Alphabet Soup

There is a message in your alphabet soup. You swirl it away and another message forms. What is your soup trying to tell you?

It had been a rotten day, just beastly, and I wanted some comfort food for dinner. I thought about picking up some fast food, but then thought, “I need some soup and grilled cheese.” As I drove, I thought more and more about that grilled cheese, and ideally, some tomato soup. I knew that I had a lot of different canned soups in the house and by the time I got home, I had my heart set on dipping some grilled cheese into a nice, hot bowl of tomato soup. 

I ran upstairs and flinging open the refrigerator, I pulled out the fixings for grilled cheese: some mild cheddar cheese, real butter (no margarine today. There is no comfort in margarine), and the bread. After placing the ingredients on the counter, I moved to the cabinet to find my soup. I searched through all of the red and white labels- cream of mushroom, cream of potato, french onion….where’s the tomato? How can this be? I must have tomato soup! 

No tomato soup.

Disappointed, I began to close the cabinet door when I noticed that the last can, all the way in the back, is alphabet soup. I considered it- alphabet soup is also a comfort food, right? It reminds you of childhood and cold winter days when mom would give you some piping hot alphabet soup after a long morning of building snowmen and snow tunnels. Alphabet soup it is!

I heated the alphabet soup in the microwave while creating and cooking the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Both sides were beautifully browned and a tiny bit of melted cheese oozed from the edge of the bread. The microwave rang at the perfect moment, and I carried my grilled cheese and alphabet soup to the kitchen table for my comfort meal.

The soup was very hot, I so I ate the grilled cheese first, savoring every bite. I ate around the edges first, as usual, and saved the gooey middle for last. Each bite was more delicious than the last and the final bite was the sheer perfection of warm, soft cheese and crunchy, buttery bread. Sighing with satisfaction, I turn my attention to the alphabet soup, which had cooled just enough to eat. I dipped my spoon in and swirled the letters around, remembering with a smile that as I child, I wished that the letters would form words as I stirred. Alas, the only word I ever saw in my soup was DOG.

I completed a couple of swirls and lifted the spoon to my lips. As the spoon drew near, I saw the first few letters- B-A-D. Huh? I pulled the spoon back a little bit and looked closely into it and saw that the letters had spelled a word; in fact, the letters had spelled two words- B-A-D  D-A-Y. This had to be an amazing coincidence! I wanted to take a picture with my iPhone but realized that people would think I had made it up. I also decided that I would enjoy this as a private memory, and I swallowed the spoonful. 

I was a little bored and decided to turn on the TV and see what movies might be on. I picked up a spoonful of soup first, and then decided to look at the letters again, even though I knew that it couldn’t happen twice. I looked at my soup spoon and was chilled by what I saw there: N-O  T-V. I ate that spoonful quickly, then set the spoon down and looked down into the bowl. There were a lot of different letters mixed into the broth and chicken and I couldn’t see any words. I sat back and mentally shook myself- of course the letters were random. I felt really silly! I tried to slide my chair out but it was stuck on the rug and I was afraid I would topple over. I gave up on the TV and picked up my spoon for another mouthful of soup. I was afraid to look at the letters in the spoon and I swallowed the soup quickly. 

I ate a few more spoonfuls without looking at the letters, but as I ate, I began to feel a little queasy. I put my spoon down and sat back, taking a few deep breaths to quell the nausea. I glanced down at the bowl and still saw only random letters. I felt foolish again and decided to finish the bowl. As the spoon neared my lips, I had to look and what I saw chilled me to the bone. S-T-O-P was spelled out in the bowl of the spoon. Startled, I dropped the spoon into the bowl and leaned away, really frightened. The falling spoon caused the letters to swirl around again and this time, when the motion stopped, the letters were not random. Spelled out in the soup was one word: L-E-A-V-E.

I pushed back on the chair and it toppled over backward, sending me sprawling to the floor. I untangled myself from the chair and crawled across the floor, away from the table and toward my front door. I stood up, grabbed the doorknob, and wrenched the door open. I ran outside without looking back.

The door swung slowly shut and a rattling sound came from the cabinet. The can of tomato soup pushed its way to the front of the cabinet, and together with the other cans of soup, snickered. It sent out a quick message to the alphabet soup, and if anyone had walked by the now-cold bowl of soup and looked into the bowl, they would have seen a message: Y-O-U  A-R-E  W-E-L-C-O-M-E.

The vowels are throwing a party and aren't sure if they should invite Y

I know I haven't written anything new for a few days- I've been caught up in Easter preparation and some other writing projects. Today's offering is a writing prompt from Reddit: The Front Page of the Internet.

The vowels are throwing a party and aren't sure if they should invite Y

A’s phone was ringing again and A wasn’t sure about answering. It was certain to be U again, with the same old argument. The ringing was becoming annoying, so with a sigh, A answered the phone.

“A, it’s U.” “Yes,” replied A. “I knew it would be you, U.” “Then you know why I’m calling. I’ve been talking to I and O about inviting Y to our next vowel party.” A said, “U, we have been over this before. My opinion has not changed. Y is not a vowel and cannot come to the party. This is really in Y’s best interests- Y will not have anything in common with the rest of us. Y will be uncomfortable. Do you want to make Y feel out of place? Is that what friends do?”

U seethed inside. I and O were on board with asking Y to the party and E was seriously considering it, but A was as stubborn as ever. “A, listen to me,” said U. “Times are changing and we have to change with them. There was a time when Y would not be considered one of us, but Y is used in so many words as a vowel sound. Think of words like ‘dystopian’ or ‘psychology.’ In fact, Y sounds like two different vowels in the word ‘psychology.’” “That’s exactly my point!” cried A. “Y has it’s own sound. Yellow. Yard. Yo-Yo. Y is being a poser by trying to sound like one of US. Y is not one of us and never will be.” 

“A, you are being unreasonable. Y is at the mercy of people, just as we are. It’s those people who use Y as a vowel. You cannot blame Y. I think Y should be celebrated- Y is the only letter that can be both a consonant and a vowel!” U was secretly thinking that A was being elitist. “Think about this, A. You’re the only vowel that is used for marking grades. Getting an ‘A’ is an accomplishment, and over time you’ve let this go to your head. You need to be more accepting.” 

Concurrent to this conversation, I and O were talking about the issue with A and Y. “I think part of A’s problem is geography. A has always come first in the alphabet, and Y is practically at the end. A has received special attention just because of positioning.” O leaned back and I picked up the subject. “That’s possible. And don’t forget about that grade thing- every student wants an A.” O asked, “Do you think that A is threatened by Y?” “Why would that be?” replied I. “Well, A may be first and A may represent the best grade, but Y is more versatile and can be used in more ways,” said O. “It sounds plausible,” agreed I. 

Meanwhile, E was thinking about the argument going on between A, U, I and O. E did not understand why everyone was making such a fuss. Why can’t we all get along? E didn’t really know how to feel about it all. What makes one vowel better than another? And who decided what was a vowel and what was a consonant? A was being a little snobby about the whole thing and U was  trying to force its opinion on A. They were at opposite ends of the opinion spectrum. I and O were being cautiously sensible by not taking it all quite so seriously, or at least they were straddling the opinion fence. E didn’t care who came to the vowel party. E wanted everyone to have fun and get along and would have invited all of the letters. In fact, that was a great idea! E picked up the phone and called U.

“U, it’s E. Why don’t we have a party with all of the letters?” U was silent for a moment and then said, “Because we want to have our own party this time.” “But we always have vowel parties. Why not invite not just Y, but all of the letters?” asked E. “Absolutely not,” said U. “Once we drop our standards, any letter will think they are entitled to come to our parties. Do you want the umlauts to start coming to the parties? After that, the Greek alphabet will insist that they should be invited, and then the Hebrew alphabet, and then the Asian alphabets will come along and really mess things up because they don’t even know the right directions!” E slowly replied, “I see your point. I guess it will be just the five of us again. I’ll make the phone calls.”

A was very pleased that the other letters were being sensible.

E didn’t give it another thought.

I and O knew that they would have to allow Y and the other letters in someday, but not today.

And U decided to avoid the vowel party, and instead went to the library to meet the other letters, and a few other alphabets, too.

