Fiction Guest Post By #5.

I have a special treat today. #5 has agreed to do a guest post.

Me: I have a favor to ask you.

#5: What?

Me: Will you do a guest post on my blog?

#5: Mmm. Maybe. How much work do I have to do?

Me: Nothing. You did it already {I held up the story he had written}. You just have to say yes.

#5: Okay. Can I play on your iPad?

It’s a good story. Thrills, suspense, danger, bacon. Lots of monsters. We’re both quite proud of it.

On this day of giving thanks and counting blessings I always try to take a moment to remember maniacal and implicitly undead yet tasty breakfast meats . Enjoy!

One dark, dreary Halloween night, me Ethan, Hank, Brandon, Paton, and Chucky walked into a creepy haunted house in a cemetary with our candy. Giant black spiders were crawling everywhere. That completely explained why there was absolutely no girls there. A giant, greasy, delicious looking piece of bacon walked up and invited us in. We walked in terrified as a sharp, deadly blade shot out of the wall. I saved us all except for the bacon, because then I knew it was a trap. Grease was splurting out of the bacon.

As a prize for saving us from them, they let me eat it. I devoured the bacon. Everyone was amazed by how fast I ate it. It was terrific bacon, and the best bacon I have ever tasted. I started to wonder who made all of the bacon. We tried to run for our lives, but the huge, scary door slammed closed with a quick squeak before we had a chance to get out. We all screamed louder than we have ever screamed before.

We tried as hard as we could to open the huge, scary door. We were trapped!

We friendly tip-toed up the creepy, broken stairs. The stairs broke even more and squeaked every time we took a step. When we finally got to the top of the stairs, we tumbled straight into a trap door. We tried to jump out but it was way too high. Another problem of getting out, is there were scary bats everywhere. Then, big army ants came out and tried to kill us! The army ants ate my pants, but luckily Chucky had an extra pair incase I wet myself, which also happened. We ran trembling. We stopped at the corner. They almost killed us when a big, blood sucking vampire swooped by and flew us back out. He told us “The evil bacon is finally fighting back, and they going to eat all of you and me. After that, they are going to take over the world. They are go also going to eat me too because they called me a trader!” I asked, “who makes the bacon?” He said, “An evil devil!” The bacon heard us talk and came out and chased us. We all screamed, and ran for dear life.

We bounced trough the scary house screaming the whole entire time. A big, spooky ghost came out of the wall, but we rushed right through his stomach and he disapeared. A big, bloody zombie jumped out of a coffin. I got a hold of Eathan and was about to eat him when I noticed an ax was on the wall, and I chopped the zombie’s bloody arm off. The zombie was completely bleeding. We sadly all lost all of our candy in the spooky, deadly haunted house.

We almost got out, when we relized the evil, wanting victorious, deadly bacon was going to still take over the world and get their victory. So, we ripped out the sords and knives that we forgot about and used them agenst the bacon. We had the fight of our lives while stabbing, cutting, chopping and devouring all the bacon. The evil bacon sadly ate Paton and he was digested and never heared from again but the rest of us happily destroyed the evil and got out safe. We all had a party/funeral without a body. We all cheered for saving the world, but we were sad Paton got eaten. Luckly we were happy enough to wash the sadness away though.

The End.

backcover — Back cover: "Run for your cold, dead lives!"

Ummm. . .

Sometimes the kids will say things that deeply resonate with me:

#5: I really want to climb the walls. Can I climb the walls?

I totally get that. Often, I want to climb the walls. So I let him. I should clarify that by “walls” he means “doorframe”, which has handy grabby bits around the edges, plus leverage, especially when you’re very bendy and lightweight and about four feet tall. When he comes to me and says this I let him “climb the walls” three times. He usually does two right away and then saves one for later, unless one of his sisters grabs him and pulls him down in the middle of a climb because they want to get into the refrigerator or else just torment him because really, if they wanted to get into the refrigerator they could just go through the other doorway.

If you’re ever at my house and you notice dirty footprints on the top of the doorway into the kitchen, this is why.

Sometimes the kids will say things and it makes me wonder what goes on in their heads:

#5: (explaining his graphing math homework to me, which involved solving a problem and then plotting the answer number and its opposite on a line) I don’t like to think of them as opposites. I prefer to refer to them as evil twins.

Oh yeah, positive, negative. Evil twins would totally make math more interesting. I wish I’d thought of it.

Then sometimes they say things that make me glad I don’t know what goes on in their heads. Or in their private time, behind closed doors.

#5: Do you think dogs’ hands taste better than their feet, like ours do?

Ummm. . .

One and Done Sunday #9

Welcome to One and Done Sunday. Short and sweet: one picture, and five links that are worth your time.

Except I’ll blather on a little first. You may have noticed I’ve been sort of quiet lately. It happens when I get overwhelmed; I imagine a lot of people are like that.

I started re-reading a book that I went through probably twelve years ago called One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant. It’s like a forty-day workbook thing. Something I read in it has been kicking around in my head about slowing down so you can see the truth that’s in front of you (I’m paraphrasing). So I slowed down.

No real wisdom to impart from that, except that I feel calmer.

I didn’t do much this week except help clear our land from the storm. That was actually sort of a lot, but it was only one day. Three weeks since the storm damaged pretty much every tree in our neighborhood, very little official cleanup has happened. We got a letter from the town about ten days ago (before the election) basically saying, give us a break people, we’re doing our best. But don’t dispose of anything yourself because you can’t be trusted.

We did see one truck come to pick up the branches on our street this week.

They completely skipped our house.

So CC rented a woodchipper and on Friday, CC, #1 and I hit it. I have to say it was pretty cool, even though it was a bit disturbing how much CC seemed to like the woodchipper. Also, #1 reminded him that he told her when she was little that if she were ever going to stuff someone in a woodchipper she should do it feet first so it would hurt longer. He doesn’t remember telling her this and said in his defense that everybody knows if you put body parts in a woodchipper they should be frozen.

Anyway, we got most of the trees done. As for the rest on our property, and the other neighbors that they skipped, plus the leaves that they are also not picking up that we’re not allowed to dispose of? I’m thinking bonfire. My driveway. Maybe we’ll get someone’s attention then. Ah, Jersey. Our tax dollars hard at corruption.

Here’s your picture:

This was somewhere in the middle of our cleanup and it just kind of made me giggle. The pumpkins that never got carved but also somehow survived a tree landing on them and knocking them off the porch, coupled with the Christmas lights that we never took down until said tree took down the gutter they were attached to. Thanksgiving tends to get treated as the tiny space in this picture between the pumpkins and the lights, largely because nobody puts up giant inflatable turkey decorations in their yard. Oh wait, they do in my neighborhood. I should take a picture.

Here are your links.

Hey, speaking of clearing land like a goddamn pioneer woman, here’s one of my dirty secrets. When I need a lift, sometimes I browse the Charlie archives on The Pioneer Woman’s blog. She’s a rancher; he’s a basset hound. Good times. Here’s one: What Is Charlie Thinking?

Everything I love about art and the desert in southern California: Salvation Mountain in the Desert on Pretty Girls Make Gravy.

What do tubas have to do with zombie burlesque, doom metal, and Genghis Barbie: The leading post post-feminine feminine all-female horn experience? Jacquelyn Adams will fill you in.

EC Stilson’s first book, The Golden Sky, came out this week. Anyone who’s had a baby taken from them too soon, or knows someone who does needs to read it. I love how she describes the closure from having written the book in this post: For Zeke on Crazy Life of a Writing Mom.

The best post about pedophilia that you didn’t read this week: Chase McFadden’s Why Parents Must Speak of Unspeakable Things on Some Species Eat Their Young.