I have less than ten minutes — according to my wrist/hand therapist — to play computer, write a post, or otherwise communicate with my peeps.

I got in trouble last week for doing what I thought I was allowed to do, which I was told was everything.  Boy, did I get a lecture!  So, if you’ve tuned in and day after day gotten the same old stale post, IT’S NOT MY FAULT.  It’s that mean old wrist lady with the evil eyes and her workable hands moving over her keyboard typing in messages on the computer screen I can’t see. Evil, evil, evil.

So, I’m sneaking in a quick post just to let my friends know that I’m still here.  The wrist is still here.  And in real life, I’m a very sneaky person (with a still-sore wrist) and the ugliest scar you’ve ever seen running the length of all my wristiness.

Perhaps when the poor scar heals enough, I’ll have a tattoo commemorating its ugliness inscribed all over it.  At least tattoos are cool, or so I’m told.  But then again, scars can tell a grand story.  I think mine shall be about pirates and crocodiles and maybe, oh just maybe, jungle rot fever for good measure.

Okay, my cumulative ten minutes are over.  At least I’m five short of my fifteen minutes of Warholl fame.

Stay tuned, because I’m almost back to my normal self.

P.S.  Has anyone read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ?  (I loved the writing in this first novel by David Wroblewski, but was disappointed by the unnecessary ending.)  Any recommendations for wrist-healing reading?  The suggestion box is available.

The spoon

Some days I think I need nothing
more in life than a spoon.
With a spoon I can eat oatmeal
Or take the medicine doctors prescribe
I can swat a fly sleeping on the sill
or pound the table to get attention.
I can point accusingly at God
or stab the empty air repeatedly.
Looking into the spoon’s mirror,
I can study my face in its shiny bowl,
or cover one eye to make half the world
disappear.  With a spoon
I can dig a tunnel to freedom
spoonful by spoonful of dirt,
or waste life catching moonlight
and flinging it into the blackest night.

— Richard Jones

P.S.   A big shout-out to Wilson for his excellent demonstration of proper spoon etiquette.  Thanks, Wilson!

She said:

A woman should always have a kitchen with plenty of spoons and bowls; cinnamon and apples. She should have clear space to work and a good recipe book. She should whistle to spread happiness over her preparations.  There should always be flour in the bin.  The cow should be treated with respect; it will one day be your sustenance.  The same for the chickens in the yard.

A woman should have her own bath and a garden of roses and hyssop here and there, especially next to the white cabbage. She should have ripe blackberries. And sunflowers. There should always be sunflowers in a woman’s garden.

Her voice should be soft so when she, on that rare occasion, raises her tone she will be heard. Even the men who normally ignore will hear her. She should wear no adornment other than clear eyes and a firm gaze. She should embroider.

A woman should be above reproach.  Her dress should be modest and show not a snippet of ankle.  She should rub lemon juice on the backs of her hands.  She should not have an unpleasant odor.

A woman should rise early, retire late, work with specificity and love with generosity.  She should know that God resides in the last drop of water as well as the first.

A woman should read.

This is how it works:
You inch onto the edge of the world
With nothing more than a kite of
Trembling words and a slender string.

You fling yourself into thin air.

Then you write things that desperately
Need more than a line of little cloth strips
Tied to triangles of
Color in a dark tumbling sky.

I do backwards Lent.  Instead of giving up something, I ADD something.  That way I’m not obligated to give up my lattes or my evening wine or my foul mouthed ways.  Sweet!

This year I’ve decided to add one writing task a day toward publication.  Forty days (if you don’t count Sundays) and forty nights of sacrificial writing.  I’ll offer up each word as if it were a lamb. 

My mother-in-law would be proud.  I remember one morning when I was next to her during church.  I was fidgeting during the knealing part because my knees don’t work that way and I fidget from side to side until the people around me want to scream out STOP IT, even though it’s church and all.  So I was doing my famous fidget when my dear mother-in-law leaned over and whispered,  “Offer it up, dear.  That might help.”

That’s when I thought to add things to my Lenten devotion, since I don’t go to church and the Pope wears little red Prada shoes and my tithe goes toward misanthropic adventures anyway.

So, again, I’ll do backwards Lent.  Each day until Easter … regardless what’s going on, I’ll do my best (operative word alert) to write a poem or a letter to an agent … or a sentence or so to my latest effort in novel writing.

I’ll share with you as I can and I’d love it if you’d share with me.  I’ll showcase your work!!!!!

Deal?  Deal

P.S.   The swollen, freckled and bandaged hand above is mine.  We’re healing, the hand and me.  Healing nicely, thank you.

