The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world
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Aug 1, 2005?
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Today's Queue Stories ~**~**~**~
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Bubble Bath
Diana Doles Petry
I was going to take a nice long bubble bath and just let thoughts of fantasies and summer evenings start to waft through my mind. I should have known that would be impossible! I think that there? is some evil
force that doesn't want me to enjoy moments of leisure and relaxation, especially in the bathtub with soft music playing and only candlelight to see with.
I'm sure you know the evil force I'm talking about...it works in? nearly all homes? all over the world.? The? minute your ass??¦ets touch the water it makes the phone ring!
I had just gotten naked, had the water the perfect temperature, and sat my buns down into the bubble bath when the phone rang......so up I came to answer it just in case it was something important.
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Wrong number......"Is this the taxi cab company?" I hear an obviously elder man with a thick tongue? ask.
"No sir, it isn't," I reply in my normal friendly tone. "You must have dialed the wrong number sir."
So he says, "Well then, why you advertise this number?"
Okay, at this point friendly started? to leave? my voice!
I pulled my towel tighter, as though the? person on the other end of the line? would see if it fell, and took a deep breath before I said, "I think you just dialed the wrong number, buddy!" (Notice there was no sir this time!)
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My hand started towards the telephone with the receiver ready to slam down against the cradle that was meant to hold it when I heard him still talking. If there is one thing I hate, it is to be rude, so I brought the receiver back to my ear.
He said, "You sayin I
kan't see?"
I normally would have just slammed the receiver onto the table top a few times and then hung up but this time I felt the need to vent. Not knowing my son was in earshot, and knowing the man had the wrong number so probably didn't know what number he had dialed, I answered, "No, I'm saying that you're a damn moron!"
I figured out where Chris was when he broke into hysterical laughter as he yelled, "Okay mom, I got one free curse word coming my way!"
My face was as red as the cheeks
of my buns had gotten from the hot bath water! I headed back into the bathroom to finish my bath. The water was cooler but still not cold so I decided just to make it fast and get done....forget the relaxing and dreaming about sharing back washes! Just as I lathered up my hair....the phone rang again. I grabbed a towel, headed for the phone, and promptly fell on my ass..ets because of the soapy feet on the congolieum floor! Grrr... to make matters worse, by the time I was up the phone had stopped ringing!
Third try; the water was cold, I was tired, and my patience was thin. I was nearly done when the phone rang this time. I decided to let it ring and let the machine pick up.....and it did....several
times in a row until I was forced to answer.
"Mom," my daughter said as I picked up the receiver, "did I leave my blue hairbrush in your bathroom?" Seven calls in a row to find out if her hairbrush was here....like I could throw it to Wisconsin if it was!
"No, I don't see it," I answered, in the sweetest voice I could muster without biting my own lip!
"Oh, nevermind mom, Jeremy
found it, talk to you later!"
It's a good thing she hung up before I was able to speak! Of course, that wasn't any worse that her late night phone call last night. Around midnight, from the depths of slumber, I am awakened to hear, "Mom, did you hear that Jordan just bombed Pakistan?"
"What?" I said still half-asleep. "When?"
"Oh, it was all over the news. Their head guy called some station and said some stuff about somebody hitting them and I heard it mom and I thought I would call you and let you know.(Now tell me who elected me President!) What does this mean mom?"(I left out the punctuation because she never stopped to take a breath!)
Okay, I was awake now. "Crystal, honey, did you ever attend any of the geography classes you
got grades for in school? Or history? Or even recess?"
Click.....she hung up....imagine that!
Well, anyway, I have spent today hanging my American flag, updating my web page, feeding the dogs, folding ribbons until the skin fell off of my fingers, and checking the email. My mother is just sure there is a man in this machine somewhere! She thinks that is the only reason a woman would spend so much time with a "talking box".
Just think, years ago they called the telephone the same thing and now women
can't live without it! Dianna Doles Petry
I have been thinking a lot the past few months about where I've come from. Last summer I went home, to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the small Midwestern city where I grew up. I visited my father's gravesite for the first time; the last time I was in Wisconsin was in 1999, for his funeral. I saw where my grandparents and some of their siblings were buried, as well.
Walking through the graveyard outside my grandparent's church, in a rural farming
area 20 miles from Eau Claire, and seeing my father's charcoal-gray marble family gravestone with FLESBERG etched into is one of my most profound memories. At that moment, I recognized something vital that belonged to me, that I'd gone without, purposely cutting myself off from it when I was 18 years old. I saw my lineage, my birthright, my connection to my father that I had pushed so hard against and away from for much of my life. There was an open book with his name and dates of birth and death on it and on the other side an
open book with my mother's name and birth date on it. I didn't see any other grave markers with books on them.
