Not A Creature Was Stirring- It Was RUNNING

I was collecting some pictures for my Christmas Holiday posts  when I found this one.

Right after I set eyes on it  I thought ” Wow. I should start my Christmas Shopping today.”

 The thing of it is I have this reputation in my family  as the person who forgets birthdays ( including my own ) I can never remember what month Easter falls on and nobody wants a Valentine card from me because they are sure when they open the card they’re going to find a picture of a real heart with ” I Love You ” written in magic marker across the top of the card ( so as to not interfere with the picture itself- of course ) in fancy script lettering.

I guess that in my family I bring drama to the big days.

If it weren’t for me, the people I love the most, the people who I DO want to spend the holidays with, would be out there celebrating traditional holidays in traditional ways. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Well, maybe my enemies and haters who made fun of my friends who were running for office this year but would I wish a Hallmark Holiday to my nearest and dearest?

No way- not this girl.

I think my role during the holidays- especially at Christmas is to add a little pizzaz to the day

www.nataliedee.com

If it weren’t for me who would be there at the Christmas dinner table to say, just as the turkey was being carved, ” wow, that brings back some memories “

” And exactly, which ones would those be? ” somebody ALWAYS asks to a chorus of face palming that rounds the table at lightning speed.

So maybe I will do a little shopping and maybe I’ll wake up on Christmas Morning and decide that this year I will not tell urban legends like the one about the archeologists who discovered this pyramid with these alabaster  jars full of honey in them- the honey was so well preserved that they were able to eat it- and when the jar was empty they saw stuck to the bottom of the jar a little bundle that turned out to be a mummified baby.

Yes. That’s the ticket. Maybe I’ll celebrate Christmas like a normal person.

Or.

Maybe.

I.

Won’t.

I Am A Total Giver

Christmas is coming-

so you know what that means to me.

That’s right.

Its time for absolutely nothing but mindless fun.

Here’s my contribution to the season.

You are welcome.

Ho Ho Ho.

 Remember

If you are watching this where it is cold

drool will freeze.

Because

Inspired By

The SFC Chocolate Box Prompt

:::: Abandoned Past::::

Tonight I was thinking about shadows.

And ghosts.

Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties are hard to write about, difficult to understand and for the most part, they are not pleasant to look at or be alone with.

 Ghosts and shadows and the things that go bump in the night not only cause ripples in dark blue lakes set smack dab in the middle of  forests frequented by unicorns that burp glitter and maidens who- to be honest I don’t KNOW what maidens do-stroll around all day thinking beautiful thoughts I suppose- ghosts and shadows and ghoulies challenge reality.

Here is my reality: when I write about cannibals or Morticians who arrange funerals for Zombie Queens and Werewolves who love chocolate so much that they go trick or treating on Halloween I am not writing about monsters. I am writing about real people who don’t see the world the way everybody else does. I base those characters on the people in my life who collect key chains and grow Chia Pets. they like turkey flavored soda pop and  believe, with all their hearts that aliens are real and that UFO’s are not science fiction but science fact.

That is why my monsters are so human and that is why they will never be the dark matter in my stories- I leave that role to the people in my life who are narrow-minded, vicious, cruel, and hypocritical. I don’t give people like that the luxary of a mask in my stories.  To be fair though  they inspire me to- but for the most part they inspire me to see them into the next world at the hands ( or paws, or claws or pointed teeth ) of the people they have wronged in real life.

I have been made aware that some people only chose to see beauty in their world I have been advised to do the same and to- how do the kids put it nowdays.

Oh

STFU and quit writing the weird stuff.

Its ugly, I have been told

Well.

I don’t think my stories are ugly, I think they are beautiful in their own way and I am proud of every single word- even the not so perfect words I have written .

My stories are not afraid to be themselves.

Everyone should be so lucky.

 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ 

-Keats-

 

It Was Sweet

A long time ago I was a Blue Bird.

Blue Birds were Camp Fire Girls in Training,- I never made it through Blue Birds and I never even got close to being a Camp Fire Girl.

The biggest problem I had was that I could never earn those badges- in order to earn those you had to do things like cook or sew and to be honest not only was  I not inclined to do any of those things when I did do them I was bound to warp the directions and end up with some Frankenstein’s Monster of a mess that would stick to the bottom of the brown paper  bag that I’d carry my project to our group meeting in.

My Grandpa asked why on Earth I insisted on coughing up 50 cents for dues to sit around with a bunch of little Blue Birds who had made it clear to him on several occasions when he dropped me off at the meetings, that they were convinced I was showing up because my only purpose in life was to try to’ruin’ their group and he had told them that didn’t sound like his Anita Marie at all.

” Anita doesn’t have to try and ruin anything” He told them. “ She’s got that down to a science.”  

 Well. One day our troup put on a talent show. One little group of girls lip synched and acted out this song called Snoopy Vs. The Bloody Red Baron.

