Day 15 - The Air Conditioning Saga

(a bad take on the Orkneying Saga)

When I'm stressed I write Vogon Poetry (that is intentionally bad poetry)

T'is Sven the mighty hunter
Who fought the mythic beast
Called the air conditioner,
The multi headed A/C

But instead of its destruction,
The noble goal he seeks,
Is to keep the thing alive
And keep it on its feet.

Sven found it getting warmer,
And when he wondered why
He found the heart not beating
And the freon had bled dry.

A mighty bolt of lightning
Or surge of electricity
Had fried the compressor
And left the fan a pity.

So for a second time
In the last three years,
Sven replaced the compressor,
The fan and all the gears.

The freon was recharged
And then the beast revived.
Then the air began to cool.
So the air conditioner survived.

But hidden in the wiring depths
A lasting problem lurked.
Not yet broken, but still crippled.
At least the A/C worked.

Then Sven the mighty hunter
Went on his merry way
Till he came home again
And found it died that day.

He hurried to resuscitate it
And learn why it was hot.
The freon had flown away,
The copper tubing shot.

And yet it took a long, long while
To find exactly where
The tiny hole lurked in the beast.
It was enough to make Sven swear.

The hole was found inside the giant,
Deep behind the condenser coil.
And though it was a tiny leak,
It caused Sven much toil.

But once the hole was patched,
The system did not work.
The condenser must be replaced
And there was still another quirk.

But at least the beast lumbered on.
And the world did grow cold.
It seemed all things were going well.
And Sven well, he grew bold.

But late one sultry evening
He awakened from his sleep
To find his world was too, too warm.
And Sven well, he did weep.

Up he bound, weary of the heat
And found the heavens all too cool
Yet Sven found he could solve the bug
Duct tape, the universal tool.

And so the story bellows on,
And so hopefully the air.
But Sven worries about a fault
That lies he knows not where.

Sure enough, the hunter's right
And the hidden problem rises.
Again the beast lies comatose.
'Tis electrical Sven surmises.

So he attempts to change the fuse
And finds he cannot buy it
Because the way the brain is wired
And summons another to try it.

And when the fuse is changed
And when the switch is flipped,
The mighty A/C roars to life.
Sven has the problem whipped

(to be continued)

#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 12 - Dead White Turtles

[This one probably needs a little explanation.  When I am stressed, I write Vogon Poetry, that is intentionally bad poetry. The reference is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy if you’re flummoxed.
This was at a time of great stress at work. My desktop was covered with large stacks of white paper. You couldn't see the desktop for the paper. After one particularly grueling 40 day (And I do mean day, not week), I had this dream (nightmare?) about dead white turtles. Hence, the poem.
Oh, yeah. I composed the lyrics trying to outdo the noise of bathtub filling up, the air conditioner humming and three cats providing syncopated rhythm by asynchronous purring. In my head, I hear a 'ba-dum. ba-dum' at the end of each line.]

Good little turtles,
They do what they're told.
They stay in their box.
They never grow old.
Bad little turtles,
They want to be free.
They dream of escape.
They long for the sea.
I'm a good little turtle.
I do as I'm told
If I stay in my box,
I won't ever grow old.
I'm a good little turtle.
I'll never be free.
And I only escape
When flushed out to sea.
I'm a dead white turtle.
I never grew old.
I stayed in my box.
Did as I was told.
I'm a dead white turtle
Floating in the sea,
Doing the dead man float.
Won't you be me?

#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 9 - Selene

The moon begins to darken, lose its shiny grey appeal
And it blushes a bit to be in the gaze of the night
But as its darkness grows, at the fading of the light
The colour red strengthens, like a growing inflamed weal
To the east Mars glowers like a scorned lover
No longer the bright red thing in the chilly sky
Now it waits its turn with scornful eye
Not too close, not too far, doomed to simply hover
And down a bit below, glitters bright Spica
Not many times to glow so brightly
Would need the darker redness nightly
To entice, to flirt, like velvet scattered mica
But at long last the darkness grip has been broken
A sliver of white light skips along the lunar edge
Beginning with a tiny crown that becomes the wedge
Albedo white returns across the face. Normality has spoken.



