The 2024 RMFW Anthology is here! Visit with co-editors Paul Martz and Linda Ditchkus as we discuss these stunning stories.
Our video visit today!
Podcast: audio-only
Show Notes with Links:
Who came up with the theme for this year’s Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers anthology? Linda and Paul discuss the idea of Colorado’s Changing Climate and how it opened the doors to multi-genre stories.
They discuss what inspired them to co-edit an anthology of climate-themed fiction.
I ask about the tasks involved in creating the anthology and how they determined who did what. I guessed there may have been arm wrestling involved, but Paul corrected me. It was rock/paper/scissors!
Author and co-editor Paul Martz
We talk about the role fiction plays in educating society about climate change, and how there are stories for every type of reader represented in the anthology.
We talk about how a story by Nebula Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi made it into the book.
I ask Paul what challenges he faced as a blind editor.
Contact Paul at PaulMartz.com. He is willing to be a resource for anyone interested in publishing in Braille. He is also a contract tech writer for nbp.org, National Braille press.
Contact Linda at LindaDitchkus@gmail.com
Linda Ditchkus with Paolo Bacigalupi at the Crested Butte Words Festival, May 25th
MORE:
The release party for the anthology is 9/7, 11:30-12:30, at The Bookies Bookstore. https://thebookies.com/
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Heather is a licensed clinical psychotherapist, certified sex therapist, and life coach, specializing in helping people love themselves and create the lives they truly want, nurture meaningful, loving relationships, and have great sex. She has had a wild and varied career that includes being an army officer and a senior manager at Hallmark Cards. Her focus as a certified sex therapist is helping people in midlife and beyond with challenges like low desire, disconnection from their partners, shame, lack of sexual know-how and self-confidence, and erectile dysfunction so they can enjoy magnificent sex.
Show Notes with Links:
I ask Heather the who/what/when/where/why and WHAT inspired her to become a sex therapist.
She discusses her audience for her GREAT SEX PODCAST.
She talks about doing shows with her son and how it has enriched their relationship.
Heather and her son
I ask about her husband’s response to her fairly new venture.
With her husband
There seems to be a need now…shows like “SEX EDUCATION” and “BIG MOUTH”(animated). I ask her thoughts on those shows.
What is the topic of most concern?
I ask when she will do a live show with call-ins.
Heather talks about the feedback she’s getting.
Ready to record her GREAT SEX PODCAST
She leaves listeners with a message and a very funny story about sex.
FOLLOW drheatherengland on Instagram, www.lovefilled life.com, GreatSexPodcast
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
This will forevermore be my favorite profile photo!
When my friend Sherry Randall told me she planned to see Barry Manilow in Las Vegas the end of March, 2023, I decided to tag along. I’d never been to Vegas. I’d won a trip for two to Vegas back in the early 2000s after winning the Northern Virginia Bowler of the Year Award (traded it in for tickets to St. Croix), been told by countless people how horrible Vegas was, and had been warned about the still-smoky casinos, but deep in my heart I knew it was time to decide for myself.
Sherry planned the whole weekend. We’d see Barry the first night, attend a Cirque du Soleil (Mystère) the second night, see the musical SIX the 3rd night, and possibly recover from walking an average of seven miles per day our 4th night.
Barry Manilow…front row seats! So WOW!
Sometime over the course of our visit, one of us would turn $20 into $20,000 at a Casino. It (didn’t) could happen.
Without saying any more, watch this video compilation of highlights from our Vegas vacation and decide for yourself if it was worth doing!
Yes, it was SOOoooooo worth doing!
Happy to say I’m no longer a Vegas Virgin–and I would recommend an exploratory visit there to anyone who might ask! Make sure you go with someone you know will choose to have fun!
Laurel Stuff:
I applied for a job…they said I was overqualified! HA!
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Visit with us on YouTube and tour Darlene’s gorgeous studio!
Listen to the audio-only interview here!
