Tag Archives: life

Nov25

A Piece of Flash Fiction

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I usually don’t post my own writing here but last night, I had a migraine and when those hit, I try to do some deep breathing exercises to keep myself from vomiting or crying with the pain and nausea. My husband has been ill since before Halloween and spent 13 days in the hospital after spending two weeks unable to get out of his recliner. He came home Sunday night and is still so weak, it’s scary to see him. Of course, this all triggered my migraine.

As I lay there doing my deep breathing, I suddenly found myself chanting (inner monologue) Pizza, Pasta, and Spaghettios. As I waited for my meds to kick in, this little story came to me and so I thought I’d share it. So, here it is, my 2:30 am little ditty.

Pizza, Pasta, and Spaghettios

From the moment the door to DiMaggio’s Pizza Parlor opened and she strolled in, he knew he was going to marry her someday. When she walked over to the old fashioned juke box, he thrust his pool cue toward his best friend, the college quarterback, and told him to finish the game.

He took coins from his pocket and asked her what song she wanted to play. From that day forward, they were together and spent many an evening having pizza at DiMaggio’s and playing that song they loved. Their song.

When they both became professionals and paid off their student loans, with their new found financial ability to treat themselves, they experimented with pasta. Carbonara, shrimp scampi on angel hair, penne ala vodka, and clams with linguine. They chose pasta over pizza for a number of years.

When the children came, the fancy pasta took a back seat to spaghettios. They didn’t mind as the kids loved them and they were happy to see them eat a semblance of their favorite Italian cuisine.

When the children were older, DiMaggio’s became a favorite place again as the kids found their love of various flavors of pizza there. Cheese to start and moving on to pepperoni, but as their palates became more sophisticated, they ventured into mushrooms, peppers, and even anchovies on occasion.

With the children grown, married and on their own, he and she returned to their fancy pasta. Carbonara, shrimp scampi on angel hair, penne ala vodka, and clams with linguine.

In his old age, with her gone to heaven, he sometimes ate spaghettios straight from the can over the sink, her favorite song running through his mind. Their song. For eternity.

Jun30

Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dale, a Review

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The “wickedly funny and gorgeously entertaining” part of the cover is not true in the least. There was not one thing funny in this book. Not one. Makes you wonder if the blurb writer even read the thing or just wrote that as the cover looks fun.

This one ended up in my Little Free Library and looked like it would be entertaining. Alas, not really.

I almost tossed it aside by page 60 something as I did not like the “heroine” at all and there’s a legal conversation where the lawyer who represented both the main character and her husband. This lawyer tells the main character she is representing the husband in their legal separation and that alone almost sent me over the edge. A lawyer cannot ethically represent one client over another client when both have been the client. One client conspiring against the other client with the assistance of their joint counsel never passes muster anywhere.

But I kept reading. to give it a chance. The writer is a good writer whose prose is well done, but the only two characters here who I liked were Sammy, the 6-year-old and Ethan. The book’s premise was a good one, but the execution is what had me disliking the story.

This may be nitpicking but the main character loses the contract to write a book in June. A new person gets the contract that was supposed to go to the main character and by August, the new person has her book launch party and a week later, the book goes into the second printing as it sold so well. That is ludicrous. Writing the book and actually having it on the shelves taking a bit over a month? An illustrated cookbook??! Nope. I’m surprised this got past the editors.

The acts of one character in particular are absolutely a betrayal and unforgiveable, IMHO. The fact that the main character seems to be willing to overlook the betrayal is absolutely stunning. There was a much better option out there for her and why the author even put that character in the book is a mystery to me.

I am rating this 3 stars due to the writer’s talent for prose, but much less for the plot errors and the unlikeable main character.

Sep13

Carpool Diem- by Nancy Star

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I picked this one up at the thrift store when I traveled to visit my son and his family. I like to check out thrift and Goodwill stores when I go places to pick up books for my Little Free Library. A lot of times, I don’t read the ones I buy but this one drew me on with the promise of being fun.

And it definitely was a fun read. The protagonist is a perfectionist who loses her job basically through sabotage but, as a reader, you get a feeling of relief that she’s getting off the treadmill that was her life working out of town all week and spending weekends at home. Her family life clearly suffered due to her lifestyle/work absences.

The reader gets to see great character arcs of several of the members of her family.

The daughter is a soccer player and most of the book revolves around her quest to play for an elite travel team. The best parts of the story are where the obsessive coach of the elite team sends crazy, ridiculous memos to the girls and their families every day. He’s loony tunes and never met an exclamation mark he didn’t like.

I spent a lot of the story laughing at his memos and hoping he’d get his comeuppance.

I’m a huge soccer nut so this book was right up my alley. The character growth was well done on the characters who had a chance to change. Not so much on the coach guy, but that was sort of expected. Lol

This book was published in 2008 but it could have come out last week as it was so up to date—other than the reference to the Larry King show.

This was a quick read—less than a day—but full of good, entertaining writing as well as a great message about life’s priorities.

Jun14

Review- The Gilded Girl by Alyssa Colman

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I have a little free library at my office and tend to pick up books of all genres and subjects for the neighborhood folks to take and read. I picked up this middle grade book at our local library’s book sale a few months ago. I was intrigued enough by it to read it one Saturday.

It is a book about discovering who your true friends are and how to be a real friend as well.  The story is about two girls who start out with vastly different lives. One is the spoiled, rich girl and the other the poor orphan who is employed as a servant in the magic school the first girl comes to as a new student.

The rich girl makes friends easily, but she is someone who spends money on her friends and buys them gifts. The poor girl has a harder time as the students (as well as the owner of the school- who is a truly awful person) are not kind to the servants and staff at all. As this is gilded age New York City, that wasn’t surprising.

A change of fate is in store for the rich girl and things change drastically in her life. This change in circumstances leads to both girls discovering a lot about themselves as well as about the other people in their lives.  Many surprises and adventures are in store for them. And many discoveries about the world and life await.

This was a great story for 9-13 year olds. It teaches lessons about the true nature of friendship. It shows money doesn’t make you a likeable person or even a good person. It shows that things are not always how they seem and people can disguise their true selves depending on circumstances.

I recommend this for pre-teens but it also has valuable lessons for us adults as well.

Apr30

Time with friends

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Took the day off today and am hanging with my friends Maureen (Mo), Jennifer, and Victoria. We are having a blast. Had lunch at Fournaris Brothers, Greek restaurant.  They are making me laugh my head off.  I needed this time with them. They are the best and none of them suck the life out of me. They lift me up- those are the best types of friends to have- Sometimes it gets old being the one to always have to be the up-lifter. This is a nice change of pace! 

AND I have gotten a great idea as I’ve sat here and am excited to get started on a new project. Such fun.  The picture represents part of my idea.