I am afraid of flying. And flying is really a pain.

Observation story today, not fiction.

I used to love to fly. When I was a kid our family flew to Florida almost every winter to visit my snowbirding grandparents in Ft. Lauderdale. We usually flew on the late, great airline, Eastern (which has disappeared along with American Airlines, Pan Am, TWA and more). Flying as a kid was easy- my parents worried about the tickets, the suitcases, and boarding passes. All I had to do was get dressed and follow Mom and Dad. I didn’t worry about plane crashes and turbulence was actually fun. When we got a little older my brothers and I would sit in coach while my parents sat in first class. If one of us was being particularly awful, my mom would have to come back to coach and one of us was selected to take her first class seat. 

I remember a couple of scary flights in my teen years. I went to Europe the summer of 1975 along with 150 other high school students and chaperones. It was my first experience on a chartered airline, and while the plane was zooming down the runway, I watched about 10 pounds of dirt fall out when the pilot extended the wing flaps. All I could think was, “how old is this plane? And when was the last time it flew???” A year later my mother and I were on the last flight out of JFK in the face of an oncoming hurricane. The plane wobbled just as we left the runway and the people behind me screamed- I don’t know if I was more frightened by the wobble or the screamer. I also was the passenger on a plane whose engine belched fire, aborting the take off. 

I took my first solo flight when I was in college. I can’t remember the circumstances, but for some reason my parents put me on a six-seater plane to fly from Newark Airport to Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton Airport. There were two pilots and two passengers and the pilots stowed the bags themselves. There was a curtain between the pilots and me and I got to see and hear everything that went on. Not fun. At all. And small propeller planes do not fly smooth and level. 

Flying became more frightening when I became a mother. We didn’t fly all that much when my kids were small and when we did, my son had his own seat and my daughter sat in my lap. I was paralyzed by the possibility of a crash- who would I save first? My son was always restless on a plane and I would imagine him running off if there was any kind of accident. The worst flight was when I flew with them alone to Orlando- my son was 2 ½ and my daughter was 8 months old. Just a week before our flight, the top ripped off a 727 flying between the Hawaiian islands and a couple of people were sucked out. What if that happened to me? Would I be able to hold onto the child on my lap? Keeping my seat-belted was a constant challenge- what if he squirmed out of his seat and got sucked out? I know it sounds crazy, but I’m betting that other moms have these same fears.

Did I mention that I am claustrophobic? Yep. That doesn’t help. When jets were all full-sized it wasn’t too bad, as long as I could see the front of the cabin and sit on the aisle. Then someone dreamed up the regional jet which looks like a full-sized jet that got shrunk in the wash. The bigger ones aren’t too bad but some of them have only 18 rows and my head touches the ceiling when I walk down the aisle. I’m also a plus-size woman and some of those seats are a tight squeeze. It might be doable if these baby jets actually flew in just short hops, but the name “regional jet” is a lie. I’ve been on 2 ½ flights on regional jets that were only survivable with Ativan. 

I have had a lot of really bad flights on regional jets. Two stick out- the first was when cheap airline flights booked on the internet were a new thing. I needed to go to New York with my two middle-school age kids, and got a cheap Continental flight that went from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and then Cleveland to New York. People carried really pungent foods on the plane like pizza with everything or a McDonald’s fish sandwich. This was pre-911, so the pilots left the cockpit door open during the flight. Just before we landed, a really loud alarm went off and there was a flurry of activity in the cockpit. We asked the pilot about it and he laughed it off…with perspiration pouring down his face. My kids wanted to cancel our next flight, rent a car, and drive back to Pittsburgh.

The second really scary flight was on one of those teeny-tiny regional jets. We had to take a bus ride in the pouring rain to the plane and then go up metal rolling staircase. It took awhile to seat everyone and as I was one of the first ones on the plane (because, horror of horrors, I was in the last row), I got to check out most of my fellow passengers. As the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled, I watched while two disabled people were hoisted onto the plane via a hydraulic lift (still in the pouring rain) and dragged down the aisle on tiny, tiny wheeled chairs. One was followed by his wife who clearly had dementia and asked everyone if their seat was her seat. After they were seated another bus came with the rest of the passengers, including a couple of families with kids, a musician with a guitar, and a priest. All I could think was that we were one nun short of a disaster movie.

Last year I took a job that required travel and I flew a couple of times a month. I was exceedingly grateful to get TSA Pre-Check for nearly every flight. Business flying is a pain because you usually have a carryon and a computer bag. If you’re a woman, you either forgo a purse or buy one small enough to stuff into the computer bag. Your boarding pass might say zone 3 but when they call Zone 1 you rush onto the plane so that you can get your carryon into the overhead compartment. And that’s after they’ve called the Emerald Club passengers, Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, Gold, Silver…preferred seating, first class blah blah blah. If it’s winter you have to stuff your coat in the overhead, too. I feel like a klutz as I maneuver my bags into the overhead and under the seat, stuff my coat, grab whatever I want to do for the flight, and edge into a seat that is too small for normal people, let alone those of us who are overweight. My knees are jammed up against the seat in front of me and I usually end up near a couple of bratty kids whose parents don't believe in discipline. Flight attendants smash into your shoulders as they scurry up and down the aisles and yell at you for being in their way. Passengers seated in the exit rows have to take an oath or find another seat. 

I wonder if kids today think that flying is fun?

A Different Section of the Submarine Story

Sorry about not posting yesterday- I was out of the house for awhile and got distracted. I am continuing to write the short story of the students on the submarine and today's post comes from that. I'm actually writing it in sections, and not consecutively. Diana Gabaldon, who writes the Outlander series, writes that way and her method is working for this particular story. Today's selection will be the second chapter or section (I think!). 

The five-person consortium who made up the “Underwater Habitats for Humanity” had a problem. The biggest problem, of course, was that the group was not the altruistic organization that it pretended to be. They had carefully chosen the name in the hopes that the news media would assume that it’s mission was humanitarian, and it had worked beautifully, along with some carefully planted news stories that hinted at the group’s concern for the sanctity of life in the oceans. In truth, the five members of the group wanted to build an undersea resort that would cater to the rich and famous, and they had decided that the Caribbean was the right location. Now they faced a new problem- one of their planted articles had worked a little too well. They had paid a well-known marine biologist to write an article about the UHFH’s interest in the effects of hurricanes on sea life. The article had been well-received; too well-received, because the marine biology community was calling on the group to send researchers into the area.

“We should simply ride this thing out,” said one man. “No, we need to address it,” replied the only woman in the group. “We have a submarine and can easily re-fit it to carry some researchers.” “I don’t like it,” said the titular head of the group. “Paying someone to write an article was easy. Setting up an elaborate marine mission will be much more difficult and much more difficult.” He leaned forward and addressed his female colleague. “You sound as if you have already given this some thought. What do you propose we do?”

The woman replied, “This does not have to be difficult. We have the sub and crew; it should be a simple matter to set up a couple of laboratories and convert our staterooms into bunks. We should extend an invitation to the marine biology department of an obscure college- they will be honored to be chosen- and then graciously allow them to tell us what facilities they need to conduct studies on the sea life and ocean bottom.” She looked at each member of the group as she spoke, and they were all nodding with approval by the end of her reply. The group broke up for their evening meal, and then spent the rest of the evening making plans for the sub’s alterations. The head of the group was chosen to break the news to the submarine’s crew, who were all former military men and not accustomed to a boat full of students. The captain and executive officer were the only crew members who knew the true purpose of the group, and they were paid quite handsomely to keep this knowledge a secret. 

Blaine Barrow, formerly of the United States Navy and current captain of the UHFH submarine, called a meeting of the crew. He looked at the men that he had assembled after being approached by the consortium. All had been submariners in the Navy and were the best men available for their positions. Capt. Barrow maintained strict military discipline and his very loyal men believed that they were working for a humanitarian organization. The 30-meter sub was smaller than the tactical subs that most of the men had served on and no weapons specialists were required, but the sub still needed technicians to run and maintain the systems. They had made two voyages so far and had encountered very few problems. The second mission, which carried the five members of the consortium, had thankfully been as perfect as could be. The next mission was to have been a scouting mission to find a location for the construction of the habitat and Capt. Barrow was quite displeased that this had been postponed. He and his executive officer had been hired with the understanding that they would have a part in the future resort, and he hated delays.

