SLS: Sweet as Honey

Jim offers us a sweet prompt for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday and I chose “Tupelo Honey” by Van Morrison, a love song that has always topped my favorites list. This was the title song from Van Morrison’s 1971 album of the same name and released as a single in 1972. It has the same melody as his “Crazy Love” and “Why Must I Always Explain.” It reached no. 47 on the US pop chart.

You can take all the tea in China
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail right around all the seven oceans
Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey
She’s an angel of the first degree
She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

Aww. But why can’t we have tea and love? See, I don’t really understand that part ~ why should we throw all the tea in the sea just because we found a sweetheart? It’s all about compromising, I guess. Tea or love, can’t have both. Guess I choose tea, but I still love this song.

~*~

Image from Pexels.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

SusieCakes Review [repost]

I picked up two cupcakes from SusieCakes in Newport Beach last week, but then ~life happened~ and I didn’t try them until a couple days later. So, this review is not going to be complete and I may have to return and try other flavors in the name of fairness. Oh, woe is me.

First, parking at SusieCakes was a big pain in the butt. I passed the place the first time because buildings in SoCal are notoriously unnumbered and had to make a U-turn (I hate U-turns ~ remember my U-turn ticket and subsequent traffic school experience? Gah!), which I did in a motel lot, going in the wrong direction, almost crashed into some crazy chick going in the right direction (what is UP with people following arrows like automatons?)… and finally found SusieCakes mashed into the corner of a strip mall off Westcliff that had an extremely cramped parking lot filled with fancy cars and ginormous SUVs.

Second, SusieCakes is impossibly pretty, chock-full of adorable desserts and sweet little tables at which to sit and nom. I wanted ALL THE THINGS, but luckily I was forced to focus on cupcakes (for science!), else I’d be standing there all day unable to decide. I chose lemon and mocha, again resisting my faves in order to test new flavors.

How cute is this cupcake (above)? Unfortunately, by the time I tried it, the cake was stale, so I can’t give a fair assessment. There was lemon filling, which was tangy and not overwhelming (I dislike filling that takes up a high percentage of the interior). The frosting was still delicious after three days! It had that lovely buttercream snap and was perfectly sweet and citrusy.

Same deal here with the mocha cake ~ stale after three days, which of course is not SusieCakes’ fault. Again, there was tasty mocha filling in the right quantity. I adored the frosting! While I’m not a chocoholic, a coffee/choccy combo floats my boat. To me, that’s much more interesting than chocolate alone. And the slight crust with the still-soft inside was perfect. How I heart buttercream! I dare whipped frosting to stand up to that test, hah.

Despite the first world problems I had in traveling to and parking at SusieCakes in Newport Beach, I think I should return and try more cupcakes ($3.00 each).

What say you?

PS: Wrote this in 2013 and haven’t been back.

~*~

Images are mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Puzzles [socs]

“When you complete a puzzle, you know that you have made all of the right choices.” ~ Robert, in the 2018 film Puzzle.

Maybe that why I like puzzles so much ~ life is so chaotic and complex that you never really know if you’ve made the right decisions. As I alluded to in my flash fiction piece earlier this week, it’s sometimes so difficult to make a choice that you wait until the choice is made for you. Maybe that is the right one; maybe not. How can you know unless you try them all, which you can’t. But in a puzzle, if you try the wrong piece, it won’t fit, and you keep trying different ones until you find the correct one. And so it goes, until the whole puzzle is finished. It’s just so satisfying to realize that you couldn’t have done it any other way.

Currently, I don’t do puzzles. Gatsby would grab the pieces and mess them up, plus I don’t have the room I used to. But it’s more than that. As I’ve aged, I find I have neither the patience nor the stamina for intricate tasks that go on a long time. Puzzles, needlework, cookie decorating. It all makes me too tired and my eyes get bleary. My daughter gave me some nice puzzles along with a mat (to roll up a puzzle in progress and keep the pieces safe from kitties when I’m not working on it), but I haven’t even opened any. The puzzles I do now aren’t of the jigsaw variety. I prefer quick word games.

But I look fondly back at my memories of doing huge jigsaw puzzles with my mom while we watched scary movies in our basement in Illinois. Good times.

I guess I have to amend my first sentence to “I used to like puzzles…”

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

PCF4: Lavender Moon

Lavender moon floats
Upon waves of twilight mist
Summer’s end is near

~*~

Welcome to my Friday afternoon paint chip prompt. There are other paint chip prompts out there, but they’re very precise in what they ask for. Mine is open ~ write a poem, a story, a memory, whatever you like. Take your inspiration this week from Valspar’s “lavender moon” and/or “twilight mist.” Tag your post Paint Chip Friday, or PCF, if you wish. Prompt will continue until December 31.

Image is from Pixabay. Poetry form is haiku.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

My Favorite Bouquet

Flowers will fade,
Wither and die,
No matter how gorgeous
They look tonight.
Cookies get eaten,
Holes form in socks;
My favorite bouquet
Is a pile of rocks.

~*~

Image is mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Lunch in the Rain [tlt]

Armed with a deluxe picnic basket and a bottle of champagne, he took his girl down to the boat only to discover a sky full of angry storm clouds.

She kissed him and said not to worry because they could have their romantic lunch on the dock under the shelter.

As they clink glasses and smile while the rain teems down, he realizes romance is all about attitude, not location.

~*~

Written for Three Line Tales.

Image credit to Federico Beccari @ Unsplash.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Foodie Q

PCGuyIV has a Truthful Tuesday Q for us today:

When it comes to dining out, does superb quality of food make up for subpar service, or does stellar service make up for lackluster food?

Nothing makes up for subpar service, in my opinion. For example, one of my Meetup groups keeps ending up at restaurants that can’t seem to handle a large party. Either they forget entrees entirely, or they bring the wrong thing, or they’re simply inattentive. It’s really annoying and makes me not want to go anymore. The actual food, if it ever shows up, is pretty tasty, but still, it’s a buzzkill. I don’t “punish” the server by leaving a bad tip, or no tip, since I suspect the fault is with management. But even so, I am inclined not to return, despite the nice conversation. I guess I’m just not that lonely.

Stellar service doesn’t make up for bad food, but I’ll make a confession: I am not a foodie. Ordinary food is fine with me, as long as it’s prepared properly and served in a reasonable amount of time. I am not a gourmet and prefer pizza or a sandwich to anything fancy or complicated. It goes without saying that if a server forgets the utensils or napkins or a beverage, I’m gonna get super irritated. And before anyone starts about Covid bla bla or minimum wage… that’s not my problem. If they can’t manage to bring me a freaking house salad (what I ordered last week at this stupid place in Huntington Beach), then forget it. I am not going to spend more money there.

Look at that pizza! It’s making me hungry. I find pizza places don’t screw up much, but sadly a lot of people don’t eat it for one reason or another. Oh well.

This coulda been a Monday Peeve… but that’s OK. Now I have an idea for next week’s.

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Surprise!

Peeking through the window, Lydia’s surprise turned to horror when she saw them stumble drunkenly up the boat dock, trip, and drop the birthday cake splat on the ground.

“Grandma?” she said to the snoozing old lady in the rocker. “The guys are here for your special day.”

“Wha’ day?” Grandma mumbled.

Lydia hadn’t wanted the party at all while she was hiding out, but her brothers had simply shown up. Any excuse to down some brews, she guessed and rolled her eyes.

“Your ninety-fifth birthday!” Lydia pasted on a fake smile as her brothers banged on the door and hollered. All she had to do was stay gone another 24 hours and she would get everything, while her ex would end up blamed for the whole financial fiasco.

“Hey, guys!” She opened the door and hugged her annoying siblings. It was nice they still cared about Grandma, even a little.

“The cake met with a little accident, Lyd,” Gary said. “Sorry about that. Maybe we can bake one.”

“Who’s this?” Lydia gestured at a fourth man behind the group.

“He’s a friend of Tommy’s,” Brian said.

Tommy belched. “I thought he was Gary’s friend.”

The man stepped forward and shoved an envelope into Lydia’s hand. “You’ve been served,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

As Lydia watched him stride away, detouring around the smashed cake, she felt her careful plans crumble to ruins.

~*~
Image credit to Kenrick Mills @Unsplash.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See and Fandango’s Story Starter.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Double Doggy Smile

My smile for the week is this pic of my daughter and son-in-law’s doggos. You may remember Rory, their golden retriever, and joining her now is Lily, a corgi and shiba inu mix. Diane and Sam brought Lily home on Saturday, and within a few hours she and Rory were happily romping around together. (Contrast this with our finicky cats who took 6 months to merely tolerate each other.)

Lily is only 7 months old and I can’t wait to meet her in person at Thanksgiving! And of course see my daughter too, etc.

~*~

Image credit to Sam Karp.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Decisions [fffc]

There were so many paths he could take. He watched his peers each decisively choose a door to their future, while he waited, weighing the pros and cons of each. Just when one path was leading the pack, he became beset with anxiety, knowing it would close off the others. He was startled at how quickly some doors disappeared as he kept waffling. Tomorrow, he vowed. He would sleep on the remaining choices and make his final decision in the morning.

When he awoke, every door had vanished but one.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.
Image from Writerscentre.com.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.