Five Little Words

 

just my size!

I love a writing challenge, especially when they’re short. There are lots out there—from “Tiny Love Stories” (New York Times—100 words max), to the events sponsored by the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild (at which people read their work aloud, with a 300 word limit—alas, for at least one writer each time, 300 words translates to 3000 words, and the organizers are much too kind to stop them from talking on and on). For me, Queen of the 500 Word Blog Post, I wouldn’t dream of uttering word 301. 

Not sure why I’m so drawn to writing briefly. I like to think it’s because I have a genius for capturing beauty and meaning in a fleeting moment, that I am a lyrical haiku-ist in a world of clunky epic poets. But honestly, I just hate the thought of editing a longer draft. Much better to avoid that tedium by keeping my work too short to trim in the first place!

 

A few weeks ago, I contributed a prompt for a writer friend’s upcoming One Liner Humor Sprint (participants will write one funny line per day in response to prompts). I came up with this: write a one-liner in the style of a favorite comic (Seinfeld, Rickles, etc.) I’m looking forward to what everybody comes up with (including me—I have no clue what to write, yet).

 

Rose seems to have been bitten by the brevity bug herself, because she just emailed family and friends to ask them to send her a five-word piece of advice, responding to the prompt Always Remember… 

 

I’m hoping Rose has a rule-following bunch of buddies! I sent her: Life is about creating yourself, which I believe to be both true AND adhering to the word limit. I could have shared many other deep, five word thoughts on life, from personal experience, such as:

 

Always remember…

Bananas make pears ripen faster

Shag carpet’s a terrible idea

Never go to bed angry

Therefore, never wake up happy 

Floss more than once yearly

Don’t wake a sleeping baby

Ask your doctor about Implausia

Good fences make invisible neighbors

Only you can prevent forest fires (six words, I know, but SO important, right?)

No white shoes after summer

No puffy parkas after winter

 

And so on.

 

These culled pearls will be used as part of a home decorating/art project Chez Rose. I applaud my daughter’s gutsy approach to interior design--though I too once decorated the walls of our Stuyvesant Town apartment, with bold Crayola murals in 64 brilliant colors. That was the same artistic era which saw my extra illustrations (also crayoned) in my parents’ wedding Bible. Mom called it her Blue Period, for some reason.

 

As we prepare to greet another New Year, I challenge my readers to tighten up those paragraphs, to compress those rambling thoughts, to become terser and concise-r. Learn how very much you can convey in just five (or fewer) little words.

 

Here’s to a Reader’s Digest condensed 2024 for all! 

 

 

 

Rose, boyfriend Amrit, and their respective doggies, strike a typical Brooklyn pose
 (sitting on her apt. stoop)

 

 

 

Pulling Off Route 66

 

 

As an eternally reluctant driver, my M.O. on expressways is: make note of all the exits! You know, just in case the road starts to ice over (never mind that it’s August), or there’s a sudden deluge or high wind or thick fog or darkness falls or…

 

Mind you, I never visualize exactly what I’d DO once I got to the end of the exit ramp; if the road conditions were dire enough, I’d consider moving permanently to Exit 343B (“if you lived here, you’d be home now!” to quote those chirpy billboards.) After all, who needs anything more than three gas stations and a Pizza City, right? 

 

On Friday, I’ll officially be pulling off “Route 66,” as I’ve thought of the past year of my life. Recently retired, zipping along for the most part, writing and getting published a good bit. It’s been a pretty smooth ride, and I’d love to just stay here forever. 

 

But alas!! The road ahead is ending, abruptly, and I’m being detoured onto Route 67. Not yet sure what to expect on this new highway; I sure hope at least there’s a Pizza City. Will 67 be a twisty-turny mountain road? Will there be scary suspension bridges to drive across? How about the traffic situation? In other words, will I have more essays declined than accepted? Will the editors I love to work with leave their publications, or “ghost” me? Will I be scooped by legions of more talented writers, and pushed right out of the market?

