100 Things About Me in no particular order #1

I am afraid of falling down stairs.
Part One.

I'm not afraid of falling per se, and I'm not afraid of stairs, but I am terribly afraid of falling down stairs. This is to a point of a phobia, but I hesitate to use that word, as by definition or common usage it is: irrational fear. This fear of mine is not irrational in the least.
I have had two traumatizing falls down stairs, they are the source of this fear.
The first: My mother tells me I was seven or so at the time, I don't remember my age in years in this memory, I was young enough to not attach actual years to memories. We were at my paternal grandparent's house for the weekend. We went to one set of grandparent's house or the other once a month when I was growing up. Both sets lived about an hour and a half away, just far enough to be a good trip without too much annoying little brother being 'on my side' of the back seat.
These grandparents, my father's parents, lived in a home that my grandfather had built himself. He had been one of 11 farming children (which I didn't appreciate when I was a kid) and he is buried, 13 years now, with my grandmother now too, just a few months, in the same cemetery that HIS grandparents are buried in (which I didn't appreciate when I was a kid, either). These grandparents didn't watch a lot, or hardly any, TV, so I always came prepared when we went to their house. I brought whatever book I was writing at the time, dolls, sewing, and other projects when we went to this grandparents' house.
This particular weekend, I was going back downstairs, where my brother and I always slept, to get something or take something back down. I had plastic things in my hand, doll accessories of some sort. The stairs to the basement were in the garage, and were just pure concrete, like the garage floor. Something odd, but since I had grown up with it, not so much. We had to go outside the actual house to go down the stairs, and so it would seem a little scary to a little kid especially after dark.
I don't know what exactly happened, I just lost my balance or tripped over my feet, but all-of-a-sudden, I'm face first at the bottom of the stairs. I'm ok mostly, but my nose is all scraped up, from sliding down the concrete, and one of my plastic toys I was carrying got scraped up pretty badly. I do remember that I was trying to not ruin the toy, and I may have made my own fall worse trying to not scrape the toy on the cement.
Luckily, I was still pretty 'green', and didn't break anything. But it shook me up somethin' fierce at the time. I can still see the steps from that odd angle, when I opened my eyes. The concrete was cold. I remember wailing like the proverbial banshee, I was a kid after all, and could get away with wailing. I did get plenty of TLC, hugs and kisses, and washing up scrapes. And I think we all laughed (after I was calmed down) about the toy getting scraped. I think it was a scoop. I think I had big plans for that scoop. I don't know what they were, but I had a great idea that involved that scoop. I think the scrapes it got ruined it for me. Or I just plain forgot the idea after the trauma of falling. I may even still have that scoop somewhere. I think it's red.

Creator Spirit

Creator Spirit, She whispers in my ear when I'm talking to someone else, and I can't quite hear what She is saying, but I completely lose my train of thought in the conversation.
Creator Spirit, He sings to me in thunderstorms, the song my soul knows by heart.
Creator Spirit, It sends butterflies to flit around the flowers I'm walking past, when I'm walking the same path I walk every day, and tend to forget to actually look around me.
Creator Spirit, They show me random colors out of the corner of my eye.
Creator Spirit, We dance through my dreams in the most outrageous costumes.
Creator Spirit, I blow the breeze across my face, and the scent on the breeze tickles my memories.

Daily Writes

First

WP: Start with "Why is the steering wheel red?"
"Why is the steering wheel red?" she asked herself as she turned the corner. She was just (hand signal quote-unquote) "waking up" from one of her (hand signal quote-unquote) "episodes" and she didn't recognize the steering wheel, or the rest of the dash for that matter. She used the hand signal quote-unquotes when she talked about her condition to her family, she thought that somehow legitimizing it. Thought that made it normal.
She didn't use the hand signals at work, or with the doctor. At work she didn't really talk to anyone. Just did her thing and left. She couldn't afford to make friends or even acquaintances with this (hand signal quote-uncouth) "hanging over her head." When she talked to the doctor, she just nodded at the questions so she could get her meds. Not that the meds (hand signal quote-unquote) "helped" her. The doctor didn't know if or when she would ever be cured of her condition, hell, the doctor wasn't even sure what it was.
So she just lived as best as she could. Go to work, go home, visit her family on the weekends. Every once in a while she'd just (hand signal quote-unquote) "wake up" and be somewhere else, some time other. She learned to get used to it, and made herself seem as normal as she could. Usually she'd recognize something, and could go from there. She was in her local grocery store. Or at home. Or with her family. One familiar thing helped her figure it all out.
But right now, this car, this red steering wheel, this street even that she was driving on, all of it was very unfamiliar. She wasn't even sure if this was her city. She'd just pull over somewhere and ask for directions, no big deal. But she needed to shake the five speeding cop cars before she could stop.
"What's that all about?" She wondered, and peacefully went (hand signal quote-unquote) "back to sleep."

Cookies
The Toasted Cheese Writing Prompt for today is "Write about Cookies"

I'm going in free form, I'm not getting anything
Cookies.
Baked, bought, eaten, tossed. Chocolate chip. Raw cookie dough. With cinnamon. Baking cookies with mom as a kid. Thinking of teaching my own kids to bake cookies.
OK. Now I've got one.

I remember as a kid really loving to cook and bake. I was a 'latch-key' kid, though we didn't call it that back then, and I often used that time to cook or start cooking supper for the family meal. A lazy Sunday afternoon could turn into a great cookie baking experience, sometimes followed by old movies on the tube.
My mom had the Betty Crocker Cookie Book, that she had received from her parents (mother mostly, I'm presuming) as either a wedding gift or a first anniversary gift. I always loved the note that gram wrote in it: "To a couple of good cookies, from a couple of crumbs." And I remember thinking as a kid that I hoped I would receive a similar gift, right down to the note, when I was a young adult.
As I would be preparing the cookie dough, my mind would race, as it usually did, and I would soon be creating my own cookbook, cooking with kids. Since I loved to taste the dough along the way, and found it very scientific, I added that into the recipes I formed in my head. "Taste the plain butter, taste the plain sugar, mix them together, and taste the result. How has the taste changed?" This was how my cookbook would be different, relating specifically to how the kids wanted to experiment as they were baking. "Raise the oven by 50 degrees, and bake the next pan 5 minutes less. How are the baked cookies different? Better?"
I imagined baking with my own kids, actually I imagined doing a lot of things with my own kids. I didn't ever have a fully-formed idea of who they were or what they would be like, but I imagined how I would talk to them, things I would do with them, how I would discipline them.
I guess I always practiced being a parent. That is one of my only clear 'what I want to be when I grow up' kind of fantasies.
Now, actually being a parent, I do most of the time live up to the ideals of my younger self. Being honest with them, talking things through, not spanking, letting them experiment with things even when it gets messy, teaching them the things I learned. And the things I am still learning.

From the Toasted Cheese Calendar writing prompt for today (Finish something you've started):
One Christmas my gift was a doll head. In a box.
My mother is not one to always finish things she starts. (And she bugs me that I haven't finished the amulet bag I started for her a year or so ago.)
She gave me a doll head. As a gift.
It was back when the Cabbage Patch Kids were first popular. Back when the girls who's families had money got the designer actual first edition CPKs. And before they were mass produced.
And so many people bought the patterns and made their own version of the designer doll. And lots of copy-cat versions were out there, too. So there was one off-brand make-your-own doll that you would buy the hard plastic head with the pattern for the body.
And so, with the best of intentions, my mom bought the plastic doll head and pattern. And she named it 'Muffin' and she didn't have a chance to finish it before Christmas. She didn't even have a chance to start it. So wrapped up under the tree, was the head. In a box. Kind of creepy. A head in a box.
And it didn't get finished. And it didn't get started. And I guess, eventually, mom decided I was probably too old to worry about Muffin anymore. And she's still sitting somewhere in the back of some closet. (Muffin, of course, not mom)
I'm not bitter about not getting the gift. I was old enough when unwrapping the head in the box to realize that might well be all it would ever be, so I'm not mad that it never actually became the doll it might have been.
It's just my best illustration of why I have a hard time finishing things.
And why I will work on writing prompts every day I can make it happen. A little story finished is still a story.

By the way.
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Found at Talk With Me, here's a great writing exercise, writing for one minute on One Word. There's a new word every day.

Mr. Giovanni was very proud that his grandson, Joseph, was the first in the family to be born in America. He took little Joseph on outings whenever he could be convinced to take a day off work at the grocery store that he owned. It's not that his employees couldn't manage the shop without him, nor was it that he had to work for the money, as the store made a good profit for its time. But Mr. Giovanni had the work ethic from the old country. Taking a day off just wasn't something you did. When the family could convince Mr. Giovanni to take an occasional Saturday off, he would always lead Joseph on an adventure. The outings weren't the typical grandson/Pappy outings of zoo, carnaval, or park, but a working outing: visiting other stores, shops, or factories, where they weren't taking the day off. It's not that Mr. Giovanni wanted to show Joseph that other people were working while they took the day off, as one of the aunties feared, but that Mr. Giovanni wanted Joseph to see all the possibilities before him. Not only Pappy's grocery store, but also the bakery, flower shop, police station, and factory. And even though their outings were restricted to how far they could walk to and back before early Mass and supper, Mr. Giovanni also told Joseph of other job possibilities further from their own neighborhood, he wanted to inspire Joseph to the greatness Pappy knew he had.
Mr. Giovanni passed on when Joseph was only ten, and all young Joseph was left with were the memories of the walks with Pappy, the talks with Pappy, the time alone with Pappy. Joseph carried those memories with him into adulthood, and despite lack of support from the rest of his family, he followed his dreams beyond all hardships, as he knew Pappy would have wanted.
He became the first fashion stylest in the lower east side, and his designs still live on today: his designs were featured in the origional Broadway prouction of Gypsy.

From a page full of photo prompts, this story first:

And aren't they all trendy
Didja ever notice that everyone who works at a coffee house of any kind is very unique? I think it must be in the job description. Mostly college aged, or still in college, piercings that would make my mother turn away from embarassment, but sneak a peek again later, hair in dreds or super short or bald or held back with a hemp hairband, shoes probably only worn because they have to, smoking in the shop if they can get away with it, and usually having an extra friend or two that aren't working, but just there to hang out.
The one coffee shop person who did not fit the stereotype was still unique: late forties, maybe early fifties, fairly plain to look at, with one destinct feature, her lipstick; not just red, stand-out red, are-you-a-hooker red, doesn't-match-anything red, not just that red, but also drawn into her own idea of lips, not her actual lips, but a little heart, a perpetual purse, the bubbly tops coming almost up to the bottom of her nostrils, making you wonder when the last time she picked up a fashion magazine.
But she, like all the others, had the other quality that ties all coffee house workers together: they are always very decient people. Sure, they might be distracted sometimes, but they are the last hold outs to the 'pleasing the customer' way of working. I think it's the common thread they must have with the customer: the love of the beans, the really good beans.

I like coffee. Really good coffee. Coffee that would make me broke if I bought it every day. So I treat myself once a week, once every-other week or so on my way to work.

This morning I am thinking about the creamy goodness that I always get, jonesing. It's a perfect pre-fall day, the kids were fairly calm this morning and we weren't late. But I have no cash, no way am I writing a check for coffee, and I really should do something more productive with that almost-five-dollars, rather than 'waste' it on treating myself (read: a few days before payday!)

Then I remember: the last time I stopped, got my coffee and my card punched, the trendy chick said "the next one's on us" when handing back my change-turned-tip and card.
Cool. I can stop and get my coffee free today.

I pull up and say "I would like a free cinnamon mocha grande, please" and hand her my fully-punched card. What could be sweeter?

Bonus when I get to work: it's bisquits and gravy day for breakfast. My trick is to skip the gravy and put peanut butter and blackberry jam on instead.
Life is good.

Just Writing