Caves and Coves

Ack, I was going to post this earlier, then my laptop died and by the time I got it to start working again, I realized I had Bones season finale waiting for me in my Hulu queue. Did anyone see last night’s Bones? What did you think? I mean, hallucinations? C’mon…

Anyway, yesterday we took a roadtrip and went to a park. This wasn’t your typical kind of park where you stand and gaze at the lake, then toss rocks at the waves. At first, I thought it was pretty. Cliffs with the lake 16 feet below is kinda cool, eh?

Then we got closer, and heard thunder. It was supposed to storm yesterday afternoon, but this thunder was rhythmic, not inharmonic like the first few sounds of thunder before a storm. Ahead, water lapped out from under the haze and the fog. In between the trees, this is what we saw:

It’s so pirate-y, I can’t even begin to describe it. Can’t you picture The Black Pearl emerging from the fog? It gets better.

The thunder we heard was actually the waves going under the rocks and spraying back out. There were some pretty neat little caves. It reminded me of the ending in Harry Potter 5. Didn’t he have to hide in coves?

It didn’t take long for me to remind myself that the beginning of the climax in my book was to take place at a beach. Instead of your average sunny-day, white-sand beach, I think I’m going to make it something like this. After my imagination started to spin, I ended up plotting out most of my climax.

Above is a fallen ledge that had been exposed to too much erosion. Could you imagine being there when it fell? How loud would that have been? After seeing something to intricate and detailed, it’s amazing to me that some people think all this happened by one big bang.

That’s all for now I’m taking a break from writing today and I’m going to go lounge and read. Or perhaps I will turn these pictures into iPod touch and iPhone backgrounds.

My Writing Desk

My bedroom faces north, so the only time I get any trace of sun is very early in the morning (about 5:30), usually in late summer. Last night, I was able to prop one of my casement windows out in just a way so that I was able to shine some light on my writing sanctuary, and felt the need to document it.

So here is an introduction to my nice little area. First and foremost, I always have about three 1/2 full bottles of Ice Mountain lying around. Behind them are my most valuable writing books: Character Naming Sourcebook (Sherrilyn Kenyon), Writer’s Guide to Character Trait (Dr. Linda Edelstein), Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (Patricia Highsmith), Police Procedure & Investigation (Lee Lofland), Hooked (Les Edgerton), and lastly Webster’s NewWorld Vest Pocket Dictionary. The last is under a water bottle hahaa…

I can’t tell you how often I’ll sit down to a neat and tidy desk, and then two hours later I’ll find notebooks and folders strew to the side, and my Character Naming Sourcebook propped open, with an index card to the side that says must be Irish last name in a scrawl that only I (sometimes) can understand.

Above my laptop on the wall are clippings: There’s the Gucci ad that reminds me of my villain, my brain list which I am trying to memorize, the soundtrack to my book listing songs that instantly send me into my little world, a word count goal, a clipping on famous people who were homeschooled, a quote by Michael Connelly (“The best cime novels are not about how a detective works on a case, but how the case works on a detective.”), a clipping about laziness VS writer’s block by Christina Williams (“[The difference is] whether or not the keyboard imprint on your forehead is from using it as a pillow or smacking your head in it.”) aaand a drawing and essay I created when I was 7-1/2 that says “I want to be a detective. I can practes now and do some now. by Mary…Januway 6th wensday” Above it is a little guy with a magnifying glass, hovering over some very haphazard-looking footprints When I was 7, I had a detective kit, a ballerina tutu and a Star Wars StormTrooper gun. I really haven’t changed that much

To the right of my laptop is a wooden box that my dad handmade and polished for me for Christmas. Of all my little stationary boxes, this is my favorite

Listening to Roe Conn on WLS!! Drew Peterson is finally arrested!!

Meet Wanda

Meet Wanda! My amazing sister bought me the tank as an early birthday present, and then we went to PetSmart and I found this little dude. It’s actually a boy, but the female betas weren’t as pretty. This is my first pet!

For those of you who are completely in the dark about my name selection, it’s from a movie called A Fish Called Wanda with Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. It’s a classic

Anyway, my sister and I put Wanda in his tank on Saturday, and she told me to wait a week until I clean it. Except today, it started to get a wee bit green and began to smell. Despite the fact that I was feeling a bit green myself, and I’d never cleaned out a tank or cage of any sort, I took Wanda down to the basement and very, very carefully did the smelly duty.

The only problem I had was when I was transferring Wanda from the 1 gallon Ice Mountain container with the cut-off top. His scales made a squeesh noise again the rough-edged top, so I might have to sand that down for next time, or put masking tape on top. Poor thing When I brought him upstairs, he was absolutely fine and swimming around his tank more peaceful than he had in the past few days.

Then, I got the nasty idea to put my beloved Hooked book in front of the tank:

Wanda froze, and twitched. Then, his gills went waaay out, and I thought for one sick moment that maybe I had hurt my little fishie on the Ice Mountain container.

So I took the book away, and his gills went down. Haha, my plan backfired and I ended up being the one that was freaked out. Anyway, it bothers me how little he eats. Like, do fish only need two flakes a day? And, the really weird thing is, he won’t eat unless I’m watching him. I’ll spend all afternoon gallivanting, come back, and find that he hasn’t eaten any of his flakes. But as soon as I’m kneeling next to my dresser, he’ll immediately float to the top and start attacking his food.

Geez. Well, at least I’d better keep this into consideration before I come home one day with a German Shepherd puppy.

Dramarama: Updated

For some reason, my IBS likes to act up on mornings and Sundays, though this is Saturday night, and my stomach’s officially been irritating me for a steady 24 hours. I’m also sore and a little lethargic, which maybe be in response to my dad’s and my bike ride yesterday. It was fun! There are some pretty impressive hills around here, and we calculated biking 5-7 miles.

Anyway, it’s looking like I’m not employed. The new owner of the coffee shop was hoping to open shop this Monday, but has not had her financing approved.

Oh, and remember the love triangle I mentioned earlier, in the post entitled Cloudy skies with a chance of high drama? Recap: The second day I worked at the coffee shop, I met a middle-aged couple. The man, Brian, seemed personable enough, but the woman, Donna, seemed catty (and is). They’d come in every Thursday. One day, I saw them kiss. They’d walk arm-in-arm, rub each other’s hands together and stare into each other’s eyes. Next thing I know, Donna is sitting at the same table with another man, reciting those very actions. Only this time, she’s very passionate about it and I’ve discovered she likes an audience. The new man, Jason, used to own the coffee shop. Donna soon announced their engagement. Then, one day, Brian was sitting there with his large mocha, no whip, and suddenly very upset and spent almost an hour telling a tearful Donna that Jason isn’t the right one for her.

“Donna, listen to me. Imagine that you’re a little kid again and you’re learning to ride your bike for the first time, or you’re running a race. There’s a person at the finish line. Who do you see? Do you really think Jason would be waiting for you?”

Ah, and let me tell you there was one dying barista who was wrapping scones behind the counter and trying to keep a straight face that entire time. This was turning out to be a full season of Marina instead of the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Jason came in (right on queue) and stared Brian out the front door.

A few days ago, I decided that I needed to get out. There’s another coffee shop where I like to sit, sip my Nantucket Nectar and count how many people run the stop sign before a cop drives past. I decided that I couldn’t sit inside all day, every day, and avoid further dramas or confrontations. Even my parents told me: it’s stupid, and I should be able to leave home without feeling that way.

Almost instantly after I entered the coffee shop, who did I see but Donna and Brian? Donna waved, and I felt compelled to go and talk to them.

“Brian, you remember her–the girl from the other coffee shop?” Donna asked.

“Oh yes!” Brian said. “It’s too bad that shop closed down.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of weird stuff going on,” I admitted. “Like, you heard that I got fired, right?” Oh, right. Donna was there when I was loudly explaining to my manager the unfairness of the matter. Just remembered.

“Mary, you were not fired,” Donna said in a very calm, manner-of-fact tone. “I saw the whole thing, and you were not fired.”