I sat next to my dad's grave and wrote in my journal, communing in my heart with the essence of this man who had been the whole world to me and who'd loved me more deeply and had probably influenced me more profoundly than anyone else in my life. I was finally able to see him more as a man rather than just my dad and I understood his life and mine more easily from that point of view.
When I went back to the motel where I was staying, I started writing Jodi Flesberg Lilly. I'd been Jodi Lilly for 25 years as I??™d first rejected and then lost track of some essential part of myself. It took me another couple of months to muster up the courage to actually start using
Flesberg in my signature, but it is becoming second nature now and each time I write it or see it, it reminds me where I came from and who I am.
That is my strongest experience of "going home" and being more fully who I am. There were many other places I visited and people I saw on that trip who spoke clearly to my heart and welcomed me home, but reconnecting with my father and taking back my name helped me to integrate and carry that sense of home with me, wherever I am.
Jodi Flesberg Lilly is a writer and intuitive astrologer living in San Ramon, CA.? She founded and leads the Creative Writers Network at www.Ryze.com (an online business networking site), as well as offering intuitive astrology readings, leading workshops, and teaching classes in spiritual and personal awareness.? To subscribe to her monthly Light In Motion, intuitive astrology newsletter please send an email to info@lightinmotion.net and write "subscribe" in the subject line.
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My train trip to Lancaster
Mary B Heist
My friend Agnes and I just returned from a train trip to Lancaster, Pa. I prepared for this adventure by listening to another friend who told me that I should take a lunch because the food was very expensive, sandwiches alone being around twenty-five dollars.? Therefore, one suitcase was filled with my clothing and toys for the grandchildren I was going to visit and the other, smaller one, was filled with snacks and treats for survival on the way.
Train travel is not like plane travel.? There is no cute stewardess up front to explain how to get out in case of accident.? So I looked around trying to figure out how we would leave a wrecked, burning
train car. Agnes pointed out the Safety First card in the pocket behind the seat in front of me so I grabbed that to save my life.? Ah-hah - a red handle pulled the window gasket out to release the window itself so we could escape.? Now to find a window with a red handle.? I saw it - several seats ahead of us.?
"What is your name?" I asked the woman just settling into her seat beside the window with the red handled window.? Rude, I know, but this information would save our lives and I didn't have time for chit-chat. When she told me a long, convoluted name, I somehow repeated it correctly which amazed her because, she said, no one ever did.
"Ok, and I repeated her name again, which I now forget, if we get in trouble, it is your responsibility to pull this red handle, rip open the gasket, tear out the window, and get out the window so the rest of us can follow.? And, honey, I'll be right behind you with my little suitcase."
Another passenger, listening to this conversation, said, "But the information says to leave the luggage."
To which I replied, "I have a week's supply of food, treats, and goodies in that little bag, you REALLY want me to get that bag out of this window!? I'll be able to feed us all until we are rescued!"
Everyone applauded and we had our escape planned.
Back to my seat with a sigh of relief, I opened my bag for a small snack to tide me over.? The lady sitting in front of me peeked
over the top of her seat and exclaimed, "Wow, you should see this!"? Every head turned and I proudly held up my jam-packed carry-on to show that I was not kidding about being able to feed us for a few days.? Munch, munch.
Later I was telling Agnes about my needing to buy a new watch because of the three battery-run watches I own, two died when the Wal-Mart lady opened their backs, exposing them to air.? So I bought this super-duper Timex that I can actually see, it is so big.? A voice from the seat ahead of me said, "I bet it's not as big as mine!" and she turned around and stuck out her arm to show the same exact watch as mine.? We both said, "Wal-Mart and twenty-five dollars and it takes a lickin and keeps on ticken."? I like train travel!
Agnes wanted to go to the dining car.? "All right," I said, "But I'm not buying any expensive dried up sandwiches."
Walking through moving train cars is really fun, once you catch the rhythm and soon I was zipping along.? Back in the dining car, instead of the ellegance I expected, there were little tables and benches along each side of the car and a little snack bar at the end.? There a middle aged fellow with longish stringy hair was waiting to take our order.?
"I want to see the prices," I told him, "a friend told me sandwiches were twenty-five dollars."?
He kind of gulped and then laughed as I read the menu, "Hot dogs, fifteen dollars,
hamburgers, twenty dollars." Now these were not the real prices, of course.
