The Chicken Dance

January 5, 2019 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I’d been sick with a cold, and in case I didn’t recover in time for the weekend, Andrew and I cancelled the camping trip we had planned. Back then we were still in the early stages of dating when broken plans required a spectacular replacement. He asked me what I wanted to do instead of spending the night shivering in the woods, and I offered up a polka band.

“Brave Combo!” I said, as I hooked my thumbs in my armpits and flapped my arms up and down.

“What is that?” he asked. “Do you still have a fever?”

“Chicken dance!” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never done the chicken dance?”

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a dancer,” he answered.

I explained that the famous polka band Brave Combo would be performing in a nearby town, Grand Prairie, during the street festival that weekend. When I added “You can sit out the dancing if you want,” Andrew agreed the festival would be a fine alternative.

We arrived at the main street and located the stage where the band would perform later that evening. Drawn by the drowsily rotating Ferris Wheel and the sugar scent of cotton candy we ambled over to the carnival games. We stopped at one game that offered the chance to win a goldfish or a hermit crab. Dozens of glass bowls and cups sparkled on a plywood tabletop while the game operator, a grandmotherly looking woman wearing a canvas apron, bounced a white ping pong ball on the railing surrounding the playing area. Occasionally she flipped the ball over the table where it bounced through the bowls until, with a last jitter, it came to rest like a round egg in a crystal nest.

“Hermit crabs!” Andrew leaned over the tank on display at the front of the game booth where dozens of the crustaceans, housed in neon bright painted shells, crawled over each other. Several of them seemed to be waving at us, their tiny claws raised in a happy salute, so I put down five dollars for a basket of ping pong balls and we went to work. Five dollars later we had landed one ball in a glass bowl, earning us a coupon we could redeem for a plastic baggie of water with a live goldfish.

“If you want to keep trying, you can trade four goldfish for a hermit crab,” the helpful operator of this game suggested.

“Should we try for a hermit crab?” Andrew asked.

“I should probably tell you about my history with hermit crabs,” I replied.

When I was twelve years old, my family spent a long summer weekend in Corpus Christi. The three of us, my mom, my dad, and me — spent those lazy days strolling the beach, picking up shells and storing them in a five-gallon bucket, the sort you could pick up at the hardware store and might have once held paint. At the end of the weekend we snapped on the lid and the five-gallon bucket rode home to Dallas in the trunk of the car where it stayed throughout the four hundred and fifty-mile, seven hour drive in hot summer heat. At home at the end of our journey my dad opened the trunk, and we discovered the shells were inhabited by hermit crabs. Once alive, they were now well steamed.

We had to air out the trunk of that car for weeks, and it took me ten years to be able to look at a plate of seafood. I still feel a twinge of guilt whenever I walk past the lobster tank at Central Market.

When I finished the story, Andrew sighed, and we gave our goldfish coupon to an excited child and her not so enthusiastic mother. As we walked away, I hummed my own version of the chicken dance song–“I don’t wanna be a chicken, I don’t wanna be a duck. Please don’t lock me in the trunk, nana nana nana na.”

We shared a snack of popcorn and made our way toward a booth with rows of multi-colored balloons arranged as a backdrop behind a low wooden counter.

“Darts!” I stepped up, eager to play. I love a game where there might be a risk of physical injury in exchange for the chance to win something.

“A guaranteed prize every time!” The man behind the counter shouted as we arrived. One of his eyes tilted downward, and I wondered if this could be a dart related injury. But he held out to us soft vinyl balls, not sharp pointy darts.

“No darts?” I asked.

“No,” the man replied, “But we got this nail behind the balloon, so all’s you got to do is hit it.”

He stepped over and slapped the nearest balloon, which obligingly popped and revealed the sharp, rusty nail behind it. Rusty nails made a fine trade-off for darts, so I nudged Andrew and he offered up a five-dollar bill to the operator.

“Oh! You don’t pay until you win.” The man shook his head and stepped back as though Andrew were handing him a snake. Two throws later we had popped one balloon and scored a toy stuffed goldfish the size of my palm. I shrugged and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” The operator held out another three balls to Andrew. “Keep throwing, and if you don’t hit anything you don’t have to pay.” The man shrugged, his wayward eye winking. “You only pay if you win.”

