Writers' Group




 

For about ten years I have enjoyed attending a Writers' Group at the Unitarian Church.  Most of the attendees are Unitarians, but being broad minded they are pleased to welcome those of us who are not.  The group meets about twice a month, throughout most of the year.  However, if a member plays hooky for months at a time he or she is welcomed back with open arms, no questions asked.

The 'drill' amounts to this.  We discuss an idea and then write about it.  After about 45 minutes we take turns reading what we have written to the group and get postive feedback.  If a writer doesn't choose to read his/her work, this choice is accepted no questions asked. There is no pressure.  

The last meeting was a special pleasure.  The prompt, provided by our soft-spoken leader, Fran, was to consider the importance of roads in American life.  We shared favorite songs about roads and highways and talked about family trips we have taken.  Finally,  we each wrote about roads.  The variations were many.  A few ccontributions included:

the sound of popping gravel outside a boyhood home announcing uninvited guests or the premature return of parents from church, 

a 14-year-old boy's summer traveling with a carnie troupe,  

eating pita bread and humus in Jerusalem,

traveling Route 66 in the 50's with a very young baby,

traveling in England on the 'tube' visiting a teen aged daughter

and adventures with Flat Stanley. 

My contribution (you knew this was coming) is as follows.  I have tweaked it since I wrote it at our 

meeting, so that it is a little more polished than before.   

The County Road

The county road was a central part of life as I was growing up in the sandhill prairies of Southwestern Kansas. We lived on a ranch six miles from a small town and our only connection to church, groceries, schools, and friends was a dirt road maintained by the county. Once every so often, usually prompted by my daddy, a big road grader would come out scraping the road, smoothing out the washboard ruts. The ruts were so ubiquitous that the frame of one of our cars shook loose and had to be welded back into place. Once the road was graded, for a few days at least, it was smooth to drive on. I remember one time, at my father’s suggestion, I took a slice of my mother’s freshly made apple pie out to the grader’s operator.

About the time I was two or three years old, my mother with my older sister and brother, had a horrific accident on this road. Much of the road was hardly wider than two tire tracks and it twisted and turned as well. Weeds had grown tall, lots of sunflowers and grasses, which concealed a car coming from the opposite direction. Mother’s car collided with this car on a curve in the road. My brother, in the front passenger seat, struck the dashboard and bears a scar on his forehead to this day. My sister, standing up in back, behind the front seat as children were apt to do in those days, hurtled into the front window, struck it with her head and was thrown again into the back seat where she collapsed on the car floor. Both adults received minor injuries. I survived simply because I stayed at home with my grandmother instead of standing in my usual place – beside my mother in the front seat. I mention these seating arrangements to remind us all of the cavalier way children were allowed to ride in cars 70 or so years ago.

Both my sister and brother recovered from their injuries, but this accident became part of our family mythology, thereafter.

Other memories include the several times my mother, or another one of the family driving the car, got stranded in the banks of sand on each side of the road. Usually someone would come along and help the stuckee out, but my mother had to walk home at least once – two or three miles in heels.

Another time my father came upon a group of women, members of my mother’s PEO Chapter, stuck in the sand on their way to a meeting at our house. He told them he’d pull them out if they’d tell him what PEO meant.

My best friend and I rode our bikes to town when we were in the sixth grade. Of course, much of the way we had to walk our bikes over sand hills. Goat’s head stickers would pierce our tires, but I’m not sure they caused any lasting damage. Once in town it was fun to ride around on the elm tree shaded, bumpy brick streets.

One winter, when I was a teenager we had such a blizzard that the County National Guard sent a tank out to bring me in to town so I could go to school. That was a big disappointment to me, because the inside of the tank was about as interesting as the inside of a tin can.

The road is gone now, as are our meadows and pasture land. The sandhill prairie is now covered with sprinkler-watered silage crops fed to the cattle in the many feedlots around our hometown.







Cantaloupe Volunteer

This is the scraggy vine that produced the cantaloupe.

My ever optimistic husband has tried to grow melons of various kinds for a number of summers, but we saw nary a melon come to fruition.  Then last summer a vine of some sort grew up between our driveway and the bricks around the clematis.  I could see the tiny baby melons developing from the blossoms, but they disappeared before they grew to the size of my thumb.  Then one day my husband found a huge green cantaloupe growing behind the clematis...yes, still attached to the vine.  We left it on the corner of the driveway, and after a couple of months, it turned yellow.  By this time it was  October. 

Our cantaloupe after picking.

I had no idea if it was ripe or not, but we finally picked it.  I left it on the kitchen cabinet dreading to open it only to find it unripe.

  Finally, I cut it open, and sure enough, by that time, it was overly ripe.  We ate some of it.  Not all.  Oh, well. There's always next year.

Last Roses of Summer

No, this is not a 'real' rose, but a moss rose, or, if you like, portulaca.  It is a lowly, under-appreciated flower, but in the heat and drought of summer, it holds its own. It is also not susceptable to all the fungus's and diseases that 'real' roses have.  All summer as other plantings succumb to the intense temperatures, pansies, petunias, impatiens, for instance, moss roses seem to flourish.  Portulaca favors the sun so much that the blossoms start to fold up for the night as soon as the sun moves them into shadow.  It is also the first flower to get stringy and fade as the summer days shorten into September.  This year, nonetheless, the moss roses in the planter in front of the house seemed to relish the cool drizzly weather that September brought us.   I am so taken with them that I used them for the blog header, as you must have noticed. 

On the back deck the moss roses that I have enjoyed these last months have reacted to the weather more predictably.  My favorite yellow roses have allowed the impatiens, which have languished in June, July and August, to come into their own as the portulaca hang their heads in exhaustion.

We've had a long hot summer,  and even now, before the first day of fall, temperatures have moderated.  The days of our summer flowers are numbered, regardless of the variety.  When fall comes, can winter be far behind?  I'm afraid not.

Prince of the House

You knew this was coming.  On May 31st, I published a post about our cat Chiaco.  Now it's Inky's turn to take a bow.  Inky was my choice of cat at the Humane Society.  I love black cats.  I loved Inky's tuxedo white markings.  I named him Inky after the cat in a childhood book called Pinky and Inky.  Not a children's classic, it is the story of two kittens and the twins who owned them.  Not surprisingly, the twin that owned the black cat was naughty and teased her kitty until he got sick after being sprayed with water.   The naughty twin learned her lesson and resolved to be a good girl, thereafter.

Inky is the favored cat of our two.  He does most of the naughty things Chiaco does, but is treated by both my husband and me with more patience.  Like Chiaco, he eats my flowers and pulls vases over on the table.  I do yell at him, but I don't loudly rue the day that I saw him.  If he paws at the lowered blinds in our bedroom during the night, my husband gets up and opens the shade so Inky can see out.  If he paws (and he is quite noisy) at the closed bedroom door, my husband dutifully gets up and lets him (and of course Chiaco, too) into the room where he sleeps first by my husband and then by the pillow next to my head where I rest my arm.  He delicately rests the pad of his paw on my arm.  His purring fills the room.  Chiaco has a softer purr where she is relegated to a place at our feet.

Chiaco hangs about in the kitchen at feeding time, but once the food is in their bowls, Inky comes in and eats first.  If Inky wants to play 'Chase' with Chiaco and she's not in the mood, if she gives him a whack, he lets out heart breaking yowls.  I imagine that he is tattling on Chiaco, complaining that Chiaco won't play with him.

Both Inky and Chiaco spend many hours at the glass door gazing out onto the deck.  (My husband calls it their TV.)  If I don't lock the screen door, Inky is expert at opening it, but is very coy about going out.  If we block off the deck stairway and leave the screen open,  Chiaco makes a rush out on the deck and hides behind a planter.  Inky dallies by the door, rubbing his face on the paneling, tentatively stepping outside and then hustling back in at the slightest noise.  Finally, he jumps up on the railing, and we retrieve him, because  there is one thing Inky likes to do -  JUMP!  (as in 'jump down')

In the house, Inky is king of the stairway rails. He sits, stands, walks and lounges on the rails.  He walks up from the basement family room on the banister rail.  And we have the claw marks in the wood to prove it.

Due to Inky's coloring, it is difficult to get a good picture of him. 
He blends into the background.
Click to enlarge.

When my husband is writing on the table by the window,  Inky lies on the table, sits on my husband's papers, and bats at the pencil as my husband is working.  He knocks erasers, sharpers and  anything else loose on the table on to the floor.







