Phone calls from Vermont

Wednesday: "Maggie, I was walking with Cannoli and Delilah back by the beaver pond and Cannoli got quilled in the face by a porcupine! Dad wanted to pull out the quills with pliers but I called Gary and we brought the dog up to his house and he pulled them out with pliers. Dad was so annoyed."

"Is he okay?"

"Who?"

"Cannoli."

"Yeah, he just seems sore."


Friday: "Maggie, Gary was on his way to work at 4:30 this morning and he saw the porcupine, so he pulled over and got out of the car and shot him!"

"How do you know it was the same porcupine? Aren't they everywhere at this time of year?"

"Oh it was the same guy. TRUST me. Gary took pictures, I'm going to forward them to you."

"I don't want to see pictures of a dead animal that didn't need to be killed."

"I'm sending them! Bye!"

What I meant is I'm having an allergic reaction

Me: Well, if it makes you feel any better, my face is the size of a pumpkin.
Brother: Yeah, I've seen you before. Why would that make me feel better?

Plans for 2011

1. learn to ride a motorcycle
2. visit my Bro-lo in Savannah
3. improve the garden I started last year
4. new roof for the house
5. spend a week in Vermont over the summer
6. foster a dog
7. return to Doe Camp with my mom
8. learn to play bass (for real this time)
9. think before I speak
10. attend the Mermaid Parade (for real this time)
11. cut my remaining student loan amount in half

Things I Do Not Like

1. crowded, delayed commuter trains
2. orange flavored candy (tic tacs, gummy bears, etc. I give the orange ones away)
3. putting the fitted sheet on the bed. I will commit murder if I do not have help with this.
4. red roses. They're too serious.
5. Incubus
6. when the TV is on all the time, or trying to talk when the TV is on
7. wet socks. If I step in the tiniest drip of water on the floor, I have to change socks.
8. ginger. I give it away at sushi places. (Though I love ginger ale.)
9. jelly beans and Skittles
10. Spiderman movies
11. vague answers to personal questions
12. my own indecisiveness
13. the circus. It depressed me when I was little and does so even more now.
14. raking. I'll shovel snow. I'll dig in the garden. I'd mow the lawn if Mike'd let me. But raking is the worst.
15. not knowing how to fix my car myself

Football Tickets

Him: I should go to church Sunday and beg for season tickets.
Me: It's "pray" not "beg for."
Him: Whatever, they both happen on your knees.

Yellow Gumballs

First paragraphs of the collection of short stories I came across today during lunch:

Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. That was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a long time, fought for her, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to kiss for the first time and then this: yellow gumballs.

Stan went to a group to try to accept that Sheila was gone. It was a group for people whose unrequited love had ended in some kind of surrealist moment. There is a group for everything in California.

That first sentence especially is perfect. It allows for your imagination to go crazy. Did the gumballs fly out of poor Sheila? Did they fall from the sky?

Can the rest of the book possibly be as good?