Night Hens – The End of Days

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Before we leave the house:

MD: Where’s my lip stuff. Oh, it’s in another pocket, that’s why I didn’t find it.
TL: Oh! It’s in another dimension, that’s why I didn’t find it.

At Espresso Royale in St. Paul:

MD slops her coffee on the table.
MD: Weren’t me.
TL: Actually it was my dear sweet sister who’s done nothing but good for me my whole life.
MD: I kind of like the sound of that.
MD: Mom, how is your danish?
RM closes her eyes and nods reverently.
MD: Are you going to share a bite with me?
RM passes the danish. MD takes bite(s), passes it back.
RM: How many bites did you take??
TL holds up three fingers.
MD gives TL a hit: One and a half!
TL: She hit me! She’s leaving in three days and she hit me!
MD: Aren’t you glad I’m leaving so I don’t hit you anymore?
TL: If it meant you would stay…
MD: You wouldn’t care if I hit you as long as I stay?

RM tries TL’s cocoa royale: That’s really good.
MD tries it: That’s spicy!
TL: It is?
MD: Don’t you feel it burning the back of your throat?
TL: Not really. I mean, I pop habaneros on a daily basis, so….

RM: [leans forward and peers at something over TL’s head] Yerba… latte?
TL: You know, I don’t really like it when you lean forward and focus on things behind and slightly above me… [imitates RM] Oh, is that a hammer? Why, yes, I believe it is! How wonderful! [humming Maxwell’s Silver Hammer]

RM: You know, I don’t think we really fit the demographic here…
TL: Why not? We’re all artists.
RM: I don’t think these people are artists… [lowers her voice dramatically] they’re more of the liberal type, I think.
MD: Well, I don’t think you can get away from that, that’s what most coffee shops are usually filled with.
TL: What is the world coming to?

MD trots off to the bathroom.
TL: [to RM] Ninja staring contest! [leans forward with wide eyes]
RM: [leans forward with wide eyes]
TL: This should be easy. You blink a lot.
RM: [blinks] … [defensively] My eyes are dry.

MD: [to TL, about hair] Let me see your purple.
RM: It’s fading into a not so nice color.
MD: We’ll have to dye it again.
TL: Can we blue it?
RM: [horrified] “Can we GLUE it?”!
TL: Bluueeee.
MD: Yeah, we could put blue in it..
RM: You should put true red in it.
MD: Oooh, you know what we could do is put some true red here, then there’s her orange, and then put in some blond! It’s be a gradation!
TL: I’m not comfortable with the direction of this conversation…
MD: OR, to make the purple go away real fast, we could just shave off that triangle of hair right there!
RM: [blanches] [to TL] You’re pretty, but I’m not sure it could survive that…
MD: Your prettiness would die!
TL: T.T

This is the end of an era. Final Night Hens post before MD and Uncle Ben take the baby moose and flee to Iowa.

Challenger

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by the Night Writer

It was 25 years ago today when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on live TV shortly after take-off, killing the seven astronauts (including a civilian schoolteacher who was part of the mission) while the nation watched in horror. I was at work that day and I don’t recall how we first heard the news. Nobody had internet access in the office in those days and few listened to the radio in our office. Someone probably got a call from outside, but the news spread quickly. One of my co-workers had a computer monitor that could pick up TV signals, so we gathered around that constantly, hoping minute by minute for more news or an explanation. After about an hour my boss came over and told us all, gently, that we needed to get back to work.

I felt depressed and almost ill all day after that and that night at home I got one of those junk calls – someone selling siding or something. Rather than hang up or ream him out or play with his mind as I typically did back then I said, “You know, I really just don’t feel like getting into this right now.” The caller responded, “Yeah, I know what you mean.” We then spent the next five or ten minutes talking about the Challenger and the astronauts, their families and what the President had said and then we hung up.

In those few minutes, in that most unlikely situation, and in that shared tragedy we, too, “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and our isolated lives to become part of something much greater.

Fun stuff!

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by Tiger Lilly

Over the weekend, I received a piece of mail from Writer’s Digest (waaayyyyy back in October, I found out that I had won their Self-published Book Awards contest). It included some of the prizes that I had won, such as:
WDvert_bw

It also included a judge’s commentary, which I want to share with you today. Here is what it said:

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “poor” and 5 meaning “excellent,” please evaluate the following:

Plot: 4 1/2
Grammar: 5
Character Development: 5
Production quality and cover design: 5

Needless to say, I was quite ecstatic (especially about the character development part, since that’s something I tend to worry about). But that wasn’t all…

What did you like best about this book?
Congratulations on writing and publishing your book! Excellent cover design and great title! You have a very marketable book to the young adult readership. Great characterization and good dialogue. Good attention to grammar, proofreading, and formatting of the book.

How can the author improve this book?
Try not to start with a Prologue if at all possible. The font used for the chapter titles is a little hard to read.

Again, needless to say there was some jumping up and down and chocolate nomming. I did wish that the commentary was a little more in-depth, but that’s what the Midwest Book review (also guaranteed in my prize package) is for!

Ciao for now, and thanks for sticking with me!

Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous 120

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Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous 120

Hey, look, I actually got an on-time scheduled midnight update for once (what’s the future like, guys?). Instead of many much several hours later. Hell must have frozen over (so that explains the freezing cold weather).

In other news, I got my permit last Friday (you all can keep your snide remarks to yourselves), and some other news which I promise I will share with you when I am less tired and can think beyond, ‘finger to keyboard zzzzzzzz’. I’ll try to post it tomorrow (er, later today).

Ciao for now!

The reason for grandchildren

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by the Night Writer

Down among the reeds and rushes
A baby boy was found
His eyes as clear as centuries
His silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

Our pastor likes to say, “God gives you children so that you can grow up.” The point is that your thinking changes when you realize the long-term responsibility you have, and your behavior (hopefully) changes when you start to recognize your less admirable traits showing up in your children. Unless, of course, you don’t mind your child turning into a despicable evil genius.

watching the game blog size

A second thought along this line occurred to me the other day: “and God gives you grandchildren so you can mature.” By that I mean the satisfaction that comes from seeing all the things you worked so hard to put into your child manifest itself in and around your grandchild. It’s the pay-off for the blood, sweat, tears and unpopular decisions you made to strengthen your own character as well as your son or daughter’s and it comes when you see how they love and teach their own children in turn, perhaps even with a greater patience and discipline than you yourself possessed at the same stage in your life. It’s at this point that you realize that your hopes for the future are bearing fruit and your work has passed from your hands.

I also realized that the same thing applies not just to the natural children you’ve borne or created, but to the “supernatural” or spiritual children you’ve discipled in the faith. How warm and glorious a feeling it is to see these children living on and sharing the things they’ve learned with others. Whether with natural or supernatural children, this is the point where you are truly overcome with the realization that something of you really is going to live on.

As an aside, this revelation may have germinated with me last week at the Bible study I lead at the Red Wing correctional facility. As it happens, each of the men in the study will be released at some point this year and I was moved to read the short chapter of Isaiah 61:1 to them. The first verse — “the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound…” — was what had first caught my attention, but it was the rest of the chapter that was the most powerful because it deals with what can happen for those that receive that word and that liberty. Among these is in verse 3 — “that they may be called trees of righteousness” — and especially verse 9: “Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, And their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, That they are the posterity whom the LORD has blessed.”

The mens’ faces were a bit gob-smacked as I challenged them to be those trees and I saw the realization soaking into them of the effect they could have into the next generation and the next in the families they had yet to create. “You have the chance,” I told them, “to have your grandchildren say of you either that ‘Grandpa did 10 to 20’ or that ‘Grandpa was a mighty man of righteousness who was an example to our family and set my feet on the path.'”

And T. added, “Or they could say both.”

As for my own grandson, now five and a half months old, his face often has gobs of different things on it, but it is almost invariably smiling. And why shouldn’t he? He is literally surrounded by people who love him and are happy to see him and quick to want to hold him. As Paul Simon said at the beginning of this post, he’s never been lonely, never been lied to, never had to scuffle for fear or had anything he needs denied to him.  If called upon I would gladly and readily pour everything I am and everything I have into him, but I can relax because I see that my daughter and her husband already know what it is they have to impart. My heart overflows with joy when I watch my grandson or hold him close and at the same time I feel an ache knowing that every day the news brings stories of babies that are resented, cursed and abused.

I look into his eyes, as clear as centuries, and stroke his silky brown hair and think of those born into suffering now and the deprivation they face that goes beyond mere food, clothing and shelter. I think of their lives and future paths leading into captivity and the need for someone, someday, to bring the words of liberty. And I hold my grandson even closer and whisper into his ear, “Born at the right time.”

Correctification

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With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day’s work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon — not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words — which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:

page 25 – So I signed it and left. Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim …  rectify

page 68 – You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto Bradish …  rectify

page 84 – But by night they had changed around and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim … rectify

times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

HTs: 1984. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New edition of “Huckleberry Finn to lose the ‘n’ word.

Despicable Parenting

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by the Night Writer

Despicable MeBehind every super-villain is a lousy parent. At least that’s the message I picked up on when the family sat down the other night to watch the DVD of Despicable Me, the animated movie featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segal and Julie Andrews. Whether it’s the main character Gru’s self-centered and impossible to impress mother or the demanding and bullying father of Gru’s also-evil nemesis, Vector, the path to megalomania appears to start in the nursery.

These two parents are only minor elements of the story, however, as the central dramatic tension and humor comes from the diabolically dysfunctional Gru’s attempts at parenting three orphan girls he adopts as cover for one of his fiendish plots. In fact, as I think of it, the only “normal” kids in the movie are the orphans who don’t have any parents, though they do suffer a bit at the hands of Miss Hattie, the director of the orphanage who is an “iron fist in a velvet glove while wearing a pair of brass knuckles type”. The plucky heroines are unfazed by either Miss Hattie or the woefully ill-equipped Gru’s attempts at authority.

Granted, I’m not going to get too serious about the “reality” or message of a movie that also posits that the moon, having been shrunk and stolen, will snap back into its normal orbit again when it re-enlarges, but still.

If a key part of humor is doing the unexpected then a movie where the adults are smarter than the children would surely be the smash comedy hit of the year.