Val Muller

The Electronic Wordsmith

Flash (holiday) fiction: Naughty by Val Muller

December 17, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write using the theme “The Christmas season.” Today’s prompt comes to us from Val Muller, author of the Corgi Capers mystery series.

Naughty

By Val Muller

She stood at the drying rack, studying the dripping canvas among all the others. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now, with the paint still wet. But, was this the kind of person she was? Is this why she went into teaching?

Then again, this sort of vigilante justice was a way of righting an unfair universe, was it not? One of the only empowerments of the job?

The last stragglers filed out of the hall. She heard them all screaming out front at the bus pick-up zone. The other teachers had fled to their cars, the week before Christmas break zapping all motivation from them. Mrs. Silks was alone. She could do this thing at her leisure.

And why not?

The kids were really bad this year. How could 2021 be worse than the pandemic year? It was a mystery all the teachers and professionals were trying to solve. All the articles, the training, suggested kids just needed compassion and understanding. But some of them—well, Mrs. Silks and the others joked that the kids this year were feral, that they didn’t know how to act in a public setting. And this was true. They couldn’t stay in their seats. They didn’t know how to string together a series of tasks without micromanagement. They had to be invited time and again to complete their work.

But Robert was more than feral. With the other kids, some of the metacognitive behavioral techniques normally reserved for the young students worked well. Mrs. Silks had more than her share of compassion, and she saw them all slowly grow toward more human, more humane, behavior, things they had forgotten in the many months of lockdown.

But not Robert.

The seventh grader was an utter terror, and that was not something she let herself think lightly. He bullied his friends, taking the best items from their lunches, mocking their clothing and their families. Why they put up with it, she would never understand. Whenever she addressed the issue, his friends were the ones to jump in and support him, as if they were under the spell of a demonic Svengali.

The other teachers shrugged it off—his friends were hardly upstanding citizens, and many thought they deserved each other. But Mrs. Silks could not imagine feeling unsafe among friends. No one deserved that, not even Robert’s friends.

She had met his parents in September, and they immediately jumped to his defense at her most vague reference to his behavior. They were perhaps not the cause of his demonic personality, but they were a catalyst.

Really what struck her the most was the way he treated his ex-girlfriend. The logic of dating Robert aside, she felt for the girl, truly. Whenever he could, he berated her in front of his friends, but never crossing the line that allowed disciplinary action. The counselor, after discussions with Robert’s parents, had to admit that Robert was only having conversations. He never actually crossed any lines, and if the girl were reading double entendres into his words, then maybe she was the one who should be called to counseling.

Mrs. Silks fumed, igniting in memory the conversation from class today. The class voted that the day’s assignment would be to paint a canvas having to do with the Christmas season. She gave them all a rubric with requirements, and they brainstormed ideas. Most of the discussion followed holiday lights, snow, Santa, the usual.

But one of the kids steered the conversation to Krampus, and in all her time she had never seen a student so scared as Robert. When he went to the bathroom, she overheard two of his friends talking about Robert’s fear of urban legends. His brave exterior had a weakness. That Achilles heel showed itself when he wouldn’t stand in front of a mirror in the darkness (Candyman), wouldn’t go into the woods behind his house, not even with his dog (he thought he saw Slenderman there at twilight, five years ago, and he has been terrified since), and in his angry reaction to discussions of the devilish Krampus coming for bad children.

It would be so easy.

Mrs. Silks imagined waking on Christmas morning and finding coal in her stocking for this. Was she carrying out justice or sinking to a new low?

Before she could answer herself, she looked down to observe her hands already working, mixing the paint from the still-wet palate Robert had left at his table. He had taken way too much, as usual, and it hung in globs on his canvas as well.

It wasn’t even a challenge, Mrs. Silks observed as she watched her hands pull sinister dark shapes into the globby clouds Robert had painted behind his Santa—a Santa who had gotten stuck, his chubby legs sticking out of the chimney top against a stormy sky.

Before long, the clouds revealed the awful form of beast-like Krampus looking directly at the viewer. But it was amorphous enough that, like an ink-blot test, it could be attributed to the viewer only. Mrs. Silks shivered at the darkness of the image and put it back on the drying rack, not daring to document her crime with a picture, though she really wanted to.

*

On Christmas morning, Mrs. Silks sat on the couch looking at her phone, remembering the class that followed, the last class before break. Robert had been moved almost to tears. He blamed all his friends for messing with his painting, but for once they stood up to him, denying any involvement.

Mrs. Silks briefly chided him for using too much paint, explaining that a lack of control in art could leave too much uncertainty to the viewer and cause them to see shapes like Krampus in the work.

When Robert went to the bathroom, she snapped a picture. She couldn’t help herself. He was quiet the rest of class and didn’t have a word to say about his ex-girlfriend’s gingerbread house.

In her Christmas PJs, Mrs. Silks put away her phone and opened her stocking, which contained a bag of small black objects. Coal. So she was bad after all.

On closer inspection, she smiled. It wasn’t coal, but chocolates, wrapped in black foil to look like coal. She ate one, enjoying how the smooth sweetness melted in her mouth. She had taken down a kid from the naughty list. She was like Krampus, like Batman. Her own modern urban legend. The Painter.

She opened another chocolate. So Santa winked: it seemed he approved of vigilante justice after all.

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/

flash fiction, holiday , , ,

Flash fiction (poetry): Snow Day by Val Muller

November 18, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write a poem or story in which one of the characters is a weather, personified—either implicitly or explicitly.

Today’s story comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit Corgi Capers mystery series. Find out more at corgicapers.com

 

Snow Day

By Val Muller

 

Sitting at my desk in the darkness of night,
The fatigue weighs heavily:
Maybe it’s the time change that makes
The sun seem to set just past noon,
Or maybe something else.

Papers to grade,
Papers to grade,
Lessons to plan.

This year: so tough,
Students struggling
Post-pandemic.
Post?
Not quite.
They sit together,
Isolated,
Forgotten how to socialize,
Forgotten how to care.

They need extra
Motivation,
Help,
Support.
Demand is constant.

In my office, the sun has sunk away.
The room is blue, a computer’s glow.
I reach for the lamp
When I see a face pressed against the glass
Of the office door.

Can I come in, Mommy?

Yes, honey. I’m just trying
To finish some work before bed.

Mommy, this year you are
Always trying to finish work.
Do you want to play with me? 

Of course I do, but this work
Won’t do itself.
If I don’t do this now,
There’ll be no lesson tomorrow,
No plan for the morning.
I’m barely keeping up.

But I say: “In a minute.”

Mommy, I was born in a blizzard.  

I know. It’s a fact
She tells anyone who will listen.
The pride of her four years.

Yes, you know, but did you know
I have blizzard powers?  

What kind of powers?

I’m an ice princess.

Of course. I nod. She’s watched
Frozen one too many times.
Why don’t you go watch a movie?
Or ask Dad to read to you?

She looks me deep in the eye and shakes her head.

No movie, Mommy. 

Maybe go color, then?

She likes that.
She skips to her marker bin,
Presses paper against the window,
And colors,
Leaving me again to misery.

I turn on a lamp
And knock out only a handful of essays
When she returns,
A glowing ice princess wand
Illuminating my room.

So many teachers absent.
Always asked to substitute
Instead of plan
Grade
Pee
Breathe.

I love my profession, but I’m not sure
How much longer I can—

This controls my magic,
She says, waving the LED wand.

That’s nice, honey. I have
Twelve more essays, then I’m done,
And when I go in tomorrow—

I’m an ice princess, you know.  

Twelve more.

I have powers. Grownups don’t believe,
But they’ll know when they see—

She returns to her window and
Colors frantically.
Somewhere between twelve to go
And finished, I nod off in my chair.

An hour later, the house is dark.
I have a second wind and knock out
The essays,
Plan for tomorrow,
Pack my lunch,
And start upstairs.

But the window.

I see that she hadn’t in fact
Taped paper to the window.
She colored the window itself
With every color of blue marker
In the house.

Pad to the kitchen, grab cleaner,
Paper towels, patience.
The blue comes off the glass easily.
I shake my head at her
Childlike frivolity.
I know I was like her once,
Having that sense of wonder, where
Everything’s magical
And amazing,
And nothing would stop me
From coloring on glass.
I don’t know when that spirit
Dies in us, but I guess it does.

The window’s clean.

A deer darts across the lawn,
Triggering the neighbor’s porch lamp.
My eye shifts focus from the window glass
To the yard beyond.

My jaw drops.
It’s only November.
How?

The snow is heavy and
Already settling across the driveway
And covering the grass.
If this continues…

No way we have school tomorrow.

I check on her before heading to bed
As the wind picks up, kissing the windows.
The unexpected weather gives me
An unexpected shudder
And thrill:

That strange electric sense of
Being alive—

And suddenly I remember
What it is like to be a child.

My daughter snuggles in her bed,
Her snow wand aglow,
A knowing smile on her face.

It’s not even Thanksgiving,
But I find my Christmas pajamas
And put them on, imagining
A lazy morning tomorrow with
Hot chocolate
Maybe pancakes
Maybe a movie about
A snow princess.

And as tired as I am,
I can’t help but feel
That sense of excitement
That children have,
That electric sense of being alive,
Of being covered in
The magic of the world,
That makes it so difficult
To fall asleep
At night.

 

 

 

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/

 

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Flash Fiction (Poetry): Scar by Val Muller

September 23, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write about “a surprising discovery.” This week’s story (poem) comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit Corgi Capers mystery series. Follow along at www.corgicapers.com

Scar

By Val Muller

He woke to a sight of beauty

Beyond anything he imagined he’d ever witness:

Layered ripples of the Blue Ridge Mountains,

And the pines below bathed in fog.

An impossibly orange sun burst through,

Roseate light pointing acknowledgements from heaven,

Peeking pine peaks witness to the testimony.

Had he woken to a painting?

Only CGI could make a sight so surreal,

And yet here it was,

Outside his bedroom window.

Not even his bedroom:

His closet.

Yes, he had a closet with a window now,

New construction and a new mortgage,

And a window that looked upon a sight unimaginable.

 

He’d never before felt spellbound by unsurpassable beauty,

Never seen a daybreak so glorious,

A site so majestic it pained him,

Until this day.

Morning as a word fell short,

As did Daybreak or Sunrise.

A site so ethereal,

It inspired in him something he could never express,

Not if a master painter,

Nor photographer, nor poet.

Something it was

Beyond human capacity for expression.

A smirk.

This is why he had sold his townhome

And moved to the country.

 

Something ugly stole his eyes from the scene.

Ugly wasn’t the right word, but he wasn’t sure what was.

Something desecrating, unwholesome, blasphemous.

It was a pile of dirt, a human mountain hiding

The bucket of a bulldozer just beyond.

The housing development he had bought into

Had only just started,

His house only the third finished of dozens.

This view, this indescribable view,

Would soon be slaughtered by three new houses.

His closet window would need to be covered

In drapery soon,

To protect him from neighbor’s prying eyes,

Their windows soon a stone’s throw away;

Or perhaps to protect him from

Reminders of his crime.

 

He breathed in the scent of fresh paint

And cardboard

In his newly-manufactured closet,

And then that indescribable beauty

Turned into insurmountable pain

And he realized now,

His home’s new, raw lawn still a scar on the land,

Heft of a mortgage payment on his shoulders,

Just what he had done.

 

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/

poetry none

Flash Fiction: Sunrise by Val Muller

August 26, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is, write about what you did to end the summer with a great hurrah. But it has to be a dark/chilling account.

Today’s story comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit mystery series Corgi Capers (corgicapers.com). The account is based on an interaction that took place on the last sunrise of vacation, but the truth has been stretched muchly ?

Sunrise

By Val Muller

It was the last day of summer break, beach week. Tomorrow, Lana would return home, clean her campus apartment, and get ready for senior year—class of ‘22. There was something definitive about the year. She’d have appointments with Career Services, she’d have to choose grad school or job. She’d probably even have to get serious about finding a man.

The future was terrifying strung out in a line of days. But one hour, she could handle. This was her last day at the beach, and she was going to make the most of it. She sat in the sand, watching the diligent pre-sunrise shell-searchers with their flashlights, the serious runners trying to get in their miles before the heat of the sun. And she was there, too, today becoming a sunrise photographer.

She would take the picture that would win the R. Buffington Photography Award, earning honors and scholarship funds.

The borrowed—er, “borrowed” professional lens stamped “Property Univ. Photo Dept.” warmed up in her bag: the cool air of the rental’s bedroom and the warm, humid beach air resulted in a foggy lens that she needed to let warm up before she snapped her award-winning photo. The rest of the sunrises she’d slept through after late-night parties in the sand. This would be her celebration, her foray into responsibility, and her ticket to better things.

A lifeguard setting up orange cones in the sand gave her a look. Was that respect? Awe? It was a deserved look. The lens, after all, was worth thousands. She had to be special to have such a lens. She slung the heavy weight around her neck and started for the shoreline. She would find the perfect shot—maybe no human subjects, or maybe the perfect person would show up in silhouette against an orange sun. The sky was looking perfect, just a few wispy clouds—atmosphere-building ones that would not detract from the sun’s magnificence.

As the sun peeked above the horizon, wet sand glossed to a mirror, and sky and land became inseparable. An Eden, an otherworldly glimpse. Nothing else existed in that space—college and career and borrowed lens and whatever the future held were all absurd and banal atrocities marring the perfection of the magical moment.

A woman came out of nowhere, an old woman walking her dog in the surf. The pair were jet black silhouettes against a yellow-red gradient, the kiss of heaven.

Click.

She knew without looking at the screen. This was the perfect shot.

“That’s a big lens you’ve got there, girl,” the woman said, bent slightly, possibly arthritic. She leashed her dog and stared at the girl. Something jumped in her eyes. The old woman froze, hanging still against the sunrise like a photograph. Something about the moment—sea and sky blending, mixing up and down, inside and out. Which was the mirror, and which, the reality?

The old woman moved again. Her lip twitched. The sunlight revealed a blip of recognition in her eye—horrific recognition.

“Oh my,” the woman exclaimed, and she quickened her pace without revealing any more to Lana of what overcame her.

*

The last hurrah in her beach house before she sold the place. She was getting old, and she was ready to surrender, to cash in her investments and move to Florida. How many memories had she made at this beach, from her fateful beach week trip, to her engagement to Tom, countless family trips to the beach house, spreading Tom’s ashes in the sea…

The sunrise had been sublime. It was a literal glimpse of heaven, at least that’s how she perceived it. She could almost see Tom there, walking with her. The glass sand reflecting the fire sky, blending all time and space into nothing and everything. She could barely remember the year, and even when she could, 2085 seemed like an irrelevant detail in such a world.

But when she saw that girl, something about her expression, perhaps, or—no, it was the huge lens—ridiculously huge. It was a lifetime ago, but—

It all came flashing back.

The summer before senior year.

Beach trip.

A borrowed lens.

Sunrise.

Otherworldly—almost altered consciousness.

She’d been so thrown off by the glance of an old woman and her dog that she stumbled into a sinkhole caused by a rising wave lapping the shore. The lens went into the ocean. Thousands of dollars turned to salt.

Plunge!

She’d had to work all year to save enough to repay the debt. She had forfeited entry into the Buffington photo contest, she had lost her department honors for borrowing that lens all summer without permission.

Plunge!

Except—

That hadn’t happened, had it?

No—there was an old woman with her dog, wasn’t there? That old woman had circled back, grabbed her arm in the nick of time, almost as if she knew. Like she had stepped out of another realm, a deus ex machina, grabbing Lana by the wrist firmly enough to save her from the plunge.

Just like she herself was doing right now, to the young girl.

*

The women exchanged silent glances. The hair on their arms raised. Eyes locked.

Impossible moments of time—several eternities that neither could fathom.

The sun lingered just another moment in that impossible blur, the mirrored world of above and below, the ephemeral impossibility, that gossamer glimpse into Somewhere Else. A defiance of human comprehension.

They blinked and it was gone. The sun had risen to ordinary daylight, and in another blink, each saw that the other woman was gone. And they were alone to their futures and their pasts, the tide kissing the shore in the late summer sun.

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.ca/

 

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Flash Fiction: “Blob” by Val Muller

July 29, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write a story using the words leftover paint, mermaid, tide, sun, chilly.

This week’s tale comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit Corgi Capers mystery series. Check it out at corgicapers.com. Book 4 is in the works ?

Blob

By Val Muller

Lily sat at the kid table in the corner of Natalia’s studio, poking her plastic paintbrush at her 97-cent watercolors, scowling at Natalie through messy curls. Natalia tried to ignore the gaze as she studied the acrylic painting she’d just completed.

No—not yet. Another brush, just in the upper corner. Just—there.

Finished.

Natalia started to tear off the waxy sheet of her disposable paint palette, but Lily’s eyes stopped her.

“What?” Natalia asked.

“You always throw away the leftover paint.” She pouted her lips.

“I’m done with the painting,” Natalia said. “Now to pack it and ship it. Another commission, another paycheck. Time is money.”

“But paint is money, too,” Lily said. She looked down at her 97-cent paint set and frowned. “You could give the paint to me?”

Natalie sighed. “You’re only five.”

“Almost six.”

“Almost six, but acrylic is messy.” Natalie studied her painting once more. This one was a commission for a pet portrait. A late cat seated on a royal blue pillow with teal curtains billowing in the background.

“You paint all day for other people, but you’ve never painted anything for me.” Lily’s eyes drilled into Natalia. The girl’s chilly frown froze her heart. Natalie stopped and thought. Was that true? When Lily was a baby, Natalie had so many plans for painting milestones, portraits, tributes…but life got in the way, and commissions paid the bills.

Natalia looked down at the globs of paint on the paper—the globs that usually ended up in the trash. For some reason, Natalie remembered Mrs. Crawford, her elementary school painting teacher, the one who taught her at the after-school studio. It was those classes where she learned to appreciate the textures, the feel, the colors of the paint. It had been her epiphany, her calling into the world of art. It seemed now a lifetime ago, a memory of a rising sun long since blotted out by the ordinary glare of daytime. The commissions, the paychecks, they’d become so robotic, so automatic, like floating from one day to the next on a meandering life raft, hoping the tide was taking her somewhere better.

Lily had by this time dipped her brush in the black paint and was washing over her childish painting—whatever it had been she’d painted; Natalia rarely took the time to really look—with shadow.

“I know I haven’t painted for you,” Natalia said finally. “Yet.”

Lily’s brush froze mid-shadow.

“But I have an idea. From now on, any leftover paint is yours.”

Lily put her brush into the water cup and stared at Natalia, eyes blank as if trying to comprehend a foreign tongue.

“I don’t mean a free-for-all. I mean whatever’s left, I’ll use to teach you to paint. You’re young, but it’s never too soon to start.”

Natalia barely blinked, and Lily was standing next to her, eagerly waiting. Natalia opened her painting pad to a new sheet.

“For our first lesson…” She looked at the blue and teal blobs remaining on the palette. They spoke of the tide. “We’ll paint one of your favorite things.”

“A mermaid?” Lily asked.

Natalia nodded, then placed a paintbrush in Lily’s hand. “This is the grown-up kind,” Lily shrieked.

Natalie nodded again, remembering the first “real brush” she’d held, how cool it felt in her hand, how quickly it turned warm with her body heat, almost as if part of her, the smell of the paint, the sound of the bristles.

“Our first lesson—blending.”

Natalia was always sure to use just a bit too much paint on all her commissions going forward.

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.ca/

 

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Book Review: Grendel by John Gardner

July 5, 2021 No comments

Years ago, I heard there was a book written from the point of view of Grendel, the monster in the epic tale Beowulf. I put it on my “to be read” list and eventually remembered it when another Beowulf spin-off was published (it is now on my summer to-read list). I figured, I could do a little Beowulf reading party.

I started this book a while ago. It’s less than 200 pages. I started and finished several books in the interim. I did finish this book, finally, but it’s more of a scholarly pursuit and not one that I would recommend reading for pleasure. To be fair, there are moments of brilliance in this book, and I could totally see teaching this side-by-side with Beowulf for an AP or college class. But for a fun read, which I had been hoping for, it was a little difficult to get through (I did discuss this novel with a fellow English teacher, who agreed that it took forever to read, despite it being so short).

What I really enjoyed was Grendel’s voice and depth of thought. There was so much more to him than a bloodthirsty monster: he listened to the humans and seemed both fascinated and tormented by their ability to weave stories (and in doing so, change people’s minds/opinions about things—even Grendel felt himself being pulled in). I also enjoyed the dragon, which seemed to be a manifestation of universal consciousness and all knowledge. The dragon tormented Grendel with knowledge that everything that will happen has essentially happened already—weaving in the idea of fate or predestination into the mix.

What I did not enjoy was the meandering nature of the work. We were distanced from humans, so their “petty” goals (conquer or avoid being conquered) seemed unimportant and cliché. (And that was the point.) But Grendel didn’t seem to have a strong enough goal for me. He seemed to allow himself to be pulled—he reacted to humans and was encouraged or enraged by them, but he didn’t seem to have a strong goal like a typical protagonist. In that sense, the author certainly played with the structure of a narrative, pulling us into metacognitive territory. And again, there are moments of brilliance there, but I suppose I was just expecting more of a fun read.

I did enjoy Grendel’s voice, his humor, his honest assessment of humans. Here is a favorite quote: “He was an idiot. I could crush him like a fly, but I held back.” If you’re looking for intelligence and wit with some (dark) humor woven in, this is a good read if you have read Beowulf.

book reviews none

Flash Fiction: Shadow’s Approval by Val Muller

July 1, 2021 No comments

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is: Center your story around an absurd detail (for example, people walk on their hands, hedgehogs fly…) This week’s writing comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit Corgi Capers mystery series. There is a cat in the Corgi Capers series called “Shadow,” but the details of this story are not found in the series.

Shadow’s Approval

By Val Muller

I think it was my grandmother that planted the idea in my head, the idea that cats are old souls come back to watch us. She didn’t mean anything by it, at least I don’t think she did. But the idea stuck, and here I am.

I found Shadow huddled under my porch overhang during a downpour. No collar, no microchip. Every attempt I made to find an owner for her was foiled. “Lost cat” signs mysteriously flew away. Calls to veterinarians were unanswered. It was clear Shadow was destined to be my cat.

I was wondering what kind of an old soul Shadow might be when she jumped on my dresser and tipped over my jewelry box, a treasure-chest shaped wooden box I’d inherited that was made by my great-grandfather, my grandmother’s dad. After tipping the box, Shadow swatted at the contents until a necklace was stuck in her paw.

My grandmother’s necklace. Shadow seemed quite content with herself, staring at the jewel in her paw.

“Grandma?” I asked.

My own question startled me, but Shadow’s demeanor looked quite pleased. I shook my head. My cat was not a reincarnation of my grandmother. What was wrong with me? I was probably just tired. I reached in the drawer for some PJs, choosing a silky black pair. Shadow’s face shifted. This was more than me being tired. This was legitimate disapproval. I kept my eyes on the cat as I reached in the drawer for another pair. This time, I chose a goofy pair of boxers—flying pigs—with a matching pink shirt. The cat nodded. I kid you not, she nodded.

I put on the PJs and went to bed. Maybe things would make sense in the morning.

But I found myself checking the cat before I left for work, making sure I had her approval for my outfit.

(She approved.)

At breakfast time, the cat would approve muffins but not coffee. A skirt but not a pants suit. The cat would disapprove if I brought too much take-out. She approved reading but not TV before bed.

It went on like this, and I couldn’t help but think of how my grandmother had loved to voice her opinion on things whenever she got the chance.

It got to the point where I would make decisions in the bathroom, or in my closet, away from the eyes of the cat. It was ridiculous. Shadow knocked over a vase in a recessed display shelf built into my apartment wall. From that day forward, she sat there, a cat in a shrine. I had to pass by the Shrine to leave my house, and I found myself pausing before her, almost bowing. No, supplicating myself to her, seeking her approval.

Which is why I made every excuse in the book not to take Jake home with me. For weeks and then months, I somehow managed to avoid taking him back to my place. We always ended up at his apartment, or at a restaurant. I blamed the cat, of course, but not in the true sense. I told him the cat was clingy, that the cat shed everywhere, that kind of thing. But when we discussed moving in together, it only made sense that we’d choose my place. It was bigger. Nicer.

But it came with Shadow.

I knew if Jake moved in, he’d be the one. I knew he’d propose, I knew we’d get married. But I felt I was on the cusp of life, like my path wasn’t clear yet. My life could go any number of ways. Was this really where I was destined to be?

The night I let him come to my apartment, we went out for Italian first, this cute little café right down the street. We walked back to my place arm-in-arm. It was so cute, you’d puke. It was almost like I exited my body: I could see myself walking along the sidewalk with him, watched us like we were in a movie. He carried his leftovers in a brown paper bag, and he kissed me on my porch before I opened the door. I closed my eyes, enjoying the kiss, wondering if he was my future.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Shadow peering through the window. She did not look happy.

We went inside, and Shadow was there, sitting right in front of the door, meowing. She hardly ever meowed. Jake reached down and ruffled her head, more like she was a puppy than a cat. She barred her teeth and looked at me.

“I can tell she doesn’t like me—yet,” Jake said. “This’ll do the trick.” He bent down and placed his dish of leftover meatballs on the floor. “There you go, Shadow.”

I saw a flash of Jake’s future. He would live somewhere away from the city, somewhere with a puppy. He would have an amazing wife. They would enjoy the outdoors. They would not have to seek the approval of anyone before making a decision.

They would not have a cat.

Shadow jumped on her shrine, scorning the meatballs. She hissed at Jake, almost imperceptibly. Jake and I spent the night in sadness, both of us knowing it wasn’t to be. The night I returned home after our official breakup, Shadow jumped down from her shrine and rubbed against me.

I opened a pint of Death by Chocolate and wore my black silk pajamas, watching sad romance movies.

Shadow approved.

*

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.ca/

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Book review: Ten Days in a Madhouse (Nellie Bly)

June 28, 2021 No comments

Nellie Bly was a groundbreaking journalist whose personality led her to become world-famous at a time when women in journalism were usually assigned mediocre topics. When I first watched a documentary about her in teaching journalism, I knew I wanted to read the primary source referenced in the documentary, hence this book. She helped to coin investigative journalism by threatening her own safety (and life) to uncover the truth.

Nellie Bly (the penname of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) is probably most famous for her “stunt journalism” to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She took a stab at beating the fictional record and succeeded in making it around the globe in 72 days.

While she traveled with a single bag to foreign lands and met all types of obstacles, the story I was more interested in was her decision to be committed to an asylum to uncover the true conditions impacting women.

In her investigative “stunt,” she took on the persona of someone disturbed and tried her best to be committed into an insane asylum for women at Blackwell’s Island. This was her “test” to get hired at a big-name publication, and she was risking her safety and life to do so.

She succeeded in being committed, and she tells her account of the conditions there. The women were given rotten food, inadequate clothing and blankets, treated horribly, forced to sit still for hours, treated terribly, neglected, tortured, bathed in cold water. The list goes on. Her lawyer eventually had to get her out of the asylum, and while she felt guilty about leaving all those women behind, the publication of her experience helped to bring attention to the problems of Blackwell’s island and resulted in an increase in funds (and improved practices).

While her intentions were based on getting a job, her foray into investigative journalism did much for the women she wrote about.

The account is written in a straightforward way—easy to read and understand. At the end of the novel, she tells of other (less dangerous) examples of investigative journalism she took on, such as looking at hiring practices of women. Indeed, because she took on the role of those she wrote about, much of her investigative journalism revolved around the conditions of single or working women.

I admire her strength and courage, and reading the first-hand account was fast and enlightening.

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Book review: Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

June 21, 2021 No comments

With the crazy school year—teaching virtually at the same time as in the classroom—I did not have time to write book reviews as often as I would have liked, but I was still reading! So this summer, I am writing and publishing book reviews for a sizeable stack of work I’ve read. You can expect a review every Monday. Some of the books will be for younger readers—I am previewing books for my own children; some will be for young adult readers—I am previewing books for my students; others will be books I have chosen for myself for various reasons. I hope you’re able to find something you like in one of these reviews ?

Now, on to today’s review:

In one of the classrooms where I teach, copies of this novel were sitting around, so I read it during my lunches. It’s written in verse, so it’s a really fast read.

The novel follows a boy named Kek, who is a refugee from Africa. He has survived a traumatic escape in which he lost his mother (her fate is uncertain) and has come to a very cold portion of the US to live with cousins. He is introduced to new weather, new ways of life, and the challenge of missing his home traditions.

Aside from liking the novel for being a super-fast read, I enjoyed the perspective. For instance, Kek is overwhelmed at the amount of food at the grocery store, something most of us take for granted most of the time. There is humor as well—like when Kek is trying to be helpful and ends up putting his dishes in the washing machine.

The length of the novel does keep us at a bit of a distance from Kek: we are in his thoughts, but there are not enough words to get too deep. There’s just enough to introduce us to his culture. While I enjoyed the fast read, I was left wanting to understand his home life more and to really feel how he missed his culture.

I would definitely recommend this book for younger or struggling readers, as the content allows for a new perspective on the world with an introduction to another culture. It is said that books help to build empathy, and with this book, I can certainly see that happening. It’s a book I’ll have my own kids read when they get older .

