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One of the best things that can happen to a serious writer is to find an active, supportive writing group whose members have goals similar to yours. At their best, these writers will listen to your query letters, synopsis, and chapter problems and be able to offer constructive advice. Chances are, it’ll be much more satisfying than asking the plumber who thought he was just there to fix the leaky faucet. Or, the glazed look you get at the dinner table at home when you ask for your family’s help.

Don’t think your family’s reluctance to critique your writing as being abandoned in your time of need by the people you’ve loved, supported, and fed all their lives. After all, there was that time they actually had some ideas and you burst into tears over your meatloaf. No one in your family wants to go there again. Do you?

Sometimes the people around your dinner table are silent because they have no advanced writing skills and they hate to be wrong. Don’t we all? So, most likely, they’ll hem and haw until they get their dessert, then they’ll leave you little sticky-notes on your computer behind your back. More about those notes later.

Better to take your questions to some people who will be more objective. Your family will be happier (relieved is more like it) and you’ll be happier and further along in actually fixing the problem, whatever it is.

Your fellow writers will also be a valuable resource when you have to make other decisions like: which writing conference is worth the time and money and which isn’t. Who’s buying the kind of stuff you’re writing? What’s new on the Internet?

A serious organization should have set times to meet in a dry place with tables and chairs. It should be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A circle of writers that hopes to be productive should have a moderator who’s there on a regular basis and appoints someone to sit in her place when she’s absent.

Luckily, the group I’m in has a published writer who’s also an editor at the head of our table. She doesn’t just maintain order and make sure that all members get a chance to read, she can offer legitimate help on any writing project, big or small. Maybe her best quality is she’s so tactful. Every meeting, we tax her critiquing skills more than once or twice. I’m sure one of us could read aloud from one of Nixon’s old speeches, and she’d think of something encouraging and constructive to say.

Sometimes the perfect collection of writers to encourage your creative flow isn’t easy to find. If you don’t feel comfortable with the first writers you visit, try, try again, until you find your “writing home.” For instance, I knew that a group I visited wasn’t a good fit when I was the only writer at the table who didn’t have on a marijuana tee-shirt. The second bunch was okay but too far away to get me off my couch on stormy winter nights. My next “home” was perfect, and I’ve been there for several years now.

So, get out there and find some other writers you’re simpatico with. Either that, or get used to coming home to find that your family has left notes stuck all over your computer with messages like these:

• Mom! I had a few minutes before baseball practice, so I made a few improvements on chapter seven for you. Hope you like the scene I added with the giant spider. -Ritchie
• Dear, your editor called and said you needed an “expendable character,” so I murdered your protagonist in chapter three. Hope that was all right.-Mike
• Sis! I went through your new Thesaurus and underlined all the literary-sounding words in red. If you’re more literary, maybe you can be on Oprah. -Molly
• Mom! I thought your Times Roman was looking a little flat, so I changed everything to Ravie. It’s way cool, and added another fifty pages to your book. So I solved your page-count problem, too! -Kandy

Well, you did ask sometime over meatloaf for their help, remember?

Believe me, you’ll be much happier if you find a good writing group and make a commitment to it. If you want to become a better writer, you have to set aside the time to make it happen.

Members also have an obligation to be there to help their fellow writers, cheer when the news is good, and lend encouragement when needed. I should also add: be nice. Some of your fellow writers will be there for the camaraderie, so spare them the twisting knife in the ribs after they read.

. . . Wait a minute. I just found another sticky-note. This one says: “Hey, lady! What’s with all that back story in chapter two? Ya’ gotta get that stuff outta there, else you’ll slow down the pace.” Signed: Joe the plumber.

It was bound to happen. A plumber who writes. Turns out, he was right. Maybe I don’t need a writing group after all. Maybe what I need is another leaky faucet.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Get Thee to a Writers’ Group! is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Elvis is still alive. I know it. I have proof. And I don’t mean the kind of proof where some guy who’s had too much beer stops at a local filling station and sees Elvis filling up his Eldorado with regular gas. What a joke. Everyone knows that Elvis uses super.

