New Year Wishes

Were I Queen of Everything, here is I what I would like for next year.

Post-Christmas Post

 So the first thing the oldest grandson said when he saw tree was “Grandpa – do you have the army men?” Nothing says Christmas like soldiers having maneuvers under the tree.

Merry Christmas to All

Tradition!

“Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.”

― Lemony Snicket

Pre-holiday Pardon

Today was proof of an ongoing mystery that’s been building for the past two years. That mystery is directly connected to the fact that I’ve now been retired from teaching for two years.

Anyone who is also retired has asked themselves the same question:

“How did I get all this done when I was working?’

Great Power/Great Responsibility

-Parking karma can be a heavy burden

Putting Some Order in My Life

I was at Marshall’s yesterday trolling for Christmas gift inspiration. I did manage to score a few things and took them to the check-out counter. It was quiet in the store – as a contented retiree I’m able to shop at a time when the rest of the world is dealing with ringing phones or maybe telling their students that staring at their crotch either means they need to put away their cell phones or they might have a bigger problem.

Formidable Formicidae

Here's my latest entry in 

Five Sentence Fiction

You can find other entries at

Lillie McFerrin Writes

This week's topic is  Highway

The (Thanksgiving) Party's Over

We’ve waved the last wave and 

the grandboys are on their way 

back to the mountains of New Jersey. 

Thanksgiving Villanelle

I thought it was high time we had a little culture around here.

The Urn of Infamy

Among the assortment of part-time jobs I had as my children were growing up was the position of ward secretary on the neurological floor of the local hospital. 

Dance of the Ages

Time for another installment of  

Five Sentence Fiction

You can find other entries at

Lillie McFerrin Writes

This week's topic is  Dance.

Best Day Evah!

     Baseball season has ended, and in our neck of the woods it was a very BIG DEAL.
       Very big.  
Just in case you are immersed in some upstart sport like say, soccer (okay, football to some of you) or extreme Frisbee, you may not know that the Boston Red Sox just won the World Series. Still unclear? Think World Cup. And your home team just won it.  Big doings. 

Beware of Little Girls Bearing Candy

Halloween is over for another year and yesterday was pretty much the same as in the past. Anyone on foot wanting to visit our house must first travel up a fairly busy road that climbs the small mountain we have here in town. After about ¼ mile they turn onto a dead-end street of six houses and then turn again to our street of three houses, also a dead-end. Not the most fertile territory for efficient candy-gathering. And it was raining last night.

Marriott Memories

The other day my husband and I were standing in the backyard chatting with our friend John, a master carpenter who was putting the finishing touches on our latest home project. John is a retired motorcycle cop and bears an uncanny resemblance to Joe Pesci, although a more handsome version. He’s also, unsurprisingly, fond of motorcycling and as a result travels to Washington D.C. at least once a year, particularly for the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally held every year on the 4^th of July. 

A is for Amoral

Time for another installment of
Five Sentence Fiction. This week's 
topic is Malice. 

You'll find more entries at:

Lillie McFerrin Writes

A little girl with a wide smile and something unnamable behind her blue eyes.

Distracted parents, phones in hand, believing the best, ignoring the signs, rush through lessons, appointments, destinations, busy-ness.

No time for pausing to really look, and listen, and realize.

But it is already too late; the cartridge of malice slips silently into the barrel of her mind as she selects her target.

The die has been cast. 

Autumn in Massachusetts

Yesterday found me in the woods, hiking through

a town nature preserve that had once been a
flourishing orchard, but may one day be 
overtaken by the forest that surrounds it. 

The Man With No Face

She meets me with mask already on

Halloween-contrary, it covers her mouth and nose.

Ushered to the very end of the hall

Where screams are muffled by distance?

Seasonal Schizophrenia

     Every fall it seems that the calendar is saying one thing and the natural world around me is saying another. 

     Here we are in the second week of October and our weather is behaving more as though it thinks we're sailing out of May. 

Relentless March

Join the creative challenge at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Choose one or more names from the list of liquid refreshers and do what you will. 

The Arrogant Bastard of Time chugged

across her forehead

etching his tracks.

She grew bangs.

The Arrogant Bastard of Time swung

below her upper arms,

stretches of earthbound wings.

She discarded all things sleeveless.

The Arrogant Bastard of Time swiped

through her hair,

paintstrokes of deadened gray.

She dyed it scarlet.

The Arrogant Bastard of Time corroded

her vertebrae, ilium, phalanges,

pre-oiled creakings of the Tin Man.

She embraced glucosomine, chondroitin, and yoga.

The Arrogant Bastard of Time razed

the structures of her mind,

echoing skyscrapers now ghettos.

She. . .

On the Road

Retirement means finally waking up when you feel like it – or in my case, when my cat decides I should get up. It also means freedom to go where you want when you want.

A Cautionary Tale

This week's topic for Five Sentence Fiction is:

Magnetic

You will find more entries at
Lillie McFerrin Writes

Beverly scratched her stomach and looked down as she stood on the scales in her pajamas; not the number she had been hoping for.

She stepped off and shuffled into the kitchen to start the coffee machine but before she could reach the counter she felt a pull to the other side of the room where the big white refrigerator sat.

She stood there, bemused, but as long as she was there, reached inside for the remains of last night’s tiramisu.

Turning back to the counter, sticky dessert plate in hand, she was oblivious to the souvenirs from past trips that were arranged on the appliance -  tiny ceramic lemons from Sorrento, a scene from Mount Vernon, the logo of the Boston Red Sox, and many others.

