Ignorant voter

 

Watching Mike Pence talk to a group of voters, I was shocked to hear a woman challenge him saying that if he had done what he should, Trump would be president.

Although I'm not a big fan of Pence, he handled it well, pointing out that he couldn't because of the Constitution.

I shouldn't have been surprised. I still remember the elderly man tell a candidate to keep his government hands off his Medicare, totally unaware that Medicare was a government program.

Or the man who told John McCain that Obama was a Muslim. McCain put the man straight.

Often when people's opinions are expressed, it is obvious that they lack basic knowledge. Ignorance can be corrected. Stupidity is forever.

I know reducing educational content in schools, the US is raising another group of ignorant voters that no country can afford. AS John F. Kennedy said, "The ignorance of one voter impairs the security of all."

Free write -- The Couple

 

Despite the heat, the Vandoeuvre tearoom terrace is a bit cooler under the umbrella for our Tuesday free write. Sherlock settled under the table. The four other patrons are all talking in English. We select the man and the woman at the nest tableand begin writing for ten minutes.

THE COUPLE

My free write

Will he ever shut up, Mathilde wonders. All I want to do is to rent him office space not learn about his software and apps.

He wasn’t bad looking, maybe a few years older than she was. He certainly wasn’t dressed for a business meeting in his wash-faded Tshirt and shorts. The T-shirt read “10 Reasons for Procrastination” with the number 1-10 below. All were empty.

It’s not my choice to procrastinate. I can’t get a word in.

He sipped his coffee.

“How many people will be in this office?” she says fast.

“Ten.” He then begins to describe each one.

Despite the umbrella-shade, she is hot in her summer suit. She wore it out of her Swissness wanting proper business attire.

She glanced at her watch under the table then reached for the floor plan in her notebook. Maybe, just maybe, they can get to the reason for the meeting. As he launches into employee number six, his strengths and weaknesses, she thinks, maybe not.

Rick’s free writer

He never had any intention of buying or as in this case, investing, but what a pleasant way to spend an hour or so on a reasonably cool morning in the shade of the café’s umbrella on what promised to be an oppressively hot and humid day. Unusual for this part of the world suffering the creeping effects of climate change.

He was dressed casually, comme d’habitude: an old T-shirt, shorts and sandals. His favorite sunglasses perched on his head, somewhat masking his male baldness.

She was dressed for success: beige power summer blazer, black skirt tight, but not too suggestive, platform shoes from one of trendy shops in Confederate Center.

As she displayed her proposal on her iPad, teasing the financial gains he might enjoy, he listened politely, but absorbed only enough to ask the occasional question and long enough to prolong the conversation. He supped his tea slowly, took a bite of his croissant every few minutes, never enough to suggest he might be close to finishing.

Sometimes he changed the subject, commenting on how his kids had moved to the UK, but rarely came to visit.

It had been two years since his wife had died after falling off her bike and hitting her head on a trail boulder.

In that time this was his 45th meeting with different sales women.

Comparison

When we do these free writes sometimes, we stress the same things. Other times, one of us might go off on a tangent still triggered by the same prompt. This time we both picked up on certain things we saw and wove them into the piece.

Counting snores

 

After years of being single, marrying and sharing a bed was strange and also wonderful EXCEPT my beloved snored.

When we were in Geneva, I would leave the bedroom TV on. Law and Order, Special Victims Unit, drowned him out. In France, we had a second bedroom, dubbed the Snore Room where I escaped. Although I missed his comforting body next to me, I would wake up in the morning refreshed.

Then our landlady told us about SnoreTek. Rick was fitted with a mouth guard. Doesn't this sound like a product placement???

It isn't. It works. 

Yet it wasn't as comfortable for my poor husband. Since he didn't snore all the time, I suggest he only wear it when his snoring made my sleep impossible.

I have a method to determine when to ask him. Often he would snore a few times then stop. Thus I counted to five and then would shake him and ask him to change position.

If that didn't work and he continued snoring I would count to five again. That was the point I would ask him to put in the SnoreTek and we would both sleep well the rest of the night.

Let Me In

 Sherlock, our many-breeds rescue dog, adjusted quickly to his new home, a flat in a two-family home. The owners live upstairs and we are in the beautiful basement. 

We do not lock the connecting door.

José, our landlord quickly fell in love with Sherlock, often stopping by to take him for a walk.

As two writers, we work at home. Most times when we go out, we take the dog with us. However, there are times, we do leave him, much to Sherlock's disgust, although when we tell him stay, he jumps on the couch, sighs and gives us looks which I describe as hurt or sullen.

Last night Sherlock started barking at the connecting door. It was José. 

"Sometimes when you go out and leave him, I take him upstairs with me," José said. "After a while, he decides to go home."

I didn't know this.

Even though we were not going out, last night Sherlock decided to visit his friend upstairs.

About 15 minutes later, we heard Sherlock barking. He was not at the connecting door. He was at our entrance door. He had decided to leave upstairs by their front door and walk through their garden, which he loves, to our entrance door.

We answered his plaintive, "Let me in," bark. I wanted to ask him if he had a good time, but although his bark differs for different things, he doesn't have one to respond to this question.

 

This is Brenda Ainsworth’s third interview for the book she is writing about four single moms supporting each other. I originally created the interview to help me define my characters but then added the interviewer as a major character along with the interview. Day Care Moms can be bought thru on-line bookstores in e-book format or paperback. I've introduced Anne De Ruvo on my blog June 21 and Maureen D’Orlando’s July 1. This is an interview with Kayla, the birth mother of Maude. Kayla gave Maude up for adoption but still is a part of the little girl’s life. Next week, I’ll post Ashley’s interview. She adopted Kayla.

I was impressed with Ashley from the first time I met her. Our first interview was followed up with many emails where she was always forthcoming. It was here I realized that the book would need other women whose lives the four women touched. I’ve checked with my agent, who checked with the woman paying me, and she agreed. I pointed out, yet again, it would be nice if I could meet the woman paying me at least via email.

I did suggest to Barbara that she try to increase the fee considering how complicated the project was becoming. I’m not trying to make it more complicated. The women’s lives had their own complications. If I were to show their stories as well as prove that women working together can make life easier for all, I need to do more than just touch the surface of their daily routines.

I haven’t heard back. I suppose I could do a sloppy job, but that isn’t my nature. Maybe it is vanity, but I was given a natural talent that allows me to be a good wordsmith. Let me put it another way: I want this book to be really, really good.

One woman I want to talk to is Kayla Willson, Maude’s birth mother. So often I’ve seen adults fight over the custody of a child. Everyone loses, especially the kid. So, when Kayla gave Maude to Ashley, but still stayed in the kid’s life, WOW! Win-win-win!

Maude is much too young to be interviewed, although Ashley says I’m welcome to come play with the kid as often as I need to.

I did for the first-time last Sunday.

Maude was in her room, which is painted a pretty light violet with white matching furniture. The curtains are white with a violet print. Three original paintings in a Mary Cassett style are of little girls doing little girl things: a tea party, swinging, playing with a doll. Her toys include a kitchen stove and sink as well as a desk and bookcases filled with toys and books.

Not very feminist. I think of Ashley as being very feminist considering her concentration in family law. I’ve heard her reputation sends terror into the hearts of errant husbands.

Maude has a big dollhouse. “It has a staircase,” she said. “Some dollhouses don’t. That’s stupid.”

I wasn’t aware when Kayla came into the room. She was on a week-long exchange between her school and Harvard Medical and stayed with Maude and Ashley during her off time, a chance to see “the two most important women in my life.”

“They could use a ladder, I suppose,” Maude said. “Or a rope, but the bedrooms are upstairs and the toilet downstairs, so going pee-pee would be hard, ‘specially if you’re sleepy.”

Kayla and I exchanged looks. We watched Maude play for a good ten minutes and I could see her adoration of the little girl.

Kayla pointed her head in the direction of the door. Maude was so engrossed in dictating to the husband doll how the bedroom furniture should be rearranged that she seemed to have forgotten we were there.

After shutting the door, Kayla said, “I know you want to interview me. How about now in the kitchen with a cup of tea?”

I’m a coffee drinker, but I take what is offered rather than create any dissonance no matter how tiny. Better than the Skype interview we had originally talked about.

Ashley was using the time Kayla was there to work later than usual. Another win-win, giving Kayla extra time with Maude. Both women had told me this separately. I noticed that often they would say the same thing. I wondered where they might disagree.

Me: You’re from Dallas?

KW: Yes. My father worked in a credit union. My mother was, is, a nurse. They’re divorced.

Me: How old were you when that happened?

KW: Thirteen. My mother is a devout Catholic. My father a lapsed one. He remarried.

Me: Do you like your stepmother?

KW: She could write the Ugly Stepmother Manual.

Me: (I wanted more detail, but since our time was limited before Ashley came home, I decided to save it for another time.) Do you mind telling me how you got pregnant? (I learned a long time ago to get permission for painful questions.)

KW: Stupidity. I was raised in the no-sex-before-marriage, be-like-the-Virgin-Mary school. Then I fell in love with my chem professor. He wasn’t married, and he didn’t want to be.

Me: Why didn’t you get an abortion?

KW: I’m not against abortion. I thought about it, but I couldn’t.

Me: Where were you when this happened?

KW: My junior year at BU, Boston University. I had a scholarship.

Me: Did you tell your parents? (Kayla gives me a long, long look.)

KW: My stepmother hates me and would turn my father against me. My mother might have disowned me.

Me: Do you know this for certain or ...?

KW: My mother recommended a friend do that to her daughter when she ended up pregnant and single.

Me: Maybe it would be different for her own daughter? Think how Dick Cheney became much more tolerant toward gays when he discovered his daughter was a lesbian.

KW: You don’t know my mother. No shades of gray for her.

Me: (I was afraid if I continued that line of questioning, I’d lose the rapport we seemed to be building.) Did you think about keeping the baby?

KW: Oh yes. I wasn’t sure how I would support my daughter. I wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid, and there’s no way I could have done that had I kept her. I think I changed my mind every five minutes on what to do.

Me: What sent you to Ashley’s firm?

KW: A friend whose sister had dealt with the firm. The first appointment was more of a crying fest. She had her mom or maybe it was her father take her next appointment and gave me all the time I needed.

Me: And ...

KW: I told her I had two adopted friends, and their adopted parents were awful. Nothing like the happy family people say happens if you give up your baby. Not that it is always like that. I thought if we could find a family that might let me be part of the baby’s life, I could make sure she’d be okay. And Ashley said ...

Me: So, you decided to go the open adoption route.

KW: Yes, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. Open adoption wasn’t Ashley’s strong suit, but she took me on.

Me: Did you think of changing to someone more experienced?

KW: It turns out we did, but not for the reasons you might think. Ashley wanted Maude but ethically she couldn’t do it herself. It would seem like baby stealing. She found a friend from her law school that could.

Me: How did you feel?

KW: Relieved, sad, happy, confused, sometimes within minutes of each other.

Me: How has it worked out?

KW: Sometimes I feel I am in one of those nincompoopy Hollywood movies where everything ends happily. Of course, Maude is only four and ...

“Anyone home? I brought Chinese food,” I hear Ashley call.

There’s much more I want to ask. Like Kayla says, it seems like a nincompoopy movie, but now I will eat my egg rolls and observe how everyone is acting. Actions not words, my motto.