Pork and Ice Cream

When I woke up this morning I knew, it was going to be a long day. The cold had settled in like an unwelcome relative, selfish and insistent. I drug my sleepy body out of bed and headed for the coffee pot, but before I could get there the phone rang. I glanced at the clock, 6:45… this can’t be good.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Brady?”
“Yes.”
“This is the Carter County Police Dept. we believe we have your dog.”
“My dog?”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my eyes and looked around the room.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. He was picked up last night outside the Tasty Freeze.”
“Okay…”
“We’ll need you to come down and post bail.”
“Bail…?”
I looked around to see if anyone else might be here to understand the parts of the conversation I was missing, but I seemed to be surprisingly alone.
“$250.”
“What?”
“$250… it’s mainly for the damages.”
“Damages?”
I knew I was sounding ridiculous, answering everything as if I didn’t hear him, but it was more just the simple act of understanding.
“He ate the cone.”
“Pardon me?”
“The cone… the big one with the chocolate swirl… the one that sits outside of the shop.”
“He ate it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So, I need to pay $250 to get the dog back.”
“That, and the medical bills.”
“Medical Bills.”
“The cone was pretty big.”
At this point I was wondering if I was actually awake or if this was some crazy dream. I pinched myself. Hard.
“Ouch.”
“Ma’am?”
“Nothing. So how much were the medical bills?”
“$2500.”
“But the dog’s okay?”
“Not exactly.” I decided to wait him out on this one. “Actually Ma’am, we lost the dog.”
“He died?”
“No, we lost him. When he came out of the anesthesia, he jumped off the table at the Emergency Vet’s office and ran out the door.”
“So, I have to pay $2750 for the dog and the damages and you lost the dog?”
“That’s it!”
I rubbed my eyes and thought of the coffee that wasn’t even percolating yet.
“Can I ask you one question?”
“Of course.”
“How do you know it’s my dog?”
“We called the number on his tag, and you answered the phone.”
“Well that solves everything.” I said.
“It does?”
“Yes, it can’t be my dog, because I don’t own a phone.”
The police officer on the other end of the line sat quietly for a second.
“I called… an.. and you answered,” he finally stammered.
“Yes.”
“So, who owns the phone.”
“Obviously, the dog.” I said and hung up the phone. I crossed the room, bent down to pet Pork, my two year old, Great Dane that loves to eat ice cream and then slowly made my way to the coffee pot to make my morning Joe.

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." ~Ray Bradbury

Drink up...

Cujo

Cujo was written by Steven King totally blitzed! He admits to it in my absolute favorite book of all time, Steven King On Writing. He seriously doesn't even remember writing it.

It leads me to wonder whether we let the little elf speak his mind better after a couple of cocktails. Let’s test, shall we…

My very good friend Sue just sent me a recipe for Cosmos. It’s not just any recipe- it is the BEST RECIPE EVER!!! I can only give this opinion after my third. My typing is slow but my mind is a racing. I happen to think the best poem I ever wrote, was after a few glasses of a fabulous Cabernet. I will include that at the bottom.

For now, lets just go on an exploration.

I had a thought the other day about humility. What does it mean, and can a human being actual achieve it at any complete level? So, we’ll start the story there…

Brad Pickens walked with the confidence of a three hundred pound prizefighter. No matter that he was really a buck twenty, and had the acne of an eighteen year old. Even at the ripe old age of forty-two, he knew where he was going, all the time.

Today his goal was a park bench in the middle of Grand Avenue. The place in his sights, was teeming with vagrants and pigeons, the dirty little things begging for every last bite. As he rounded the corner, he saw his goal, and swiftly placed the bag as he strode past.

Fifty feet from the target he stopped by a tree, as if to tie his shoe. Slowly he turned and leaned, without any overt action, he watched to see what would take place at the bench he had chosen.

Ten minutes past, then twenty. Pickens busied himself with a newspaper someone had haphazardly thrown away in the trash bin next to him. As his timer rounded to 22:22, she came along.

Kate Williams was coming from a doctor’s appointment. She was mulling over the facts revealed to her in a completely clinical manner. “Mrs. Williams, your biopsy came back positive. It’s cancer…” the information after the fact, was a blur. All Kate needed at that moment was a place to sit down. She stumbled to the bench and placed herself upon it as delicately as she would fine china. Then she sank into her misery.

How can this happen to someone so young? How can this happen to someone with so many plans?

Pickens watched her with exclusive attention, biting his nails and wondering about her story.

Finally, Kate looked up through her clouded eyesight, and noticed the bag resting attentively next to her. Her first thought was to leave it and go home. Then, the curiosity that had been a part of her since she was four years old, won the battle. She opened the bag.

As she pulled out the money, Pickens walked away. She found the prize and what she did with it from there was her plan, her decision. He walked away without knowing what the tears meant that fell unabashedly down her perfectly shaped face. He didn’t need to know. All of that wasn’t part of his story.

Kate frantically searched the faces around her, looking for someone that would reveal to her what was happening. How does this bag of money relate to the worst possible moment of her life? How can it be sitting here without any strings attached? The questions were too much for the moment.

Slowly Kate lifted her spirit from the bench and walked from the park towards her home.


(from suz) I’ll have my editor check the commas’ later. Ha… here is the poem I wrote in a happy elf speaking state. I love it; I think it tells the story of my sister and her husband very well. Thank you August Briggs.


The Music Never Lies

See through drops of wine
Run down my perfect glass
I ask myself quietly
Why don’t the good things last?

A perfect love between the two
A girl and boy so young
Of all the lyrics playing
A perfect song they sung.

He always loved the music
Different kinds, a different tune
Their lives the perfect melody
All gone, disappeared too soon.

She lives her life in memories
Her boys they live it too
All shades a constant reminder
The memories seem so few.

Now everything is different
The road that they had taken
So suddenly it ended
In happiness forsaken.

The killer hides in constant shadows
Of how it could have been
How happy the life of four
No truths will ever amend.

The lies are not uncommon
Among the guilty parts
Their truths are deeply hidden
Among their troubled hearts.

And in the end, who pays the price
But not for she who cries
Her boys and her will always know
The music never lies.