PROMPTuesday #61: Imagine That

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #61:

For this week’s PROMPTuesday, describe an experience you have never had but have heard about and can imagine. Describe this experience in the first person singular, present tense as it is happening.

Every word of this is true. Is that cheating? -- Cocktail Maven

I woke this morning with a strong sense of foreboding. Strange dreams last night. At the core, the dreams were completely normal -- going places, doing things, talking to people. What was strange was the fact that every few minutes, right in the middle of a perfectly ordinary conversation with a family member or a shop girl, their faces would flash into an x-ray version. No one seemed to notice but me.

Now, driving north on Interstate 5 through dense, but fast-moving L.A. traffic, I find myself unable to stop thinking about those skeletal faces. Death masks. Meanwhile, in the real world outside my head, yet another panel truck swerves precariously into my lane. You, know, the open-backed ones with the wooden slat rails on the sides and back? They are like a plague on the freeway this morning. Where do they all come from, and why are they picking on me? So far, I’ve been nearly run off the road by a panel truck piled high with swap-meet furniture, rudely (and dangerously) cut-off by a panel truck bearing a lawnmower, two fichus trees and a miscellany of gardening equipment, and now I have to watch out for Swervin’ Mervyn in the next lane. Did I mention that there is a plastic grocery bag plastered to my grille? That little adornment blew there out of yet another panel truck. I can see one translucent, white handle flap annoyingly in my peripheral vision. It’s enough to make a person paranoid.

Swervin’ Mervyn exits, finally, and I breathe a sigh of relief. That is, until the SUV in front of me pulls over a lane. His lane defection reveals just the tiniest candy-apple red sports car between me and, improbably, another panel truck. This one is loaded down with cardboard flats of blackberries. In an apparent attempt to keep the blackberries from escaping during transport, the genius driver has placed three sheets of plywood around the perimeter of the truck bed, one on the left, one on the right, and one in the front behind the cab. Classy, Mr. Berryman.

That sense of foreboding, I woke up with? It’s suddenly worse. It settles like a living creature into the pit of my stomach and reaches a cold hand up to constrict my throat from inside. Every muscle tenses and I am suddenly and painfully conscious of my breathing.

The plywood sheet at the front of the truck is moving.

I watch the plywood vibrate in a quick staccato. Then it is banging, and not gently, on the back of the panel truck’s cab. The freeway backdraft is forcing its way behind and underneath the plywood and shaking, lifting. There is no where for me to go. To either side of me is a solid wall of cars and there is no time to put on my brakes without welcoming the guy behind me straight into my back seat. In these moments, I feel a strange kinship with my fellow drivers. We are all trapped tegether on this freeway, really. Speeding along in unison at over 60 miles per hour. It seems profoundly sad that all those people behind me have no idea their lives depend on whether I time my next actions . . . just . . . right.

As the plywood finally, inevitably, lifts off from its launch pad in the back of the panel truck, the world goes silent, and time ticks forward in frame-by-frame. I watch, horrified and fascinated, as the plywood soars toward me through smog-filled air. It flips in slow motion once, twice. I tap my brakes, quickly, repeatedly, trying to position myself. If I can time this just right, the plywood will land flat in my lane, and I can simply drive over it. I live. Everybody lives. I make it to Tracy's with a good story to tell and we drink wine and laugh. Just as long as I time this just right. I’ve got to time this just right.

The plywood clears the roof of the red sports car ahead of me with barely an inch to spare, still flipping. The damn board seems to have its heart set on me, instead. It wants to lay itself down on the hood of my car, slide up through my windshield, take my head as a souvenir. I won't let it. Surely, it can only have been seconds, but I feel like I’ve been staring down the barrel of this proverbial shotgun for hours. Here it is. Time for the showdown.

I’ve got to time this just right. I’ve got to time this just right. I’ve got . . .

PrompTuesday #60 - Lie to Me

San Diego Momma's "PrompTuesday #60:

So lie to me. Answer one question for each deadly sin with a made-up answer.

Pride
What is your biggest contribution to the world?

I recently wrote a magnificent novel for and presented it to Queen Elizabeth II on her birthday. It was a fictional history of the United States, had the United States never fought for independence from the British Empire. It took ten years to research and another ten to write and edit. She finished it one Sunday while we were on holiday together at Balmoral and Queenie (as I like to call her) pronounced the work to be of such profound beauty and brilliance that she knighted me on the spot. By the way, I would thank you to refer to me as “Dame” henceforward.

Envy
What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?

Enormous buttocks. Speaking of which:

Gluttony

What did you eat last night?

Interesting you should ask! I baked a German chocolate cake and ate the entire thing in one sitting. Then, deciding it was time for dinner, I chased its chocolatey goodness with two very dry Vodka Gibsons.

