9 a.m.: Welcome to my weekend coffee share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. It’s gray outside, but the birds are singing. I’m enjoying some chai tea. Pull up a chair with your favorite beverage, and I’ll catch you up.
A gray Saturday doesn’t bother me.
It was a really busy week with work, two doctor appointments, and a dentist appointment. I had good substitutes who worked with my kids. The orthopedic doctor was happy with my shoulder progress; he gave me another cortisone shot in the anterior shoulder and prescribed 5 more weeks of physical therapy. This is good…I don’t want surgery!
Last sunday, as I drove back from the grocery store, I got inspired to write a short story about two aliens and their observations of humans during the Halloween season. I’d love it if you gave it a read: https://wp.me/p7aqV2-33e
While we’re on the topic of writing, I gave my boyfriend the 60 pages I have written of Ellie’s time travel story. It’s a disjointed mess, but I wanted to know what questions should be answered. So, he gave those opinions, which is good, but now I need the stamina and for my pain to subside. Maybe over the holidays, but if not, next summer.
I’ve had some new students join the news club at school, and many of them just don’t know where to start. So, I guess that’s my first job with them, giving them ideas on something to find out about the world or their community. They start searching and get interested, so they write, and I help them from there. I’ve thought about giving summer writing camps. It may be a retirement idea!
So, it being Halloween weekend, my boyfriend and I are going to the Zoo Spooktaculor event tonight. I look forward to it!
I hope you all have a great weekend, Halloween, or a blessed fall season!
The creatures hooked up their all-terrain space vehicle after landing on an airstrip. “Welcoming of them, isn’t it?” Eggbert chuckled. After a short drive They arrived outside of a Lou’s Best Pies diner.
Gawking at them by the door of the restaurant was a propped up skeleton. 👀 “Humans don’t look like that ” Venice commented.
“Well, but they do on the inside, ” Eggbert answered.
“Could they have become a cannibalistic society now? Is that a trophy?” Venice asked.
The sign said, “Prize-winning chicken dinner on special today”. Eggbert suspected Venice was wrong, but didn’t have the true answer. So instead of looking uninformed, he said nothing to debunk Venice’s theory.
“Activating invisibility shield,” he mumbled as a huge truck barreled into the parking lot. It had two skulls and a chain on the front grill. It seems humans now hunted humans for sport.
“Ready for human camouflage?” he asked as Venice gawked at the truck and it’s decorations.
“I guess,” Venice answered.
Soon they were in the restaurant, listening to two young and cocky teens banter back and forth. “Just wait till Halloween, Chad. I will scare the crap out of you.”
“Oh yeah? Well I’ll get you, man. You will just die!”
You will just die? What kind of sport is this?
The two aliens made sure to sit near the young teens. Eggbert had always been told to fit in at any cost, to do ” as the Romans do.” He was perfectly willing, but he wasn’t quite sure about Venice’s sensibilities.
“Are you okay with this, Venice?” he asked.
“Totally,” Venice answered, batting her eyelashes at one of the teens. She quickly shook her head as if to shake It off. “I think their hormones are polluting the air around me. You got to watch out for me Egbert. I mean, I can look out for myself, but if you think I’m starting to act foolish, tell me.”
Eggbert sighed. This had never happened on the job with Venice before, though she had formerly been a birthing creature. Perhaps her insides were trying to motivate her to procreate with a human. Ick, he thought. “Okay. I will.”
“I’ll snap out of it. I will. So, did we disguise our vehicle to look like theirs?”
“Yep. Good thing too. That gray minivan out there is plenty of ugly. Though I did see a miniature skeleton hanging inside of it. The trophies are quite prevalent around here.”
“Well, I think that gives us permission to collect a few of our own,” Venice said with a wink.
“Let’s stick with these guys and see what they’re about,” Egbert suggested. “If you can handle it.”
“Are you kidding? I’m ready to outfit our vehicle with chains and big wheels! Maybe this is how they deal with over-population.”