While I counted on my fingers the cost of the balls so far, Andrew tossed and hit two more balloons. The carnival operator held up his hand. He looked around as though about to impart a government secret.

“Okay, you hit one more balloon and you win the medium sized prize.”

I clapped until the man continued, “And you’ll owe me twenty dollars.”

I tried to decide whether to take my stuffed goldfish and run, and while I hesitated Andrew threw the last ball, popped a balloon, and earned himself the prize of handing over a $20 bill for a stuffed toy made by third world child labor.

Andrew, a good sport, just looked slightly pained while he paid the man and I picked out my prize. The giant fluorescent yellow bananas required a forty-dollar commitment. I wavered between the glittery cobra with jiggly eyes, and the stuffed toy lemurs with bright, fuzzy tails.

“I’ll take the white lemur with the orange striped tail,” I said.

Over the calliope of carnival music, I could hear the strums and toots that signaled the band warming up, so I suggested we go by the car and put the lemur up for safe keeping. His little stuffed paws seemed to grasp my hand in trust and the black stitching making up his mouth smiled up at me like Mona Lisa. I patted his soft fluffy tail and settled him onto the back seat of the car. The glimmer of carnival lights reflected in his big orange plastic eyes as they twinkled back at me.

“I really like this lemur,” I told Andrew.

“I should hope so,” he replied.

“You think he’ll be okay here in the car?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’d hate for someone to see him and break a window to get in. Better put him down on the floorboard.”

“But not in the trunk,” I replied.

“Oh no, never in the trunk.”

I moved the overpriced but not undervalued lemur to the floorboard. Andrew and I held hands as we joined the revelry near the stage. The saxophone called, and the trumpets joined in while Andrew took a seat at the picnic tables set up around one edge of the parking lot. I smiled and waved as I joined a ring of strangers and danced the chicken dance under the lights from the Ferris wheel.

You Can Lead a Pill Bug to Water…

December 27, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

But You Can’t Make Them Do Much Else.

I’d been thinking about adopting a cat. I wanted a soft, purring companion, one that wouldn’t demand I hand over the remote as they snuggled up next to me on the couch. My vision didn’t include dumping out the litter box. Despite numerous calculations, my bank accounts refused to yield the proper amounts for the large pet deposit required. Was I even ready to share my 650 square feet of space with another living being, one that wouldn’t get its own dinner or tend to its own toilet needs?

I mentioned to my boyfriend, Andrew, “Maybe we should get a fish.”

“Oh! Let’s pick up some pill bugs,” he said, “they can live up to three years in captivity!”

I doubted this, as I used to collect them as a child. I called them “Roly Polys”. They tended to last about two weeks, or until my mother spotted the jar I kept them in and made me dump them out.

At least the pill bugs would not require a big investment in dollars. I knew they wouldn’t be cuddly, but I expected them at least to be entertaining.

“What do you feed them?” I wondered.

“They eat their own poop,” Andrew informed me. “And fish flakes,” he added.

We set off to Petco to get a suitable habitat and other supplies. When we got there, I stopped to admire the cats and kittens up for adoption at the front of the store. I sighed over a particularly sweet gray tabby as a store employee came up to me.

“Are you thinking of adopting a cat?” she asked.

“Oh no, I’m just looking at them,” I quickly replied, before I could include “Cat” on my list of impulse purchases.

“What kind of pet do you have?” she continued, a pleasant smile on her face. I froze, looking at this nice gray-haired lady in a Petco t-shirt. I realized if I answered “pill bugs” this might result in a longer conversation than I wanted to have at that moment.

“We have a fish,” I blurted out and then rushed over to join Andrew by the aquarium supplies.

“You denied the pill bugs!” he accused.

“Well, yes, but technically I wasn’t too far off, you remember you told me they were crustaceans.”

Supplies in hand, we managed to check out. Once we got back to the apartment, we assembled our purchases — a medium sized glass terrarium, sand, a small water dish, and a container of fish food. I insisted on putting two plastic plants in the habitat. Andrew tried to talk me out of the tan resin statue of Mount Rushmore, but I wanted to watch a pill bug climbing up the sides like a tiny Cary Grant.

