The rusty Studebaker rolled off the cracked pavement onto the dirt, finally creaking to a stop after 856 miles.

We logged a good day, he thought as he saw the sun quickly disappear over the blue ridge.

Kermit, a short and diligent fella, shifted “Bessie” into ‘Park’ and climbed down from his modified driver’s seat. His skinny legs were long enough to work the brake and the accelerator but his torso was understandably squat and he needed the booster seat to see above the dashboard.

He was, afterall, a frog.

His passenger, a bear, was snoring loudly with his mouth agape.  Fozzie was still completely unaware that they had stopped for the night.

Kermit looked around the campsite. In the growing darkness, he spotted a clearing to the right and a large oak tree a few feet to the left.

This will be fine. 

Then he heard it.

Splish…  Splash!… A small splash followed by another splash… The unmistakable sound (to a frog) of a fish jumping out of the water to catch unsuspecting bugs at dusk.

His stomach grumbled as he hopped toward the sounds and the grey boulder that sat half in the water and half onshore, the perfect reptilian dining spot.

He licked his lips and readied his tongue.

With a flash, it grabbed a passing mosquito and recoiled with the delicious meal wrapped tight.

Mmm… delicious!  Kermit reached out and caught another and then another.  Dinner. I haven’t had fresh flies in ages – nothing but fast food off the highway.

Fast food for a frog means leaning your head out the window and catching whatever zooms by. Not exactly a civilized way to eat.

After a long day in the car, this was the perfect treat – to a frog.

___________________________________________________________
This was a quick piece for Write on Edge. The assignment: write about a fictional road trip in 300 words. I went with the first thing I could think of which was Kermit. I seem to be channeling alot of Kermit and his awesome excited arms lately. You know where he goes YAAYYYY!!!!

OK that’s all I got.
Have a great weekend all!

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s one of my favorite videos of all time. From The Muppet Movie: Movin’ Right Along.

The post Movin’ Right Along appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

High above her head, the twine pulled taught and a tiny brass bell began to ring.

ting. ting. tingggg.

“Another one!”

Excitedly, Denta leapt up and reached for the tweed sack that lay at her feet. The moonlight around her became speckled with silver and gold dust as she rustled her plump form to attention.

Dust.

Wings.

Silver…

She held her breath and waited as her heels slowly lifted from the floor, then her tippy toes. Quietly, softly, she began to rise, out the open window and towards the huge glowing moon, her wings leading the way.

The crisp air tickled her nose as she rose up and down with the night zephyrs of summer.

Within minutes Denta hovered outside the window and peeked through the blinds. She watched carefully and counted.

One… two… three… ten… twelve…

She looked for the familiar rhythmic breathing and twitching and then reached into her sack. With a dash of glitter at the window, she flit through the pane and softly landed next to the sleeping babe’s ear.

Carefully, she wedged herself under the pillow and searched for the treasure, the reason why she was there tonight. Being so small, this took a couple of minutes of careful prodding before she could locate the tiny pearl. Until…

There it is!

A perfectly chipped and shiny tooth, evidence of the first 5 years of one little life.

Stemming her excitement, she quickly swapped the tooth for a silver coin and scuttled back the way she came.

Looking back over her shoulder, she held her breath and slowly rose up into the air, towards the window, and out into the night air.

Source: Aaron Pocock (click image for link)

____________________

This week I participated in a flash fiction challenge from The Red Dress Club.

Here’s the prompt:  Flash Fiction can be fun and a real challenge. This week focus on the words and the strength of each to contribute to your story. Write a 300 word piece using the following word for inspiration: LIFE.

Anna lost her second tooth today and this small piece captures what is going on in our lives right now, a little visit by the Tooth Fairy, whom I will call Denta.

The post A Fairy Visit – Denta appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

Bacon, Egg and Cheese on a roll. photo - Sue Roberts

“Bacon, egg and cheese please”
Brian starts to assemble my order with a sense of familiarity; a fluidity.
How many of these has he made already today?

The B.E.C. or, sometimes, the H.E.C.: Ham, egg and cheese, a classic breakfast sandwich and THE staple for all hangovers after a night out in NYC.

Kaiser roll. Fried egg. Crispy, crispy bacon. American cheese.

While the griddle sizzles, my hands start to shake.
My insides churn, desperate for sustenance. Something please to soak up the alcohol.

Feebly, I murmur: “Coffee. Regular. Please.”