"Nope, there's nothing here I can afford, look, even the Diet Pepsi is five dollars a can!"?
"But you get a three fifty refund when you return the can," he said, getting into the play of the game.
We bought our sodas and sat at a table to chat while watching the scenery pass by.? Unfortunately, traveling such a short trip the scenery is the back ends of the towns and cities we passed through and so wasn't all that pretty.?
We
enjoyed ourselves as we sipped our expensive drinks sitting in a luxurious dining car, traveling on a train.?
Second installment of my train trip to Lancaster, Pa
Agnes and I arrived in Lancaster and her daughter, Beth, and Granddaughter picked us up at the station.? The granddaughter had been on a mission for their Mennonite church to Africa and I was very interested in her experiences in "bush country" so listened carefully.? One of the first things she told us, on the way to drop me off at the hotel where I'd meet my son and his family, was that she ate what the natives ate, which included, at one meal, native rat.
"Euck," my Grandson Jared exclaimed when I told him the next afternoon as we relaxed in the hotel swimming pool.? "Did she REALLY eat a rat?"?
"Yes," I said, adding, "Rat on a stick!? Should we try to find one for you for supper?"
"No,
euck," and he jumped into the pool.
We didn't eat any rats during our stay.? We did eat wonderful Amish home made foods.? Well, most of us did.? The children, nine, seven and three, ate hot dogs for most every meal.? That's almost as good as rat.?
My son and his family had to leave earlier than our train so we bade them farewell at the hotel and Agnes' daughter took us on a car tour of the countryside.? We saw beautiful neat, tidy farm lands through tightly rolled up windows against the newly plowed and fertilized fields.?
We also saw lots of horse drawn buggies. The buggies were all different. Amish buggies were all black while Mennonite buggies were black with gold on them.? Some were square boxes, others were wagons
with bench seats for the children.? There were small, medium and large buggies, just like the families that occupied them.
Some children were walking to school but I did see one young fellow being taken to school in an open wagon.? He was sitting on the bench in the back and looked cold and uncomfortable.? But that might have been my impression.
Soon we were back on the train, headed West this time, in comparitive comfort and the same fellow was behind the luncheon counter in the dining car selling the same twenty five dollar sandwiches and five dollar diet Pepsis.? No rats.
Our trip is over.? I am back where I started, a little wiser, perhaps, and looking forward to my next train adventure.? Where to next, I wonder.
I am Mary B Heist, a daughter of heavenly
parents who want me to reach my highest potential. I am Mom to seven children, mom-in-law to five; grandmom to eleven and great-grand-mom to one. I am ex-wife to three, the first of whom reached into my chest, tore out my heart and squeezed the life from it.? It hurt so badly I died. I am.
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Poetry Section
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Sour Notes
Sandra Woodward
Baby bird has learned to sing.
I enjoy it more than anything.
It took a long time for him
To learn a tune.
But now he sings,
Cheeps,
and croons.
I try my best to whistle along.
Mercy me, it sounds all wrong!
Yet, baby bird is
kind to me.
He continues to sing
Right back, you see.
He over looks my attempts
To mimic him.
I
really think he's
My best friend!
? ? Sandy Woodward
sassa@localnet.com ~**~**~
Siblings
Sandra Woodward
My sister's bird can talk,
My bird will only squawk!
My sibling's bird loves to sing,
My bird? won't do? anything.
Her bird is my bird's big brother.
They look just like one another.
She named hers Speckled Chickie,
Mine got called just plain old Kricky!
Speckie can do a lot of tricks,
Kricky only wants to sit.
But they're siblings none-the-less,
Who cares whose sibling's sibling is the best!
? Sandy Woodward
sassa@localnet.com
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Claws
Sandra Woodward
Toenails are a problem,
As I? scurry cross
The rug.
They get caught in nylon fibers.
I topple forward with
A thud.
Claws are not much better,
When it comes to
Vinyl floors.
There is no traction
To? be found,
As I slip and slid
All around.
One thing I can attest,
As I'm perching
In my cage
To rest.
That's when I discover
My toenails are
No bother.
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Sandy Woodward
sassa@localnet.com
BIO:
SAndy lives on the coast of Maine.? She shares her home with her youngest son, seven birds and a spoiled Cocker Spaniel, Smidgy.
Come fall she will be loosing one from the nest, her son, Josh, will be starting college!
Sandy enjoys writing and has had several stories published in Storytime Tapestry and Heartwarmers.
