Scribbles and Scrambles - Falling Snow and Junk Yard Dogs

I have no idea why I'm inspired to write about snowflakes.

Why does the poetry bug bite?



The puppies are playing junkyard dog -- you know, the growling, snarling, fighting that siblings everywhere partake in. Except with 65 pound dogs, you don't allow it in the living room next to the cute little antique table with the Ming vase perched on top. Fortunately, the kids took care of my Ming years ago.

Ocean's Eleven blares from the living room. My Cheerios/Grape-Nuts bowl shares table space with my laptop, and I'm transfixed by the snow.

Velvet on Ice

Black velvet sky
No one does black velvet like God

Shards of ice bits
Swirling
Swooping
Floating

Each perfect
created
individual

Being what
Doing all
that it was created for

Covering filth
Blanketing brokenness

Glorifying the Creator
Floating like grace
Covering dead and dying

Painting a picture
of redemption
on living black velvet

Scribble and Scrambles - Keys !!!!

How many hours of my life have I invested in key hunts?

I don't actually want to know.

Tonight, after retracing my steps no less than three full times with lots of detours for "what-if" scenarios, I broke down and called the store I had visited an hour earlier.

My keys had been found in the parking lot.

How they ended up in the parking lot is a mystery. I could picture them stuck in the door (it's happened to more than one member in my household), on the back of the toilet, turned into puppy toys, even chilling in the refrigerator before I'd guess they actually fell out of my pocket and into a snowy parking lot.

Our youngest daughter got us clapper key chains for Christmas a few years ago. They went off with laughter, loud conversation and when the phone rang. Nice idea.

But not so practical.

How about a body/key buddy-snap? A surgically attached snap that connects owners to key chain.

Double duty -- cool piercing with serious time saving smarts -- win-win.

Hey, if anyone invents it can I suggest a name?

Snap! (said with attitude.)

Okay. Okay. What do you expect an hour and a half past my bedtime?

Scribble and Scrambles - Grandmotherisms

Kim's comment from yesterday's "I Love My Job" post cracked me up.

In honor of my grandmother's recent 90th birthday, I think I'll share a few of my favorite grandmother moments.

My poor grandma has taught me how to knit and crochet at least a dozen times. Unfortunately, none of what she taught me stuck. However, I do remember her "Good Night!" whenever a kid did something naughty. Shudder. A "Good Night!" from Grandma guaranteed a very bad night indeed.

Popcorn flowed at Grandma's house. I can't look at a stainless steel mixing bowl without thinking of Carol Burnett, popcorn, and Grandma.

Grandma still likes to laugh at my expense over my honey faux pas. She handed me a container of honey and a saucer and asked me to put the honey in the saucer. This was my grandma, so I decided to take her request literally. I wondered but didn't ask while I poured the honey into the shallow dish. Apparently, she wanted me to set the container of honey into the saucer since the honey decanter dribbled.

My other grandma, Grandma V.would be thrilled that she died at 92 because she hated odd years. Of course, Grandma was really looking forward to heaven, too, so that could have been part of the motivation.

Grandma V. focused less on domestic training and more on...well, life's big issues.

I don't recall a conversation with Grandma V without her asking about my bowels. Grandma was a nurse and apparently bowel regularity was stressed in nursing school.

I also learned the value of proper lifting of heavy objects, or even better, letting my mother lift things instead. After all, Mom already had children and her uterus, if it ruptured, was expendable.

Finally, I'll never forget Grandma V's favorite horror story. The Boy Who Ate Green Apples...and DIED! I'm not sure what the moral of that story was, but I sure controlled myself around green apples after that. I kind of wish she'd used chocolate as the deadly vice. Oh well.

Scribble and Scrambles - I Love My Job

I made the mistake of asking my oldest daughter for a subject to blog about.

She suggested..."My Life as a Proctologist."

Fortunately, blogging about my life as a proctologist will be pure fiction or rambling, so I think I'm up (or down) for it.

As an x-ray technician, I get plenty of patient caregiver intimacy. Arm's length and I am glad of it. For a few seconds I considered going further into nursing, but then I remembered nursing requires involvement in bodily functions. In x-ray, at least in my realm of limited x-ray, I deal with breathing, some conversation, a few laughs, an occasional cough and a very rare sneeze.

I don't need to tell you that proctology doesn't exactly appeal to me, do I?

Other jobs I'm pretty sure I don't envy:

Refuse Collection (Trash Chick)

Sewage Plant Worker

Reptile Herder

Rocky Mountain Oyster Collector

Snake Milker

Any job ever appearing on Dirty Jobs including that of the host.

After running this little essay past my daughter she tells me I passed her test. I feel better.