He rose and began to walk around the room. “Gentlemen, I had hoped to be briefing you on a scouting mission; however, there has been a change of plans.” He looked for reactions and was pleased to see that his crew remained alert and focused. “Our employers have decided to earn some goodwill in the environmental community by inviting a group of marine biology students to spend a week on board. They will be studying an area in the Caribbean that was hit by two hurricanes last year, looking for signs of recovery in the aquatic life and ocean floor. Some minor alterations are being made to the sub to accommodate the students and labs, but our mission will remain unchanged. We should be able to do some scouting of our own while assisting the students with samples of the water and marine life.” He returned to the front of the briefing room and went through the details of the mission. When he finished he asked, “Are there any questions or concerns?”

The chief of the boat, Henrik Engman, raised his hand and waited to be recognized. When he got the nod from the captain, he rose and asked, “Captain, will we be returning to that area of turbulence that we skirted on our shake-down mission? We had talked about checking on it but could not do so on the last trip.” A couple of the men who worked on the bridge, especially the navigators, were nodding. They all remembered the narrow escape they had had from an area that had been calm one moment and then became extremely unsettled in the next. Captain Barrow had made some discreet inquiries among his navy acquaintances, but no one had reported a similar phenomenon. “I’m not certain that it would be wise to do that with a boat full of landlubbers, Chief,” replied the captain, and the crew chuckled. The chief seemed disappointed but sat down and listened as a few more questions were asked and answered. 

The briefing wrapped up with the captain saying, “I expect that we will maintain our usual level of discipline during this mission. These students will need to be watched- they cannot wander around the boat, especially the engine room and bridge. A detailed report will be issued to all of you next week and we will start work on the sub remodel by the end of the month. We will be sailing at the end of May.” Mark Parris, the executive officer, or XO, as his position was commonly known, announced, “Captain is leaving the bridge” and saluted smartly. The crew rose and saluted as well, and Captain Barrow strode out to continue with the task of planning the remodel and the academic mission.

First Installment of a New Idea

I've been kicking around some book ideas. I have one in the works but this started to form up in my head and I thought I would give it a go. Here's a first installment:


Amanda’s death grip on her bunk straps eased as the ocean’s violent turbulence began to subside. She felt weak from the fear, not to mention the intense nausea produced by the sub’s pitching and yawing. It seemed as if it had lasted for hours, but a glance at her chronometer told her that only 30 minutes had passed. She had been in her lab when the warning was announced, “This is the X-O. Navigation has detected some rough waters up ahead, probably due to an undersea current. We will try to steer around it, but we ask that all science teams button up their laboratories and return to their bunks. You will be safer if you are strapped in. If you choose to ignore this warning, you may lose your experiments and there is a risk of injury to yourselves.” Amanda had rolled her eyes but began to comply with the “suggestion.” The XO did not like having non-military scientists on board and he tended to treat them all like children, but she had no desire to see her equipment ruined. She stowed her samples and docked all of her equipment; as the last microscope clicked into its slot she felt the first slow wave hit the sub. It was weird to feel that; usually it was smooth sailing under the surface. This felt almost like being on the ocean and turning into a swell.

As Amanda made her way to the cabin that she shared with Kathy, the sub began to roll side to side and then it pitched forward. She was nearly thrown to the deck by the sudden rolling and the vertigo it produced. She stumbled her way past a few more doors and finally reached her cabin. She undogged the hatch and stepped inside to find Kathy already in her bunk, strapped in and looking green with a barf bag in her hand. Amanda quickly sealed the hatch and fell into her bunk as another violent lurch passed through the sub. Her fingers shook as she fastened her straps, and Kathy moaned, “I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen underwater,” as her head lolled over to look at Amanda. Amanda opened the sliding door of her bunk’s cupboard and pulled out her own barf bag, just in case. These were pretty ingenious, with a valve that could be closed. Vomiting was still an unpleasant thought but at least the high-tech barf bags made it tidier. Amanda was about to say something reassuring when the pitching and spinning of the sub intensified; after that, she hung on to her straps, closed her eyes, and prayed. 

As the sub settled down, the XO made another announcement. “Please remain in your cabins and strapped into your bunks. We cannot be certain that we have completely cleared the turbulent area and you will be safer where you are. If you need medical attention, please contact the sick bay. The Captain and I will be touring the sub to check for any damage. Thank you.” Amanda looked over at Kathy, whose barf bag was full but mercifully sealed shut. “Do you want me to call the sick bay for you?” she asked. “You still look really pale.” Kathy was so pale that Amanda was concerned. She had never seen her cabin-mate look this sick before. “Let’s give it a minute,” said Kathy. “If I don’t feel better in the next five minutes, you can go ahead and call.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against her pillows.

Amanda wanted to talk about the unexpected turbulence but sensed that Kathy wasn’t really in the mood, so she sat back and began to relive the last thirty minutes. There was so much that was odd about it; it had seemed to come out of nowhere and grip the sub like a big hand, tossing it around like a child with a toy. At one point it actually felt as if the boat had been spinning. There had been a brief moment of quiet, almost like the eye of a storm, and then the violent motion had returned. Amanda had done a lot of research on submarines before agreeing to this assignment and had been reassured that subs at depth experienced very little turbulence. She might be a marine biologist but did not really like boats, seeing them as necessary evils for accomplishing her work, and had never been on a submarine before. This was day five of a seven day assignment to examine sea life in this area of the ocean, which had been pummeled by two hurricanes last summer. She would be glad to return to land!

The loudspeaker crackled, making Kathy moan and clutch her head. “This is the Captain speaking.” This was new- the captain had not spoken to the scientists since the first day on the boat, when he told them to obey the XO in all matters. “We have finished our preliminary examination of this vessel, which is currently running on emergency battery power. The battery will last for six hours; if we have not restored power before then we will have to surface for air exchange. It seems that our low-frequency antenna, which trails the sub, has been damaged and we are temporarily out of contact with the surface.” Amanda and Kathy exchanged glances; they might not be sub crew but they knew that being out of contact was not a good thing. What if they needed help? The captain continued, “If we cannot restore radio contact, we will surface and raise our antennas. There is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about. The ship is otherwise undamaged and we are confident that we will be able to restart the engines. Please remain in your cabins and do not disturb the sub’s crew, as they will be busy trying to restore power. Thank you.”

Kathy gingerly sat upright and began to undo the bunk straps. “What are you doing?” Kathy replied, “He didn’t say we had to stay strapped into our bunks and I want to dispose of this thing.” She help up the barf bag. Amanda didn’t argue with her; she would feel better when that thing was disposed of, too. Kathy was still shaky but less pale, and she slowly made her way to the disposal unit. Both girls were glad to see that bag go! Kathy then turned to the hatch and began to open it. “Again, Kathy, what are you doing?” “The captain didn’t say we couldn’t open the doors. He said to stay in our cabins and I’m staying in; I just want to peak out and also get some clean air in here.” Amanda knew that the captain would not approve, but he wasn’t used to dealing with scientists who would parse his words and find a way around them. She began to loosen her own bunk straps as Kathy cautiously peeked out the door. Clearly their fellow scientists agreed with Kathy, as Amanda heard other voices in the passageway calling to each other and beginning to exchange stories about the incident. Kathy sat cross-legged by the hatch and added her own voice to the rising babble. Amanda gave up and sat down beside Kathy. She wanted to hear everyone else’s impressions, too.

Rich and Gary were outlined by their hatch across the way. They both looked banged up; when she asked, Richard told Amanda that he and Gary had been tossed down a passageway while they were heading for their cabin. Questions up and down the passageway reassured everyone that other than some bruises and some mal-de-mer, everyone was fine. The 10 scientists could hear thumping and banging in the sub as the crew tried to make repairs and get the engines back on line, but after two hours they were still on battery power and people were beginning to worry. Dr. Marcus, the head of their unit, began to run out of encouraging things to say and he, too, became concerned. He decided to call the XO for a news update, but repeated calls went unanswered. The mood began to change from relieved to concerned to frightened. What was going on?

