What kind of bitch are you?

Having retired from teaching, I am acquainted with the "bitch" term. I've come to terms with being called a bitch. It is always someone who has no respect for a teacher, their position and only want what they want. I knew one teacher who was proud to be called a bitch and she was. I wasn't.

Any way, what you came for - the quiz. What is my expertise? Well I am the white bitch, the fat bitch, the big tittied bitch.  I have known the black bitch. She is a lovely, keenly perceptive person. Skinny bitch can be nice too; but, nyah, nyah ney, everybody likes her better and I am ENVIOUS. There is a special voice for that in addition to shouting it.

Question Uno:    Are you male or female?

2. For those who answered male, are you straight or gay? Straight guys go to question 16. Gay guys go to question 42. Females, you are right on track. Have you ever noticed there is no such thing as you gorgeous bitch or you beautiful bitch?    a. yes        b. no

3. Have you ever been called a bitch?   a yes      b. no

4. Have you ever been made to feel like a bitch?     a. yes       b. no

5. Are you tall?      a. yes      b. no

6. Are you short?     a. yes      b. no

7. Are you a dog?     a. yes     b. no

8. Do you work? (Paid or Unpaid - housewife)      a. yes    b. no

Now add up all your yeses. Write it down somewhere so you wont forget.

Subtract your yeses from eight to get your nos.

Throw that number away. Because only a yes to number 7 counts. Not the "no count" that made you feel like one or called you one. Because standing up for yourself, doing your job does not make you a bitch.

Foggy Day

This is a response to flash friday prompt of the following photo,

Mill Creek Watershed 1949. Public domain photo by Helmut Buechner.

Can you see the road through the fog Howard?

No. 

We could go back. I don't want to get lost on this hill. It's a hell of a climb back to this outcrop of rock.

Sam we could but the buyer wont return if we don't deliver some roots.

Sam sits on the ground as Howard teeters on his haunches looking.

Howard you know the difference between a road and street is that a street has businesses and a road leads to a destination?

Houston Road has a lot of businesses.

Well, it also is a destination.

Sam, I grew up in a town where it was boulevard this boulevard that. All of them were small winding two lane roads, no trees or multi-lane roads.

Sitting in silence, Sam leans forward “Ginseng, Here's a whole mess of ginseng.”

“Hot damn Sam, Lets start digging, no one that can see us through this fog.”

Flea Market Dreams

Flash fiction in response to the garglemaster prompt, "Who dunnit?"

With one shoulder lower from a heavy bag, that gnomish woman heads straight to my “Beautiful Woman” cosmetic booth.

I yell, “People look older when your “Youth Elixir” wears off.”

“Repeat customers are my bread and butter”, she says smiling.

.”

shocking cosmetic surgery disaster

Shocking surgery disaster or face it - literally, old age.

The hardest part of being a senior citizen my once sleek roman nose looks more like a pronounced bird beak and my face looks a little horsey. I can't explain how an older woman's face get horsey but I know it when I see it. It is equivalent to some faces becoming porcine. Note, no cute bunny, kitty faces describe aging.

Character lines are more fun on other people. I'm getting my first serious wrinkles. The one that creeps me out is the one that looks like a stretched rubber band across my brow. Like a teenager, I know its not a good thing. Sort of a dastardly dance of the macabre on my face.

I think I'll live. Celebrities get unusual looks as they grow older because they do cosmetic treatments to relatively perfect faces. Their appearance is their payday.

I remember when I discovered that sleep does improve your apppearance. Gone were those days I stayed up half the night and except for a blunt on my alertness, I looked good.

Character lines do tell on you. Droopy skin of a two cocktails or beers a night or a smoker's wrinkles or sun worship with cute agespots blend with your favorite expression. Mom was right. Don't make those faces, your face may stay that way. It's a good thing to be a smiler than a scowler. However too much of a good thing could make you look like the "Joker".

And to the celebrity with a shocking cosmetic surgery disaster. You look good and so do I. We have our health. Well most of it. lol

Water under the bridge

One important step to success is having an openness to listening to others whether it is a critic or praise bearer. There is something to be learned from both.

We hate a critic but it can be a fast forward into correcting a flaw. It can be a reaffirmation of what we believe in. It can also be discouragement from doing what you love. Wisdom is knowing where that puts you.

I taught at an evening high school and I had three girls that were little witches. They were friends with the principal's granddaughter. The principal could be a jerk with her power. In other words if I wanted a job, I had to play a daily check mate with Hilly, Ghetti, and Suwillie. Not their real names of course.

