled and rested. It was a little exhausting to keep one shoulder lifted away from splashes and yet manage to get where I wanted to go. A group of kids my friend had amassed came over to meet me. They’d heard all about me, obvious from the smirks on their faces.
One very kind young man even brought me a welcoming gift. A dead fish he’d found floating near the shore. The fish and I got very intimate as I tried to hang onto the surfboard with my good hand while removing the fish without getting my shoulder wet. A fun day was had by all.
Ah yes, the joys of growing up.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Scribbles and Scrambles - Swing, Batter, Swing! Part 3
I believe Common Sense missed a beat in the on-going battle. She must have gotten distracted, because she really should have suggested something along the lines of, “hey stupid, if you’re going to do this, at least slide halfway down so you’re less likely to break your neck.”
But she didn’t. So at the very top of the slide I grasped the sides, fueled by the “fun” I was going to have, and the burst of adrenaline that surged through my veins. I curled into the somersault, my right shoulder landing safe and sound on the sun warmed slide, my left shoulder and legs catching air.
The next few seconds blur together. There was a sensation of flying and falling – I suppose because I was. A fairly solid landing and a whole lot of pain followed.
A shocked friend face bent over and peered into mine. I was sitting at the time.
I suppose I executed a triple or something equally impressive. Or maybe I just landed on the most solid part of my anatomy.
My whole body hurt, especially my neck and shoulders. I managed to groan, “Go get my grandma.”
“I don’t know her very well!”
I did not embellish the above statement, nor was it a hallucination.
I used the rest of my stamina to argue, plead and beg.
Two kids sauntered past, stopped and stared. One asked, “What happened to her?”
“Oh, she fell off the slide.” The kids moved on. The breeze carried silence except for the distant sound of little league. As the innocent passers-by reached a respectful distance loud guffaws reached my ears. I can’t blame them, I laugh now.
My friend finally scurried off and returned a long time later with my grandma, who was laughing.
Is it any wonder I’m twisted? No hope for normalcy. None. Nada.
To be continued – one more time in - Swing Batter Swing – Fish Story.
This Monday I’m planning to skip – so see you on Tuesday. Have a great long weekend!
But she didn’t. So at the very top of the slide I grasped the sides, fueled by the “fun” I was going to have, and the burst of adrenaline that surged through my veins. I curled into the somersault, my right shoulder landing safe and sound on the sun warmed slide, my left shoulder and legs catching air.
The next few seconds blur together. There was a sensation of flying and falling – I suppose because I was. A fairly solid landing and a whole lot of pain followed.
A shocked friend face bent over and peered into mine. I was sitting at the time.
I suppose I executed a triple or something equally impressive. Or maybe I just landed on the most solid part of my anatomy.
My whole body hurt, especially my neck and shoulders. I managed to groan, “Go get my grandma.”
“I don’t know her very well!”
I did not embellish the above statement, nor was it a hallucination.
I used the rest of my stamina to argue, plead and beg.
Two kids sauntered past, stopped and stared. One asked, “What happened to her?”
“Oh, she fell off the slide.” The kids moved on. The breeze carried silence except for the distant sound of little league. As the innocent passers-by reached a respectful distance loud guffaws reached my ears. I can’t blame them, I laugh now.
My friend finally scurried off and returned a long time later with my grandma, who was laughing.
Is it any wonder I’m twisted? No hope for normalcy. None. Nada.
To be continued – one more time in - Swing Batter Swing – Fish Story.
This Monday I’m planning to skip – so see you on Tuesday. Have a great long weekend!
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