Show Notes and Links:
Darlene is originally from Ottawa, and now lives in Toronto.
She earned a National Art Scholarship, granted to only six Canadian students entering Fine Arts based on outstanding potential in visual arts, and graduated from OCAD University (Ontario College of Art & Design University).
She talks about what she did before painting became a priority.
She discusses her painting process, darkness and light, and the “challenge to find a quiet place to balance all the activity” in her bold paintings.
Darlene talks about the Japanese concept of MA – emptiness with presence.
Her work is described as semi-abstracted spirited landscape and each painting is dotted with her signature, effervescent champagne bubbles. We talk about the bubbles!
She talks about traveling by train to paint the mountains for a Canadian Rockies series.
How does she choose what to paint from the hundreds of photographs she takes?
The “Dr. Suess” qualities of her work.
Calendars and other products with Darlene’s gorgeous work.
She is also planning her next travel destination for a new series of paintings…Find out WHERE!
Her “Paintings wait for their owners—their forever homes”
I ask where her dream place to work/live/paint would be, and we discuss how Covid has helped her with “letting go” and finding peace. We discuss melancholy and sadness.
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Well, I’ve written 18K more words than I would have written if I hadn’t committed to participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge! It’s unlikely that I’ll reach 50K words by November 30th, but that’s okay. Some progress is better than none, and I’ve recently joined a CCWE critique group, too. Getting great feedback on things I’ve overlooked and other writing “no-nos” I KNOW I shouldn’t be doing. It’s easy for me to catch errors in other people’s writing, and nearly impossible to catch them in my own.
And while I sometimes let “squirrels” distract me from my writing (the junk drawer, the sock bin, the yearly leg shaving and peel-off facial mask…you know the deal!), my distraction this month was the publication of this Christmas short story.
Although you don’t have to have read my Waterwight series in order to enjoy the messages within, you may want to read the books after sharing this short story with young ones this year. Imagine Odin telling the children about Jesus and Christmas!
I hope you might find me at the Georgetown (CO) Christmas Market this year, December 3 & 4 & 10 & 11. I’ll be there all four days! Local authors from all around Colorado will be there to autograph your holiday book purchases. Find us in the Community Center (613 6th Street) and help us spread some cheer!
And now, back to my novel…I will get the first draft finished before 2023!
Stay well, my friends, Happy Thanksgiving, and take breaks from news and social media (except my newsletters!) every once in a while!
“Let’s go tent camping,” he said. “It’ll be fun!” I said.
I frequently forget that I’m half-past 63, and the last time we tent camped was at White Sands, New Mexico in 2011 for the Bataan Death March Marathon. I completed the run, but the camping experience was a disaster, with winds strong enough to snap our tent poles and leave us fearing an airborne transport to the next county.
Still, on Friday the 13th, Mike and I loaded up the truck with an unopened tent we purchased before COVID-19, our mountain bikes, his kayak and my paddleboard, and enough sunscreen and snacks for an entire campground. We hugged our son Jake goodbye and headed to Fruita, Colorado.
Our plans for Friday included setting up camp, getting onto the water, going out to eat, and then letting the sounds and smells of nature lull us to sleep as we snuggled under our comforter. We’d hike on Saturday, bike on Sunday, and then head home feeling refreshed.
“You can have the shooting mat, I’ll use the Army sleeping pad.” Mike was generous in giving me the larger of the two mats, though I vaguely recalled it had no loft to it.
My memory was correct, but hey, I could sleep on anything for two nights. The tent was great, and I covered our mats with one of those soft, fuzzy fleece blankets. I removed what I thought was a filled comforter from its plastic bag—it had been years since we’d used it in a trailer we once had—and realized it was just a spread. So much for my memory.
But hey, it was really hot out, and the tent was great. We’d be fine.
We were surprised that our tent site was designated as a handicapped location but were delighted at how convenient it was to the parking lot. Mike told me it was the only site available in the whole campground—Lucky us! He failed to tell me another thing he discovered in small print when he rechecked our reservation, but I’ll get to that.
