Suzie’s House 368 : Unloading

Suzie's House

Lisa had no intentions of doing anything with Tracy today, let alone with Tracy and her band. She was on her way to the library when she happened to see them drive by. Or, more to the point, she saw Bruce trying to drive a van that kept stalling out and gave in to curiosity. She thought the fact she could keep up with them while on foot spoke volumes about Bruce’s driving. Then again, it was only a few blocks.

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Obsession by Karen Robards p.90

The cold, hard truth was that she had no idea whom she could trust and until she did, the smartest thing she could do was trust no one.

Including Dr. McDreamy here, with his compelling eyes and hot voice.


MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesday. Grab your current read, open to a random page, share a couple of “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. Go see Should Be Reading for more detail.

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Physical Therapy

It has now been six weeks since I started getting physical therapy for my arthritic leg. I’m far from optimal, but I’m doing a whole lot better.

It still hurts to bend over and pick things up off the floor. It still hurts to stand up. It still hurts if I sit for too long. But I can now ride my bicycle again. I only managed to go a couple of blocks, but I count it a joyous victory. I can now lift my left leg half a foot off the floor while laying flat. Considering I couldn’t even budge it before, I count this as a victory, too.

I can get into the car without using my hands to lift my leg in, but I have to remind myself that I don’t need to do that, and it still twinges now and then. My leg will go further when the therapist pushes it back, as well as further to the side.

It’s still no where near equal to my right leg. On a day to day basis the main change is that I do exercises every morning. I see major strides in the exercises themselves, but not in my day to day limping. I guess that means I’ve actually reached the level of health that I thought I was at to begin with, when in reality, I was much worse off.

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Arround the World in a Day

Jill: You’re playing that airplane game again? What happened to talking about your boss about driving a taxi again?

Jack: I did talk to him.

Jill: And?

Jack: He said I could come back as soon as a week had two Thursdays. I could work the second Thursday.

Jill: Argh! That means your fired for good!

Jack: Not necessarily. Remember when we went to Mongolia? We gained a day. But we don’t have the money to go back, so I’m going to do it this way.

Jill:
Jack, you can’t… (long, thoughtful pause). All right. You just go right ahead. I’ll call your boss.

Previously in Jack and Jill: Passing gas as a game

The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “When a week has two Thursdays.” as suggested by Brian Miller
Want to see what I can do with a word or phrase? Make a suggestion.

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It’s Like Riding a Bicycle. You Never Forget.

“Need a fork?” Jane smirked. She already had her chopsticks out, though she hadn’t scooped up any of the stir-fry yet.

“No! No, I’m good.” Marge took her chopstick out of the little restaurant wrapper and tried to remember how you hold them.

“I bet you can’t do this.” Jane reached out with her chopsticks, aiming at a pop bottle. She had almost lifted it when the bottle fell over, sending a cascade of bubbles over the table, and one of the chopstick flying to a neighboring table.

“You’re right,” Marge said around a grin. “There’s no way I could do that.”

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13 Random Words.

Guess who didn’t have a list this week. Since The Girl is hanging out behind me, I made her come with with some words. These are all off the top of her head, with her related comments in parentheses.

1. Prestidigitation
2. Ambiance
3. Inconvenience
4. Gentility
5. Absurdity (just like this)
6. Okay (I’m not a word machine, Mom. Jeeezzz)
7. Paranormal
8. Grave
9. Parallel
10. Conspicuous
11. Necessary
12. silhouette
13. (Swear word. No, don’t put that. Um…) Permissible

For more lists of Thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen

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Suzie’s House 367 : Driver in Training

Suzie's House

“Go, go, go!” Tracy sat in the shotgun seat and leaned way too close while she looked out the driver’s window.

“Y-yeah. We… we should g-g-g-go.” Emma sat right behind him.

For a moment Bruce couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in the driver’s seat. Technically, he didn’t know how to drive.

(more…)

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The Soft Touch by Betina Krahn p. 347

With profuse thanks, Luanna climbed up into the bed of the wagon beside her husband and called to her children. They scrambled in, and the family was carried off into the night and into the promise of a future that would be rebuilt.

I’m such a slow reader. But I’m done now.


MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesday. Grab your current read, open to a random page, share a couple of “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. Go see Should Be Reading for more detail.

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Big Sky Ren Fest

A few weeks ago I went to the Big Sky Renfair. I missed some of the bigger events, which took place on a rainy Friday when I was insanely busy; but I managed to catch a couple of entertaining acts.

A woman did an contortionist act involving two long swaths of fabric attached to a tipi of poles. Except that she mostly did climbing and posing rather than swinging and jumping, it reminded me a bit of the trapeze. I’m guessing the fabric was parachute silk.

There were regular sword fights in an area separated from the rest by wooden poles. There was jousting, too, but I kept missing it. I’d look up in time to see the horses trotting away from the jousting area before I could find a good place to watch it from. Apparently they only had one round at a time.

You could rent Renaissance era weapons. I tried tossing a javelin a few times. Unluckily, javelins apparently require the use of legs. Mine weren’t up to the task. My billowing skirts weren’t helping matters.

I ate pasties and eyed the mead until I remembered the stuff is made of honey, and I had to drive home anyway. I also had eggrolls and soda, so not all was historically accurate.

There was sword swallowing, and fire swallowing, glass walking, and joking around by Eric the Excellent and company. There were booths selling everything from pencil’s with runes carved in the sides to tie-dyed scarves.

All in all it was quite entertaining. The only thing I really missed was the lack of music.

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Passing gas as a game


(In case you missed it before, Jack is a taxi driver.)

Jill: You’re home from work awfully early. What happened.

Jack: I was fired.

Jill: Fired!? Why?

Jack: It all started when one of the guys ran out of gas. I organized a rescue effort.
All the other guys had fares, but we all stopped as we passed each other and handed off this gallon of gas. A gallon should be enough to get the guy back to the garage, right? Well, anyway, the long and short if it is that a customer said I smelled bad and kept passing gas. The boss thought it was a game. So here I am.

Jill (shaking head) : Only you, Jack. This could only happen to you.

Previously in Jack and Jill: Work Ethic

The theme for this week’s Jack and Jill is “Passing gas as a game” as suggested by The Walking Man
Want to see what I can do with a word or phrase? Make a suggestion.

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Losing His Head

At the Bitterroot Mercantile in Darby, Montana, the clientele expect a certain ambiance. It isn’t enough that there are trophies on the wall. The animal heads must come from something the owner hunted and have a story to go with it. Unluckily for Ken, he’d only ever bagged one animal and that had been more traffic accident than safari. Still, he dutifully hung the ram’s head on his wall and claimed a kinship with Earnest Hemingway right up until the last inventory. Then Marge got a hold of the moth eaten thing, and no one has seen is since.

photo copyright Adam Ickes

Click the button on the right to go to the Friday Fictioneers hub
If you want me to visit your blog, please leave a link that will at least get me close.

Despite the uncanny resemblance to a number of Montana natives, this is purely a work of fiction. No animals were harmed in the making of this story. Nor was anyone’s pride bent. And you guys down at Radio Shack can keep the free gun. I’m not ordering satellite from you.

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13 Awarded

I moved all the pretty awards off my sidebar last weekend. I think they are great, but their time has past. It made me nostalgic. So I came up with my own award. To those of you on my list who just flinched, relax. This is not a guilt or effort inducing award. You are not suppose to pass it along, or answer questions, or blog about it, or anything else. It’s just a shout out to my homies. To those not on the list, I’m working with a number restriction here.

Brian Miller

Ann Pino

Heather L

Sandra Nachlinger

Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

Novroz

Shelley Munro

kezzela

CountryDew

Colleen

Jennifer Leeland

Ron

Paige Tyler

For more lists of Thirteen, visit Thursday Thirteen

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Suzie’s House 366 : Uncle John’s Band

Suzie's House

The drum kit would be the tricky part. He had hinted to the drummer girl that it would be better to go with something simpler. A hint was the best he could do when Bruce kept jumping down his throat about every little thing, especially in front of the band. Well, now that she saw where they were playing she’d get smart about it.

Or not. She was already pulling one of those big drums out of the van like they had a permit or something. Didn’t she know her entire kit could be confiscated?

Well, if it came up, John would step in and slow the cops down. Bruce would know what to do. He might be a twerp, but he was street smart and played a mean sound synthesizer.

(more…)

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The Soft Touch by Betina Krahn p. 229

A cannonball blowing through the chest couldn’t have stunned her more. She couldn’t exhale, couldn’t move except to lower her eyes along the typewritten page filled with the legal terms and definitions that set forth with dry precision a bone-deep betrayal of her trust.


MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesday. Grab your current read, open to a random page, share a couple of “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. Go see Should Be Reading for more detail.

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Awards

You may have noticed that I made a change or two in the way my blog looks. I have moved all the awards from my left sidebar to here.

I’ve been thinking for sometime that I should remove them from my sidebar. Most are from my early days of blogging when people were into giving each other these things as a game. Most of them don’t mean all that much. But aren’t they pretty? I was kind of using them as decoration.

I still like most of them, and want to remember the people who gave them to me. So… here they all are:

Given by Jingle

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