#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 8 - Grace

Grace

Life´s a die, and then you bitch.  Wait, backwards again - Life´s a bitch and then you die.

So yes, life is hard and it´s a one way path. And you still have to pay taxes when you´re dead! Not much fair there, eh? Some tunnels seem to have no end, some experience cave-ins, and that light is often an oncoming locomotive (steam if you´re lucky).  But sometimes that light is a firefly.  Just one.  Flickering dimly. But there.

Today wasn´t even a tunnel.  It was a cave.

And there was someone else there.

I don´t know about where you live, but in the rural parts around here and even the mid-size cities (their word, not mine.  In the UK, they´d probably be called towns)....where was I?  Oh, yes, my fellow cave dweller.  In these parts, there is a fairly transient and a small permanent homeless population.  Spring is storm season and this population often resides under overpasses, generally the big interstate ones but any will serve.

At the coffee shop near the interstate overpass, there was an older man.  Not as old as my folks, older than me.  He had a beat-up mobile plugged into an even more beat-up solar charger, a couple of plastic bags, no food or drink.  A thin grey beard, a very little jacket, clean clothes. He was on the coffee shop patio and it wasn´t busy, never is on national chain levels. So he probably could stay.

After my tea, I asked the assistant manager, cleaning up, if he was in often.  Pretty much every day, she said.

Bad day, long day, but I had bought a tea and croissant.  I went back to the cashier, bought a $25 gift card, handed to the assistant manager and said give it to the gentleman in ten or fifteen minutes after I was gone.

Suddenly the hole was more like a ditch.

Back on the road, a brief snippet caught my ear (I don´t do talk radio, or talk broadcasts at all.  Sorry podcasts, I know I'm missing a lot but not my media). ¨Live the hand you were dealt as if it were the hand you wanted.¨  Not much but it felt like being hit over the head with a 2x4.  Epiphany comes in many ways (I got hit with one years ago in a Def Leppard song).

And then

There´s a concept in Buber´s I and Thou about the will to ask and the grace to receive.

Today, I received.

#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 7 - Colour

Colour

Anger is brown, not black like many think.  It is a dark, sludgy sewer plant brown.  It seethes, it reeks, it flows as a thick, viscous liquid. It´s not water- nor oil-soluble.

Rage is red, shot throw with darker swirls like flames on the sides of Mrs. White´s face.  It throbs like a racing heart beat, it thrums like the blood racing through your veins. It is oil-soluble, it thickens into choler.

Choler is blacker than black.  It emits no light, absorbs anything and everything thrown at it.  It can be a permanent shade for there is no solvent than can dissolve it externally.

Jealousy is, as always expected, green.  But that bilge, yellow-green of an upset stomach.  To be jealous is to be sick to your stomach.  Over someone else´s life, talents, monies, looks.  But be sure, it starts out as:

Cowardice is yellow-white.  The fear that grips the intestines, drains the blood from the face, that whispers ¨you cannot¨, ¨you will fail¨, ¨duck, run, go¨.

Lust is more purple-black than red. It sees only itself, there are no light streaks, no bubbles of pink.  It is, however, a water-soluble colour.  It can be mixed into other tints.

Love, it turns out, is pink.  It can deepen into fuchsia or remain bubble-gum with polka dots.  The choice is always made by the wearer even if they think otherwise.  Love abides.

Happiness is a brilliant orange, blithe and gay, bubbling out of every pore.  It is highly volatile, lasting only moments but leaving a Veuve Cliquot memory.

Contentment is a permanent colour like choler but can be dissolved by fierce external solvents.  It isn´t soluble in water nor oil, but persistent weathering can dull the luster and hue. Add Happiness or Acceptance to restore luster.

Acceptance is soft, permanent and useful for repair of other shades if desired.  It can be shed with grave reluctance, generally for rage, or worse, choler.  It should be treasured, respected, revered, chased.


#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 6 - Stone

Stone

Time Lords tend to think they are Lords of the Universe too.  Nonsense, there were beings before the Time Lords.  There are beings here after the Time Lords. We´re still here, for one.  They aren´t except one.  Similarity can be fun.