They had gathered to form a ring of magnetism, a ring that not only held them to the refrigerator, but had also drawn her to it as well.  

Far Away Time

On special holidays and birthdays our phone in Virginia would ring.

It would be my grandfather calling from Oklahoma

Waiting Room Heaven

Can you guess where I am?

Shopping for furniture?

Assets

This week's entry for Five Sentence Fiction is


               Beauty

You will find links to more entries at
Lillie McFerrin Writes

A mirror ran the length of the conference room and as Beth turned her attention to the documents before her, she noted that the younger woman to her right used the moment to run one hand over her long black hair.

Beth remembered that reflex, the one that went with taking for granted how many heads would turn as she entered a room.

She looked down with satisfaction at her hands, now embossed with learning how to shape her own life.

Age had freed her; her hair, her skin, her body were all finally her own.

Now emancipated from beauty, she smiled at the staff before her as she opened her meeting. 

Everyday Truths

When I ran a few errands yesterday, I encountered some of life's truths:

On my first errand, although there were several legitimate spots available, I watched as a woman created her own parking space at the end of a row and only ten feet from the front of the store. 

This is a person who probably feels more entitled to life’s perks than the rest of us.

When Home Projects Bring on the Blues

I woke up today with no great expectations. The only definites were breakfast and the Sunday paper. Yesterday I’d pulled weeds and trimmed bushes, so probably no gardening today.

Like many mornings, before I’d even had my cup of tea I’d stripped the bed, put on new sheets, loaded the washer, emptied the kitty litter box and fed the cat. While waiting for Himself to return from his coffee run I knocked out a few pages of the new book – I’ve almost got the kid out of the well and yes, his name is Timmy. Then breakfast, paper and now time for a Project. Not a big one, just something to fill maybe 45 minutes.

Fabric of Life

This week's entry for Five Sentence Fiction is


Fabric

You will find links to more entries at
Lillie McFerrin Writes

Ivy absentmindedly rubbed one hand over her rounded belly, while the other held the chosen quilt pattern; she contemplated the rigidly aligned material, blue ginghams leading to blue calico, blue dots, then blue solids.

August Garden

          For the past twenty years the end of summer has found me turning my back on my garden to search out my lunch tote, hunt out the best deals to stock my classroom, and practice wearing real shoes again.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

 We're back. The car is emptied - except for all the sand, which I'm sure even after a good vacuuming will still travel around with me for some time to come.  The washer is on its 4th or 5th load and the cat is recovering from a week of loneliness and neglect (in spite of the kind people who came to feed him and visit two times each day).

Bliss

Five sentence fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. 
Each week there is a one-word prompt and anyone can enter a five sentence story related to that prompt. 


You will find links to more entries at
Lillie McFerrin Writes


This week's word is Bliss.

An elbow sliced into her midsection, its owner oblivious to the assault. 

Cape (Cod) Crusaders

We all know about piling sheets and towels for the event known as Packing Days. These are the four or five days before you load up the family car for the annual trip to the Cape.

Going the Distance

     This week's prompt is

     Limitless       


   You'll find links to more entries at
                        Lillie McFerrin Writes

My apologies for crossing the line into non-fiction.
This entry is dedicated to Dick and Rick Hoyt.

No “vegetable”, he was in there; the nurses and the doctors didn’t see him, but his parents did.

Plein Air

My fella has a new love. It began several years ago on Cape Cod, and I thought that once home, he would let it go. But each year the fascination was renewed.

Impaction

  

     You'll find links to more entries at

            Lillie McFerrin Writes

This week's topic is Wisdom,
something we could all use more of. 



“Billy – come on – we’ve got to get to the doctor’s; I don’t care if Steve Jobs did ask you for that new app of yours.”

Surrounded by monitors, keyboards and assorted electronics, Billy muttered to himself, “Tim Cook, Ma, Tim Cook – Steve Jobs is dead and I will be too if they don’t get this by tomorrow.”

Twenty minutes later, he was in the big padded chair with a mouthful of gauze and a masked man approaching him, a gleaming instrument in his gloved hand.

“We’ll have those wisdom teeth out in no time, Billy.”

That afternoon Billy sat and sipped ginger ale carefully, swished it over the empty spaces in the back of his mouth and stared at the now-unfamiliar figures on the monitor before him. 

Body/Shop

It’s hard to say which of our outer casings we’re more obsessed with – our clothes or our bodies. We can easily define ourselves with our sartorial choices and go from conservative to wild with one small step into a changing room. Clothes are wonderfully temporary, and are our social armor, disguising or revealing our real selves.

Distant Memory

Time for this week's: 

             You will find other offerings at:

                  Lillie McFerrin Writes
                  http://lilliemcferrin.com/

This week's prompt is Locked.

George reflected that one of the few good things about growing old was the measured pace of it; at least his body didn’t behave like some perverse race car, accelerating from 20 to 65 in a matter of minutes.

Movie Night

The other night my guy and I decided to get out and see a movie. We live only 10 minutes from a mall that has a complex of at least 8 theaters. Unfortunately, everything playing there was either for kids, already seen, or just plain bad.

The only theater offering a movie new to us is a ramshackle affair in another town.

Pteridomania

              

Here we go again. This week's topic:

                   - Flight - 

You can find links to other entries at

     Lillie McFerrin Writes
      Five Minute Fiction

Rose's room in the nursing home looked very much like her neighbor's at first glance: the same number of walls, two windows, the family quilt on the bed, a favorite chair, a huge piece of family furniture - in her case a wide dresser - ungainly in the room but holding too many memories to discard.