“Well, I sort of was,” I replied. “Lacey wouldn’t let me on the schedule. The only time she told me I could work was the time she knew I wouldn’t be able to.”

“Exactly,” Donna replied. “Don’t keep telling people that you were fired. You parted ways, and that’s all.”

“But–”

“No, you just parted ways,” Donna added a nod in for emphasis.

Then, one of them asked me what my plans were for college, and I replied honestly that I did not know.

“I’ve decided that I’m going to let God decide,” I replied. “He certainly knows what’s best for me, far more than I know.”

“Yes, well sometimes you just need to decide,” Donna replied. “What is it that you’d really like to do?” Police work, duh. “Then do that. That’s it. Don’t let anyone else tell you what to do.” Yes, but I’m not cut out for that sort of work. I’m not in the least bit athletic. “Mary…Mary. Cops are not athletic. Have you seen some of the ones around here?” She laughed a little.

Her tone was certainly condescending. Not to mention the fact that she sort of made a pass at my religion (as if my trust in God wasn’t enough), she also dissed a group of people around here that treat me with respect. Then, she also wanted to know my work plan for the summer and I mentioned that, aside from the coffee shop, I’d like to babysit. Donna said she’d love to hire me to dogsit her 8-year-old Yorkshire Terrier and Brian remembered a previous engagement. (Ironic, yet no puns intended)

“I should be on my way soon,” he said. “My wife has a girls-night-out tonight, and I’m stuck with the kids.”

“Aw, how many kids do you have?” I asked.

“Eight, six, and five months,” Brian said, unhappily.

Oi, not only am I a weird one who goes on police ride-alongs, but I also happen to like little kids, and have always wanted a handful of my own someday. To hear someone who has kids and talks about them in that manner…is slightly astounding. Lately, I’ve also wanted to babysit, not just for a means of income, but because I think babysitting is fun. It’s one of the things that I have in relation with policework. You know, disciplining people who later try to kill you (even if it is with bowls of corn and little people lunging at you from the armrests of couches). Well, maybe it’s an unfair comparison, but you get the idea.

One thing that’s been mentioned to me several times: Why don’t I just apply to the new coffee shop?

First off, there are three people that work there, and I’ve deemed all of them unsuitable. The first was superly friendly to me the first time, and ignored me thereafter. The second laughs really loud and annoyingly, and bounces around, and talks about how even though she was drunk what makes her think she’d want people loitering and puking on her doorstep? Both girls give me odd looks. Like: what is she doing here? Again? And I’ve only been there a total of three times in the past two months.

I mean, I’m just there writing about bodies washing up on shores, and criminal masterminds who fancy to explode SUVs, and teenage girls who try to take over the world. All in all, I’m told I act very sweet, so I don’t know what their problems are.

Then there’s the guy who doesn’t know what double chocolate is. I asked him if they had the chocolate chip cookies that they used to have.

“These?” he asked and pointed to some regular chocolate chip cookies.

“No, but those look good, too,” I replied. “These were double-chocolate. Ya know, like all chocolate? Not white dough, but brown? I’ve gotten them the past few times I was here, but I guess you guys ran out or something.”

“I think you mean these,” he said and pointed again to the same cookies.

I can’t work with people who cannot properly identify chocolate. You might as well fire me for calling the cops.

Apititude Tests

Today I decided that I needed to take an aptitude test, after reading a chapter from Life of the Edge (Dr. James Dobson) on college planning, and trusting God, and figuring out God’s plan, all that jazz.

I took two tests, actually.

One was from RocketCareer.com and the second was from LiveCareer.com. The first one said that I am 100% in administrative and clerical. I don’t know exactly what I am that’s 100%, but I’ll swing with it. Basically, I’d be phenominal (a big word I’ve been favoring to use lately) as a bill and account collector, statement clerk or a calculating machine operator.

Dangit. I was hoping for something like U’D B THE BEST POLICE INVESTIGATOR EVERRR <3 or LEARN MORE BIG WORDS AS A BRAIN SURRRGIN!! Not accounting. Not accounting! 