But as always, The Doctor remembers. And forgets. And tells a ´good´ story no matter what the reality was.  Remember Rule #1, it doesn´t matter what face the Doctor wears, the Doctor lies.

The Doctor calls us the Weeping Angels.  That´s two conceits - we are not weeping and we are not angels. Nor do we take our life force from humans (or Time Lords, for that matter).  What tiny, pointless lives these creatures have. They are born and die on the same small orbiting rock. Robin Goodfellow said it best ´Lord, what fools these mortals be!¨  By the way, he was one of ours.  We do not hang around to the end because the true Star Killer has always been iron.  And it´s not condusive to us, even if it is conductive.

We don´t begrudge the Doctor his protection of these weary little animals; they look to him with such awe and love.  Who wouldn´t want to be that hero, that Time Lord Victorious.

And his tales of us are as a gnat chattering at an elephant, if you want Earth terms.  We are here.  We abide.  We play a longer game than even the Doctor understands.

Stone requires no nourishment; it fears not wind nor rain nor howling night.  We take our shape from the small dreams and fears of those around us.  We have been fierce in our form, awesome in our aspect, meek in our mien.  What ever the most sentient beings required.  We were there on Poosh, San Helios before the sand, and with the Kovarian Chapter, a most unimaginative people. We were there at Planet One.  We´ve chased the heat death across the universe, and we are still here.

Here and now, we look like angels. These humans find that safe, even comforting.  We´ve been mighty Athena in her Acropolis, the Moai before the Rapa Nui self-destructed, the legion of warriors in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.  Not all of them, of course, but the ones still extent and still unfound.

Our life source comes from something very close at hand, something found throughout your tiny galaxy, throughout the unknown universe.  We follow the neon.  Oh, now don´t get worried about your little light pools in Vegas and Tokyo.  That wouldn´t feed a midge for a heartbeat.  No, we need something more robust, more plentiful.  And it is close at hand, only 4 billion years more.  That´s a Sunday nap to us.

That big yellow ball of hydrogen will someday lose its cool and go all helium on you.  You probably won´t care.  But all Real Housewives might care about the next phase, carbon, because carbon under pressure is just a diamond in the sky.  You heard that right, Lucy was one of ours and it wasn´t LSD she was seeking (She did make a wrong turn, though, and end up on your Earth way ahead of schedule.  Let´s just say she trusted the wrong Time Lord for directions.)

And before carbon goes all oxygenated on us, there is neon rich time.  That´s where we get our life energy.  We feast and fest, we live a great time and then fly out on the oxygen burn, missing out on the Iron Death.  On to the next midlife crisis stellar moment.  We burn so brightly in that time.  You could not survive looking at us.  Which is, of course, where the Doctor started his wild tales.

Don´t worry - blink all you want.  Close your eyes and rest.  After all, that is what we are doing until our next great party.

PS you scientific types who say that your Sol is too small to go on through to carbon-neon-oxygen-iron.  Seriously, you´ve lived. what, 15 minutes?  I’ve seen ¨Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate¨.  You get those dreams and whispers from somewhere.  Trust us.

(This is a slightly edited redux)



#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 5 - A Little Help from My Friends

I hesitated at the door again. I’d been trying to screw my courage to the sticking place. But I still could not actually go in the door. 

“Just go in already.”

I stood frozen, hand on door. 

“In, out, in, out.  To-ing and fro-ing. You’ve been pacing in front of this door, every day for a week.  Just go in already. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I sigh, hand dropping to my side. “They could find my body, wrapped in plastic and buried too shallowly in the state park next spring.”

I breathe, the tension flowing out of me. My shoulders descend from around my ears, my jaw unclenches. It all seems so silly now, now that I said that out loud. 

I lift my hand again to push open the door.  

“Wait. That’s, that’s something humans do to each other?”

I turned to face my interlocutor and see, in fact, I’ve been conversing with a crow.  

The crow says “No, don’t go in. Don’t. They never come out. The girls who go in there. We thought it was a long party. But....just don’t in there.  Let me show you something.”

......

