Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Instructions

If when I die, you weep for me
And mourn sweet times that never more will be
Please dry your eyes and go about your day
And smile at everyone you see
And wish them well to bless my memory

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

On Consideration


Fiorella does not accept challenges from anyone but herself. Life is challenge enough.
*
If Fio ever decides to end her own life, she will do so by revving up her baby car to its top speed and driving off a tall cliff so that all she'd have time to say as she fell to a quick and painless death would be "This is interesting."
*
The older Fiorella gets, the more dissatisfied she is with her name. She would have preferred Sally, the pretend name she gave herself when she was a child.
*
Everyone looked unhappy at H-E-B today so Fio smiled for all of them.
*
Don't ever let others define you. You now who you are.




Monday, January 29, 2018

More Introspection

Remember when Fiorella told you that everyone laughed when she said her newborn baby brother was wide asleep? That was when Fio first realized she could bring down the house--and that she liked it. But your faithful correspondent was only a-doin' what came naturally. her maternal grandfather may have been an alcoholic, but "Clown" also had a good sense of humor, which Mom inherited, thank goodness, or Fio would have never trod the earth--Dad had his choice of blind dates and opted for the girl who would be "a lot of fun."

Laughter has gotten Fio through a lot of tough spots and hard times, but she has to be careful because some people don't catch on to her jokes. And, above all, Fio wants to be kind.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Princess Redlander

This is a scene from a romance Fiorella is planning to finish off and publish as soon as her current WIP is finished. The heroine and her date had attended  political gathering at which he'd gotten drunk so the hero, who doesn't much like the heroine,  had to come to the rescue. 

Cotton frowned. Something must be going on.  He hung back under the hotel awning to watch the show. 
A silver Acura ZDX was parked at the curb and Lolly’s date, leaning against onto the valet stand, was arguing with the valet captain while Lolly held a light evening wrap tightly around herself and stood off to the side, as if distancing herself from the scene. 
“I c-can drive,” the kid insisted.  “Jus’ gimme the fuckin’ keys.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Phipps, but I can’t do that,” the valet captain explained.  “I’ve told you--Mike here will take you and your friend”—a nod at Lolly—“wherever you want to go, but we can’t allow you get behind the wheel.  We’ll store your car and you can come pick it up tomorrow.”
The kid swayed forward, pushing himself into the captain’s face.
Do you know who my f-f-father is?” 
“Yessir, you’ve already told me.  He’s on the Austin City Council.  And if you’ll give me his phone number, I’ll be glad to ask him to come pick you up.”
The crowd was losing patience.  “Get a move on,” a man yelled.  "We're all waiting for our cars." Cotton was pretty sure he recognized Ben Tabor’s voice.
Lolly moved forward a step. “For heaven’s sake, Trey, take the ride.  I need to get home before my aunt calls out the National Guard.”
The kid shot her a killing glance, then turned back to the valet captain.  “Okay, I’ll take your r-ride, but sh-she stays here.”  He whirled. “It’s all your fault, bitch!” 
He lost his balance as he lunged in Lolly’s direction, but a muscular valet grabbed him under the arms, packed him into the back seat of the Ford parked behind the Acura, and drove off.  Another valet hopped into the kid’s car and moved it away from the curb.  Within minutes the traffic jam had been cleared and the car claim was proceeding smoothly. 
The valet captain turned to Lolly.  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to wait till Mike gets back.  I can’t spare any more personnel right now.”
Lolly stiffened.  “But I . . . .  Never mind.  I understand.”
Cotton sighed and stepped forward. 
“I’ll give Miss Redlander a ride,” he said, handing his own claim tag over to the valet captain. Lolly was a spoiled brat, but was the right thing to do.   
                                         

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Sewing

One thing Fio and Husband have in common is that they both threaded needles for their near-sighted  mothers when they were kids, an essential service to the World War II family--store-bought clothes were limited and expensive. Of course, doting aunts with no children could always be depended on spoil their brothers' offspring. Thus, when Fio was about five and had been taken downtown with her mother and aunt, Aunt Julie said she wanted to buy Fiorella whatever dress she wanted. Fiorella chose a pink dress with black designs on the yoke, sleeves, and hemline, which she thought was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, but Mother throught was garish.  Mom tried to disuade Fio, but Aunt Julie stepped in and Fiorella went home with the dress of her dreams. In fact, she has some old photos of it somewhere around here.

