Jackhammer Morning

Usually I don't mind living so close to a major road, but they're redoing that road this spring/summer. I could already hear a jackhammer before 7 AM. Hmm, that might be a problem when it's open window season, and we'll probably get the aroma of tar too. O, happy days.

I got phone calls yesterday evening from my writing group mates saying that neither of them can make it to our meeting tonight. At first I was totally bummed about it, but this morning I think I'm going to take my manuscript and go anyway. I can sit in the cafe and work on my scene cards and preserve those 2 hours as dedicated writing time even if I'm the only one there. So there. I'm sending vibes out into the ether hoping to attract a new member or two; we need some new blood, new energy to perk us up. So if you know a dedicated, enthusiastic writer in or near Green Bay, Wisconsin working to get published and looking for a weekly writing group, let us know. Please.

March 17--Ilnacullin, Ireland. "I feel like frickin' Rapunzel," Fiona said, standing on the balcony. "Oh, for God's sake," her mother said, "don't let Auntie Minerva hear you. And go put on something that isn't torn, we're going to church." Fiona rolled her eyes at the gorgeous view across the lake to the mountains but she went back into the room to change. She hadn't wanted to come, hadn't wanted to leave her friends for two weeks as soon as school was out to ride three different trains, a bus, and a ferry to get to her mother's great-aunt's house which was up on a hill on a tiny island in Ireland. Her mother, the only child of the never-married Minerva's favorite niece, had been insistent that she come "and enjoy yourself, dammit, or else." Fiona nearly burst out laughing at that. She might be fourteen, with all the jumbled emotions that entails, but she still had a well-developed sense of the absurd. Her mother only sniffed when she appeared downstairs in the sitting room in a long gray skirt topped with a darker gray sweater, and glaring orange Converse hi-tops peeking out from the hem. "What?" Fiona said, "none of it is ripped." Her mother shook her head, and Auntie Minerva gave her a wink.

I think we might like Auntie Minerva, don't you? Perhaps mother will go home leaving Fiona behind. A family emergency maybe? We'll put a star by this one. Enjoy what they're saying will be the last warm and sunny day for a while. Tomorrow they're threatening rain and snow by nightfall. Dun-dun-dunnnnn.
--Barbara