For the umpteenth year in a row, I’ve missed Ash Wednesday and its compulsory ashes heaped upon one’s forehead.  I did, however, manage to consume only one eensy-teensy piece of chicken before remembering it’s a no-meat day for all us wild and crazy Catholics.

Truth be told, I’m a Catholic Loser!

You can call me a Cafeteria Catholic — I pick and choose what I want from the menu-o-catholicism.  Believe this … Don’t believe that … A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a big helping of You-Want-Me-To-Believe-What? Salad.

But as I’ve done each year that I’ve neglected, forgotten, or was too busy to attend Mass on Ash Wednesday, I’ve done something to make up for it.

Take, for instance, the year I decided to give up chocolate.  I think that was the year I contemplated the murder of my first husband.  Thank God that poor chocolate bunny showed up when it did.   

Here’s what happened:  I woke up; nothing hurt, at least not much; but I woke up.

This morning I counted up the number of surgery scars on my body.  Eleven in all.  Dan says I’m done now with surgeries.  I believe him … he’s never lied to me — ever.  We made a pact.  I’ll have no more surgeries and he’ll drop putts like Tiger Woods.  The bargain is good for me, perhaps unachievable for Dan.

I was instructed to remove my bandaging today — 72 hours after the time of my surgery.  Dan made me wait until the stroke of noon.  Then we took scissors and all the good wishes we could muster and cut open layers of bandages that had held my fingers still and filled with anticipation for three days.

It looks good!

I’m swollen and bruised.  My skin is stretched tight and thin as onion paper.  Still, it looks good.

The doctor says I can do what I want as long as it doesn’t hurt.  “If it hurts,” he intones, “don’t do it.”

I won’t type long.  It pinches.

Still, on the occasion of the eleventh opening of Auburn McCanta, I woke up … it didn’t hurt much … but I woke up.

Tomorrow.  Scary Tomorrow.  Arrive at 8:00 a.m.  Check

In.  Dress in the gown that opens rudely in the back.

Think plump veins.  Close your eyes and turn your head,

Praying for the one fat vein that will open and flow like a

Fountainhead.  Think of raspberries ripening in the sun.

Plan your garden; round tomatoes, melons, sunflowers,

cucumbers the size of your wrist.  Your Wrist!

Someone pushes Liquids into your arm, a scalpel hovers then draws

its line.  Dab, dab away red.  Someone pulls open your skin, fixes your sick wrist.

Your Wrist.

You’re asleep.

Wake up bandaged and scoured with pain.

Just wake up!

I’ll see you all soon.  Wish me luck!  I’ll hurry back as soon as I can.  Thanks for your good thoughts and best wishes.

See you soon!

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

(AT RISE we see DAN, handsomely dashing, standing in the middle of the kitchen.  He is fidgeting with an electric screwdriver.  After a few moments, AUBURN, fetchingly beautiful, enters.  DAN sighs.

DAN

Are you sure we need to do this … this house thing?  We already have a perfectly good house.

AUBURN

Of course.  It’s our patriotic duty.  Besides, now we’ll have TWO perfectly good houses.

DAN

Our patriotic duty?  Auburn, I’m really concerned about you.  Are you watching CNN again?  I thought we decided you’d watch soap operas and Dirtiest Jobs from now on … I’m really concerned about you, you know.

AUBURN

People keep saying that, “I’m really concerned about you.”

DAN

Maybe that’s because people really are concerned about you.

AUBURN

People can start being concerned when I walk unannounced into their house and yak into their morning Cheerios.  Then they can be concerned.  But this, this is cause for celebration.  Buying a house is certainly not a cause for concern.

DAN

(Sighs)

Yes, dear.

AUBURN

Besides, it’s a fabulous house at a fabulous price in a fabulous neighborhood with fabulous neighbors.  What could be more fabulous?

(Pause)

What are you doing with the screwdriver?

DAN

I’m going to take that new fabulous light we just bought at that fabulous price over to the new fabulous house and hang it fabulously from the ceiling.

AUBURN

We don’t close escrow for three more weeks.  You can’t do that.

DAN

(Revving up the screwdriver)

Of course I can.  Then you can be concerned about me.  I’ll call you when I get tossed in the pokey for trespassing.

(DAN heads to the door)

AUBURN

You just wait until you pour your Cheerios tomorrow morning, Mister.  You just wait!

(Exit Dan)

FADE TO BLACK

I respect my latte.

It warms me; my hands, my throat, my heart.

Its foam lingers on my lip, telling all the world it is mine.

It doesn’t mind a little biscotti now and then; neither do I.

We’re compatible that way.  We’re faultless in

warm admiration, kind compliments.

My latte and me — we’re going steady now.

At least we will as soon as I can convince that

bad boy Espresso Shot that last night was all a

huge misunderstanding.