Actually, Fiorella was always well-dressed. Mother had good taste and a flare for design. Fio's Christmas dress one year was cut out of her father's old tennis pants, and the sleeves and neck were embroidered with red and green yarn. Fio's dolls also benefitted from her mother's skills, and Fio still has the snow-suit Mom crocheted for her favorite doll one Christmas.

Fiorella herself learned to sew at a Singer Sewing Machine class when she was twelve and actually made some of her own clothes as an adult--not because she had to, but because she got a kick out of it. But then, Fio has always gotten a kick out of anything she could do herself. She was born that way.

Friday, January 26, 2018

A Beggar on the Intersection Island

Fiorella was chawing down on her first  chunk of chocolate when she spotted the beggar woman on the intersection island holding up a scrawled sign that said, "ANYTHING WILL DO."

Guilt wormed through Fio. Should she hand over her second chunk? But what if the woman was allergic to chocolate or she was diabetic, or what if she rejected Fio's offering because it didn't have a wrapper around it or because she just plain didn't like chocolate? And what if Fio was just making up excuses to herself  for not sharing  her chocolate?

What should she do? How could she decide?

The light changed, the traffic started moving, and the woman turned around and reclaimed her bag and water bottle, so Fiorella finished off the second chunk of chocolate herself.

But did she subconsciously deliberate deliberately so she wouldn't have to share?

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Every Morning

If I wake up alive
I will strive
To make the world
A better place
No matter age,
Or sex, or race

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Another Coincidence?

About twenty years ago, when Older Son and his wife lived in New Jersey, they took Fio and Husband around to all the local hot spots, like Ellis Island, which especially interested Fiorella because she knew her root stock had come through there. But imagine her shock when she looked around the photo gallery and locked eyes with a turn-of-the-century blow-up of a young, pale-eyed woman from Galizia (southern Poland) who could be her double.

Fiorella's paternal great-grandparents were from Galizia.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Christmas, Decorations, Writing, Turpin, Duggar, DC

The time of sorrow has come--with a heavy heart, Fiorella is taking down her Christmas decorations. She started yesterday by removing the tinsel garlands from the south side of the driveway, and today, she'll take down the ones on the north side of the driveway. Piece by piece, day by day, the tree, the ornaments, the the wreaths, the swags, birds,  the snowflakes, the red ribbons, the manger scenes, the red and green chains will be dismantled and wrapped away for next year. Fast away the old year passes, fa la la la la, la la la la........
*
Fio has finished marking the fourth (fifth?) revision of the storybook of her WIP and is now transfering it to the book itself. The story hangs together much better now, although she's not happy with her last chapter yet. But at least she's moving along. That decision to work on Phillipa's story EVERY DAY has helped a lot.
*
Like everyone else, Fio is shocked by the Turpin family horror, but she's not surprised that the parents dreamed about a TV reality show. She recognized their similarity to the Duggars right out of the box-not just the kids' names all beginning with the same letter (J), but also the retstriction of the children's social development and the piling up of so many kids in such limited space.
*
What else is on Fiorella's agenda? Well, she has to gather tax info for the accountant, check on the house insurance to see if Husband can negotiate a lower rate, get someone to unstick the front-room shade, decide what to do about her critique group, pay bills, and find a spa that will botox her washboard forehead at a rock-bottom price. Sleeping and eating are optional.
*
Fiorella is more depressed than ever about DC. Why does the teflon don always get away with everythng? Was Fio's march around the courthouse in vain?

Monday, January 22, 2018

FELIX, FIO'S HERO

Fio salutes Felix at Office Depot (which now is calling itself Buzz Beat or something stupid like that) who saved the day for Fiorella--or at least saved the precious pictures on her Droid, a feat which neither Verizon, Click, her IT friend, nor a cell-phone repair shop knew how to do. Her hero moved the pictures off Gallery to an app that worked, then made sure Fio knew how to reach them--and all he charged her was ten bucks and change.

