The blond brownie is a golden color with a mild molasses flavor achieved by using brown sugar instead of cocoa for flavoring. I find it interesting that the recipes I looked at and have made myself, all add some sort of chocolate to the blond brownie, usually in the form of chips. Now why not just make a chocolate brownie? Who knows? Humans are funny that way. Continue reading “Reminds Me of Home”
“Didn’t I tell you to keep that dog out of the creek?”
“I did Mama.”
“Then why are you both soaked?”
“Well, he rolled in the mud.”
“And?”
“I knew you would get mad, so I washed him and he shook all over me. It kinda felt good.”
“Wash him how?”
“I scooped water from the horse trough with my boots.”
“And where are they?”
“I put ’em upside down on the fence posts to dry.”
She stifled a smile. “Do you think that’s the way boots should be treated?”
“No ma’am, but they’s only rubber, not real ones.”
In repsonse to Charli’s prompt where she asks:
January 18, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes boots. Whose boots are they, where do they go and what is their significance? Go where the prompt leads.
Respond by January 23, 2018, to be included in the compilation (published January 24). Rules are here. All writers are welcome!
A repeat from last year, as my sentiments have not changed.
I love popcorn. Whenever my husband isn’t home for supper, that is what I usually have. I watch a movie I know he wouldn’t care for, and eat a big bowl of popcorn. It makes the evening all my own. The cat even has to have a piece to lick the salt off of.
When an author rereads their own work, one thing they are looking to edit is the use of the same word too many times. Here’s an example by Shaun Kearney, ESL teacher:
It’s a fair bet that if it’s fair tomorrow, then my fair haired wife and I will head to the Spring Fair, which is held in a fair sized park, in this fair city of ours and we may win a prize in a competition if everyone else plays fair.
Continue reading “A Writer’s Best Friend”
High School Graduation: Times Past
Was high school graduation a big event for you or did it pass unnoticed. As a city baby boomer high school graduation was not an event that my school, at least, made much of a fuss about. I believe that this may have well have changed with different generations and certainly by geography. I know from the American television shows (Gidget, Happy Days and numerous movies) that in the States high school graduation was quite different to what mine was.
My memoir:
Baby Boomer, rural central school in western New York state, graduation 1971
A central school in the sates means it services multiple towns. I attended K – 12 in the same sprawling building with essentially the same 60 students all 13 years. There was a Catholic school that fed us about ten students at the start of seventh grade. We not only knew each other, we knew the whole family and pets too.
Up until my junior year I was one of the popular kids and included in their activities. My mother had gotten sick during my freshman year and my grades fell so my senior year I was in classes with students I knew, but had never been close with. Mom died November of my senior year and that distanced me further from the “crowd.” I recently talked to a high school classmate, first time in 45 years, and she told me, “We didn’t know what to say, so we didn’t talk to you.” It’s nice to know, finally, it wasn’t all me. I’m really glad there are now grief counselors and people talk about death and it’s repercussions.
Graduation itself was cap and gown with Sunday best underneath. Each student was limited to five tickets because of the size of the auditorium. People with large families had a problem with that. My father, who until my mother’s death had rarely attended anything to do with school, was there, along with my Aunt, my older sister and her boyfriend, and my boyfriend. Dad reached in his suit pocket and pulled out his reading glasses that we had been searching the house for on a daily basis. We had a good laugh, the last time he had worn his suit was at mother’s funeral. He probably said something like, “Guess I should dress more often.”
I received a $200.00 award for having the highest average of a student entering a near-by two-year college. A couple of my fellow male students kidded me they would have done more homework if they had known there was money to be had. It felt good to be ahead of them for once.
My guests and I went back to my aunts to cut a celebratory cake and that was that.
January 11: Flash Fiction Challenge
In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about wet ink. It can be artistic, writerly or something completely off-the-wall. Go where the prompt leads.
“Doc, my family feared I would die shortly after the ink was dry on my enlistment papers. Now I’ve made it back home without a visible wound they want me to tell them what my days were like: what I ate, what I saw, if I met any nice girls. They have no idea all the Army wanted from me was a body count. Having done what I was expected to do in order to survive, now I am dead inside. I’m afraid to go to sleep at night because of the nightmares and ashamed I made it home.”
Sue Spitulnik 