obama us and tattoos

I love the democratic effect of the holidays.

You have to be at the airport, though, to appreciate it.

Think about it. When you're traveling, spending your time in the airport and on your way to LA or Chicago or a big city, you get to stride down the wide open concourse, walk past the sophisticated boutiques, the plentiful restrooms. Starbucks is yours. Everyone seems well dressed and educated. They read books. They have good haircuts and thick watchbands.

When you travel to East Podunk, you have to hang a left out of the main concourse and hike 300 yards down a dark bowling alley-type tunnel to find your boarding area. People sit on the floor. They have mullets. They are overweight and they eat Cheet-o's. There's no air conditioning or heat or food or rest rooms. You know you're going to a place where Nielsen doesn't even have a family.

But during the holidays, people go home. They go back to East Podunk, West Overshoe, Poplar Bluff, Grand Rapids. All these Rolex people with the good suits are standing around in the bowling alley area with the peasants.

It's a nice feeling.

Tune in next time for negative holiday feelings.

Title: Christmas Sucks.

Love from Mary Poppins,
b

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This is my brother Brian, one of the funniest humans walking the earth. He can imitate almost any animal, including a camel. It hurts my throat to try and imitate it. He also does a superb mosquito imitation.

We are the extroverted children of two introverts. How did this happen? I do not know. My mother used to say to Brian when he left the house, "For God's sake, act human."

"Don't encourage him," she would say to me and anyone else at the dinner table, and she'd get very irritated if you laughed. Meanwhile, Brian would be behind her, arms outstretched over her head like Frankenstein ready to kill her. If you were eating at the time, you were guaranteed to choke. My poor ex-husband helplessly incurred my mother's wrath because he couldn't stop.

Brian makes an entire football team out of his fingers, or a pair of ice skaters gracefully swirling about, or a lion. You can try this at home. Stick your middle finger out (upside down from the normal crude way) and put it through a potato chip, which will look remarkably like a mane. Your other four fingers, thumb included, make the four legs of the lion. Presto! And you can have one on each hand so they can kung fu fight!!

A lot of people try to imitate Brian's "bat." This is made simply by your thumb and pinky flapping as "wings" and ascending upward. It has to be accompanied by a "foo foo" sort of silent sound. Some animals can morph into each other with great ease, such as "hefferty Joe," a four-legged beast rather like the lion but without the potato chip, always with the middle finger leading the way as the "head." Hefferty Joe does a lot of sniffing and then flies away as the bat.

We never said we didn't need professional help.

My trips to Arkansas skyrocket in fun and plummet in productivity when I visit my brother and his wonderful wife Joyce. Brian didn't get to witness my father's mutilation of the rat during my recent Thanksgiving trip, but he was sorry to hear about it. He loves animals and is what my mother used to call "tender-hearted."

She was right about that.

Footnote to rat story: Clarissa, my dad's helper, said to him that he could have used a steak knife on it, which would have been sharper and might not have required two, as the screwdriver did. Dad nodded in approval at this suggestion, but then Clarissa told him she would not allow the steak knife back into the silverware drawer afterwards. It would have to be thrown out, she said. Oh no, Dad said, that's not necessary. It can be cauterized and returned to regular use.

Don't eat steak at his house.

It's a great life if you don't weaken (another saying of my mother's.

I've written three chapters of Dalliance Woman. It's emerging through the fog.

A bientot
love,
becky

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Kyra Davis, the author of the very successful mystery series that includes SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE, was married to man diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. The symptoms were barely noticeable at first. But as the marriage wore on, her husband’s erratic behavior—his
lies about his job, his extravagant spending sprees using her credit cards that almost resulted in her filing for bankruptcy, his fits of temper and other highly unsettling behavior—led to her divorce.
In her latest book, SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING (MIRA Books, November 15, 2006, $13.95)—a departure from her light-hearted mystery series—Kyra Davis tackles the subject of mental illness. With her usual wit and humor, Kyra probes a very serious subject, and one that is close to her heart: What happens when the man you love and subsequently marry turns out to be someone entirely different from the man you dated? How do you recognize the difference between mental illness and the usual marital problems that afflict all couples? How could a man who was so romantic and loving turn out to be bipolar ?
Kyra explores these questions as she chronicles the relationship between April and her soon-to-be husband, Tad, who is the man of her dreams: romantic, attentive and adoring who holds the promise of a normal, secure life. But on their honeymoon—Tad’s withdrawn behavior, his refusal to leave the hotel room, and other disturbing behavior—are cause for alarm. When they return home, however, and Tad reverts back to the man she knows and loves, April rationalizes his behavior during their honeymoon, but she can’t quite dismiss it. “The warning signs were there,” she later muses. No neon signs, mind you, just little sparks at the end of a very long string. Funny that I could have been blind enough not to realize that the string was a lighted fuse.”
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING chronicles every step of April’s relationship with Tad, from the engagement and subsequent marriage, through the unraveling and finally the turning point. As April tries to cope with what is happening to her husband, Tad is grappling with the demons that are driving him apart from April and threaten to destroy the one stable anchor in his tumultuous life.
In her unique style, Davis examines the disturbing subject of coping with bipolar illness of a loved one with the sensitivity, insight and perspective of one who has been there, and the humor of one who has had to make difficult choices in order to survive and move on.
Visit Kyra's website here.