And I don’t mean like that guy outside of the basketball arena waving a sign that says, “Elvis parks here.” Everyone knows that Elvis is way too cool for basketball.

No, I’m talking about tangible down-to-earth evidence that the King of Rock n’ Roll is alive and well — and living in my computer.

Yep. That’s what I said. Right here in my computer that I call Ole Trigger because he doesn’t have enough guts to boot up all of my fancy equipment on the same day, much less at the same time.

Whenever I want to do anything more complicated than word-processing, I have to load the color printer, print, delete the non-color printer and drivers, and let Ole Trigger rest for a day or so. Then I can load the color scanner, do my scanning, delete the scanner from my hard drive, re-load the non-color printer and its drivers, and let Trigger rest again for a couple of days until it feels up to fetching my emails. Sometimes, if my preacher cousin sends me a long message, Ole Trigger just gets all tuckered out and has to be rebooted. I keep a special pair of cowboy boots next to my PC just for this purpose.

As far as I can tell, Elvis moved into my computer a few days before
the Fourth of July. That’s when I sent a color poster of Elvis to my editor, who’s an Elvis fan, wishing her Happy Fourth! It was a photo that showed Elvis in all his glory: gold metallic suit, slick pompadour hair, and white buck shoes.

Of course he had that special look of his on his face, like he’d just
jammed a guitar pick up his nose and was wondering if he wanted to get it out or just leave it there because it felt good. It was pure, vintage Elvis, and I blew it up full size before I sent it to her via email. I should have known something had gone wrong when she said she never got it. Come to find out: that’s because he never left!

He took up 486 bits or bytes or whatever that stuff is called, but he
was kind of cool, so I didn’t delete him right away like I should have. A
few days later, I began to find strange messages on my computer when I brought up my screen in the morning. Messages like, “Warning! Your memory system is running dangerously low. Norton antivirus system may not be working correctly.” Oh, happy 99! Oh, Melissa!

I went into Trigger’s guts and started deleting everything that wouldn’t make me stop breathing if I didn’t have it. I even deleted-augh!-Elvis,
but the messages kept coming: “Warning, warning! Danger! Danger!”

The next time I used my graphics software, I noticed that Elvis was
still on the menu. I deleted him. He came back. I deleted him again. He came back again. By now, his lips were starting to move, and his suit was beginning to shimmer. I don’t know why he doesn’t leave, except that maybe he’s finally found someplace to hide out where people have to leave him alone — sort of like having Heartbreak Hotel all to himself, maybe.

For myself, I’ve given up and just deleted Norton. I know when I’m
beat. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and hear a lonesome voice in my computer singing, “Ho-oold me close, ho-oold me tight . . . make me thri-illll with dee-lighttt . . . .”

Sure beats anything I ever heard from Norton.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Elvis Has Left the Building — and Is Living In My Computer is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Over the years, I’ve learned to fear party games. If I’m at someone’s house with a hundred other people I don’t know (and maybe one who I actually do know), and I see someone pulling out some kind of board game, I feel such a strong physical force coming from the game that I suddenly have to go to the bathroom – really bad – and I stay there for the rest of the evening.

Party games, your host/hostess will tell you, are designed to loosen everyone up and force them to get to know each other. That task should be left to alcohol. What party games are actually designed to do is embarrass everyone but the host/hostess and make everyone go home and regret ever attending that stupid party.

If you ever consider playing a game at a party, first consider the fact that you will most definitely lose. Think about how you’re a sore loser when sober, and then multiply that by the number of drinks you’ve had. Also think about your natural ability to make a fool of yourself, and multiply that by the number of drinks you’ve had. Then consider the number of drinks you’ve had and decide that it’s past time to visit the bathroom. Then stay there.

Party games always favor the host/hostess. After all, he or she owns the game and would never have brought it out at a major social function if it weren’t something that he or she had already mastered. After all, how many times have you gone to the home of the village idiot and watched him suggest that everyone play Trivial Pursuit? It doesn’t happen.

