HANDWRITING

OK. My handwriting has evolved and I can’t read it any more.  Everyone says that, I suppose.  Fact is, we scribble little shortcuts.  Like “r” might become one camel hump instead of two.  Or “ing” might morph into an un-dotted “i” and an “n” that looks smashed, and it all becomes a single slash squiggling downward to imply there’s a “g”.

Over the decades I have evolved into a speed writer in a super sonic sort of way.  I have stretched lines out and wrapped them and created my personal mark for syllables like “tion” and “and”.

I can’t read my scribble any more.  As I write this draft for my blog, I am trying my dead level best to notice when a word is disappearing into a scrawl, and then I bring it back to life by marking over it and rewriting it.  Then I mark over that and rewrite it again.  Seriously!  I never had to do this before!

At least my Hugh Mouse drawings haven’t morphed too much.  Hugh will always be Hugh, no matter how big his ears get.

PAINTING FLOWERS

Allen Montague (Allen, if you read this, I take the opportunity to thank you) is a brilliant artist and teacher in Raleigh.  His words, “Well then, don’t try to paint flowers” are now my mantra for all sorts of things, like writing blogs.  But I’ll get to that in a moment.

I was taking an acrylic painting class.  (Yes, Hugh Mouse thinks he’s an artist.)  We were all painting a big flower on our respective canvases.  I was slapping paint around and feeling kind of unequipped, so I looked around for Allen.  When he eventually walked over, I plaintively (maybe a little whiningly) told him, “I try to paint flowers but they don’t look like flowers.”

All he said was, “Then don’t try to paint flowers.”  Awareness bloomed (no pun intended) in my stiff, stilted psyche.  Then I painted the best flower painting of my life and even stepped into a brand new style of painting for me.

That mantra pops up from time to time.  Like today.  I was thinking how my recent blog stories just aren’t like they used to be, and I told myself, “Dummy,” (that’s my own words, not the guru’s), “don’t try to write stories.”  And guess what.  Today, about four stories in a row poured out of my mouse brain!  Hallelujah!

Don’t try to paint flowers.  Sounds dumb, but it’s profound.  I guess it’s a mouse thing.

REFRIGERATOR SCRAMBLE

What are those games called?  You know, the ones with the little squares that you move around until you’ve got four words.  We had them a half century ago and they’re popular again.

Yesterday I put a corrugated box large enough to hold a cake into my refrigerator.  It took some cleaning out to do it.  It takes up about 3/5 of the top shelf.  I know this because exactly two cartons of milk will fit between it and the sidewall. Today I am sliding bottles and cartons around in there just like that little game. 

I had placed some bottles behind the corrugated box (there’s room back there).  I slid the milk carton to the left, shoved the tea pitcher to the right, slid the OJ bottle forward then left where a space appeared, somehow.  So far so good.  Just have to get to that bottle from the far corner.

Next I grabbed a bottle from the back and slid it one step forward toward the front of the fridge.  No.  I think the way it went was I slid one bottle from behind the box into the space freed up by moving the OJ bottle.  Then I slid one more out from back there and forward.  Now I could get to that last bottle back in the corner.  After freeing it from behind the box, I moved it toward the front of the fridge by taking the tea pitcher out (felt kind of guilty for not playing by the rules) and moving a 2-liter bottle over. Finally, I slid the desired bottle forward, around the milk, and – at last – out of the fridge.

All that for a glass of wine!

SUNDAY PILLS

Frowning, lips pursed, George mumbles, “Bitter as hell.”  He’s chewing up his pills instead of swallowing them.  Oh well.  At least he got them today.

I’m the pillkeeper.  I’m in charge of getting it right.  George takes a boatload of pills. Today my cell phone alarm rang (yes, you do whatever it takes to remember stuff at my age) reminding me to give George his 5:00 pills. As I was taking the Sunday pills out of the little weekly pill box, I noticed that Saturday’s pills were still in their slot.  Egad!  I forgot to give George his pills yesterday!  I hope it won’t matter. 

Did I give him those pills yesterday?  Yes, I distinctly remember it because I dropped one and had to search all over the place to find it.  I put all the wheels in gear in my worn out brain to figure out if I really took that shot yesterday or could it have been the day before, which might have seemed like yesterday?  (I think that’s vice versa.) 

I put the pills back in the Sunday slot, took out the Saturday pills and stared at them.  That did a lot of good.  I put them back and took out the Sunday pills again and stared at them, as if they could tell me something.

Now before I tell you this, you need to give me a break because I’m getting a little older these days.-----  It's Saturday!