Where 'RED' left off...

Yikes, has it been that long since I posted here? And it wasn't even my own thoughts...it was my grandson's smokin' 2nd grade poetry. If I remember right he got the chance to read the poem 'RED' in front of his class and their families. Actually, I think anyone who wanted to could get up and read something they had prepared. It would of kinda been like "beatnik night" at the local elementary! And dang, me without my black beret and dark sunglasses...HA!

What is Red? Poetry by Damion

Damion's class has been studying various forms of poetry and they actually had a poetry night, where each child was invited up in front of the class to read their work. This was Damion's contribution...better than a lot of stuff from the pros I think!!!

They have also been working on using what their teacher describes as "juicy" words to improve their vocabulary, and to discover other more descriptive words for the same old 'good' and 'nice'. I thought Damion did an outstanding job!

*************************

Red smells like red, stinky paint? Red tastes like cherry pie,
sour cherries, delicious red apples, and
fantastic strawberries.
Red looks like the heart inside of you.
It looks like books and even some posters of
fruit.
Red feels red, like a cold nose or like a burning
sunburn and a mole on your nose.
What do you think about red?

A Funny Thing Happened While Under the Knife--

Most surgeries are voluntary. Let’s face it. Unless they rush you unconscious to the operating room from the E.R., with multiple life threatening injuries, you have to choose to ‘go under the knife’. As my husband is fond of saying, when the pain, aggravation or vanity of your affliction, whatever it may be, outweighs the fear—that is when you succumb to surgery. And that’s a fact. And that’s what I did. And just so it’s clear, it was pain NOT vanity that drove me…

Now I’m a writer, so it is only natural that I should write a little something about the surgery experience. And I will get to the finer points of that someday. My surgery was for tendon re-attachment on my right wrist…and okay, ouch, is right! I won’t go into the gorier details here. Suffice it to say, a screw was inserted into the bone, the tendon has been sewn to the screw, and the cast is in place—my healing has begun. I am typing pretty well, once again, not that I was the speediest of typists before. But I got by. I have a completed sci/fi-fantasy novel, and another Young Adult work, just about done, and many short stories that with a little fleshing out could be longer works.

Anyway, here comes the interesting part. While I was having my tendon repaired, ‘under the knife’ as it was, my husband Neil was talking me up to the world at large and scouting work for me as a ghost writer! Now I am only just starting to believe in my work, the way he believes in my work. And I have to say, the idea of ghost writing is a whole new intriguing insight into the love of writing. I am reading up on the process even as I write this. What a varied and lucrative business is this world of writing!

Apparently one of the traveling nurses, now under contract, at ambulatory surgery wants to write about…The Adventures of a Traveling Nurse!!! I suppose he would have A LOT of interesting stories, especially if he traveled worldwide and with my background in the Emergency Room, well…it could turn into quite the collaboration. I guess first comes the healing and then the sealing…of a deal that is! Write on to me and RIGHT ON to the love of my life, my biggest fan, my husband, Neil –xoxo

NIXIE tubes, Manuals and MAME Cabinets...oh my!

NIXIE tubes, TENOR EPROM, Paratronics Model 100A Logic Analyzer, EICO 460 Tubed Based Oscilloscope--other vintage computer, old electronics info and a manual for just about anything relating to the afore mentioned, plus MAME cabinets, pictures and specs...And if you know what any of this is you are just geeky enough to go to the husbands' web page, enjoy!
http://www.electronballet.com/

Where Have All the Maples Gone?

The quickest route from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ might be the whole point of taking Maple Valley Highway, or SR 169 as it is technically called, but by doing so you won’t get to know the Maple Valley I’ve discovered. It is not a drab stretch of ‘urbural’ (my mix of urban meets rural!) highway. It really is a town of unique people, sights, and smells, from the weathered farmers and cheerful locals that gather for an early home-style breakfast or a late morning meeting, at the Testy Chef Café, to the tantilizing smell of smoked meats from, Big Bertha, the black Volkswagen-sized smoker at BJ’z BBQ.

I feel I can now speak from experience, because I’ve been a resident of our fair city for six years now. I’ve done my time as a “newcomer”, asking the silly questions, like why do they keep those enormous, fierce looking llama’s in with the tiny helpless sheep and goats? The answer is coyotes. Apparently llamas have no fear of the small mangy predators. And defend the smaller animals, like they were all part of one big herd.

