Three Camels

PYREX: Did you remember to bring extra sandals?

FRED: Real Camels wear Herman Survivors.

CRYSTAL: I just had a pedicure! Sand is so abrasive, hope I don't break a nail.

FRED: Did you remember to bring your compass?

PYREX: We don't need a compass, we're following that star.

CRYSTAL: I don't want to get lost. There isn't a shopping mall for miles.

PYREX: Did you pack your gifts? I'm bringing Frankincense, a gift from Fire.

CRYSTAL: I'm bringing Gold, a gift from Earth.

PYREX: What are you bringing, Fred?

FRED: Fruitcake. A gift from Aunt Ethel.

CRYSTAL: Everyone knows the Wise Men's gifts were Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

FRED: I couldn't find any Myrrh.

PYREX: Do you realize how that's going to sound when clergy all over the world read from the Holy Scriptures, Gold, Frankincense, and Fruitcake?

FRED: Our Masters are always searching for God. How much longer before we get there?

CRYSTAL: Why did your Master name you Pyrex?

PYREX: Because I can stand the desert heat. It's tough being a Magi's Camel.

CRYSTAL: But it is a status symbol.

PYREX: If you want status you go on a pilgrimage.

FRED: What's a pilgrimage?

CRYSTAL: ...a long journey to look for God. And sometimes you can find the cutest little boutiques along the way.

PYREX: You began to have a deeper understanding of spiritual things.

FRED: Sounds like a headache.

CRYSTAL: People seek God, because they want their lives to matter, to know there is a Supreme plan, and a Nordstroms nearby.

PYREX: People are like a puzzle with a missing piece.

CRYSTAL: It's so sad, like a beautiful brooch missing a diamond chip.

PYREX: Speaking of diamonds, look at that star.

CRYSTAL: I love sparkles.

PYREX: We have an important task, to carry our three Kings to find the Christ Child.

FRED: I could use a change of scenery.

CRYSTAL: The scenery reminds me of Vanilla, Butterscotch, Caramel, Milk Chocolate, Mocha...

PYREX: Stop. You're making me hungry.

PYREX: Look to your left, there's a big wind storm.

CRYSTAL: I hate getting sand in my mouth.

PYREX: That's why camels spit.

CRYSTAL: I prefer to rinse, thank you.

PYREX: The star seems to be lowering over that small town ahead.

CRYSTAL: "Bethleham City Limits, Population 300 and 1." And the paint is still wet! Oooh, I just love babies!

PYREX: Kneel down. We are experiencing a miracle in history. "And you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

CRYSTAL: How disgusting! It doesn't even have a bed-skirt!

FRED: Look! Our Masters are presenting their gifts.

PYREX: The parents are smiling. They call the baby, “Jesus.”

CRYSTAL: I wonder if that halo is 24 carot?

FRED: Hey... Do you see that? Where did my Master get the Myrrh? I couldn't find it.

CRYSTAL: What a trip, I'm starving.

FRED: Want some fruitcake?

PYREX: It's a miracle.

FRED: What, the fruitcake?

PYREX: No. God in flesh. The Savior of the World.

...

Peace and Joy!

Judy

An Excerpt from "The Killer Show"

This three-character scene includes the narrator, Simone, her sister, Violet, and their father, Grit.This scene depicts Grit's nature and his relationship with his daughters.

The scene's backstory: Grit has had a pulmonary embolism and a week long hospital stay. Now he's eager to go home.

Thanks for reading.

The sky, a cobalt blue, looked like a touched-up post card, with a bright sun bouncing off signs and windows. We parked in the car park, on the top floor, and headed through the connector hallway into the building on the fourth floor.

When we pushed open Grit's door, he was dressed, sitting in a chair, facing the door.

“There you are!” His face lit up.

Not ten minutes later, the nurse walked in and said Grit was cleared to leave. An attendant wheeled him out to the front door while I pulled his old Buick around. The attendant buckled him into the passenger seat, and I eased ahead.

“Watch that vehicle. He's pulling out.” Grit jabbed a finger at the windshield.

I nodded and slowed.

“Breathe. Just be patient,” I told myself.

“Turn left here. You want to avoid that intersection straight a head.”

“Hey. Relax.” I gripped the steering wheel, and turned left.

For the rest of the drive, I bit my tongue.

But getting him out of the car was another matter.