For one week, I had incredibly painful stomach cramps about thirty minutes before class. I laid down on the floor in my office space the first time. I thought I needed to go to ER. The pain eased, I taught all night. So on the second day, I knew it would pass. This is when I learned your body reflects your emotional state.

What did I get from Hilly, Ghetti, and Suwillie besides stomach pains? Perfect worksheets with no mistakes. I was able to reuse everything twice a year. I did not get better at taking crap. I don't care how long you get it, it never is easy. I can think it has everything to do with the person dishing it; but, I still hate it.

I don't believe in Karma. I do believe we reap what we sow. I think people do nasty things and get away with it. I think eventually they get careless and can lose it. We all know stories of wealthy old creeps who succeeded on the backs of others.

What I do know as time passes, you have choices. A friend of my dad who had a mentally ill wife, somberly talked about life deals you a hand of cards to play and you play them the best you can.

What I remember most about the man was his humor. He would take his false teeth and clatter them at you as a child. Swoop you and kiss you flat on the mouth as a 13 year old. No he wasn't a dirty old man. He knew to make merry and leave everyone laughing.

What I learned from him was loyalty and the choice to laugh. I learned loyalty from my parents as well as other traits. Some of them I thought were stupid since other people did not care. As I get older, they were right as rain.

hypersexualized generation or moving on down the road of life

I woke up one morning with the desire to write a book. The same book I have started over and over and got frustrated and quit with maybe a page or two written. Being a reader, a book I guess is my measure of a successful life. It's one that I really put on the shelf like being able to turn a cartwheel at 50.

As a teacher, I had always socialized with people my age and older. People younger were to be talked with, I liked them, but they were not someone to be friends with. I know that sounds terrible but it is the way I felt deep inside. I did not know I felt that way but looking back that sums it up.

Anyway in helping to make a feature length film in which everyone thought I was incredibly incompetent; I made my first venture into hanging out with the younger generations. The fact that I was out of place did not bother me. I am a lifelong geek which I can assure you is not as glamorous as the television will make you think.

What I learned is that each generation has its own baggage. My generation in which the hippies came from only wanted a nice home with central heat and air and a new car. We would work on Saturday, midnight or whatever as long as we got the stuff we needed. Sounds terrible but once you get exposed to central heat and air you never want to go back.

What surprises me most about my generation is how religious some of the folks are that I grew up with. I am a cultural evangelical Christian. Hey if a Jew can be a cultural Jew, I can be a cultural Baptist. I was handicapped in the religion department in that my own parents did not believe everything they said in church. Heck, my own dad discussed that a preacher can be flawed or even more flawed than the rest of us.

What doesn't surprise me is that most of the people I grew up with are believers in a higher power. Really difficult times in your life lead you in that direction.

Anyway - to get to the title of this post. I have observed a hamburger advertisement in which the woman is biting into a hamburger and looks like she is having an orgasm. Now I have been lucky, hunger is deliberately skipping a meal for me. But, hunger has a different face. Eagerness to eat has a different face than this woman.

I have been watching a television show. Some of its attention focusing charm is the nudity, nudity of less than perfect body of star, sex and sex acts. I realize that if I write a screenplay, I've got to have scenes that jolt people. How well they sell, I don't know. Every other word is not going to be F----. Matter of fact, that quick version of "swell" in this generation of movies will not be used. 

I won't give the name of the show since I don't like it. However, I watch it on a regular basis in morbid fascination. I even note the writers. Some episodes are better than others.  

It's just an orchard.

It's just an orchard, peaches ripen every year. Commuting each weekday, the orchard seems to flash by. Bare limbs in winter, sometimes nonexistent as I fumble with the radio, adjust the heater, perhaps sneak a look at my cell phone.

I stop each summer to pick a bucket. Wearing protective long sleeves and looking for or perhaps hoping to see a snake, I wander deep. Picking up a soft ripe peach from the ground to bite. Wiping the juices running down my chin, I stand and stare at the limbs drooping from the weight of the with fruit. A small cloud of gnats pass between trees.

I remember as a teenager working at the packing shed, the smell of fresh peaches. I would watch the men who toiled in the fields at the end of the day. Strangely envious even though the moments I spent picking, no matter how careful, I would rush home to shower off the peach fuzz.

Every spring the field dances from the road. Ribbons of pink hued trees in contrast to the green grass lay across the fields. I always plan to stop and take pictures. This year I pull my car to the side of the highway, half the trees are just stumps. A sketchy orchard remains for a final harvest. 

Some of the stumps have a branch covered with the familiar pink blooms with a heart of deep red.