Category: Yarns, Anecdotes, and Other Memories

I shut my eyes against the warm orange glow of the candle I just light.  I remember eating cinnamon and sugar apple slices, playing games of pool, and gardening.  His kind eyes and easy smile.  How big he seemed to me then.  My tears sizzle in the wick’s flame and I inhale a shaky breath.  I need to remember the memories I tell myself… as I prepare to say goodbye.


Just last week I lost my adopted Grandpa, Lloyd.  I loved that my neighbors treated me like their very own grandchild, and I loved them. Losing him is like losing a part of my childhood.  I will always remember you Grandpa Lloyd and what you meant to me!

Okay now on to something less weepy.  Like this prompt!  This is a fabulous prompt from Julia over at 100 word challenge for grown ups, here is the link.
Be sure to head over there to read the rest of the flash fictions using this prompt.


“Oh my God!  Sanchez… Shit!”

I turned torch and gun aimed toward Marins.  “Waddya got…” I stopped mid sentence thinking that shit wasn’t quite expletive enough to cover it.

“You kiddin’ me?  What the fu…they said BnE right?”

I could tell from his wide eyes and panicked voice that Marins needed reassurance, but I was running low.

“Rent-a-cop called in a break in right?  Right?”

“Yah 594.” It wouldn’t take a crack detective to figure the how out, based on her scorched hands and the ozone smell of burnt out wiring, but the why would be a different story. I mean what makes a person get out in the rain to trespass in an abandoned textile mill with about 50 pounds of yarn anyway?  “Better call it in Marins.”

“Oh okay just give me a sec I need to look up the code for a yarn bombing gone south.”

A bubble of hysterical laughter built in my chest till I couldn’t contain myself any longer.  “Just cut the shit and hurry up Marins if this ends up on the nightly news the kiddies are going to have Technicolor nightmares.”


All rights to owner


Sooo I have been crafting Christmas gifts for call my relatives this year which means I have been remiss in the WordPress posting department. I hope you can all forgive me, for the lack of posts and possible lack of holiday spirit in my Christmas eve post 🙂

You got to love the kind of bored/crazy that makes a person knit or crochet a giant squid suit for a tree or a bench monster.


Yarn bombers your confuse and intrigue me!

Happy Holidays y’all!

Emile stared out into the predawn fog listening for the soft sounds of the harbor.  He was searching for comfort in the lapping of water on stone, the creak of sun bleached hempen rope, or the call of river birds.  Though, if it was out there Emile was deaf to it.  Having spent the last week as a guest of the city in a dank cell, which smelled of a mildewy straw mattress and an overfull slop bucket and boasted an unobstructed view of the gallows, Emile should have been overjoyed.  However, his freedom came with the bitter taste of ashes.  He had been out of the Calabozo for less than 12 hours, and was more than halfway through the bottle of black tar rum, but he still couldn’t rid himself of that taste of loss and defeat. 

It had taken only one of those 12 hours to find out that his love, Lisette, had been whisked off to Paris by her disapproving father.  Monsieur LePomeret had ensured Emile’s devastation by booking Lisette passage on the steamer which left with the morning tide just hours before his release. He had spent an additional hour wondering aimlessly among the crowded streets of New Orleans till he found himself once more on Pirate Alley. Foregoing the more upstanding taverns Emile searched the shadowy fenced goods looking for the “good stuff”. He wasn’t disappointed, though after his transaction with the salt crusted gentleman his pockets were considerably lighter. Not that a little thing like that bothered Emile. After all, Lisette was gone; there would be no home to save for, bride price to provide, or children to feed. In the square he uncorked the amber bottle gave it a slight sniff then gulped.

The black tar rum was as thick and tacky as the name suggested, and…it burned. After the first drink Emile could feel a tingle on his lips and in his tongue, but with drink seven came numbness. Blessed numbness. By the time he had finished off better than a third of the rust colored rum the poppy seed syrup had taken effect. Emile stumbled from his holy alcove upon the St. Louis’ fine steps and made his uneven way to the harbor pausing often to take a drink, rant at the night, or freeze in place as if forgetting either the how or the why. Finally, he found himself on a small boardwalk. Emile took one final drink as he looked out on the misty Mississippi, and for a second he could hear Lisette’s sweet voice on the wind. In the drunken fog of his liquid courage he ran to her, his love had not abandoned him. As Emile slipped below the water’s surface her name was on his lips as blessed numbness crept back in.


New Orleans spirit orb photo

I took this photograph in New Orleans earlier this year. While snapping photos of the water and a passing steamer I didn’t notice anything unusual, just a chilly wind off the water due to the morning rain. However, when I got home and uploaded my pictures I saw the orb. It was just above the boardwalk and appeared to be moving against the wind. Was this a spirit ill at ease with its demise? I can never know, but if it was perhaps Emile’s story will give it peace.