 

Those are just my writerly fears! Add to them my myriad worries about health (physical and mental), finances, family and friends, this perilous world of ours. Understandably, I’m quite concerned about my path for the next 365 days. Oh, and let’s not forget my fun getting older "look"! Years ago, I wrote a piece about the age spots that were already on my hands when Julie was still in elementary school. I haven’t noticed them of late, perhaps because there are now so many that they’ve morphed into one gigantic spot. And ah! the irony of a metabolism that has slowed to a crawl just in time for the rapid speeding up of the aging process!! 

 

But I am cheered by reading more about “67,” even though it lacks a peppy song. According to numerology, 67 is an Angel Number, with the energy of numbers 6 AND 7. 6 signifies home, family, love, harmony and balance. 7 signifies spirituality, introspection, intuition, wisdom and analysis.

 

The “angel” part? Well, seems my personal angel has been sending me many messages, all containing “67.” I just haven’t been looking hard enough! 

Time to pay attention, Elise! There are 67 chapters in the book I’m reading! 67 ingredients in my “healthy” yogurt! 67 gray hairs on my head (as long as I stop counting at 67). Hints and nudges abound! 

I think I’m ready to take a spin on my thrilling new roadway. My angel awaits!

She's probably in Pizza City.

Me, on Route 1!

The Hunt is to the Swift(ie)

Only Easter Egg Hunt of my childhood, at Aunt Rosemary's

Remember Easter egg hunts? Those glorious springtime events where gleeful, pastel-clad children romped through fields of daisies, collecting multi-colored eggs in attractive wicker baskets? They always oohed and aahed over their bounty, and kindly shared their candy with younger, less successful, little hunters…

 

You don’t?

 

I don’t either. 

My experience as a child was underwhelming, and absolutely on point with the rest of my girlhood memories. My parents wouldn’t dream of making that kind of effort at home, and I honestly don’t recall many neighborhood hunts either. On Easter morn, my sisters and I would salute Christ’s resurrection by resurrecting old arguments (I HATE that spring coat! She’s wearing MY dress!) Once we were all dissolved in tears, we’d head off to Mass, where we’d sniffle and poke each other in the pew (Alleluia!) Decorating/hiding/finding eggs were the least of our problems, believe me.

 

I stepped up my game immeasurably when my own kiddos came along (remind me to tell you someday about our Pysanky egg adventure!) but I’m still not a huge fan of the hunt, and that also goes for scavenger hunts, treasure hunts—basically anything I have to utilize any brainpower to find. Where’s Waldo? was a favorite of my offspring, but not their mama, as I never could locate that darned guy, even after he had been pointed out by my two-year-old!

 

So when I started hearing about “Easter eggs,” referring to hidden elements in video games, movies, etc. my first reaction was: why?? It’s all I can do to keep a basic plot straight, without expecting I will register the clever extras!! Apparently, there are cross-references galore in Disney films. And in Back to the Future, a sign for “Twin Pines” Hotel in one scene appears later as “Lone Pine” after a car crashes into one of the trees. And of COURSE Taylor Swift is Queen of the Callback, as she is of everything, with myriad cloaked references to old boyfriends in her lyrics, and liner notes decoded to reveal future album release dates. 

 

It's all great fun (at least for the egg-planter), but I kinda wish this stuff stood on its own merits, with no additional gimmicks. Frankly, I hate being President of the Clueless Club, when everywhere around me people are triumphantly pinpointing Easter eggs all over the place. 

The whole thing tempts me to inject a few false flags here and there, just to level the playing field. “Didn’t you notice that Lin Manuel-Miranda says the word “shot” in his Sopranos appearance (1999)?” I’ll offer. “Sneaky tribute to “My Shot,” the famous Hamilton song that he wouldn’t write for another dozen years! And,” I’ll add, “that ironic reference to the 1970’s Women’s Lib movement in “Whistle While You Work” in Snow White, (1937)?” I bet I'll have folks replaying clips and music to beat the band, trying desperately find nonexistent “eggs.”

 

Meanwhile, don’t bother poring through my own books and other writing in search of hidden messages. 

 

Spoiler alert: there aren’t any. 

I'm SURE I don't need to point out where Tay rips off her paper airplane necklace (1:45) to symbolize her breakup with Harry Styles (who always wears: a paper airplace necklace), right?

A Very Hallmark Holiday Special: Love in the Card Store

Image by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

SETTING: A Hallmark Card Store, Any Little Town, USA

 

CHARACTERS: CASHIER, HOLLY CHRISTMAN, BRENT MCBRAWN

 

CASHIER: Welcome to Hallmark! May I help you find something?