“Could be.” Eggbert smiled and two tens materialized in his hand as the two young men paid at the cas register. He moved up and got in line between the two , realizing that Venice had chosen to be disguised as a male. Albeit, a male with beautiful eyelashes. Ugh! Distraction was contagious around here!
Venice waited for him at their vehicle, holding two huge pieces of metal with her huge human arms. “These will mold into chains nicely.”
“Ah, yes. Maybe wait until we can get to an abandoned area.”
“That was my plan. I tell you, we’ll show those irritable humans how to play. And there will be trophies!”
Eggbert clapped a hand on Venice’s back as the young men passed them. ” That’s right brother. You’ll be an excellent hunter in no time.”
“Let’s hurry and get our set up before they get out of our range of scent,” Venice whispered.
Thirty minutes later they emerged from a path in the woods with a truck larger than an F-350 with chains on the front grill.
“The secret is aggression, ” Egbert said.
“Of course. We keep ramming them til they roll their vehicle and run out. Then we’ve got ’em!” Venice squealed, excitedly.
“Venice, these humans are really rubbing off on you,”Egbert stated. He smacked Venice’s shoulder in solidarity, revving his engine.
Welcome to my Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Allison at Eclectic Ali. It has been a crazy hectic week, I survived it, and I have added even more dreams to my life bucket list! Pull up a chair and your favorite beverage while I sip a V8 and we talk about surviving work, reaching for goals, and the things we want to do one day!
Seriously, I’ve been grading essays at breakfast and multi-tasking every part of my life this week. It’s nuts! The essays aren’t done. I’ve survived Halloween (and a surprise visit by school admins that involved 90% of my students participating and doing just WHAT THEY SHOULD IN CLASS, HOW PLEASANT!) I also volunteered at a middle school dance, just for a while. I let some of the girls paint a spider on my hand at the face-painting station. It looked sort of awesome! I didn’t have to work too hard at the dance, but there are always the few kids who want to run around or go piggy back while I chide them sternly to go and dance, envisioning someone hitting their head on that hard floor. We’d like to avoid that… I’ve also been trying to help coordinate some volunteer events for students in the NJHS club, which takes planning, for sure! So, I’m ready to have a weekend where I do fun things for myself with the people I love and enjoy spending time with. Essays will have to wait until Sunday, today I will start with ME.
Did you know there is a Cryptozoology & Paranormal Museum in Littleton, NC? It’s an 8 mile drive for me. I was searching fun Bigfoot sites this morning. No essay grading today! I came across mention of this museum. Having visited a Fan film Star Trek stage a few weeks ago, I want to do more of the same! I can’t bungee jump and don’t have time to plan visits to Europe. A girl’s gotta have something. Geek life it is! I want to be around people who are so enthusiastic about something, either paranormal or historical. (My other choice is the Joan of Arc Society and parade in New Orleans on her birthday, happening every year, January 6th). That, and I want to take some Improv classes. Seriously! “Baby…didn’t want parades just passing by her…” (Thank you, Melissa Manchester)! When will I do all this? Well, I have summers off and two weeks for Winter Break…
But for this weekend, I have my writing dream going. Undercurrents in Time in audiobook is in final quality assurance stage. The narrator said she “loves this book” and enjoyed reading it. I feel in love with it again as I listened to her narration. It is a dreamy narrative, as it is sci-fi, but focuses a lot on the character and motivations of Tabitha and her need to escape. Hmm, haven’t we all been there? Imagine hanging out with your great niece when she is grown, something you’d never live to see, or learning the future of your troubled brother.
Regrettably, I’ve been so busy and worn down that I haven’t written much fiction on this blog lately. Maybe I’ll have time with the upcoming holidays. Here is a link to the last one I wrote, if you just discovered my blog or haven’t seen this one yet (it promises a good dose of ‘weird’: Maverick-Light and Shadow.
Well, it has pleasant chatting with you here on my front stoop in the rare 60 degree weather in Jacksonville, Fl. Maybe I got a little sun on my face! How was your week? I appreciate you stopping by!
pamelascanepa 