By the time we unloaded and set up our site, it was later than we’d anticipated.
“How about we walk to the Mexican food place and then just come back and chill,” I suggested. “We have all weekend to get on the water.” It wasn’t hard to convince Mike, and we did our best to hear ourselves speaking over the raucous diners who shared the patio space with us. Covid restrictions have atrophied our noisy-crowd-tolerance muscles.
“Let’s walk around the lake,” Mike suggested when we’d finished our chicken mole enchiladas. It was a lovely evening, and it looked to be about a one-mile trail around the lake.
One mile turned into several, which was good because Mike was feeling queasy, and I felt like I’d swallowed the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Evidently, Covid has weakened our dining-out digestive systems too.
“Oh, I didn’t know there was a train nearby.” I smirked at the memory of past camping experiences when train whistles had startled us awake throughout the night.
“Of course there would be.” Mike shook his head and belched.
“Ewww.” It’s pretty bad when you can taste someone else’s burp.
Ah! Nature!
A fabulous tent!
I win the scary face contest!
It was still hot in our tent when we turned off our reading lights, so we kept one end opened. Although one of Mike’s superpowers is the ability to fall asleep the moment his head hits the pillow, his gut kept him awake for the next few hours. I knew this because I kept myself awake giggling as I tried in vain to get comfortable on my bumpy, fleece-covered “shooting” mat. I have found over the years that it is better to giggle than to weep over discomfort, knowing that—generally—it will pass.
We were quick to realize that our convenient tent site was also convenient for all of the sites beyond ours. Hordes and herds of rowdy campers shuffled by our tent throughout the night, shining flashlights into our tent and occasionally even bumping into it as they passed. The convenient cement pathway meant for handicapped accessibility to our site was easier for them than the gravel pathway they should have taken to theirs.
“Hey! Get the chairs from the back seat!” A man who’d passed yelled over our tent to his son in the parking lot.
“Both of them?” Son yelled back.
“Get both of them.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes, both of them!”
“Both of them?”
“Yes, get—I’ll be right there!”
Oh . . . my . . . God. Mike was about to yell something inappropriate. I giggled.
At some point, Mike fell asleep. At another point, the temperature dropped precipitously. I pulled on my sweatpants and did my best to conserve my body heat, pulling the loose edge of the fleece blanket up and over half of my body and curling into the fetal position under the flimsy spread. And at yet another point, the shiver-sweating started. As snuggly and soft as fleece typically is, it was no comfort to me that night.
As exhausted as I was, between the Jake Brakes on the nearby highway and the sporadic train whistle piercing the night, there was a slim chance I’d sleep at all. Still, I smiled. Ah! The sounds of nature! And . . . what was that smell?
The small print on the website which Mike failed to share with me notified campers there could be occasional wafts from a nearby decommissioned sewer treatment facility. Yup. Ah! The smells of nature!
Remarkably, I must have succumbed to sleep sometime before sunrise, for I woke from a nightmare to the sound of birds . . . and brakes . . . and train whistles . . . and barking . . . and—
“Coffee?” Mike had made it through the night without barfing and had the Jetboil bubbling.
“Yes, please!” My entire body ached as I unfurled it from its flimsy blanket cocoon. The morning was bright and beautiful, and we sat in camp chairs on the cement walkway, sipping our brew and daring any would-be encroachers to schlep their gear through our site.
Shiver-sweating!
An invigorating 10K hike!
“Are you up for a hike?” Mike knew I’d barely slept, but there was no way we were going to hang around the campground. “We can get on the water after, and then . . . what do you think about going home?”
I was glad it was his suggestion, and happy to comply.
Our 10K hike took us along gorgeous trails punctuated by wildflowers, and we chatted with a local gal who asked where we were from.
A desert bouquet!
Pretty Prickly!