Or her blog here.

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I spent Thanksgiving in Arkansas. It was fun and gratifying and restorative. The highlight was a rat's death.

This particular rat had been living in my father's garage for a while. But on Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, one of Dad's household helpers screamed when she went out to the garage and saw it run across in front of the dumpster. All of us inside the house heard the scream.

"It's a rat," Dad said and I guess he knew. My dad nowadays sits in his chair and reads Walgreens ads. It hurts me to see it.

The rat brought him alive.

I admire Dad for not calling the thing a mouse. Many would, because it's humiliating in some ways to have a rat in your house and not a mouse. But my dad is not afraid of the truth. My dad is blunt and purposeful. It was a rat.

First, he leaped up out of his chair. This was no small doing and we hadn't seen it for a while. He stepped briskly into the kitchen and got the peanut butter jar and the saltines. No one could stop him. He hobbled out to the utility room and set the have-a-heart trap overnight. Nobody helped him. Nobody wanted to. It's a gruesome thing, to catch vermin, at least in my view (although ref. my squirrel-catching career). For him, it's homeowning responsibility. In the morning, we got to hear another shriek from another helper when she went out to dispose of more garbage.

Success.

I had known over the years that Dad killed the things he caught in the trap. It doesn't make sense, of course, to catch something in a have-a-heart trap and then kill it, but that's what he does. I think he thinks the snap-traps are expensive. Maybe.

He took the trap outside (in full view of motorists and joggers) and started trying to stab the rat with a screwdriver. This is when my daughter came back from her run and witnessed the attempted murder.

"MOM! GRANDPA'S STABBING A MOUSE IN A TRAP!"

"That's okay," I said.

What else could I say?

Pretty soon his advanced age made it obvious that he wasn't going to be able to stab the thing. So he got another screwdriver from the garage and went at it with double dutch chopsticks strategy. I doubt he ever had to use two screwdrivers in his younger years, but he had to this time.

All the women, and my dad is surrounded these days by women-- me, my daughter, the helpers, even my Alzheimer's mother, were screaming inside the house. "STOP!"

Dad killed it. None of us was there to see it. You know why? Because we're cowards. Dad belongs to an earlier generation, the kind that killed rats and pests and didn't think anything about it.

He came back in and picked up the Walgreens ad.

I came home today.

I love my dad and honor him. He's the greatest.

A bientot
becky

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HAHAHA!! I mean the gobble/gobble kind of course, not the Constantinople kind. Though I'd love to visit Istanbul.

Actually, the map shown here looks a tiny bit like Massachusetts without Cape Cod. Or I guess you could say it looks like Tennessee, though a bit thicker and not as long. Tell the truth, if you didn't know what country this was, or state or province, what would you have thought?

I got into an argument in class recently when I said that in my opinion, an educated person in our country knows the capitals of all 50 states. "Not all fifty!" my students cried. "YES!" I answered. "Do YOU know all fifty?" they asked and I said I did. God help me. They started peppering me with states and I got them all. Good thing they didn't ask Missouri--is that Jefferson City? I know it isn't St. Louis. I still say an American should know all the capitals. You know, I think I'm a little fuzzy on some of them. North Carolina? Yeesh.

No offense to the midwest, but they like to go heavy on the Velveeta and the Cool Whip. I am headed into its confines tomorrow and hope to maintain control over my gluten consumption. (High School Weight, folks--it's coming!) It may be like the smell of blood to a wolf, though, if I get in front of that Rotel/Velveeta cheese dip. The last time I stood in front of a vat of it, I mawed it (maued?) till I was sick. See, that's my problem. I take a good thing and push the limits, although on the other hand, ain't nothin' wrong with a little limit pushing.

