Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: April 2012

• The Lemon Tree Saga Continues

  Posted at 2:30 am by kayewer, on April 29, 2012

  Last time, if you remember (and those of you who remember watching “Rocky & Bullwinkle” are now smiling), I have a lemon tree growing in the office.  I started it from a sprouted seedling, and it has gotten quite large.  This week it took to leaning in its pot.  A kindly co-worker used the stick from one of the miniature American flags surrounding the pot to prop it up when I was out of the office.  It needs a new pot.

  The quest to nurture this plant means having to upgrade its pot, just like parents change kids’ shoes every other week during growth spurts.  Dutifully I popped into the craft and garden store for a pot, only to find that all of the larger pots had no saucers.  The salesperson claimed there were none, but I’m sure they exist because there are placement holes drilled into the bottoms of the pots.  They lost a sale.

  Being pressed for time, I went to SLR–what I have dubbed WalMart (Store of Last Resort)–and spent a frustrating ten minutes in the potting aisle with an assortment of pots which, after the week I’ve had, all look like the wrong size.  If I had been smart, I would have measured the old pot beforehand, but the past week was a mental whirlwind of activity, and my brain had no room for a pot measurement.  So I did the next best thing:  I measured the pot I liked and will check it against the current one so I can return and buy the right size later in the week.

  Meanwhile, the tree is still enjoying the sunny side of the office, though at a slightly tilted point of view.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• What Do You Do With a Lemon Tree?

  Posted at 2:04 am by kayewer, on April 22, 2012

  One day a few years ago, I squeezed lemon juice from a wedge which had been packed in my lunch for use with a relaxing thermos of hot tea.  The lemon was so dense that a seed, which would have been removed prior to packing, escaped detection; it had also germinated and had green shoots at both ends.  Not being well versed in lemon genetics, or the possible harm from using a lemon with progeny, I kept the seed and drank the juice in my tea anyway.  It was fine, and shortly after that the seed went into a cup of water until I was able to put it into a pot.  It promptly died; I think I may have planted it backward (so much for a yellow thumb).

  A few weeks later, it happened again.  It seemed to me that some great force in the universe wanted me to plant a lemon seed, so in spite of my failure the first time, I tried again.  This seed thrived on a sunny windowsill in the office, and has since gone through four pots and six or seven soil changes.  I found a Miracle-Gro(R) soil specifically for citrus and cactus plants which gets greedily fed upon as if I were raising Audrey II from “Little Shop of Horrors.”

  That little seed project #2 has, in fact, become Audrey III, a tall leafy plant some four feet or so tall.  I don’t dare risk my back to take it from its table to set it on the floor to measure it, but it leans toward the window like a tanner tilting the beach umbrella seeking the best dose of sun.  The running joke in the office is when we’ll see a lemon on it.  It’s unlikely to happen indoors, as somebody brought up the fact that it can’t be pollinated inside.  Also, living in the Northeast, it’s not destined for life outdoors anyway.

  So what does one do with a lemon tree?

  And no, killing is not an option.

  Suggestions have been made to donate it to a nursery or greenhouse, though there is a chance that it can continue to grow indoors if it’s fertilized properly and re-potted when necessary.  For now, it’s thriving wonderfully.  It does make a nice addition to the office decor; donated flags have made it the most patriotic tree around.  There are only so many size pots, so I guess I’ll cross the bridge again when I reach it.  It would certainly earn its keep if it makes lemonade.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged lemon tree

• Musings About “Bully”

  Posted at 2:51 am by kayewer, on April 15, 2012

  Ever since I heard about the new film, Bully, which opened nationally on Friday the 13th, I wondered if I should see it.  I haven’t yet.  The reviews say it’s an ambitious film, and it has urged action and reactions from everybody who has viewed it, regardless of whether they are just curious viewers or have been a bully or a victim of bullying.

  What concerns me is that one film can’t truly tell all aspects of the story.  Reviews indicate that the bullies themselves don’t get interviewed.  That would have been a great idea.  The film apparently shows footage of actual bullying incidents, interviews surviving family members of those bullying victims who have committed suicide, and shows how ignorant the education system can be when faced with bullying issues.  I don’t know if watching a cinematic tale, told in the limited time frame allotted to feature films, would be a worthwhile experience for me.

  Bullying is one of those topics that doesn’t get the recognition or treatment it deserves.  Even though society is finding a way to machete its way through the stigmatic jungles of racism, the rights of the gay community and aid to the disabled, nobody seems to really know how to handle the kind of cruelty which bullying brings out in people.  It germinates in our children and polarizes the classrooms and hallways of our schools into factions of perceived power and subjugating oppression the likes of which should have been forgotten after the Industrial Age enabled the common man to read and reason independently.

  Ever since the topic of bullying came out with Columbine High School, I have felt helpless in the shadows cast by these underage terrorists who look like children but speak and act like seasoned and soulless lunatics.  Who are they, and how dare they.  This film strives to reveal the problem and help restore the power where it belongs; to the adults who should take a stand (or, in the case of some of the ignorant ones, know better).

  I hope that this one film isn’t the end of the story.  I think it would be helpful to hear from the bullies and find out how they think their world should be run.  It may wind up sounding like something we have seen before when somebody decides somebody else should not have the right to exist and others go along with it, but this movie is a step toward understanding and possibly ending the horror.  That is a success story worth filming.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

• Exchanging Papers

  Posted at 2:27 am by kayewer, on April 8, 2012

  I’ve been committed to an anthology being assembled by a group of women I’ve worked with for over a decade.  We’ve been at this particular project for some months now, and we’re at the stage at which the final manuscript is taking shape.  It was hard to part with my contribution, because the minute the writing leaves your hands, it’s like sending your child off to summer camp for the first time.  It’s a type of separation anxiety that only writers can feel.

  A short story like mine takes time to develop and nurture.  When I finally let go, another member of our team dropped me an email and offered to proofread for me.  I’m happy for the feedback and the second pair of eyes, because the DIY process becomes harder the longer you’re at it.  Once you have looked at your work 200 times, everything starts to look like drivel and you can’t look objectively any longer.

  A problem I’ve had with word processing is that documents tend to open on page one, even if I stopped typing on page 15.  This leads to a desire to read from page one all over again until I got back to where I left off.  I became so obsessed at one point that I began looking at the sequence of actions in the story to make sure my characters were not sitting down in paragraph one, and sitting down again in paragraph two, without the requirement of standing up or doing something other than sitting down somewhere inbetween.

  I recently shredded the editing copy on which I had noted “sat,” “stood,” “fell down” and other such margin scribbles, and then I ran a fresh one to look for overusage of favorite words.  One of my favorite authors has always stood out when I read her books because of a pet word, “miasma,” which has cropped up enough that I have noticed it.  It’s a harmless quirk, and because her work is historical fiction, there are plenty of chances for there to be a miasma description.  Usually it’s a plague or mid-summer ozone tainted by poor sanitary conditions.  Maybe, though, it’s the cloud of doubt that makes writers like me not want to let go their manuscripts.

  Other than dutifully using “said” in dialogue, I’m not sure if I have a pet word in my writing, but my volunteer editor will surely spot it if one does exist, bless her heart.  Or, if she wants this to all be over, she’ll smile and say nothing, because we are all writing with that same attention to detail, and in each of our manuscripts we see our own little obsessive shortcomings.

   

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged critiquing manuscript, editing manuscript, writer, writers group, writing

• The Period in the Paragraph

  Posted at 2:04 am by kayewer, on April 1, 2012

  When you’re a writer, your work becomes your young and you have to go through the parenting cycle.  A story starts out as a sentence, which you begin dressing up with all its special clothing.  I always start with a diaper, because I need something to catch all the poo that issues from a first draft.

  One has to feed a writing project with all the proper verbs, nouns and sentence structure.  Of course you’d like to take your child out in a stroller or carrier, but this baby is a solo project; if you show off a work in progress, your family will love it even if it is full of poo, and your friends will be afraid to tell you it’s homely because they feel it will develop as it ages.  In this case, they’re probably right.

  If the story starts to talk, it’s gibberish at first, but once you’re past terrible page two it starts refusing things you want it to do and makes demands.  Your stream of consciousness at three in the morning reads like a temper tantrum by the time you get around to reading it at noon the next day.

  You give it a physical with spell check, even though it’s a pediatrician no parent really trusts.  You innoculate it with anti-virus or protect it with a cloud as it grows, matures, rebels, and drives you batty.  Finally, you sit and take a look at your child and wonder if it is really what you started out to do.  You try to buy what you think are nicer clothes for it, dressing it up in prosy description or pleading to just let you cut a little off the top.

  Finally it’s ready to go out on its own.  The last words are spoken and you put a period at the end.  It may not get married or get a degree, but it will let you know how it is doing once in awhile when it gets noticed and does well enough to send some money home.  Unless you’re writing an expose’ and then you get sent all its dirty laundry.

  Share this:

  • Facebook

  Like Loading...
  Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged short story writing, writing

• Feedback

  	Eden on Getting the Message
  	Eden on The Unasked Questions
  	Eden on And Her Shoes Were #9
  	Eden on The Poison Field
  	Eden on Final Tally