Popping Pinks!
Come here, bees!
Soft yellows!
“You live in Salida? What are you doing here?” she asked, exactly what we’d been thinking when we awoke. Mike and I looked at one another and grinned.
Back at the campground, Mike glanced at the kayak and hesitated.
“We don’t have to go to the lake,” I said. “We have all summer for that.” It was all the persuasion he needed, and we made short work of breaking camp and packing up. I texted Jake our change of plans and we made the trek home, laughing about the silliness of what we’d experienced and happy to return to the sights and sounds and smells of the nature surrounding our serene home.
“You know I live to give you something to write about,” Mike said, smirking.
“I know. And thank you! What a Friday the 13th!”
Devil made us do it!
We’re done!
But wait. There’s more. While offloading our gear at home, I noticed a new toilet tank supply hose on the kitchen counter.
“Jake? What happened?”
Here’s where I will tell you how much damage a split $8 toilet supply hose can do to hardwood floors upstairs . . . and carpeting downstairs . . . and the walls in between.
Lots.
If Jake hadn’t been home to hear the unusual noise upstairs, I can only imagine the devastation we would have discovered upon our return. Oh, and while we were driving home, my trip to North Carolina for our other son’s engagement party was cancelled due to a Covid outbreak. As I write this looking out onto our newly snow-laden landscape, I’m happy that I’d at least resisted the urge to plant all of my vegetable beds before going camping. I’m finding it difficult, however, to laugh over the piercing noise of the heating pads, blowers, and dehumidifiers strategically placed to blow and suck out all of the water from our once-peaceful home.
Blowers and suckers and so . . . much . . . noise!
And while I know that this “disturbance” will pass in a week, or two, or five, I always thought Friday the 13th was supposed to be just one shitty day.
But okay. I can still giggle.
Laurel Stuff:
Meanwhile, I’m working on a new science fiction series AND a children’s picture book AND recently published my first coloring book for the Waterwight series! (Photo Credit: Elise Sunday)
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
and we’re not quite “over the rainbow,” either! Dorothy had a spectacular dream–something I very much relate to–after being struck on the head during a “twister,” but the crazy winds we’ve been experiencing lately are real(ly irritating)!
Steinbeck wrote of drought, dust storms, and the resultant hardships on humankind. The Dust Bowl of the ’30s should be a reminder to us all that Ma Nature doesn’t really care about us and that–yes–our misuse/misunderstanding of the land can exacerbate natural climate patterns. But this newsletter isn’t intended to remedy anything. Rather, it’s a reminder that we generally get to choose how we will respond to inconvenient circumstances.
Will we allow the wind to make us cranky, keep us indoors, and remain incessantly vocal about how really irritating it is? Or will we consider WWSD (What Would Stoics Do)? While I’m not espousing the “keep it all bottled up inside” advice some may suggest, after we allow our natural inclinations to vent, we might then remember A Stoic Response to Complaining, and then readjust our response!
Catwalk at Bishop Castle (go ahead and experience how it sways in the wind…I dare you!)
As spring slides into summer, let’s stay aware of local conditions as a way of preventing unnecessary disasters. Dry winds (and personal negligence) cause horrific fires, and it looks like we’ll have many “red flag days” in our future. Let’s do what we can to spare our first responders this year . . . while still finding ways to enjoy the great outdoors.
Stay well, my friends, and take breaks from news and social media (except my newsletters!) every once in a while! Nothing stops the mighty Bagel from enjoying his hikes! :)
Laurel Stuff:
Meanwhile, I’m working on a new science fiction series AND a children’s picture book AND recently published my first coloring book for the Waterwight series! (Photo Credit: Elise Sunday)
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
… has nothing to do with basketball, at least in my world. The Googles define madness as “the state of being mentally ill, especially severely . . . extremely foolish behavior . . . a state of frenzied or chaotic activity.”