Lust
What really lights your fire?

Nothing gets me going like a good tractor-pull. The taste of gasonline on the wind . . . the animalistic filth of it . . . the HUGE tractors . . . the vaguely inappropriate camaraderie of odiferous aficionados of tractor-pullery. I really must take Queenie sometime.

Anger
What is the last thing that really pissed you off?

I’m so sorry. I can’t help you there. I have reached a state of emotional equilibrium wherein I remain above such puerile emotions.

Greed
Name something you hoard and keep from others.

Rubbish. Why should the city get all my lovely garbage for free? They have refused to purchase it at my more than reasonable asking price, so I now compact it myself and use it to build landscape features. Next week I begin shipping the blocks back east to start construction of a new home in the Hamptons.

Sloth
What’s the laziest thing you ever did?

I once drowned in a wading pool because I was too lazy to . . . well . . . wade.

San Diego Momma's PrompTuesday # 55

San Diego Momma's PromptTuesday #55

This week San Diego Momma starts us off with two sentences with the result that oops! my politics are showing. -- Cocktail Maven

“What are you doing here?” I hadn’t thought to knock.

Aaron raised his head from the table. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “We need to talk.”

“Why aren’t you in Boston?” This I asked as I led Wrigley, slobbering and panting back into Aaron’s apartment and hung his leash up on the hook by the door.

“I didn’t go to Boston. I went to Schenectady.”

“To see your folks?” I hoped.

“No. To see Jenny.”

Jenny. The ex-girlfriend. The high school sweetheart. Damn. That’s the trouble with these younger guys. The boys new to the lifestyle who don’t discover they’re gay until their twenties. Old habits die hard. By now I should know better than to fall for straight boys. I’ll be looking at the other side of 40 in a few weeks. You think I’d have learned by now.

I stride over to the refrigerator for bottled water while I weigh my reply. Finally, I opt for simplicity.

“Why?”

It’s hard, y’know, to explain. I just . . . It’s been almost two years, now, you and me. And, you know how we’ve been talking . . . about taking the next step? Like, me giving up my apartment in Queens and moving into your place in the Village?”

So that’s it. He’s panicking. “Yeah.” I’m not giving him anything to work with. I am determined not to make this any easier on him. I know what’s coming, and I want him to suffer through every second of spelling it out for me.

“Well, you know all about how I was raised, right, an’ how you always crack wise and call me your ‘old-fashioned girl’?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I . . . I kinda’ am. An’ I want all the stuff that every old-fashioned girl wants. I want the big wedding and the white picket fence and the 2.4 kids and the minivan in the driveway for shuttling around a whole soccer team. I want that.” He pauses. “And I think I deserve that.”

“So, mid-game, you’re switch-hitting again, huh? Whatever. I hope you and Jenny will be very happy.”

He stares at me. The look of shock on his face seems genuine. “No! You got it all wrong, Scott! No! I want all of that, but I want it all with YOU, you lunkhead! I’m just sayin’ I don’t want to live together until we go down to Jersey and make it official. I don’t want to wait for the courts here, and I don’t believe in living together without bein’ married. I mean, you’re makin’ a home together, right? There’s a commitment that kinda goes along with that, and I think we should, y’know, commit. The timing is good, ‘cuz my lease is up the end of next month.”

“Um. And, what does any of this have to do with you going to see Jenny?”

“Well, I, uh. Y’know. Thinking about the future got me thinkin’ about . . . y’know. Kids. I asked Jenny if she might be . . . willing to . . . help us out that way. Have a kid for us. Help us become a real family. She says yeah, she would.”

I’m stunned. And deeply moved. I think of how I am continuously amazed by this handsome man sitting here in front of me. Perhaps it is because I always underestimate him. It’s a difficult lifestyle. I’ve learned always to expect the worst. But maybe it doesn’t have to be so difficult. Maybe together, really together, it won’t be.

“You’ve really given this some thought, haven’t you?” I ask.

Wrigley pads over and sets his big, black head on Aaron’s knee. Aaron’s tense shoulders relax visibly as he scratches the dog’s head. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I have.” Aaron’s big brown eyes look up at me a little anxiously, almost shyly. It’s unbearably cute. “So whaddya’ think?” he asks.

“I think that’s got to be the lamest marriage proposal ever.”

We laugh until we can barely stand.

RIP Frankie Manning

May 26, 1914 - April 27, 2009

Sigh.

I have nothing to say about this sweet, funny, inspiring, vivacious, flirtatious icon of an era that hasn't been said more eloquently elsewhere.

Except that he gave my bottom a quick pat once during a dance.

He was about 85 at the time.

Bless his heart, his friends and loved ones, and his lasting memory.

