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Spring, Puppies, Glasses.. Oh my!
Last week was Spring Break so I took Bug out to The Sticks with me to visit my mom and dad. On the way there we stopped and took some photos in a big field. I’ve always wanted to do that but never had the time. It was the perfect combination of plenty of time, willing models (Bug was in a good mood since her best friend was along) and an amazing Spring day. The sky was so blue and clear with puffy white Care Bear-esque clouds floating along. It was beautiful.
There were these funny yellow puff ball flowers everywhere that reminded me of tiny little Dr. Seuss trees. I was just wondering why I’d never noticed them before when my cousin (a biologist) pointed out (on Facebook) that they are a new invasive species that is choking out native wild flowers. What a bummer.
We spent some quality time chilling at my mom and dad’s. I love that they don’t have television and there isn’t much to do but sit in the yard and play ball with the dogs. The older I get the more and more I savor boredom. It’s so nice to feel every minute go by and not wonder where they went.
We spent the night in my parent’s travel trailer and it felt like camping but with wifi and hot showers only a few feet away.
You might be noticing Bug’s new glasses. Yep, she’s near-sighted just like her dad. I was worried that she just wanted them because she thinks they are fashionable (which she does) but the eye doctor assured me that she couldn’t fake the test and she indeed has a significant stigmatism in both eyes. Poor kid. It’s a good thing glasses are so cute these days.
She’s taken to making ties out of paper and clipping them onto her shirts. Then she walks around the house muttering, “Business, business, business.” as if that’s what busy business people do who wear smart looking glasses and neck ties. She’s a nut.
Speaking of business, I am kind of impressed (and a little scared) with Bug and her leadership skills these days. She’s organized a club with her classmates called The Pusheen Club. It’s named after her favorite stuffed cat and apparently is all the rage. They use Google Docs at school and she’s taken it upon herself, as President, to require each member of the club to take a Pusheen test and write up a paper in Google Docs before they are allowed to be in the club.
Then she started a petition, in Google Docs, to bring back the old fashioned orange juice boxes they used to have at the cafeteria. I guess they have a new juice that is watered down and not as tasty or something and she’s rallying her classmates to bring back the old juice. I randomly get emails from her to edit her Google documents and you can imagine my surprise when I see that the principal of her school is also getting emailed these documents. She’s a mover and a shaker, that girl!
Speaking of moving and shaking, (Groan. I know. I am the queen of clunky transitions.) we have a lot of moving and shaking going on in our home lately. Yes, we have puppies! We are insane and adopted two puppies at the same time.
The light-colored one is an English Golden Retriever named Cody aka Cody Flufflebutt. The brown one is a Soft-Haired Wheaten Terrior named Whiskey aka Whiskey Tangopants. They are adorable and fluffy and a whole lot of trouble.
Having two-month-old puppies is like having two toddlers in the house. There are baby gates blocking the hallway and fencing in the living room, brightly colored toys are strewn all over the floor, all magnets on the refrigerator have been pushed up two feet, knickknacks have been moved up high and all plants are up off the ground … cleaning products are stashed in cubbies for quick mop-ups, we wake up at all hours of the night, we have to make special meals for upset tummies… it’s good times! Like new parenthood all over again!
But we love it. And them. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Of course.
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Jasper, the psychic, trailer-park gypsy
This post is sponsored by eBay.
In college I took so many creative writing classes that I got a minor in English. This was completely by accident and not planned at all. Somehow I took one class and then next thing I know I was buddies with everyone and I kept taking more. It was a fun bunch of people to hang out with and the class was a hoot. Then when I was about to graduate, my advisor said, Why don’t you take a grammar course (which I was horrible at, no surprise there) and a literature class (Japanese Literature – it was awesome) and you’ll get a minor in English. So I did. And now to this day I can boast that I have a minor in English.
So it’s sort of a niggling thing that I don’t write fiction. I loved doing it so much in college, why can’t I be the next JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer or at my worst, maybe I could write porn under a surname and make zillions of zillions of dollars like the fifty-shades lady.
I’ll probably never do any of the above, most of all the last because, ew. And second of all, I love love love to write descriptions all day long but when it comes to dialogue and a plot, I come up floundering. In fact, now that I think about it, all I ever wrote in my creative writing classes was a creative take on my real life. Kinda like this blog.
I digress. What I was trying to get to was that I have a friend who has been challenging me to write fiction. In fact, I even made up a character for her and together we were going to write chapters, trading them back and forth. To get my creative juices flowing I started a collection on ebay with all the things I thought my character, Jasper, would have or wear. It was a lot of fun. I recommend it for anyone needing help visualizing their character. I think I secretly wish I was a tv stylist with an unlimited budget. I could totally get down with buying things in character.
Without further ado, here is my story. But wait, I do have some ados. I need to preface this story by saying that this character came out of my imagination completely on her own and does not reflect anything from my real life. All my relatives should know that I am not psychic nor do I read tarot cards and I do not make out with boys in mobile homes. If any of that might offend you then perhaps this story is not suitable for you. Click away while you still can!
