Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Well, they say we may get some snow tonight. I'm not sure if that is the truth, but it certainly has been awfully gray today and sort of mild. That's usually what happens when it snows. I doubt we'll get much though.

Max continues the stupid goose thing. What is puzzling is that Max has been here for a year or so...and the geese have been here even longer. So, it's not like all of a sudden there were geese and they were something completely new in the Maxiverse. I, unfortunately, did not have the digital for yesterday's most amusing moment. I evidently broke Max's concentration by stepping out onto the porch and he took his eyes off of them for a second. Bad idea. The biggest gander grabs Max by his tail stub and hangs on for dear life. Max screams and high-tails it to the porch. He's going so fast...screaming the entire way...that the gander has to take flight...still hanging onto poor Max's tail. It looked like a goose-dog para sail for a moment there. The gander finally lets go rather than follow Max up on the porch where he cowers behind me. From a point of safety he utters some rather aggressive sounding barks at the geese. The geese laugh maniacally and do something that can only be described as a goose "high-five".

I've had my nose buried in the laptop all day finishing "The Ghosts are Dancing". I think it's pretty good, but its still too new for me to really be objective about it. The story tops out at 5,500 or so words. I have the last installment up on EditRed. I'll be combining all the parts in a few days for the first edit. Let me know what you think. I think this story merits a "hanky" alert.

Bridey pulled her mother from the back bedroom and led her towards the porch. Lurlene got as far as the screen door before looking out into the morning.

The Pigeon had risen beyond its bounds and the little white house was now an island. The water foamed and surged around the house. The rake that Roger had left out had long since been carried away and the martin house tilted drunkenly at an angle. Her world was being swept away.

Lurlene stepped onto the front porch and realized the seriousness of the situation. A crash sounded on the far side of the house and she peered around the corner to see part of somebody’s roof floating crazily down stream. It had crashed into their back porch, taking with it a corner of the building. Assorted flotsam came crashing down the river, now flowing through her yard. She strained her eyes over to her neighbor’s house that was even closer to the banks. The water had already risen as high as the windows and was rushing into the home. There on the roof of a small shed stood a miserable sow bellowing for her piglets, her udder swollen with milk. Lurlene watched as the sow lost her footing and plunged into the rapids. The sow rushed by them, her panicked human-like eyes met Lurlene’s and begged in rolling terror.

Lurlene had no idea how long the little white house could stand there on its foundation before joining the tumbling buildings and livestock. Bridey put both of her arms around her mother’s waist and buried her head in her side.

Lurlene stroked the girl’s hair and looked out into the coming day. The rain was ending, but the torrent continued to rise.

“Dear Lord, Jesus,” Lurlene prayed, for the first time in a very long time. “We gotta get out of here.”

Today I wrote most of the day. Got a good bit done. Haven’t started reworking the first scene of my cockfighting story. I have to sort of let all that good research filter through my head. I did go over my notes and think about it a bit. I got some work done on The Ghosts are Dancing and finally got to the porn part of Porn and Donuts. I’m about ready to do the combine of those two stories and get the first rewrite of those sections done.

For the first time in a very long time, I’m pulling out my thesaurus. They say the Inuit have 90 words for “snow”. The Ghosts are Dancing is really stretching my vocabulary for things having to do with water, rain and wetness. Can’t be helped…it’s a flood story.

I’ve been having these pounding stabbing headaches. I think I figured it out, though. It’s the Sjogrens. My eyes have gotten so dry that my corneas are scratched. I just wasn’t paying attention to it. Have stepped up my eye drops and it seems much better.

I’ve been very upset over something that happened last week. A kid who has been providing a service for me for two years, who I have liked and have treated with fairness and respect, cheated me. I don’t know what it is about the people in this place that makes them so prone to dishonesty. I’m not quite sure how to handle it. Unless the wrong is righted, I won’t be using him again. It’s a shame since I know he needs the money. And it’s a huge bother for me to have to call the 30 something people I recommended him to and let them know that I can no longer suggest that they hire him.

Ah well, it will end up in my writing one way or another, I’m sure. But it saddens me.

The third part of The Ghosts are Dancing is up on EditRed.

As the sun slowly sent the first tendrils of dirty light into the holler, the devastation became more and more evident. All the pastures were flooded. The newly tilled fields were a sea of churning water. A few of the cows and horses had survived but were huddled miserably near the house where the water was most shallow. One of the barns had been swept away and the footlogs and bridges had long since been washed downstream. The corpses of drowned hogs came dancing down the rapids where the creek used to be, washed pale and obscene by the water. And Joel heard the screaming of the cattle who had not made it to safety, mired to their bellies in the mud and water. Their white faces straining to breathe above the water, until it closed over their heads and they screamed no more.

So, on Wednesday I did my shopping and, wonders of wonders, there in the Newport Walmart as I walk in the door are Baklava platters. So, of course I grabbed one. Such a fancy luxury food item is rare here. They have sort of begun to carry a few things that I wouldn't expect to find there. Like sushi nori...but it's not the good kind and I think I'm the only one who buys it when I'm out of the good stuff. And until there is a decent place to buy fish, it's sort of useless anyway.

So, Scott had a piece and I had some. I left it in a safe place when I went for Thanksgiving lunch with Betsy and her family.

As we were leaving the restaurant, Betsy says, "I got a Baklava Plate yesterday!"

"I did too!" I said. Great gastronomic minds think alike.

Anyway, I got home and no baklava. My safe space had been cracked by the cocker crew. They had also gotten into the trash to divert my attention from their little baklava caper.

Nod toward I Can Has Cheezburger? It's a very funny animal blog. A little cat heavy, but very entertaining.

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If you are following The Ghosts are Dancing story, the second installment is up on Editred. Readers only, but if you'd like to be a reader, all you have to do is join then email me with your ID. It's free. And I sort of have to know who you are.

Here's an excerpt:

So, Lurlene was awake when the rains began. She heard the first few drops hit the tin roof with hard fat plinks. She didn’t think much of it, at first. It was the logical conclusion to a windy evening. She just kept reading through her tear soaked eyes. She crawled under the covers when the rains began in earnest. The rain on the roof was a white noise that would eventually lull her to sleep. At least, that was how it usually was. She wished for sleep though she did not pray for it. She’d lost her faith in prayer.

And as her eyes closed to the roar of the rain on the roof, she sort of thought it was louder than usual. She sort of thought it seemed like a wall of water was falling on the roof. But finally she dozed off with the light still on to the sound of the pounding rain. Bridey sensed her warmth as she curled up in the bed and rolled over toward her warmth. The toddler slept right through it. Bridey slept right through it. And Lurlene, she finally slept and she slept right through it.

She slept through it because she was tired and weary.

Weary in her woman’s bones.

The moon, this night, some weeks back ate the sky with its brilliance. I really regretted my lack of skill with these sorts of photographs. All I could do was stand and gape at the night. Stare, dumbfounded, as the night was consumed.

Happy Sunday.

Jo-Jo and the Chicken Boy, Part one...is up on EditRed.

And if you are really good...I should have some Porn and Donuts for you tomorrow.