The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie
Posted on | April 23, 2010 | Comments Off
During my time of scattered mind, I found that reading was a great way to gather at least some of myself together and focus. I found The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery
It takes place in the summer of 1950 in the English countryside. Flavia De Luce is an 11 year old aspiring chemist. (This alone makes the story so much fun, think of the possibilities!) Of course she ends up becoming a detective, having discovered a crime to solve, this is a mystery after all. You will definitely fall in love with this precocious little girl.
This does not read like a children’s novel, this is crime solving at it’s best leaving you anxious for the novel’s promised second in the series. A little something to check out if you need a good read…
[click the link above to read more reviews]
And upon waking…
Posted on | April 23, 2010 | 1 Comment
She decided that she was feeling better. No, she decided she was feeling much, much better. Brilliant!
Worm guy pays another visit
Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 1 Comment
She was already having quite the day. Confetti flying all around she thought…no, that wasn’t it either. She still searched for the perfect analogy to describe her brain in this state but that wasn’t it. She got up to open the window and get some air when she was startled once again by the little worm guy (yes, a bug) outside her window once again asking to come inside. Being polite and in no mood to argue with human or insect, she granted him access to her room in which he chose to settle down on a shelf next to statue of a banana slug with a smiling face. The scene was so unreal she wondered if the medication she’d taken earlier might have been confused with something else. In front of her was an approximately 8 inch tall, bright yellow banana slug ceramic sculpture with big red lips and next to it was a much smaller worm wearing a tiny little cowboy hat. Where he got that hat she wasn’t sure, but in whatever reality she was now in, there probably was a shop for the tiny and small.
“I’ve just come in to relax” the worm said.
“I see” she said as she watched him squirm around into a what appeared to be a more comfortable (?) position.
“Would you mind if I spent the night?” inquired the worm.
“I guess not” she said.
She really needed to find her camera. This would be an awesome photo. Of course her room resembled her head at the moment and she wasn’t quite sure where she placed it. Hmm, camera phone… “If I just try and get the right angle, wait, no, don’t move…”
“Lady, you can’t do that, I hate cameras. And besides, you’d look nuts if you were showing people pictures of a worm with a little hat. They’d think you were playing dress up with a worm. You’d look coo coo.”
“Good point” she said, but she snapped a shot anyway just as he slithered behind a photoframe.
“Ha, not fast enough!” he said.
“Okay, Okay, I’ll leave you be. Just um, don’t try anything when I got to sleep, ok?” she said with a little hesitation.
The worm simply shook his head and curled up and went to sleep.
Must be nice to just be able to go to sleep like that. No pills. No pills to ease the taking of other pills. She sighed and glanced over at her pill bottles awaiting “the big event” for the evening. But first…
“Goodnight little worm, sweet dreams.”
Left me undone…
Posted on | April 22, 2010 | Comments Off
She felt the experiment had been warranted. She thought she would simply fall to sleep last night without “the scary pill” and she would have minimal negative effects today. She had been tired, but her monsters were up to their tricks and she found herself up watching the clock till the very early morning hours. When she was finally sleeping soundly, the alarm on her cell phone woke her, seemingly louder than she recalled having set it. Inadvertently, she hit the snooze and was startled several minutes later when it went off again. After properly dismissing the phone in a calm fashion not requiring any repair to the phone or surrounding drywall, she got up and showered for her appointment.
She knew right away that things were not right. A certain clarity that the medication had granted her was definitely gone, and in fact, it would appear that during the night, someone had gone through her brain and taken every thing off every shelf and tossed it around every which way. This was not before having cast a spell which allowed said items of interest (and non-interest) to float about within her head. In essence, she was coming undone, but she had an appointment to get to.
Fast forward to the appointment…concerns are shared about the sheer terror every night of taking “the scary pill” that has helped so much during the day. Of course, there’s another pill to help that. Wonderful! Add another <expletive deleted> pill to the SMTWTFS box! Soon she’d be able to get the jumbo size SMTWTFS box and be really cool. Bigger is better right?
Fast forward to some shopping…and then a visit to some old friends. Something odd involving a biker and a muppet…and then it was more errands. Why was the guy at the sewing and vacuum repair shop so odd she wondered? Or was it her? Probably, she was undone for sure. The pharmacy filled her prescription and then…there was a lasagna to be built.
Now, she realized she forgot to eat during this day of stuff flying in her head and her flying all around. She built the lasagna and cleaned the kitchen. She had no patience so she couldn’t say she patiently waited the forever it took to bake. Too dry. Never fails. Last one was too wet. Can’t win. But at least she ate.
She was frantic, thoughts weren’t coming together in the way she liked, in fact, she wasn’t sure she made any sense at all. She was, however, looking forward to the “new pill” to go with the “scary pill” and wondered if she would need yet another pill to combat some nifty new side effect from the combination of this latest combination.
It was, for the most part, a good day. A beautiful day. She proved to herself she needs to take her medicine. (sheepish grin) She got out of the house and did all the above and probably more that her spinny mind wasn’t registering at the moment. Yes, a good day. But she was definitely undone. She wondered…would she be able to get herself back together??? She thought so.
Fear of the night
Posted on | April 22, 2010 | Comments Off
It is supposed to take the racing thoughts away…
To bring clarity to a cluttered mind…to bring hope.
Quickly, it melts beneath my tongue, bitter, numbing, I shiver and gag.
I begin to lose control of my body, but not my mind.
I feel drugged, I am heavy as if huge weights have been placed upon me.
I am scared…there is a moment of no control.
I don’t know what could happen… I feel vulnerable…and then…
I am waking up, groggy, it is morning and I must go about my day,
But I fear the night.
Out of reach
Posted on | April 22, 2010 | Comments Off
Sometimes, things are simply out of reach. She remembered as a little girl trying to reach for something on a shelf and no matter how high she stood on her tip toes, how she stretched her little fingers, she just couldn’t get it. In a literal sense, whatever it was she was grasping for, it was out of reach. She remembered another time, she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she literally climbed up the shelves causing the entire shelving unit to fall on top of her. She didn’t end up with what she wanted then either. At that point she was just in trouble. The item had gone from being “out of reach: too high” to “out of reach: buried” and she was buried right along with it.
She came to realize later that we can get figuratively buried as well when we are reaching for things. They say there should be no bounds when setting goals for ourselves. But what do we do when our goals involve another person? When it is our nature to fight to save every soul, when do we say enough is enough and let nature take its course? What happens when we try and reach for that person, and let ourselves get buried in something that isn’t even our own? Perhaps we take on pain, pain we may or may not have even caused. Either way it isn’t ours to bear. We are buried. Send in the rescue dogs. We have lost ourselves…in someone else.
She wondered which one of her many self help books would help her find herself. She was lost. That was for sure. She was allowing herself to be a victim of her own imprisonment. She buried herself within her own walls and the walls of another. (others?) In fact, she had more walls than she knew what to do with. Maybe if she put up some shelves on all those walls, she could get some of the clutter up off the floor and clean the place up a bit. The clutter in her head was a mess.
She started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, some things were out of reach for a reason. Maybe some things were put out of reach to give us something to strive for. And other things were put out of reach to keep us safe. The problem was, how did you know for sure which was which?
So she survived…
Posted on | April 21, 2010 | Comments Off
She made it to the post office.
She made it to the library.
She made it to the grocery store. (note: there was a challenge leaving the grocery store as the trunk lid refused to latch but the remedy was to rock the car from side to side. File that one away somewhere in case you find yourself in the same predicament.)
Hooray.
Butterflies made of iron…
Posted on | April 21, 2010 | Comments Off
Nothing can compare to the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Gardeners, new life forms, lots of noise
Posted on | April 21, 2010 | Comments Off
The sound coming from the gardeners was more like an alien invasion than a simple lawn edging. That had to be the most powerful edger known to mankind. And when the mowers came through, it sounded as if medevac helicopters were racing to rescue poor souls trapped in their overturned vehicles on the nearby parkway, not like some machine designed to cut blades of grass. It was, no doubt, an appreciated task that was done by our homeowners association and well paid for to say the least, but it sure was noisy and often it began long before our eyes were truly open for the day causing the loudness to enter our dreams and be magnified into something more mysterious and/or unsettling.
She was, however, awake before the symphony of heavy equipment began today so her dreams were not invaded by giant spaceships or new life forms greeting us hello. She did wonder if her newly emerging hostas were safe out there as they had arrived in a peculiar place thanks to the removal and replanting of “the stick” of a tree in her front yard. She was so afraid the mowers would go right over them she almost went down to protect them…almost…but not quite. She would have to have some faith that they wouldn’t meet the same uncertain death her other perennials did when apparently plucked from their beginnings as “weeds” in the flower beds. “Oops” someone might have said.
