Speed writing

"Write from the point of view of a spoon inside a dishwasher." (From http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/)

"Ouch! Hey, that was not cool! How would you like it if I shoved you face-down into a crowded little box up?" I shouted, wishing I could move around. Of course, no one heard me over the clatter of the other dishes. In only a few moments, I was joined by two others, also muttering about our predicament.

"This is gross," came a voice from beside me.

"Definitely," I agreed. The stench of garlic was overwhelming, and it was mixed with the ever-delicious aroma of spoiled milk. "Every day this happens," I muttered, trying not to breathe. I had hoped that, maybe, tonight would be different, but alas, it was not to be.

The scent of soap was suddenly in the air, briefly overriding the food smells that were around me. With no other notice, I felt myself being moved sideways. As I watched the light fade, I could hear a door close and a latch click. A slight grinding noise echoed in the dark, and then it began...

From beneath, I was hit with one jet of water, then another, and another. A whirling wand flew below me, completely drenching me. Moments later, the lather began. Over and over, I was showered in soapy suds. My cries fell on deaf ears, as everyone around me endured the same fate. It seemed to last forever, but at last the soap stopped pouring. That was not the end, though. The wand paused, and I nearly trembled, anticipating what was to come. The wand began spinning again, with scalding hot water streaming out. Again and again, I was soaked through, the water pouring off of me as quickly as it rained both up and down on me. With another click, the water stopped and the wand spun to a stop. Beneath me, I could see the coil start to quiver as the electricity raced into it. Within moments, it began to glow red hot. My companions and I cried out as we burned in the heat, but still, no one heeded our sounds. Hotter and hotter we grew, the water evaporating from our surfaces. Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, the coil clicked, and began to lose it's glow. Very, very slowly, the heat began to dissipate. At long last, the door opened once more.

A hand reached in and pulled me from my box. I sighed in relief as I was finally deposited back into the drawer. I absolutely hate that dishwasher.


EDIT: I thought I lost this and I was really pissed off, but Blogspot autosaves! I love Blogspot! You rock my world!

Another day, another dollar

It would be nice to get a dollar a day extra - I'd probably put that money away to save for something fun at the end of the year, because you can do a lot with $365! Of course, at this point, I think I would end up using it for puppy training classes. I love my Mia, but she woke me up howling at 2am today. If it happens again tonight, I may have to move her downstairs. That will really mess with our after-work and bedtime routines, but I can't handle waking up to that again. Poor puppy.

On a happy note, I have things rolling along for Shane's birthday. There is no present yet, but I am organizing a celebration for him. Although I did see a nifty thing that I may have to get him. But I won't mention what it is here, because he may read this...

And another happy note - my dvd ripper thingy seems to be working properly! Yay! I'm not pirating movies, but I am putting them into iPod format, so I can watch them at lunch. Of course, I don't have a lot of time to watch at lunch, what with the crossword puzzles and all, but you never know. Dr. Moore may get hit in the head with a falling tree and suddenly gain super-speed abilities, allowing us to have a full lunch hour every day. I don't expect this, but it's good to be prepared.

Speaking of being prepared, I cleaned out my purse tonight. By cleaned out, I mean I just pulled everything out of it, and I'll take the bare minimum to work tomorrow because there was just waaaaay too much in there to go through it all tonight. I had: an umbrella, a dayplanner, a Palm Pilot, a cell phone, an iPod, headphones, an iPod recording attachment, a wordsearch book, two highlighters, three pens, a pencil, an EpiPen, migraine meds, a pillbox with lots of options, 'girl stuff', a wallet, a card wallet, a change sock (yes, sock... it's blue and cute), several receipts, house keys, car keys, Shane's spare car keys, Ophthalmic Assistant flash cards, two lipsticks, lip gloss, hand lotion, a dime, a nickel, two packs of gum, a pair of socks, a brownie (leftover from today's lunch - it wasn't there long!), a box of Smarties, a hair elastic, three cough drops, six Pep-o-mint Lifesavers (individually wrapped), a gum wrapper, a monkey, and a list of people to call for Shane's party. Wait. There was no monkey. No wonder my shoulder hurts! I need to switch to a tote bag, a backpack, or just leave stuff at home. But I need it all!! I just know that whatever I leave at home tomorrow will be exactly what I need later that day. *le sigh*

I got comments!

Because I'm slow at things, I totally didn't realize that I've had comments on some of my posts! Wow! I feel all popular and special - especially since one of them is from someone I don't even know! I'm way cooler than I thought. Okay, enough ego.

I bought things tonight. I wasn't going to buy lots of things. I was going to buy a watch battery. That was all. I ended up with a watch battery, a black dress, a bottle of Dr. Pepper, two Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars, a bottle of water, a monkey rug, a Sudoku book, two crossword books, and an On-The-Go Organizer. I spent money that should have been saved to replace my camera, because my digital camera decided to finally die on me. But I have a monkey rug to put at the foot of my bed with the monkey duvet and monkey sheets and monkey pillows. I think the next stop is a stuffed monkey (or ten) to live on the bed. Maybe that will go on my birthday wish list for next year - monkeys! I almost bought a monkey shower curtain, but I couldn't let go of the pink yet. (For those of you who have not been in my bathroom, it's pink. Very pink. Barbie pink. Everywhere. Even the toilet has a fuzzy pink cover. It's almost creepy, but I love it.)

While I was in the bookstore tonight, I found "Listology" - a book of lists for your life. I think, on days that I can't find anything else to write about, I'm going to make lists. I like lists.

Two weeks... now what?

So last night was my 14th consecutive blog post, which is a good thing, because it means that for two weeks, I have written something every day. It may not have been a high-quality something, but it was something nevertheless. Unfortunately, I've got a bit of writer's block now. I've been hoping that my Facebook friends would give me more fodder for short stories, but the last two days have been rather uneventful.

It's not helping that the puppy has decided that 9:30 is now her awake time instead of her calmly chewing on Kong time. Perhaps we need to rethink that 7 pm nap...

I have three chief projects this week: 1. Organizing a birthday party for Shane on Friday night; 2. Getting my apartment cleaned up for said party; and 3. Finding ideas for writing about, because blogging about writer's block can get really old, really fast.

On an exciting note, however, I now have monkeys on my bed. I was in Target with Shane, and I saw a duvet cover with monkeys on it, and I thought it was adorable, and then I saw that it came in grown-up bed sizes, too. I apparently made a really cute face, because next thing I know, Shane was buying me the monkey duvet AND the coordinating striped monkey sheets. I washed them and put them all on my bed tonight. Go monkeys!

Puppy sleeping in my lap

I have a puppy almost asleep in my lap, and it's the cutest thing in the world. My puppy is 13 weeks old, and a bundle of energy for most of the time that I'm home. I feel mean for keeping her in the crate all day, but she's teething and I don't want her teething on my shoes or carpet or walls (yes, she has gnawed on my walls).

Today, though, we had an awesome day. I've got a pair of big bells hanging on the doorknob of my front door. Every time I take her outside to do her business (I love puppy-poo euphemisms!), I ring the bell. In the past week, she's totally figured out that ringing the bell will get a trip outside. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite get the subtleties of bell-ringing - she hurls herself in the general direction of the bells and actually hits them about 30% of the time. I wait until she actually rings the bells before I get up to take her out. Her aim is improving.

Today, she peed on my carpet once. That sucked. But on the bright side, she pooped outside and peed outside twice! So she's learning! Yay! Go Mia!

We're also starting to work on 'leave it' as a command - I'm trying to teach her NOT to pick things up when I say it. Unfortunately, her attention span rivals that of a gnat, so it'll take a while. But it will be worth it in the end! Next week, we'll start working on 'sit' again. And she already knows 'come here' - smart girl!

I must go, now, because the puppy is getting sleepier, and I have to put her to bed. I love my sleepy puppy!

EDIT: I just noticed - I've written every day for two straight weeks! Go me!

Another Facebook-inspired idea

From a status update: "Joe lost his beard."

It happened overnight. Joe had been working rather diligently at perfecting the look of his facial hair for months. He had trimmed the beard part and shaved the moustache bit, getting what he considered a perfect look. He had even gone so far as to dye it to match the purple tone that covered the hair on his head. But when he woke up on Sunday morning, it was gone.

He didn't notice right away. As he slowly opened his eyes, the first thing Joe noticed was how badly his head was throbbing. The next thing he noticed was that the light made it worse, so he closed his eyes again. With a heavy sigh, Joe reached up to rub his temples, hoping that might make his head feel better. It didn't. He ran his hands down his face to stroke his beard, a habit that he had picked up soon after he had started growing it. Something was wrong this morning.

Joe ran his hands over his beard again, trying to figure out what exactly it was that was not right. It took another moment to sink in - he was running his hands over something that was not there. A third pass over his chin, and Joe's hands finally registered that they were feeling skin that was almost as smooth as the day he was born.

With a yelp and a curse, Joe sat straight up, which prompted another yelp and curse as his head throbbed more vehemently. Forcing himself to crawl out of bed, he stumbled to the bathroom. In the mirror, his reflection confirmed what his hands had felt - Joe had lost his beard. Feeling absolutely miserable, Joe decided to go back to bed. Maybe it was all a bad dream. Laying down, he soon became unconscious.

A few hours later, he woke again, feeling somewhat less hung over. Remembering what he thought was a weird dream, he ran his hands over his face again. The beard was still gone. Shit. He struggled to remember the events of the previous night, but drew a blank. With a sad sigh, Joe got out of bed and looked around the room, as if hoping he would magically find his beard and just slip it back on. As his gaze swept over his chest of drawers, he stopped and frowned. There was a piece of paper laying there, one that did not look familiar. He reached over to pick it up, and lying beneath it was a pile of coarse, purple hair - his beard!

"Bastard," was all that was written on the piece of paper in a feminine hand. Joe stared at it, wondering what, or who, he had done the night before.

A short one

It's been a very busy day, and I haven't been home much, so I'm only doing a short blog today, because I need to spend time with the puppy.

The puppy is not yet housebroken. Housebreaking her is starting to break me. Three a.m. poopings suck. Especially when she doesn't actually poop, she just runs around outside.

But she now has Kong Stuff'n, so that should entertain her while I type.

Or not. She just knocked over a stack of cd cases. This is a sign. The blog is done for tonight. I promise better things tomorrow!