In case you are curious, proctology is not recognized in the blogger dictionary.

Maybe all the other bloggers need to use it more often.

Just a thought.

Scribble and Scrambles - Driven by Drama?

Used to be that drama was saved for the page or stage.

Now its wherever you choose to look.

Why?

Back in the day, when I embraced drama, I sought the flutter of life. If I could feel something -- anything -- the sensation proved I was alive. Fully, functionally or painfully alive.

Of course, I preferred the positive drama like great news or passionate love or success. But if those failed to come through for me, weeping worked too and ofttimes drew people into my drama -- which seemed a good thing. Who wants to cry alone?

As I've matured I've become suspicious of drama and for the most part unmoved. Oh, Hollywood can squeeze a drop or two from my tear ducts. But that's not tough, I've been known to cry during commercials.

The things that now infuse me with the sensations of life are flash frozen moments of connectedness with someone. Making eye contact across the room with a loved one and knowing exactly what he or she is thinking. A touch. An inside joke. Shared thoughts over struggles and sorrows, or triumphs and joys. Wonder and awe over the immensity and minutia of creation.

Does society's drama addiction stem from lack of connectedness? An "always on the phone but no one's listening" kind of a thing.

Do the majority of our relationships lack the sensation of life, having become parallel -- headed in the same direction but not intersecting?

Feeling a little dead inside and the writers strike is getting really old? Reality television or the parade of dysfunctional starlets starting to make you feel queasy?

Look up, look left and then right. Is there someone on your path you need to connect with?

Scribble and Scrambles - Muffled Monday Musings

I hab a code.

Everything I say is being filtered through gunk. Keep that in mind in case this post rambles or runs like an out of control nose during hay fever season.

My first musing -- I love my family. We had 38 various assorted cousins/grands/aunts/uncles and other such folk over for a 90th birthday celebration yesterday.

Not mine, thank you very much!

My Grandma turns 90 tomorrow. You'd never know it to look at her.

I am so glad Rob tore out the kitchen wall because everyone congregated in the bigger, albeit a little dustier, kitchen.

Talk about a buzz of activity. It was a great get together. I love it when you reconnect with people you don't see very often. I always kick myself for letting it go so long between visits.

Second item on the musing charts.... I find it odd that I run across the word colon as often as I do. I suppose it's an obvious since I do work in the medical profession, but then in my writing life, there she blows...

Thirdly, Feral Will got a taste of the trauma he inflicts on poor Freckles. A pack of six children went on a "kitty" hunt yesterday during the birthday party. I suggested that they look in my bedroom for Feral. But rumor has it that the "moose head" on the wall bothered them. Hey. If I have to have a deer head on my wall, I should at least be able to traumatize children with it.

Speaking of children...my aunts gifted me with an odd little book when I was a wee lass. A book "written" in only single letters, numbers and punctuation. As I was driving to work one of the pages popped into my head. One child was pointing out a snake to another child. An argument over snake vs non-snake erupted. Finally, the pro-snake character threw out the proof.

C D B-D I's.

So if I think that's amusing and can figure it out, why do I have so much trouble with vanity license plates?

Have a good Monday?

Scribbles and Scrambles - What Shall I Write?

I feel like a slacker-blogger.

A year ago it wouldn't have been a big deal to post only three times in a week, but somewhere, somehow I've picked up the need/compulsion/responsibility to blog at least 5 times. I missed the mark last week, and the week before.

Maybe it's X-ta who sends me e-mails wondering when I'm going to post again. Maybe it's because I'm used to blogging about books and doing tours with information that doesn't have a lot to do with me, so doesn't require great thought on my part.

Whatever the motivation is, I guess I need to reveal to the world that I'm kind of addicted to the process.

It's kind of odd...putting my thoughts into a simple box during moments of solitary introspection, and then realizing, after the fact, that people read my stuff and remember it.

My blog address is in my e-mail signature, so a lot of my readers are random and not necessarily those I talk with every day. An editor commented favorably on my blog-style after she purchased one of my articles. My aunt found out about my French press addiction and bought me my very own for Christmas last year. A friend from work surprised me with a Christmas present that included two kinds of tape and a notebook for my purse because of posts she read on my blog. My daughter passed along something I wrote to a friend of hers who mentioned how much he enjoyed one of my Pat posts and that he often clicked over to see what was on the Dregs. Some come to read interviews and book reviews, others see the blue and red and pass because they actually prefer reading what I write.

This feedback is both humbling and exciting. I hope I've made my posts of value. I hope you know how much I appreciate that you invest your time reading my thoughts.

Now, I'm going to go finish cleaning and take my shower. It's noon, for goodness sake, and I have a party at my house tomorrow.

Have an excellent weekend, friends.