No bloggling until I get back on Saturday.

I am very thankful for all I have and especially for the ones close to me.

I love you all.

A bientot
b

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I have always thought that the turkey in this picture is far too heavy for this woman to be holding, especially considering the way she is sort of leaning forward. See? Doesn't it look as though she's going to lose control of it at any minute and thump that beast down on the table, where it will go sliding off the tray and onto the good tablecloth, grease and all? Watch out, kiddies.

And why is Grandpa standing there? He did nothing to help make this meal, unless you consider sitting on your fat ass watching bass fishing on TV a helpful activity.

Maybe it was. Maybe she was glad to have him out of her hair for five minutes.

I'll tell you this, though. He could have chopped the celery. He could have assembled the relish tray, found the extra forks, or taken the garbage out a few times. He could have done a lot of things instead of complaining about the hole in his suit pocket, which she then had to stop everything and mend.

Women bring you the holidays, ladies and gentlemen. Don't ever forget it. They clean them up, too. It's my job to remind the world.

I don't mean to diss the grandfather. He does look kind. Maybe he mashed the potatoes. Or maybe he stood around in the kitchen and explained the Taft Hartley Act to everyone working. Although that's not much help when the rolls burn.

It's cute the way everybody else is leaning forward at the table too. That's what you do when you are really happy and excited, which I guess they are. I guess they don't hate each other or harbor secret grudges the way most of us do. I wonder if anyone is playing footsie under the table. It's rather a wide table so it would have to be someone right next to you and I don't see any candidates for that. If I had to pick candidates, I would say the young man across from the black-haired woman. He's home from college and she's the mother of one of the kids, sitting next to her own mother or grandmother. College Boy is making his move and she is not saying no. It's thrilling for both of them.

What am I talking about?

See, when you write this stuff, it spews out of you naturally.

When you write a disreputable book like DW, you start to look at the world in a disreputable way.

Ha ha.

I am leaving for Arkansas on Tuesday where I will spend Thanksgiving. It will be something like the dinner depicted here, only less titillating. My brother and his wife will cook everything at their house and bring it over to my parents' house where my daughter and I will do our best to set the table and find chairs for everyone.

Am I thankful for my blessings? Yes, and I have many.

Be here now, everybody, and love the cranberry sauce. Maybe I will make the Dallas Monster. Now that is something to be thankful for.

A bientot
love,becky

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Just when Morgan Carter was falling in love with the simple life she'd built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, her true identity as an infamous Hollywood starlet was exposed. Now Morgan has a choice to make: return to her glamorous movie star existence--or stick with the wholesome life, and the new love, she's found in the Midwest.


In this sequel to True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet, Lola Douglas's heartfelt prose and headstrong heroine return to delight readers.

Did you miss the first book?

Well, there it is on the right. And here's what some have said:

Kirkus Reviews
The continuing travails of 17-year-old Morgan … come across with delightful zing, yet address serious subjects. … Douglas manages the lightest of styles while delving into deep issues for adolescents. Fun, breezy entertainment with thoughtful undertones.

KLIATT
More gossipy stuff for all those YA readers who love to think about celebrities and dream about their lives. ... This sequel [is] appealing.

Saving the World Daily Through Information (blog of YA librarian “Cedarlibrarian”)
The sequel does not disappoint. … This book has a lot more serious content than the first, but it's by no means gloom and doom. There's lots of girly brand-dropping, Hollywood gossipy angst, and romance. Verdict: Style and substance.

A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy (blog of YA librarian Liz B.)
If I didn't know better, I'd say Lola is the pseudonym of Drew Barrymore. Maybe someone 'in' the industry would be able to point out howlers and mistakes galore, but the essence is what is important: Lola respects these teens, the Britneys and Lindsays, MaryKates and Ashleys and Mischas. She respects Hollywood and the entertainment industry, yet is not seduced by it. This isn't a rosy picture of tinsel town. But it is a wake up call to the public not to judge teenagers by ridiculously high standards; to the adults in the profession to be adults, not business managers; and to the teens themselves, saying, you have choices.

TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET – OUT IN PAPERBACK AS OF 11/2/06 (WITH A HOT NEW COVER!)

Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers Group

Teen star Morgan Carter's mom is trying to kill her. At least, that's what Morgan thinks when she's sent to Ft. Wayne, Indiana after a near overdose outside LA's Viper Room.