“Mama, this why I ended up on the 6 o’clock news, showing the cops to the largest cache of bones found in the state. No, I didn’t put them there. I found them, with a little help from friends.”

#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 4 - A Day at the Office

Writing prompt - TFR’s Writing Prompt 543: “Dare I ask why someone left an empty coffee mug in the freezer.”

It was a Tuesday. Of course, for the last month, every day has been a Tuesday. At least for billing purposes. At least it meant tacos for lunch from the food trucks at the corner.

Janis liked her job. Finding patterns in the data flow was like panning for gold. Every time she found a sequence, she felt a thrill. Granted, most of the office hated it when a sequence was found. It meant reality had slipped. Again.

Sometimes it was a tiny slip like when the dodo suddenly reappeared after 340-odd years of extinction. Sometimes it was a big slip like when the country of Läknillki disappeared. Employees of the Temporal Interstitial Maintenance Enterprise (TIME) were immune to the time ripples that flowed out to correct the reality slips. They had to be in order to correct the slip, when possible. Some were easily correctable, once the cause was identified. Some could not be corrected, even though the cause was known (see Läknillki). And then there were those whose cause could not be identified.

But to fix the problem, the cause must be found. And to find the cause, the slip had to be identified, categorized, qualified, elucidated, and often just plain old divined. But the first step was always to see the slip. And that was the skill Janis possessed.

TIME dealt with problems like a physics experiment gone awry (yes, you can accidentally create a black hole), unexpected alien invasions (they let the military deal with the expected ones), unintended political assassinations (no one dealt with the intended ones), and lost cats. There was a department for all conceivable and inconceivable causes, each one documented and procedurized. There was a division dedicated to the supernatural causes and one for paranormal sources. Any given day, the agents were working with government agencies, well-intentioned time travelers, vampires, sentient non-humanoid Glieseans, and the Elder Gods. The agents always ranked the government agencies as most difficult to work with.

So while the office was surprised that Tuesday morning, no one was more surprised than Janis. Because she had not seen a sequence. Not even a blip.

Chip came in from the kitchenette and said “Dare I ask why someone left an empty coffee mug in the freezer?”
“What do you mean empty? It’s not empty. The fire drake was overheated. I popped it in the freezer.”
“Tommy, I just found one empty mug in the freezer. There’s no fire drake. Wait, hang on, WHY was there a fire drake in the office? That’s against every policy.”

Tommy rushed to the freezer, sputtering. He was quickly followed by everyone in the workroom. First they noticed the refrigerator was now an Autumn Honey Frigidaire, not the rather nondescript white Hotpoint model it had been at the 10am coffee break. The kitchenette was now on the third floor of their one-story office building. There was no fire drake. But there was a rather large purple tabby cat, sitting on the fridge, cleaning his whiskers.

The office as a single unit turned to Tommy. Or rather, where Tommy had been. Because that spot was empty. Wordlessly, the office turned to Janis. She tried nonchalance, cleaned her glasses, and replied to their unspoken question. “Well, I didn’t put the coffee mug in the freezer.”

At that, everyone, including the purple tabby cat, went back to their desks. And Janis pulled up the data flow.  That showed no patterns.

#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

Day 3 - Glitter Bomb

Prompt: It all started when I opened a glitter bomb at my 9am lecture. 
An hour later, I found my boyfriend's dead body in the middle of the quad. 

Glitter Bomb

It all started when I opened a glitter bomb at my 9am lecture.  An hour later, I found my boyfriend's dead body in the middle of the quad.

And it just got worse from there.

I was running late, as usual, to my 9am lecture. It wasn't my class. I'm a researcher, introvert by nature, and most definitely not a morning person. But when Professor Dawson asked me to cover a couple of her classes, how could I turn her down?  She was my mentor, my dissertation adviser and a good friend. She was meeting her daughter in Europe for a last minute grand tour.

"You're ready. You can do it. It's just three classes. You've already done the work. Think of this as a polishing, a defense prep.  You know that's coming up. Soon.  Very soon."  Professor Dawson is very persuasive. I think it's because she's Doctor Dawson, Psychologist, before she's Professor Dawson, Physicist. I was doomed the moment I picked up the phone.

