Scribbles and Scrambles ~ More Adventures of Toad-Boy and Grasshopper

My favorite Grasshopper story happened on the day Rob and I met him.

He rode home on the bus with Jordan aka Toad-Boy and said maybe three words all afternoon. Those words were pulled from him via painstaking verbal surgery. He did mutter "Ummmm." quite a bit without being questioned now that I remember. It could be that he was communicating all along.

I made dinner while the boys busied themselves in Toad-Boy's workshop -- a dark, dank corner in the basement that doubled as his science lab and hydroponic garden. Or maybe they played with Lego toys or built electronic devices. Their friendship spanned all of those pursuits and more, much, much more. I am certain that this period was pre-treetop camping.

I called the boys to dinner and the four of us gathered around the table. Grasshopper ate like one, but remained silent except for the Ummm's whenever Rob or I asked a question or offered a remark in his direction.

In a quiet moment Grasshopper lifted his glass of milk to his lips and hesitated.

A low, squeaky rumble sounded below the table -- a low, squeaky, LONG rumble. Painfully long and Grasshopper turned a shade of maroon and began scoping out the room for an escape all the while moving nothing but his eyes.

Fortunately, we are a family that has been corrupted by the belief that gas passing can be cheap entertainment, even at the kitchen table. Toad-Boy broke the ice and we all cracked. Grasshopper remained frozen for a few more seconds then joined in.

Twelve years later, we still occasionally lift, kind of a toast of honor, a glass of milk to our lips, move our eyes rapidly from side to side, hum a few bars of ummm, and then laugh.

Serials and Scenarios ~ The Edge of Recall

CFBA is touring Kristen Heitzmann's The Edge of Recall. You can read the first chapter here. You can also visit Kristen's website.

And now for my review. (Kristen has the Dregs ?'s, so we should hear from her soon.)

My Review:


This fascinating story centers around dreams, repression and fears. Symbolic of life, physical and eternal, the labyrinth is the playing field in a game of cat and mouse. Tessa, a prickly, wounded soul and Smith, a man who repeatedly wounds her, are pulled into an unwanted contest pitting them against the unknown, each other and those whom they trust.

Psychological aspects come into play often making the story feel frantic at times. I did have to suspend a healthy amount of disbelief and accept the neat sewing up of events in the end, but overall, the details made the trip an entertaining, suspenseful one.

Super Cinema Saturday ~ Indy, Crystal Skulls and Loads of Adventure

Indy's back...and knees...and other aches and pains. You gotta admire a man willing to revisit a success in such a sacrificial way. It was easy to cheer him on even though the action had slowed a bit.

Dry, droll and to-the-point, the older, wiser and classic Indy takes on the Russians, the feds and a mushroom cloud.

Within this flick are unbelievable scenes...just as I expected. You have to be willing to go along for the ride and enjoy it. If you plan to take a notebook to record the moments you have to suspend disbelief, then don't go.

Indy also delivers creepy crawlies and moldering corpses. A whole lot of bad guys guarantee the wild car chases and crashes. Indy has slowed down but he can still kick some serious bad guy rear end.

Youthful foolishness and posturing is delivered by Mutt, Indy's new and not necessarily welcomed sidekick. But Indy has grown up and is ready to teach. Besides some of the miraculous saves, I didn't buy some of the too easily mended relationships, but other than that, this was a great, entertaining summer flick. (Children sensitive to creepies and things that bump in the night should probably not see Indy.)

Serials and Scenarios ~ Love Starts with Elle

Rachel Hauck has visited the Dregs before. My review of her new book follows. If you want to peruse her interview and my review of Sweet Caroline, click here and scroll down.


My Review:

Rachel Hauck is solidly on my favorite authors list after I finished Love Starts with Elle. Hauck tells a good story, creates lovable characters and doesn't shy away from grit and reality. On top of all those great qualities, she brings a deep sense of spirituality into the lives of her story inhabitants. Subjects like forgiveness, grace and living breathing relationships with God are layered into her prose adding a depth to her novels.

Love Starts with Elle picks up where Sweet Caroline leaves off. With a cast of previously introduced characters and a sweet spot in low country, the reader gets to experience Elle's little corner of Beaufort. Having found love after her Operation Wedding quest's amusing results in Caroline, Elle is ready to meet the world head-on with her man by her side. Along the way she discovers that God has plans for her that she could never have believed or even dreamed.

Hauck doesn't shy away from death and sorrow. Her characters grieve believably, and then grow through it. Elle is not lightweight but it contains elements of romance and humor as well as the heavier subjects. I did find myself thinking like a critic on occasion, but then after reading further and after dashing tears from my cheeks three or four times I decided I didn't care one bit, the story sucked me in. Hauck fans will want to check out Elle. If you aren't a Hauck fan, you might want to work on that.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Thanks and God Bless You.

Thanks to those who shed blood, sweat and tears for America and her freedom....

And to the God Who shed it ALL just so some might choose His hard-won freedom and decide to follow Him.

I'm sharing a story from a forwarded e-mail because it cracked me up.

And since a long weekend is right around the corner, a long weekend that screams for swimming and frolicking on sandy beaches, I felt it was great timing. Warning, this contains an anatomical term that may not be considered family friendly...

The Bathing Suit

When I was a child in the 1950s the bathing suit for the mature figure was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job.

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice-she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia or she can wander around every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror - my boobs had disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib..

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment. The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, 'Oh, there you are,' she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit...a two-piece affair with a shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top.

It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.
When I got home, I found a label which read -- 'Material might become transparent in water.'

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too .. I'll be the one
in cut off jeans and a t-shirt!

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Adventures of Toad-Boy and Grasshopper Part 1

I'm going to visit more male-child moments. I can afford to do this because unlike Kim and a few others who will remain nameless, I don't have any boys smearing dirt on my walls and inhaling refrigerator contents.

Nor do I have a teenage male who feels it's his life call to drive me to the psych ward (in all uses of the word.)

That said. Come enjoy a slightly sanitized walk down memory lane.

Boyish pursuits at my house included, but did not limit themselves to, wrestling matches between Jordan whom I'll call Toad-Boy and his buddy whom I'll refer to as Grasshopper. (No, not as in the infamous Kung Fu reference, but as in appearance.)

Let's just say the boy's appendages were twice as long as necessary for his body and his body was really slow in catching up with them.

I rarely spend $35 on a vase.

I dare say I've done it just one time.

In case you haven't figured it out, this particular incident involves said $35 vase.

I'd been gone for a spell, probably dropping big bucks at the grocery store to feed Toad-Boy and Grasshopper.

When I returned I noticed 4 things. Eyeballs. Guilty dog-type eyeballs.

You know what that looks like -- flitting eye contact, a whole lot of white showing and a slightly off-center tilt to the area where "the incident" occurred.

"What's up?" I asked with a sigh. I knew. But I was hoping for a different answer.

Rapid-fire small talk erupted from the boys. Random hints were dropped. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Is it broken?"

Oh well. One less thing to dust and a lesson learned. After all, $35 can buy a whole bag of groceries to feed those growing boys.