Sometimes you hook a lunker...sometimes you're the bait

     "Adventure of a lifetime in the jungle," my husband read the travel brochure aloud as we planned a vacaction with our best friends at an all inclusive resort in Mexico.  
    Upon arrival, we signed up for an all day adventure with three historic stops. Our first stop in the ninety-eight degree heat, was a visit to the Mayan Ruins in Tulum high atop a mound overlooking the turquoise sea. That tour was akin to a religious experience for me. We were inspired as we perspired and listened to the native tour guide who sounded like a preacher backslapping congregants and prefacing every sentence with, "my friend."

      If visiting the ruins was an epiphany for me, then our next stop, swimming in a cenote` felt like being baptized in holy water. Cenotes are a phenomena our guide informed us, natural fresh water wells considered to be gifts from the ancient Gods. The Yucatan Peninsula, the only area of Mexico where cenote`s exist, is composed of limestone rock which has eroded over time creating numerous caves and cenote`s as big as ponds. These natural wells were the  only potable water source for the early inhabitants, thus they were considered holy grounds. Holy or not, there was no way I was going to sacrifice my dignity and take the plunge off a cliff fifteen up. I did not join the line of people atop the ridge waiting to dive. I did dog paddle.

    Our next stop was at a banana plantation where we swam in a blue lagoon that rivaled the one in the movie by the same name. I floated in the salt water, completely relaxed until my husband shouted, "Here I come!" I watched in horror as he and his buddy rescued a woman who had swum beyond the boundary and was being slammed against a wall of coral and tugged by the current out to sea. They encouraged her to kick her feet and SWIM! But they did most of the work. When they arrived on shore exhausted, she laughed and said, "I can't wait to tell my husband about my wonderful adventure." The guys were not the least bit amused. She didn't even thank them.

     Our adventure continued the next day at a national park. We spent a handful of quarters in the gumball machines which dispensed a fistful of fish food. We tossed pellets to the turtles and to colorful tropical fish. When it was time for the snorkel trip, we were issued life vests. My friend and I wanted the orange heavy duty, I-don't-care-if-I-do-look-like-a-dork vests, while our husbands opted for the lightweight, barely-there life saving devices. We were handed snorkel masks and instructed to spit into and smear our saliva on the glass. Ewww! My nerves were on edge. Being on a small watercraft in the middle of the deep ocean wasn't my idea of fun and relaxation.

      Somewhere between spitting into our masks and practicing breathing through our snorkel tube, we lost sight of our husbands. When we finally saw them, they were at the dock being shuffled onto a boat with thirty other people. As we made our way to them, the captain slammed the loading gate and roared off with our guys on board. Despite our protests, the next boat captain assured us we would meet up with the other boat. My best friend and I plopped down on a wet seat, snugged our poufy vests and held on for dear life. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted the other boat up ahead, but passengers were all in the water, and we couldn't tell one persons' swim-suited hiney from the other. 

       We couldn't see our guys, but we saw a pipe fish and gave each other a thumbs up. When we saw the barracuda we kicked our flippers and beat a path back to the boat. We baked in the sun, crusting with brine, inventing fantastic adventure fables to tell our husbands.    

      Back on shore, our husband's jabbered at warp speed about their own excitement. My friend and I winked at one another and began our schpeel. "We were dumped, alone in the middle of the sea..."  Our make believe story didn't compare to their real adventure.
         "We swam away from the group, and in a flash we were surrounded by an entire school of fish," my husband reported.

        "Aww, that's nothing, we swam with a barracuda!" I bragged.
    
       "Yeah, well these fish kept getting closer and closer; we were eye to eye with them. They were as big as us. Tuna-sized. They nudged us. We swam like hell back to the boat."

      Back at the shower house, the guys discovered why the fish were nudging them. They were LIVE BAIT. Their pockets were stuffed with mushy fish food pellets."
 

A fishy story from the tuna-size guys, if you ask me.
Oh, how I am yearning for a beach.

 

 

Hugs to you, too

The weather in St. Louis (middle of US) has been so bizzare. Yesterday it was mid 70s and today we are under a tornado watch and expecting snow tomorrow. Unreal!