But Fio owes him the world.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

THREE TIMES AROUND IS THE CHARM

Since no women's march had been sheduled for Georgetown, Fiorella decided to make herself a sign (WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL) and march around the county courthouse solo. And she did.

It was so scary at first--especially since her mother's voice kept whispering in her ear not to make a spectacle of herself--that  she felt obliged to explain to whomever looked her way that she was a one-woman march. But after she survived the first round, she decided to do another one for exercise. And a third one. The thrill of the day was when a young couple spotted her from across the street and hurried over to find out what her sign was about.

All in all, Fio went home satisfied. She'd done what was right and maybe she'd drawn some attention to her cause. FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Catchng Up with Trump

Trump has unleashed and empowered the worst of us. So sad.
*
Does Paul Ryan realize that raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 would throw us into the 1980's again, when it was hard for people coming into the job market to find employment? Think about it--if you hold onto five years' worth of workers at one of a spectrum, you squeeze out five years worth at the other end.
*
The word is that Trump told Howard Stern that he'd give Melania a couple of days--maybe a week--to lose her pregnancy fat after she gave birth. No news about how fast she shaped up, but four months later, Trump inaugerated an affair with a porn star.
*
Trump seems to share an interesting characteristic with his basest base--he is swayed, at least momentarily, by the the loudest voice around.  Thus he can agree with Kelly when he's with him, then change his mind when he hears from the next load-voiced person whom he's with.
*
It's a waste of time to try to understand why the pseudo-religious right continues to support Trump. In fact, we've spent way too much time trying to analyze and rationalize his adherents when we should have been blocking them. They are not going to understand our reasoned and well-meant responses and explanations because they don't want to. If Christ came to earth tomorrow and Trump called him the devil, Trump's followers would stone the Son of God. In fact, metaphorically, they already have..
*




Friday, January 19, 2018

Coincidence?

Fiorella remembers maybe forty years ago when she was in Northcross Mall and stopped to admire a baby that a white-haired woman was pushing in a stroller. "Thank you," the woman said. "We've waited a long time for this," and Fio froze as she realized it would be the same for her.

And it was.




Thursday, January 18, 2018

Here and There

An iron poker landed on the big toe of Fiorella's left foot last night when she was trying to keep the fire going. Guess who's in pain this morning?
*
When a chubby-cheeked baby smiles at you, there's no way you can't smile back.
*
Fio has finally come to terms with "amazing" and "awesome," the descriptive terms that have taken the country by storm and are apparently the only words HG house hunters know. As a linguist, Fio realizes she can't hold back the tide because living languages are always changing, but as her mother's daughter, she wants to scream at people to enlarge their vocabularies or sit down and shut up.
*
Did Fio tell you she's finished printing out all her 2017 pages and putting them in a loose-leaf notebook? Starting from 2008, that makes nine years of them. Yeah, Fio is a never-give-up-the-ship kinda gal.
*
It feels strange to sit on the couch in front of the TV without a telenovela playing, but Mi Marido Tiene Familia has run its course and Fio hasn't found a replacement yet. Give her time.


Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Revelations

Fiorella is the most creative creature on the face of the earth, and she's usually pretty self-secure about it too, but sometimes she needs someone to pat her on the head and say "good dog." Like about now, when she's desperate for someone to come over to the house, ignore the messes, and admire her Christmas decorations. AND SHE'S NOT GOING TO PACK AWAY SO MUCH AS A  STRING OF TINSEL UNTIL SHE GETS HER FILL OF OOHS AND AAHS!
*
When it comes to keeping fires going, Fio is a great believer in rotten wood.
*
An extensive analysis of the personalities of the hero and heroine are the basis of every romance your Fiorella writes. From then on, the characters make their own story.
*
Strangely enough, Fio felt quite comfortable walking up the driveway to the mailbox yesterday when everyone else was complaining about the weather. Sure, the temperature was hovering at freezing, but the cold was still--no wind--and the sun was bright. Of course, Fio was clutching her mother's mink jacket around her, which also may have helped.
*
Fio is gathering all the evidence on the dining room table in preparation for working on the taxes, one of her least popular chores, but it must be done. Luckily, she has a very nice CPA couple who tolerate her ignorance and stupidity. Thank you, Lisa and Blake.



Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Shrinks

Years ago, when Fio told a psychiatrist she was working full-time, attending college part-time, and screaming in the back yard on Sundays, he said she was just feeling sorry for herself. Chastened and angry, Fio went home, screamed in the back yard again, wrote the experience up as a short story, and gave him a copy on her next (and final) session.

Then there was the psychologist whom Fio told about when she saw her baby brother for the first time. She remembered there being a crowd of neighborhood women in the house awaiting Mother's arrival, and when the ambulance attendants brought her and baby inside on a stretcher, to everyone's delight, Fio exclaimed, "He's wide asleep!" But the psychologist disputed Fio's story, calling it a false memory because no hospital would deliver to the door, so Fio, who knew her experience was real, researched the time period--1945--and learned that due to the war effort, the hospitals didn't have enough beds and regularly discharged patients early, sending them home by ambulance because there was also a shortage of cars and gasoline.

The same psychologist also pooh-poohed Fiorella's memory of taking some tests in the school office when she was in first grade and overhearing people talk about her scores. But years later, she learned that the school had wanted to move her up to a combined second/third grade class, which Mother, who herself had been skipped a grade, nixed.

Enter the hero, a wonderful woman, a fellow romance writer who is also a psychologist and has been kind enough to give Fio good counsel when she has was in her depths.  Thank you, Janece Hudson, for listening. And thank you for believing me.


Monday, January 15, 2018

Diverse Ponderings

When Fio was young, she wanted to live her adult life in luxury, but circumstances thankfully intervened, and she's a better person for it.
*
When Fio clutches at her bosom to locate her credit card in her bra and the young male clerk looks politely in the other direction....
*
When Fiorella wakes up each morning, her refreshed  brain floods with inspiration, and she immediately reaches for her yellow list and stick pen (su lista amarilla y su boligrafo) which she keeps by the side of the bed (la cama). But as the light is low in at that time of day, she has to spend the rest of themorning trying to decipher her chicken scratches.
*
When Fio was born, she checked "heterosexual" on her sexual choice card and started looking for her mate. The paperboy, the principal's son, the older brother of a boy in her first-grade class--they all attracted her. She can even still remember the names of her crushes from kindergarten on.
*
When you think about it, it's interesting how different we humans are from each other, not only in how we look or speak, but also how we choose to live our lives--our occupations. We're so much more diverse than, say, butterflies. Mabe that's why we've become the dominant species.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Pledge

I do not care
What you weigh
Or what you wear
Or who you say
Your parents are
Your shade of skin
Your breed of car
Or even where you've been
I only ask that you speak true
As I, my friend, will speak to you

if fio can'tbepart of a movemenr, she'll be the movement

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Pulling Herself Together

Slowly but surely, Fiorella is repairing herself. She's come to terms with her friend's death, recovered from the gunk, and gotten her computer set back on its axis. In addition, her car now releases the ignition key on command, and she has the address and phone number of a cell phone repair shop in a shopping center in Round Rock. And while she's in the vicinity, she'll beard Eye Mart Express with the information that those last glasses whe got from them were bogus--the lenses were weaker than her previous glasses, and Fio doesn't think the ophthamologist was to blame.
*
Yes, of course Trump is getting more awful by the moment. His dementia is on a rollercoaster ride, and the GOP is hanging on for dear life, trying to get everything it can out of him before he crashes.
*
Fiorella loves cold weather, especially when she's sitting on the couch in front of a roaring fire.
*
Busting down the Interstate at 80 mph relaxes Fio. Her eyes, ears, hands, and feet take over and drive automatically as her brain wanders into channels more interesting.
*
Fiorella's telenovela had its last hurrah last night. Daniela and Gabriel are married, Eugenio and Blanca have come to a new understanding of their relationship, Julieta and Robert/Juan Pablo, who now have two children, will be moving out of the extended-family home to their own casa, Marisol and Xavi are heading toward some kind of accomodation, Audifaz's book is selling, Linda and Bruno are back together, and Hugo's cookie business is taking off so he and his wife are escaping from his mothe at last. And your Fiorella thinks she's picked up a little more Spanish. Gone are the days when she couldn't sort the characters' names out from the dialogue.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Christmas Carols