I’ve moaned and groaned with the best of ‘em, concerning the growing pains of urban sprawl, which by the way my husband and I made sure we would share no guilt in, as we did not have a new home built. We bought a twenty year old residence already established, and make our improvements as we can afford them. Maple Valley has become my town, and I can not help but worry about its’ future.

What I save my best worrying for, however, is not increased traffic so much, or the new businesses popping up everywhere. It’s how our unique little eco-system is being handled. If we continue on the laid-back road we’re taking as a city, will the children who move here in the years to come know that Maple Valley was named after the ‘acer circinatum’ or vine maple?

With the major clearing that’s been going on, in the last few years, for new homes and businesses and well, sprawl, it seems that my Maple Valley is growing up in a hurry and our fragile, native plants especially the vine maple might be paying the price. I’m afraid that in as little as ten years, the children who move here will say, “Maple Valley? …Why is it called that? There’s not even a Maple in sight”.

~By Karen M. Breeden~

Excerpt from "What I Wouldn't Give..."

A Young Adult Novel--2nd Draft:

Prologue: Three Years Ago

They say I died in the Emergency Room, not once but twice. ‘Coding’, they called it. And for such a little, unimportant sounding word, it caused (1) a huge rush of excitement and, (2) the very last thing I remember, before actually dying…pain, terrible pain. And then there was nothing, until I opened my eyes to a room of stark white, with that number two memory on my mind. I felt like I really had died. The pain was so intense. This couldn’t be heaven. Maybe it was the other place, or somewhere in between? That was called purgatory, wasn’t it…the place in between?

I tried to swallow and felt sure it must be hell. There could be no other answer for the fire in my throat and chest. I tried to bring hands up to soothe the pain, but the action was stopped short after an inch or so. It was the same for my feet. I was restrained to my bed. That in itself was not unusual. I’d been restrained in the E.R. before, the times when my out of control behavior might hurt me or someone else. At least these were the soft kind that wouldn’t leave raw welts on my pale skin. Those marks took more than a week to go away and gave some guys ideas.

I thought to try and turn my head to better see where I was, exactly, but the tiniest movement caused burning, the likes of a red hot poker, clear to the bottom of my stomach. I tried to lick my dry lips and found, tape blocking my tongue instead. Damn it, I’d really done it good this time. I had actually been admitted to the hospital, somewhere upstairs. I wondered how long I had been laying here with a tube shoved down my throat and something else stuck up my nose. With each passing minute I was becoming more aware of machines and sounds. I was also hurting more and remembering more about the events leading up to this.

Like I was pretty sure it had been close to the first of the month, when I’d bought my last junk from Big Nolie. Men were generous around payday and Nolie had been generous with me too, adding to what I bought, to the point of almost killing me it seems. I remember I had bought first, and then found a dark place to, well shoot up. Not much else comes back after that. But I am certain, I hadn’t gone back home, before being rushed to the E.R. And so my part of the rent, for the room I shared with three other people, didn’t get there either—which meant Benz, Minh and Petra would more than likely divi-up my few things, or Benz would just throw everything, in the direction of the dumpster out back.

Sweat was popping out all over me. I had chills. I was sick to my stomach, and now that I was even more alert, I could tell I was coming down hard. So there was my answer to that question. I’d been tied up here that long, at least. I laid still and thought about crying. But how could I cry around the tube? What if crying broke something on it, and I couldn’t get any air? And what if my nose started to run? Was I hooked up to a machine for that? I started to panic.

I began to suck in deeper breaths, trying to get more air. The machines measured everything though, and it wasn’t enough. I felt the urge to throw up, anything to push the tube out. Now the tears did come hot and heavy, running into the hair at my temples, but crying gave me no relief. In fact, I was choking. How did they know how much air I needed? I strained against the knots holding me down, thrashing my head back and forth. In a far away distance I heard some alarm sound. Starbursts of blue and black lights jumped and danced in front of my eyes. Suddenly I couldn’t move any more, but from somewhere I heard a woman’s loud commanding voice, “She’s waking up!

“I couldn’t be waking up or I’d be able to move.”

“Get on the other side Russ…” The woman’s voice again, close to my head, “See if she’ll listen to you like before. She’s gotta stop trying to gag the tube.”

“Mira, calm down!” Another voice demanded. He sounded older, male and impatient with me. But there was a sort of concern too, “Mira you’re in the hospital.”

“Duh.”

“You’ve got to stop fighting the tube…” Two chimes from two different machines went off, interrupting what else he might have said to me.