Then I tried LiveCareer’s 100 question test. Mind you, the three top career choices for me right now are: baking, sonography and social services. I scored 93 percentile in food service and 89 in writing. Haha!! Something that actually came out with decent results! Oh, and LiveCareer, I’m sorry I lied about my phone number and my home address. It’s just because of the witness protection program, I promise.

Health service came in at 76 percentile. Apparently, I’m also assertive. Scored 60 on that one, but it was the highest out of persuasive and systematic.

as⋅ser⋅tive   /əˈsɜrtɪv/ [uh-sur-tiv]

–adjective

1.	confidently aggressive or self-assured; positive: aggressive; dogmatic: He is too assertive as a salesman.

(Dictionary.com)

You know…I don’t even want to know what dogmatic is, but I’m going to assume that it doesn’t mean I bite people.

SO, while I’m taking these tests, my head starts to (naturally) hurt.

Now, I’m weird. I’ve known this for a long time, and one of the supposed symptoms of homeschooling is the urge to research things voluntarily, but, see, I like to research weird things and lately I’ve gotten into medical stuff,(including big, fancy words like anomalous, filangies, and polymer phosphates–though I don’t know what the last one is. I heard it on Bones.) and I’ve also gotten into psychology and the human brain (thanks to http://HowStuffWorks.com). So there, on my wall is a chart of the human brain and it’s components.

And lately, whenever my head hurts, I am able to specify which cranial lobe (?)  it is that hurts. Hmm…it’s my frontal lobe that’s hurting.

I’ve been sitting there for the past 20 minutes completing questions such as:

I would like to…
(_) Dumpster dive
(_) Wipe a child’s nose
(x) Interrogate a suspect

And, and, and that so-called frontal lobe controls the decision-making processes between good and bad, or better and best.

I was thoroughly amazed. But that really didn’t get me anywhere, so I think I’m going to take a walk and get rid of my headache.

State of the Union

My poor brother…Saturday morning he wasn’t feeling well, and then spent the night throwing up   Poor little guy. Sunday afternoon he started to do better, and then the bug came back by storm around midnight, so we’re all overtired. Dad ended up spending two nights in his recliner, monitoring my brother who slept on the couch, and he and my mom had clean-up duty. But my brother’s doing better now, and he just gave me a full fledged lecture and keeps being annoying and yelling.  Yup, he’s back to normal.

In other news, I am officially employed again. Same company, different ownership! The current owner has worked at the coffee shop for many years, and now she owns the shop with her husband. How cool? I start working next month, and I am told that things will be changed and the coffee shop will once again be a happy place.

As for in the world of writing, I really don’t want to release too much information. I’d love to post an excerpt and have someone critique it,  but I’m thinking of waiting until I actually finish the project before I do anything else. I’ve also discovered that I am an obnoxious writing snob. I just bought Run for Your Life by James Patterson, and stayed up until 1 am last night reading the first handful of chapters and comparing his villain to mine. See, he started out by comparing his villain to Tom Cruise, who doesn’t exactly scare me. I mean, tell me that the villain is a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Christian Bale or something! But also, James Patterson’s villain doesn’t have much of a motive other than being increasingly annoyed by people. I get increasingly annoyed by people, and I threaten to do something horrible, but I take a deep breath, get through that check-out line and move on. I need to know why this guy is different, aside from his ego. As for the main character? Love him. His personality is so unique, though his actions sometimes don’t match up to his personality. However, his background  is a little unrealistic, but maybe I haven’t read far enough to be convinced.

More time to blog!

One of the reasons I haven’t been blogging much, especially in the last month, is because my job was in the air and I didn’t know who was reading my blog. Why bring on disaster sooner than possible?

Anyway, one day in March, two customers came in, both men, late 20’s/early 30’s. I said Hello-How-are-you (customer service) and the one man replied in a sigh “I’ve been missing you.” Totally crossed a big line. But what can you expect when you’re 17 and working alone in a cafe?  I ignored it, and decided that yes I was going to take the police chief’s advice and call non-emergency. Since I like to think I know something about police procedures (even small ones) I asked the man where he worked and decided to get some information from him. He replied, and then told me that we should go fishing sometime. He also asked me if I had much longer on my shift.