Later that night we went for a walk in the park next to our apartment complex, and gathered up a nice variety of pill bugs. They looked like little armored tanks with antennae. When we set them loose in the terrarium, they scurried around for a few minutes on the plants, but none of them were inclined to scale Mount Rushmore. When we touched them, they rolled up into little balls. They seemed to enjoy the fish flakes and after they ate, they burrowed under the sand and disappeared.

Over the next few days we looked for the pill bugs, but they remained stubbornly out of sight. Apparently pill bugs do not live exciting lives. They are perfectly happy to stay covered in dirt all day and night, venturing out briefly to nibble some fish flakes and possibly some of their own poop before returning to the soil.

Eventually we noticed that the only thing moving in the terrarium was a large colony of gnats. Every time I spritzed some water in for the hibernating pill bugs the gnats rose up in a small dark cloud and zipped toward my nose and ears like kamikaze pilots. Andrew tried vacuuming them up, and he did manage to eliminate some of them, along with one of the plastic plants. He insisted this was not intentional, and swore that he saw pill bugs scrambling for safety after the poor plant was dislodged. By the time I came over to look they were out of sight again.

We had company over, and my friend Susan swatted at the gnats circling her head and suggested we set up a trap for them.

“Use a plastic bottle and some apple cider vinegar as bait,” she said.

Andrew rigged up a device, and before I could protest, he poured in some of my gourmet pomegranate vinegar. They deserved, I allowed, to drown in the best.

I monitored the vinegar trap, but the gnats preferred the warm, moist terrarium and the fish flakes. The pill bugs continued to hide, offering neither amusement nor companionship. Those little crustaceans were poor pets after all.

The gnats ventured out whenever I sat down in front of the television or my computer, drawn by the warm glow of the electronic light. I heard them buzzing around my ears, as though they were whispering secrets. Maybe they wanted to tell me what those pill bugs were up to all night. When I finally gave up swatting away the gnats, several of them settled on my arms and nuzzled against my neck. We sat there in the dark together, their wings light as whiskers and their feet soft as kitten paws.

Cold Feet Warm Socks

November 24, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

A trail suitable for walking — Photo by Terrye Turpin

Until I met Andrew, the man who would eventually become my husband, I was blissfully unaware that there were socks designed for specific activities. I purchased my socks in bulk and in solid colors that eliminated the need to make sure I had on a matching pair.

When I started dating Andrew, we spent weekends hiking along the shady trails near our home. I used to call this activity ‘taking a walk’ and it didn’t require specialized equipment. Andrew suggested that my feet would feel better if I were wearing a pair of socks with extra cushioning, and I agreed while we were limping to the car after a five-mile hike over terrain so scattered with sharp rocks and tree roots it resembled a trek through Mordor.

I didn’t realize that there were special socks for hiking, but a trip to REI (Recreational Equipment Insanity) set me straight on that right away. While I puzzled over the price tag on a pair woven from tan and green striped wool, Andrew handed me a flimsy bit of white cloth I held up and realized was actually a pair of socks.

“You should get liners. They’ll help to prevent blisters,” he said.

“You’re telling me my socks need socks?”

I left the store without purchasing anything when Andrew mentioned that REI had an outlet and if I weren’t picky on style, I could find suitable socks at a discount online. I ordered one set in a lovely shade of hot pink, just shy of rose and a little darker than blush, and I figured the color must be what landed them on the clearance section. Surely hiking socks would tend toward more solid, understated colors, like beige or olive green. I imagined that in a pinch I could take them off and use them as an emergency signal since the color could be seen by passing planes.

When the socks arrived, I opened the package to discover they came with instructions in five different languages and a 30 day no risk trial. They were made from a material called Thorlon, which sounded like a character from a fantasy novel.

“By the shield of Thorlon I command you!” I told Andrew.

The packaging described how this material magically prevented blisters. No liners required. A disclaimer on the tag mentioned the socks should not be ironed or dry-cleaned. While I pondered the type of person who would iron their socks and wondered just how this could be accomplished, I was relieved to notice the instructions included illustrations, captioned in English, of how the socks were fitted and cushioned. I worried I would have to learn German to get dressed for hiking.