Fiorella plays the piano for about fifteen minutes a day to keep up her never-that-great-and-now-fading keyboard skills, and during the holiday season, she concentrates on traditional carols. Her favorites are Good King Wenceslas,  Silent Night, We Three Kings, Joy to the World, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, The First Noel, Away in a Manger, It Came upon a Midnght Clear, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Deck the Halls, Angels We Have Heard on High, Go Tell It on the Moutain, What Child is This, and O Come All Ye Faithful. Her mother's favorites were O Christmas Tree and I saw Three Ships Come Sailing In. And if you're wondering why Fiorella is reporting this information, it is so if Baby reads it when she grows up, she will get to know both her grandmother and her great-grandmother as more than names on a page.


Thursday, January 11, 2018

Adventures in Electronics

FIORELLA IS TAKING THE MORNING OFF TO DRIVE HER COMPUTADORA OVER TO CLICK BECAUSE SHE"S HAVING TROUBLE< AS YOU CAN TELL< WITH UPPER?LOWER CASE AND BLUE SCREEN> MORE FUN> WISH FIO WELL>
La computadora es HEALED! The blessed hands of Travis at Click Computer Repair were what performed the miracle, although even he had never seen la problema before and had to consult a computer repair cheat sheet, Yes, your Fiorella is so talented that she pulled something totally unique. Apparently Fiorella, who is a hunt-and peck typist, had hit three very powerful keys at once, which reversed the upper/lower cases and set off chain reactions all over her sites. After marveling at Fio's power, Travis waved his magic hands over the keyboard and flipped everything back to normal. Or, as normal as it gets with Fio at the wheel.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Late Night Notes

Husband and I are even-steven when it comes to dental work. His parents paid for the braces that closed the gap between my two front teeth, and I used a chunk of the inheritance my father left me to pay for caps for his disintegrating teeth.
*
 Okay, Fio will tell you what she wrote on to a Trumper on FB la couple of nights ago: DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SUPPORT SOMEONE WHOSE IDEA OF STATESMANSHIP IS WAGGLING HIS PENIS AT NORTH KOREA? And in the bright light of day, she stands by her every word.
*
Fio, a born lone wolf, has always had it in the back of her head that if she produced good art, wrote good stories, composed good music, and did good things, she would be recognized and successful. In her dotage, she has realized that recognition and success are based on making "the right" connections. The rest is gone with the wind.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Busy Buzzy Bee

Fiorella es fabulosa! Yesterday she picked up bread at the Panera drive-thru and ordered more for the next day, bought a ledger at Office Depot for herself and adhesive patches at Hobby Lobby for Husband's leathert recliner, stopped by the vacuum cleaner place for more bags and filters, grabbed a potted flower at H-E-B to present to her favorite Mazda guy when she asked him to let her retrieve her car before it was healed because Husband needed the Mercedes (hereafter referred to as The Blimp or The Queen Mary) for his multiple medical appointments this week, drove over to Mazda with said flower pot in hand and learned the car was ready but needed washing,  went back to H-E-B to fill the grocery list, headed home to put up the groceries and recruit Husband to take her back to Mazda to pick up her car, stopped at Walgreens on the way to pick up a prescription, then stopped in the driveway at home to pick up the mail and move the empty trash can back into the woods.

After a brief recovery period, Husband drove Fio back to Mazda and she was thrilled to have her baby car back bright and shiny. But when she got home, she had to call her Mazda guy back and leave a message--the key was still stuck in the ignition. Yes, Fiorella fabulosa, the nutcracker doll is still broken.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Can't quit talking about Sharon Kite

Fiorella was front and center at Sharon Kite's funeral on Saturday, but it's just now that she's able to report in without drowning her keyboard in tears and shorting out her computer.