In addition, your host/hostess has already played this game enough times to know all of the answers. And if you even try to win, you’ll be thrown out of the house and never invited back.

The following is a partial list of a number of games that you should never even consider playing at a party:

Twister
This was a great game when you were in junior high and just wanted to get closer to that one kid who sat next to you in history class. Now, however, you’re a grown-up. Your competitors will consist of your boss, that slimy guy from down the street, and miscellaneous fat old people (which, if your honest with yourself, probably includes you).

Besides, you’re getting older. It doesn’t take much to break a hip anymore.

Charades
This game’s purpose is to make you look as stupid as possible while everyone else laughs at you and comes up with humiliating nicknames, which they will call you at the office for the rest of your life. No one will ever really, seriously attempt to guess the correct answer. They’ll guess completely irrelevant stuff to make you more frustrated – and to keep you doing your goofy little dance for as long as time allows.

Pictionary
Even if you’re the greatest artist alive, the presence of a timer will cause your hurried sketches to instantly look like something straight off the wall in a preschool classroom. After you finish drawing, your opponents and your teammates alike will point at the things you scribbled as they snicker and ask, “What was that?” in a very nasty tone of voice. Also remember that the more drinks you consumed before picking up the pencil, the more people will tease you about your attempted sketches.

Pin the Tail on the Donkey
If one of your friends actually wants to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, it ‘s a sure sign that you need to find new friends. Leave and never come back.

Trivial Pursuit
The questions in this game were created to stump 99% of the population. This includes you. Thus, this game will continue until everyone gets tired and all answers are “close enough” or until next Thursday – whichever comes first.

Anything Involving Money
The more you drink, the more confident you are that you can win lots of money by playing a simple game. And the more you drink, the less likely you are to actually know what you’re doing. Beware of the person who’s been serving you drinks but not drinking. That will be the same person who will ask you to make a “friendly wager” on the next game.

The preceding list is, of course, incomplete. In addition, it also includes, well, pretty much any other party game. The only exceptions to the rule are games such as Outburst, in which so many people are yelling at the same time that no one will notice that you’re not saying anything. And when someone shouts out a correct answer, you can say, “I said that! Didn’t you hear me?”

Just to recap, if someone retrieves a party game out of some closet somewhere, you know what to do, right? That’s right – head for the bathroom. Making up a family emergency is also acceptable. Or tell everyone that you suddenly remembered that poison ivy is extremely contagious and rush out the door.

If you leave before the games begin, I guarantee that you’ll have much fonder memories of the party than anyone who’s forced to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

And your dignity will thank you for it.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 J. Kristin Dreyer
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

J. Kristin Dreyer is an advertising drone turned freelance writer and an admitted writing addict (but if there were some kind of 12-step program for writing addicts, there’s no way she’d join). Her articles may be found at a number of former Web sites, including Australian Your Wedding Plan and Society Check.

###

Party Games Gone Bad is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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“Young lady!” The voice was soft but penetrating. Automatically I put my hand on my jeans pocket, which contained my money and my keys. A year earlier in this very store, my purse had been stolen, and it had been hell to replace I.D. and credit cards. Now I was wary of my fellow-shoppers. Here, at the front of the store, near these shelves laden with dishes, cutlery and trinkets, it was easier to move about safely than in the narrowly spaced rows of clothing.

That day I didn’t need any wearing apparel — didn’t need anything, except to get out of the house.

“Young lady!”

Weariness swept over me at the sound. Insomnia, and now this? Joan-of-Arc voices to add to my list of symptoms? Had my psyche finally fractured?

No, it was from outside myself. No one had ever addressed me as “young lady,” not even my mother, God rest her soul. My former boss, who was the reason why I was wandering a nearly-new store on a weekday afternoon, had treated me like a doddering crone on the verge of senility, though I was a mere forty-nine to her forty-two years. She’d had a peremptory voice not unlike the one I’d just heard, but wouldn’t have called me “young.”