Glaring from behind my dark sunglasses that so far have protected me from the harsh lights, I watch as he first generously scoops the sugar, then squirts two shots of pale blue milk into the cup. Finally, he pours the steaming black silk into a paper cup emblazoned with blue greek keys.

Why the hell, do all the delis in NYC have the exact same paper cups? Somewhere there is a very wealthy Greek paper cup manufacturer…

I watch as he methodically snaps the plastic lid on.
Yep. Probably better to wait until I’m back upstairs. Just in case.

I spy a neon orange Gatorade in the fridge across from me and motion towards it.
My head is throbbing… my eyeballs hurt. Each step takes extra effort, extra concentration.

I pull the cold drink from the cooler and immediately condensation forms around its neck.

It’s going to be so hot today.

I weakly twist the top and with a loud crackle the lid unsnaps from the plastic ring. Even this requires me to pause.

What the hell did we drink last night?

I remember pitchers of margaritas when the waiters came to prepare the guacamole at our table using a pestle and mortar, chopping each and every ingredient fresh in front of us.

Was that all I ate? Guac and chips?? No wait…

Then I think there were beers after the quesadillas. Then another margarita maybe?
Then a cab. Lizzie ordered a fishbowl drink and more beer.
Someone bought shots. Tequilas. Two rounds.

Did I get up on the bar???

The sugary drink greets my lips and my tongue is immediately grateful for the relief. But I wince with each sip.

This drink is way too sweet. Blech…

Electrolytes.

Drink it.

I shuffle back towards the deli counter, praying that my lifeline is ready. That I can grab the white paper bag and head upstairs. To my bed. To recover from last night and all those drinks. Into the air conditioning. Where I can hide. Until tonight.

Oh crap… drinks, tonight...

[box type=”bio”] Note: This may, or may not, be a piece of fiction. A reflection from my younger days while living in NYC.

The prompt from The Red Dress Club was to write about “about gluttony – eating and drinking to excess. ” With a word limit of 600.[/box]

DON’T FORGET to enter the Fabulous Fabkins Giveaway!

The post Bacon, Egg and Cheese appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

High up on the 14th floor, the bedroom was pitch dark, blacklight shades entombed her. The streets below had finally quieted with the only sound from city buses screeching at the corner light; a familiar lullaby she had thought she would never get used to.

An hour ago, her daughter had been coughing, that whooping, alarming cough that keeps a mother from truly nestling into the warmth of her own covers.  The potential for hacking sounds from the converted dining room next door caused her to be ready to dart to her baby’s side.

The neighbors had been arguing all evening, something about a green rental car and a missing cell phone.  Three times she had grabbed the broom and rapped at the ceiling for them to shut up. Finally she heard a door slam and she was grateful for the only sound now coming from the shuffling of the victors’ feet on the wood floors above.

Her daughter was only lightly sleeping… the slightest thing would start the coughing fits all over again.

Her mind had finally stopped racing and her eyes softly fluttered and then sealed with the determination to get rest.

Tonight she would steal maybe just five hours of precious sleep.

All she wanted was five uninterrupted hours.

Her body exhaled as each muscle melted into the familiar mattress. Her breathing shallowed and rhythmically her chest rose and fell into a pattern.  Finally, she was sleeping.

—-

She heard her name being called but she couldn’t pinpoint from where. Something was in her hand and she heard her name over and over again. Finally she realized the receiver was just inches from her ear.

“…h-h-hell-” Sheila tried to swallow.

“SHEILA! …SHEEILA!… ARE YOU THERE?!”

A man’s voice shouted through the earpiece and echoed in her bedroom.

“…hello?”

“SHEEILA, WHY AREN’T YOU HERE?”

Her lips were cracked and her mouth was dry, Sheila tried to answer: “Who is this?” but only half of the sentence croaked out. She tried again, this time with more air behind her words: “WHO IS THIS?”

Her voice was still groggy and unsteady.

The man on the other end was strangely familiar but she had no idea who was calling her name.

“SHEILA!! WE MISS YOU GIRL! YOU SHOULD BE HERE!”

The man’s voice was complimented by three other strange voices, all of them shouting. She couldn’t make any of them out.

Her heart started to race as became more and more alert. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and slowly the numbers came into focus. 3:31AM.

Shit – she thought.

From the other room, she heard her daughter rustle and start to murmur. Then she heard a cough.