At the four hour mark, the captain appeared in the passageway. He looked like he was about to lecture the scientists about opening their doors, and then apparently changed his mind. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about being out of touch with you. We have not been able to restart the engines and that has been quite concerning to us. We only have two hours of battery power left and have decided to blow the ballast and surface. Please close your hatches and strap into your bunks; we will make every attempt to control the rise to the surface but it might become bumpy.” One of the lab techs asked, “How long will it take to surface?” The captain replied, “If it was necessary, we could surface quickly but that would be hard on our bodies, so we will slowly release ballast and take an hour to rise. Please return to your bunks.” He remained in the passageway until all of the doors were shut, and then returned to the engine room to face his worried crew. The captain had not told the scientists the whole truth, that none of their equipment was functioning and he had no idea where they were. He only hoped that the ballast would release; they were using the manual back-up system and while they had done this in simulation, it was the first time his crew would perform this under real conditions. In addition, he was beginning to be concerned about CO2 levels; the instruments were all dead and he was afraid they were all being slowly poisoned. It seemed to be worse in the engine room, where the crew were reporting that something was knocking on the hull.

Amanda and Kathy strapped themselves back into their bunks and then waited. They were both nervous and started to chatter about their experiments and findings, to take their mind off their circumstances. They could feel the boat tipping up and down a bit and their stomachs lurched a little as the sub began to rise. Amanda said, “I don’t care what Dr. Marcus says; from now on I stay on dry land and study samples that are brought to me!” And she meant it. Kathy agreed, saying, “I don’t like being in a big metal tube without windows. I guess I need to be able to see the sun and sky, and to breathe fresh air.” Both scientists hoped that they would get a chance to go outside on the sub’s bridge. Kathy asked, “What time of day is it?” Amanda had to think about this for a few minutes, but after checking the chronometer she replied, “It should be around midnight. We might get to see the moon instead of the sun!” As the boat slowly rose, they made plans to visit their favorite pub as soon as they returned to port.

“Captain, we are at periscope depth,” the Chief of the Boat announced. The captain raised the periscope and he and the crew looked at the images on the monitors. This boat was equipped with an experimental video system that used cameras rather than lenses. The cameras were controlled with a joystick, and the captain manipulated the ‘stick to get a good view of the stars and moon, in order to get a fix on their position. Unfortunately it was rather cloudy and stars were difficult to see, but the moon… “Chief, go get one of the scientists,” the captain ordered. The rest of the crew remained silent as they looked at the image of the moon, which looked very different from the moon they were accustomed to seeing. This moon was huge and there was a massive crater that was visible in the upper hemisphere. As they continued to stare, a second moon slid onto the screen. This one was smaller and shaped like a potato; it crossed quickly while the enormous moon remained motionless, glaring at them with that enormous crater. “What…what is that?” asked Dr. Marcus as he came in and saw the screen. “Are you watching a movie?” “No, Dr. Marcus,” said the captain. I wish we were because then maybe this would make sense.” “Are we on the surface yet?” The XO explained that they were about ten feet from the surface and that the images on the monitor came from video cameras on a periscope. “Are we still going to surface?” asked Dr. Marcus. “We have to,” replied the captain. “We are almost out of air and we need to save some battery power to extend and use the antenna. Dr. Marcus, we will leave it up to you to discuss this with your people. They can leave their cabins but may not come up here. Take them to the galley and tell the what you wish.” “Captain, where are we?” “Dr. Marcus, that is a fine question, to which I have no answer.” The two men looked at each other and then the captain gave the order to surface. As Dr. Marcus made his way back to his people, he heard a commotion behind him and cries of surprise from the sailors, but he did not turn around. He could not handle another shock. 


After the boat surfaced, the crew on the bridge stared for a moment at the image that appeared on the screen and then began shouting in alarm and confusion. The XO ordered silence as they all stared at the creature that was staring back at them through the camera. The crew heard a thumping noise on the hull above them and a couple of them wondered if  the creature was…knocking? “Captain, should we open the air vents? What if the air out there isn’t compatible with our bodies?” asked the chief of the boat. The captain had been wondering the same thing; this wasn’t Star Trek and submarines didn’t contain sensor equipment for testing atmosphere. “Chief, I am going to climb up the sail and open the porthole. Be sure to seal the hatch behind me.” “Captain, you can’t do that, it is too risky!” said the XO. “Let me do it.” “No,” said the captain. “I am the captain of this boat and it is my responsibility." The crew watched silently as the captain climbed into the sail and the hatch was dogged behind him, and then they waited.

Donna Wright
March 23, 2015

True Confession: I Considered Becoming a Nun

True Confession: I Considered Becoming a Nun

I often thought about becoming a nun. There is something about the life of the nun that has always appealed to me; the nuns I knew were happy and peaceful and were serving God. I wanted all of those things and until I was in college, I thought that becoming a nun was the road to that kind of happiness. Now that I am older and wiser, I know for sure that I would have been unhappy as a nun and would probably have been kicked out of any convent. Or maybe not; I used to be much more pliable and easily intimidated and if I had become a nun I might not have become the assertive person that I am today. I am happy with the life I chose but every so often I wonder what my life would have been like if I had become a nun.

My first contact with nuns was in grade school CCD classes. We belonged to St. Pius the Xth church in Scarsdale, NY and I believe the nuns there were Dominicans based on my memory of their habits, which were long white dresses with black veils. Their hair was hidden behind complicated white wrappings. Not long after I started CCD, probably around 1968, the nuns turned in their long habits for shorter white dresses and short black veils with a white headband that showed some hair-a surprise to most of us, who thought that the nuns were bald. Most of my nun teachers were nice women and they often spoke of the joy they felt in their lives as nuns. Part of their mission as teachers of CCD was to encourage young girls to consider becoming nuns ourselves.

What I did not know then was that the Catholic Church and American nuns were undergoing a revolution. The Second Vatican Council (held 1962-1965) urged churches to become more relevant by doing the Mass in English and religious orders were told to re-examine their practices and make changes. I’ve read a lot of books written by former nuns and sisters who were part of this change and many of them described it as an upheaval. Nuns and sisters who entered prior to Vatican II were trained under a rigorous system that was designed to strip them of self in order to rely totally on God. Over time in too many convents, that stripping of self was taken to psychological extremes that left women unable to think for themselves or make decisions. Poverty and chastity, two of their vows, were hardly issues because they did not deal with money and men (other than priests) did not venture behind convent doors. Obedience was the vow that was used to force women to bend to the will of their religious superiors, sometimes to their detriment. And because many nuns were needed as teachers in parochial schools, these women were often rushed through a two-and-a-half year formation process that was designed to re-form their worldview and also get them out into the parishes as teaching sisters. Some of them were only 21 years old when they were sent to the classroom without college degrees or teacher education. They were expected to teach classes of 50-60 children and while many of them managed quite well, it had to be a really difficult experience for a young woman who was still reeling from the formation process. 

After Vatican II, nuns began to leave their convents. Many had been unaware of news events and the 1960s were a time of great change in the US. Nuns began to follow the news and to work in their surrounding communities, and as their thinking expanded beyond convent walls, many felt that the convent system constrained them from growing into the people they wanted to become. My friends and relatives at that time speculated that nuns were leaving the convents to get married, but in truth many left because they wanted to do more with their lives. Prior to the 1960s, women could become secretaries, teachers, nurses, wives, and nuns. There were very few options open to women who wanted careers. The sixties changed all of that and nuns, like other women, wanted to explore the possibilities available to them. Younger nuns had some culture shock upon leaving but were able to adapt. Nuns who were trained in the pre-Vatican II system had a much harder time adjusting to life in the world. They had to learn to use money, find housing, purchase clothing, and find work. Some suffered from depression and anxiety disorders and had a really hard time adjusting to life. Convents were left with a mostly aging population of nuns and Catholic schools were forced to hire lay teachers; both conditions were costly to the churches and convents.

Nuns who stayed in their convents often abandoned their habits altogether and wore regular clothing. It was a shock for parishioners and an even bigger shock for those of us who attended Catholic schools at that time. In the space of a few years our nun teachers went from wearing yards of black wool to plain dresses and veils to regular clothes with a religious pin to indicate their order. Many of the really old nuns refused to change their attire and remained in the full-length habits. There had to be dissension in convents over this and I imagine that there were some battle lines drawn between traditionalists and progressives. European nuns were not as progressive as their American sisters; two of our Ursuline nuns visited an Ursuline convent in Italy, and the nuns there refused to believe that our nuns were actually nuns.

