On The Double

So I’m entirely too late to do a Theme Thursday, but I don’t care. I’m doing it because here, on Sunday, I finally came up with a good idea.

This week’s Theme Thursday word is: Double.

Here we go, a short short story with an ode to the word double.


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So I was feeling kind of hungry and there was nothing good to eat in the house. Trying to calm down the beast of hunger, I chomped through a pack of DoubleMint, but that didn’t help. Exasperated, I put on my doublet and filled my pockets with dubloons and left the house on the double.

I did a double step down the boulevard, looking for a nosh.

Spotting my destination, I fell in to the In-n-Out burger where I satisfied my urge, doing double duty with a Double-Double and a large side of fries.

Well that was pretty darn good, but I was not quite full, and I left that burger joint looking for a little something more.

Right across the street was a Double Rainbow ice cream store where I doubled down on a double scoop of ice creamy goodness and ate it all down.

With all that burger and ice cream in my belly, I was truly in double jeopardy and had to undo the top button on my double knit polyester pants.

Now I wasn’t just full, I was double full, so I decided to keep walking so I could work off a couple calories.

As luck would have it, I rounded a corner and saw a bunch of kids doing double dutch. I hopped right in, jumping to the double rhythm long enough so I got double indemnity from the calories by having both fun and exercise.

To reward my hard work and to finish the day, I popped in a piece of Double Bubble and chewed it hard. I tried to blow good bubbles, but it didn’t work. The gum was stale. I took that pack back to the store and demanded a double my money back guarantee on my purchase.

With my refund, I bought a disposable camera to document my day. But I must have used it wrong, because all the prints came back as double exposures. And I ordered double prints!

Ugh. I don’t got no digital camera (<- double negative) so I guess I'm out of luck. Maybe I oughta go to Vegas where I can drop double nickels and try to hit double diamonds and win the double jackpot. Then I can buy a double lens camera and capture my double good days. Instead, I went home and got into my double bed and had beautiful dreams of riding a double decker bus and drinking double espresso. And that's all I have to say about that.






Image from Harvey Park District.


What Can BrownDog Do For You?

Hi. I’d like to introduce you to a friendly face. His name is Brownie.





Yeah, his owner didn’t work too hard on that name. “Why, that dog is brown. I know! Let’s call him Brownie!”

What his owner (a neighbor of my best friend) lacks in creativity, he makes up for in being a pretty nice guy.

Unfortunately, that good neighbor has fallen on some hard times. His small plumbing business had success tied to the housing industry. When things were good, Brownie’s owner was doing good. When the economy laid down and didn’t get back up, the business struggled.

Sad to say, those good folks had to sell their house, horses, and fleet of nice cars.

And that leaves us back at The Brown One who is an Australian Shepard. He has papers to prove he is somebody, and a yearn for herding in his blood.

Brown Dog is bunking down with my best friend’s family these days. Brownie was largely ignored for most of his early life, so the attention of a whole family and other dogs to play with makes him super happy.

You see, Brownie is a special dog. Or, speshul. One would think that The Brown One isn’t very smart because he leaps and rolls and bubble heads his way around the world. Sometimes that dog makes me shake my head. And my fists. He can be so dense, really.

Brownie is the kind of dog that will come along with me when I take a walk, not that I have any say in the matter. He’ll escape his confines and come along no matter what I think on the subject. And further, he’s the kind of dog who will run ahead of me on the banks of the irrigation ditch, then down in the bottom, will roll in the muck, then run back and jump on me.

And when I holler at him, he wags his tail and that tongue lolls out and he looks at me and says “what?” in doggy-nacular.

Damn dog.

There is only one human in the world who really understands The Brown One, and that is The Good Man (who I happen to believe is part dog, if you must know). The Good Man will take Brownie outside and throw the ball and play doggie games and Brownie gets WAY over excited.

For his trouble, The Good Man comes away with bruises and small bites up and down his legs. See, Brownie will get himself worked up and then try to herd everyone as is true to his breed. Brownie is a jumper so his “move it along” bites can go as high as the butt region on the well over six foot tall Good Man.

Ow.

All of the rest of us, we holler at Brownie. “Damn it Brownie! Brown Dog, DOWN! Brownie, stop!!”

The only human he’ll actually listen to is The Good Man.

What Brownie really needs is a job. He’s got this strong innate drive to herd cows or sheep or something herdable. Sad day for him, Brown ain’t got no herd to herd. Right now, Brownie would be a huge liability to an actual herd of animals because he’s not well trained. But with some work and some time, Brownie could be a damn fine cattle dog. He’s got more in that brain bucket than first meets the eye.