I heard it again. “Let me out!” it demanded. Out of what? I looked around. The change rooms were far off to my right, the washrooms yards away to my left. There were no footlockers, no suitcases on display. Had I crossed a line? In Shirley Valentine, the husband said to the wife: “You’ve looped the freaking loop.” There was nothing big enough to conceal a person, not even a child. That china sugar bowl with a lid could have held the Dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.  The Avon bud vase with a stopper could have concealed a genie, I suppose, but the latter had transparent sides, and contained nothing. There were no teapots, no bread boxes. Wait. What was this? A spice cupboard, like a piece of doll’s furniture, painted blue, with pink flowers around the tiny doors, and below, a shelf of the proper height for a bottle of sage or cinnamon.

“Psst!” The whisper was compelling. I reached out and opened a tiny door. Empty. I tried the other. It wouldn’t budge. “Help! I’m imprisoned. Get me out of here.”

No “please.” My troubled soul had generated a demanding voice. Was it a classic symptom of schizophrenia? I didn’t know. I was no psychiatrist, only a lab technician who’d had ambitions for a career in science until Jerusha Burnside had shriveled them.

“Who are you?” I whispered, thinking back to my Sunday School days and the Bible heroes who had heard messages from Beyond.

“I’m Mrs. Daisy Vetch,” the voice replied, “and my daughter-in-law is a witch.”

Pretending to examine some gas-station china, I inched closer to the spice cupboard. “Did she cast a spell on you?”

“That’s right. I knew from the moment my Fred married her that he had made a big mistake.” Peevishly, Mrs. Vetch began her story. She had been visiting at her son’s home, as she did four days a week, because her daughter-in-law Joanie was overwhelmed by the twins, and had completely abandoned any pretence of housekeeping. Their sweet little bungalow was a dust-heap littered with diapers. Sometimes, when the children got whiny, their shrill voices cut through her head like a knife, but even so, she always made it a point to go and visit according to schedule, because her son Fred had grown up in a nice home and she owed it to him to give his wife a few pointers.

I was hypnotized. Other people’s domestic situations intrigued me, especially since I’d lost my job. My husband had been wonderful and consoling when I came home sobbing one day and announced that I could no longer tolerate Jerusha, the boss from hell. Jerusha was notorious in the Institute, though I hadn’t known that before coming to work for her, and hadn’t had a choice of group leaders anyway. When a project got underway, she would then change the rules. Frequently she took data from her underlings and presented it as her own. In front of other members of the group she berated me for my alleged stupidity. Was it for this that I had slaved over a lab bench to get my Ph.D. in Chemistry? My family doctor said no; that I should take time off. My husband urged me to quit outright. Disability insurance seemed a better option, however, because we were still paying support to the children of my husband’s first marriage.

It sounded as if Mrs. Daisy Vetch’s domestic situation was more fraught than mine. I listened.

On the fateful day, she had offered to show Joanie how to make a spaghetti sauce. “Would you believe,” she whispered, through the crack in the spice box,” That she had been using sauce from cans?”

I could; that was what I used.

“Instead of paying attention,” Mrs. Vetch continued, “Joanie was unloading the dishwasher. She started to ask me for measurements — how many teaspoons of this, how many tablespoons of that, and of course I couldn’t tell her, because like all good cooks I trust my instincts and go by taste.”

Joanie then accused her mother-in-law of not wanting her to be able to recreate this culinary specialty. The twins, feeling the tension, started to scream. Suddenly, Joanie raised her hands, pointed her index fingers at them and said, “Shush!” To Mrs.Vetch’s surprise, they quit rocking their playpen and sat down quietly and reached for their toys.

Mrs.Vetch’s knees turned to jelly. She blanched and faced her daughter-in-law with an accusing stare. “You are a witch,” she gasped.

Mrs. Vetch already knew that her daughter-in-law dabbled in the occult; she had crystals hanging from the ceiling, and had bought books on the mystic nature of trees, on Reiki, and on other New Age subjects.