Soon, I harrumphed. Not if I don't finish. Not if James' late night binging that led to 3am calls to come retrieve him from whatever dive bar or pool hall he had stumbled into that night continued.

I was late. I was sleep deprived. And, so I just picked up the box on the doorstep, tossed it in my bag and raced over to campus. As I pulled into the parking lot, my phone pinged. James, of course. He wanted me to meet him outside the administration building on campus after class. In the “zen” garden. Somehow I knew this wasn’t going to be a peaceful, easy meeting.

I made it to class a bit before the start. Students were milling, whispering, mostly texting. I got a lot of those “Who the hell is she” looks as I unloaded my gear at the podium. But this wasn’t my first rodeo; I wasn’t going to “hush” them.  I waited. And waited. Eventually, the class sat and waited too.

*****It was all going fine until I started in on randomness, what we perceive it to be and what it really is. A quick loop through the numbers of pi, the Fibonacci sequence, Brownian motion and KERBOOM! The brightly wrapped box I had pulled out of my bag with everything else exploded in a surprisingly loud sound (for such a small box) and sent confetti, streamers and glitter into the air, heavily dusting the podium, me and the front two rows of seats. The glitter, being lighter, wafted on the air-conditioning currents and basically covered the entire room (and apparently two hydrangea bushes just outside the open window).

I stood there, slack jawed and speechless. After a shocked moment, the students laughed and applauded. I was still recovering as they filed out, one young man congratulating me on my excellent demonstration skills.  I didn’t find the note. One of the women from the back row had it tangled in her hair as she left. I caught her by the shoulder and took it. Its heaviness was due to the words cut out from magazines, pasted with the skill of an above average five year old. “Next one between the eyes”.

*****It took me 50 minutes to explain who I was, where the box came from and, repeatedly, that “no, it was not a planned part of my presentation”, timing to the contrary. And, no, to my knowledge no one hated me enough to kill me or want me dead. Security was not amused; neither was I. Grateful, yes. I didn’t have to clean that mess out of my kitchen or deep-pile shag carpeted living room (just don’t ask). Puzzled, too, but I thought it was some prank delivered to the wrong address.

But there I was again - late.  To an appointment I did not want to make. Was there any way to start this day over and just not?  To skip it entirely?  At least, as I hurried away, the day was not going to involve campus security again. So things were looking up.

*****Things were looking up. It appears I was to or I would not have tripped, sprawled really, over the khaki-wearing legs  “What the devil!”, I exclaimed. “Who the hell is napping on the sidewalk before lunch!”.  As I scrambled to my feet, ready to launch a blistering appraisal of the man, his ancestors and his choice of attire, I saw his face. The thin red trickle coming from the hole in his glabella, the odd color of his eyes, slackness of his jaw. And then the face as a whole, the face of James. The face attached to a motionless and cooling body. Of James. My James. My sometimes James.

I watch TV crime shows and cop procedurals all the time. I often mock the character who finds the body with the statement “Cue Scream”.  I told myself, and anyone who was listening, that my sangfroid would carry me through. I would behave rationally, coolly, logically.

I was so very, very wrong. It did take a while, though, for me to realize all the screaming was coming from me.

This time it took a lot longer than 50 minutes to get away from security. And then the police detectives. And the department head and college dean. The last two were trying to be consoling and comforting. I was numb. I told them I was going back to my car and then home. It had been a trying day, I explained. I keep repeating, as much to myself as them, “It’s done. It can’t get worse. The day can only get better.”.

*****Three hours later I woke up in the trunk of a car, bound and gagged. It’s going to be a long night.

#
#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales

The world turns and begins anew. This will be my second attempt at #The100DayProject. And in the chaos of 2020, I stand a better chance than last year. In 2019, I made an honest start but my world fell out of control quickly. The roller coaster went of the rails in mid-April, and I'm not back to equilibrium. 2019 ended with my father passing away from the complications that began in April.

So while everything has changed and the world is not the same, I will start anew. And the world has changed already so much that 2020 in April is almost recognizable from 2020 in January.


#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales