Happy Thanksgiving!

My smile for this week is that after being super extra careful all month, I drove alone 7 hours Tuesday to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter and her husband. It’s just the 3 of us (plus pets) and I’m having a great time. Last year, I flew up here and we spent the day with lots of other people, which was wonderful ~ nevertheless, I am so grateful I get to be with some family. (I will see my other daughter mid-December.)

Four years ago, my Thanksgiving week was depressing because I had just been dumped by a man I’d been dating. We’d planned to spend the day together (and do fun stuff the whole weekend)… then poof it was over. My younger daughter saved me from being totally alone by changing her plans and having a festive meal with me. We picked up a magnificent veggie feast from Native Foods. I was so thankful not to have to be alone when I felt so down. I haven’t dated anyone since then, and that seems to be the best way for me because I’m a total idiot at choosing which men to date.

I’m only human though, and I still sometimes think… what if? But unlike 10 years ago when I was newly single, I can answer that question by recalling my bad experiences since. I learned a lot from these episodes and there’s no reason to believe that a new foray into the field would have different results. This year especially has reminded me that I’m not only fine on my own, but I actually do better when not obsessing over what some random man thinks. I know other women date without getting so emotionally wrought up… but I’m not them. I tend to go to extremes…

I used to believe that the only good path was to have a partner to plan the future with, but life has a way of wrecking our plans and expectations (see year 2020). While I may not be totally footloose due to physical and financial limitations, I find it freeing that my future will be for me to choose, whenever and however I decide to make changes. For example, I don’t know exactly what I want to do or where I want to live post-retirement, but I get to decide that without having to consider what someone else wants.

Onto a more important topic: what will we be eating today? Welp, it’s not going to be the usual turkey and gravy feast, since there are only 3 of us here and 2 don’t like turkey. We are basically having sides, including baked sweet potatoes, mushroom stuffing, pasta, etc. We’ve already dived into the pie, and though there’s a bunch left (huge Costco pie), I’m thinking we might bake some cookies…

Have a sweet day, my peeps, however you’re celebrating or even if you aren’t. While I understand the historical reasons some may not think of today as something to be happy about, it can be soothing to take the time to be thankful for the good in our lives.

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Challenge [flash 148]

The knocking woke her from a hazy dream about summer fun… turquoise waves and soft warm sand and being held in loving arms…

Oh, it wasn’t the door—a torrential hail storm had begun. When she peeked out the window, she spied clumps of ice littering the garden. Her poor tomato plants huddled together in a sad droopy mess. At least they had each other, she thought.

As she put water in the kettle, she knew it would be a challenge to forget the fantasy of him and get on with a new life. She couldn’t control her dreams, but she was in charge of her waking hours. She remembered reading that completing small, mundane tasks would help the healing process and get things back on track. She vowed to start today.

First on the list was cleaning the freezer and disposing of his body. It was time.

~*~

Written for MLM’s Tale Weaver 302.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Word Play [flash 97]

“Fifty points, ha!” Emma chortled exuberantly.

“Qi?” Trevor said. “That’s not a word.”

Emma pushed the Scrabble dictionary at him. “Is too. Look it up. But if you lose the challenge, you lose your turn.”

“Fine, take your points,” Trevor huffed. “But I’m googling it anyway. Oh geez, Chinese life force, usually spelled c-h-i. No wonder I didn’t know it. That’s not a normal English word.”

“Trev, you can’t cling forever to your old-fashioned ideas of what’s normal. Qi is a perfectly cromulent word.”

Trev rolled his eyes and played “bitch,” but it was worth only 12 points.

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Universe [flash 124]

I thought she was my whole world, but I was wrong. She was my universe, and when she left, she took it all with her. Stars, planets, moons, rainbows… they’ve disappeared. I watched her depart with everything as if it meant nothing. She held it all as lightly as balloons on a string, with her blue summer dress floating around her pale skin like a cloud. I sit in the dark now, cloaked with the heaviness of loss, and people come and go with endless casseroles. I don’t speak for fear of blurting out my secret; it grows relentlessly larger and will soon consume me. On that day I shall emerge from this cave and join her, and we will share the universe again.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge 92.

Image credit Jordan_Singh at Pixabay.com.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Utopia’s Sunrise [LTTP]

The dream of utopia beckoned to me and I succumbed to its shining promise. I walked into the morning mist as music filled the stillness. An amazing future unfolded when your words painted a picture of forever bliss. And then the scene ended, they broke down the set, and I handed ‘round the coffees.

~*~

Written for Lynn’s Picture Prompt 21.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Underwater

Her mood’s not so buoyant
When the existential dread
Creeps across her fertile mind
As she lay silent in her bed.
She feels deep underwater
And overwhelmed by the tide
Of impending crash disasters
She conjures up inside.
Reading morning news
Jeopardizes peaceful day,
Replaces hope with hurt,
Strips serenity away.

~*~

Written for MLM’s Tale Weaver 298.

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Spurred, Not Shaken

When I saw today that the mighty Nox has returned with the Daily Spur prompts, I shrieked like a banshee. Well, not really. I don’t even know what a banshee is. All I know is that if you scream like one, that’s a lot of screaming. But not having the Daily Spur prompt in my list was certainly an intangible loss. I did try to hunt them down, but it appeared they were gone forever. And then poof! this morning they reappeared like magic. Creating new bloggery was a cinch when all the prompt words joined together in my mind.