The younger woman laughed in her face and said that if she were a witch, she would know the quantities of ingredients for the spaghetti sauce without having to ask.

“If I were a witch,” she said, “I would have rid myself of you long ago, you meddlesome old biddy.” Then, according to Mrs.Vetch, a wicked smile came over her face and she said, “Of course, I’ve never tried.”

Smiling, she held out her arm and pointed her finger at Mrs. Vetch, and the old woman felt her blood coursing through her body. Next thing she knew, she had shrunk to the size of a Fisher Price doll. Then Joanie’s large hand, with its talon-like fingernails and mysterious silver rings, reached down, picked her up, and placed her in the spice cupboard. “And here I’ve been ever since,” the voice moaned.

Apparently Joanie had gotten rid of the cupboard a few days later, when her husband complained of rattling noises around the house and began to worry about squirrels in the attic. Mrs. Vetch had been trundled away by a charitable organization which collected used clothing and household items and sold them to Bargain Village.

“I want out,” she declared. “Get a knife and pry open the door.”

Stunned, I looked around. Sure enough, there was a pile of old silverware, including a table knife. Inserting the tip under the edge, I heard her squeak: “Be careful of my hair,” but the door refused to budge. Evidently Joanie had jammed it on purpose, or had put a spell on it, too.

“What are you doing?” This second voice was at my elbow. A young woman in a red tunic over a white pullover peered at me.

“Just trying to get this little door open.” What a foolish admission, for what would I do when a tiny live woman tumbled out? “I’m giving up on it,” I added. “I don’t want to buy it.”

The clerk shook her head, and went back to her cash register.

“I’m sorry, I can’t budge it,” I told Mrs.Vetch.

“You’ll have to get a little saw and cut the spice cupboard in half,” she told me.

My husband wasn’t the handyman type. Where would I get a saw?

As if reading my mind, she said, “At a hardware store.” Her tone implied that I was stupid for wondering. She was Jerusha Burnside all over again.

“But what will I do with you once I set you free?” I asked. Certainly I couldn’t take her home with me and rely on her to keep silent in a drawer, and she couldn’t stay here either, where she might well fall prey to prankish children, big spiders, and mice.

Brusquely she informed me that when I’d set her free I would have to take her to her son and daughter-in-law’s home, where she would confront Joanie. Fred would finally see his wife’s true nature, and after the younger woman had restored Mrs.Vetch to full size, he would kick his witch-wife out of the house.

“There’s a hardware store across the street,” I told her. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait! “Don’t leave me here. Buy the spice cupboard. Take me with you.”

I looked at the price tag. Fifteen dollars was not unreasonable, but I had only ten in my pocket, to prevent myself from over-spending. I explained in a whisper, while keeping an eye on two shoppers moving within earshot. “See you later,” I murmured, and left.

The hardware store had an astonishing variety of little saws for every conceivable hobby purpose. I identified one that I thought I could use without severing a finger, and had the clerk put it away for me. When I arrived home it was 4:30 and my husband was back from his school day, with a pile of student essays on the coffee table alongside his Coors can. He seized the remote, snapped off the rerun of Drew Carey, told me that I looked peaked, and that we should order in.

Gratefully I accepted.

That night I couldn’t sleep. Finally, at 6:00 a.m., when the birds were twittering, I came to a decision. Before buying any little saw, I would pay a visit to Mrs.Vetch’s daughter-in-law — if she existed outside my fevered brain. Joanie didn’t sound like the name of a witch; Endorra, Esmerelda, or something along those lines were what I would have expected. This foray into suburbia and the scene of the alleged crime was to be my test — of Mrs.Vetch’s veracity and of my sanity.

My little plastic daffodil from the Cancer Society was on the dressing table; I could easily pretend to be canvassing. If Joanie seemed reasonable, I would liberate Mrs. Vetch and present her to the younger woman. Presumably Joanie had spread the story that her mother-in-law had gone on a long vacation. Perhaps the two could make a deal; a restoration to normal size for Thumbelina Vetch, in return for a solemn vow of future non-interference.