The church was crowded. In fact, there were twice as many people in attendance than had been there a month ago when Baby was baptized, but that was only to be expected. Sharon, with her sunny personality and piquant sense of humor, was a people magnet. Laughter was her survivial technique, her way of dealing with the bad hands life deals us all.

Sharon and Fiorella were close for more than forty years, through  Fio's triumphs and troubles and hers, but the last couple of years, they hadn't seen each other as often as before. Fio had moved thirty-some miles away, and Sharon, who had won her battle with ovarian cancer (probably by laughing it off), was more than ever involved with her extensive family--her brothers and sisters, her two children and their children--which meant their Dan's Hamburgers meet-ups became less and less frequent. Fio understood--after all, she had her own family responsibilities to attend to.

This last summer, Sharon told her the cancer was back, and when they finally did get together in late October, Daughter, who was Sharon's goddaughter, accompanied her.  Sharon was bedbound, her daughter and two of her grandsons in attendance. Nothing for Fiorella to do but put on a smile and tell a lot of funny stories about their various escapades in the church choir, which set everyone to laughing.

Fiorella visited again in mid-November, then tried to visit in early December, but Sharon was not locatable, no many how many times Fiorella emailed her, called her phone number, texted her, or banged on her front door. Then, right after Christmas, when Fio was so sick, Pastor Gronberg called and told her Sharon had been moved to a hospice and was weakening. Fio planned to visit Sharon again as soon as she was able, but Sharon died the next day.

A week later, Fiorella, Husband, and Daughter attended Sharon's full-house funeral. Fio took six Kleenexes with her, but even hanging them across a stack of hymnals to dry in turn, they weren't enough.

Rest in peace, Sharon Kite.



Sunday, January 7, 2018

Tinsel Interview

Interviewer: Fiorella, every time I drive by your property, I admire those tinsel garlands strung from tree to tree down your driveway.  Where did you get the idea?

Fio: Actually, it was pure desperation. I wanted to decorate the front of our property, but the road is an acre up from the house and we have a screen of trees across it, which meant I couldn't use lights or fiberboard stand-ups. I stared at everything for a while, waiting for inspiration, and finally realized garlands were my only choice. They're lightweight and inexpensive, tinsel catches the light, and they provided a continuous line for the eye to follow.

Interviewer: I noticed that you have added more garlands this year.

Fio: The first year, I was using leftovers from inside decorations and hung just a few trees on the road and a few more down the drive. Now I'm up to 300 yards of garlands, although half of that number is due to my adding a second tier of tinsel so I have a double hang.

Interviewer: How the heck do you secure the garlands to the trees?

Fio: At first, I just looped them around whatever nature provided, which meant I had to walk the drive every day and reposition the them. The next two years, I used wire, which was a bitch to take down after Christmas. This year, I used twisties, which are fabulous, especially when I have to hang the garlands from metal stakes because I've run out of trees..

Interviewer:  Any problems?

Fio: The cedars. I've had to be ruthless with them because they tend to reach out and snag the tinsel. My repair kit this year consisted of twisties, scissors, and pruners.

Interviewer: Do you have any final advice for anyone else who wants to hang garlands outside?

Fio: Buy your packs at a dollar store and save them year to year. Tinsel is cheap, but it adds up.



Saturday, January 6, 2018

Down with the Clown!

Fio had trouble going to sleep last night because the latest Trump melodrama kept rolling through her head so she grabbed her yellow tablet and, in the dim light from the porch outside the window,  wrote six untrammeled pages.The notes are going to be hard to decipher, but Fio bets she'll find fodder for at least two political poems, several blog entries, and a clever acrostic in there.
*
Fio has said all along that everyone is the White House is probably taking notes for his own tell-all book, but she didn't expect anything as delicious as Fire and Fury. And she would never have predicted that Bannon would commit Trumpian suicide.
*
Fio has read that Anthony Scaramucci, sycophantic lap dog that he is, has responded to the book by denying it and lavishing praise on Trump and his intellect. Probably angling to replace Sessions.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Notes in Parentheses



Fio was awakened once in the middle of the night by Sonia so her majesty could go outside and squat (note to self: make sure doggie does duty before bedtime from now on), then, a couple of hours later, by a GERD attack (note to self: steer clear of  the Hershey brand of hot chocolate and chocolate cake from now on), then, sometime after dawn, by Sonia insisting on going out again, but this time to bark back and forth to the neighbor dogs.