And don’t those characteristics define the month of March perfectly? When days alternately bring blizzards or brilliance, when our bodies have to adjust to the theft of a precious hour (maybe it’s time to move to Arizona or Hawaii?), when sleepy towns are held hostage by spring breakers shouting “YOLO,” when friends and Marie Kondo challenge you to a spring cleaning contest, when you hope the corned beef brisket you just bought for your annual St. Patrick’s Day cabbage fest isn’t all fat and gristle, when everyone’s telling you to BEWARE this ides of March (Caesar didn’t, and look how that turned out), and when you know Mr. IRS is waiting . . . well, what more madness must one person endure?
And so I make a point every day now to take a little break in the afternoon–I call it my carpet nap, though I don’t really sleep–with my feet up on the ottoman, and I do my best to endure my new buddy, who’s a pro at this nap thing. We all could learn a few things from Bagel. After all, he ain’t crazy. He’s my granddog.
Our son and his dog, Bagel, are with us now, and Bagel is a snuggle-hound!
May the rest of this month bring more brilliance than blizzards, and may you find time each day to unplug from the madness.
Wishing you all a Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’ll be cooking up the mandatory corned beef/cabbage/carrots/turnips/potatoes/onions on Thursday. Call it tradition, call it crazy, call someone you haven’t spoken with since Hector was a pup!
Stay well, my friends, and take breaks from news and social media (except my newsletters and blog!) every once in a while!
:)
Laurel Stuff:
Meanwhile, I’m working on a new science fiction series AND a children’s picture book AND recently published my first coloring book for the Waterwight series! (Photo Credit: Elise Sunday)
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
If you’d like to listen, I’ve embellished my reflections in this podcast episode. :)
“You should go.”
Mike had been preparing for this year’s elk hunt, and I had naturally assumed I’d be tagging along behind him, whispering haiku poems into my voice memo app and praying he wouldn’t bag a big one miles from civilization. A bull elk weighs in anywhere from 700-1,100 pounds. We may be strong for our age, and I’m about to turn pro on the speed bag Mike bought for me (there will be videos), but that’s just too much weight to haul from the wilderness.
“But . . . hunting,” I said. I didn’t want to appear too enthusiastic about his suggestion that I attend a gathering of West Point women on the Outer Banks of North Carolina that happened to coincide with his hunting week.
And now I offer great praise and thanks to my husband’s friend since childhood, Gene Dixon-Anderson, who, after reading my book “Hunt for Red Meat (love stories),” flew in from the East Coast to experience a Colorado elk hunt.
Gene and Mike scouting for “signs” of the wily elk!
So off I went on an adventure I’d never intended, pandemic be damned, and the night before my flight out, knew the trip would offer plenty to ponder.
To say I have generous and merciful friends would be an understatement. It was Mimi Finch who told me about the OBX event at our classmate Bonnie Schweppe’s beach house, and I spent the night before our early morning flight with Mimi’s family in Denver. They were still moving into a new home, and the guest bathroom had what I recognized as a bidet arrangement on the toilet.
Well . . . I may be on the downslope of the proverbial hill, but I’ve never “experienced” the workings of a bidet. Curious about how it might work—I wasn’t about to use it without knowing what to expect—I stood in front of it, reached down, and pushed what appeared to be a typical flush handle.
The powerful jet of water nearly knocked me over, and in a state of startled confusion—why wouldn’t it stop? I only pushed it down once!—I stepped from the torrent and watched in horror as it splashed against the opposite wall.
“Help! Helllllllp!” I shouted, closing the seat cover—that would surely shut if off!—and watching as water cascaded over the edges and onto the floor. “HELLLLP!”
Mimi and her sister finally came to my rescue—I wonder what they were thinking when they heard my call—and I learned a bidet lever is not like a flush handle. I’m telling myself I merely christened their new home, and I’m not sure I’ll ever personally experience this contraption as it’s intended to be experienced, but the incident certainly set the tone for the rest of my trip.