Then again, Joanie might hand her miniature mother-in-law over to the children or the cat for mauling, or squash her under her heel, or put her in the garbage grinder. Before I freed Daisy, I had to see what the younger woman was like as a human being — if she was a human being.

After seeing my husband off to school, I dressed as if for work, and found Fred Vetch’s address in the telephone directory. At 9:15 I was halfway out the door when the telephone rang. I could guess who it was. Representatives of the insurance company that paid my disability pension liked to make spot checks, to root out malingerers. Naturally the firm did not want to pay three quarters of my salary on into the
future, but hoped to find grounds to cut me off.

Could I be in the office at 11:00 to meet with my new counselor?

On the bus, heading downtown, I fretted about my attire. Would my neat, working-world clothes make me seem rehabilitated. Should I have worn stained jeans and a sweater? The counselors kept changing from visit to visit; either there was a high attrition rate, or the shuffling was intentional to keep the clients on edge?

When the receptionist told me the name of my new counselor, my hands began to sweat and my knees to tremble. Certainly I seemed too agitated to hold down a job. Why? Because I was to meet with a Joan Vetch.

The tall woman’s face was framed with dark curly hair, like Cher in The Witches of Eastwick. Her smiled was friendly, and not at all mysterious. Her navy suit and white blouse were unexceptional, but she wore an amethyst necklace — said to have magical powers. Her dangling pewter earrings fascinated me — one was of a smiling sun, the other, a crescent moon.

From a silver frame on her desk beamed a man with two children, one on either side of him. They were blond, identical, and somewhere between one and two years of age.

So this was the evil Joanie? I was too overwhelmed to do more than nod when she said my name, and shook my hand. Her clasp was warm and dry, and as I sank into the chair that she indicated, I relaxed. She too sat down, not behind the desk, but in the chair opposite mine, where she leafed through my file and looked at me with a kindly expression.

“I see that you worked for Jerusha Burnside.” She nibbled her lip and nodded thoughtfully. “Quite a few people on disability pension once worked for her at the Institute.” Joan leaned toward me in a woman-to-woman manner. “This is off the record, but Jerusha is well known as a toxic personality. Someday you’ll recover from the experience of working for her, and get your career together again, but you must take your time to recover your equilibrium.” Her large hand with long red nails and gleaming rings reached out and patted mine. “If we manage to escape the negative forces in our lives, we eventually heal, but it takes a while, as I know from personal experience.”

She confided that a year ago she was bogged down in domesticity, in a climate of negativity and was beginning to lose hope. Summoning up all her energy, she had taken action on her own behalf and had gotten away from the forces that pulled her down. “Relax. You’ll get there,” she said. “Your pension is assured for the next fifteen months, and you needn’t come for any more interviews until that time is up.”

I floated out of her office. In fifteen months, the last of my husband’s kids would have graduated and would be self-supporting. A balloon of hope began to inflate inside me. I almost regretted not having frequent interviews with Joan. In our brief time together, some of her strength seemed to have brushed off on me.

At the mall at the center of the downtown core, I bought myself an amethyst paperweight. At the book store I purchased several New Age works. At home, engrossed in them, I surfaced in time to cook a nutritious, tasty meal for my husband. That evening I looked through the night school offerings from the board of education calendar. On the weekend, my husband decided to go to Bargain Village to scout out some used flowerpots. On entering, I spied the blue spice cupboard, and when he was browsing, I approached it, trembling.

Both little doors hung open. So did my mouth.

Someone must have pried open the stuck door, and if anyone had been captive, she was gone.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 J. Kristin Dreyer
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Ruth Latta is the author of more than 200 published short stories, which have appeared in publications such as North American literary magazines (Fiddlehead, The Storyteller, and White Wall Review) and the British Quality Fiction for Women. She is the author of two books: Life Writing: Autobiographers and Their Craft and her collection of short stories, A Wild Streak. Her book review column appears in the Ottawa monthly, Forever Young.

