Alexander told his younger sister Clarissa that if you take seven deep breaths in front of the mirror something spectacular will happen.
“You need to do it outside,” he said, “because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Clarissa took her small wall mirror outside and propped it up against the leg of the porch chair on the lawn. She looked in the mirror and took seven deep breaths.
That is when Alexander threw a bucket of water over her.
Hi Doozy Suzie. I really love your blog. What I especially like was the photo you put in your header of your dog. I have a dog and it is very special. Every day we go for a walk and he greets everyone he meets. He would be useless as a guard dog because he wouldn’t bark but run up to the thief for a pat!!!
He is a Xoloitzcuintle, also known as a Mexican Hairless Dog, and his name is Buffy. He got that name because when he was born he didn’t have any fur and my grandmother said “He’s in the buff” so after that he was called Buffy.
I don’t know how you think of things to put on your blog every day. Your posting today was really interesting – all about your mother dying yesterday. The blow by blow account of her last hours I couldn’t stop reading. I don’t know, as I say, how you manage to think of something different every day to blog about.
Your posting last week of how your baby sister died of the flu was quite exciting, although I don’t really understand what that has got to do with your header of a dog. Was your baby sister and the dog good friends? Or was it something else?
I showed the picture of your dog to my grandmother – not the one who named Buffy but the other one – and she read what you wrote and said from what you say your mother would have been “a mean old hag”. (These were her words, not mine). My grandmother said the world is better off when people like that are not stealing the air we breathe.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like the picture of your dog. You never said what its name was. If we get a cat my grandmother said we should call it Fluffy – to go with Buffy. I suppose your grandmother hasn’t suggested you get a cat because she’s dead.
When Natalie came home from school she overheard her mother say to her little brother, “You’re not to do that again. It was very naughty.”
“But the cat was hungry.”
“I told you not to feed the cat between meals. It will get fat. So feed the cat only in the mornings and in the evenings. I’ve enough to do without having to run around covering up for your naughtiness.”
Later Natalie asked her mother what was wrong with feeding the cat, and her mother said that it was wrong to overfeed pets. “You should know that because of your goldfish. You can feed them too much and they overeat and die.”
For the rest of the day Natalie noticed that her little brother was pouting. He never liked being told off, and Natalie made it worse by reinforcing what their mother had said, and told him that “he shouldn’t overfeed his cat. You are a very naughty boy” – which made her little brother pout even more.
Later, when Natalie went to feed her goldfish it almost looked the same but she was pretty sure it was a different fish.
It had been a long time coming, but at last it had arrived. For over three years Melinda had pestered her parents for a pet guinea pig. Over that time she had used many ingenious arguments as to why she should get a guinea pig as a pet. The clincher came when she promised she’d let her horrible little brother chose a name for it. At last Melinda was acting kindly towards her little brother.
Melinda already had a hutch in preparation for the possibility of a guinea pig one day turning up. The hutch used to belong to her good friend Meghan, but Meghan’s pet bunny had died so she had no further use for a hutch.
It was Melinda’s birthday and, miracle of miracles, a guinea pig arrived. It was cuddled, and pulled, and pushed, and shoved and squeezed. It was fed warm milk from a bottle with a baby’s teat. It was put in its hutch, and taken out of its hutch.
And what should Melinda’s little brother name it? He said, “It shall be called Brindle”. And indeed the guinea pig was a sort of brindle. Melinda didn’t like it. “It’s a horrible name,” she said. “Pick another.”
“What about Quincy?” suggested Melinda’s horrible little brother. Melinda didn’t like it. “It’s a horrible name,” she said. “Pick another.”
“Then it should be called Penguin,” said Melinda’s horrible little brother.
“Since you can’t decide on a name,” announced Melinda, “it shall be called Petal.”
“But the guinea pig is a boy,” said Melinda’s horrible little brother. “You can’t name a boy Petal.”
“I can do what I like,” said Melinda.
Anyway, within a month Melinda had lost interest in Petal. Her horrible little brother took over its care and named it Brindle.
Nothing makes a mess in the washing machine like an unnoticed tissue. It may have been left in a pocket or simply stuck to a garment by way of static electricity. But in the washing machine it will disintegrate into a thousand pieces and fleck every item of clothing with impossible-to-remove fragments.
Jocelyn had a sister for whom she had responsibility. The sister, Kat, was “special needs”; not super-super special needs, but someone who required a little bit of extra care with some things.
When it came to doing the laundry, even though Jocelyn checked the pockets for tissues, the batch of laundry always emerged paper-flecked. Jocelyn couldn’t work out why until she discovered that Kat was dropping a tissue into the washing machine during the rinse cycle because she “thought it was funny.” Jocelyn didn’t have time to stand in front of the washing machine to protect it from Kat’s trickery, so for a while she put up with it. But enough is enough!
One day she told Kat to “do your own laundry today because I’m busy”. She had secretly dropped four sheets of tissues into the washing machine before Kat began to use it. Kat didn’t notice the tissues were there and began her task.
What a disaster! The drain blocked and the laundry flooded. Jocelyn called a plumber, who was expensive and couldn’t come for two days. The price of the plumber meant they had to do without dessert all week to save on not being able to purchase more butter and eggs. Kat got all upset because she thought it was her fault. It was one unhappy household, I can tell you.
That was when Jocelyn got a cold and her nose started running and there were no tissues left. Somewhere, in a bottom drawer, she found a small pile of handkerchiefs that hadn’t been used for years. They were brought into commission. In the meantime, Jocelyn washed everything by hand. It was raining and nothing, without the aid of a spin cycle, would dry.
Jocelyn confessed to Kat that there had been tissues in the washing machine and nothing was Kat’s fault, and Kat told Jocelyn that Jocelyn was “naughty naughty naughty naughty naughty naughty naughty” which drove Jocelyn slightly bananas, but she put up with it.
Eventually things returned to normal. The washing machine was fixed. The laundry was dried out. Dessert was reinstated. A new box of tissues was purchased. Thank goodness! And Kat returned to secretly dropping a tissue into the rinse cycle, because she “thought it was funny”.
Weave a Web 