Author: ME

Melt-in-your-mouth roughage

ME Food stuffs

I don’t eat fish because it tastes like licking the bottom of a boat. I’ve never licked the bottom of a boat, but I’m sure it would taste like fish. I do hate to slander boats by making such a claim. But once every few years I feel the need to be self-righteous about my health and eat fish since it’s supposedly some kind of super food, so I’ll go to Captain D’s and get the 2-piece fish dinner with fries and hushpuppies. It’s amazing how eating a meal made up entirely of deep fried foods can negate any self-righteous health consciousness.

There are a host of other foods that are rumored to be nutritional powerhouses but have a very miniscule group of devoted followers. Kale is one such food. I’ve never eaten kale because all this time I thought the produce section only sold it for snobby people to decorate their plates with. I seriously thought it was the curly green garnish fine restaurants poke onto the edge of your plate on its way out the kitchen door and I just assumed there were people out there who were big enough jackwagons that they would actually purchase it to garnish their plates of Skillet Sensations at home.

Turns out, there are actually a lot of recipes for kale on the internet and one such recipe—Kale Chips—looked suspiciously promising. It had all kinds of reviewer comments like, “Tastes just like potato chips,” and “I’ll never serve anything else with dip ever again.” They sucked me in. They got me.

I sought out the least wilty-looking bunch of kale I could find and had to root through the produce bin for ages for a bunch that didn’t look like it had been man-handled too much. I took it home, washed it, chopped it, and according to the recipe I baked it in the oven with some sea salt. And I waited.

The interesting thing about kale is its ability to taste like a completely different food. Unfortunately, it took me several bites to figure out that the different food it tastes like is brussel sprouts. I’m actually okay with brussel sprouts, but they’re not usually my go-to snack food. Wait, there was another interesting thing about kale, at least once you bake it with sea salt: it dissolves when you eat it. It was the weirdest sensation, crunching up a crackling leaf and having it dissolve. I can’t think of a lot of other melt-in-your-mouth experiences with roughage foods, but that’s what happened.

All in all, kale will have to fall into the same category I reserve for fish, which is foods that I only eat once in a while because they’re very good for me. At least this food group hasn’t languished in the mire of seaweed and barnacles, which is only fleetingly comforting.

Literary agent contest!

ME Overly simple thoughts

Hurry to the Guide to Literary Agents blog by Chuck Sambuchino to win a free critique of your manuscript by a real-live super agent!

Go to:

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog

and look for the Eighth Agent Contest.

Confessions of an addict

ME Overly simple thoughts

I have proven myself to be totally untrustworthy with the new coffee maker I got for Christmas. I cannot be left alone with it for even a few minutes, let alone an entire unsupervised afternoon.

In my pre-Keurig days, I would get up early and make a small pot of coffee in my four-cup Mr. Coffee. I would drink the first cup, sometimes catching it with my mouth as it dripped out of the filter basket, but once I’d downed that first cup I was awake. The remainder of the pot would go in my travel cup right before I walked out the door to be leisurely sipped as I dropped the children at their schools and then made my way to work. Granted, that second cup had been sitting on the machine’s burner plate for close to an hour, making it taste like road construction asphalt, but it was all I had to work with.

My NCD husband (non-coffee drinker) is truly an above par human being, because he’s capable of thinking vague holiday-ish thoughts like, “My wife likes chocolate, ergo, I should buy her a lot of Godiva chocolates and make her like me.” So the weeks leading up to Christmas were filled with tiny little hints about my Christmas surprise, hints like taking me to the department store, pointing at a Keurig coffee maker, and asking, “Do you like this one?” I never said he was a subtle human being, just very thoughtful.

Eventually, I found it would be easier and less potentially hurtful to just locate the specific coffee maker online, print out the item number and description, and find the names and addresses of six local stores that had the exact machine in stock. And why not? The real surprise would be the wrapping paper anyway.

So on Christmas Day, I drank my very first cup of Keurig coffee. Well, it was actually Newman’s Own brand, but it spit out into my eager mug from Keurig for which I will be forever grateful. By nine o’clock that morning, I was enjoying my fourth cup of Keurig coffee. Okay, this one was actually Caribou Coffee brand. And then I had a cup of Green Mountain Coffee brand. It was purely research, I had to find out which kind I liked best by sipping my way through the sampler pack that came with the machine in order to know which types of K-Cups to buy in the future. Or the next day as quantity would dictate.