Why? Foggy-brained Fiorella looked outside and didn't see any deer invasions, but did hear a familiar grinding sound. THE TRASH PICK UP! Fio and Husband had filled the trunk of his car with trash bags last night, and she had volunteered to get up early and get it all to the curb before the disposal service arrived.

Suddenly wide awake, Fiorella tightened the tie of her heavy, floor-length red winter robe, shoved her feet into the nearest shoes available, grabbed the car keys, drove up to the road, hurled the bags of trash into the can, and wheeled it into place for the pick up. She probably missed the pick up, but at least the trash is out of the trunk of the car (note to self: better late than never, but try to be more attentive from now on).


Thursday, January 4, 2018

Health and Happiness

Give Fiorella a pat on the back. Even though she was sick, sick, sick this past week, she never missed putting up a daily post. Actually, being under the weather was interesting in a strange sort of way. Fio never had a fever, but her energy went south. She'd stare at her lista amarilla, figure out a couple of simple, easy things to do, then let everything else go hang. And it was a good thing she did because her brain and handwriting had gone south. All she wanted to do was sleep.
*
Fio's drive into town to make a bank deposit was a many-splendered thing. Not only did she make  her deposit, but she picked up chocolate-chip cookies from Starbucks, dropped by the post office to mail a pack of bills she was paying, and stopped at el buzon at the head of la entra de las coches to get su correo.
*
People were so kind to Fio when she was out today. They held the door for her and gave her the right- of-way when she needed to make a turn into the shopping center. Inside the bank, she was greeted by name by the cashier and waved at by one of her bankers. Her two favorite Starbucks baristas also remembered her by name. By the time Fio got home, she was glowing.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Pluses and Minuses

Disaster has struck Fiorella's cell phone. For some reason known only to itself--Jay, the Verizon guy couldn't begin to figure what was going on--the camera went black with white lattices. Jay told Fio that her pictures were safe in the cloud, but didn't tell her how she could obtain them. Fio has put out an SOS on FB, but so far, no takers.

On the plus side, Fiorella seems to have finally recovered from the Gunk. Yes, she knows she's been saying that for about a week now, but this time, it's for real...she hopes.

Another minus is Fio's baby car, which has been in the shop for a week now. The key got stuck in the ignition, which aparently means that the aforementioned ignition is giving up the ghost. What it will cost to replace the ignition is another minus.

Fio will try to be more jolly tomorrow.



Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Obituary, Emergency, Hatred

Today is the day that Fiorella will run off her posts for the year past, adding another loose-leaf notebook to her stack. Her ultimate intention is to get each year photocopied and passed out to the family to remember her by. And, by the way, her current obituary is "Fiorella Plum was an artist, a writer, a linguist, a teacher, a wife, a mother, and a friend. She led a full life and wishes everyone well."
*
With a prayer in her heart, Fiorella pulled to the side of the road as an emergency vehicle screamed out of its station and edged its way into traffic, then turned off into a down-at-the-heels neighborhood. A couple of miles further on, another emergency vehicle, its siren at full blast, passed by her and turned into another low-income neighborhood. And, of course, Fio was moved to tears. How wonderful to live in a community that cares about its residents, no matter their economic circumstances.
*
If haters were able to destroy everyone of a different shade of skin than theirs, they'd then turn on anyone with a different color of hair, or eye color, or nose shape, or ear size, or height, or weight, or facial expression, or tone of voice. Hate can never be satiated.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Fiorella's Creed

The alphorisms Fio tries to lives by:
     Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
     Actions speak louder than words
     You can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar
     Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today
     Waste not, want not
     Always go that extra mile
     A penny saved is a penny earned
     Life is short, art is long
     The pen is mightier than the sword
     While there is life, there is hope