I recently attended a film festival held in our small city of Statesville, North Carolina (the Full Bloom Film Festival.) After a drought of movie-going, I was excited to view as many films as possible.

Yes, I can watch as many films as I want at home, with Netflix and such, but I live alone and there’s something special about experiencing movies with others.

Why should you be on the lookout for a film festival to attend?

1. The venues were mostly small. When I say “small” I mean seating less than 50 people. Only two red carpet features were shown…

A friend sent me this lovely tribute Sean Kernan wrote remembering a victim of 9/11. She knows I do a tribute each Memorial Day for a veteran who died in war and I suspect she was challenging me to take up Sean’s challenge.

I love Sean’s heart and decided I did indeed need to follow in his footsteps. It is such an important way to commemorate this day that changed the world and remember there are actual people behind that stunning number of casualties.

I always do random when I remember veterans and this time I did the same. …

There’s this guy in my town. He owns a local business or two. I used to frequent one of them. He was always kind to me. We shared good conversation.

As time went on I discovered from others he had some views I disagreed with completely. He had issues with people groups I care about and was rude and judgmental to them. He treated them totally different than he treated me.

I got angry. I quit frequenting his business. Truly I was a bit self-righteous about it all. Oh, and I didn’t tell him. I just ghosted him.

I had…

I was on a conference call the other day. It was a debrief of a project we had all been involved in and the beginning of planning what we will do next year.

A dear friend of mine was on the call. She didn’t say a word. It made me curious. She has strong observational skills. She cares about the project. It seemed as though she was totally disengaged. I know her well enough to suspect this wasn’t the case.

I texted her afterward and remarked how quiet she was on the call. …

When I was a girl I loved my “Mystery Date” game. Remember it? If so, you may be showing your age.

Actually, you don’t have to be all that old. Versions of the game were made up to 2005.

For all you youngsters, or those whose memory has failed them, “Mystery Date” was a game designed for young girls. (It would have worked for young gay boys, too, but they wouldn’t have considered that back then.)

The object was to get the cards for an outfit to match one of the guys for a date (who all happened to be…

100 Words

I took the head of lettuce and beat it to loosen the core.

I then grabbed the butcher knife off the counter and started shredding the iceberg.

The knife slipped. It hit my wrist. Blood gushed. I cleaned up, bandaged up, and continued on.

My boss stopped by and asked what happened. I told him the story. At the climax, I grabbed the knife with my left hand and made the same motion I had made before with my right. It made contact with the other wrist. More blood.

We stared in disbelief.

Waitressing — how I funded my university…

There once was an odor that flowed
The scent was not pleasing and “growed”,
They started to trace,
The offender in haste,
Dead skunk in the midst of the road.

Thanks to TC Hails for giving me lots of prompt distractions lately so I can avoid unpacking boxes and getting moved in. Who needs to know where their stuff is?

Thanks also to Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) for coming up with the stinkin’ prompt, which was write a limerick about a skunk. Come on. You know you want to do it!

This was not my first piece on skunks. Though…

Twenty-eight days. That’s all the housefly gets. I know this because one has been buzzing me constantly for two days.

That’s 1/14th of its life so far that is being…