The Spice Cupboard is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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There’s a place here in Columbus. Our family considers it Mecca. It is an important place. It is a place of many visits, a place of celebration and of solace.

What is this place, you might ask? Is it a church, or a park, or some other such place of meditation and beauty?

No.

It is an ice cream shop.

It is a small place–one of those outdoor stands with a walk up window (and a drive up, but we ignore that as often as we can). It has tables outside with big umbrellas to keep the sun off. It’s open and clean, and makes its ice cream there on the spot, serving three or four main flavors a day because (I assume) that’s all they can set up for. In short, it is the perfect ice cream place. Sitting with your family at one of those big stone tables on a Saturday in June with the big high sky and white clouds and enveloped by the smells of vanilla and cream is about as close to the apex as life can get.

Unfortunately, since it’s an open stand, the place closes for the winter.

In itself, maybe this is good because it provides for the annual rite of the November rush. Mecca is closing! We must go to Mecca! Mecca is closing soon! We must go to Mecca!

Personally, I begin to use this excuse come about August.

But is also gives rise to that great institution of Opening Day, which is better than baseball’s opening day in my book, though not quite so steeped in tradition.

Yesterday was Opening Day.

I had suggested that we camp out there Sunday night to make sure we were first in line. I think I had Brigid on my side, but Lisa got one of those “You’re so insufferable” looks on her face, and I knew I was doomed to not be first.

Still.

The day dawned. It was cold.

Snow actually fell in the afternoon. My spirits drooped. What if Lisa and Brigid decide they don’t want to go? What if they figure it’s just too cold? We’re out of Mecca shape. It’s Opening Day. What if they decide to postpone due to excessive intelligence?

I stayed later at work than I normally do. It’s that dedication thing biting me again.

What if they think it’s too late? What if they get tired? What if we’re not hungry after dinner?

The phone rang at quarter to six.

“Where are you?” Lisa’s voice was firm and direct at the other end. “Dinner’s ready and it’s Mecca night.”

My heart soared. That’s my girl, I thought. Back in the saddle again.

“I’ll be right there.”

So I dropped everything, hopped in the car, and raced home to scarf down enough food to make it look good but ensure that I would have room left. Can’t be too careful, you know? A quick check of the e-mail, and I was ready to go. (Hey, you’ve got to have priorities, you know? E-mail above all. Ice cream Mecca a close second).

It was dark by the time we left.

Cold.

Still, we made it there. It was open, lights splaying over the open concrete porch, kids in their uniform shirts manning the counter, drive up window doing a great business. “Drive up’s fine with me,” Lisa said. I considered the alternative and quickly agreed. We ordered. Ice cream arrived. I paid. We sat in the car in the parking lot. Yes.

Snow swirled around us in the lights–little silver motes like ice cream fairies dancing on the wind. Cars drove past the drive up. A few teenagers actually went to the window.

We talked. We laughed. We ate ice cream.

I hit bottom first, so I drove home while Lisa and Brigid finished. Occasionally Brigid doesn’t complete her ice cream and I get he leavings. Eating your daughter’s left over ice cream is a tough part of being a dad. But a tougher part is dealing with it when there isn’t any left over. Brigid finished it all as we were nearing home. The saddest sound you’ll ever hear is the sound of plastic spoon on Styrofoam cup. It is the sound of perfection slipping into the past.

Or, perhaps, instead, it is the most satisfying sound of all. Perhaps that sound signifies the end of a perfect moment, and as such comes with that gentle feeling of understanding something too deep to put into words…

I can’t tell which is right. Saddest? Most satisfying?

I guess it’ll take a bit more experimentation.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Ron Collins
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Ron Collins is a prize-winning author of speculative fiction who lives in Columbus, Indiana, with his wife, Lisa, and their daughter, Brigid. You can learn more about Ron by visiting his Web site, Typosphere.

A Trip to Mecca is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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