HOLLY: Yes. Can you help me find the innocent little girl deep inside? I lost her when I became CFO of an unnamed corporation in the Big City.

CASHIER: I’ll see if we have any in stock.

HOLLY: Thank you! I’m only here in this podunk burg to clean out my dear dead Grandpa’s house. 

CASHIER: Was your Grandpa the one who lived in the split-level next door to Brent McBrawn?

HOLLY: Don't think so. It’s a rancher.

CASHIER: Not a rancher. Brent McBrawn is a lumberjack.

HOLLY: I meant—rancher, a one story.

CASHIER: I think all the ladies in town have a story about Brent! I have one myself!

BRENT (enters): Hey, hey, who’s talking about me now?

CASHIER: Hello there, Brent! If I’d known you were coming in, I would have dusted the Yankee Candle display!

BRENT: No worries! I’m just here for a holiday card, some holiday wrapping—and a holiday bow, I guess.

HOLLY: (to CASHIER) Isn’t this where you introduce us?

CASHIER: Not until you both grab the last roll of ribbon! I’ll say, “Whoa! No fighting in the store!”

HOLLY: Then what do I say?

CASHIER: You say, “That’s just something we successful big city folk do. When we see what we want, we go for it!”

BRENT: And then I say, “Speaking of seeing what we want, are you free for a peppermint mocha at St. Nick’s Café?”

CASHIER: Yes!

BRENT: (to CASHIER) I was talking to her (points to HOLLY).

CASHIER: Oh.

BRENT: (to HOLLY) Let’s head over to the ribbon aisle and have our meet-cute!

HOLLY: Who are you buying a holiday card and gift for?

BRENT: My old teacher, Mr. Bunyan, from Lumberjack School. He’s just lost without an axe to grind these days! So I buy him a small figurine or other Hallmark collectible. Cheers him right up!

HOLLY: That’s very thoughtful!! Beneath that ruggedly handsome, plaid shirted exterior, you’re really an old softy!

BRENT: Must be all the holiday cookies I’ve been eating. I need to get back to log splitting.

HOLLY: Could you…could you teach me the ways of the forest?

CASHIER: But what about your high-powered career as a CFO in the Big City?

HOLLY: I’ve spontaneously decided to quit and live in Grandpa’s old house. I love ranchers.

BRENT: I’m not a rancher. I’m a lumberjack. Could you possibly learn to love me?

HOLLY: I already do! Let’s finish our shopping and stroll arm in arm in the newly falling snow to St. Nick’s Café!

BRENT: It’s a date! But wait—I don’t even know your name!

HOLLY: Holly Christman.

BRENT: Naturally! (to CASHIER) Where is your display of Hallmark collectibles?

CASHIER: Right over there.

BRENT: I’ll take…(looks at HOLLY) two.

HOLLY: Oh, Brent! 

BRENT: Oh, Holly!

CASHIER: Do you have a Rewards card?

(they all laugh)

THE END

Cleaned to Death

Photo by Alexander Isreb on Pexels

It’s new! It’s popular! It’s from Sweden!

 

Nope, not IKEA, not this time.

 

It’s the latest craze, “Swedish Death Cleaning.” Does sound somewhat morbid, but have you ever watched an Ingmar Bergman movie? So much brooding! The Swedes are NOT the jolliest of souls (I know, there’s ABBA, but they are the exception to the rule. Stick with me). It stands to reason that this method would be both a practical pursuit, and a nifty way of keeping the Grim Reaper top of mind. 

 

Basically, you go through your worldly goods and sort/donate/pitch ruthlessly. When you’re done, you are left with an extremely pared-down existence, so that some distant day, when you shuffle off this mortal coil, your offspring will have almost nothing to deal with, as far as your belongings go. 

 

How I wish it had been a thing back when my mom was alive! Joanie would rather have died than cleaned, ever, but she was programmed to do whatever Oprah suggested. Maybe she would have been inspired to purge those decades of Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal, those 47 decorative pillows, that rusty sconce! 