The colorful tag also mentioned the socks protected against shock, impact, and shear. For a moment I thought I had mistakenly ordered a parachute. I reassured myself by trying them on and walking around my apartment. Although they seemed to have a nice amount of cushioning I didn’t think I would jump out of an airplane wearing them.

I wore the socks the next evening to walk down to the local library with Andrew to return some books. It was a chilly evening, so I put on the bright pink socks with a pair of matronly sandals that had elastic bands at the back, to hold them on my feet.

“My feet are cold,” I explained as I put on the socks and slipped into my sandals.

“Those socks should help.”

“If we get separated, just look for the pink glow,” I told him.

We made our way to and from the library, and Andrew not only walked beside me he carried my books and held my hand for most of the trip. It was dark out, which made it difficult for anyone to spot us I suppose, but the Thorlon material seemed to reflect the streetlights in a rosy glow around my feet. It occurred to me the packaging for these socks ought to include the disclaimer you shouldn’t judge someone until you had walked a mile in their socks. And while they are often found together, a warm heart doesn’t have to be accompanied by cold feet.

The God of Poop

November 21, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

The Dublin Bottling Works — Home of the original Dr. Pepper and definitely not a clear liquid. (Photo by Terrye Turpin)

At my last physical my doctor mentioned it had been five years since I had a colonoscopy.

“That long, huh? Gee doc, the whole experience was so pleasant it seems like only yesterday.”

Every time I light a candle in my bathroom, I feel like I’m setting up an altar to the god of poop.

I successfully delayed the colon conversation by mentioning my cholesterol. I’ve found as I grow older I can deflect almost any uncomfortable medical inquiry by bringing up another body part.

The first time I had a screening colonoscopy it took my doctor three years to convince me. She seemed puzzled that I continued to dodge major illnesses, so I felt I owed it to her to try one more test to see if we couldn’t find something. I called to make the appointment, and they told me I would need a designated driver to chauffeur me home after the procedure. Because I had spent 30 hours in labor with him, I nominated my oldest son, Robert. A few days before the big event he accompanied me to pick up the aptly named Super Bowel Prep Kit at the pharmacy.

“That will be $73,” the cheerful cashier said as she rang up my purchase.

“Holy crap!” I said. Robert laughed behind me.

I felt that for $73 the stuff should come with a sommelier, someone to uncork the bottle, swirl the liquid around in a glass, and remark on the bouquet. Reluctantly I paid for the purchase with my rapidly depleting medical flex spending card and we left with the kit — two 8 ounce bottles of clear liquid that each had to be mixed with another 8 ounces of water and then chased with yet another 16 ounces of water within an hour.

On the way back to my apartment I held up a bottle. “I wonder what it tastes like?”

“I bet it tastes like ass,” said my twenty-eight-year-old son with all the smug self-assurance of someone at least two decades away from having to drink 32 ounces of ass flavored liquid himself. We tried out different names for the drink — “Turd Tonic”, “Poopy Potion”, and finally decided the winner was “Caca Cola.”

The instructions for my prep assured me I could have all the clear liquids I wanted during the process. I enthusiastically mixed up a dozen servings of lemon and pineapple Jello. Red gelatin was discouraged in horrific detail. I discovered all the clear liquids I wanted were considerably less than the amount of clear liquids taking up room in my refrigerator.

The actual prep went as expected. I took the advice found on several internet sites and bought adult diapers to wear during the experience. They worked so well I wondered why I didn’t wear them all the time. Robert stayed with me in the beginning but when the real fun began, he left for his apartment.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” I called out from behind the bathroom door.

The pharmacist had warned me that the prep was “very effective” and by the end of the second dose I had to agree. My colon was so clear the doctor could probably see all the way to Cleveland.

I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink the day of the colonoscopy and this worried me before I understood that by the end of the first day I wouldn’t want anything to eat or drink on the second day.

The morning of the procedure Robert strolled into my apartment. He wore an Iron Maiden t-shirt featuring a rotting corpse on the front.

“I’ll drive on the way there,” I told him.

When we arrived at the clinic I checked in while Robert discovered they didn’t have Wi-Fi in the waiting room. A smiling nurse escorted us back to a little room and I met with the doctor who would perform the colonoscopy. He looked slightly older than my son and had very nice hair.

“Awesome t-shirt dude!” he said to Robert as he flashed the metal sign and they slapped hands.

The doctor briefly explained the procedure and then a nurse brought over a hospital gown and a brown paper bag. She told me to take off all my clothes and put them in the bag.

“They’ll call when I’m ready to leave,” I tossed Robert my purse and phone as he bolted out the door.

After I stuffed my clothes into the paper bag, the nurse took a black marker and wrote my name on the outside, just in case they needed to use it as evidence. I hopped onto the narrow hospital bed as the anesthesiologist came in to meet with me. He also had nice hair and a lovely smile. He looked and sounded like the actor Antonio Banderas.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as he placed his hand on my arm. He had very warm hands.

“I’m okay,” I responded, with as much confidence as I could while my bare ass stuck to the sheet covering the bed.

“Don’t be nervous, I promise you won’t remember anything about the procedure. You will just have a little nap now.”

I smiled up at him from the bed and tried not to look nervous, despite his being one of the most handsome men to see me half naked. He kept his warm hand on my arm as he helped me turn over on my side. Then he bent down to gaze into my eyes and ask, “Do you have any loose teeth or dentures?”

My doctor came in and fussed around with something behind my back as he hummed what sounded suspiciously like “Run to the Hills”, complete with shredding guitar solo. I no longer felt nervous, I felt old and tired as I fell into the promised nap.

I had read all about the unpleasantness of the prep but what no one mentioned was how wonderful were the after-affects of the sedative they give you. I woke up to the sound of “Slow Ride” by Fog Hat playing on the room’s sound system, which was appropriate since I hadn’t felt that stoned since 1975.

“How are you doing?” asked the nurse as she took my arm and helped me to sit up.

“Wow,” I replied.

“Would you like a drink? We have Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite.”

I chose a Dr. Pepper, and when the nurse asked if I wanted a regular or a diet drink, I replied, “Oh, I want a REAL Dr. Pepper!”

When Robert arrived to pick me up, I was still enjoying my not-clear drink. The nurse warned us “Go straight home. No shopping and don’t make any legal decisions or sign any documents today.”

“Can I take my Dr. Pepper with me?” I asked.

On the way home I buckled into the passenger seat of the car, propped up against the door, and enjoyed the rest of my soda while Robert drove with his usual reckless abandon. The drugs were still kicking in, so I didn’t mind when we charged through yellow lights and swerved around corners.

I wanted to make some profound comment on how wonderful it is to have a family, and how much I loved and appreciated him. Tears welled up in my eyes and I spoke in a hoarse voice.

“This is the best Dr. Pepper in the entire world.” I reached over to pat my son’s arm.

“Those must be some fantastic drugs, Mom.”

We continued on towards home, where we would listen to Iron Maiden on the stereo, watch television together, and have anything we wanted for dinner, including six or seven servings of pineapple Jello.

The Wheels on the Bike Go ‘Round and ‘Round

November 5, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I flipped through the glossy pages of a fashion magazine and there, alongside an article on how to dress for a summer party, I spotted a glossy ad featuring a slim model posed gracefully alongside her Schwinn. I thought about the pants in my closet that no longer fit, and turned to my boyfriend, Andrew.

“I want a bicycle,” I said as I tossed the magazine back onto the growing stack on our coffee table.

This idea had been building, spurred by a desire to find an exercise that required more enthusiasm than ability. I’d gone through hiking, tennis, and yoga, trying to find something I could do and still get out of bed the next day.

Andrew agreed this was a fine idea, then asked me, “Do you remember your first bicycle?”

I have trouble remembering where I put down my coffee cup each morning, but I had an image in my mind of that first bicycle.

“It had a white vinyl banana-shaped seat with peace symbols, rainbow streamers on the handlebars, and one of those plastic wicker baskets with huge artificial sunflowers on the front.”

“Peace symbols? Sunflowers?” Andrew looked skeptical until I reminded him that my childhood took place in the 1960s. I assured him I would not add any flowered accessories to my new bicycle, and we went that next weekend to the Bike Mart.