I got a tambourine and learned to sing a song all on my own.

I practiced it, I worked on it, to this day my nearest and dearest who remember me and that song get this twitch on the left sides of their faces when they hear it.

When I was done performing my ‘talent’ my Blue Bird leader’s daughter grabbed my tambourine out of my hand and hit me with it. I mean, she took that thing and bashed me in the head with it so hard I saw stars-  and then she started screaming about how I always wrecked everything.

Years later I was a working musician and I saw her at a club- she pretended like she didn’t know me. But when I was playing my guitar up on stage don’t think for a second that  I turned my back on her.

So here’s the song that got me kicked out of Blue Birds,  banned from Campfire Girls and if she dies before me I am going to show up at her grave and sing this- just for her.

Oh why wait.

::::Marj- this one is for you:::

Inspired By

The SFC Chocolate Box Prompt:

Self Portraiture

I’ll Take That Dare

In Response To L.G.’s  Challange

For Me Visit

White Owl Island

Meet me at White Owl Island

my friend asked- no- she dared me one night.

She said

the stories about ghosts aren’t real

the ones about the houses made of bones aren’t true

nobody believes that those rumors about the trees that died a long time ago

have a pinch of truth to them

so meet me out on the Island

my friend said with a smile on her face

but not in her eyes.

If there are not ghosts, or spirits or houses made of bones

I asked my friend

who would live out on a dark and faraway place like

 White Owl Island?

My friend did not answer

but

I think this woman does.

And if she doesn’t

she should:

Cameo

Inspired By The SFC Prompt

:::Paradise Found:::

Cameo moved onto our street party just after my fifth birthday, she moved into her Grandparent’s house which was at the top of the hill where me and Bonnie and Betsy always started our infamous red wagon races.

Mrs. Lawton and her husband were very, very kind people. They always looked a little sad so me and Bonnie and Betsy would always take the time to ask about their flowers, their dog and we’d walk with them sometimes when they were on their way to visit the neighbors.

One day me and Bonnie saw a little girl at Mrs. Lawton’s window- we waved and she waved back and it was days before we saw her again.

Bonnie decided we needed to know who this kid was- I think we were waiting for the traffic to thin out so we could take our wagons out to the middle of the road so we went right up to the door and knocked and said to Mrs. Lawton ” so who is the kid?”

Mrs. Lawton said her granddaughter Cameo had come to live with them and she was shy so would we like to come back in a few days and meet her.

 ” No. That’s not a good idea.” I said to Mrs. Lawton’s crestfallen face ” We want to meet her now. ” To soften my demand I decided to toss in some good manners. ” Please.”

Mrs. Lawton called upstairs and this little girl came down with a doll.

The little girl was dressed in a very, very pretty dress. It looked like something from an old fashion book- her hair was curled and she had button up shoes.

I thought she looked like a ghost.

So, in my book I was very impressed with this new kid.

” I’m Anita, this is Bonnie- me and her are always on restriction and this,” I pulled my friend Betsy up to the doorway ” This is Betsy, those are her leg  braces,  who are you?”

” Cameo.”

” Yeah? Okay. Want to ride wagons with us?”

Mrs. Lawton looked concerned but she said Cameo should go outside with us – she told us to have fun but she stayed on the walkway in front of her house and watched the four of us playing.

Over that winter me and Bonnie and Betsy played over at Cameo’s a lot.

Cameo had a doll collection and I was fascinated by it because the dolls had wax and what I learned later were porcelin faces. They had fancy dresses and some even had human hair. Cameo’s Grandfather and one of her uncles had built her a great playhouse and Cameo’s Grandma had given her a China Tea Set with pictures of cats painted on the pieces and we would eat homemade cookies and drink real tea from the little cups and saucers.

And then when we were done Cameo would change into her play clothes and we would take her for wagon rides or we would end up in my attic telling monster stories.

As a kid, I never questioned why Cameo looked or dressed differently from me and my friends- after all, one of my friends wore braces, the other friend had a Mom who was in Prison and me-well, you know I was just weird so odd really didn’t show up on my radar in the same way it may have anywhere else.

So maybe I knew and forgot, or maybe the story I told myself changed on its own- but this was Cameo’s story and how she came to be in our neighborhood  and believe it or not, I have only recently learned it.

Cameo’s parents had died- her Father had killed Cameo’s Mom right in front of her and then he had killed  himself and from what I learned later Cameo had sat there with her Parent’s bodies for at least a day before anyone found them.

Her life with her Parents had been a sad one- she said until that day they had never been violent with each other or with her. She thinks that in the end they just could not stand to live with themselves anymore.

Cameo said that her Grandparents had no idea their daughter had a child – and when they found out about Cameo and the circumstances she had come from, Mrs Lawton decided that Cameo would see nothing but beauty and kindness from anyone who got close to her for as long as they could.

So Cameo’s old fashioned clothes and toys, her old-fashioned bedroom furniture, her playhouse weren’t accidental, they weren’t given to her because her Grandparents didn’t understand what ‘modern kids’ liked or wanted.  They gave her those things because they were giving Cameo a life-  and the only one they had to give were their lives.

Cameo and Bonnie grew up together after I moved away- but we have all kept in touch.

Cameo is actually a couple of years older than me and she just became a Grandma herself  .

“What kind of Grandma is she?”  I asked Bonnie because I can’t really comprehend that someone I learned to ride bike with and climbed trees with is a Grandparent now.

Bonnie thought about it and said, “she’s not like my sister I can tell you that. Cameo is really into it- you know really old fashion like.”

” Of course she is ” I told Bonnie. I can believe it.”

Revenge Of The Lady Bugs

When I was growing up in Seattle a family of ‘big kids’ moved around the corner from us.

There were five kids in that family and they were all girls, they all had long dark hair except for the oldest girl who had short dark hair- she was bossy and loud and she was about 13- I was nearly six at the time and I remember being impressed with her because she had pierced ears.

I was intrigued because The Big Girls used to collect Lady Bugs and they put them in these jars. They kept them in the jars until they died.

I had been stung by bees, bitten by spiders and and when I was in Hawaii I had been to the doctors office on more then one occasion because if there was a dangerous bug we were bound by fate to be in a situation where I would poke at them and they would poke back.

Still, I wouldn’t have stuffed them into jars and watched them die.

So why anyone would do that to a poor old lady bug was beyond me.

Looking back on it, I suppose I thought it was an injustice.

I spread  it around the block that The Big Girls were Lady Bug Killers- I may have implied that in the biggest girl’s room were bigger jars with two-headed babies and kittens and maybe even a dog or two.

One of the little sisters caught me on the playground and told me to quit saying that Amy had dead two-headed babies in jars in her room.

I obliged and edited my story somewhat -Amy didn’t have kittens or dogs in jars in her room. I started to tell the kids in the neighborhood she had severed hands and brains in jars and that she named them Pickles, Relish and Bill.

They were the only friends she had in the entire world I would say sadly.

At that point The Big Girl’s Mom had a talk with my Mom- that talk led to me having to miss my favorite TV show that featured horror movies on Friday nights for the next two weeks and it was war between me and the Big Girls.

Me and my friends Bonnie and Betsy used to ride our Radio Flyer wagons down the hill and sometimes because there were cars coming our way we’d have to turn left and that would take us straight in front of the Big Girls house.

It was pretty well established on our street that me and Bonnie and Betsy were not allowed to ride our wagons down the hill because at the bottom of our hill was Highway 99.

Everyone on our street had seen us sail in front of buses, fire engines, speeding cars and of all things a Hearse with a coffin on its way to a Funeral.

We’d even get the Dad’s screaming hysterically at us to never, ever scare them like that again.

It was pretty cool.So the three of us would try get some Wagon Racing time in before our Moms got home from work and just as they were  walking up from their bus stop they’d see us pulling our wagons around with our stuffed animals riding innocently behind us.

” You’re not fooling anybody. ” My Mom would say. ” You girls were racing down the hill weren’t you?”

” Nope.  I told her.

” Don’t lie to me.”

” Okay.” I said.

So it was pretty unfortunate that on the day I told anyone who would listen that Amy had a brain in a jar in her room that she named Pickles me and Betsy and Bonnie sailed around the corner and right under Amy The Lady Bug Killer’s nose.

Amy jumped on her bike and rode straight over to my house and sat on the porch until my Mom got home- and as I walked up I could hear Amy unloading on my Mom.

She told her about the Wagon Races, that I was telling kids at school that she had  brains in jars in her bedroom, that I was just an all around mean kid who wouldn’t stop picking on her or her sisters.

This is the thing- the youngest sister was almost a year older than me, I was about six at the time and even I knew at that age that The Big Girls were a bunch of Big Babies.

I was furious.

My Mom started to yell at me, Amy started to yell at me and the upshot was my Mom wanted me to apologize to Amy, at Amy’s house in front of her family.

Amy jumped on her bike and rode off and I asked my Mom why I was getting into trouble and she said, ” because you are smart Anita and when you pick on people, its mean. You could spend all day driving those girls crazy. I don’t like that, it’s going to stop NOW.”

So I flung my stuffed animals out of my wagon into my Mom’s rose bushes  took a running start jumped into my Flyer , sailed down the hill, cut the corner and sulked all the way up to Amy’s porch.

She and her sisters and her Mom were standing there with the same smile on their faces and as I walked up the steps I tried to think of what to say.

Amy uncrossed her arms, leaned over and smirked into my face- and told me that she said she had heard that I had something for her.

Yes I did, I said with a heavy sigh of resignation.

Then I punched her right in the nose.

Inspired By

The SFC

Chocolate Box Prompt

Tribal Daughters Dancing

I Heard…

Random Thoughts On Being Creative

I read that if you take a moon bath and build a fort out of blankets, you can become an artist.

I have done some weird things in my life but taking a bath outside at night and hanging out in a pile of blankets are two of the many life experiences I have missed out on. The only thing that comes close  was the time I rode a skateboard down a hill and as I got to the bottom I realized there was no good way for me to stop. I was going to fast. It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

Also, you need to bless yourself.

I’m not sure what that means,  but when I used to sneeze and someone said, ” bless you ” my Grandma Ginger would look at me, snicker and say, ” It’s a nasty job, but somebody has to do it.”

Also, it was suggested that I do something creative like plant an impossible garden.

That sounded appealing, but whenever someone who knows me sees me outside with a shovel they’ll say, ” So Anita, do you think you’ll ever go back to working in a cemetery?”

Sometimes people will ask me where I get the ideas for my strange stories- for the most part they seem to enjoy hearing what I have to say. However, if I offer to tell someone who knows me where I get the ideas for  those same stories their eyes glaze over and they’ll say ” You made that up just to freak me out. I’m going to be staring at my ceiling tonight with the lights on. Thanks for that.”

I’ll be brutally honest. Knowing that I can keep people awake at night is pretty cool. I’d be lying  if I said different.

I don’t know if you can actually become an artist by following a map. But do you know what’s great about Maps?

You can draw or write all over them.

May I recommend glitter pens that smell like watermelons?

Sure.

You are welcome.

One More Thing…

I would love to go to Mars

 The best food in the world  is Kentucky Fried Chicken

Happiness is  cotton candy flavored ice cream

When I cry  I do not want feel bad about it

I love the snow and darkness

I need to laugh at least once an hour

Best in the world I like to sing

I wish I were more serious

I get really mad when Spring arrives

 

::: Sort of Randomness Inspired By:::

THE

SFC

CHOCOLATE BOX PROMPT

ARTIST’S PARTY

Me, A Doll and Things That Explode ( a Christmas story )

 

When I was little, I would walk up to my Mom and say:

” Guess what I want for Christmas.”

My Mom would roll her eyes  back up into her head and she would say ” I’d rather not.”

” Go on, guess! “

” No.” she would say firmly.

” Why won’t you guess?”

” It’s no fun because all you ever ask for are things without heads or eyes.”

” Not this year.” I said once.

“Oh boy. Gee. That’s a surprise. What do you want this year?”

” A doll.”

” I have a sneaky feeling you aren’t going to ask for a Barbie Doll. “

 ” Nope.  I want a Crissy Doll.”

My Mom looked stunned. ” You want the doll with the hair that grows?”

Crissy Doll circa 1969

 ” Yeah. I want her.”

” Why.” My Mom demanded.

” Because her hair grows. “

” Uh- huh.” My Mom said waiting for the proverbial shoe to fall from the sky where it was bound to defy the laws of physics and land right between her eyes.

 ” Yeah, I want a Crissy Doll. See, you grab her  by the top hair on the top of her head,  and you yank-” I demonstrated with a vicious twist and snap of my wrist ” like this  and her hair grows.”

” No. ” My Mom said. ” No way. Ask Santa for that Gilbert Chemistry Lab you spent all summer nagging me for.”

” You said Santa wouldn’t bring me anything that I could make explode.”

” Ask for the Lab. I mean it.”

I watched my Mom walk away. ” Mom, I really, really want that doll.” I cried after her. I think that as she rounded the corner and looked back at me I fell to my knees with my hands clasped in front of me and there were probably tears rolling down my cheeks.

I waited for my Mom to go out to the kitchen and then I jumped up and danced all the way down the hall to my bedroom to admire the empty space on my desk where almost a week before  I decided my new Science Lab would go. 

Inspired By The SFC Prompt:

Chocolate Box Notebook: Exploring the Brave New World of Childhood
Innocence

A Long Time Ago

Photo: Anncam

Down on Linden Drive miles away from Rainbow Beach

is

The Gardiners House.

The Gardiners House was the first house to be in abandoned Rainbow Beach, though at the time nobody had any idea that all of the problems that ended the small resort town started in Lettie Gardiner’s attic.

Nobody knows that as people disappeared one by one from The Bow the last thing they saw was Lettie Gardiner out of the corner of their eye and that Lettie was dressed from head to toe in black.

Something that started in Lettie’s Gardiner’s attic ended  Rainbow Beach and it ended badly for the people who lived there.

But if you want to visit the Beach go right on ahead and visit-

whatever happened there happened

A Long Time Ago

and I am very sure that nothing lives there anymore.

Photo:ardelfin