Happy 4th, with an Erma Bombeck Smile

image courtesy Pixabay

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness." --Erma Bombeck, 1927-1996, writer and columnist

Happy 4th to all! Hope your celebration is special and your potato salad stays fresh :-)

Familiar with Erma Bombeck?  She could sure offer up great humor, especially some of her takes on parenthood. Many times she managed to be funny and profound at the same time. She also was a prolific writer. Some of her titles include: If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?; The Grass is Always Green Over the Septic Tank; When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home; and At Wit's End.

Samples of her quips:

"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."--Erma Bombeck

"All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them."--Erma Bombeck

"Housework, if you do it right, will kill you."--Erma Bombeck

"I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up." --Erma Bombeck

Hope you enjoy the holiday. What's your favorite picnic food or Fourth of July tradition? Do you have a favorite Erma Bombeck quip or story?

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A Story's Roots

Photo: sxc.hu

"All of literature comes out of the family--Oedipus, Hamlet--even Genesis is a family story. Storytellers always revert to the family--the people we're born from and the people born to us. It's impossible to exhaust." --Irwin Shaw

I can think of a few families whose life's journey would make a good story, can you?

Do you agree that all of literature comes out of the family? Or might there be other story roots?

Just wonderin'...

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Father's Day Favorite

Happy Day! As I get ready to post, it is Father's Day 2010 AND I'm 2000 miles from home celebrating it with not only my husband/our kids' dad, but with our son and his family--him a new father this year. His little Nicholas is now 5 weeks old--and we're having our first visit together. Oh, it's been so much fun to meet--and cuddle--him.

So in honor of all these good things, I'm going to post one of the family's favorite recipes, something we "girls"are going to put together here in a bit for our guys. It is a tradition for special occasions and there's no reason to break the tradition now. Even if we had to come so far to make it.

(By the way, in case son-in-law happens to read this, we will do the same for you when we get back :-)

We call it Spaghetti Loaf, and it is--yes--spaghetti, and cheeses baked in the shape of a loaf (think meatloaf) that, when done, is sliced down and smothered with homemade pizza sauce. Yummm. It's a recipe I came across in the newspaper many years ago. It was an instant hit then, and continues to be a family favorite today.

Here's the recipe:

This may have nothing to do with writing, but the fun is bubbling over, somewhat like a pot of pizza sauce simmering on the stove.

Dessert favorite is Blueberry Cheesecake. But I'll have to share that another time.

Happy Father's Day!

Word of the Day

Whimsy (hwimzee)--1. flight of the imagination, fancy;

2. endearing quaintness or oddity; the quality of being slightly odd
or playfully humorous, especially in an endearing way.

If you took a look around my house, you would find a number of what might be described as "whimsical" objects--including these two drawings. Both were created by my kids--before they got all grown up on me. Keith was only three when he made the first, which I titled, "Keith, a Self-Portrait." Melissa drew "My Family" when she was four (notice the pet cat in the lower left hand corner). I love these prints which now hang in an upstairs hall. They are a humorous--and endearing-- reminder of the joy children bring, and still elicit a smile when I glance their way.

I have my friend Margie to thank for inspiring the idea of "whimsy" as my word-of-the day. She recently wore a darling silver pin handcrafted by a silversmith into a fun representation of A.A.. Milne's Eeyore, from the Winnie-the Pooh stories. She received the pin as a gift at a time in her life when most girls get an engagement ring. Though she didn't get the ring, she got a fanciful Eeyore pin, an enduring marriage to the guy who gave it to her, and a story to go with it.

There's a place in life for whimsy--a special something capable of generating a smile, rendering a pleasant memory, or stirring the imagination in a quirky kind of way. Whimsy has a place sometimes in writing, too. A classic example of this is in Cynthia Ryland's book (and Newbery Medal winner)--Missing May. This beautiful children's story about love and loss in an orphan's life features a slightly odd collection of whimsical whirligigs. Missing May has been around a few years, but still captures the emotions and heart of the reader and, once you've read it, you won't think of a whirligig the same again.

Whimsy. What touch of whimsy has captured your heart recently--or entered into one of your stories?

Mesmerized Writing

Are you mesmerized by your writing? I don't mean so enthralled by your words that you can't imagine changing a single phrase--most writers recognize they have to be willing to scratch even the most beloved words if it means making a stronger, better piece--but mesmerized as in being so intent in the process that you can't pull yourself away. It's like you're caught up in a spell, in a zone, unaware of anything and everything around you, i.e. mesmerized. Sound familiar?

Eudora Welty, well-known twentieth century author, likened the writer's proclivity to mesmerization as being akin to traveling with a man like her father. I came across this connection in her autobiography, One Writer's Beginnings (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1984). Early in the book she described family trips taken when she was a child (she was born in 1909). She wrote:

"When we set out in our five-passenger Oakland touring car on our summer trip to Ohio and West Virginia to visit the two families, my mother was the navigator. She sat at the alert all the way at Daddy's side as he drove, correlating the AAA Blue Book and the speedometer, often with the baby on her lap... Riding behind my father I could see that the road had him by the shoulders, by the hair under his driving cap. It took my mother to make him stop. I inherited his nervous energy in the way I can't stop writing on a story. It makes me understand how Ohio had him around the heart, as West Virginia had my mother. Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike by knowing of their destinations."

Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike... I find this to be true. I have often said that it's as if I have a tiger by the tail (or maybe a tiger in the tank?) and can't let go until I reach a stopping point. Too many times the stopping point is well past a reasonable time, like a driver who won't allow for rest stops. Gotta' keep going while the thoughts are flowing, or the miles are passing--same thing. Don't stop or you'll lose momentum. We dread having to crank that  momentum back up again.

It's okay to be mesmerized--if you live in the proverbial writer's tower and don't have other things to do. But being a writer for most of us is only part of our lives. We all have our own "other" pieces of the pie and desire to balance various loves, interests, and responsibilities in a meaningful way. Besides, being mesmerized carries the risk of stranding ourselves from the relationships that are most important to us.

So I ask, how do you break the spell, pull away--and temporarily put a halt to your latest writing trip when it's necessary? How do you map out the route to your writing destination while allowing for all the stops along the way?

Two Feet Get-A-Way

We had the greatest time over this past weekend when we hit the road for a family get-away to Clifty Falls State Park in Indiana, about an hour and a half from where we live in Cincinnati. Once there, hubby and I, daughter, son-in-law, and little granddaughter had a memorable time...

                          

           ...viewing waterfalls...                                                                                    ...hiking trails...

                            

   ...drinking in the (Ohio) riverview...                                                            ...marveling over nature...

...and watching butterflies flitter along the trail.

There was much, much more--like tennis and swimming, swings, and picking dandelions. Mommy's story-reading time (in French, no less--this child is going to be multi-lingual!), and rides on Daddy's shoulders.

Oh, and the two feet game.

If you've never played this game before, here are the rules. Put an almost-two year old, dressed in lavender pjs with teddy bears on the front, on the bed between Grandma and Grandpa and see her raise both legs in the air. One of you cry, "Two feet!" and stick your legs in the air alongside of her. Hear the giggles. Lower legs, wait a second, then cry, "Two feet!" again--and all three of your raise your legs at the same time. Lower legs, pause, wait for her to chirp, "Two feet!" and start all over again. Repeat as often as necessary before you collapse with laughter.

I strongly recommend a weekend get-away with family--you'll come home with special memories, a refreshed outlook, and maybe even a writing inspiration or two.

Who knows. You might even discover a two feet get-away game of your own.

Pep Talk

It is the next to last day of January, and so very cold outside. We didn't get the snow and ice that has paralyzed the south, but we're in a deep freeze and, now that the sun's gone down, it's going to get even colder overnight.

So why am I thinking about playgrounds? You know, like swings and slides and climbing gyms? Walks around the lake, children's water parks? Could it be I'm wishing for warmer days?

Not really.

I'm remembering my granddaughter's delight at summer's end when we took her to the water park and she, at sixteen months old, ran through the sprays. Wet and wiggly, she ran from her daddy into the fountain and out, right into my arms, just about knocking me over. Back and forth, back and forth. She couldn't get enough of the absolute glee of it all. She had discovered something new and loved it. And we loved experiencing it with her.

I think that's one of the things about writing that I enjoy most--discovery. Whether it's discovering who my character is (and I haven't quite gotten there yet) or journaling two or three pages only to come to an "aha" moment of something I didn't realize I was thinking, different from the original direction I thought I was headed in, there's fun in the process.

And so I tell myself, play with words. Play with ideas. Play with character sketches, motives, conflict, themes. Don't make the process hard. Go to the playground of writing. Swing a bit. Dash through the fountain and feel the spray. Choose discovery.

No mattter what the temperature outside is!