Tag: dpchallenge

Emergency Gin

December 27th, 2012

When we were 18 or so, my best friend and I drove two hours down the coast of Georgia, from Savannah to St. Simons Island, to visit my Grandmother. It was a Sunday, and she loved to lunch on Sunday, so she offered to take us to Spanky’s, the restaurant that had recently replaced Shoneys as her favorite Sunday eatery. At Spanky’s we could watch boats on the river from our table.

Before we ordered, Grandma asked my friend and me if we wanted a drink. I knew what kind of drink she meant.

My friend and I looked at each other and giggled with our eyes. “No Grandma, we can’t. We’re not 21 yet.”

“Well, it seems rude of me to have a drink if you’re not.”

I told her, “You go ahead, Grandma, we don’t mind.”

When the waitress arrived, she recognized Grandma, chatted with her, and then asked for her drink order.

“I’ll have my regular please.”

Our server shifted on her feet. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith, I can’t serve alcohol before noon on Sunday.”

Grandma did a little shake of her blonde hair and said, “Oh brother. Just bring me a Diet Coke then.”

She rummaged through her purse while the waitress went to get our drinks, and after some digging, she pulled out a prescription pill bottle. After our drinks arrived, Grandma looked my friend and me in the eye and said, “You have to be prepared for situations like this.”

Then she unscrewed the lid on the plastic orange pill bottle and poured the emergency stash of gin into her icy cold Coke.

I have committed to posting every day for a week in response to the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge: Just Do It. I wrote about my stupid decision to make this commitment, and all my “buts,” here.
Precious Gifts: Electronics

December 26th, 2012

We went a lot of years without electronic road-trip entertainment for the kids. No game systems, no iPods, no DVD players. The closest we got to new technology was listening to books on CD instead of books on tape. And even then we listened to quaint titles like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys.

This low tech choice was mostly due to circumstance. We were a family of four living on one graduate student income, so we prioritized things like food and shelter and winter coats in Minnesota over entertainment gadgetry.

Had we had the money for DVD players, though, I’m still not sure we would have bought them. I secretly wanted our kids to entertain themselves the old fashioned way, even though I cringed every time they asked me to play I spy or find-the-letters-of-the-alphabet-on-road-signs games. I have romantic notions of watching the landscape change, listening to music, having conversations, taking quiet time to think deep thoughts about things like men and their socks.

But the reality of road trips with kids is that the changing landscape out the windows does not interest them, you can’t enjoy your music because the kids are constantly talking over it, conversation is replaced by boring road trip games, and deep thoughts are interrupted by complaints of “I’m hungry,” “I’m bored,” and “my butt hurts in this seat.”

That all changed today, though, as our son pulled out his brand new 3DS, hand-held Nintendo game system, complete with his very own earbuds. Since he had this fancy new birthday toy, I loaded a couple of new games on my Nook and dusted off our ancient iPod, “purchased” with credit card rewards, and loaded it with all the High School Musical soundtracks for our daughter. We found her some earbuds and she is bopping silently in the backseat, knotting a friendship bracelet as I write.

And let me tell you, our road trip was glorious. I don’t regret or feel bad about their electronics, not even for a second. My husband and I got, not minutes of quiet in the back seat, but hours. Hours of satisfaction and contentment for the kids. Huge stretches of concentration for my husband, who navigated the treachery of sleet and fog and driving rain on steep, slick mountain passes. Wide expanses of time for me to watch rivulets of rain stream across my window, trees creep out of the fog, farms and hay bales and rolling hills drenched with December rain. I listened to the spatter of rain on the windshield, the hum of tires on the highway. I had conversations with my husband.

On this trip, our kids received the precious gifts of 3DSes, and iPods, and Nooks, and of unlimited screen time.

And I received the gift of putting pen to paper, of scratching inky words on lined paper, of writing the old fashioned way, my family all around me as I fulfilled my commitment to write 30 minutes a day.

I have committed to posting every day for a week in response to the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge: Just Do It. I wrote about my stupid decision to make this commitment, and all my “buts,” here.
Haiku from Christmas

December 25th, 2012

A creak at our door,
black as night out the window.
“Mom, it’s six-oh-two!”

Cinnamon, tea,
and warm yeasted dough – scents
of Christmas morning.

Stampede of kid feet
down carpeted stairs –
squeals of delight at the tree.

Wide eyes sparkle, like
holiday lights; a kiss
that tastes of chocolate.

Small hands – sticky with
icing – tug ribbons, shred paper,
hug me tight.

A frenzy of ripping,
tossing bows like confetti.
Bing croons softly in the background.

He clicks LEGOs, she
knots string, in the quiet of
Christmas contentment.

Deep pink salmon
flakes on white China plates –
we groan in sated pleasure.

Air warm with
the scent of baked pears; glasses
clink at the table.
Buts

December 24th, 2012

I lurk on the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenges, and until now, I have not taken a single one up. This week, though, I’m all over it.

This week’s challenge, Just Do It, is to post every day for a full seven days. The challenge was issued on Christmas Eve. And my first thought was, “I’ve totally got this one. I know how to write even when I have nothing to say.” My second thought was, “But it’s Christmas Eve. How am I going to find time to write on Christmas Eve?”

And then, a string of more “buts.”

“But tomorrow is Christmas. Am I really going to post on Christmas Day?”

“But we’ll be on the road on Wednesday. When we get to my parents’ house, I’m not going to want to waste precious visiting time posting to my blog when I could be sipping wine with Mom, or talking with Dad about the time someone tried to give him an elephant.”

And the buts kept coming. Even now, I’m thinking, if I hit publish on this post, I will be telling the world, (or the microscopic percentage of the world who reads my blog) that I accept this challenge. That I will write on Christmas Day. And I will write the following day, after driving for 8 hours, with no means of posting until we get to our destination. Accepting this challenge here on my blog, publicly, holds me accountable, and I’m not sure I’m okay with that. What if I don’t feel like posting? What if I don’t have anything to say?

But. The challenge doesn’t say that each post has to be a masterpiece. If I have nothing to say, I can write about having nothing to say. The piece I wrote for the Southern Women’s Review is titled “Writer’s Block.” Why? Because the fear of submitting my first piece for publication, the fear of facing the imminent rejection that all writer’s hear about, crippled me, and I could not write.

So I began by writing about my paralysis. About my inability to write in the face of the submission deadline. And I ended up with a pretty tight piece about my Southern childhood. It was accepted and will be published in January.

I take courage from that success, and I encourage other writers to do the same. Like this challenge charges, just do it. What you write might be crap.

But then again, it might not be.

Tag: dpchallenge

Emergency Gin

Precious Gifts: Electronics

Haiku from Christmas

Buts