When Mimi and I landed, our “hostess with the mostess” met us at the airport and chauffeured us to a great outdoor restaurant where we met several other weekend adventurers, and by the time we all got to the beach house, despite the late hour, we established the unspoken rules—there would be late nights with enough M&Ms and music to keep us awake, and early mornings with sunrises no one would want to miss. Bonnie ordered ideal weather for us, and the gods complied.
This was the only day I did not swim in the ocean!
Now I’ll share the memories that will stick with me until those particular brain cells hibernate.
Champagne breakfast at sunrise on the beach. One of the youngsters, my king-bedmate, brought the champagne and crystal flutes, and Bonnie arranged the picnic basket. Soft sand, candles, and curious crabs greeted us, and we oooed and ahhhed as the blood-orange sky announced the rising sun, which soon silhouetted sleepy-eyed dancers and yoga posers in the ebbing surf.
Mimi Finch in her signature sunrise pose! So happy I captured this moment.
Strolling on the beach after sunset, and range-walking (that’s speed walking, for you non-Army folks) back to the house when the sky turned black and rain pelted our backs.
That’s a rising moon behind us. And then came the storm!
Diving through and being lifted by ocean waves, and the mandatory peeing in the sea. Absolutely glorious, all of it.
Ten women belting out Helen Reddy’s iconic song and being startled when I tear-choked over the words “Oh yes I am wise, But it’s wisdom born of pain.” I still choke up thinking about it. Ten entirely different women bonding over experiences shared decades ago, and each with distinctive memories of those events.
Along those lines, getting to know women from Proud to Be ’83, Best of the Corps ‘84, and For Excellence We Strive ’85, and being saddened by stories of rape and assault, discrimination and abuse, gross injustices that still somehow prevail in our society.
Writing my 250-word nycmidnight challenge story with a glass of bourbon while others shopped—being dubbed Laurel Hemmingway McHargue, if only!—and then sharing the story with the group over dinner. No one wanted to sleep with me that night—but several of them chipped in with ideas for a fairy tale that had to include drinking milk and the word heart. “Magical unicorn milk” . . . “the people who drink it get the power to eat the hearts of others” . . . and several other suggestions that would have required far more than 250 words to complete. I’ll read it to you after my reflections.
Winning a game of Scrabble because I got to put my “Z” for “zapped” on a triple letter score.
Three former “Rabble Rousers” going through their routine as we all sang “On, Brave Old Army Team,” the USMA fight song. Sadly, it didn’t help our Black Knights win that night.
So much dancing with wild abandon late into every night, fueled by M&Ms, wine, and joy.
The long walk over the boardwalk and through the woods—another mandatory peeing in the trees—and back along the beach.
“Old Grad” toes!
And who will ever forget the discussion of glass dildos and butt plugs? It had to happen in a group lucky enough to include a sex therapist.
It dawned on me as I traveled back to my Colorado mountain home that although each of us in that magical gathering has overcome hardships many cannot imagine, age-old insecurities still linger. Words like “not enough” or “if only” or “I’m too (fill in the blank)” or “I should” or worse—“I should have” . . . still plague us. And we have far fewer years remaining than those we’ve already lived. Will we ever believe that we are enough?
Mike always starts his morning with quiet reading time and hot coffee, and although I was slow to adopt this habit, I now relish this gentle way of reengaging with the new day. We read a passage from The Daily Stoic and then as many pages as seems right in whichever book we’ve chosen. Mike sets a timer, but that’s because he still works to keep me in the manner to which I’ve grown accustomed. I’ll never be that disciplined, but that’s a topic for another day.
Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is always nearby too, and I’m drawn to his idea that “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” I often struggle with rumination over past and future events, neither of which I can control, but I also often prompt myself to remember how I felt when I first read Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.
And I remembered it throughout my time in the beach house and on the beach this past weekend. I remembered to be present for every moment, for every dance, for every sip of bourbon, for every confession, for every song, every tear, every hug, every wave, every crab, every M&M.