Hubby likes watching storms brew over the ocean. I like being inside when the lightning shatters the sky. Speaking of ocean, thanks Kim for sending me the FB message: My body may be here, but my mind is at the beach. SO TRUE!

I love it when I find a treasure on the beach as I'm walking in the sea foam. It's the same way when I latch on to the perfect word or phrase when my fingers are heating up the keyboard. I am so busy trying to keep up with blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the book I am co creating. PLUS teaching my little darlings.

I am not neglecting you, and I will get back to regularly blogging, soon. Hugs to all my readers. Thank you for standing by me during this busy time.

Huh-uh, not your mama's books

Click HERE to read the inside scoop on Publishing Syndicate's development and upcoming production schedule for Not You Mother's Books...On ( a variety of topics). These are anthologies with a dash of spice.

There are plenty of submission opportunities and calls for upcoming titles. Kudos to Ken and Dahlynn McKowen and the rest of the team who have worked diligently to release the first three books.

I am busy co creating Not Your Mother's Book...On Family. Permissions will be sent in the near future if your story has been selected for first round consideration. That is not a guarantee that your story will be published. The final selection is made by the publisher, and often times when stories are cut, it has little to do with your writing ability, and more to do with layout and other technicalities.

Will you please pass this information on to others who may be interested in submitting to the other titles in development?

Childhood can be so confusing

These are my babies, Jason, 39, and Tracey, 42. Hubby hates posed pictures; he prefers candid shots, but each Christmas I insist. We're really not snooty. Those noses are up in the air in an effort to hide double chins, and we were holding our breath trying to suck in our guts.

Gazing into the faces of my adult children in this picture takes me back to their early childhoods. I loved being a mommy. Jason had enough energy for a small army, and Tracey had a mouth that would outlast the Energizer Bunny, but they brought such joy to my life. That's not to say there weren't battles.

So often (like most adults) I reasoned on an adult level instead of simpling acknowledging their desires and feelings. I sent mixed messages, said one thing and did another which confused them. It is difficult to be consistent with daily routines and discipline. Discipline is not synonymous with punishment; discipline should be helpful and not harmful. Sometimes the consequences of a child's actions is the best teaching tool. I could go on and on about the things I have learned over the years that I know now and wish I had been able to apply then.

This evening at the grocery store I watched a sweet, calm little boy about four years old standing alongside his mom's grocery cart. His face lit up when she opened the ice cream freezer and peered inside. He said, "Oh boy! Are we getting ice cream?"

She closed the freezer door and said, "No, not today."

He walked ahead of her and I heard what he muttered: "There's another reason why I'm always confused."

I had to laugh. Not many preschoolers could sum it up so succinctly.

Hollywood Debut

I am not going to admit to anything, but I'm not going to deny it, because I realize those bubble cameras capture images in the public areas, but not the public restrooms. It may have been me, or it may have been my Hollywood stunt double (in case they rewind the film for viewing.)

It had been a long time since we'd been to Harrah's Casino, way out yonder, almost at the shrinking, river's edge. But when we received notice that along with a name change to Hollywood Casino, they were offering an evening buffet for $7.77 on Monday, we decided to take twenty recreational bucks a piece and take advantage of Hollywood before Hollywood took advantage of us.

"Better leave early," he-who-lies-about-how-much-he-spends said, exercising his pointer finger which depresses the thirty cent buttons on the so-called penny machines.

I was all for waiting another hour before leaving, because I knew after fifteen minutes, my twenty would be history and where to sit and wait would be a mystery. As it turned out, I sat at one machine for an hour and tripled my twenty, and you-know-who had his chin on his chest and his mouth salivating for dinner when he found me.

At 4:00 the buffet line started swelling like my bladder. The bathroom was waaaay down the hall and I knew I could hold it until we got upstairs to the restaurant/bathroom.

So, we joined the throng, and oh my, there are some colorful characters who wait in line for an hour for food. The babe in front of us had bleach blonde long hair, and she wore a fake fur coat, knee high boots and a thigh-high dress. I could hear her conversation as she spoke to the young man in front of her.

"I earn more out here in the hall than inside the casino." I leaned in to listen. "My husband also won a thousand out here playing the life-size Monopoly game. And my name was chosen as a winner of a thousand another time. Oh! Here he comes now."

This cute strut-his-stuff cowboy about thirty years old, walked towards us with his father. The old dude slipped under the velvet rope and snuggled up to the other $1,000 winner. The dude kept walking. When the $1,000 couple decided to sit down on a bench to the right of us, rather than stand for another twenty-five minutes, I nearly swallowed my tongue. This babe, with bright red painted Mick Jagger-like lips (Carol Channing for the older readers) was no babe. She was at least seventy. And when she sat down, she exposed a little more thigh than is needed for the younger guys' eyes. She was the talk of the line...until I had to go to the bathroom.

I KNOW absolutely for a fact that the ladies john has always been on the left side, and the mens room to the right. I clomped right in and wondered why there was a man standing at a URINAL???  Thank God he had his back to me. He cast a wary eye over his shoulder and I bolted back down that long hall, head down, to the food line and shifted foot-to-foot. Exercising, that's what I was doing. Yeah, exercising. Worked up a little blush/flush.

Now that I think about it, maybe it's Lumiere Casino where the ladies room is on the left and the mens room on the right. Oh gee whiz!

Do you smell that?

You know how aromas can transport you back to childhood? I'm not talking cookies from the oven or bacon sizzling in a pan. I'm talking non-food related smells that evoke early memories.

I loved the smell of my grandma's damp basement. It was not musty-smelling. It was more like fresh laundry. I can envision her cranking the handle of her wringer washing machine as she fed soapy clothes through the rollers and deposited them into a long-legged wash tub filled with clean rinse water. The clothing was sent back through the rollers again, placed in a woven wooden basket and hung on a clothes line with wooden clothespins. She held  clothespins in her fist and mouth. The cotton clothesline became so heavy, she used a seven foot wooden prop to raise the line so the clothes didn't drag the ground. My! We've come a long way since washboards, wringer washers and clothes props.

At five years old, I tagged along with my mom to the S.S. Kresgee or Woolworth's dime stores to purchase oil cloth. A rack held dozens of horizontal rolls of colorful, patterned material (cotton, canvas, duck or linen) treated with a coating of linseed oil to make it waterproof.  Oilcloth was a practical way to cover kitchen tables. Unlike the plastic-feeling, flannel-backed tablecloths of today, which are made of fabric and coated with poly-vinyl chloride, oil cloth was biodegradable.

I can still remember that distinct linseed oil aroma. Oh the excitement I felt in helping to decide on a new pattern or design, and then watching as the sales lady removed the  forty-eight inch wide roll of material from the rack, laid it on the counter and used her large scissor to cut off a yard or two. That smell lingered in our kitchen, the vibrant colors as exciting as a new box of crayons.

When you write a story, whether for publication or your own personal memoir, be sure to include aromas that transport your reader to a place and time. They don't have to be delightful smells, either. While some people like the smell of  gasoline, I can't stand it. I used to ride a public bus to school, and the exhaust fumes were headache inducing.

Care to share an aroma memory?

His compassion cracked me up

My adult stepdaughter is a special education teacher. It takes a special person, believe me. She is so enthusiastic. Last year as a new grad, she was a paraprofessional or teacher's assistant. This year she has what she's always wanted, her own class of nine or ten students, first grade through upper elementary grades. She's a dedicated, wonderful, caring teacher who always goes the extra step for her students.

She was reading a story to the class. They were seated on the floor, each in his or her own space. Then, with each turn of the page, they inched closer and closer into her space until they were crowding her. I know that feeling and I can't take it either.

I tell my preschool students in a cartoonish silly voice, "You are too close to me, please scoooooooot back."

She told them in her normal voice, "I need you to scoot back." THEY TOOK ONE SCOOT
Still too close, she said, "I am feeling too closed in." ANOTHER SCOOT, but not enough.

Claustrophobia setting in, she wiped her brow and said, "I am feeling sick."

The kids scooted far enough back (who wants to be vomited on?).  One boy got up, presumably to get a tissue from the shelf behind her. He reached around her midsection and gave her the Heimlich Maneuver.

I can't stop laughing. This will be one of those teacher stories that she will share with her future grandchildren.