They left and one short call to the PD later, an officer arrived and began to take notes as I explained everything to him. A customer even replied what sort of car these men had. The officer asked me whether I would like him to contact these men or not, and I replied no. Just to make sure it’s on record in case the situation were to repeat itself.

The next week, I came into work to find boxes in front of the punch-in box and a manager who would only give me one word answers. I was desperate for something to say to break the ice, so I asked her if she heard I had to call the police the previous week. She replied, “Why did you do that? That is completely innapropriate. Don’t call the cops again, Mary!” She actually yelled at me for about three straight minutes, in front of customers.

After that, she’d only give me funny looks, like she thought I’d call the cops on her. Then, a week and a half later, I came into work and she jumped like a rabbit and said “What are you doing here? You don’t work today.”

“Of course I do,” I replied, remembering when she had once defended me against the other workers so that I could keep my schedule.

“No, I gave your hours to someone else,” she replied. She made no attempt to tell me this, and when I mentioned that she could at least text me, she replied “I’m an adult, Mary, I don’t text.” even though she texts my boss, who’s in Florida.

Long story short and a bit of yelling on my part, I was fired, though she denied firing me. She just wouldn’t let me work anymore.

SO, not being the “I’ll take this like it’s nasty medicine” good-little-girl that I am, I notified the PD of these happenings and guess what? The cafe is CLOSED FOR REMODELING (to quote their sign). The front windows and doors are papered up, as well.

Only, there’s a catch…It’s been three days, and no sign of any construction workers. And, I seem to remember that my boss was having a difficult time just paying the workers and ordering supplies needed to run a shop

Oohhh!! Would you like a side of Chocolate-Crime-Scene-Pastries with that Justice?

Crime Scene Photos

Oh, goodness me. It seems as though my love of crime scenes and chocolate have come together tonight in some sort of Nagasaki explosion. Then Mom started asking me questions from the other side of the house, and my brother began to yell and holler so that I couldn’t hear her. At that moment, I just wanted to start kicking things, but for about the fourth time in the past two weeks, I held in anger, left, and relaxed.

Yesterday I didn’t hold it in. I started poking my iPod Touch in the screen until I realized what I was doing and that it couldn’t feel pain.

Anger : 1. Mary : 4.  

Here are the official crime scene photos.

Deceased spatula suggests there was a struggle. (There was)

 This is just the stovetop.

A bit of advice: Don’t thwap open a package of cook-and-serve pudding as you would a package of instant hot chocolate mix.

My Kiss had 3 banners!!

     It did. I only wish it had extra chocolate. But weirder things have happened today. I’ll get to that in a second…I see my little brother copied a note and left it on my dad’s desk. “Courtesy, Your Friendly Neighborfood Spider-man” Hahaha! I love that!!

     Anyway, since Thursday (not last Thursday, the one before that) I haven’t been feeling well which left me tired, exhausted and not practicing my violin. Gavotte seems ridiculously harder to play…

     To go on, I came this close to calling 911 this afternoon. Work is getting weirder and the people are becoming more and more absurd. For a short description, there is one exit and entry way behind the counter–the “employees only” area–which just off from the back entrance where quite a number of our customers come through. An old guy walks in and is dressed like a modern day pirate. Black and red, rag-ish clothing, and an eyepatch. He gets right in my entry/exit way and leans uncomfortably close to me.

     “What’s for lunch today? Something vegetable, I see?”

     Whether it was the soup to which he was referring (Garden Vegetable), I don’t know. I asked him what he would like and he replied, “Something vegetarian.” I suggested one of the tofu burgers, and he agreed that that’s what he would have.

     “Oh!” he moved closer, and I wished I hadn’t left my cell phone at home. “I’ll also have a tall coffee.”