In the bicycle shop, I sucked in my stomach as I wandered through crowds of whip-thin men dressed in spandex shorts. There were rows and rows of bikes in racks spaced around the store and organized into sections–mountain bikes, cruisers, hybrid bikes, tandem bikes, and even some that included an electric motor, handy I supposed for people who weren’t trying to fit into the pants in their closets.

I followed Andrew as he went over to look at the sturdy grey and black mountain bikes. I tried not to look at the price tags too closely. Surely they had the decimal in the wrong place. I rolled one of the mountain bikes off the rack and felt a sense of accomplishment when I sat on it without tipping over.

“Can I help you?” A young salesgirl, blond and tanned in her Bike Mart polo, walked up as I struggled to put the bike back on the rack.

“Yes,” I replied, “I’d like to buy a bicycle, and I guess I need a little help to pick one out.”

The salesgirl nodded, blond ponytail bobbing. With one hand she took the bike from me and slipped it back into the rack.

“Where will you be riding?” she asked.

I should answer, “Oh, just around my living room, and on soft, padded surfaces,” but I had an image in my mind of shaded forest paths. I told her, “Mostly paved roads, but I’d like to go off-road now and then.” This caused the salesgirl to pause for a moment, her forehead wrinkled as though she were working out a calculus equation. I wondered if she would recommend one of those adult tricycles, or maybe psychiatric counseling.

We looked through the inventory and settled on a turquoise and white mountain bike with an aluminum frame. Lighter than the other bikes, it would be less likely to damage me when it fell over, and the color matched my shoes.

I imagined myself cycling through the neighborhood on my new bike, maybe ringing a little bell attached to the handlebars. I purchased a gel padded seat, a bag for the handlebars in a somber shade of black with no flowers, and a helmet.

The helmet made my head look gigantic as though my brain had expanded. It did not, however, make me appear more intelligent. After our first outing, I added a pair of bike shorts with a soft insert supposed to help ease any soreness from riding. They seemed to hold up well, and I considered wearing them at work, where I have to sit typing at a computer for long periods.

After a leisurely five-mile ride on our local bike path, Andrew and I discussed where we should go next. He suggested the White Rock Lake Bike Trail, and I looked forward to the adventure as I packed snacks and extra water for the eighteen-mile trek.

For most of the ride, I kept Andrew in sight as he pedaled in front of me. We passed small children and grandmothers pushing strollers and I gave them all a cheery wave as we rolled down the first nine miles, but on the return loop, my strength failed. Somewhere around mile sixteen, I realized that the difference between an eighteen-mile bike ride and a five-mile bike ride was not thirteen miles. It was, instead, the distance from here to hell and back.

The bike shorts, while appreciated, had limits. When we stopped at a shady underpass, I plopped down in the dirt and tried to catch my breath while Andrew poured lukewarm water over my head and neck.
“Can you go on? Do I need to get the car?” Andrew asked. “I’ve broken my sweetie!” he said.

I shook my head as I lay there in the dirt while scores of curious onlookers passed by, among them the small children and grandmothers I had floated past earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, “I thought we were getting close to the end.”
“We are, just another mile. Remember, we have Gatorade in the cooler back at the car.”

“Gatorade!” No drink had sounded so intoxicating since my college days.
My heart rate slowed to a normal pace as a family with two toddlers pedaled past us. When an elderly man cycled by on a recumbent bike, I decided I would not be shown up by an octogenarian, and we got back up to continue the ride.

For the rest of that mile, I tried to ignore the white-hot rock that my nice cushioned bicycle seat had transformed into. I stood up to pedal to give my sitting parts relief, but my legs protested the extra work. My ass, not to be outdone, reminded me that, bicycle shorts or not, I would probably sleep facing down for the next few nights.

We got to the last one hundred yards of the route and the trail turned downhill toward the park where our car was waiting. I leaned forward into the warm wind and let the bike gather speed as I coasted. The spokes lulled me with a pleasant hum, and the sharp tar smell of hot summer roads rose from the path below. I drifted along to the sounds of children playing near the soccer fields and the tinkle of a bell from the ice cream vendor.

As the wheels on my bike spun around, I imagined rainbow streamers flying out from the handlebars, and a white plastic wicker basket with large, bright sunflowers on the front. Andrew waited at the car with an ice cold Gatorade as I rolled up, and I gratefully accepted his offering, ready for the ride to be over, ready for it to last forever.