Kumbayaya! Vote Blue! 🧢🦋🐬🌎💦

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Family Circle [flash 300]

Shelline had been warned to stay away from the door. Her blind grandmother had related tales of horror that supposedly occurred behind the leafy stone walls. “It’s a devil’s garden,” Nana had whispered hoarsely late at night when Shelline couldn’t sleep. “And a labyrinth to darkness from which there is no escape except by sacrificing that which you hold most dear. How do you think I lost my eyesight?”

But it had been a year of terrible adversity with the death of Grandmama in January and Shelline’s parents in the summer. The creditors would soon come to take this house and gardens, and Shelline would be shipped off to nasty Aunt Philippa. Shelline began to cry again as she wandered back to the stone wall and the vine-covered doorway. What could be worse than this life, she decided.

The air beyond the door was damp and cool, smelling faintly of mint. This isn’t so bad, Shelline thought… maybe I could stay here and be happy. A brook with bubbling fresh clear water caught her attention and fruit trees abounded. Beyond them, she discerned a vegetable garden and skipped off to investigate further. A scampering golden puppy joined her, licking her hand with its warm tongue.

“I shall name you Angel!” Shelline told the puppy as it wagged its sweet little tail.

Shelline and Angel strolled through rows of tomatoes and cucumbers and strawberries galore. Down the line was a scarecrow, but he wasn’t the least bit scary and bluebirds twittered around him. Angel woofed at the birds and Shelline giggled. Further back was a hut that seemed to be filled with gardening supplies.

As Shelline and Angel walked around the wooden structure, a familiar figure greeted them. “What took you so long?” hissed Aunt Philippa. “There’s much work to do.”

~*~

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge 101 (double the word count, oh well… I’ll follow the rules next time)

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

My Favorite Mistake

Dr. Tanya continues her blogging about bloggers’ blogs blog bloggery by asking what we did wrong way back when. My wayback is probably older than most, since I began all this in 2003, with a blog on blogspot named “Ultrablog ~ Purple prose from Orange County… it’s ULTRAVIOLET!” That was my Usenet nickname and a group of us were fond of trying new fads. I took to blogging right away and even purchased a template to match my purple theme. Loads of my fellow Usenetters have disappeared from Blogland and simply hang out on Facebook now. But I like blogging best of all social media. 😍

My posts back then were about me and my opinions. I didn’t post much or any fiction/poetry; instead I blabbed on about my takes on the news or annoying incidents and just whatever. I did jabber way more about my kids, people I knew, and even work a little. I hate to say this, but because I was married to a lawyer, I felt safe in doing as I pleased. I had no fear of writing absolutely horrible stuff to other Usenetters while engaging in “combat prose” (it was mutual) and adding my bit of badness to the atmosphere of awfulness that has become exponentially worse as time goes on. My Usenet attitude/persona carried over into my blogging. 😎

Most of my posts were short then, except a few frothy rants, and I generally flung some nonsense out 2-3 times per day. I received tons of comments and views because I had linked up with other bloggers who wanted to increase their stats, and we all visited each other’s posts constantly. I got totally caught up in the stats obsession and felt bummed out when my views sunk below 300/day or a post failed to get comments in the double digits. I participated in blog arguments and deliberately took on controversial views, all in order to get more “hits.” Finally, I ended up in a nasty flamewar (over pit bulls, lol), flamers began impersonating each other, my comment section got wrecked, and I quit. 😡

My mistakes were obvious: worrying about stats, deliberately fanning flames, jumping into arguments at other blogs, and revealing too much about my life, including photos. I consoled myself that I did less of all this than the super-popular mommy bloggers, but even so. Ick! 😝🙁😢

I missed blogging though. I began a few new boring ones, a couple private ones, and this one… which ended up as my favorite. The others are all gone with some archived in my own files. When I started on WordPress, I was determined not to care about stats, not to post about politics, and not to get involved in arguments. If anyone starts crap here, I ban them. I did make some new mistakes though ~ when I was dating (🤮), I would post about some of the things that upset me or that I found funny. Then, when I met someone I actually liked (rare), I’d frantically delete all the dating posts before they could read them. Rinse, repeat.

I haven’t deleted a post here in a long time. I doubt I would even if I met someone I liked romantically. They’d just have to deal with who I really am, and vice versa. 🤪 Not that I can imagine this happening imminently or even ever! 🤣 Anyway, I still enjoy blogging a lot, love the feedback on my writing, and have no plans to quit, despite the periodic glitches we have to deal with. Personally, I find the block editor a lot less annoying than that jerk who was copying our content a while ago. There will always be something…

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.

Images from Bitmoji

The New Guy [flash 145]

“So, I introduced Dad to my new boyfriend Ken last night,” Barbara said to her friend Midge as they perused the brunch menu.

Midge peered at Barbara over the menu. “Ooh! How did that go? He’s always had so much antipathy to everyone you’ve dated.”

“Dad is just quixotic.” Barbara shrugged. “He has such grand ideals, but normal people can’t live up to them. However, this time he was unperturbed by my choice.”

“I assume that’s because Ken didn’t argue with your dad about politics?” Midge smiled.

“Ken didn’t say a word!” Barbara laughed. “I’ve found a genuine trophy this time. The strawberry French toast sounds good to me today. How about you?”

“I’m thinking of a veggie omelette,” Midge said. “But I still think you could do better than a plastic blowup doll who never argues about anything.”

“Nah.” Barbara said. “I like dolls.”

~*~

©️2020 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon.