Sullen Man, Lesson 9

Create a mind map.  

Use metaphors.  Try hyperbole.  Use litotes.  

And, just what is the difference between plot and story.

Those are a few guidelines from my College Writing Course.  It not only instructs in all things literary, but has writing prompts.  For the next few days I'll share with you some of those prompted writings.

THE PROMPT

ENAGE THE SENSES, USE LITERARY DEVICES, 

rewite this paragraph.

“Billy was not happy. His mood was sullen and he did not smile a lot. Everyone knew what was wrong. They knew that his girlfriend, Marie, had just broken up with him. That made Billy feel sick to his stomach. Most days he didn’t want to get out of bed.”

THE REWRITE

Billy flung his Popeye-like "muskled" forearm over his eyes.  Sunlight, hall light, any light was not welcome.  He just wanted to block it out, stay the kid in the closet.  

Billy and his girlfriend Marie weren't joined at the hip like poets write, they were tied together at the shoulders with their interlocked arms.  But SHE cut the ribbon!  

About to throw up, he stayed in bed.  It conformed to his body like warm sand on a beach, comforting.  He had no energy for his parents inquisition.   They'd seen his drooped pale lips, and watched him wipe his eyes from nose to ear smearing tears.  

They'd break apart the loving picture that Marie and him had made.  Then they'd put the puzzle pieces back together trying to make a new bright Kincade painting of the future.  He was having none of it.  

And he slammed his eyes shut even tighter!

SPRING BREAK, AGGRAVATION. AGAIN.

"Let's bomb the officers, and abscond with the flag!" It was a wile meant to get my way.

"Power play!" Darling hubby replied.  

A stack of 6 board games sat on the kitchen table, some fun, some challenging, some nostalgic.  There was Clue, an old favorite, Eureka, a gold miners' rush, Zoolandia for kids, fancy Scrabble with a lazy-susan feature, Risk to take over the world, Stratego to bomb the players and claim the flag.

"Which one do you want to play, today?" 

Darling Hubby looked 'em over.  He knows I won't play Risk.  Many people play Risk with him but after beating him 11 times in a row, I feel too guilty, and always encourage others to give him the treat of playing.   To give him his due, he regularly wins Scrabble, though.  

A few days ago he wanted to play Aggravation then beat me three times!  Even though I changed di and even though I traded him for his lucky di, he still won!

Hum, maybe that's why he wanted to play it again today?  

Nonchalantly, I agreed.  It's always fun to play a board game.  "As luck would have it", and luck does, "the tables had turned".  This time I won three times in a row!!!!  What fun! 

Speaking of fun, spying new flower sprouts where I thought were none, was a fun surprise.  

First, I swept the walkway around the gladiola bed.  Next, I leveled the Grecian urns and cleaned them out. That bed along the shed is full of green blades.  Near summer's end I'll have yellow, white, and orange blossoms.  

Pulling weeds, raking up old autumn leaves, removing brittle stalks of yesteryear's, adjusting the rocks to keep the mulch from drifting away, I discovered that clump of new flower sprouts!  Yay!  Wonder what they are?  LOL.  

After a good wash (don't want chiggers) I'm all for a sit down.  Let's go back to playing games, LOL, I still want to bomb some players and capture a flag!  

SPRING BREAK, CANDY LAND!

Darling Hubby's spring break is coming to an end and the weather's turned.  Doesn't it always this time of year, as in April Showers Bring May Flowers?

And my flowers, especially the daffodils, have been looking bountiful and brilliant.  This day I weeded and purged the small daffodil bed with holly hocks in it next to the gate.  I dug up dandelions and adventursome crab grass.  With it's decorative rocks and red mulch it looks pretty good this morning.  

As for yesterday, the grandkids came over.  Bright Me thought I'd teach Miss Lilly how to play Candy Land.  Enlightened Me was told she already knew how.  Well, we played anyway.  She's either a clever little 4 y.o. or she likes to win.  When she'd draw a double orange or a double blue card invariably she's skip and effectively advance 3 not 2!

It was funny, and actually I was glad of it, otherwise the game was going to be a long one.  Why?  Because I got a go-back card, and it sent me all the way back to the beginning -- back to Plumpy under the Plum Tree, just 9 squares from start.  I like a little competition but this was just sad, it cried, "Loser!"

She got stuck on Gooey Gumdrop but didn't want to lose a turn.  Can't blame her.  It's yuck being stuck in goo.

Just a few color squares away from the Candy Castle I told her that soon she'd be King Kandy.  

"King Kandy?"

"Yep, you're gonna be King of the Castle, the winner.  But first we have to get away from Molasses Swamp and Gloppy" which made her giggle, "Gloppy."  And she rolled the word around on her tongue and her eyes looked at the picture while her brain digested it all, "Gloppy".

Since this is a new-improved board, I mean the pictures have changed since I was a kid, I suspect there'll be more changes.  I looked at her and thought of the new generation, and what her generation might incur before she's mature, and just between you and me, King Kandy may one day be Queen Kandy!  

How are they gonna spell that with a K?

The playing board was covered in flowers, my yard has many a flower, and my kitchen has precious flowers -- they giggle at funny words.

SPRING BREAK, SORRY!

It's still Spring Break.  

John, a school bus driver who's off for these days, said, "I see you've already got that sorry game out.  Get it?  A pun."  And he chuckled. 

He'd looked over the pony wall to the kitchen table to where the game of Sorry was all set up.

It'd been years.  I'd forgotten the rules.  There's 4 colored markers on the start that have to go around the board to home.  Drawing cards numbered 1 and 2 get you out.  But a 4 makes you go backwards.  A sorry card lets you switch places with an opponent.  I thought we'd never get around that board!

When I got the card directing a switch with an opponent, the song "I'm sorry, so sorry" by Brenda Lee ran through my head. "Please accept my apology."  Now, her song is running through your head, too, I'll bet.  LOL.

Anyway, at last, we were each 1 space from The Finish.  Who would win?

Like a horse racing on an circular track we were neck in neck most of the game.  And then, I got a 1 to get my last yellow guy into home, "I beat you!  Barely, but I beat you.  That was wild."

My flower pots on the deck were wild, too.  

They needed purged of debris and freshened up with new soil.  That's my second goal for each day of spring break, to work in my flower beds.

So, I blended in some topsoil and potting soil before adding some pretty pink flowers, a couple pretty purple ones, and one that was white with purple edges.  There was room in the big one for some freesia bulbs.  I've never grown them.  We'll see if the soil and weather conditions on our hill are conducive to their growth.

And then, my winning day took a turn.

I had to dig up those flowers.  Dig them back up!

Silly me, thought I'd bought begonias.  That's what I reached for in the  store's displays.  But, they must've had other potted flowers mixed in the same spot because while I was matching colors and setting one next to another for compatibility, I bought the wrong ones.

They weren't begonias.

"Hey, sis," and I was hoping against hope since I lack experience and knowledge of this flower, "can African Violets live outdoors."

She cut to the quick, "Think of it.  They are named AFRICAN violets!  Sorry, sis."

She was sorry, the flowers were sorry, and I was sorry.  

Time to change games.

SPRING BREAK, SCRABBLE

Spring Break, a scrabble day!

We're also fated to have company on our Spring Break days; NICE.  

This time Clint and Jessica came over with Miss Lilly and Master Jacob.  They're so lively.  Miss Lilly squeezes between her mother and brother to get to me, "I win!  I win!" she grins, getting hello hugs and squeezes.  So, I twirl the winner, "Whee!"

Earlier in the day, a lot earlier, about six-thirty in the morning actually, I'd weeded two flower beds.  The rectangle bed by the fence got weeded, the flower bushes got trimmed, and the small green yew bushes got a good shaping.  

But the saplings were too much for me.  Since Clint arrived I enjoyed watching him heave and dig.  Up by the roots they came.  One year old Master Jacob enjoyed it, too.  He kept his eye on the shovel and when his dad dropped it, he dropped his toy, toddled up and grabbed the handle, LOL.

Piper, the cat, enjoyed my weeding of the iris bed.  She crouched lower than the sprouted blades and did some stalking.  When she snuck off behind me, I tossed weeds at her.  She likes a little bit of a tease.  She came rubbing against my pant legs to prove she was happy to play.

Scrabbling with some weeds, scrabbling in dirt, and scrabbling kitty antics naturally leads to playing a board game of Scrabble with hubby, right?

Unlike the game of Aggravation, this is one game I can sometimes win!

It was a horrible struggle.  My first set of tiles were 6 vowels and one consonant, an X of all things!  So, I complain, "Look at this!"  

Hubby chuckles, "WOW!  E, I, E, I, O!"

My only hope is to take over the special squares -- double, triple, etc.  So the word "equate" on a triple letter square got me 31 points!  Yay!

Then he plays the word "zoos" on a double word square which crosses another word netting 35 points!  Oh, boy he's keeping me on my toes.

Just as I landed on a triple word square, Clint came in.

"Look, John, Clint's here!"

Clint chuckles, "She distracted you so she could get more points."  Clint mimics me in a little girl voice, "See that!  See that!"

Boom!  My tiles are down. I win!  296 to 248!  I had to scrabble to do it, LOL, not a landslide, but like Miss Lilly said, "I win!  I win!"

SPRING BREAK, IT'S AGGRAVATION

Spring Break!

Yes, we're in our 60's and looking forward to Spring Break.  When you're a bus driver's wife, those days are noted on the calendar with magic marker hearts "pretty little red ones all in a row."

We're feeling giddy.  What shall we do?

Well, this first day, we shook our heads in disbelief -- we had 75 degree weather and a gentle breeze!  How lucky could we be!  Outside we went --weeding flower beds, spray painting planters that'd suffered from the winter, planting potted hyacinths into the damp earth, filling the birdbath with fresh water, digging up saplings that sprouted in undesirable places, and replacing the rubber snake back on his rock.

Hey, sunning snakes dispell birds and rabbits.  And even little kindergarteners!

Jayden came, Jayden saw, Jayden recoiled, "I ain't touching no snake."  He was the kindergartener.

After trying some unsuccessful convincing I picked up the snake and rolled it over between my fingers to prove the green skinny critter wasn't real.  It worked. 

When our work was done, we spent the evening in aggravation.

LOL, Aggravation, it's a marble and dice game where players go around the board from base to home and can aggravate their opponents by sending them home to start all over again.  

When John went to get the board he made me chuckle at his pun, "You got your marbles in the kitchen?"  

"My mind is just fine.  I've got my marbles, do you have yours?"  Ha, ha, ha.

Even though I was obviously loosing, he had no sympathy for me when his white marble knocked one of my red marbles back home, "I had to run you down like a dead chicken on the road."

"Ma'am, I'm so sorry 'bout your luck." 

Would you believe John kept winning.  I changed die before each game just to change my luck.  In desparation, because he kept rolling sixes and I kept rolling fours, before the last game I took his dice.   He STILL kept rolling sixes and I kept rolling fours.  Grrrrrrrrrr!

Finally, the agreed upon three games was over.  He still refused to sympathize.

"I won three games in a row, humph."

"I even changed die, humph."

"I even let you go first, humph."

That's okay.  When he left the table a winner, the pretty little red ones were all in a row -- I still had all my marbles!

Grandkids Scattered in GrammyPam's Yard

Grandkids scattered fast like released birds from a cage.  We opened the sliding glass doors and out scrambled the grandkids.  Zoom!  "I'm first, the swing's mine",  "give me your butterfly net, here, you can have my stick" and "go ahead, throw the ball in the pond"!

It's the first of Spring, the first day outside at GrammyPam's, and the kids act like balloons expelling air, propelled here, crazily flying everywhere!

Noelle put her hands in the birdbath immediately.  Durn, I didn't even think to hose it out beforehand.  So, that was a "hold your hands out" moment while carrying her inside to get washed.   

This 1 y.o. is good at being evasive.  Earlier she was carrying a pink ball, bigger than her width, and I was blocking her path to the water fountain so she diverted along the fence, looked at me, tacked back, went to the stumperary, looked at me, tacked back, and toddled around the elm tree.  Finally, grinning and giggling the whole time, she lost interest. 

Jacob, also a 1 y.o., they're cousins, was sitting on the picnic table eating a banana.  When he spied the tumbling kids in the yard he stuffed the remainder of the banana (which was a lot, a piece from each hand) into his cheeks, rolled onto his belly, and began dangling his feet over the edge of the table to scoot off.  If I hadn't caught him, he would've taken quite a fall.  Getting down to play was just that exciting.

Silly Alaynah, who's 3, put a rock almost as big as her head in a butterfly net then dropped it on her toe!!! Oh my, the crying, and "It's still bleeding, GrammyPam".  Solace comes in blue bandaids and pieces of candy.  Yay, for candy! 

I had asked Alaynah, "Have you seen the cat?"
She did her little drama queen thing, pursed her lips, screwed up her face in a "Yep, I know" look, wound up her right arm like a baseball pitcher and did a straight arm arrow-like pointer to the cat behind the couch!  She was hilarious.

Lilly, 4 y.o., has a great memory.  Though they'd been put away for over seven months, she wanted the play dishes out of the wooden box that sets by the fence, and "Where's the kitchen, GrammyPam?"  Well, Dora the Explorer play plastic kitchen was buried in the garage under boxes, and so it remains for now.  

Jayden, 5 y.o. kindergartener, served me muffins, chocolate from him, of course, and cake with a nice big cup of tea.  If it was from Miss Lilly, it was tea.  If it was from Jayden, it was coffee.  Aluminum plates, crushed sticks and leaves for tea, means snacks are served!

And how do they say good-bye?

Noelle gazes towards parents car, but both her little hands are flexing their fingers in and out; it's her goodbye wave.

Alaynah, with her back to us, walking away, her right hand reaching behind her in a wave, said, "Bye GrwammyPam."

Jacob, clad in pajamas, from his daddy's arms, made little fists then opened his hands in a "Bye-bye."

Jayden and Lilly are done.  On to the next phase of the day, "Bye," "Bye, Grandpa John", "Bye GrammyPam, bye."

Spring has sprung, day is done, grandkids said their good-byes, 

still I'm anticipating the next "Hi's".  

They're loads of fun.