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Fantastic Friday: Eclipse

June 11, 2021 No comments

What a year this has been. As I wrap up the last full week of this school year, I finally have a second to breathe and to realize I haven’t found time to post many Fantastic Fridays this year. It’s not that I haven’t found things to feel fantastic about; it’s just literally, I think I’ve stared at a computer screen longer than I ever wanted to, ever thought possible. The last thing I want to do at the end of the week is type more on a screen. But now that school is coming to a close, I look forward to looking forward to the keyboard again.

This year, the year of technology, has me excited for fighting a broken copy machine next year all for the promise of being able to write things by hand and look away from a screen when talking to a student (and, indeed, look into a face instead of a circular icon on a Google Meet). It has me eyeing up my box of pens that I have barely touched this year (all grading has been done electronically). I’ve even been writing Corgi Capers Book 4 entirely by hand.

But ironically, technology (being a nuisance) is responsible for today’s Fantastic Friday post. Ever since Comet NEOWISE, I’ve tried to stay attuned to stellar events that I might be able to photograph. This year got the best of me, and I found out Thursday, June 9 that there would be a partial solar eclipse at sunrise the following morning.

I was woefully unprepared. At first I set my alarm, but then when I researched “photographing solar eclipses,” the warnings about shooting the sun with an unfiltered camera (you can break/burn/damage the sensors and other expensive equipment) had me scared. That, and the promise of cloud-cover, had me turn off my early alarm (that I had set just to capture the sunrise at 5:45). I figured, I would just sleep through it, wake up, and be none the wiser.

Fate had other plans.

I often love when fate has other plans.

Around 5:10, I was awoken by a phone. My husband usually turns his phone on silent, but this one time, he’d forgotten. His phone beeped with a “flash flood watch” alert due to impending storms expected later in the evening. The beep was enough to wake me, and I glanced out the window. Yes, it was cloudy as promised, but the exact area where the sun would rise was just a bit clearer than the rest of the sky. The clouds were gossamer and lacey.

I googled again about exposing cameras to the sun. Why could people photograph sunrises and sunsets without damaging their cameras? The answer came back to my advantage: the morning and evening sun is not as close or powerful, so while I still couldn’t view it with my naked eye, I could take a picture of it without (probably) damaging my camera.

I figured I’d been awakened for a reason, so I snuck out with my camera and phone.

Clouds.

I used the time to play with lighting. I set my camera to the darkest settings I could find in hopes of capturing the sun if and when it made its appearance.

I checked the app on my phone, the one that showed me what the eclipsed sun is supposed to look like at each moment of the eclipse. The eclipse peaked. Still clouds. On the app, I watched as the moon traveled further away from the sun.

Still clouds.

Time was getting away from me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I wondered if I was wasting time standing outside like that. I still had to pack lunch. I still had to get dressed into work clothes. The peak was over. The clouds were solid.

I sighed. I’d spent so long outside, there wasn’t even time for a quick workout. What did I have to show for my early rising?

I turned toward the house and took several steps. Just then, as I rounded the pine tree, I felt something warm on my shoulder. I felt the heat before I saw the light. The sun. A direct beam. Beckoning me.

The sun….

The sun?

The sun!

I set up the tripod again and frantically focused through the LCD screen (*Please take care: when photographing the sun, you must NOT ever look at the sun through a physical viewfinder: only through an LCD screen). Then, snap, snap, snap.

The tail end of the eclipse: the bottom left portion of the sun is “missing” as the moon passes over it.

The eclipse was at the tail end, but it was something!

The clouds returned even as the sun peeked out…

It seemed all was lost, but I felt the universe had one more surprise for me that morning.

Another view of the sun: the bottom left portion is “missing” as the moon passes over it.

When I first photographed the comet NEOWISE, I did not see the comet before I took a picture of it. I knew where it was supposed to be, did not see it, but shot the sky anyway, and I remember the feeling as I looked at that LCD screen—the magic of capturing something that was so ephemeral in the sky.

That same feeling took me yesterday—and, in fact, I was standing in nearly the same spot as when I first shot NEOWISE. There’s just something magic about the coincidence of circumstances that make something come to fruition: the alignment of stars and planets, the perfect mix of conditions on Earth to create life, the random way we meet the loves of our lives.

As I went to work, fighting the angst and malaise that is often the last week of school before summer break, I felt a bounce to my step. After all, a day isn’t all bad that starts with a solar eclipse.

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