Suzie’s House 97: Trust
This is part of Ben’s story. The poor kid has had it rough since one of the red headed men tried to kidnap him. He was packed off to his father’s place , which wasn’t much fun for him, just when Mrs. D was driving him nuts with her unfair practices. Not that Gene has had it much better. Then the principal put a special substitute in Mrs. D’s class, and Ben’s mother let him come home. But like he said week before last, his luck just isn’t that good.
“I can’t wait to show it to her.” Ben twisted around in his seat to talk to Gene.
Now that Mrs. D wasn’t teaching English anymore, they could sit closer. Not that Miss Spring? put up with a lot of talking in class, but that was OK by Ben. Gene spent so many nights over at his place anyway. Even school nights, though Mom still pulled a face when she let him stay.
“Yeah, well, my story is just as good,” Gene said, though he got that look – all stiff chinned and belligerent – like he didn’t really believe it.
“It’s a great story. It’s got lizards from Alpha Centauries with lazar eyes and it’s got a psychic dog with three legs and everything.”
“Mine only has a father and his son.” Gene looked doubtfully at his paper.
“It’s OK.” Ben patted Gene on the shoulder, reaching across the front of Gene’s desk. “She said we could write about anything we wanted to. It’s not like last time when we had to write about something from our past.”
Ben had written about living with Dad and not being able to go home to Mom. It was a tough assignment, but Miss Spring was right about feeling better afterward.
Gene nodded seriously. That had been a hard assignment for both of them. (link to Gene’s dad)
“Class! Attention please.”
That voice! Coming from the chalkboard. Ben whirled around in his seat. It was her. Mrs. D was back.
Miss Spring stood beside her, looking none too happy.
“You will all be glad to learn that I have returned.” Mrs. D’s smile made Ben want to strangle her it was so smug, but it didn’t last long. Her eyes darted around the classroom and the smile slid away.
It took Ben a moment to realize that no one wanted her back. Not a single soul in that room smiled or said anything. He thought the words “stony silence”. For a moment, in spite of himself, Ben felt sorry for her. Imagine going someplace where you expected everyone to be glad to see you and no one was.
The sympathy went away fast as Mrs. D raised her chin and pursed her lips.
“My little vacation is over.”
Vacation? Is that what she expected them to believe? No one had given any reason for her being gone, but he’d heard rumors of a psych evaluation. He’d also heard she’d been locked away in a nut house, which he knew was wrong because he’d seen her, so who knew what to believe?
“I will be with you for the remainder of the year. Miss Spring, please turn over the classes assignments.” Mrs. D held out her hand.
Miss Spring reluctantly took a stack of papers from her briefcase and handed them over to Mrs. D.
“No!” The word escaped without volition. That stack of papers included their last assignment. Not today’s assignment. The one where he wrote about his dad.
There was no way Ben would ever have willingly given so much about himself away to Mrs. D. If Mrs. D had made the assignment, he’d have made up something about going to school or something. He wouldn’t have said anything about anyone that mattered.
It felt like betrayal. He’d given Miss Spring his soul in that paper. It was like watching an angel hand his beating heart to a devil.
“No, please.” Ben stood up. He was the only one. He looked around for support, but everyone, even Lisa looked away. “Couldn’t…. couldn’t Miss Spring grade them? It was her assignment.”
Mrs. D looked undecided. Could she actually have grown a conscience since she’d been gone?
“No. I’m sure I am up to the job.” Her smile was as sickly-sweet as too much perfume.
Ben slumped over his desk with a groan. If he could have made himself die right then and there, he would have done it.
If you enjoy Suzie’s House and would like to see more, please leave a comment. Suzie’s House is powered by its readers.
TT : Things I'm Doing to Get In The Christmas Spirit
My attitude simply hasn’t been the best this Christmas. I’m not quite Scrooge, but I haven’t exactly been the life of the party lately. So here are 13 things I did, am doing, or plan to do to get in the right mood.
1. Put up lights. I did some but I think I need more.
2. Take pictures of houses where they put up a lot more lights than me, and send them to Kelly in hopes of capturing the $30 gift certificate.
3. Read more Christmas oriented stories. Anastasia’s came out in print recently. Maybe I’ll re-read it.
4. Write something for FanLit Forever’s annual Holiday Story Challenge, and not the one set in July.
5. Get some eggnog. I love eggnog.
6. Bake a fruitcake, since I’m not seeing any around here right now. Where have all the fruitcakes gone? Yes, I actually like the stuff.
7. Pack. Time to go visit relatives.
8. Get the tires changed. We finally got some snow to go with the cold. (Did this one already, which is a miracle.)
9. Put something festive on my blog. Yeah, I did a little, but I think I could do more.
10. Watch my health. This time of year frequently does a number on my family, and this year is no exception.
11. Get gifts. I did, but I need more, and better. More. Better. More! Better! That or to get a grip.
12. Watch more TV, and NOT Viva La Bam! If only I could get the remote control back from my son. There are all these Christmas Specials I’m missing.
13. Sing Christmas carols, even if it’s only karaoke. (Did that. Could do more.)
In order to get the permalink from this post you must both put your URL in the Mr. Linky thing and leave a comment.
More Thursday Thirteen participants
Thursday Thirteen’s home page
Permalink list:
Nicholas
Autumn
Lynn
Pamela Sweet
MsMenozzi
FickleMinded
Allison (aka Angelgal)
jayedee in the lost world
Debbie
MInTheGap
Bobbi (Blogging Along and MomE and Loving It)
Paige Tyler
Celticlibrarian
Wani
choose joy
Forgetfulone
Nicole Austin
By George! Taking Care of Caroline.
So Prince George lost his suit against Princess Caroline, who returned most of the way to the King’s good graces. Then to add injury to insult, Fox dies. Last week’s By George! Was pretty eventful. If you missed it, click here.
The government that replaced the “Ministry of all the talents” was familiar to Caroline; The Duke of Portland became Prime Minister. George Canning, a man long suspected of being Caroline’s lover, became Foreign Secretary. Spencer Perceval became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Eldon became Lord Chancellor, and Secretary of War went to Lord Castlereagh. One of their first acts was to make official what had already unofficially taken place. That there was no longer any reason for Princess Caroline to excluded from royal functions.
On April 21st 1807, a formal request was made to provide the Princess “some apartments” in one of the royal palaces “more convenient to court.” The King agreed and found rooms for her at Kensington Palace, with the understanding that rooms at St James would be made available as a vacancy appeared. Now, most of us, if we had passed through such an ordeal, would be thankful for the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy. Caroline was genuinely grateful to be back in Their Majesties good graces. But she still didn’t see anything wrong with her behavior.
I suspect that Caroline was simply incapable of understanding her responsibilities. She never evidenced the slightest grasp of the fact that she, as a Princess of Wales, effectively had no private life. Everything she did, in public and behind closed doors, was fair game. She refused to accept that and behaved, till her dying day, as though no one had a right to question her behavior. To be fair, Charles the First believed the same thing; but look what happened to him.
She continued to “dress very ill, shewing too much of her naked person.” Said one Lady. She also continued to flirt outrageously with young men. She also began spending money. Now that she had been received back into the court, the Prince was pressured to increase her allowance to 12,000 pounds a year. With the loss of his political allies, the Prince had no choice but to agree. Parliament also voted Caroline 5,000 pounds on top of that. She also received 34,000 pounds to refurbish her house and…49,000 pounds to settle her debts.
The Prince and Caroline may have been totally unsuited for one another, but in some ways they were like two peas in a pod. The government decided to forestall any future expenditure on Caroline by pointing out to the Prince that he, as her beloved husband, should be paying ALL her bills. This suggestion was ill-received and he refused to do so. Spencer Perceval, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer had His Highness by the short and curlies, further pointed out that His Highness was being VERY generously compensated by the government already.
