All is black. The curtains are opened, and the sunlight fills every corner of the room. Eyes squint, the temperature rises, and the colors of the room shine bright. The day is here as if the night never came. One by one the buttons push into the holes of the shirt. Fingers search for the zipper, the shoelace, and the tightening of the tie. A check of the mirror with the help of the gleaming light. Hands sweep a wallet into the back pocket and feel for a pen in the front of the jacket. Keys in hand, lights off, and door closed. Quiet immediately engulfs the room. Everything is still. The couch sits heavily on the floor, the microwave ticks through time, and the empty coffee cup drys in the sink. The light does a slow dance across the apartment as the sun shifts in the sky. The shadows play against the light until it wins one final time for the day. The sun’s last ray disappears and the apartment sits in the deep shadows of the night. Color fades and black appears. Darkness powers through the air as if the light does not exist. The light waits to be called again just as the darkness waits to be broken.
Happy New Year!
A new year means trying new things.
Tonight’s dinner was:
Parmesean Crusted Salmon with Asparagus
My hubby’s rating: 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄 (9/10)
This recipe is thanks to Goodful’s wonderful videos. If you haven’t checked them out you should. Based on the rating above I’d say this was pretty close to a home run!
Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!
Enjoy!
Cats & Pizza
This is a rather serious story about a group of cats that secretly run a very famous Pizza shop in Chicago. No, I am not using some fancy writers version of a metaphor. These are real, although unusual, genuine calico cats. With there black and orange large spots and sassy swishing tales, they have owned this famous shop for generations. Passed down from cat to cat it’s hard to know exactly how this place got started for sure.
Covered from head to tail with a specially designed jumpsuit to keep their kitchen cat hair free, the cats prepare for this week’s crowds. A roll of the dough is a special sight to see because all the cats bat the balls of dough around like a toy. Some ride them around the kitchen making a trail of pans behind them. Once the dough is perfectly round and beautiful to the eyes. One cat hits a pan with her tail and the cats scatter to their pie pans. Dough balls all around the room are pawed out into perfectly round discs ready for toppings. One cat sccuries throught the room checking for perfection. Swish, swish. Pat, pat. She also adds butter to the perfected dough. All action ceases and watches her eye the last of the pies. Once all are the pies are perfect she jumps through the air , turn on the music with a hit of her tail, and sprinkles powdered sugar like a fairy with pixie dust all across the room. This is the secret incredient of course. The cats simultaneolsy begin dancing. Tap, tap, tap. Swish, bang, boom. Rat a tat tat. Sauces and cheeses of every kind are poured on the pies. Meats and olives, flying through the air. One by one pizza are lined up on the oven conveyer belt. In they go with a magical twist. Out they come with a perfect gleam. Aromas begin to fill every inch of the air. Pizza boxes are filled and slipped through a door where the humans take over from here. Where is this pizza place you ask? I wouldn’t happen to know anything, my dear.
Beans Attack
The room is quiet and the air is still. The summer heat pulses through the night. On the counter awaits a coffee maker ready for the action of the day. This machine plays an important role in this paper company. It brings energetic vibes, vital to a paper salesman’s charm. The aromas pour into every part of this paper company. Customers are drawn in by the alluring smell. They’ve signed on the dotted line for monthly paper deliveries before they snap out of their coffee hypnosis. Before they can resist they are handed a cup of coffee for the road. One sip and their head spins from the euphoric feeling of the dark nutty coffee traveling through their body. “This is so incredible it should be illegal!”, the customers exclaim. The salesmen know there is something strange about the coffee experience at their company. However, business is so good they don’t make time to figure out why. Until one random Saturday. You all are smart people so I imagine you know where this is going. The coffee pot was mysterious. It had a magical hold over customers. But as you all probably guessed, it had to come to an end. Right? Riiiighhht?? Right. Good guess. As I was saying before, there was a random big promotional Saturday where it stopped working. As Larry the salemen went to pour himself a cup of joe he noticed the coffe never brewed and the light on the coffee machine was dark. Larry knew their luck had ended. He stood there for a long while. Studying the simple coffee maker and all of it’s blemishes from the many uses. After many moments of silence in the midst of the crazy office, Larry turned around, walked to his cubicle, grabbed his suit jacket and important items from his desk and immediately walked out the door. Larry never came back to work. His desk still sporting pictures and thank you letters from all his loving customers. Moments later a crowd was huddled around the coffee machine. It’s as if an alien had landed right there in the middle of the office. They wouldn’t go near it, yet they couldn’t move away or avert their eyes. Suddenly the whole office was quiet and starring at the you know what. Phones rang, customers knocked, but no one moved. One by one each salesman gathered their things, walked to their cars, and drove away until there was no one left. None to return again. A beep of a fax machine. A pen left open on a desk. A mailman stopping by to discover an empty office and a broken coffee machine. He lays down the Mail on the counter and looks around a bit. Finding no answers shruges his shoulders, turns out the lights and closes the door behind him.
The Phonebooth Meets the Bat
A bright light pulses in the darkness. The sound of the newly arrived police box echoes across the dead air of the cave. Bats scatter quickly in the rhythm of the pulsing sounds until there are no bats remaining in the cave. The pulsing stops and the lights from of the box are still. With a click and a creak, the slender box door opens. A man in a striped suit, long jacket, and tennis shoes appears through the door. His quick movements make his spikey hair bounce around his forehead. Looking around this new place he reaches in his pocket for something that looks like a silver flashlight with a blue light. After a minute of observing his surroundings he croucthes low to the ground to feel the stone underneath him. “Thats different,” the long jacket man says. ” Marble floors have never been apart of any caves I’ve seen before. These must be some fancy bats,” he exclaims sarcastically to himself.
He moves toward the narrow bridge ahead and finds himself looking at a gate. He points his blue flashlights and the gate opens synchronized with the spinning of the walls in front of him. The once stone walls are now computer screen filled. In front of a very large circular wooden desk. The long jacketed man hops into the overstuffed office chair and swivels to action. Click of the mouse, rat-atat, of the keyboard and a confident push of the enter key. It’s as if he’d been to this cave thousands of times but this was only his first introduction.
Pencils & Pens
This is in response to The Daily Post prompt of the day.
“Pencils and Pens”
My crayons lay scattered among my mothers pens and other desk supplies. I often sat at her wooden desk as a child, carrying on important coloring business. Opening each drawer carefully while my feet dangled from her wicker chair. Going through each drawer hoping to discover something fun to play with. The pen drawer was the most fun. Once fancy pens stacked next to cap less pens. Stray rubber bands, dull letter openers, and stamps. Pens with multiple colors, highlighters, tape and un-sharpened pencils. The smell of the wooden desk and wicker chair mixed with the perfume of my mother still lingers in my head when I think about that desk. I sat there many hours coloring and drawing. Writing and having important meeting with my cat, Sassy. My dog didn’t really like meetings very much. Her desk was lined with pictures, a crystal flat bowl and a name plate that had gold pen holders attached, that ironically, didn’t hold pens very well.
The place to find the mecca of pens in our household was not that desk. When I wanted a fine pen, I would hop off of the creaky wicker chair and make my way under the sky light in our 2nd story townhouse, I’d walk down the carpeted stairs passing a crystal chandelier that was so close you could touch. I would hold on to the railing as I made my way to the landing, flip to the left past the entrance door, and step onto the European tile of the entry hallway. As I would make my way into the dinning room I would often play a few notes on the piano. Through the mirrored dining room and finally into the kitchen. The drawer under the phone held my moms favorite pen. The fanciest pen of the house. It was not allowed to be moved from that spot. The temptation to use it in other places was high but I knew better then to move it. My mom really loves that pen. She still has that pen and has gained more as gifts since those years. I still love to use it when I visit. It reminds me of my childhood. Curve, reverse, swoosh, flip, slash. It wrote with such ease. Curves and loops. Flips and swooshes. Un-click the pen, open the creaky drawer, and place it safely back in its spot. It waits for the next person.
Through foreign streets
One day, about six years ago, I decided to take a trip on my own. I wanted to try something new and decided to go on a trip across the sea to discover the unknown.
I’ve been thinking about that trip quite a bit lately. Walking through the streets of, Dublin, London, and Edinburg. Head up, neck tilted back, starring at the wonders above, eyes wide open in awe, heart racing with fear, quenching a thirst I didn’t know I had, picturing those who walked these streets before me who were searching for the very thing that I was. Love, knowledge, dreams, answers, a purpose, a desire to make an impact on the world, how can I change the world? Arms spread out wide to touch the cobblestones of the alleys, I ventured on. Sitting in booths of bars where Tolken sat to write the Hobbit. Backpack strapped with just the essentials. Trusting strangers to dangle me down to steal a kiss of the Blarney Stone. Riding horse and carriage through the hills of Ireland. Holding onto a giant cup of coffee in a coffee shop while watching the streets of Dublin flood with rain. Sitting on a bench in the heart of Oxford University while reading a book, watching people, listening to the amazing conversations of the students around me. It was magical. Not perfect. Not in the slightest. But it was magical. Walking down the street by myself. Coming to an intersection and making the exciting decision on which direction to try next. What’s down this alley? I’ve been picturing those walks through undiscovered cities lately and thinking about what it meant. I was searching for myself all the way across the world. I was trying to hear myself and trying to hear others at the same time. I was seeking understanding. Acceptance. Peace. A place my mind could run free and have others accept with open arms. It was an adventure that I carry with me everyday. It’s nothing I’d do again but it has stuck with me this far and I have a feeling it will continue to mean something to me forever. The further I get away from those day the better I understand what I gained. Right now, I can close my eyes and I’m there. There is one place I think of the most. Walking on the outskirts of Oxford. A young man with a small leather backpack rides by on his green bike with oversized bicycle wheels. Everyone moves around me going about their business as if I weren’t there. Music carries lightly through the alleyways. Shopfront buildings tower above taunting me with stories of the past. Cobblestone under my feet. I stand still. Taking it all in. I remember thinking no wonder great things have come out of this place. Brilliant or not, Oxford gives you the true experience of feeling how much bigger the universe is then you. It stares you in the face with the concept that your mind is capable of creating ideas larger then anything physical. The enviornment is so beyond what your eyes can accept that you are overwhelmed with the inspiration to do something monumental. You could call it an experience that sticks to every part of you forever.
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