Sadly, I ended up enjoying almost all of the sampler coffees. The good news is I was so hopped up on caffeine that I was able to take down all of the Christmas decorations, repack the ornaments in their boxes, roll up fourteen strands of lights from the shrubs out front, prepare our tax papers and our will, and take all of the present boxes and wrappings to the recycling center. On foot.

But here we are in the New Year and my Keurig addiction has not lessened. I think the culprit is the water reservoir on the side of the machine. I don’t even have to think about how much liquid is entering my body because I don’t have to fill the coffee maker. It is armed and ready at all times to provide me with liquid enlightenment at the touch of a button. I might need professional help. Or to at least switch to decaf.

FREE book contest!

ME Overly simple thoughts

Hey! Check out DerekMolata.com for this month’s free book contest, featuring the Wondrous Strange trilogy by Les Livingston!

“Antique”

ME Short stories

The $420,000 price tag on the rusty bicycle fluttered wildly every time the air conditioner kicked on, swirling around in the display window of the old junk store. I couldn’t see the whole of the pitiful machine since much of it was washed out in the bright white reflection cast by the high-noon sunshine, but the cracked and flattened tires, punctuated through with dozens of sharp and gnarled spokes, begged for a mercy killing for the entire contraption.

The temperature inside the store calmed itself long enough for the fluttering tag to come to rest inside its noose, swinging like a convict from the rusted bell that still hugged the curved handle bar. I confirmed it. $420,000 for the bicycle.

The pricing error amused me for just a moment as I gawked at the hideous thing. Surely this was some joke, some ploy on the part of the store owner to engage passersby, enticing them inside his store in their haste to point out someone’s mistake. I took the bait and entered the store through the wooden chipped paint door with one small cracked window pane.

No bell announced my entrance, but the proprietor still greeted me with a loud hallo, his head popping up from between sideways stacks of moldy books and LP records in their sleeves. “Over this way,” he called.

I stepped around a horrifying carousel horse whose face and mane had been scorched in a fire, trying not to imagine a carousel full of children erupting in flames that lick at their tiny legs as the horses go around. “I came to ask about the bicycle,” I began.

“Well, get in line. It’s just not a week day without someone wanting to buy that ridiculous old bike,” he groused.

I was dumbstruck by the thought that prospective buyers are so plentiful as to annoy the owner. “Oh, I don’t know that I want to buy the bicycle, but I wondered if you are aware that the price tag reads almost half a million dollars.”

“I am,” he gruffed without stopping his compulsive dusting of a set of used dentures. I waited for him to elaborate, but nothing came.

“Not to be rude, but may I ask why the bicycle is so expensive?” I pressed.

“Read the sign,” he mumbled wearily, gesturing with his feather duster in a jerking motion towards a framed, hand-lettered sign propped against a dented tin percolater coffee pot next to an old brass cash register. He returned to flicking the years off of his relics while I was left to puzzle over the sign:

All Inquiries About The Bicycle Will Cost $5

I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know the history of the decrepit device badly enough to pay for the information, not now that I was sure it was just a gimmick to make people browse the stacks of useless junk. I shrugged to myself and turned towards the door, but couldn’t bring myself to be so close to the answer only to abandon the minor riddle over a few dollars. I fished in my wallet and came up with enough money, then placed it on the smudged glass countertop and waited.

The old man stopped his work, put down his feather duster with an exaggerated sigh, and came around behind the countertop to lean his elbows on it wearily.

“So? Which version do you want? The one where I tell you this bike was ridden in the first-ever Tour du France? Or how Teddy Roosevelt used to ride it on the White House lawn? Or maybe how Bonnie and Clyde stole it from a kid at gunpoint when their car broke down? What’s it gonna be?”

“Which version is the truth?” I demanded.

“Depends on who’s listening,” he muttered, turning towards his file cabinet to pitch some invoices into the mostly empty top drawer, slamming it shut with a bang and reaching for a cleaning rag.

“Well, I’m listening and I paid fairly for the privilege. Will you tell me the truth? Or am I going to hear some fantastic mumbo-jumbo about how the bicycle is possessed by the soul of your mother or some other nonsense?” I snapped, more angry at myself for walking into his dupe than at the man.