Probably the reason Inky is such a favorite with both my husband and me is that he is so sparing with his attentions.  Therefore, when he wants our attention he flatters us, and we respond accordingly.

Operation Celebration

This is the wearisome corset spread out.  Now I know how   
Victorian women felt after a big meal!

I suppose that I should write something about my back operation August 5th,  since it has preoccupied me for the better part of two months.  For nearly three years, I have had a pinched nerve in my lower back that has caused quite a bit of pain in my hip joints and legs when I walked.  This summer I decided to bite the bullet and have an operation on my third and fourth lumbar vertebra. During to operation, the space in the vertebra around the nerve was enlarged, allowing the nerve to expand.  I had asked my doctor how long I would be out of commission, and how long it would be until I could drive.  He was a bit vague on this issue. 


Therefore, I was somewhat surprised to discover that I needed to wear a corset for six (groan!) weeks.

  I knew I wouldn't be able to bend or pick up heavy objects, but I also had to be very careful getting in and out of bed.  I was instructed by physical therapists as to how I should 'log roll' into and out of bed, but how to position myself so I could turn from one side and to the other and relax at night was another problem.  I  grab the edges of the bed and pull myself around until I am comfortable, but I don't think that is particularly good for my back. 



 An invaluable tool at this time has been the grab stick.  I managed to break the first one trying to get my shampoo bottle out of the bottom of the tub.  Now I have a new stick, and here are the many things I can do without bending:  pick up dirty socks, an empty cat dish, clumps of cat hair on the rug, clothes out of the dryer, tissues on the floor,  and nearly anything else that falls in the course of the day.

Our cousin with husband circa 2010

Our cousin, who came to stay with us twice in the month and a half of recuperation, was an invaluable help to both my husband and myself.  She drove both of us to doctors' appointments and on shopping trips.  She even saw to it that I had a pedicure.  She cooked and she vacuumed.  Thank you dear woman. 

I started driving three weeks after the operation, and can stop wearing my corset on the weekend as the six weeks convalescence is over.  Nevertheless, I think I'll continue to wear it until I see my doctor next week. It actually makes me stand up straighter, but I also look thicker around the middle.

 I am thankful for the help and thoughtfulness of friends.  Between our cousin's and our friends' cooking, I am now carrying around about five extra pounds.

Thirteen Year Cicadas

Early summer saw the invasion of the Thirteen Year Cicadas in and around Columbia. I am remembering them now, because they left their calling cards all around the town.  I didn't bother to take a picture of one then,   but on the right we have a poor unfortunate insect that expired in the rear windshield of the car. (Click to enlarge any picture.)

They sang in the afternoons in a community chorus, their song  rising and falling in one mighty wave of noise.  I noticed that the squirrels and raccoons were not bothering the bird feeder and realized that they were happily filling up on cicadas. Then one day the cicadas' song was gone; the afternoon air was eerily quiet. 

 

 They left their calling cards, however.  I began to notice dried leaves on broken twigs hanging among the luxuriant green of the trees. At first I thought it was the result of dry weather or maybe the twigs had been broken in one of our wind storms.  Later I read (online) that the female cicada splits the twig with a sharp appendage and there lays her eggs.  Later the twig may break.  This is called 'flagging.'

Here the many leaves can be seen on the lawn.
(Click to enlarge.)

 Soon the ground was littered  with these twigs and leaves. Every time the wind blows more twigs and leaves dot the lawn.  More 'flags' remain on the trees ready to fall. 
The cicada nymphs tunnel into the ground and feed on the sap of tree roots for another 13 years.

One lonely cicada shell still clings to the underside of our deck step.

Mother of Millions - Revisited

Click on photo to get a good view of the
dead and dying leaves, especially on the
lower part of the plant.

It's my sad duty to announce that my stupendous Mother of Millions plant (see January 2011 blog) has come under attack and appears ready to give up the ghost.  Some sort of mold (?) is creeping over its fleshy leaves and causing them to dry up, curl up and fall off. 
(Click on photos for up close examinations.)



Note the white mold, mildew, - or you
tell me what it is.



And then it gets uglier.

Never-the-less, take heart.  All is not lost.  I have salvaged three healthy looking little shoots that I intend to re-pot.  Maybe one or all three will grow into  humongous 'Floppers' - if they take after their mother.