 

Instead, my sister Carolyn (while Mom was moving from Atlanta after Dad died), had to surreptitiously cart TONS of useless stuff to the dumpster. Mom moved up to Philly in 1994, and was here for the last 12 years of her life, which was ample time to amass just about the same volume of flotsam and jetsam as had been tossed down in Georgia. When Joanie passed away in 2006, we had to get rid of another dumpster-full of her possessions. It was hellacious, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

 

Looking around, we are ripe for a good clear-out, and what better time than the dead (haha) of winter to accomplish this chore? I truly don’t want my kids having to dispatch the contents of our house someday after we’re gone—it’d be much too much for the poor darlings, who will already be struggling with their bottomless grief!! 

So out it will all go! We can manage just fine with bare-bones living: bookshelves with no books, closets and dresser drawers without clothes, no photos, no artwork, no pesky mementos. After our joint funeral (what, you think I’m going to croak without dragging Steve with me?), it’ll take the children about 10 minutes, tops, to get our abode all ready to sell. They can then return to THEIR chock-full dwellings, which in turn they will have to empty out well before THEIR expected demise. It’s a macabre type of “paying it forward”!

 

I do need to approach this methodically, though. After all, what’s taken us decades to accumulate, ain’t gonna disappear overnight.  As I mentally prepare to discard every single material thing I’ve ever held dear, just to spare my spoiled progeny from lifting a finger, what I really need are lots of sturdy containers to temporarily store everything, before Death Cleaning Day.

 

I think IKEA has just what I’m looking for. 

Mwah!

  

Sher and Yaj at their wedding. Aren't they adorable?

 

 

We humans put an awful lot of stock in kisses, don’t we? Letters are sealed with lipsticky kisses, there’s the legendary Kissing Bandit, there’s KISS (the legendary band), and of course the delectable Hershey’s kisses. And we’re not alone. Certain species of birds are known to give each other a fond peck from time to time. Even among the plants: there’s an amazing natural phenomenon called inosculation, from the Latin osculare (kiss), when two trees, a weaker and a stronger, “embrace”, and remain connected, to save the weaker one’s life. It’s really a lovely sight.

 

 

I love this!!

 

I’ve never (that I can recall) been kissed under the mistletoe. But I have been kissed at sunrise, in the moonlight, on the beach…most of these smooches, I hasten to add, courtesy of Steve. Indeed, I still remember our very first embrace, in my parents’ driveway after an early date (The Way We Were, that sentimental Streisand-Redford classic; we were quite logically swept away by the passionate onscreen romance of Katie and Hubbell.) 

And the celebrant’s “you may kiss the bride” is a beautiful culmination of most wedding ceremonies. Hooray for kisses, right? 

 

But I’ve come to have mixed emotions about them. For one thing, I firmly believe that adult family members should always ASK kiddos for a kiss/hug (as opposed to demanding one). My late, rather unlamented Pop Cunningham was one to tickle (and tickle, and tickle) my sisters and me, ignoring our breathless entreaties to stop. As a small child, I was often commanded to bestow a kiss on the wrinkled and overly powdered visage of my Nana’s spinster school teacher friend Retta O’Brien, and I dreaded it (I’m guessing Retta didn’t much like it either). 

 

However, I am a fan of the very stylish European “air kiss,” that delicate, two-sided gesture, where each person puckers up in the recipient’s general direction. The air kiss says, “Bonjour! Here we are, acknowledging each other’s presence with the added benefit of zero lip contact!” But I’m somewhat hesitant to try air kissing here in the USA, because it seems a little snobby. 

 

So on I go, hugging rather too generously, kissing only a bit more sparingly. Inevitably, my greeting partner is doing the opposite, and there we are, one of us extending their hand for a friendly shake, while the other is simultaneously planting a big wet smack on an unsuspecting cheek. An awkward silence always follows, and then upon parting the roles are usually reversed, with the kisser now a determined shaker, and the shaker now an abashed kisser. Can’t we all just escape from this Hell???

 

I have a modest proposal.

 

Let’s agree to reserve the kiss for certain special times, places and people. We do NOT have to pucker up for every random person in our lives. This way, the kiss can remain the sign of genuine affection it was always meant to be. 

 

But if I suddenly kiss you out of the blue, beware. I am either Judas, or a Corleone.