     He turned and went back to the bathrooms, where he spent a few minutes (doing heaven knows what), then sat down with his order, and tried to read the newspaper with his lone eye. This involved him holding the newspaper very close to his face, and pausing occaisonally to stare at me in a I’m-purposefully-trying-to-be-creepy kind of way. 
     Seeing this, I decided that I was going to call someone. I was in the store by myself, as the last group of customers had left.  My co-worker, Lacey, had clocked out some 20 minutes ago. I didn’t want to call Lacey, because I had already called her once to ask where the mayo was and she was in the middle of grocery shopping. My alternative was to call 911 and have an officer drop by for a bit and make sure this guy didn’t pull anything.

     I remembered what the police chief had said to me about strange customers, and that if I ever felt the least bit threatened to call. I may regret it otherwise. (He also mentioned that if I was too shy to call 911, to call the non-emergency number…I only now remember that part)
     
     In the below 0 windchill, I took the cordless store phone and called Lacey from the back porch. She answered the phone, “Mary.” 
     “I’m sorry!” I said. “There’s a guy here and he was, like, trying to come behind the counter. He’s really creepy, can you sit in?”
     “I’ll be there in one minute.”
     Mention a customer trying to come, or coming, behind the counter to any of my co-workers and you’ll immediately get their attention. It’s just something we don’t tolerate. Luckily, Lacey did have an almost police-like response time and was there about 3 minutes later.

     To add to the drama, a woman came in at the same time as Lacey. This woman’s son came in 2nd place on a widely viewed reality TV show that aired last season. If you have basic cable, then you’ve heard of the show and have probably seen at least one episode. The mother adopted the “My Son is Famous” attitude, as well did her daughter, for quite some time, leaving me small messes to pick up and being very snippy. Anyway, as soon as she entered and saw Eye Patch, she cried out his name. “I haven’t seen you in so long! How are you!” It was like two old friends.

 

     I told my parents, I feel as though I’m in a really tacky reality show. The group of customers before that were discussing how they could get a lion into our small Wisconsin town. A bear would also work, the man pointed out, or even a gorilla. One of the two women came up to the counter and asked for a phone book for one of the surrounding counties, but I told her we didn’t have one. Thankfully, I then heard the word “for our opening scene.” Later, I casually mentioned to the man if he was in show business, and he said he wasn’t—they were filming a commercial.

 

     For the heck of strange customer stories, there were two girls in a few weeks ago. The one girl I knew, and I told her that she looked familiar to me.
     “Do I?” she giggled in almost a flirtatious way.
     “Stephany, right?”
     The attitude stopped and her expression wasn’t so cheery.
     “No.”
     “I could’ve sworn you like just like a Stephany I know!”
     “No, it’s not Stephany, but…other girls say that.”
     That night I remembered that Stephany was the wrong name, and the wrong person I was thinking of. The other day she and her friend returned.
     “Hazel!” I said. “I thought of it the other night. I feel so embarrassed!”
     But I wasn’t the one who should have been embarrassed. This girl is just a year or two younger than me (I believe she’s 16) and was outfitted in a red and yellow summer dress, suede boots, a grey woven scarf and a full face of clown makeup. I asked her if she and her friend had just come from a play rehearsal.
     “No, this is just for fun.”
     Girl. It’s like 20 degrees out. Yet she and her friend went and sat out back for a while, not to mention that all the chairs were snow bound or coated in ice. They came back shivering. Her friend, if I might add, always seems to be pulling off the homeless look. She wears light pajama pants, doesn’t wash her hair, and her face is so gaunt, you’d think she was dying. No joke.

 

Life in the coffee shop continues.
Hugs,
Mary

Hero in the Hold

http://www.hulu.com/watch/56202/bones-the-hero-in-the-hold

Hero in the Hold just aired yesterday and I highly suggest you all to watch it!! Although, it will make more sense if you watch this one first:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/51806/bones-aliens-in-the-spaceship#s-p1-n2-so-i0

2 seasons is the longest anyone has ever waited for a part 2. Well, the longest that I know of. Luckily for me, I just got hooked on the show a few months ago and saw Aliens in the Spaceship merely a few weeks ago. So I didn’t have to wait that long.

And neither should you. Go watch ‘em!