In addition to my short story, I left a haiku in Bonnie’s guest book:
Powerful women Tribulations all endured Invincible us!
Despite late nights, we did not miss a sunrise!
Mimi’s husband, Ed, picked us up at the airport and her sister, Betsy, had late-night quiches waiting for us upon our return. I smiled the entire drive home the next morning after spending another night there, no more bidet incidents, and I felt—as I have been feeling lately—like the luckiest gal on the planet. With a husband who supports and encourages me to dance on the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy and friends whose generosity knows no bounds, how could I feel any other way?
“I am so, so happy I went,” I told Mike when I returned.
There was no fresh elk meat to process, but Mike and Gene made their own man memories over miles and miles of mountainous terrain . . . while I danced in the sand and embraced a sisterhood of extraordinary women.
And now, my story. The title (offered by another contributor to my creation): Sour Milk. The challenge required a story of no more than 250 words in the fairy tale or fantasy genre, with an action of drinking milk and use of the word ‘heart.’
Sour Milk
I’ll tell you a story that’ll have you think twice before smiling when someone says unicorns are sweet and magical. I know the real deal about those one-horned freaks. Seen ’em in action, and it ain’t pretty. It all started, once upon a time, with the first “blessing”—hahaha!—of those pompous beasts.* Don’t get me wrong—we hyenas might’ve done the same had two-leggers tried to capture us—but misunderstood is our middle name. We’re born with enough of a bum rap.
I watched in horror, tried not to laugh—really, I did—when they lured that first dude into their midst. Mesmerized by their seductive scent, he dropped his weapon, nestled down among them, and proceeded to drink the milk from one who’d just birthed another foul foal. Disgusting, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Full-bellied and drowsy, he was, when they crept around him in an ever-smaller circle. I appreciated their tactics. Must’ve learned that maneuver from us, and I suppressed another chuckle. Dude never saw it coming, though, probably thinking about his forthcoming good luck, but as soon as he lay back against the momma’s milk-soaked belly, her stud sprang forward, spearing him through the heart with his horn.
His blood made me giggle and drool, but they made quick work of the cleanup. Not a chunk of him left for me. Explains why no two-leggers ever report seeing a unicorn. Magical creatures, my ass. Selfish charlatans, more like it. Milk ain’t always heart-healthy. Hahahahaha!
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
That is not my favorite song this year. But while I’m saddened by the flash floods, the mud slides, the fires raging out of control, the ongoing political turmoil, the conspiracy theories, the persistent pandemic, I’m reminded that the radius to the edge of my circle of influence remains a stone’s throw away. As I stand in the center of my circle, I can choose either to complain, to feel trapped, helpless, and defeated . . . or to feel inspired to put more effort into those things within my ability to control, if only slightly.
I cannot control the weather.
I cannot control our government.
I cannot control those with opinions contrary to mine.
I cannot control this dastardly virus.
I can make the area around our home safer, I can minimize my carbon footprint, and I can remember I won’t melt in the rain (even on my witchiest of days!).
I can research issues and candidates intelligently and exercise my right to vote.
I can choose not to engage with those on social media platforms whose goals are to spread unsubstantiated falsehoods and provoke hatred, fear, and anger.
I can follow the guidelines recommended by legitimate professionals to keep myself healthy and to encourage others to do the same.
I’ve been working for hours in our garden and around our home recently because the unusual amount of rain this year where we live has caused an explosion of weeds–some lovely, most not so. How I wish I could wave my witchy wand and send the downpours to surrounding fires.
Here’s my latest YouTube video in which I share our garden and the magnificent efforts my husband invested to create the perfect place for veggies to conquer weeds (with help, of course)! Dirty Hoe Days!
I choose to be inspired. How about you?
:)
Meanwhile, I’m working on a new science fiction series! (Photo Credit: Elise Sunday)
Please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