My heart pounds, an uneven staccato that reverberates though me.  “Hey,” I say like it doesn’t matter, trying to hide so much beneath so little.  Do you hear what I’ve hidden?  Do my questions thunder around your ears just like they boom in my mind?  Pointless, the questions chase each other’s tails till they become nonsense, as my little word goes unheeded.  You never make eye contact or acknowledge my presence much less my greeting.  The moment passes.  Still my heart rages and now… my hands shake. 



She could picture it all real clear like in her mind’s eye.  The slick black convertible Ford V8 eating up the country miles as they cruised toward the Mississippi with windows down and Mr. Barrow’s arm draped over her shoulders.  Like some scene straight out of the talkies where Harlow falls for the handsome devil-may-care Cagney, with a wild streak a mile wide.  But better…so much better because no one yells cut when they disappear around the bend in the road.

He never breaks on the corners, so confident and brash, causing the 12 gauge double barrel to slip cold and heavy against her leg.  She reaches down to right it and catches a glimpse of herself in the rear view.  The glint in her eye is hard and she likes it.  She leans in closer touching her thigh to his never loosing sight of her reflection.  Steel-cut Bonnie and lead-foot Clyde.

People were going to remember them.

At the first pop and flash Bonnie smiled, caught in the fantasy of headlines and photographs, but by the 130th the slight upturn of her lips and the hard look in her eye were nothing but a memory.

Bonnie and Clyde as seen on Wikipedia

Bonnie and Clyde as seen on Wikipedia


So I recently watched the A&E mini series on these two and was intrigued. I wondered about the stretch of the story due to creative license, but honestly when your wanted by the police yet still take and send current pictures of yourself to newspapers it doesn’t required much imagination to see the narcissistic self-destructive side of things. I know its wrong to be taken with the bad guys, but I absolutely love these types of stories. I have watched just about every one that’s been recently released, if you haven’t seen Lawless you should. Which historical bad guy do you secretly root for?

The words swirled in the ether untangable things just out of reach as he sat there.  He blinked took a drink of water and tried again.  Silently he read the lines penned with such a familiar slant begging his thoughts to coalesce.

“Do you remember these dad?”

The hopeful question intrudes upon his contemplation.  Its his script and the words read I’ll love you forever, but the name Jean just doesn’t ring any bells.

“They say my name,” he beams at his son, who tries his best to smile back.


My grandpa suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and though he still remembers all his kids I am but a smiling young face to him.  This Christmas he was gifted with a book of all his old poems and writings that had been found while cleaning.  When he read them he struggled with some words, but the worst part was he seemed surprised to see his name on the author line. 

Perhaps his memories are now more akin to half remembered dreams, not concrete enough to be believed as fact, though I hope they bring him comfort.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas Grandpa
                              From your granddaughter who promises never to forget what you cannot remember


The Tire Swing by Shirle Reade

It was her spot.  Not as secret or hidden as she might have wanted, only out of ear shot not out of sight, but hers nonetheless.  Her coat lay in a puddle of bright bubble gum pink, forgotten, amongst the cool grass and wet leaves.  Her mother had insisted she wear it today.  Perhaps, needing to feel in control of something, as mothers often do, but the likely hood of her disobedience being discovered was slim.  So she chanced it.  Because her mother didn’t understand, today was perfect.  The sun was warm where it touched her with it’s dappled light, and though the wind was cold its bite was intermittent.  As the frosty air blew back her long chestnut pigtail braids she smiled at the blue sky and its heavy clouds.  Because it was fall, and from her tire swing perch life was perfect.


As seen on Shutterstock

Sitting in the hard molded plastic chair in the stuffy room not one inch of Holly St. James was comfortable.  The temperature in the small room ratcheted up another degree or two.  Closing the door on five people in an 8×10 room when one of them is panting and half the room is covered in computer screens is just poor planing, but here they were.  Like some kind of a bad joke opening line, “Did you ever hear the one about a manager, a police officer, a middle aged woman, a techie, and a holiday help sales clerk who go into a back room?  Well…”  Though Holly was looking at the ground she knew what they were all watching from at least three different angles.  She didn’t have an excuse, well not one that she thought they would entertain anyway.  As the sounds of the first crash filled the tiny security station she started smiling.  By the time you could hear breaking glass, stomping feet, and swearing she was laughing, belly shaking knee slapping laughing.  Each tiny scratch stung, but Holly couldn’t help herself.  She just felt so happy and satisfied.  The teenage techie paused the video feed as every one turned to face the hysterical middle aged woman.  The manager looked so distraught he might actually start pulling out his salt and pepper hair at any moment, the holiday help was feverishly working to be the first on to post the mess on YouTube, and police officer looked concerned as he thumbed his stun gun.  The timer on the pause went off and the footage continued. 

“What do you have to say for yourself,” the manager barked in a semi rhetorical tone. 

Holly could hear herself give an triumphant shout of glee on the recording followed by a small squeak of fear.  “I never realised how many people worked here,” she said eying one of the computer screens.  They all turned back to the security footage in time to watch all 5’5 of, 47 year old, Miss Holly St. James emerge from the destroyed wreckage of the Christmas section and attempt to out run the 30 plus employees chasing her down.  The camera angle was perfect.


As seen on photocase

%d bloggers like this: