The prompt this week is:
"Why oh why oh why..." Number of words: 100 PLUS the five words of the
prompt for a maximum word count of 105 Style of writing: Query Pictures: As many extra pictures as you like
The prompt is in blue. BTW, this is true. I don't live there now.
My neighborhood in my younger days was a time when people
took great pride in caring for their homes.
Why oh why oh why did the city allow slum landlords to
buy there? The area slowly started to
deteriorate. Then the housing crisis
happened which didn’t help matters.
There are a lot of homes in disrepair, abandoned and empty
lots where homes once stood. You can find homes though where people still care.
My brother told me this weekend the home my great
grandparent’s, grandparent’s and mom lived in was torn down a while ago.
If anyone does Saturday Centus you might somewhat
remember this story started as a centus. In June of 2010, I wrote a
few chapters on Mary and then stopped. I had so much to write about
her, writing weekly for centus wasn't enough. I then wrote and wrote
until I had over 30,000 words so far. In writing it though as I got
further and further my original premise somehow got blown out of the
water, ha, ha. I stopped writing her story in March of 2011. I still
haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work this out but I thought I
would put out what I have so far. Please remember this is a really
rough draft and when I wrote it, I had no chapters. Before I decided to
put this on the blog I had to go back and figure out where I could make
them. I would suggest this is a terrible way of doing it lol. The
first chapter started on March 23rd, 2012.
4
Mary and Lulu slept in the next morning getting up around
10. Mary felt refreshed and
hungry. She was determined to go
upstairs today to at least get a shower.
Even she could tell she didn’t smell too fresh. She went in the kitchen and fed Lulu. Then she turned on the coffee pot and made
herself some bacon, eggs, toast and jam. She took it to her favorite place the
rocker and watched as a stray cat was playing with Lulu.
When she was done, she thought it's now or never. In the house, she went. Picked up some of the luggage and went up the
steps, not even looking in the direction of her parents’ room.
Down the hall was her old room. She opened the door and stood in stunned
silence. Nothing had changed. The beautiful mulberry,
green and blue quilt was still on her bed.
All the shelves that her Pa had made for her angel collection were still
up with all the angels still standing there. The pictures that she painted
of angels that her Ma framed still hung on the walls. The pink furniture she decided she had
to have that her Pa painstakingly painted even though her Ma said it looked gaudy. It was all there just like it was waiting for
her return all these years later to welcome her back home. Home she thought. Oh how I wish this could be home again and
she started to choke up.
"Now Mary" she said out loud to no one
"Let's get on with this.”
She put the two bags of luggage she brought up on the bed
and opened the closet door. Thankfully,
there were hangers.
She went to the
dresser and opened up some drawers and there were things in some of them. The bottom drawer was full of books. She looked; there were Little House on the
Prairie books. She remembered how she
and Ma would read those together before she went to sleep for the night. Then there were the Nancy Drew books when she
got a little older. On the very bottom,
she was amazed to see some of her old diaries still securely locked. She looked through the rest of the drawer for
the keys but couldn't find them.
The next drawer she found clothes. As she pulled them out, each one had a piece
of paper attached with a safety pin with a year and said Mary's Christmas
outfit. Some years they couldn't afford a lot of new clothes but her Ma always
made sure she had a new outfit for Christmas even if that meant she had to sew
one up for Mary. It looked like her Ma
had saved every Christmas outfit she had worn from the time she was born up
until about the age of 10. I wonder why
she would have done that Mary thought.
The last drawer was empty. Mary put clothes in the drawer and in the
closet.
She then went into the bathroom and turned on the
water. She looked at the tub and thought
what she wouldn't give to have a bathtub like this in her apartment. Her tub was so tiny she could barely
fit.
She ran downstairs, let Lulu in,
got a bottle of wine and a glass, went and got a Little House on the Prairie
book and settled into the bathtub.
"I might just stay in this bathtub all
day" she said, as Lulu settled on the sage green rug next to the tub for a nap.
Jimmy pulled into the driveway around back. He looked in the window of the garage and saw
Mary's car. He went to the back door and
knocked. He waited a while and knocked
again and no one answered. He opened the
door with his key and went to the car and got the four bags of groceries he
bought and put them on the kitchen table.
He looked in the refrigerator and saw food. That's just like Johnny he thought. I should have known he would have already gotten
stuff for Mary.
All of a sudden he heard hissing. "Lulu, your usual greeting to me, I see. Even with Mary back, you still don't like
me. I wish I knew what I ever did to
you. Where's she at?” Lulu took off and went upstairs. "Mary, Mary are you up there" Jimmy
yelled.
"Is that you Jimmy? I'm in the bath. I'll be right down.”
Jimmy sat on the couch. He mumbled to himself "A couple days, she's home and the house looks a wreck. Some of her
luggage is still down here. It looks
like she's been sleeping on the couch and there are dishes in the sink." Mary was never one to do indoor chores he remembered; she always liked doing outside stuff. I'll have to compliment her on
the flower beds out front. I can see
that she's worked hard on weeding he thought.
1. I'm noticing on some blogs some of the the words on the posts are connected together - likethis. What's up with that?
2. We are going to have our outside front steps and back steps re-built. It should be in May. We'll see how that goes.
3. I haven't heard from the patio guy yet this spring. He said if I didn't hear from them by March 20th, I should call. I just haven't had the heart to do that yet.
4. It ended up being hippie and me for Easter. My brother called on Holy Saturday and mentioned they were going to his in-laws and wanted to set up a different time to come here. I said let's forget it. He wasn't so keen on it but I was, ha. We met him at the nursing home on Easter morning and I gave him some of the food I had already prepared. So, I had an Easter nap lol.
