Friday, December 26, 2008

Boxing Day!

That means it's the day your living room is filled with empty boxes, right? I was a bit busy yesterday to find time to post my writing, but this morning I have the time. It snowed--again--and I don't really do that whole crack of dawn, rugby scrum bargain shopping thing. Although I suppose I could have gone to pick up a new laptop. I'd like a new laptop. If I had the cash for it. Which I don't. So I won't go looking for one. Well, that takes care of needing to go out today. Guess I'll stay here, do the laundry, eat cookies, party mix, and English toffee, and knit or Wii bowl.

December 24--Write about a fire. The logs were stacked precisely like Lincoln Logs. They made a square chimney. She had combed the woods surrounding the stacked limestone circle of the council ring to find dry twigs and grasses to use for kindling. She had carried an old galvanzied watering can, minus its sprinkler head, down from the cottages built in the clearing. The can was heavy with water and it sloshed a bit leaving a wet mark on her old jeans. A couple trips to the shelter halfway up the trail and she had a nice pile of split firewood off to the side and a nice armload of smaller pieces to feed the fire after the kindling caught. She worked alone and in silence. It had been an eventful morning in her writing class and she decided after lunch to spend the afternoon outside in the crisp autumn sunshine. The wind in the trees and the murmur of the waves as they collapsed on the rocks at the base of the bluff soothes her troubled mind and the silent work of making the fire ready for that evening's bonfire assured her that even if the words wouldn't come, the beauty of this place could heal most of the hurts of her everyday life.

December 25--We ate Chinese. In my family take-out Chinese food was like medicine. If you borught home a note from your teacher Mom trusted that an egg roll and a cardboard carton of roast pork fried rice would set things right. A bad report card or failing a test called for sterner medicine--crab rangoons and egg foo yung would be prescribed. For really bad things, like breaking a window in Mrs. Stein-across-the-street's living room with a baseball or giving one of your bratty little twin brothers a black eye, a trip to the Mandarin Garden with its bright pagoda paintings and red chrome and formica booths was the remedy. Convalescing from a cold? Egg drop soup and a handfull of fortune cookies washed down by over-fizzy Fanta orange soda was just the thing to make you feel better. I learned from an early age that there was very little in life that couldn't be cured by a few cartons of stir fried meat and veggies and a bit of sticky rice.

Neither are great literature, but I'm just happy, as always, that I wrote. Hope everyone's Christmas was merry and bright. If not, have a nice sulk.
--Barbara

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