Lindy Hop Great Frankie Manning Dies at 94

http://www.frankiemanning.com/

San Diego Momma's PrompTuesday # 51: Gonna Be Startin' Something

San Diego Momma's PrompTuesday # 51:

This week, San Diego Momma started us off with a first sentence. (I love these!) So without further ado:

She lifted the smudged glass to her lips, stopped mid-raise with that familiar lopsided smile and whispered, “This is the last you’ll see of me.”  She coolly downed the remainder of the vodka Gibson she had insisted be served in an actual cocktail glass instead of the plastic cup originally proffered.

"Goodbye, Jack."

Then, without so much as a sideways glance, she turned on her slingback Prada heels, and strode unceremoniously out of the "sorry excuse for a ballroom". Her words.

Up until that point, attending his 20th high-school reunion had seemed a grand idea. Now he wasn't so sure. He gazed once more around the room. In the wake of Bobbi's departure, ("It's Roberta, Jack. Always has been. Please try to remember that, won't you?"), he had to admit everything seemed suddenly dreary and depressing. The laughter sounded forced and artificial. The once-familiar faces looked tired and used up, or bloated with debauchery and excess. The women, every last one of them mutton dressed as lamb, struggled to feign class and pretend that this barnyard hoedown was a night at Maxim's.  It was a safe bet that few of these yokels had ever traveled far enough afield to so much as cross a county line.

Jack glanced at his watch. Ten minutes. Roberta had been there for exactly ten minutes. In that time, she had surveyed the environs, assessed the value of both the ritual display and its participants and found it all lacking.

"What the hell am I still doing in this godforsaken town?" he mumbled.

"You say something, pal?" The bartender was eyeing him, expectantly.

"Uh, no. I mean, yeah," he stammered. "Belevedere Gibson, please."

"Sure thing."

"And buddy, . . . Put it in a glass, would you?"

Literary Love Affairs, Part I: Or Why I Talk to Squirrels

San Diego Momma’s second PrompTuesday of 2009 is a doozy. She’s asking us what our favorite book is and why.

Book. Did you catch that? Singular.

I balked. I panicked. I told her it was like having a lifelong nymphomaniac choose her favorite lover. Completely, utterly, impossible. Then I closed my browser window and went about my business. But the question kept nagging. I thought about how seemingly insurmountable tasks can be made manageable when broken down into smaller tasks. It would be perfectly legitimate to break one’s life as a reader down into small pieces and select a favorite book for each phase of one’s life, wouldn't it? Yes. Hence this first installment of what may be a completely tedious exercise in literary navel-gazing. Let's call this:

Part One: The Dr. Seuss Years

My mother got me started early in my book addiction by signing me up for one of those children’s book-of-the-month clubs. I remember being so excited every time one of the flat cardboard boxes arrived. The very first one was Dr. Seuss’s One Fish, Two Fish. I liked Dr. Seuss well enough, but his books were never entirely satisfying to me. He may be a national institution, but let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot going on there in terms of story. I had pretty much outgrown the Dr. even before Kindergarten.

Ingeniously, these book clubs send out books of ever-increasing complexity to keep pace with a child’s anticipated reading level. When then the actual story books with plotlines and conflict and only one illustration for every two pages started arriving in the mailbox, they were a revelation. Now those were the books that hooked me. Those were the books that fired my imagination and fed my pretend games. Those were the books like Miss Suzy (Miriam Young and Arnold Lobel).

I know. You have probably never heard of it, and it’s a crying shame. It’s marvelous. You see, there’s this little squirrel. She wears an apron and lives in a tree. She is house-proud, very much like my mother, and keeps a tidy little home there. One day, some mean, nasty red squirrels invade her home and throw her out. She runs away into the attic of the house nearby. Stored in the attic, are a brigade of toy soldiers and a perfectly squirrel- sized doll house. She befriends the soldiers and takes up residence in the doll house. Finally, she tells the soldiers about her old home in the tree, which she misses terribly, and they decide to help her get it back.

I loved, loved, loved that book. It had everything my little 5 year old heart could want: a fluffy, anthropomorphic squirrel, a doll house, a mysterious attic, and the kind of righting of wrongs that my overdeveloped sense of justice often demands of literature even to this day. (More on that in subsequent installments.)

There came an afternoon, when I was in Junior High, when my mother suggested giving all of my “kid’s books” to my nephew. I thought about it for a few seconds, as shocked by the suggestion as by my own reaction to it -- books being so very precious, after all. It took a moment, but I decided that my little baby nephew was at least as precious and absolutely deserving of my beloved books. I answered that, yes, he could have everything EXCEPT a Child’s Garden of Verses, and Miss Suzy. Miss Suzy I was perfectly willing to read to him myself, but she would forever remain indisputably mine.

I have her still.