Suzie’s House 482 : Bearding the Lion
On one of those rare days when Miranda made it home early but Vin was still out working, she sat in their room and painted her nails. Yesterday they were red talons. Today she’d only had time to add a pink top edge to hide the chipping. Today she’d go with tri-color slanted stripes. She had all but one nail done when the kids knocked on her door.
10 Years
I missed my ten-year blog anniversary. It came and went last September. I didn’t notice.
A lot has changed in ten years. Back then I lived in a different city, though still Western Montana. My kids were in grade school. My world revolved around parent teacher meetings, cooking, cleaning, and this newfangled thing called the internet.
Avon – the publisher, not the location – held a contest for new authors. I participated in that contest. It is still vivid in my mind. Most of my early posts were about it.
Within a few months I started the serial Suzie’s House. That means I’ve been at it for nearly ten years now. In fact, I’ll be posting another one the day after tomorrow.
Since then I’ve greatly increased the number of times I post about my travels and decreased the amount of writing talk. I totally dropped the recipes and homespun posts. And Jack and Jill died and ignoble death.
I’ve still got my eye on the future, and still intend to blog, though many, many of my blogging buddies have fallen away. Maybe in another ten years I’ll have a blog anniversary that I will remember.
Roofer
Carl hadn’t gone up on a roof himself in ten years. With one thing or another, his whole crew walked just as the millionaire hired him to roof a set of three. He scraped his knees and bruised his thumb, but got it done. Even the last roof with all the color tiles that had to be done just so – he did it on deadline. When he went for his pay, the owner changed his mind. He wanted the special tile on all three for the same price.
The Challenge: Write a story in 100 words or less
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
The Photo Credit: Sandra Crook
13 New To Me Bands/Musicians
Recently I’ve been discovering bands and musicians I really like that turn out to have been around for a while. Sometimes quite a while. It reminds me of when a friend discovered Pink Floyd about ten years ago. How did I miss these guys the first time around?
Some haven’t been around all that long, but clearly a lot of people already know about them.
1. Dave Navarro
The Fish Market
Right before we left Flores to return to Bali, we stopped off at a fish market. This is, apparently, a regular part of the tour that some of the tourists have complained about. The market in question is not for tourists. There are a lot of fish. And it can be a bit odoriferous. It wasn’t any worse than I would expect, but not something you want to be smelling in an enclosed airplane a little later.
The variety was rather extensive. I have no idea what most of the fish were. Some even the local tour guide couldn’t identify. Most of it was dried. Much was intended for consumption in the whole region – not just that one town.
A Look Back at Indonesia
After the expedition to Rinca Island, the rest of the trip was about going home. We stopped off at a couple of places on Flores, like the fish market, but they were just short stops. We spent one last night in Denpasar but mostly to accommodate the airline schedules. The big event there was a last dinner together and an expedition to a large mall.
Then it was a race around the rim of the Pacific to outrun a typhoon, a night in an actual hotel in Los Angeles, and a short, domestic flight home.
In other words, this will be my last Thursday post about Indonesia. I’ve got a short post scheduled for Monday, then I’ll be moving on to other topics.
Suzie’s House 481 : Incognito
“I sound awful.” Emma covered her face with her hands. “Turn it off. Turn the TV off!” She flapped a hand at the TV in her living room.
“Oh. Right.” Tracy had been sitting on the couch next to Emma with a look of abject horror on her face.
Emma watched her through spread fingers. Tracy launched herself across the room to turn the advertisement off. “My song,” she muttered as though her firstborn had been swept away in a flood – probably too stunned to be angry yet. But Emma knew she would be. Tracy was really territorial about the songs she wrote.
A Cemetery in Bali
There was a cemetery down the street from our hotel in Denpasar. We wandered down for a look.
The first thing I noticed was that they don’t bother to manicure it the way we expect in the US. No lawn. What grass might be found seemed to be of the vacant-lot variety. Lots of the kind of trash that quickly builds up when people put out fifty or more offerings a day. Tombstones shaped a bit differently than I’m used to. And a very high fence all the way around.
Suzie’s House 480 : First Appearances
Bruce was on his way out of Suzie’s house by way of the kitchen when he overheard his music on the TV in the den. Drew had the tube on even though his back was to it. Probably one of those guys who just had to have some kind of sound in the background so he wouldn’t go nuts. Bruce could relate.
Rinca Island
If Komodo Island had not already put its name into the name for a certain monitor lizard, then Rinca should have. They had more, and more active, Komodo dragons than Komodo.
It’s a longer boat ride from Flores, but not by too much. We arrived to find the docks surrounded by boats. Apparently in Indonesia they don’t have anything like a polite or reserved system of using docks. No authorities check the right to moorings. When we arrived, we had to squeeze in as close as we could, then step from boat to boat until we reached the walkway.
Dragon Bones
We stopped off at the Komodo Office in Labuan Bajo on Flores Island. In there lobby is a glassed in display of a dragon’s fossilized bones. This one died of old age – over thirty years old. It lived between fifty and sixty million years ago. it had osteoporosis.
Though nineteen bones are missing, we can easily see that Komodo dragons haven’t changed much in a long, long time.
The display includes a clutch of fossilized eggs. I have no idea if the bones are even female. Seems to me they said something about them being male. It’s not like the female takes care of the eggs once laid anyway.
A Life On the Shelf
Ruth stood in front of the curios cabinet. Hank put the shell in the niche on the lower left the day they came back from Coney Island. Martin put the feather on the top left the first time he visited after completing his bird book. Matt gave her the jar full of match heads. She wasn’t sure what that was about and wasn’t going to ask. Ted placed the painted pebble in the center niche the day he won his first award. Seems everyone had contributed something. Ruth stood there with her feather duster and considered what to do with it all.
The Challenge: Write a story in 100 words or less
The Hub: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
The Photo Credit: Claire Fuller
Cecer Village
Our guide for the the Komodo portion of the trip – I mean everything from Bali until we left – comes from the Manggarai tribe. He took us home to visit with his people. This was a day long excursion that involved a drive along the twisty roads of Flores.
Flores is only 220 miles long from tip to tip. Back home that would be about three and a half hours. We only went about ten miles along the spine of the island, and it took over an hour. It wasn’t unusual to hit a curve that felt fast at five miles an hour.
We were greeted by a dozen women playing gongs, drums, etc. It was such beautiful music. I really wish I could have bought a recording of it. The men shook hands with us and guided us into the town’s central hut. There we faced off – our group and the men of the village.
Suzie’s House 479 : A Hitch in the Hinge
The door to the closet had come unhinged. It had a tendency to fall off the rail along the top in the first place, but the weird hinge on either end had never been a problem before. Ethan had no idea how he was supposed to fix it. Somehow, it all seemed a little too symbolic of his life. He planned on a bad rail, and ended up unhinged instead.
