Aftermath

Last post, I was deep in technical troubles, that’s history now. In fact, it was such an easy fix that my husband and I went out to dinner with friends to celebrate.

This was not the first time, we’ve dined with this couple several times. In spite of her quirk. We arrived at the restaurant and were seated right away. The order was taken and our food arrived in good time. It was delicious. My friend and I waffled on whether we wanted to eat dessert. When we’d protested just the right amount of time, fooling no one, we both ordered lemon Meringue pie, with two extra forks, to share the pie with our husbands.

The pie was delicious, I ate my part and passed the plate over. At this time we noticed that my friend was apparently not ready to give up the pie, in fact she had eaten away at the lemon part until all that was left was a fringe of lemon next to the back crust. The Meringue held firm above, hiding the lack of pie filling from her husband. When she noticed that we’d noticed, she slid the pie plate and clean fork over to her husband, hiding her devious deed by giving him the back crust of the pie to look at.

We laughed. We couldn’t help it. This is the same friend who, when we were out for dinner years ago, ordered the last piece of cheesecake in the restaurant knowing it was my favourite. She’s generous, she asked me if I wanted to taste it, I said yes, please. She took her fork and dug out a piece of cheesecake the size of a pea. And here, I may be being generous. I couldn’t believe it, I had to ask.

“Are you sure you can spare that?” I said.

She began to laugh, embarrassed? No, not at all, A lover of dessert and unwilling to part with a full bite? That was closer to the truth.

When her husband finished his portion of the pie my husband asked him if he enjoyed his pie crust. He said he did. I guess he’s used to being shafted when it comes to dessert.

Another fun story from my Cast of 1ooo players.

 

How I Spent My Morning

Waiting is not something I do well. I’m way better than I used to be, but I’m still not expert material. This has been a waiting kind of day, I am frustrated.

Today, as I do daily, I opened my e-mail. The first thing I discovered was a long list of people, I assume spammers, trying to help me make myself a web page. Is this not what I have? And look at that, I did it with the help of someone who did not spam me.

The phone started ringing around eleven, same deal, people from goodness knows where, all wanting to make me a web page. Obviously something was rotten in the Denmark of my new web page.

I guess this would be a good place to state the obvious, just as you should never drink and drive, text and drive, text and cross a street, you should never try to fix something when you are frustrated, somewhat angry and, let’s face it, supremely incompetent with technical matters. When I successfully got myself locked out of my own site, I had to call for help.

I went online and accessed the host support team, they shot up a chat window that said I was first in the queue, all good, and they said someone would be with me in two minutes. Half an hour later I stepped away for a moment, came back and discovered that, yes indeedy, that was the moment the chat window went active. Now I had to enter all over again. This time the waiting time was less.

I explained the problem and the lovely person typed out a few instructions. Nothing helped. Now, somewhere in the universe a ‘ticket’ is waiting for expert attention.

And here in my office, I continue to wait.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun…

 

 

Something Exciting in the Wind

Humour columns are a joy to many readers and writers. After nearly ten years writing my own column, I had to ask myself, did I want to do this writing thing anymore? The answer was a firm YES! My second question was, what did I want to write. I had to admit that, much as I loved the fun of humour, strictly writing humour had played itself out for me. Turning off the faucet that dripped out my creative juice, well that flat out wasn’t in the cards. I looked for a new challenge. I found it.

Short fiction was the logical alternative for me. Rather than sticking to the facts, as I had when writing about the situations that crop up in a (my) life, I was able to leave the everyday to step into the fiction realm. Creating characters and then having the freedom to send them wherever I pleased, that was, and is, very satisfying. I’d dabbled with short fiction for years, but I had not given it the weight or time it deserved. In fact, I usually only wrote an annual Christmas-themed story for submission to a local paper’s Christmas Story contest. Knowing I needed to learn the form from the basics, I began to attend workshops, read how-to journals, and finally, took a number of college courses.

I love the short story form. Nothing is as satisfying to me as tying up loose ends in the lives of the people I’ve imagined onto a page. I have devoted my time to writing short fiction and just so you know, YES, I repeat myself, I love the form.

DAISY CHAINED, my very first collection of short fiction, is the fruit of my labour. Just you wait … 

humour, short fiction, short story, humour, daisy chains, northern writer, new beginnings.