Where I’m From

October 1, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I’m from Friday night football games
Third Quarter sitting with the band kids.
Fourth Quarter standing in the end zone
Rooting for the visiting team.

I’m from Saturday night drive-in backseat sin
And Sunday morning sermons served
with dinner on the ground,
Communion with fried chicken.

I’m from a land where
Pump jacks bob against the horizon
Like the dinosaurs whose bones
They pull from the earth.

Where I’m from we played half court basketball
Because girls could not be trusted
To run the full length, goal to goal
Until Title IX gave us our breath.

My great-grandmother treasured her Confederate flag
And courthouses commemorated with statues
That losing side.

Where I’m from defines my past but does not determine my future.

Where I’m from shows me how far I have to go.

Thanks to Terijo for the inspiration.

View at Medium.com

Within My World

September 23, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Texture Challenge

Roses Are Red and So is This

Map of a Foreign Land?

A Face for All Seasons

Can you Guess my Favorite Color?

Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me

September 16, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

And Maybe Never Wondered About, but Oh Well…

Altered Photo — Self Portrait by Terrye Turpin

I was tagged in this craze by the very talented Kay Bolden, so I’m assuming there’s at least one person out there interested in learning a little more about me. So here are ten things that will tell you a bit. Most of the photographs, for better or worse, were taken by me.

There are books in almost every room of my home.

Bedside table and bookcase filled with books on writing.

The dining room is also my crafting room. The bookcase here is filled with cookbooks and craft books. That’s Dolly lurking beside the ironing board.

Archer guards the nonfiction books and my Hot Wheels collection.

I keep the children’s books in the dining room for when my grandson visits. I wrote a story about that duck.

2. I am the youngest of seven children, but because they were all much older than me, I grew up like an only child. My mother was 42 when I was born on her birthday. Three of my sisters and one brother have passed away, as have my mother and father.

My Dad Lloyd Hamilton and my older brother Ronnie

3. I’ve never lived further than 40 miles from McKinney, Texas — the place I was born.

4. I love shopping at antique, junk, and thrift stores.

5. My fiance and I own more than 30 IKEA badgers. (We love IKEA)

Sometimes we dress the badgers in holiday apparel.

6. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Robert McCammon, and David Sedaris.

If I’m in a dark mood my writing takes a twisted turn to horror.

I love David Sedaris, and you can probably see his influence in my humorous essays. I go to hear him perform his work every time he’s in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I have all his books, four of them are signed by him.

7. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry (I thought I wanted to go to medical school). When I was 45 I went back to school to earn a graduate degree. It took me five years working full time and going to classes part time to earn my Masters degree in Taxation. I worked my way through graduate school delivering pizzas part time in addition to my 40 hour a week full time job.

8. I bought a bicycle when I was 52, and started riding again after almost 30 years.

I’m just posing here, I do ride with a helmet.

9. I got divorced after 25 years of marriage. When I started dating again I signed up for OK Cupid and gave online dating a try.

I only met one person and had one date through OK Cupid.

Me and Andrew hiking in Glen Rose, Texas at Dinosaur Valley State Park

10. I’m getting married in October to that one date I met six years ago on OK Cupid.

Badgers in Bluebonnets in Ennis, Texas — This photo by Andrew Shaw

I’ll keep the thread going by tagging a few folks here, if you’ve already been tagged you can blissfully ignore this one, but I hope you’ll play. And if I haven’t tagged you please join in with your list of ten things and tag me, I’d love to read them.

KD Murray S Lynn Knight ~ 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 Karen Booth Nupoor Raj Sam H Arnold Paul S Markle kurt gasbarra James Finn Terijo Teresa Colón J. Brandon Lowry Louise Foerster K.C. Knouse R. Nash Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle

The Summer of Lemons

September 7, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

I moved into my first apartment in 1979. The place came with shag carpet striped in an acid trip rainbow of purple, green, and brown. By the time my roommate Ann and I lived there the rug had collected a gummy overlay of tobacco and pot smoke, beer, and other substances we ignored. Our floral print couch had broken springs that sagged our butts toward the ground when we stretched out to catch up on Love Boat and Fantasy Island. The world’s biggest fan of the rock band Queen lived next door. He serenaded us every night with “Another One Bites the Dust” and if we pushed the couch close to the wall, it would rock us to sleep with the vibrating bass line. That apartment was the first place we had ever chosen all on our own, without help from parents or school administration.

Ann and I discovered our home in August, about three weeks before the fall semester would start at Texas Woman’s University. We drove over to Denton, Texas in her 1967 Dodge Dart. The car did not have air conditioning. We rolled down the windows and hung our heads out like dogs to catch the hot air blowing off the highway. By the time we made the hour-long trip from our hometown the backs of my legs stuck to the vinyl car seat with a tacky layer of sweat glue. We pulled into the parking lot of the first complex on our list and slumped out of the car, careful not to brand ourselves with the hot metal on the outside the Dart. In the full sun we stood there pondering the faded pink brick buildings. I imagined the rubber soles of my sandals melting into the black tar pit of the asphalt parking lot and I wondered if some later civilization would find my bones, preserved and still wearing flip flops.

“There’s a pool,” Ann said, pointing toward a shimmering patch of blue in the center of the courtyard. The sharp summer scent of chlorine hung in the air and we heard laughter and soft splashing coming from the lucky residents enjoying the water. We wiped the sweat out of our eyes, abandoned the car, and raced to the manager’s office to sign a lease for our new apartment.

We moved in over the next weekend, figuring to get settled in before classes started. We unpacked in air-conditioned comfort, without realizing we enjoyed the last bit of the previous tenant’s billing cycle. On Monday we woke to the end of that free ride. No electricity meant no radio, no television, and no air conditioning. Our friendly neighbor set down his bong and turned down the bass on his stereo long enough to explain how to go about getting our own account set up. A phone call to the utility company later, we had an appointment for them to come out the next day, Tuesday.

We opened the windows and the front door and spent the day at the pool. By early evening we were both the color of the Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine we had been drinking all day.

“Is there any more ice?” Ann asked from the couch where she stirred the hot air with the magazine she had been reading.

“No, maybe we should go to the store.” My voice was muffled because I had my head in the open freezer, waving the last of the cool air onto my face.

“We’re also out of wine,” I added.

Ann and I moaned about the lack of air conditioning, ice, and alcohol and decided, since we were heading to the store to get ice and wine, we would stop at K-Mart to pick up a fan–yes, an electric fan, a fan that would need electricity to run.

Most people would notice the glaring gap in logic this purchase presented. However, Ann and I, stunned from the heat like lizards, and brain damaged from inhaling chlorine fumes and cheap wine all day, loaded into the Dart and headed to K-Mart.

Once we arrived at the store, we discovered the fans displayed right at the front entrance. We walked through a wind tunnel of spinning blades and overlooked the cords dangling from the back and running to the hidden power supply. We pictured our fan set up in the living room, spinning cool air out of nothing. Fan chosen and placed in the shopping cart, we picked up cleaning supplies and added a bottle of lemon scented ammonia to our cart as we headed to the cashier.

While we stood in line, Ann picked up the cleaner. “I wonder if this really smells like lemons. You know, like real lemons or just some sweet stuff.” I took the bottle from her and read the label.

“It says ammonia,” I said.

I unscrewed the cap, held the container close to my nose, and inhaled a strong breath. A line of lemon scented fire raced up my nose and entered my brain.

“Well, does it smell like lemons?” Ann asked.

I couldn’t answer as my lungs seemed to have collapsed from the ammonia. Instead I waved frantically, hoping it would be interpreted as “Yes, but help!”

I held out the bottle toward Ann and before I could warn her, watched as she took the bottle from me and inhaled. There we were, in the line at K-Mart, gasping for breath and crying, passing that bottle of ammonia back and forth between us like two drunks sharing a can of Sterno.

We recovered enough to put the cap back on the bottle, then looked at the fan sitting there in the cart. The ammonia must have loosened something in our brain because we realized then you can’t run an electric fan without electricity. We traded the fan for a pair of flashlights and left the ammonia at K-Mart. We stopped for ice and headed back to our apartment, our home where the moonlight beckoned off the dark, still surface of the swimming pool and the night air smelled of chlorine and not lemons.