5. We got our new garbage cans last week for the automated trucks. We were supposed to start using them this week. However, when they came today it was the old trucks. The guy said they won't be starting until next week@@.
6. I know this is a pretty boring post, ha,ha. I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say unless you consider whining exciting and then I could probably write more.
Has anyone looked at this yet? I tried to print something, and it didn't print correctly. I only got a portion and it wasn't even anything useful. Then I tried to download it but couldn't. It was too slow. I think too many people are trying to do the same thing. But it still doesn't answer the question on why I can't print it. Anyone?
I think I've been watching too much of Who Do You Think You are on Fridays nights lol.
If anyone does Saturday Centus you might somewhat
remember this story started as a centus. In June of 2010, I wrote a
few chapters on Mary and then stopped. I had so much to write about
her, writing weekly for centus wasn't enough. I then wrote and wrote
until I had over 30,000 words so far. In writing it though as I got
further and further my original premise somehow got blown out of the
water, ha, ha. I stopped writing her story in March of 2011. I still
haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work this out but I thought I
would put out what I have so far. Please remember this is a really
rough draft and when I wrote it, I had no chapters. Before I decided to
put this on the blog I had to go back and figure out where I could make
them. I would suggest this is a terrible way of doing it lol. The
first chapter started on March 23rd, 2012.
3
While sitting there for an hour or so, while a gentle
breeze blew, Lulu was playing in the flower bed. She noticed it was just filled with
weeds. That was her job when she was
little. She wondered who did it when she
left, probably Pa she thought. He would
be so disappointed to see all those weeds messing up her Ma's flowers. She decided to do something about it.
She went to the barn and got a trowel and an old
rug. She put the rug down and got to pulling
and digging the weeds. Mary was out
there for hours. She forgot how much she
liked being outside with her hands in the dirt.
In the city, there was no chance of that happening.
"Mar, what are you doing?”
She was startled and jumped. "What does it look like I'm doing
Johnny, weeding!” she said in an exasperated tone.
"I can see that but why?”
"I came here
to get things fixed up so we could sell.
I noticed no one's felt the need to do any weeding so I thought I'd get
to it. Didn't you ever hear of curb
appeal?”
He just shrugged and went to the car to get the groceries
to put on the porch.
I've got to get my act together she thought. Johnny was the brother closest to her in age
and was always the peacemaker between her and Jimmy. She needed him on her side just in case.
"Johnny,” Mary said while he was putting the bags on
the porch. "I really appreciate the
angel and the note, thank you.”
"No problem. I remembered how much
you liked them and as far as the note that's how I feel but I can't vouch for
Jimmy. You know he's still very upset
about Ma and Pa and other stuff but he promised he wouldn't mention to anyone
that you were here. How long are you
planning on staying?”
"I'm not
really sure, but I took a leave of absence for a couple of months. I figured
I'd wait and see how it goes.”
"Well, I better get going. I'll leave you to yourself. One more thing, Jimmy, Donna and the kids are
going on a two week vacation so at least you won't have to worry about him for a
while.”
"That should be fun, where are they going?”
"Elizabeth's grandmother left her a cabin somewhere
in Canada. Mitch is still Jimmy's best
friend so they asked if they wanted to come."
Mary abruptly said "I'd better get those groceries
in the house before they spoil, thanks for bringing them" and she was in
the house like a flash.
Mary took the groceries in the kitchen and she heard
Johnny's car leaving. She chastised
herself for leaving so quickly. Oh well, there's nothing that can be done
about it now.
She sat down at the table and started talking to Lulu who had barely made it in the house when she shut the door. "So Jimmy and he are still best friends. I just
hope Jimmy keeps his mouth shut. They'll
have a lot of time together on vacation to talk. Mitch is the last person on earth I want to
know that I'm here. Oh, how I've missed
Elizabeth all these years but that can't be helped. I've got at least two weeks before I have to
be concerned with what Jimmy said or didn't say. I'll just forget about it for now."
With that Mary, started taking the groceries out of the
bags and putting them away. Johnny must think I'm a big eater; he sure bought a
lot of stuff. Although she hadn't had
breakfast or lunch, she wasn't that hungry.
Even with the breeze reaching the evening, it was getting hot. She decided to have a little something and decided to make herself a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich. She laughed when she
thought how many times her Ma had made them eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
when her Pa's crops didn't grow. Now she was
willingly going to eat it. Her Ma would sure get
a good laugh out of that.
She took her sandwich and a glass of wine and
went to the front porch. She thought
about what her city friends would think of her now. She was still wearing the same clothes that
she came in yesterday, no shower, eating a PB & J sandwich and a glass of
wine. Well, at least they would approve
of the wine. Mary ate, drank and rocked
looking at how nicely the flowerbed was coming along. Another day and it should be up to her Pa's
standards she thought.
It was starting to get dark and she could feel the
mosquito's starting to bite so she went in.
"Well, Lulu I guess I should take my luggage upstairs and take a
quick shower". He quickly ran up to
the top of the stairs. As Mary was
walking up the steps, she noticed her Ma had put photos on the wall next to the
staircase since she'd been away. She
smiled as she saw her brothers, her and other family members. She got further and further up the steps
until she got to the last picture of her Ma and Pa's wedding. There was their bedroom when she looked
across from the last step. The door was
closed. Suddenly, Mary was paralyzed
and couldn't breathe. She couldn't go
any further. She ran back down the steps
with Lulu following close behind.
"Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, Lulu. I think I'll sleep on the couch with
grandma's quilt one more night."