I have to admit, Violet and I fussed over him like a couple of kids with a fragile kitten. One of us on either side of him, holding his arms. In this manner, we stumbled with him into the house, bumped doorways, knocked into the kitchen table, and in a clumsy effort, navigated through the family room, colliding with a side table. Finally, we reached his threshold of anger.

He flailed his arms loose and chaffed us with a loud burst of invective objections. At that moment, we both fell back in silence, back into the role of small children under his parental authority.

Make it a great week,

Judy

Slide Off the Mountain

I drove to North Carolina to listen to stories about life lived in the mountains. What writer could pass that up? It's what we do; experience a slice of life beyond our own, and gather useful information.

Simply driving on steep terrain with my standard shift was an adventure. The lay of the land so sharply angled, I wondered what kept the cattle from sliding off the mountain.

However, before I arrived, my GPS bummed out, and I pulled up next to a farmer standing in his pasture. He got me back on the right path. I mean that literally.

What I learned from my hostess, Sandy, was the simplicity of the code of conduct that is accepted in this mountain community. For example, it is understood that if you own something, you have something to lose. So your goat dies; that's the risk you took when you acquired it. Although admirable, I don't snuggle up well to the idea.

Sandy herself is not elaborate. She is naturally attractive with dark hair pulled into a thick braid that runs all the way down her back. We met on the French Broad River, where she was my rafting guide, and an owner of the Blue Heron, a white water rafting company. Through multiple rafting experiences, I've grown to respect and trust her approach to the river and rafting. She's also a good storyteller. So when she invited me to the high ridge where she lives, I accepted.

She told me that it was not uncommon for people to live their entire lives within a few miles, if not yards, from where they'd been born. Alice, Sandy's neighbor was one of them.

Alice loved house guests. It was routine for anyone who considered themselves family to come and stay a few days. Once, after a long and heavy influx of visitors, Alice stood looking out the window forlornly. “Clyde,” she said to her husband, “It's going to be awful lonesome.” But he was reclined on the couch with his Bible propped open. “Aw, but it's a sweet ol' lonesome.”

And now, with fresh stories, characters, and setting, I'm progressing on an idea for a new murder mystery.

Make it a great week,

Judy

Crisp Compact Words

Succinct and precise description can transport us to places we've never been.

So I looked at poetry, where each word must be productive, and stumbled upon this poem, “Filling Station” by Elizabeth Bishop. Her words create a delightful scene setting with crisp compact efficiency.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

                                 Filling Station

                                                   By Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!

—this little filling station,

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

to a disturbing, over-all

black translucency.

 Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,

oil-soaked monkey suit

that cuts him under the arms,

and several quick and saucy

and greasy sons assist him

(it’s a family filling station),

all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?

It has a cement porch

behind the pumps, and on it

a set of crushed and grease-

impregnated wickerwork;

on the wicker sofa

a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide

the only note of color—

of certain color. They lie

upon a big dim doily

draping a taboret

(part of the set), beside

a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?

Why the taboret?

Why, oh why, the doily?

(Embroidered in daisy stitch

with marguerites, I think,

and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.

Somebody waters the plant,

or oils it, maybe. Somebody

arranges the rows of cans

so that they softly say:

esso—so—so—so

to high-strung automobiles.

Somebody loves us all.

You can find Bishop's poems on Goodreads.

Not What You Look at, but What You See - Three Scenarios

Light charges across the water. It rides ripples, reveals rocks, and liberates truth from murky depths.

And I with my camera cannot capture the essence of it all, only reflect its brilliance.

My husband (in the yellow shirt) stopped to help a cyclist with a flat tire on a rocky mountain path. He is my superhero. In day to day living if someone is in trouble, he takes the time to help.

 

We rode high in the White Top Mountains of Virginia, under a blue-marbled sky. The leaves rustled and crunched under our bike tires and the musky smell of earth declared that summer had gone, in spite of 80 degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures.

Autumn colors displayed across mountainsides like gum drops in candy stores. But in other places, the hues softened to brick and tangerine. And I remembered Emerson. “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”

The wheels of our recumbent trikes slapped against the slats of weathered bridges beating out a cadence that jounced us along. The bridges carried us across several gorges on the Virginia Creeper Trail.

I glanced through the gray rails, awed by a creek bed a thousand feet below with a stern current scrubbing boulders in its way. After a moment, I noticed how clean the boulders looked, and felt a part of my own soul cleansed and renewed. And I was reminded of Thoreau. “It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.”