Category: Musings

Trailer Park Shark vs. Gold Medal Man

Keep your hands and feet inside the confines of your easy chair–Shark Week is circling! It attacks July 23rd and lasts an entire week on the Discovery Channel and SYFY.

Before I begin my musings about the annual fest to pay homage to an eating machine, let me set the stage by asking you to imagine a cello. The Jaws theme begins. Come on, you can hear it–it’s two stinkin’ notes. Even I, possessing a cello I can’t play, can manage two notes. So now that you have that playing in your head, let’s continue.

For the past two weeks, I’ve seen advertisements for Shark Week in the form of sharks on a plane, Shark Week t-shirts, Shark After Dark nail polish, and Deep Sea Delight ice cream cupcakes. Then there is shark on a Seal. Unfortunately, the shark wasn’t interested in a Kiss From a Rose, it wanted pop star nosh.

The Discovery Channel lineup for the week of July 23rd – 30th offers scenes of serial killing sharks (because after the first attack they’re apparently serial killers), devil sharks, and a shark safari. There are also alien sharks, which I think could be a possible crossover event with SYFY. The main event for Discovery this year is Commotion in the Ocean – Michael Phelps vs. Great White. No gloves, mouthguards, or jockstraps for this one; it’s a race to see who is the fastest swimmer. Should we watch through our fingers like I did when I saw Jaws for the first time? Will Great White decide feed rather than speed is the goal? I guess we’ll see.

Let’s move on to the SYFY B lineup. There are some real winners for Shark Week 2017. 5-Headed Shark Attack (because 5 is way better than 4), Mississippi River Sharks, Toxic Shark, Trailer Park Shark (the things I envision here would take an entire post), Empire of the Sharks, and (drumroll) Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, tagline: ‘Make America Bait Again’. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Who knew that idea would fly…five times? I guess Tara Reid and Ian Ziering still need grocery money.

I will have to say I am disappointed that SYFY hasn’t taken my suggestion for one of their spectacular movie events. I want to see T-rex Hex. An evil warlock places a hex on (name the city) for shutting down his warlock consulting business. He turns the long-armed city council into short-armed dinosaurs and mayhem ensues. (What? It’s at least as good as Sharknado!) Just an FYI for all of you who are fans of 80’s romance covers, Fabio will be playing the part of the Pope in Sharknado 5. I think I’ll insist on Fabio playing the part of the evil warlock in T-rex Hex as well…now that would be worth the price of admission.

 

 

Avoid the Red Circle of Curiosity or Get Soap in Your Eye

I have a habit of checking the notifications on my various social media sites before getting up in the morning. I had one Pinterest notification this morning and opened the app thinking it would be a picture of a cute animal or the latest idea for inventive Christmas table decorations. Before I could open the notification, the Pinterest algorithm thought it would be nice to lay a trap for me on the front page. It was a black and white picture of a man standing beside a chair. At his feet was a big red circle. My better judgment said don’t click. The caption read, ‘People In the 1800’s Did This With Dead Bodies’. The man in the picture looked alive, or so I thought. There was definitely something on the floor behind his feet. I squint, but I can’t identify the thing on the floor. My journey through Victorian postmortem photography takes a morbid turn. The thing in the red circle is a contraption to hold the dead up in a posed position while the photographer snaps pics of them, usually with their eyes open, and sometimes with their living relatives standing around them.

I will admit I do like interesting cemetery monuments, and I do have Pinterest boards with photographs I took of said monuments, but what would make Pinterest think I wanted to see posed dead people?

As a writer, I have a vivid imagination. The characters from my books are real and in living color in my mind. This morning, after taking the red-circle bait, I had morbid black and white characters in my mind, staring at me with lifeless, open eyes as I stepped into the shower. For sanity’s sake, sometimes you have to keep one eye open in the shower even though there may be the sting of soap in it. Take my advice and don’t get sucked into the red circle of curiosity–especially before a shower.

 

Gladiator Cats & Big-Girl G-Strings

Some days are frustrating. We can’t avoid them, but why cry when you can laugh about stuff that gets under your skin? Here are a few of my unfavorite things:

My cats use the bathtub as a gladiator ring…no soak for the weary until fur is removed.

Sure, two pieces of toilet paper are sufficient for my needs. Am I the only person qualified for roll replacement?

My prize for wrangling the stray cart in the parking lot rodeo is a plastic bag of overpriced milk and bread.

It’s a hotdog conspiracy designed to keep you buying more buns for the extra hotdogs and more hotdogs for the extra buns.

The fifth little piggies go wee, wee, wee at the blister-rubbing sock seam.

No, I didn’t want to make it to my appointment on time. I’ll catch the next green light after you’ve finished your text.

One press of the toaster lever does not toast to the proper brownness. The second press results in blackening by dragon’s breath.

I don’t understand you. If I wanted help from a foreigner, I would move to a foreign country.

Pardon me, am I interrupting your tweet check? I thought we were having dinner. #RudeDateEatsAlone

For the love of lingerie, panty makers, please design big-girl underwear with an appropriately-sized crotch. If I wanted G-strings, I would buy them on purpose.

Farewell to Cajunville

After my four-year visit to Louisiana, South Carolina is welcoming me home with smiling faces and open arms. It is the state of palmetto trees, palmetto bugs (pterodactyl roaches), the shag, peaches, plantations, sweet tea, and sweetgrass baskets. I have missed SC and am glad to be claiming it as my home again.

As for Cajunville, I have enjoyed my stay and have learned some things while living in the Pelican State. Here are a few of my observations:

Fat Tuesday means playing hooky from work, grabbing Mardi Gras beads, and baking plastic babies into pastry.

Crawdads are best served “Hot and Juicy” according to the locals. (I can’t attest to this as I don’t eat mudbugs).

LSU fans will do anything to pay homage to their team…cheese carving included.

Louisiana has parishes instead of counties, and beignets instead of donuts.

Lagniappe (lan-yap) is a gratuitous gift given with a purchase or “a little something extra”. I don’t remember getting anything extra with any of my purchases unless you count the mints I grabbed on the way out of restaurants. In Louisiana’s defense, four years wasn’t enough time to patronize every establishment…I may have missed the ones that gave lagniappe.

A lucky shirt is required to catch big gators.

The Rougarou (roo-ga-roo) ventures out of the swamp and hunts Catholics who break the rules of Lent. (It’s good to be Baptist in this state).

It’s HOT, it’s HUMID, and unlike southern California, it rains just about every afternoon during the summer. Even if you’re not technically in a flood zone…trust me, you’re in a flood zone! Which brings up a question I’ve had from day one: why are most Louisiana houses built on slabs? It would make more sense to build everything on stilts…just a thought.

It’s useful to know a little French so you can understand some of the local words and phrases such as Vieux Carre (voo ca-ray) – “old quarter” mainly pertaining to the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, the French quarter. Another word that may be handy to know for all of those voodoo emergencies is Gris Gris (gre-gre) – an object used to ward off evil. For those of you who are fans of Cajun cuisine, there is Bon Appetit – “good appetite” (you will need a good appetite and a roll of tums to stomach the spicy heat). The most popular phrase used by Cajuns is Laissez les bon temps rouler (lay-zay lay bon ton rule-ay) “let the good times roll”…not to be confused with the fictitious Louisiana town Bon Temps where Sookie Stackhouse hangs out with her vampire friends. Although, they frequently let the good times roll there as well.

Last, but most important, there are great people in Louisiana. HeartLa, the Baton Rouge chapter of Romance Writers of America, has been my home away from home. I have learned from them, laughed with them, and served as their secretary. They are friends that I will greatly miss. Without them, I will be that mysterious billionaire author (I’m aiming high) who hasn’t been seen in a long time…except for my closest relatives. I don’t want anyone knocking down my door because I’m not answering texts or attending family reunions. Note: I will be a recluse without my writing friends, but I won’t be peeing in jars…that was a special kind of crazy reserved for Howard Hughes.

 

 

 

Sweater for Mardi Gras

As I was sweeping the week’s worth of cat fur from my two feline companions, I began thinking about all the things I mindlessly throw out. If I save the cat fur for several months, I might have enough for a nice sweater. Cat fur is soft, right? Granted, the pewter gray isn’t pretty, but with Rit red-violet #131 and a few knitting skills, I could have a cozy sweater by Mardi Gras 2013-provided the Mayans were wrong. As for looking like this in my Mardi Gras sweater…I wish!

Solace in the City of the Dead

I love a nice cemetery. On my list of the best, most beautiful cities of the dead, Bonaventure, in Savannah, Georgia, is at the top of the list. I find solace wandering among the graves of the dearly departed under the moss-laden oak sentinels. My family thinks my pastime is a bit strange but is it really? I view it as socializing with the bodily impaired. These people lived, laughed, and cried as we all do. Each person had a unique story which is remembered by loved ones and marked with a personalized stone.

Located on a bluff overlooking the Wilmington River, Bonaventure was an 18th-century plantation that was transformed into a private cemetery for the who’s who of Savannah. Eventually, it was open for public burials. Writer, Conrad Aiken, and lyricist, Johnny Mercer are among the residents. Savannahians hold such high opinions of Bonaventure that they say “it’s better to be dead and buried in Bonaventure than to be alive and living anywhere else in the world”.

Of the residents, Corinne Elliott Lawton is my favorite. She had a sad ending as suggested by her morose expression and the victory wreath which slipped from her hand and rests at her feet. There are several differing accounts of her death. The most dramatic and sad is that Corinne fell in love with a gentleman below her station, and was forced to wed a man she didn’t love. She was so distraught that on the eve of her wedding, she drowned herself in the river. Her beautiful, haunting monument was sculpted by Benedetto Civiletti of Palermo, Sicily, and reads: “Allured to brighter worlds and led the way”.

Pickled Pig Lips

As I strolled through the aisles of our new Sam’s Club (we had recently moved to Louisiana) with my jumbo-sized cart, I made some observations. First and foremost, I wasn’t aware that pig lips were a marketed product for human consumption. It boggled my mind further to know that someone would prefer this as a bulk item. Does pickled anything go bad if not eaten in a timely manner?

A few rows over, I came upon a 50-pound sack of rice and a 25-pound sack of red beans. Being a transplanted Cajunite, I can appreciate the importance of these staple items, but unless you’re a restauranteur or a doomsday prepper, I’m not sure what you would do with this amount of red beans and rice. If you throw in some pickled pig lips, I guess you could have a nice block party.

In the middle of the store, I found a huge block of cheddar cheese, sculpted into the LSU mascot. We have some pretty loyal fans here who would consider it their duty to consume every last chunk of this cheddar. Of course, I’m sure that even the most diehard fan could find a bulk buy of laxatives worthy of the challenge. While I’m on the subject of gastronomical distress, let me note that Sam’s has enough Preparation H in a single buy to soothe the hemorrhoids of a herd of elephants.

Lastly, for all of you MacGyver wannabes out there, you can buy 2000 paper clips, 240 yards of duct tape, and 5,400 pieces of gum for all your disaster-averting needs.

The Original “Born This Way”

People often ask me how I come up with ideas for my stories. I say there are people inside my head who are screaming to get out. They are good, bad, and everything in between. They live, love, and laugh like anyone else. I’m haunted by them until I let them out to play. When I say “out to play”, I mean I rarely have control over how my characters progress through a story. They have a mind of their own and do what they want until I write The End. Sometimes not even The End is really the final chapter because there could always be more.

I would never claim to be an Ernest Hemingway, but we do have at least two things in common. He was a storyteller and a terrible speller. We were born this way.

Happy Anniversary!

32 years ago today, my husband and I were married. It doesn’t seem that long ago…I remember it well.

My 11 p.m. curfew was still in effect the night before the wedding; I was young and still living at home with my parents. We had out-of-town relatives staying with us, so my maid-of-honor and I slept on the floor–a backache ensued. Morning came and it seemed I had plenty of time to pick up the cake and get my fabulous do, but how time flew! The wedding was to begin at 3:00. Everyone was at the church by 2:30 except me and my maid-of-honor. She did our makeup at home and had to have one last spritz of hair spray because of windy conditions. Being the klutz that I am, I smeared her makeup and almost blinded her with the hairspray. Before the mascara redo, we were already late. Because the wedding would not start without the bride, everyone patiently waited as I shimmied into my dress in record time and took my place in the back of the line behind my wedding party.

Did you ever wonder why a bride wears a veil? There are many explanations such as hiding the bride from evil spirits or hiding her face from the groom–in an arranged marriage, the groom gets pot luck when he lifts that veil. In my case, the answer to the veil question was answered at the first sniffle from my dad as we waited to make our entrance. My inner raccoon came out to play as my mascara slid down my face. If my dad hadn’t started the mascara smudging marathon, hearing my groom serenade me during the ceremony would have surely started the bawl rolling.

It seemed the rest of the afternoon would go smoothly until I remembered I had forgotten my camera. I wanted to take pictures on our honeymoon. This was the time before cellphones or disposable cameras. My aunt saved the day by meeting us at a designated location to make the camera hand-off, but not before my husband almost ran a red light in his tricked-out Chevy Nova. I was hurled into the rice-littered floorboard–I said his car was tricked-out, I didn’t say it had seatbelts.

We made it to Myrtle Beach in one piece and all was well until my honey bun had the great idea of going deep-sea fishing. I couldn’t swim and I never considered stepping foot on a boat. Not wanting to start married life on the wrong foot by being a party pooper, I gave it a shot. Thank God it was a half-day trip! I knew it was a bad sign when the boat crew placed buckets at the end of every seat in the cabin. The milk and donuts I had for breakfast pitched and rolled right along with the boat as bad weather approached. If I hadn’t been so green when we finally made it back to shore, I would have kissed the ground. Vows were said again that week. I vowed to never again step foot on a boat or eat donuts and milk for breakfast!

Yes, I remember it well. Happy Anniversary to my husband of 32 years. Thanks for not being appalled by the raccoon under the veil and for sticking around through the ups and downs. I Love You the Mostest!!!

Bonnie Lynne

 

French in a Southern Drawl

My favorite bedtime story, The Happy Lion, is about a lion living in a French zoo. For me, The Happy Lion was an introduction to French culture and the moral: the grass is always greener on the other side of the zoo fence. This 1954 children’s book, written by Louise Fatio and illustrated by her husband, Roger Duvoisin, was followed by nine sequels. It was the winner of the first Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, a German youth literary award. At age five, I didn’t care about the award or the sequels, all I knew was I wanted to hear it night after night before I went to sleep. From The Happy Lion, I gained my love of the written word and learned to say bonjour and au revoir in a slow, southern drawl.