“Her heart rate is climbing so fast, it’s gonna jump off the monitor here in a second!” The woman was speaking again. If Russ had said her name, I hadn’t heard it. At least I think it was the woman. For some reason it came out low pitched and sounded warped, like she was talking through a long roll of wrapping paper. But no, her mouth was moving fine, keeping up with her words. So it had to be me. Through eyes that would not stay open, as hard as I tried, I watched her gesture and talk.

“Call another code... ...Call—aaaaa—cooooode—nowwwwww!”

This I Believe...

This is an essay submitted to NPR's "This I Believe" segment, November 2005, as part of a writing assignment that featured a 'defining moment'. Instructor and classmates' comments follow.

“I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I will march in protest, to defend that right. I will fight, until my last breath to keep that right. I do not however, believe in abortion.”

Those few sentences, and that mixed belief, got me ‘0’ on a college project. The assignment was a debate. Although, I didn’t know that until we were asked to take a seat on either, the ‘Pro-choice’ or ‘Pro-life’, side.

“There are no seats in the middle,” I pointed out, knowing my feelings all too well, and they didn’t really fit either category.

“That’s the point,” the instructor replied, “It’s called a debate.”

There were a few snickers, from somewhere. I remember blushing with humiliation, anger and, a little sadness as well. I moved a desk between sides and did not participate.

I suppose humiliation and anger are understandable. The sadness, I’ll explain. You see, this was a ‘lifestyles’ class for my major—teaching, special education. From the first day I decided to teach, I’d dreamt of being ‘that’ junior-high teacher, the cool one, my students could turn to when…then I’d fill in the blank with all manner of interesting problems they might share with me.

If I wanted to be that teacher, however, I could never take sides in this. It certainly would not be my place there, at Anywhere Jr. High. We’d gotten ‘the speech’ on impartiality the first week. “You must not preach your personal beliefs…” “There must be no confusion between church and state…” So what was the point here? After all it was nobody’s business but our own. Was the instructor merely curious? Did he forget a lesson plan that day? Was this some kind of weird test? I asked. He ignored.

When the class divided, it went much as I expected. All those representing the various religions—a few of them I knew from my own church—sat to one side. The ‘party-ers’, avid feminists and a few of the remaining guys—who were trying to get in good with the feminists—sat on the other. And me, I just wasn’t sure how this could be relevant.
Pro-choice/Pro-life, did it really matter, if we couldn’t teach it?

Two minutes into this ‘debate debacle’, I stared in awe at the hypocrites all around me. I listened to the volleying arguments and how they all jumped, to defend their personal beliefs, forgetting all about their promises. Shouting out— “The Bible says…” “No, they need more education about condoms, birth control, abstinence…” “…Abortion should be available, but only if the baby might be born severely disabled…” “Our kids are more vulnerable…they need to know about abortion…” It made me sick. Had the last two years meant anything to my fellow students, or were they going to go out there and teach whatever they wanted?

That was 1985. So why, in today’s America, do I feel like the last twenty years meant nothing to my fellow Americans—that we are, as a country, regressing not progressing—and that the separation of church and state is as much a myth today as it was then?

Just my thoughts,
~K.M. Breeden

Replies/Comments:

Your instructor/Dr. Eva Shaw writes: "Karen: Fine writing, and while I can not/and better not give my two cents on the topic, I can on your crafting. It's vital, strong and well edited. I'm proud of you. Eva"

Toni writes: "I admire the strength of your conviction. Unfortunately, the backdrop of your experience would probably play out the same way today. I don't think you sounded preachy at all. You made a statement, shared your insights, and questioned the path of argument. This is wonderful, Karen. It is frightening to think that we are regressing rather than progressing. Kudos."

LJ writes: "Karen B - This really hit home. And no, you don't sound preachy. And yes, I know the feeling of being in the middle, in the "gray" area. I think you set our your "argument" rather well - food for thought here."

Lois writes: "You've pointed out some real gray areas here. Nice use of dialogue to bring it to life."

Tess writes: "Karen, the quality of this essay is outstanding. You really did a good job with this. You really got your thoughts across. You should have someone else read this aloud to you - so you can hear how good it sounds and how powerful it is as an essay."

jpenni writes: "This is a wonderful piece - it is a sad but very true issue. Your wording and use of dialogue is good and rings true. You should be proud of this piece. I agreed with all the other comments too.