Should Caroline’s bills go unpaid, the public would hold him, not Caroline or the government, responsible. Did His Highness wish to become more unpopular than he already was? The Prince agreed to pay all of Caroline’s bills, even though he couldn’t afford to pay his own. As if The Prince didn’t already have enough problems in the wife department, Caroline’s father, the Duke of Brunswick, was killed while fighting the French at the battle of Auerstadt in 1806.
Caroline could now loudly proclaim, “My daddy was a war hero!” Her husband, on the other hand, couldn’t even be trusted to stick with his regiment when it was camped outside Brighton. When he learned that he would never be made general nor be allowed to serve overseas, he hoofed it to London to sulk in the austere confines of Carlton House. A move that was duly noted by the press. 1807 wasn’t a total wash however, in that year the Prince found himself, once again, in love.
– Mr. Al
It's Back!
It’s back, it’s back, my desktop is back!! It’s all cleaned up and running smooth and I didn’t lose any data or anything! I now have three working computers in the household. Yipee!
How Cold Are You?
Check out my screen door:
Not real impressive? Look closer.
What does your screen door look like?
LOL Cat Christmas
I was wandering around at ICanHasCheezeburger.com and ran across these. I thought you might like them.
more animals
more animals
more animals
more animalsr.com/2007/12/17/funny-pictures-pssst-whad-u-get-him/”>
more animals
more animals
Pumpkin Pie
This is easy for me to post since I made one tonight. It’s my favorite pie recipe.
1 1/2 c sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
4 eggs
1 double size can of pumpkin 29 oz.
1 1/2 c powdered milk
1 c water
2 pie crusts (this is a double batch)
Mix everything from sugar to water in a large bowl. Make pie crust. Pour mix into unbaked crust. Bake at 425 F for 15 min. then 305 F for another 40-50. When a toothpick comes out clean, it’s done. Serve immediately or refrigerate.
I like to mix this up, then bake half and freeze the other half to bake later. Then later all I have to do is pop the frozen mix into a pie shell and bake. Remember to use the powdered version of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves and the whole ones don’t go over so well. Hey, you know, people actually do that sort of thing sometimes.
Christmas Karaoke – All I Want for Christmas Is You
Due to technical difficulties I can’t get at the Suzie’s House files. Suzie’s House is going to have to wait a week while I get the problems fixed. In the meanwhile, I thought you might like this:
And if you can’t remember how the singing part goes, here’s a refresher:
Thursday Thirteen: Things That Went Wrong This Week
I tell you, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
You may have noticed this post doesn’t have my usual amenities; no banner, no photos, no Mr. Linky. There’s a reason for that.
1. The laptop stopped giving me “battery not found” error messages. I would count this a good thing if it hadn’t gone straight to the Blue Screen of Doom instead.
2. The replacement battery I ordered didn’t fix it.
3. The repair shop has yet to call to let me know what’s wrong with it.
4. I left the desktop running while I went out to run errands. When I came home, it had a virus. I know it was a virus because it kept offering to sell me a firewall.
5. Bresnan lied. They said they would provide firewall and virus protection. Yeah, right.
6. I tried to email myself some files as txt files to get around the virus, and ended up with the blue screen of doom.
7. I lost my passwords.
8. Without the passwords I can’t get into Photobucket.
9. Without the passwords I can’t get into Romance Divas
10. Without the passwords I can’t get into Mr. Linky.
11. Without my special spreadsheet I can’t easily generate HTML code.
12. I did backup the book I just wrote, but now I’m afraid to open the file because it was on the virus computer and was in a Word file instead of txt.
13. I’m about to unplug the wireless network in order to take the desktop in for repairs. Wish me luck!
By George! Maybe She's Guilty, Then Again….
Perceval assembled the evidence against Her Highness, and then laid out, in writing, a long, incisive defense. These were presented to a wary king who not feeling at all well. The King passed the ball to the cabinet. Whatever conclusions those worthy gentlemen arrived at would be the determining factor in whatever course of action His Majesty should choose to follow. His Majesty no doubt congratulated himself on dodging that particular bullet. When politicians get a piece of public business that nobody wants to handle, they send it to a committee for “study” there, hopefully, it will remain until the bills sponsors die of old age.