Morgan's going to recover out of the spotlight. Way out. She's given a major make-under, a new name, and a completely different identity. Morgan's plan? To write a tell-all book about her experience and stage a comeback. But when this LA girl finds love and a new life in Middle America, will she abandon it for another shot at superstardom?

WHAT PEOPLE SAID:

School Library Journal
This tell-all journal-style story is nearly as amusing and compelling as Meg Cabot's "Princess Diaries" and Louise Rennison's "Georgia Nicolson" series.

Kirkus Reviews
Despite the topic's darker subject, since the narrative is in chatty diary form, this is light, breezy and lots of fun, especially for girls with Hollywood fantasies.

KLIATT
(Starred Review) An absorbing read. Who has not imagined themselves in the ranks of the wealthy and famous, the mundane life a mask for the glamorous persona fighting to get out? The themes of finding the joys of the simple life, making true friends, accepting responsibility, and overcoming drug addiction are also well realized.


ABOUT LOLA:


When she was five, Lola Douglas wanted to be an actress like her then-hero, Drew Barrymore. Instead, she became a supermarket checkout girl, a video store clerk, an administrative assistant, a features reporter and a textbook development editor before deciding that writing teen novels was her real forte. Lola has lived in seven of our great United States, including Indiana, and says that during her five-and-a-half month stint in Fort Wayne no one ever forced her to see the movie Hoosiers. She was, however, coaxed into auditioning for a part as an extra in a Neil LaBute film (Your Friends and Neighbors, to be exact), but was rejected during the first round. When not watching too much reality television, reading Gawker, or obsessing over all things Marc Jacobs, Lola can be found working on her next super secret project, which will be published in 2008.

To this day, she remains fascinated with Drew Barrymore.

Visit Lola's website or her
blog

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I find the subject here fascinating. Mostly I try to imagine her in a spandex warm-up suit on a stairmaster at the gym, which is where she'd be if she were alive today. All those old time women looked ancient but weren't.

Can't you see this woman waiting on you at WalMart?

God, the repression in that era. To me, just the fact that she is facing sideways says the artist preferred not looking at her face.

TURN TO THE SIDE, MOM.

WELL, WHY CAN'T I LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD LIKE ONE OF SARGENT'S PORTRAITS?

BECAUSE YOU JUST DON'T HAVE THE CHEEKBONES FOR IT. KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING, MOM?

WELL NO, NOT REALLY, JAMES.

JUST TRUST ME. ARE WE HAVING KIDNEYS FOR DINNER AGAIN?

They probably wouldn't have eaten that since they were Americans, but old James fancied himself a Brit so maybe they did.

Anyway, I'm looking at her hands gripping that hankie. Oh sonny boy, I'll do anything for you.

She also looks rather tall to me, a rangy thin woman who did without, scrimped and saved, made sacrifices. Her lips are pursed, another indication of tension, either that or dental problems.

DO I LOOK LIKE QUEEN VICTORIA YET?

When I read a Jane Austen book, or see one of the movies such as EMMA, I often wish I could live in that time period, but when I see a painting like this, I know the truth. Give me the present. I'll suffer through.

I sent off Groundhog Day never-ending relentless revisions of book formerly known as Victory to agent today. It's now called YOU CAN'T STAY FOR CHRISTMAS, which was not thought of by me but by a friend. If the book sells, I have to wash his car for the rest of his life, which seems harsh to me. But I love the title.

Be here now.

A bientot
love,becky

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This is Mary Cassatt's famous painting LITTLE GIRL IN A BLUE ARMCHAIR and one of my favorites. I picture that this child is pissed off because someone told her she had to act a certain way. Wear a certain thing. Be excluded from a certain event. My cousin, or I should say my cousin's mother, used to send my mother hand-me-downs from the cousin for my use. Karen was six years older than I. Need I say more? Oh, but you know I will.

YUCK. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEECH.

There was a particular coat/leggings set that had a horrible green velvet beret with it. I loathed the leggings--LEGGINGS!!! I"M KILLING MYSELF!!! NOBODY WEARS LEGGINGS!-- but the beret put me right over the edge. Even at that tender age, I did not look good in hats. My mother could not understand why I did not want to wear it. Horrible shouting matches took place every Sunday before church and when I finally appeared at St. Philomena's for Mass, I looked like a nineteenth century child labor victim, a young red-eyed psychopath. With a green velvet beret stuck to the side of my head with bobby pins, of course, because my mother always won.