“Now don’t be ridiculous! That bicycle? Possessed by my mother? That’s just insulting! My mother’s been dead for fifty years!”

I mumbled my apologies and turned towards the door, but not before I heard him say to himself, “That’s my wife’s soul in that bike.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, that’s my wife’s soul in that bike. She loved that bike. She died several years ago and now she’s in the bike.” He continued the mindless singular cleaning and straightening while I stared, mouth open. To be taken in by a swindler was one thing, but to be cheated out of a few dollars by someone who was no longer in his right mind left a sour taste in my mouth. I turned to go.

“That’s right, hon,” he crooned lovingly as I quietly tiptoed past a teetering stack of moth-eaten ladies’ hats, “I won’t let you go for any old price.”

As the door shut behind me, I heard the shrill tinkle of a bell.

Eulogy for a dog

ME Overly simple thoughts

I have never tried to eulogize a dog before. Thankfully, it’s because I don’t know any dead ones. I know a few whom I wish had never been born, and a few who lived way too long. Ultra-thankfully, I’ve never had to attend a dog’s funeral and been asked to say a few words. But a couple of days ago, we had to make that sad decision to have our dog put to sleep. Bailey was a good dog.

I am the kind of dog owner who thoroughly disgusts people who consider themselves to be dog lovers. And both types of us really piss off cat owners, but that’s a different post altogether. People who are dog lovers let their dogs eat off of their plates at the end of the meal, or let the dogs sit on the furniture or in the front seat of the car. I’m not that kind of dog owner. Maybe I’m more of a dog tolerater.

I will always believe that a dog is a pet, kind of like a goldfish but a whole lot sturdier and less likely to die if you look at it funny. It isn’t quite as noisy as a parakeet; I know, because I’ve had one of those. Actually, two of those, and I released one into the wild after it pecked its cage-mate to death in a horrible parakeet version of cockfighting, only I wasn’t involved in the scheme and I didn’t make any money on the outcome. I still think the green one took a dive.

I’m not the kind of pet owner who thinks the dog is a family member, but unfortunately everyone else in my family is, including the new dog we adopted yesterday. He rode in my lap on the way home from the Rescue, pranced through our house giving it a once-over like a realtor in a bad market, and plopped his oversized carcass on the couch, head on paws facing the television and waiting for a human to work the remote for him.

You’re prepared for the tales of woe about how this mangy-ish animal has wreaked havoc on my otherwise calm life. You’re breathlessly waiting for Marley-and-Me-esque tales of torn curtains and stained carpets, overturned indoor ficus trees in his wake. I’m terribly sorry to disappoint, but I’m addicted to this reserved and affectionate older dog.

Rescued animals are always the best dogs and this poodle is no exception. My husband, however, was a hard sell at the start. His exact words were, “Are you sure poodles come in male?” I must have looked horribly unnerved and confused, because he clarified: “I mean, aren’t poodles girls?” I patiently and quietly asked him to tell me where he thought more poodles came from if all poodles were girls, and he didn’t really have a response. Where our own children came from is still kind of a mystery to him. I assured him the dog was both a boy and a poodle. Call it a genetic anomoly, if you must.

Here is where I have declared my husband to be Father of the Year 2010, a dubious title since it was bestowed upon him with only three days left in the calendar year. The adoption fee was…$150. I mouthed the number at him while the attendant’s back was turned in order to avoid any embarrassment. I then mouthed, “It’s your call.” I also mouthed something to the effect of, “No one would blame you for not wanting to spend that kind of money on a mixed breed animal that has had a lot of health problems and a history of neglect and possibly abuse,” but just like when I actually speak out loud, my husband stopped listening after the third word. He looked down to where our oldest daughter was sitting cross-legged on the floor with the expensive animal in her lap, asked her if she was sure she wanted that one, and then reluctantly agreed to the fee. I fell in love all over again with the man who would do anything for his children.

And we have therefore adopted Jake from the Poodle Rescue. There is less paperwork involved in crossing a border into a Communist country. We had to supply the names and phone numbers of our vet, our groomer, and three references, and were sternly warned that the numbers would be checked out. We were also given a couple days’ supply of Jake’s organic canned dog food, to be mixed with some of the provided organic dry dog food, which is all mashed together with rice cooked in chicken broth, broth which has been provided by the whole chicken we’re supposed to boil and feed him tidbit-by-tidbit. We signed a contract, agreed to a surprise inspection in our home, and led our new dog to the car on his brand-new leash, being sure to give him ample time to say goodbye to his fellow dogs at the Rescue and letting him choose to walk to the car rather than being carried off against his will.

I only wish it were so difficult to get a child. People have long argued that the driver’s license exam is harder than producing a baby to care for, and they’re right. Only most babies don’t eat organic food from the start.

Rest in peace, Bailey. Welcome to our home, Jake.

I don’t have the secret rocket formula.

ME Overly simple thoughts

I am both embarrassed and ashamed about how little I know about current events. And my ignorance really isn’t out of apathy or laziness, but the time constraints of a working wife and mother. Basically, if it wasn’t newsworthy enough to appear on the Yahoo! homepage, then I can’t carry on a meaningful conversation about it. It is unfortunate how much crap about the Kardashian sisters appears on Yahoo! and various other sites that claim to carry the news.

But I have been catching snipets here and there about something called Wikileaks and some man named Julian Assange who is apparently outraged that he has been arrested for hacking into government computers, gathering top secret data, and posting it online. The name Wikileaks, right off the bat, doesn’t concern me, because if Wikileaks is as bad as Wikipedia about disseminating accurate information, I welcome their help in throwing off our enemies.

Several things have baffled me about the whole ordeal, not the least of which is why this man chosen to bear a startlingly similar resemblance to Draco Malfoy’s father from the Harry Potter movies. Seriously? Was it to just look all the more Scandinavian in an attempt to avoid prosecution under the mistaken belief that they would somehow hide you? You know what the Scandinavians value more than anything? It’s not privacy, sadly, it’s anonymity. And you just called attention to the fact that those few countries are still up there and they are still not part of Hitler’s government. They’ve been flying under the radar all this time and Mr. Assange just pointed out that they still exist. So they promptly handed him over.

First, I am absolutely shocked that it was easy for someone outside our government to access these secrets in the first place. I can’t get online and find out what time a movie will be showing in my hometown without three passwords and an established account that has been verified by two existing email addresses. How did he get this information in the first place?

Second, why are so many of our own citizens on his side? There was a comment posted on Twitter (I can work Twitter, of all things) by someone at least claiming to be Mr. Assange, and it was to the effect of this: “People. YOU elected this government and they don’t want YOU to know what they’re doing.” You’re absolutely right.

More importantly, I don’t want to know what they’re doing. But I have a very good reason for that.

In my humble opinion, there should be three people with the access codes to our nuclear weapons. One guy to turn the key, one guy to turn the other key so it isn’t just a fluke (I saw War Games in the eighties), and a third guy who stays at home with that knowledge just in case Thing One or Thing Two develops a raging stomach virus and can’t fulfill the duties of his job. Like the first runner-up in Miss America. She’s there in case the real Miss America can’t represent the crown with a smile, only we all hope we never need her since that would mean Miss America was either dead or had released an online sex tape.

If we go around telling every single citizen all the things that only a few people need to know, word is bound to get out. I, for one, will sing like a bird about how to get in and out of Fort Knox with the gold if you so much as point something sharp at me. I am not the one you want guarding that information.

I work in a prison and it sounds like a handbell choir when I walk down a hallway. I have keys to every cell door, every storage closet, every office door, the library, the cafeteria, etc. I can get in and out of the building any time I want to. The one key I don’t have? The key to the fence around the compound. And it’s not because they don’t trust me with it. They don’t trust Rocko, aka Inmate #82769. If Rocko thought for a minute that I had the key to the fence, he would slap me stupid, grab the key ring, and be in the next county before I had picked my self up off the floor. And trust me, this one missing key is a fact I point out to the general population every time I take them out into the yard.

Am I sticking my head in the sand and pretending my government is doing everything they do only because they care so much about me? Probably. Are they doing things that I and everyone else on the planet think they shouldn’t be doing? Well, duh. Is telling everyone in America where our next strike zone in the Middle East will be going to accomplish anything other than getting a lot of our soldiers and even more of their citizens killed? Of course not. That’s why I’m hanging on to every word of the Kardashian sisters.

Instant poetry, just add vodka

ME Overly simple thoughts

Back in college, I wandered blissfully through an independent bookstore one day and stumbled on my very first magnetic poetry kit. It contained hundreds of tiny magnetic strips with a word printed on each, along with some little blank strips so you could add your own words. It’s the greatest nerdiest fun you could ever hope to have. All of those little magnets (and some three hundred of their bretheren, now that I’ve added to my kit collection with a few more kits) are stuck to the side of my four-drawer filing cabinet so I can push them around with my finger into veritable masterpieces of poetic flow. Or raunchy limericks, depending on my mood.

This year for Christmas my daughter bought me the Far Eastern companion to my poetry cheat-sheet, a set of Haikubes. This kit contains 60 smooth marbly dice with words printed on each side. The idea is to roll all sixty of the dice in order to pick out the words that scream themsevles at you to create a haiku. Half the fun is not having any control over what words appear. It feels all the more mystical, like a literary ouija board.

And as someone who is easily amused by shiny new toys, I have to say I’m absolutely in love with the clackity sound these dice make. They feel like super duty mah jong tiles, all smooth and noisy. Poetry be damned, I could just sit here and roll these things for the next hour.

Obviously my daughter stinks at keeping a surprise as much as I do, so I’ve already received and relished my Haikubes. I have to say, a book of my poetry is forthcoming. Any day now. To save you time and a few dollars, here are some of the gems the Kubes and I have given birth to:

I marvel at us,
Our full fortune looks simple.
It’s only a dream.

Okay, I’m having flashbacks to high school poetry full of oozing teen angst. Someone talk my inner poet off the ledge before she jumps. Ever see the South Park epidose where the Goth kids sit around writing poetry? I’m there.

Her smiling lips sang
But thunder consumed her words.
Still her voice shines on.

There’s a reason Japanese monks take a vow of silence. It’s so they don’t have to read their haikus to anyone. But they don’t have the magic cubes to blame it on. At least I have the benefit of pointing at the little dice and saying, “Give me a break! That’s all I had to work with! Let’s see you try it!”

Oh wait, re-read the directions. The two cubes with red words are supposed to be your topic/title. Okay, let me try it that way.

Topic: A Reflection on My Childhood
Nope. My therapist said I’m not ready to write haikus about that yet. Re-roll.

Topic: A Regret About My Future
There aren’t enough syllables to write a haiku about that one. Re-roll.

Topic: A Dream About Our World
Okay, that one seems harmless enough.

A radical grace
Last ran heavy and sleeping
Desperate for hope.

Oh my goodness, these dice contain the words ass, hump, and screwed. Where did these things come from? Did my husband take her Christmas shopping at the adult video store under the interstate bypass? Holy hell!

Re-roll. Last try before the Kubes go in the closet where I keep other embarrassing items.

I slowly realize
Every gorgeous dilemma
Is what’s next for me.

Okay, I’m no Maya Angelou, but this has been some of the best thirty minutes of wasted time ever. I even feel more inner peace than I did when I first sat down. Besides, this has got to be a drinking game waiting to happen. Competitive Haikubes, anyone?

It’s FREE Books!

ME Living life

Tonight is the last night to sign up for the free book and extras giveaway at YAhighway! Isn’t it neat how I told you about it with only a couple of hours til the deadline? That just about guarantees that I win! Check it out, readers:

http://www.yahighway.com/2010/12/ya-highways-second-annual-winter.html

Enjoy!

X-rated Haiku

ME Overly simple thoughts

There’s a terrible drawback to trying to break into the literary world while knowing that your mother has signed up to follow your emails, your blog, your Facebook posts and your tweets: every once in a while the opportunity to get your name out there comes in the form of writing erotic poetry.

Haiku, to be exact, with points awarded for raunchiness involving not only Hello Kitty, but unicorns as well.

I can’t do it. I tried. I even submitted. But I’m from Alabama and we don’t even refer to our private parts without whispering behind our hands and using cutsie euphemisms. My favorite is hoo-ha, although “cooter” is still popular with women of my generation.

I did my best. I even work in a prison, but I couldn’t get anywhere close to erotica. If you can do better, by all means find the Fine Print Literary contest for Allison Pang’s new release. Search for it on the Borrowing Heaven, Subletting Hell website and see if you can win. If you do, dibs on the darling stuffed animal.