Free Write Bag Philosophy

 

 

The saying on a paper bag  was this week's prompt.

Julia's Free Write

Ah, the luxury, she was finally back in a cabin in the woods: how had she let it be so long? No excuse other than the necessity to see friends and family.

Not a complaint, mind you as she was very content with her current life, loved seeing her grandkids as well as having lunches and coffees with friends. She is blessed.

However, a little “me” time does not come amiss.

She had seen this opportunity a couple of months ago and assiduously guarded the next five days free.

Sleeping, awaking on her own timeline, walks both short and long, her favorite meal, what wasn’t to like about the scenario?

And to have the loan of a friend’s cabin, one with a newly installed fireplace insert that spread heat much better than the old, but still had the luxury of flames, life truly couldn’t get any better.

“I can’t, I’m fully booked” was her excuse for not accepting anything for those days: just most people didn’t realize that the “fully booked” meant 5 books to be read.

D-L's Free Write

Mattie tried to discourage Kai politely.

No she didn't want to go to the Les Mis restaurant, although she did just not with him.

She couldn't see him because she had to visit her mother. She didn't,

"A college friend will stay with me for a week," she said. She wasn't.

When Kai stopped in Matti's office, he found folders on the chairs in front of her desk. He asked her to a movie.

"I can't go. I have to take the garbage out." 

Who wouldn't take that as a hint.

Kai, that's who.

Mattie's friend Julie suggested a fake engagement ring.

If Kai noticed, he didn't say anything although when she stopped wearing it he mentioned the green circle on her ring finger from the cheap metal of the fake ring.

"I'm sorry it didn't work out. What if I treat you to dinner?" 

"I'm swearing off men for a year," Mattie said. Maybe by then he would have found someone else.

"I'll wait," he said. 

Mattie decided to change jobs, cities. There were more than one way to skin the cat.

(Note: I didn't use the prompt in words, just in implication that no matter what Kai asked, she was booked.)

Rick's Free Write

I can’t sit down without reading something. I have an insatiable need to absorb information.

Even if I’m watching TV news, I tend to read the headline ‘crawls’ at the bottom of the screen.

I used to read the newspaper daily. Worked for four different newspapers early in my career. Still occasionally pick up L’Independant in France or Tribune de Geneve in Switzerland.

But mostly I read on my phone. A stream of news and commentary emails. The Atlantic magazine, our only remaining online subscription.

When I’m not ‘doom scrolling’ on US, UK and European politics, or searching for content for my weekly aviation newsletter, I’ll work through a book, a few pages at a time. Typically, Sherlock is on my lap.

I lean toward fiction, especially crime thrillers such as Val McDermid or Harlan Coben. I confess to liking Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher, largely for the staccato style, though the plots are totally predictable: Reacher stalks and beats up bad guys.

I just finished what one critic called “the first great novel of the new century.” Some good phrasing, but way overwritten. A writer in love with lavish run-on sentences. I struggled to finish it, hoping it would get better. It didn’t. Out of kindness, I won’t mention the book title or author.

We’re well stocked with alternates. Just picked up about 80 books at the English Library’s semi-annual sale for about 3 euros each. 

About the Free Writers 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

 

The Ring Chapter 17, 18

 

 

MARGO LOUD STEINER

“STOP, STOP, STOP.” Margo said. Her tone wasn’t one that said an accident was about to happen. They had already pulled off the Autobahn for the quiet of the national roads to search for a small restaurant, not that the Autobahn didn’t have stops with good food.

Hans-Peter wanted a break from what he called the races.

“Where?”

“There’s a restaurant over there and it’s next to an art supply store.” Although she had loaded up on sketch pads and colored pencils before they’d left Stuttgart, she wanted to check what they would have that she might use while Hans-Peter was off filming at the dig.

He had called ahead to get her into any team meetings and access to any of the discoveries so she could copy the designs. Her reputation had opened doors for her that would have been closed to her when they were a young couple. As a young couple neither had any doors to have opened.

Tomorrow they would meet up with the BBC crew who were filming on spec that this would work into a full series. If not, Hans-Peter was happy with a single documentary. It would boost his book sales.

Hans-Peter helped her into the back of the Dacia where she could stretch out her leg along the seat. This car was bigger than they had when they were married.

Neither were proponents of big cars, but Margo needed space to transport her dishes, and Hans-Peter had books and other materials he used in his lectures including filming equipment.

“When we were young you said, ‘I don’t need to prove my manhood on the road,’ Margo reminded him.” “Still feel that way?”

“More or less. I drove a friend’s Ferrari once about six months ago. Beautiful machine. I’m too cheap to spend the money for something that does the job a used VW which will sit in the garage for weeks at a time will do.”

Margo smiled. She knew Hans-Peter used public transportation most of the time. She would have back home, too, except there was none.

“Art store or restaurant first?” he asked.

“Art store. I don’t want to risk they’ll close while we’re eating and there’s a certain kind of brush that will probably be cheaper here than in the States.”

 

THIS IS ALMOST a vacation which I haven’t had in umpty-ump years and it pours rain, Margo thought as Hans-Peter drove up to the little red house. Despite the weather, she didn’t regret saying yes to coming to Sweden with her ex.

He had a week of shooting for a BBC documentary on the new archeological methods used at the Luppåkra dig and the discoveries they helped find.

The weather could be a problem although interviews with some of the professors involved could be done indoors while waiting for the rain to stop. Shots of Hans-Peter at the site talking about how people had lived since the Iron Age could include weather information of long ago and could be worked into the script if the rain didn’t stop. He told her of two people he could call. “One of them will give me the sentences I need, if I mention his name.”

Margo had been surprised that, unlike during their marriage, their conversation was back and forth about him and her. He asked about her new kiln, the different clay, where she got her design ideas, things he hadn’t done when they were married.

During the drive from Germany, she had loved their conversations which expanded to books, movies and world politics. The 500 miles flew by.

Inside, the first thing she noticed was one bed. “I can take the couch.”

“Or I can. Your cast needs more room.”

As it turned out they would share the bed later that evening.

Almost as soon as they arrived, they left for dinner with an archeological colleague and his translator wife with whom Hans-Peter was filming the next day. “They’re also friends. You’ll like them.” He shut off the car engine in their driveway.

“This is it. I stay here whenever I come to Luppåkra. Johnathan and Walter are staying at another B&B just down the road.” He reached into the back seat for an umbrella and walked around to Margo’s side to help her out of the car and up the three steps to the front door.

“We didn’t bring anything?” she said.

He reached into the back seat and brought out a bottle of German white wine.

1% Viking

 

Sherlock's DNA came back. His mom was a Yorkie, His father was a Jack Russell which explains his personality. There were misc. other breeds DNA running thru his veins.

Since we knew our dog's DNA why not get my husband's and mine, we thought.

I didn't expect many surprises. On my mother's side we went back to 1640 arrival from the England on the Blessing and how ancestor John Sargent fought in the American Revolution. Thanks to my grandmother's  membership in the D.A.R. I had a list of all my ancestors on that side.

In going for Canadian citizenship, I traced my family back to Michel Boudreau who left La Rochelle, France. He arrived in Nova Scotia in 1640 and became a General. When he wasn't generaling, he fathered 11 children, populating the area with Boudreaus.

What surprised me was the report that I was 1% Norwegian Viking. 

How did that happen?

Since I am five foot one and Vikings were supposed to be tall, I assumed that the 1% came from a mating with an Anglo woman. 

Was my DNA why, when I visited Iceland, the thing I wanted to see most was the Sagas?  

Did a Viking ancestor sail from Norway, land in what is now England and rape a pretty maiden who was gathering faggots for the fire in a nearby wood? Or was he one of the Vikings that rather than get back on the boat to return to what would become Norway, fall in love and settle down as a farmer maybe in Grimsby or Whitby which are said to have their names rooted in Viking words? Both places had Viking "visits" but Grimsby was said to have some Viking settle there.

Could he have been one of the Vikings to raid a monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 arriving in one of three ships?

I did take an on-line course in Vikings just in case I wanted to do a historical novel on my ancestor Viking hooking up with my Anglo ancestor. It's about eleventh on the writing projects on my list. 

Still, if I visit Norway again, will my heart beat a little faster when I see a tall blond male and imagine him in leggings and tunic, fur boots, and carrying a spear. 

At one point I read about a man in Norway who recreated Viking ships. I looked into apprenticing myself to him but modern reality of a dependent child destroyed that dream. That was before I knew of the 1%.

 

My fascination with the Sagas can be explained by my interest in the medieval period in general not DNA or can it?

I will never know for the names, places, clothing, daily life, dreams of the man who handed my 1% DNA to me.   

 

Flair Fashions

 

Between her divorce and my mother switching careers to become a journalist, she started her own business, Flair Fashions.

She wanted to be free days to take my brother and me to school and be present in general.

Her plan? Flair Fashions.

She would go into Boston's clothing district on Kneeland Street and pick out 30 outfits of various styles and sizes. Then copying the Tupperware party model, she would have house parties. Women would invite friends and they would order from the samples.

Our second living room was her office and stock room. For each party, the samples would be wrapped in green sheets and carried to the car.

She only worked September thru mid December and January thru June. Summer and Christmas were not good for business.

Soon people asked her to do fashion shows. She agreed.

She hired Mrs. Eisenhower (no relation to Ike) to be the moderator. Mrs. Eisenhower with her perfect figure and her hair in a bun oozed attainable style and elegance for the middle class 1950s New England woman. 

It worked well until Mrs. Eisenhower developed laryngitis the night before a big show for a local woman's club. My mother never thought of herself as a public speaker, but the night would be too lucrative to cancel. Also my mother had written all the descriptions and they were brilliant.  Since my mother's other employee was Aunt Helen who could work back stage getting the volunteer models dressed and out on the temporary runway, the evening went without a hitch. 

She discovered sales were higher in less prestigious homes. Women from expensive houses had less disposable income. Pulling into a house with parked expensive new cars she knew again women would think of bills before clothes.

In the 1950s obesity was less of a problem, but my mother grew tired of women swearing they were a size 10 when they could barely get into a 16. She learned to say that this or that dress was made in smaller sizes than normal.

Mother considered me a walking advertisement.  During vacations I would go to Kneeland Street with her. The owners treated me as a princess and my mother, who had excellent taste, made sure I was well clothed. I could go over 20 days without wearing the same outfit. 

At my 30th class reunion a classmate asked if I NOW would reveal where I bought my clothes. I'd always answered, "My mother's business." The class mate thought I was being snobby until I told her that it was truly my mother's business. We laughed about it.

My mother became a journalist for the last 25 years of her life by accident. She did not miss the house parties.