Time dragged on. The Princess said that “long weeks of daily expectation and expense had brought her nothing but disappointment.” The Prince couldn’t understand why his good buddies in the cabinet weren’t ordering Caroline to be trussed up like a Christmas pig and tossed aboard the next convict ship to Australia. The cabinet took up the matter in early June. On December 23, they issued a reply. The reply said, in essence, “Maybe she’s guilty; then again, maybe she’s not.”
Secretary for War William Windham added a dissenting minute to the printed reply. It was his view that the charges originally brought against Caroline were “as to part directly disproved and as to the remainder, rested on evidence that could not entitle it to the smallest credit.” Other cabinet members were not willing to go that far. They concurred with the original commissions conclusions, but…they felt they must also support Princess Caroline’s request to be accepted back into the good graces of Their Most August Majesties; and to be assured of his “satisfactory conviction of her innocence” was a matter that “depended solely” on His Majesties “own feelings and persuasions.”
Politicians! What earthly good are they?
His Majesty sent the cabinet back into session to try again. And if, in the course of their deliberations, they came across someone selling spines, they might want to buy a gross. The cabinet poked at the matter like little boys jabbing at road kills with long sticks. Who, oh who, would be the first to reach down and pick it up? With all concerned keeping a fire burning under them, the cabinet collectively picked it up. At the end of January, 1807, they issued another report. Their conclusion? The Princess of Wales should be allowed to resume social intercourse (snicker) with Their Majesties. But…they also recommended that the King send a letter to Her Highness reminding her that she is in the public eye. That she has habits that maybe are okay in Brunswick, but are just plain nasty in England. A Princess of Wales cannot be a boytoy.
The King sent the letter. He left out the stuff about nasty habits, stating only that her behavior was a matter of “serious concern” to those who loved her. Princess Caroline was a member of the family again. The Prince was livid with rage. Thousands of (taxpayer) pounds spent on lavish dinner parties for Whig nabobs and this was the result? The Princess was so happy to be in the family again she sent the King a long, gushy letter. She thanked him for his support and confidence and informed him that she would be dropping by the palace to visit the following Monday.
His Majesty informed her that he would prefer she drop in a moment that would be convenient for HIM. Not to be stuffed shirt or anything, but he was still the King; he had his own plans, ect. He would prefer that she visit on a day “subsequent to the following week.” So there! As for the Prince, having lost his case, such as it was, was made all the more unbearable by the loss of Fox. Fox had fallen ill the previous summer, by September, he was dead. Fox was the glue that held the Whigs together. Without his leadership, the “Ministry of all the talents” collapsed.
The Prince, in a snit over the way his pals had betrayed him by refusing to tar and feather Caroline, and also because they gave him trouble when he asked for more money, let it collapse without lifting a finger to help. This would prove to be a mistake. But then, the Prince never did know what was good for him.
Meltdown
Ever have one of those days? Or weeks or months?
Looks like I’m in for another one. In the last week I lost my laptop, and now my desktop to bugs and glitched. The laptop is in the repair shop, with so far no word. The desktop will be soon to follow.
So if you don’t hear from me today, you’ll have a good idea why.
Food
I get all kinds of carved-food pictures by email. They always astound me. These are selected from several different emails.
Don't Close the Oven Door
Don’t close the oven door when you check the temperature of your meat with one of those new fangled meat thermometers. Seriously, even if it takes five minutes for the stupid thing to reach full temperature, stand there with the door to the oven open. Cause, it doesn’t take long to ruin the thermometer.
Breakfast in Style
Jill: Aunt Gertrude, thank you so much for letting me stay over.
Gertrude: Certainly, Dear. If I’d found my husband in my dress, I’d want to run away too.
Jill: It wasn’t actually him in the dress.
Gertrude: Then why did you want to leave him?
Jill: He didn’t take me with him!
Today’s theme is breakfast
Previously in Jack and Jill Hint
Saturday photo scavenger hunt
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
If you haven’t been following Jack and Jill, you might also want to check out the dress
Gertrude: Mmmm, that looks tasty.