Like nurses who were abandoning their white uniforms and distinctive nursing caps, nuns began to lose some of their mystique as they became less identifiable. To some nuns the habit provided protection and represented them as ambassadors for Christ, while others saw the habit as a barrier between themselves and the people they wanted to serve. The number of religious sisters began to drop as women chose other professions and many convents were forced to consolidate or close. A Pew Research Center article by Michael Lipka in 2014 cited a study by CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) that showed the number of nuns and sisters in the US has fallen 72% in the last fifty years. The priesthood has suffered some losses but not nearly as drastic as the sisterhood. Some American nuns have become liberal opponents of the Vatican and many question the relevance of becoming or remaining a nun.

Paradoxically, there has been an increase in the number of young women (and some older women) seeking traditional convent life. In most of these convents the nuns wear habits, keep traditional hours of prayer and devotion, and live together in community. The formation process has been lengthened so that both the seeker and the convent can determine if convent life is the right fit for the woman. Rather than stripping away their will, nuns “in training” are focused on the gospel message and the teachings of Jesus Christ and sacrifice that is freely given. Many come to the convents with advanced degrees and some have worked out “in the world” in a variety of professions. The Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, home to Mother Angelica, is a famous convent whose sisters went back to the full-length habit and veil. Modern communities have web sites and are very much connected to the world, even the convents that are cloistered (in a cloistered convent, the nuns do not leave the convent except for emergencies or medical care. Their work is to pray for the world). These modern yet traditional convents post pictures and lift some of the veil of secrecy about the life of a nun. The Daughters of St. Paul, another growing order, has added social media to their list of tools for spreading the gospel.  I first learned of the Daughters of St. Paul when I stumbled across a series of You Tube videos entitled “Ask the Postulant.” The postulancy is the first stage in the formation of a nun and this convent approved the creation of these videos to show women that joining a convent is a viable option. And recently the Lifetime network produced a short series called Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns, which followed five women ages 21 to 27 who visited several convents as part of the discernment process. While it was somewhat scripted and occasionally silly, I believe it was an honest portrayal of these girls’ struggles with the decision of whether or not to become nuns. It was also an honest portrayal of the nuns in the convents that they visited.

As I said above, I am certain that I made the right choice by not becoming a nun. I admire the young women today who have a hunger to serve God and are willing to devote their entire lives to His service. It in no way diminishes the work I have done for God or the work I have done as a wife and mother, but there is such a sacrifice in forgoing marriage and children in order to serve God. It frees them to love and care for many children and adults as they spread the good news that Jesus Christ loves them and took the penalty for their sins, that they might have eternal life with God.

Reference:
1. Lipka, Michael. 2014. US nuns face shrinking numbers and increased tensions with the Vatican. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/u-s-nuns-face-shrinking-numbers-and-tensions-with-the-vatican/ (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/u-s-nuns-face-shrinking-numbers-and-tensions-with-the-vatican/)  (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/u-s-nuns-face-shrinking-numbers-and-tensions-with-the-vatican/).

2. I have read a lot of books about nuns. Some were fiction and some were biographies. Other books explored the life of nuns at different times in history. Everything that I read contributed to what I have written here but I cannot provide specific references.

There’s a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper…

There’s a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper…

It’s one of the first warm days of the year and everyone wants to be outdoors instead of at their desks, including me. It has been a long, cold winter and the lure of the blue skies and sunshine are irresistible. I cannot wait for my lunch hour and the opportunity to spend some time in the sunshine and warmth, especially since it will probably be cold and damp again tomorrow. Winter gives up its grip just one day at a time and today’s grip is looser.

The clock creeps slowly but even winter cannot affect the passage of time, and soon enough I am able to log out of my computer, grab my purse and coat and head for the elevator that will release me from the great indoors. First I stop and buy lunch from the cafe in the lower level and then with meal in hand I head for the revolving doors that lead to the small park behind this cluster of buildings.

I drink in that first taste of warm air and sunshine. This is a special moment that only happens once a year and I relish it for a few minutes. I want to lock this memory in to sustain me until every day is warm and winter is only a memory. Knowing that the lunch hour will speed by too quickly, I walk into the park and look for a place to enjoy my meal and the warmth. The park is filled with people who have had the same idea as me, but I find a bench near the drained and empty fountain that has just one person on it, a man reading his newspaper. As I sit on the other end of the bench he glances at me, smiles briefly, and then returns to his paper. I quickly eat my sandwich and sip my soft drink and relish this hour of freedom. The man beside me continues to page through his paper and the rustling as he turns the pages distracts me. I look to my right and see the headline on the paper. In a blink it has my complete attention. PHANTOM MEMORIES CREATED BY CHEMISTRY! I look at the name of the newspaper and realize that it is just a rag, the type of paper that prints stories about alien abductions. I return my attention to enjoying the hour and resolve to block this man and his newspaper from my senses.

A few minutes later the man closes the paper and then drops it on the bench as he walks away. I continue to ignore it but the more I try, the more I am drawn to that headline. Finally I give in to urge, pick up the paper, and begin reading the story. “Neuroscientists have discovered a way to erase and create new memories using a chemical cocktail. This has great implications for treatment of patients who are plagued by memories that cause pain or are even harmful. The lead scientist is especially hopeful that this will revolutionize treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.” The story went into some of the complexities of the chemistry and I skipped down a few paragraphs, not interested in the science.  A new paragraph began with, “But what of the implications of this new science?” I am tempted to discard the paper, because surely this is where the story will dissolve into something crazy, but I was having some of those same thoughts myself. What could this science do in the wrong hands?

“Opponents to this new treatment fear that it could also be warped and used for evil. Someone with enough money and power could buy this treatment and use it to change memories of their enemies or even loved ones. The government could use this to control the people.” “Other industries express great excitement at the uses for this, especially the entertainment and travel industries. People can buy memories of a vacation or create a memory of themselves as the main character in a favorite movie.”

The last paragraph of the story is the most troubling for me. “When asked how long the effects of these memories might last, the neuroscientists were unable to give a definitive answer. ‘The test subject who has retained the memories the longest, who received the highest dose of the compound, has retained the memories for eight months.’ When pressed further, the neuroscientists chose to end the interview with a promise for updates.” 

I throw the paper down, a little disgusted with myself for getting sucked into the story. I doubt that any of it is true and resolve not to think about this anymore. As I turn my face back to the sunshine I hear a voice behind me, interrupting my reverie. “We will have to give her another dose but we need to erase the memories that that lab tech tried to feed her.” “Indeed,” said a different voice. “He was creative, trying to use the memory of a false news story in order to clue her in to her true status.” "How long can we keep this up?" The first voice says, "She responded to our ad to take part in a clinical trial, and so far she is our only successful subject. Are you developing qualms as well?"  As he speaks, the lovely day fades around me….

It’s one of the first warm days of the year and everyone wants to be outdoors instead of at their desks, but not me. I will spend my lunch hour at my desk and continue to work……

While preparing your garden at the beginning of spring, you find the blueprints for your house buried in the earth. When you pull it out and examine it, you find that there is a room in the blueprint that doesn’t exist in your house. Both disturbed and intrigued, you set off to find the missing room. Write what happens next.

While preparing your garden at the beginning of spring, you find the blueprints for your house buried in the earth. When you pull it out and examine it, you find that there is a room in the blueprint that doesn’t exist in your house. Both disturbed and intrigued, you set off to find the missing room. Write what happens next.

My shovel hit something metallic. This is odd, I’ve only dug down a couple of feet, preparing the bed for a new azalea bush. It’s in the one area of the garden that I haven’t transformed since moving into my dream home and before this it was just a grassy area. I reach into the hole and feel a hard surface. It’s a tube, and I try to pull it out of the hole but realize that part of it is still buried. I grab a spade and dig around the object and realize that the tube is wider than the hole, so I widen the hole until I can pull out the tube.

