Rachel glanced sideways at her mother, to view how the words would affect the car ride home.  Cat just stared, dumbfounded, caught off guard by the seriousness of the conversation and the worried look on her daughter’s face.  Cat immediately thought, “It’s ironic how often I regret a promise to keep a secret for one of Rachel’s friends.”

Seconds earlier, Rachel had dropped the bombshell that her friend Meg had cut herself with scissors.  Cat had asked the obvious question and gotten the obvious answer.  Not even aware of the questions in the conversation, Cat was relieved and gratified by the caring response that Rachel had shared, encouraging Meg to call anytime she felt the urge to cut.  The effect of this response being Cat’s certainty- as much as a mother can be certain- that Rachel would not choose such a path.  The relief, with its calm certainty, was shortened drastically by the list of other friends who would choose and had chosen such a path. 

Wherefore Cat sat still and quiet in a dilemma of principle: to tell Meg’s mother or keep the secret.  Meg’s mother probably needed to know, but would she help her daughter or cause more stress.  Meg, the eldest child of divorce, was always in trouble with her parents.  The mother’s hyperChristian attitude made it impossible for Meg to ever please her.  The dad, still a mystery to Cat- and not one she cared to solve.  And Meg would know that Rachel had spilled the secret.  Most of all, Cat worried about keeping the promise to Rachel- knew that trust was paramount, knew that the difficult years were just beginning, knew that she needed to have Rachel look at her with those big blue eyes full of trust and innocence.

Yes, Cat knew there was no real decision to be made.  Rachel was most important.  Rachel was strong and needed to be that way.  Instead Cat pondered whence Rachel had acquired this ability to find friends who needed her and to say the right things to them and whom could she turn for advice other than her mother.

Write a piece of fiction (any form) using the following words correctly: affect, effect, who, whom, wherefore, principle, its, it’s, whence, ironic.

check it out.  got a splendiferous splendiforous splendifirous, oh screw it, got a cool phone for my birthday.  and here’s the moon in uranus or something. the squirrels are out tonight.

it never rains around here it just comes pouring down. i’m sitting here listening to this dire straits sing.  they suck.  seriously.  it’s too bad a real band couldn’t have sung this song. they have the musicality of a tuna salad.  which is unfortunate because really this song is kinda brilliant.  because there are people out there who turn a little rain into a downpour.  people who make crappy choices that result in crappy results and they look around and ask why this happened to them.  people who choose to associate with others who may not be the best people to hang out with and then seem surprised when the association ends in disaster.  people who step all over the little people in their quest to higher, better, more and then wonder why karma comes to bite them in the ass.  people who stay up too late and then end up tired and cranky and incapable of rational behavior and then wonder what they did wrong.  people who don’t think before they speak and then wonder why they’ve offended someone.  people who spend, spend, spend and then are flabbergasted that their money is gone.  people for whom the lyrics “I may be guilty yeah that may be true. But I’d be lying if I said I was to blame.” are not ironic. 

because, sure, it sometimes rains on people who don’t deserve it.  and sometimes the sun shines brightly on people who don’t deserve it either. unfair, but true.  but so often, the rain falls exactly where it should.

I grew up as the reasonable child.  My brother (theoretically older than me by two years) defines the word “picky”.  My mother would often make two dinners.  One for the picky one and the other for the rest of us.  She still does this.  In fact he currently lives at home with them for long and boring reasons which I don’t care about much (well, I might a little) so you wouldn’t either. 

My mother is a wonderful cook.  I didn’t cook for years because she is so good at it and wouldn’t teach me (although I probably didn’t want to learn.)  I couldn’t compete with that.  It took the spouse an eon to convince me that I don’t totally stink at cooking.  For the most part I still don’t like to cook ordinary.  I love to cook “events’, but run-of-the-mill dinner is hardly an event.  So, blah.

In any case, I’m a horrible and ungrateful child, so what I remember is this horrendous casserole.  I remember that it was a special dinner because we always ate it in the the dining room with the ugly mustard toile wallpaper.  And I forced it down, because my role was the reasonable child. 

You shouldn’t even read it, because it’s disgusting, vile, gross slop.

Mix and spoon over chilled tuna mixture. Chill overnight. Serves 6 to 8

those people i live with are funny.  at least they are funny to me.  i’m a little bit sleep-deprived and relieved-because-my-evenings-are-kinda-my-own-now-’cause-classes-are-done drunk, so i may not be a good judge of what’s funny.

spawn just out of the blue.  completely.  nobody talking to me, nobody even acknowledging that person at the computer even exists, let alone part of the morning universe.  out of the blue.  says to me “Mom, do NOT buy me underwear for Christmas.”

What do you say to that but… “ok”?  And then I completely lost all control.  might have even snorted.

littleloudone’s teacher snagged me in the hallway yesterday to wish me a happy birthday and tell me a little story.  apparently the kid asked her teacher how old she was (probably after telling her how old i am).  when teacher said “32″, littleloudone said, “and how many years have you been 32?”  i burst out laughing.  i’m still laughing. 

they are funny.  no wonder i’m a goofball.

Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum

I even like to say it.  It just rolls off the tongue. I love this book.  It is everything a picture book should be.  Filled with purpose and whimsy and delicious words.  It is “precious and priceless and fascinating and winsome.”  I love to read it aloud.  I haven’t read it to my school kiddos the year, but I will.

Names are so important.  When I was in middle school/high school, I was desperate to change my name.  Well, the spelling anyhow.  Because the cute way to spell it was so much more popular and those girls were themselves cute and popular.  And my spelling was the title of a horror movie.  But it could have been worse.  Because my mother had thought to name me Harriet (egads) or Mary Ellen (holy Waltons, Batman).  I remember obsessing about names when I was baking my babies.  Because the names needed to be absolutely perfect.  I agonized and wondered and made lists and agonized some more. Early on, I had a beautiful name picked for Spawn.  Then she started kicking.  I decided any baby who kicked that much couldn’t be Sarah Catherine.  And she wasn’t.  But her name is still perfect.  It’s beautiful and classic and traditional- she may not be those things (except beautiful), but it still suits her.  Littleloudone also has a beautiful name with the perfect nickname that suits her wild wackiness wonderfully.  And my girlies are indeed precious and priceless and fascinating and winsome.

Of course I love the ending of the story, where a teacher helps wonderful Chrysanthemum to feel like she is perfect.  Because… you know.