Her hand rubbed her eyes and then her hair as she let out a huge yawn. She was not yet awake as she tried to concentrate.

“Who IS this?” she demanded.

“It’s Brian!  We wish you were here girl!”

Then it clicked.

Brian. Prom.

Tonight was prom. She was supposed to be out with her friends enjoying the last night of high school madness.

But instead she was here, sleep deprived, worried about her baby girl in the next room.

Last year, she’d spent the entire night with Brian talking about what their senior prom would look like. A lot had happened in a year, she’d forgotten completely about tonight. Her priorities had changed.

“I gotta go” she said as she lunged the handset back into its cradle.

She heard the mounting cries and labored wheezes from the room next door.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and shuffled to her baby girl.

This was fiction that I wrote for the Red Dress Club. The assignment was:
“In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you?”

I have never written fiction before. It was not easy and honestly i had no idea where I would end up. Part of me hoped that if I started I might spit out the next “Twilight” series, alas, no such luck.

The post A Baby’s Sleep appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

I was not allowed to chew gum. My parents told me that it looked like “a cow chewing its cud” and it was not polite. So I was never allowed to have it, which of course only made me want it more.

One day, while at the grocery store with my mother, I found myself eye-level with the most beautiful bright pink wrappers I’d ever seen. It was just calling my name…

“Mommy? Can I have that gum, pleeeeeease?”

“No Sara, you know the rules”

My spirits deflated immediately.

There I stood, sulking and staring at the most gorgeous bright florescent pink wrapper I’d ever seen.  I thought I could smell the scent of strawberries through the package and could just taste what I thought would be heaven.  I just had to have it.

So I took it. I hid the marvelous pack of gum in my pocket, never taking my fingers off my prize the whole way home.

When we pulled into our crooked driveway, I ran to my bedroom and shut the door.

My was heart racing as I carefully peeled back the string and paper at the top of the gum package. The pink wrapper gave way to shiny silver, and diligently I took out the most perfect rectangle of Bubblicious Bubble Gum.

My mouth immediately started to water as the smell of sweet sugar reached my nose.

Quickly, I popped the giant pink confection in my mouth and tried to start to chew.

Slowly, methodically, I tasted the sugar, the sweetness. I chewed and I chewed. Moving the wonderful gum from the back of my mouth to the side and back to the other side. Each bite, releasing more and more flavor.

Then, without warning, I heard a door shut and I snapped out of my reverie.

Quickly, I spat the chewed gum into its wrapper and stashed the evidence under my bed. Carefully hidden out of sight and just under the dust ruffle of my brass bed with the white bedspread and green flowers: my treasure, my forbidden bubble gum.

For the next three days, I cherished my stolen treasure. Carefully sneaking away to taste the forbidden treat and practice chewing the gum like I’d seen the big kids do. Each time as a new piece entered my mouth it made the sides of my cheeks sting from the shock of sweetness.

Until one day, when there remained only 2 untouched perfect pieces amidst the pile of wrappers and chewed remains. It was laundry day, and the sheets were stripped from my bed. And I was caught.

With hands on hips, my mother asked me how the gum had gotten under my bed.

I lied and said I didn’t know.

Without skipping a beat, my jacket was thrust into my arms and my mother started driving us back towards the grocery store.  We drove in silence while inside my mom’s pocket, she carried the last two pieces of MY gum.

We entered the store and my mom asked for the manager. She reached in her pocket and silently handed him my last two pieces of Bubblicious.

He looked down at the package and then at me, then at my mom. After a quiet pause, he looked at me again.

Then with a very angry furrowed brow, he told me what happened to people who STOLE. I heard the word “police” as I stood there paralyzed with fear.

Finally, after what felt like eternity, I summoned the courage to speak, and I muttered, as best as I could, how very sorry I was for stealing his Bubblelicious and I promised to never, EVER, steal again.

And I didn’t. EVER.

This is a true story that happened when I was 5 years old. I wrote this in response to a TRDC writing prompt: “write about a treasure that was stolen from you or your character, and what you did about it.”

I should have known better, in fact, I did know better (otherwise I wouldn’t have hidden the wrappers) but I think this was a part of my growing rebellion, you know right before kindergarten when I really peaked. You can read about that here.

The post Into Evidence: Bubble Gum appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

I had planned to go around the world then move back in with my boyfriend of twelve years, only hopefully as his fiancée.  But that didn’t happen.

This trip was to be our escape from the hell we had just experienced and a chance to press restart. After my mother’s death, we were both mentally exhausted and decided to run away.  I went to Nepal, he to Costa Rica. We planned to meet up in Vietnam and then tour Southeast Asia, traveling for 3 months or until we ran out of money, whichever came first.

On the day we arrived in Indonesia, the rupiah hit record lows.  The country was in a financial meltdown and we appeared to be the only 2 tourists on the island of Lombok.  The Sheraton’s airport runner begged us to follow him to their resort by dangling room service on an oceanfront balcony practically for free. After weeks of hostels and a few extra bucks left in our hiking pants we jumped at the offer.

The setting was romantic and perfect but I couldn’t have been more obtuse.

With five days left in the trip, every time he put his hands in his pocket I imagined a ring box emerging. But no little velvet black box materialized, only the clunky key fob from the Balinese hotel we were staying at.

I started to feel like a complete idiot.

Over continental breakfast on the balcony, I asked him what the plan was when we returned to New York.

Silence.

I got up the courage to ask him if he saw us getting married. The look of shock was an answer in itself but I heard him say: “One day. But not, now.”

There was no turning back from this point. My life had just taken a major detour, I packed my bags. He held my hand in the cab to the airport and we tearfully said good-bye, I love you, and I got on the next plane for the States.  Over the next few weeks, we only communicated by email in order to divide up our belongings in storage.

My two best friends, my mother and Alex, were no longer by my side.  I cried, I wallowed, and I had a real good pity party with friends. Then, I crawled out from under my covers.

I had loved him, I still did.  And even though I had thought we should be married, he was right, we should not. Not now…

He knew what I did not yet; I had lost my true self to my grief and the safety of our relationship.  We’d have to risk saying good-bye in order to find ourselves again. Getting married because everyone expected us to was not the answer.

Over the next year, I went back to work and moved into my own apartment.  I reconnected with friends and made a new life for myself.  I took a film class and traveled to the Great Wall of China. While I still grieved for my losses, I saw myself smile and I heard myself laugh.  I focused on my likes and dislikes, I focused on myself, until…one day… there I was… ME… and I promised to never let her disappear again.

Every day I strive to remember the important lesson of this detour, to stay true to myself.  I’m much happier for it, and after nine wonderful years, I am happily married to my best friend, Alex.

Us

Thank you honey, for loving me enough to let me go so I could find myself again.

This week’s Red Writing Hood assignment is to write – fiction or non-fiction – about a time when you took a detour. Where had you intended to go and where did you end up?

The post Detour Back To Me appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

via Getty Images

Into the Deep Blue

My mother passed away in July of 2000 and for the next three months I wondered why the world was still turning and how I could possibly assimilate with any of it. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I knew I just needed to escape.  So my boyfriend and I put our things in storage and I ran away to Nepal, he to Costa Rica.  One month later, we reunited in Vietnam, continued on to Thailand and then broke up in Bali; but that’s another story.

On my journey, all the foreign sights and sounds around me demanded that I surface from my haze and take notice of where I was.  But despite the beautiful scenery and people, I refused to acknowledge why I was there, or what had brought me there.  For three weeks as I hiked with a group of Australians across the Annapurnas not once did I mention my mother or her death 4 months earlier. I quietly trekked and lived in my grief.

When my boyfriend and I made it to Vietnam, he suggested I try scuba diving. It was a short tandem dive and we only saw the sandy bottom of the sea.  By normal diving standards this was a complete bust, but to me – it was amazing… The idea of existing underwater brought every mermaid fantasy to light.  I was instantly hooked.

At our next stop in Thailand, we immediately got deep dive certified and jumped on an 8-day live aboard. This is not scuba ‘light’- this is serious.  The boat took us out to the Andaman Sea where we did nothing but dive 3 times a day and then pass out with exhaustion at night.

On one of the deep dives, my scuba guide took me around some amazing coral reefs, they were teeming with schools of fish, eels, turtles, mantas and sharks. The water was crystal clear and the most amazing shade of blue everywhere. Colors were bursting from the fish and coral and the only sounds I could hear were the bubbles from my aspirator and my own rhythmic breathing.

We were deep, deep down on the sea floor… It was beautiful.

Soon enough, we were running low on air and out of time. As he signaled me to follow him to start our ascent, he led us away from the reef.  We swam out and away until we could no longer see the reef behind us and there was nothing but blue in front of us. We rose 20 feet and then stopped. I was completely enveloped in blue.

There is a moment in diving called perfect buoyancy; when you no longer have to work to stabilize your body in the water around you and you are perfectly suspended using just the air in your lungs and weight of your body. You float effortlessly.

He swam off horizontally and left me in my own sphere of blue. I could not see another person, the surface, or the ocean floor.  I worked until I achieved perfect buoyancy then… just floated.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. Blue. Nothing but beautiful, beautiful blue.

I started to feel why I was there. What had brought me there. Why I was in Thailand in the middle of the Andaman Sea. I had lost my mother. My best friend.

In this beautiful blue I floated surrounded by the warm water.

I started to feel again. I allowed myself to feel.

Slowly, I started to shed my skin of being the dutiful and grieving daughter.

I took one more look around me and slowly started to kick my fins.  Slowly, slowly, I started to ascend, never going faster than my air bubbles above me… slowly, I rose up through the blue.

Then finally, with one last kick I surfaced and saw the bright sunlight that was waiting for me.

The post Into the Deep Blue appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

SF bay area craigslist > for sale / wanted > free stuff

free iPad, iPhone and MacBook (san francisco / new york / miami)

Date: 2011-02-24, 3:26PM PST

Reply to: [email protected]

FREE – one iPhone, one iPad, one Macbook laptop and anything else with an internet connection that I can find in my house.

Available to the first responder that is unmarried and without children as I wouldn’t wish this on anyone else.

My wife and I are not on speaking terms any more. She has finally gone too far and therefore I am giving away what I think will tick her off the most. Her electronics.

She is a self-described nerd with an addictive personality.  In the early nineties, I watched her turn into a zombie when the Sims game launched. For hours she played in these reality worlds building fake cities and families. At first I thought it was hot, I mean a tall blonde chick that likes Tron and can speak geek?  But when she dissed me one night in order to install a fake power plant for her cyber city, I knew we had a problem.  I finally said something and steered her back to planning our wedding and her real job. She begrudgingly put the game aside.

Two years later, when faced with fertility problems, she again turned online and found a forum of women experiencing similar issues.  She checked in daily with these women, and told them when we “baby danced” and when her “cervical mucous” was primed.  I ignored the growing addiction that was brewing because I considered it cheap therapy that didn’t take away from my golf membership fund. Plus it was anonymous, at least I thought it was, now 5 years later apparently we exchange Christmas cards with these ‘fertility friends.’

With the birth of our daughter, my wife then discovered facebook and plastered photo after photo of our princess for the world to see.  Since nobody stopped her or said anything, she continued after our son was born. The fertility friends joined too and they continued their online therapy sessions.  I’ll admit I was kind of ok with this too because hey, our kids are pretty cute and the photos kept the extended family informed.

But recently she’s discovered blogging. She now blogs, tweets and researches constantly. It was fine when I had lost her to seasons of reality TV, like Real Housewives of Beverly Hills whose insipid heroines gab about plastic surgery and designer handbags. But yesterday was the last straw…

I came home to find that the kids had had 2 pieces of wheat bread with cheese for dinner. Not a grilled cheese, just bread and cheese.  Mommy was too busy blogging.

To say, she has an addiction is an understatement. She is wired-in, twenty-four-seven. I had to email her just so we could have this fight. It was a doozy and I’m hoping this intervention of sorts will snap her out of it. The kids are looking malnourished and I’m sick of feeling ignored.

So email me if you want all her stuff, but be forewarned, nothing is free and these electronics do come with a price.

I will deliver or ship for free.

Signed,

Disgruntled husband.

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 223288557A

The previous was submitted as part of a writing project for the Red Dress Club.

We want you to imagine you’ve just had a fight with a friend, a co-worker, husband, significant other, child – you get the picture. You’re mad. It’s time for revenge.

What would you sell?

Write a humorous listing for eBay or Craig’s List. Talk about the history of the items, why they must go.

I couldn’t think of who to be mad at, so I decided I’d be the guilty party in this little experiment. While Alex did not really say these things, since this was the Valentine’s day card I gave him this year, which he loved, I’m guessing he would have no problem signing his name to this ad!

Whose stuff would you sell? OK no more blogging for me (for now).

The post Craigslist Ad: free iPad, iPhone and Macbook appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.