Later when I was in high school, I wanted my hair to have bangs and my mother wouldn't let me have them. Can you imagine a high school girl nowadays being forbidden to have bangs? And putting up with it?

"If your friends tell you bangs would look good, they're not your friends."

Okay then, whatever. I finally cut bangs for myself and felt liberated beyond the stratosphere. She was right as it turns out. They didn't look very good, but I loved them and still wear them. Cheers for flat irons.

Anyway, Cassatt's little girl has got her skirt hiked up in defiance, to my eye. YOU"RE MAKING ME DO THAT? WELL, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. AND I'M NOT PUTTING IT DOWN UNTIL YOU PUT THAT BERET BACK IN THE BOX.

Mary Cassatt was a great artist and isn't recognized enough, probably because her subjects were close to the home, as it were, mothers and children. You see her pictures in maternity wards sometimes. This is only my opinion, of course. Cassatt grew up and became "close" to Edgar Degas for most of his life. I hope he treated her well.

A bientot, Mary

love,becky

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I have been blog-tagged by my buddy
Martha O'Connor , which means I now have to give five little known facts about myself and then tag five friends to do the same thing.

Okay.

So.

Five little known facts. What am I willing to tell?

1) This is pretty good and will drop a few jaws. I have had 17 root canals. That's right, boys and girls, 17 times I have endured the 22 prober (see previous post where thankfully I did not say how many I have had so that it would remain a little known fact and I wouldn't be s.o.l. right now.)

2) I can walk on stilts. This is really true. If you show up here at my house with a pair of stilts, I can get right up on them and take off down the street. I won't look back, either. My father built me some stilts when I was a kid and I walked everywhere in them, up and down the stairs even. I forgot about this.

3) I have seen two presidents. Dwight Eisenhower (oh god, that makes me old) was the first and I only saw the top of his bald head. I had the flu and was wearing a purple sweater with a zipper up the front. I think I puked in it. My parents took me out to see the parade he was in. I didn't really know what a president was.

The second one was JFK and I saw him a month before he was shot. It was at the Arkansas Livestock Show in Little Rock and all my friends and I skipped school to see him. It was rather sad in that as soon as people caught sight of him and got used to it, they started walking away in the middle of his speech. I'm sorry to say I did it too, because the carload of girls I was in was leaving.
I told my daughter once that I had seen two presidents and she asked me if one of them was Abraham Lincoln.

4)I know I have divulged this before, but not in its entirety. I am sorry to bring up the subject of puking again (see above), but the last time I ever threw up was St. Patrick's Day 1969. That's pretty impressive, isn't it? My kids never threw up either, when they were little. I don't know of their present upchucking history.

5) I was in an elevator with Muhammad Ali. I could have used my Wicked Witch imitation here, but I've already shared that. Also the fact that I can recite most of the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Old English. I'm going to do it next time I'm in line at Hannaford's.

Okay, whew. I got five. I will have to come back in and post the names of the five friends I will tag. Do I have five friends? Tune in and see.

Later in the day: Okay, here are two friends.

One is the lovely and talented
Elizabeth Graham .

The other is the devilishly handsome and also talented

Mark Vender .


God, I'm good at this. Pasting that computer code down like Elmer's Glue, baby.


Be here now, folks, because it's all good.

Except for the bad parts.

love,becky

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Starting a new book gives rise to excitement, optimism, hesitation, and fear in equal measure. Like Van Gogh's starry night, the new world I wish to enter looks bright and mysterious to my eye. It brims with possibility. My brain boils with new characters and funny names and odd conflicts. But after only one page in Dalliance Woman, I am not sure about the voice. First person or third? My previous books have been all in first, so maybe I should switch. Then again I like first and seem to do best in it, so maybe I should stay.

Maybe I should pick a non-dairy whipped topping.

Maybe that's what Van Gogh saw in the sky.

It's exciting to be starting over. My new friends beckon. I know that if I go forward each day, the book will get written. There's the optimism.

But then the fear lifts its ugly non-styled head. Maybe it won't work. Maybe it will be stupid and sappy.

NAH.

I am a goody two shoes, Mary Poppins at heart and always have been. I see the bright side. I can't help it.

It's all good.

Mostly.

So here I go.

A bientot, Vincent,

love,becky

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Ten teens, one unforgettable day

Over the course of a single day, the lives of ten teenagers will intersect in powerful and unexpected ways.

Among them are Nicole, whose decision to betray her best friend will shock everyone, most of all herself; Kelly, who meets the convicted felon she’s been writing to for years; and Maria, whose definition of a true friend is someone who will cut her. Derik discovers his usual good looks and charm won’t help him get the girl he really wants, while Joy, a fifteen year old waitress, hoping for true intimacy, narrowly escapes a very dark fate.

Seamlessly woven together, this collection of interconnected short stories paints an authentic portrait of today’s teen experience that is at once funny, moving, and often very haunting.






Nightmares. Dark Secrets. Premonitions of Death.

Welcome to Stacey’s World!

With over 250,000 books sold, the Blue is for Nightmares Collection is now available as a boxed set, including a copy of Stacey’s spell book, filled with some of Stacey’s favorite home remedies.

It begins with the dreams. White lilies, the death flower. Being chased through the woods, knowing she cannot outrun her pursuer forever. Visits from the spirit of a girl who was murdered. Threats and taunts from an unseen assailant.

But that’s only the start. When the dreams begin to spill over into Stacey’s waking life, that’s when the nightmare really begins.


About the Author:
Laurie Faria Stolarz grew up in Salem, MA, attended Merrimack College, and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. She is currently working on Project 17, the companion novel to Bleed, also for young adults. To learn more about Laurie, please visit her website here.

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I love opening a new box of chocolates and contemplating all the possibilities.

I love the high school track in my town. It's peaceful there and special to me because all my kids played on its field, two in sports, one in the band. Sometimes I think I still see them as I walk around.

I love Christmas night when the whole shebang is over and I can enjoy leftovers and maybe a little something in a glass while my daughter makes a fire in the wood stove and we watch television.

I love my friends, each in a special way.

Same with my kids.

I love Keuka Lake in New York state.

I love the Buffalo River in Arkansas.

I love CATCH-22.

I love Fridays.

I love chocolate ripple ice cream and hot fudge and Dairy Queen.
Also Caesar's salad, salmon, lemon potatoes at the Aegean, and broccoli.

I love Handel's Messiah, especially "Unto Us a Son is Given."

I love writing a bit or a scene or a chapter that flies out of my fingers like it has a right to be here.

I love Broadway show tunes, although not Sound of Music.

I love Liza Minelli in Cabaret. I could watch it every night.

I love the Red Sox. I love hating the Yankees.

I love a giant cup of coffee with cream on a Saturday morning.

I love a few TV characters, but not many. I love Lucy, I guess.

I love John Boy.

I love working hard at a goal and accomplishing it (rare).

I love Lavender Smoke lipstick by Revlon which is no longer made. Boo hoo.

A bientot
love,becky

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This guy works in the dairy and never speaks to a living soul. He's cold most of the time so I guess it makes sense. He may be a serial killer. His overalls are creased. He carries that pitchfork in case someone forgets that he is NOT there to answer questions.

I SAID I DON"T KNOW.

Okay, sorry.

He is certainly not there to help you retrieve a particular kind of yogurt from the top shelf. And I wouldn't turn my back on him while he's holding that thing.

She works in the front as a cashier. She falls into the general cashier profile in that they are either young teenagers or middle-aged women. The only part she doesn't fit is that she isn't Chatty Cathy like the other older ones who will talk till you beg for mercy. This one is really and truly pissed off. Probably because she's married to Dairy Man. Imagine going home to cook tuna casserole and crease the overalls for HIM every night.

You can see I am not over my Hannaford's obsession, even though they have now obviously been trained to ask about my well-being as I approach the checkout.

"How are you?"

"Me? Are you talking to me?

"Yeah. How are you?"

"Oh. Well, I guess I'm--"

"Whatever. I need a bagger here."

I'M PRETTY GOOD TODAY SINCE I GOT THROUGH HALLOWEEN WITHOUT KILLING ANYBODY OR GETTING SUED BY LITTLE KIDS WHO BUNCHED TOGETHER ON MY KITCHEN STEPS SO DEEP THAT I COULDN'T OPEN THE DOOR. I GUESS THAT MEANS I'M BETTER THAN YOU, YOU SNIVELING CONTEMPTUOUS ARROGANT NONENTITY. THANKS FOR ASKING.

Okay, I'm better.

Happy.

Cheerful.

Next post? Love. All the things I love, including crostic puzzles and Keuka Lake.

A bientot

love,becky

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