It’s about 18 inches long and has caps at both ends. I try to unscrew the caps without success and head over to the hose to see if cleaning off the dirt will help me get this tube open. As I run the hose over the tube I notice an etching on one of the end caps: 1945. That’s the year the house was built! Could this tube have been buried for seventy years? Once the dirt is cleaned away I give the end caps another go, and this time one cap reluctantly opens. I peer inside but can’t see what is in there. I head over to the patio and tip the tube over the table. A tightly rolled piece of piece of black or dark blue paper slides out. The roll is about twelve inches long and it isn’t too thick, perhaps two or three pages. I try to unroll them but they’ve been rolled up for so long that I can’t get them to lay flat. I can seen that they’re blueprints of something, and I bring them into the house. I grab some fat books from my huge book collection in the living room and use them to pin down the corners as I unroll the three blueprints on my dining room table. 

The address for my house in the lower right corner of each blueprint, and there is a sheet for the first floor, the second floor, and the basement. There doesn’t appear to have been any work done to the house since these blueprints were made, because the first and second floors look right- same rooms, same walls. When I move to the third blueprint, the one from the basement, I was puzzled because it didn’t look like my basement. I have a full, unfinished basement but the plans show a basement that is larger than than mine. According to these plans, there are two rooms in the basement and one of them extends under the patio in my backyard! I don’t hang out in the basement very much but I know that there are no doors in that one large room. Intrigued, I decide to do a little investigating.

The basement has a couple of naked bulbs but I take my big bad flashlight downstairs with me. This flashlight is long and heavy and really bright. I love the new LED flashlights! When I get to the bottom of the stairs I turn toward the back of the house, where the mystery room was supposed to be. The patio is in the back and at the left end of the house, so I head to that corner of the basement. I had to shift some boxes before I could get a good look at the wall. I turn on the flashlight and play its powerful beam over the wall. This wall, like the others, is cement block and on first blush I see nothing that would indicate a room  behind the it. I rap on the wall with the flashlight but feel pretty foolish- cement block wouldn’t sound hollow, and indeed, there was no hollow echo. I get closer to the wall and examine it closely. At first I see nothing to indicate that this was anything but a solid cement wall, but when I bend down I see what appears to be a small crack at the bottom that goes up about three feet. The crack is fairly straight and as I trace it with my fingers, I realize that it turns ninety degrees at the top. I feel a bit of a flutter in my stomach- was this it? I decide to bring some more light downstairs and run up to get a couple of lamps.

Once the corner is brightly lit I can see the faint outline of the crack. It goes up those three feet and then across, to the other wall. It outlines an area about three feet square on the wall. It has been painted over and is hard to see, which explains why I have never noticed it before. I get a scraper and screwdriver and get to work, digging out the paint until I am down to the bare block. As I work I notice that the cement block in this square is not as cold as the blocks in the other wall, further evidence to me that I may be on the right track. After two hours of scraping and digging I have the crack completely exposed, but if this is a door, how does it open? I don’t see any hinges. I also notice an inch-wide indentation in the center of the square and decide to dig the paint out of there as well. It turns out to be a hole with threads in it and looks as if something could be screwed into it. But what? Will this open the door? I am convinced that I have indeed uncovered a door. As I mull this over, I suddenly remember that after moving in, I had found a jar with odd-sized screws in this basement. I had thought at the time that they might turn out to be important and had stashed them on the other side of the basement, on a shelf above the laundry tub. I walk over and find the jar; in it are a couple of long, fat screws and some pieces of metal that look like long pieces of chalk, with a hole in the middle. The screws look like they would fit in the hole! Were they the keys to open the door?

I open the jar and take out the longest screw and start to thread it into the hole. It takes awhile- there is still some paint in there- but eventually I work most of it in. Now what? I had expected that the door would pop open as I advanced the screw, but no such luck. I look in the jar at the other metal pieces and belatedly realize that the screw would fit through the hole in the metal and form a handle of some sort when I inserted the screw. I can believe I missed this. I remove the screw and slide it through the hold of the metal piece. It made a very nice handle, and I quickly re-insert the screw. As I work at the screw, the section of wall becomes looser and I realize that I might be able to move it in or out. I try pulling on the handle and screw but other than a little movement, the door stays put. I switch to pushing and as I put my shoulder into it, the door starts to slide inward. This has to be it! I push a bit more and then sit on the floor and give a few big shoves with my feet. Bit by bit, the door moves inward and then suddenly it pushes all the way in…to the mystery room.

Of course it is completely dark in this newly-revealed place. Clearly there are no windows and none had been indicated on the blueprints. I grab the flashlight and shine it into the space. I see a lot of dust and some vague shapes but they are too far away to identify. If I want to know what is in there, I will have to go in. I have some qualms- there might be any manner of creepy things in there like bugs, mice, spiders…but there is a mystery in that room and I have to discover what is in there! I grab one of the lamps and bring it close to the opening, then  realize I can probably get it completely into the room. I push the lamp in and then with just a few misgivings, I crawl into the room with my flashlight in hand. 

There is a lot of dust and I stir up enough to make me cough and make my eyes water. I shine the flashlight upward to make sure that it was taller than the three-foot door; it seems to be the same height as the rest of the basement. I stand up cautiously and turn the flashlight onto the wall with the door. No sign of a light switch. It is so dark that even the lamp and the flashlight don’t provide enough light. The room is big- at least the size of the patio overhead- and the walls are either painted black or were very dirty. I decide I need more light, so I hook up some extension cords and bring all of the lamps into the mystery room.

Do you ever dream of buried treasure? Of riches beyond compare? Do you hope to win the lottery? Once the room is lit, I deflate a little bit because I see no treasure chests, no pots of gold. At first I am disappointed because all I can see are books, a desk, and a chair. Everything is so dusty that I decide to clean it all off; perhaps the desk is an antique and worth some money. I crawl out of the room to get some cleaning supplies and then set to work clearing out some of the dust on the floors. I work my way over to the desk and for the first time I get a really good look at the desk and the items piled on top. As my cloth wipes, titles come to light and fine leather bindings are revealed. These are not just books; these are finely made treasures of leather and parchment with gold found in the lettering of title and author. This is a collection of first editions Dickens, Sand, Eliot. I am not a book dealer but even I recognize the worth of these volumes.

I had purchased my home from the estate of the woman who lived here alone for many years. When I moved to this town my neighbors regaled me with story after story about her, a simple woman who loved books. One neighbor in particular told me that there was a rumor that the former owner was a rare book collector but no books or papers to that effect were found after she died. Her children had long ago left the area and left her; when she died their only desire was to see that the house was sold as soon as possible. I bought the house within a year, seeing a diamond in the rough in its simple lines and spare architecture. Now it seemed that I had acquired even more.

As I continue to clean, a thought runs through my mind. Why did the former owner hide this room and hide these books? Surely a treasure like this should be shared, not hoarded! These books are priceless works of art and literature; as a lover of books myself, I am certain of this. I pick up a volume of “A Tale of Two Cities” and reverently clean the dust from the cover. I open the book to find the publication date, and find an unsealed envelope tucked inside the cover. I reason that an unsealed envelope is not private and I reach into it and withdraw a sheet of rose-colored paper. There is an embossed, ornate R in the upper left corner and I recall that the former owner of this home was named Rosa. As I read the last letter that Rosa ever wrote on her special notepaper, I begin to understand the reason for this room and why it was sealed. It was not just the architecture that drew me to this house. The spirit of Rosa had reached through the walls and called a fellow book-lover to ownership. And like its previous owner, I will keep its secrets.

The kids were raised on the mantra “Family is everything.” What happens when they find out their parents aren’t who they pretended to be?

The kids were raised on the mantra “Family is everything.” What happens when they find out their parents aren’t who they pretended to be?

Donovan, Melissa (2014-01-02). 1200 Creative Writing Prompts (Adventures in Writing) (p. 17). Swan Hatch Press. Kindle Edition.


“Family is everything!” was the rallying cry of my parents. I’m the oldest of three kids- I have two younger brothers and I’m the only girl. My parents pulled out that phrase every time one of us wanted to do something or go somewhere that wasn’t open to all of us. It didn’t always work out- I don’t really like baseball but I agreed to play Little League because my brothers wanted to play. They drew the line, however, at dance class and since they refused to take dance lessons, I was told to find an activity that all three of us could do together. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find something like that? I’m just grateful they didn’t want to play football.

“Family is everything” came into play for social events and holidays as well. I was invited to a sleepover party at a friend’s house but it fell on the same day as my youngest brother’s birthday, and so my parents nixed the sleepover. I felt really sorry for my middle brother when his junior prom was the same day as the family reunion- guess which event he attended? I think his girlfriend broke up with him over that one. As we got older it became more and more difficult to insist on doing things as a family but believe me, my parents tried.

“Family is everything” also meant that you supported the family through thick and thin. If someone picked on my little brother, I was expected to step in and defend him. An insult or injury to one was an insult or injury to all. It was kind of nice to have built-in defenders but it could be a pain to have Mom swooping in to fight our battles for us.

My parents must have come up with this “family is everything” when they had kids. They rarely talked about their own families and we had never met any of our grandparents; they had all died before we were born. We would talk about it sometimes and wonder why they were so adamant about "family togetherness." It was great to be close and luckily we all got along, but why were they so focused on “family is everything?” For years we batted ideas around but never came up with a good theory. We badgered Mom and Dad for years with questions about why and how they came up with their mantra and begged them to ease up, but they rarely  strayed and kept us on a leash, too.

We grew up, went off to college, built careers, had our own families. We had all decided long ago that family was important but we wouldn’t force our own families to follow the “family is everything” rule. We all settled within 100 miles of each other, mostly to please our parents, but it worked out for all of us. Mom and Dad kept trying to impose FIE from time to time but I think they realized that it was a lot harder once we had our own spouses and children.

Years passed and Mom and Dad grew older and retired from their jobs as professors. They depended on each other and were totally devoted to each other. It was almost as if the two of them made one whole person- Mom couldn’t drive, so Dad did the driving and Dad couldn’t manage the stairs, so Mom did the laundry. They died within weeks of each other; one couldn’t survive without the other. With sad hearts, my brothers and I met at Mom and Dad’s house one weekend to pack up their things and prepare the house to be sold.

We had a lot of good memories to share as we found mementos of family vacations and events. We found old programs and had a good time reminiscing about school plays and concerts, and shared a laugh when we found Mom’s shell collection. We worked our way through the house and saved the attic for last.

Our old attic was a mysterious place. Mom and Dad kept the door locked and never let us in the attic, citing danger and spiders and mice (which were enough to keep me out of there). We found the attic key in Dad’s desk drawer and prepared for our first-ever trip into the family attic. We thought we would find old textbooks, antique furniture, and a bunch of dead mice. We could never have imagined what we would find when we opened that door.

Sometimes when you’re a kid and things are going badly, you think that you must be adopted because you couldn’t do things as well as everyone else. I remember my youngest brother saying that he had to have been adopted because he couldn’t sing a note while the rest of us sang, if not perfectly, at least passably well. I thought I was adopted when I got my first “C” in high school- no one in our family ever got a “C” on anything. It never occurred to us that our parents had a big secret.

In that attic we found…big floppy shoes. Enormous hats. Brightly -colored wigs. Make up kits. Sparkly costumes and tutus. A unicycle. And posters. Posters all over the walls, garish posters proclaiming that the circus was coming to town. And on those posters were pictures of the performers, including pictures of our mom wearing a tight white costume and hanging from a trapeze. Another poster showed a crazy clown, and when we looked at it closely we realized it was our father. Our parents had been circus performers! Why had they kept this a secret? We searched the attic for more clues.

We opened one trunk and found photo albums of the circus owners, their families, and their performers. It was a family business and we found letters and documents that revealed that Mom and Dad’s parents had been major partners in the circus. We poured over pictures of Dad in a bunch of different clown costumes, and of Mom learning to fly on the trapeze. There were other performers’s pictures but none of the first names were familiar to us.   We wondered- could any of these people be our relatives? The grandparents that we never knew? Their last names were familiar and some of them even looked like Mom and Dad, including a frightening-looking bearded lady with Dad’s eyes and nose. The last set of letters was dated over fifty years ago and it seemed that the two families- Mom’s and Dad’s- had a bitter argument and sold their portions of the circus to other owners. No wonder Mom and Dad believed that “family is everything;” their families, once so close, had been torn apart.

Once we got over the shock, we had to laugh at the irony- Mom and Dad ran away from the circus to become college professors!

The protagonist walks into his/her home and it’s completely different- furniture, decor, all changed. It doesn’t look like the same house anymore. And nobody is home.

Today's writing. I'm stretching a bit.

The protagonist walks into his/her home and it’s completely different- furniture, decor, all changed. It doesn’t look like the same house anymore. And nobody is home.

Cara drove up to 13 Meadowlark Lane. She was so excited- she hadn’t been home to visit her family for several years, having just completed a deployment in Japan for three years. Text messages, Facebook messages, even Skype were all good ways to keep in touch but Cara felt really distant from her family home; not distant so much in miles as in connection. She grew up there and had her first date, her first prom, her first broken heart all within those walls. Of course she missed her mom and dad, and her brother Caleb, but she found that she had missed the house, too. It was part of her family and she was so very excited to return.

She was surprising everyone by coming in a day earlier than she had announced. She suspected that they would be tidying and planning and she really didn’t want a fuss. She wanted the familiarity of home as she remembered it, with Caleb’s hockey equipment piled up in the hallway or the kitchen counter filled with piles of sorted mail. She wanted to run up the stairs to her bedroom and jump onto the comfy four-poster bed and snuggle into her favorite quilt, the one with the whales and dolphins on it. She wanted to admire the walls that she had painted to resemble a sunny day at the beach with their warm blue-greens. She loved the sand-colored wooden floor and the rug that looked more like a beach towel. And she wanted to plop onto one of the tall kitchen chairs and soak in the familiarity of Mom’s country kitchen with its oak and maple decor. 

She exited from the interstate and after a few streets and traffic lights she turned onto Morninglark Lane. Her house was the fourth on the right and it sat majestically, calling her home. She parked in the driveway, switched off the engine and sat for a moment, drinking in the sight of home. Nothing had changed. It was still the beautiful blue-and-brick that she remembered, and the trees and bushes were the same, just a bit bigger. The lawn needed to be cut and some of the bushes could stand a trim, but to Cara’s eyes it was all perfect. Grabbing her purse, she jumped from the car and found herself running down the front walkway and leaping up the three stairs that led to the front door. She opened the screen door and tried the doorknob- locked. No problem, she still had her key. She fished out her old keychain and found the front door key, unlocked the door, and prepared to be awash in nostalgia.

What the heck?

She found herself in a stark white entry hall that opened up into an equally stark white living room filled with black and white furniture and dominated by a white marble fireplace. Cara stood frozen with confusion, then went back outside to check that she was in the right house. The familiar black mailbox on the wall next to the front door still displayed the number 13 in brass numbers- she was definitely in the right house. Foolishly, she realized that of course she was at the right house because her key had opened the front door. She went back inside and once again was assaulted by the unfamiliar. The entire first floor was one huge space and it was a checkerboard of black and white furnishings and decor. With a small cry of dismay, she noticed Mom’s country kitchen could no longer be called country; in fact, she wasn’t sure what to call it, other than a chrome and granite nightmare. Gone were the oak cupboards and maple table and in their place she saw glass-fronted white cabinets and a glass and steel monstrosity with spindly metal chairs. This was a nightmare. What had happened? Had her parents moved and forgotten to tell her? Then she noticed mail piles on one of the white-marbled counters- thank goodness, something she recognized. She walked over and pulled one of the piles toward her and saw her father’s name on the top envelope. This was certainly her family’s house- but where was her home?

“Mom? Dad?” she called. “It’s me, Cara- I’m home!” Instead of warm replies, she heard nothing but cold silence. “Caleb?” she shouted. No response. It seemed that no one was here. She walked around the large space, discovering more changes. A glance out the kitchen window was reassuring; the backyard appeared as she remembered it, with the patio furniture and Dad’s grilled. The old swing set was gone but after all, she and Caleb were grown now. She was a little surprised; she thought that they would keep it for the “someday” of grandchildren. Dad had built it himself out of thick timbers and ship rope and it could have lasted for another 25 years. She turned back to that terrifyingly alien kitchen and walked through it, back to the equally frozen landscape of the living room. The shock was wearing off a little but she still didn’t understand what she was seeing.

She had a horrible thought- what had they done to her bedroom? Her beautiful seaside cottage bedroom? She bounded up the stairs, noticing that the wooden railing had been replaced by a flat chrome bar that was bolted to the wall. She arrived on the second floor and found that it was all painted in the palest blue, only marginally different from the white of the downstairs. The first room she came to was her parent’s bedroom and she saw that the pale blue extended into what was once a cozy yellow haven. The old bed had been replaced by a modern affair with twisted posters of some black material. Nothing, nothing was the same in this room. The lovely wooden floors were hidden under a black rug, and in the middle of the dull gold bedspread lay an elegant but unfamiliar white cat. The cat stared at her with its green eyes and seemed to mock her; “this is my house, little girl, not yours.” She backed out of her parents’ room and turned to run down the hall to her bedroom. She stopped short as she passed Caleb’s room, or what was once Caleb’s room. Gone was the bed, the bookshelves, and his poster collection and in its place was an artist’s studio. An easel dominated the room and canvases were stacked along the walls. A huge skylight had been cut into the ceiling and the room was flooded with light. The canvas on the easel was covered with a cloth and the canvases scattered around the room contained a variety of subjects from fruit bowls to landscapes. None of the pieces appeared to be finished. This was just getting weirder and weirder.

She went on to the closed door at the end of the hallway. This was her old room and she was afraid to open the door. What more would she find? A recording studio? A junk room? Nothing would surprise her. She pulled in a deep cleansing breath and opened the door.

Oh, thank goodness. Her room was exactly as she had left it. Her beach cottage was intact with its soothing blues and greens, her beach towel rug was still on the wooden floor, and her quilt covered the bed. She crossed to the room and sat on the bed, drinking in the familiar. After a few minutes, she heard the front door open and heard footsteps. “Cara? Cara, are you home?” Her mother’s voice echoed as she walked with brisk steps through the living room and into the kitchen. Cara knew she should run down the stairs and jump into her mother’s arms, but she was still numbed by all the changes she had seen. “Cara?” “I’m up here, mom, in my room,” she said, and waited while her mother came up the stairs and down the hall.

Who was this? This tall, thin woman in a dress that looked like it was made of scarves? A woman with violent red hair? She sounded like her mother as she crossed the room with a happy cry to enfold Cara in a hug that was both familiar and alien. Mom wore jeans and sweaters. Mom wore sneakers. “Cara, honey, we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow!” this elegant woman cried. “We were hoping to have some time to prepare you…things have changed a little bit around here.” “A little bit?” snorted Cara. “Mom, everything is different. Even you are different. What is going on? Will Dad arrive in a Brooks Brothers suit?” Her dad, a high-school history teacher, always looked the part in his khakis and corduroys, and Cara couldn’t imagine what she would see when he came home after school. 

“Silly girl. Dad wouldn’t wear Brooks Brothers to teach. He saves those suits for our trips to art galleries and exhibits!” Art galleries. Exhibits. Okay, who were these people and what had become of her parents? “Mom, I am so confused,” said Cara, as her mother drew her out of the room and down into the kitchen. “Well, honey, you’ve been gone for over three years,” Mom said with a smile. “Your dad and I decided to re-invent ourselves. We took some art classes and I’ve started to paint.” She bustled around the kitchen, filling up a chrome tea kettle and pulling glass mugs out. At least this was familiar. Mom loved her afternoon tea…but Earl Grey? That was new. “With you in Japan and Caleb in graduate school, we decided to make some changes.” Changes? thought Cara. There was change and then there was upheaval. “But we didn’t want to upset you too much, so we left your room the way it was.” Cara supposed she should be grateful for this but she was still too stunned to express gratitude. “Mom, this is so different, like one-hundred-eighty degrees different. It will take me some time to adjust.” Actually, Cara didn’t think she would ever adjust. How do you go away for three years and come home to find that it wasn’t home anymore?

Her mom reached into a voluminous handbag and pulled out a stack of cards. “Cara, honey, now that you’re back in the country and living in your own place, we want to move on with your room. What do you think?” The stack of cards were paint samples. Gray, taupe, even a subdued violet. “We want to create a sitting room, a place to relax and drink in peace. Do you think these colors will create that atmosphere?” she asked as she fanned the paint colors for Cara. Cara looked up from the paint colors to meet her mother’s eyes- had she gotten contacts? They seemed bluer than usual. “Mom, you can’t change my room. Its my room! I painted it and decorated it! It’s the only sane room left in this crazy house!” she cried, as tears started to fall. She expected her mother to comfort her and promise to keep her bedroom as it was, and so she was surprised when her mother calmly said, “Cara dear, we’ve moved on. You need to accept that and perhaps move on yourself. Dad and I have been through counseling and we’ve decided to live for ourselves now. We’ve been keeping that bedroom like a shrine for you, but you’ve had your glimpse of home and it’s time for us to make the final change.” “Final change?” asked Cara, wiping at her tears. 

“Yes,” said her mother. She looked past Cara and seemed to signal with her eyes. Cara snapped her head around but never saw the hands that grabbed her or put a dark hood over her head. She struggled until the pinch of a needle in her arm sent her into a warm blackness.

The unmarked van was driving down the street as Cara’s dad pulled into the driveway. He got out and kissed his wife and asked, “Is it done?” “Yes,” she replied. “I know you wanted to see her first but she was becoming unstable. She didn’t want to accept these changes.” She looked at him just as her contacts dissolved, revealing the all-black eyes that were as cold as they were dark. They held hands as they walked up to the house and went inside, shutting the door behind them.

Describe your cooking skills

Describe your cooking skills.

I can be a good cook. I’ve been a good cook in the past. When we were first married and when we had kids I cooked almost every dinner; we had rare nights out because we were a single income family. I’m a picky eater and therefore I am a picky cook. That was limiting but I still managed, and surprisingly, both of my kids are adventurous eaters, despite being subject to my pickiness.  My son has even become a bit of a “foodie.” Ken has always told me that he liked my cooking…he’s a smart man.

I’m not a very creative cook. I can follow a recipe and have done some improvisational cooking when I realized I was missing an ingredient or two, and most of my improvisations have been pretty edible. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I made beef stew stroganoff instead of ordinary beef stew, simply by adding sour cream to the beef stew at the end of the cooking process. I think a good cook has to have a good sense of taste and I fear that my pickiness limits my ability to be anything more than an average cook. I don’t like vegetables and will not cook or eat any seafood. I cooked fish a couple of times for Ken and was nauseated the entire time. And that fishy smell lingered for days.

I’ve watched Julie and Julia at least a dozen times and I admire anyone who can do all of that prep work. Quite honestly, if it takes a lot of prep time, I doubt I’ll cook it. Wash your beef cubes individually and dry them with a paper towel. Chop this, mince that, blend these- too much work. I’ve looked through the Joy of Cooking and I wouldn’t eat most of those recipes- they contain too many things I don’t like. Betty Crocker is more my style and indeed, she was my guide through the early years.

When I went back to work (my kids were in high school) I began to cook fewer meals, mostly because I didn’t have time. The meals I did cook were also very simple- hamburgers with Kraft mac and cheese, hamburger/chicken/tuna helper, “breakfast for dinner” (always fun, quick and yummy). And once my kids were grown and gone I just about gave up cooking except on the weekends. Ken and I both had substantial meals at lunchtime and so resorted to PB & J or canned soup for dinner. 

I recently got a new oven/stove- a convection oven and it has been fun to rediscover some cooking. A convection oven makes a really moist and tender roast beef, and our Christmas turkey cooked in half the time. It’s certainly different to cook with an oven that hums!

To me, cooking is a bit like housework. You spend a lot of time doing something (prepping ingredients, etc.) that goes generally unseen and unappreciated, and then all of your work disappears once the meal is eaten. Unless you’re an amazing cook, no one will remember a particular meal that you cooked. It was gratifying, however, when my newly-married daughter asked for some of my recipes. And now that we are empty nesters, I might try to cook some new things. Might. No guarantees.