Instead he herds a group of humans who may or may not be his permanent people and those people yell at him all the time. Brownie just wants to run. He’s a country dog and knows no borders. He’s the sort of damn dog who will run at a car.

*sigh*

Poor Brown Dog.

But don’t cry for me, Argentina. Brownie has it all right. He’s landed with a family that gives him regular kibble and my two soft hearted goddaughters pull ticks and fur knots off of him and love on him and coo in his velvety ears.

And when he’s really lucky, Nina Karen brings The (Good) Tall Man to visit and someone finally understands.


Testing That Hypothesis

“You learn a lot about our society, who we are and where we are headed…and you learn a lot about yourself when you board a Southwest Airlines flight.”

Bob Fitzgerald, on his Feb 14th afternoon KNBR radio show.


To which his partner, Rod Brooks responded, “There’s a lot of truth to that.”

To which I replied, out loud, to my car radio “There’s A LOT of truth to that!!!”

Today I’m going in there for the sake of science, entertainment and friendship.

Yup, I’m testing that theory.

I’ll be boarding a flight headed for the garden city of El Paso. I gots me a social engagement in Las Cruces and some godkids to hug.

I hear there’s some green chile that needs eatin’ too. I’m on it.

Watch out New Mexico, here I come!!

Whoooo!






Photo Copyright 2007, Karen Fayeth. Taken just outside of Deming, eastbound on I-10.


It’s about damn time

Today, this is my horoscope:




Whew. Ok. Good. Compensation for “something that had to be done the hard way” is on the way.

Yes. Awesome.

I wonder which thing that “had to be done the hard way” will get rewarded? There are so many! I mean, at least three I can think of at work. A couple on the home front. And at least one ongoing creative project that was like walking through molasses.

Awesome. I’m so ready for the acknowledgement.

In fact, I’m gonna get out my catcher’s mitt. The big one for catching knuckleballs, cuz I don’t wanna miss this at all.

C’mon, Universe, lay it right in there!





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Not that I believe in horoscopes or anything like that…..*ahem*. But in case it’s true, good Ol’ Universe, just know I’m totally ready to receive!

With gratitude and whip cream and a cherry on top!





Image of catcher’s mitt used to catch former A’s Knuckleballer, Steve Sparks from Knuckleblog.


When a Good Idea Pops You Across The Chops

“Where do you get your ideas?”

It’s a question I get asked a lot. Sometimes with a shake of the head after reading one of my more out there blog posts. Sometimes with genuine curiousity.

I even talked about it a bit here.

Really, I think coming up with ideas is about being an observer of life. About noticing the little things here and there and then talking/writing/painting/arting about them.

For me, I’ve always thought the world is a fairly absurd place, and I find something to laugh about or think about (or both) every day. Ideas are everywhere. Around every corner. In the sky. On the ground. At the bottom of your cup of coffee. Yet so many still can’t see them or maybe don’t pay attention.

Then sometimes, a good idea pops me so hard across the chops that I don’t know how anyone could be oblivious.

Today, I had to have a minor procedure done at my HMO. The center where I had this done performs a LOT of different minor procedures so there were a lot of us, and my doctor was running late. This meant I had some time on my hands as I sat there in the ready area in my backless gown with a blue shower cap thing on my head.

I was separated from the other patients by only a thin curtain on either side.

I listened as the 88 year old lady in the slot next to me ran down the list of medications she is allergic to (quinine..what an odd thing to be allergic to), explained that her knees hurt all the time and could they prop them up. She was also quite determined to make sure every person attending to her knew it was her left eye that was the problem. She was very concerned over them getting the wrong eye. Very concerned.

There is totally a story there. I mean, I was already starting to craft it in my head as I waited. I wished I had my trusty MacBook so I could start making notes.

Then there was the 67 year old woman on the other side of me. She was there for a colonoscopy. She was clearly nervous, you could hear by her voice. She was very docile and compliant to everything the nurse asked of her, but she struggled a bit to get into her gown (I heard her muttering to herself).

When they came to get her for her procedure, I heard the nurse say, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have to take off your underwear.”

pause

Bwahahahaha!

C’mon! You can’t make this up!

But by far the best idea I heard all day was when the doctor came into the space next door (the lady with the eye issues) and said, “Hello Mrs. Sanchez. I’m Dr. Scary. I’ll be working on you today. This is my nurse, her name is Mercy. Are you ready to begin?”

A doctor called Scary and a nurse called Mercy? Tell me that isn’t a fabulous short story just begging to happen.

I was catching ideas with a butterfly net today!
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And for the record, for my procedure, I got to keep my underwear on.

Just sayin’.






Image from the Best Quotes and Poetry blog.