She realized not every morning should wake up to a “rant” and she had to admit it was beautiful out. The green of the leaves was so very vibrant today and there was just enough breeze to catch their attention away from the slightly overcast sky. It was a nice day out. One that should be enjoyed. Perhaps a journey later on. But there were things to be done. She had to get the word out about http://companyneedsmisery.com after all, what was rambling if she was just doing it to her self???
She looked out the window in time to see a little worm guy tapping. Yes, tapping. She walked over to see what he wanted. (Wow, the bugs in this state were really something.) He said he was visiting from another place and would like to know if he could use the facilities. (Are you kidding?) “Sure” she said. So she let the worm guy come in and clean up and he thanked her and let himself out. Her days were getting stranger by the minute it seemed. She wondered if he was aerating the lawn.
The sounds of the equipment thundered on and she knew that by days end, the street would look lovely and there would be no excuse not to talk a walk and enjoy the splendor of it all. And who knows, maybe they’d run into the worm guy again…
Cabinet full of…
Posted on | April 20, 2010 | Comments Off
It was a cabinet full of what, she wondered? She imagined it contained something wonderful. The wood spoke to her, its age and craftsmanship apparent as well as its beauty. She had taken a stroll through her mental memory banks to visit it once again…
She imagined herself opening the doors and a burst of light and air came forth and pushed her back to the floor and onto her bottom. As she regained her composure and swatted the dust from her face, she blinked her eyes a few times as she saw what could only be a medication induced hallucination. Her dear friend, the Art Teacher, was getting out of the cupboard. This was only unusual because she was the one who usually did the travelling in this manner, so she was surprised, and pleasantly so, she might add, to see her Artist friend show up like this.
“I’ve brought you another hat” the Art Teacher said.
“Why thank you! You know I adore your hats!” she said.
“Ah, but this is a special hat, this hat will make your monsters hide and leave you be so you can go to sleep easy ” the Art Teacher said.
And she took the hat and cradled it in her hands as if it was made of the finest yarns on the planet. (It must have been if it could put her monsters into submission for the night.) She looked at the hat closely to find it was the most wonderfully weird crocheted stocking cap and she adored it already. It must have taken hours to make, and she would consider it priceless.
“Thank you so very much, you have no idea how much you have done for me already” she said.
“I must go now, back to my lesson plans, but you let me know how it works tonight” said the Art Teacher and she climbed back into the cupboard and with a crash the doors slammed shut and she was gone.
She stood for a moment with the hat in her hand, her converse sneakers still covered in dust. She brushed herself off a bit and began to walk away from the cabinet. She turned around and looked back thinking how absolutely wonderfully cool it was to have her dear friend show up in that fashion. She was just the best. And with such a precious gift.
She walked along brushing more bits of dust and debris from her outfit after having placed her hat in her purse when she came upon a bouquet of flowers. They were hanging upside down from mid air and looked as though they belonged to a bride. Hmmm…funny. Those are exactly the flowers I would have chosen if I were to marry again. The green hydrangea, white roses and little blue something or others were just lovely…a few peonies would make it perfection. But what was it doing just hanging from mid air?
She ever so carefully touched the flowers when a voice very quietly said “please don’t touch me” and she jumped back dropping her purse and grabbing her chest. She’d seen some pretty weird things before, but talking flowers kind of took the cake. Speaking of which, she wondered if there was a wedding cake anywhere because she was hungry…
She scratched at a splinter that was now lodged in her finger as she walked on saying goodbye to the flowers. They were beautiful. Maybe some day it would be her turn. Odd place this was turning out to be. She just wanted to get home and try out her new hat. She was getting frustrated with the walk and not sure when the hallway would end when she got the idea of clicking her converse. Nope. That didn’t work. So she closed her eyes nice and tight and wished herself back into her room with her nice iron bed and her white fluffy down comforter.
The next thing she knew she was not only in her room, but in her bed, her new sleeping hat upon her head ready to fight the monsters. Okay, so she looked like she belonged in a Christmas Story, but she didn’t care. The monsters weren’t going to get her tonight. And as she drifted off to sleep…she mumbled “thank you D”…
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