Tag: Carrot Ranch

May Madness: Menopause

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I am cheating today as this is also my entry for Carrot Ranch’s weekly flash fiction topic. This week’s 99 word topic is about growing older. And did you really think I would go the whole month of “M” words May and not address menopause? Silly reader. 🙃 At least I am able to look at menopause with a sense of humor right now.

Menopause

A woman spends the latter half of her life in three phases:

Perimenopause – Characterized by so many different symptoms you are sure you are losing your mind. Coping mechanism is eating brownies while hiding in the pantry. You long to live alone in a mountain cabin.

Menopause – This phase has many false starts.   Six months without a period and then you get surprised by your ‘friend’.  Still eating brownies, you now wake up in the middle of the night and have to endure  hours thinking about brownies.  

Post-menopausal –  The sun comes out again and you live happily ever after.

Flash Fiction (Exhaustion)

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I had my idea for Carrot Ranch’s 99 word flash fiction topic right away but couldn’t quite get it right. I tried four different versions before settling on this one. Still not sure it conveys what I am trying to say. But I will be kind to myself this week and just go with it.

“The 36 Hour Day”

Last night’s game had gone thirteen innings followed by a long flight across the country.  A 5:00p first pitch the next day left no time for a nap. 

The radio announcer found himself giving an involuntary snort of laughter over the airwaves. An unexpected foul ball in the booth started the infectious chuckling.  The announcers couldn’t look at each other for fear of bursts of mirth escaping.  Their words came out strangled with laughter.

Punch drunk with exhaustion the radio announcers lost it in the seventh inning.  Baffled listeners were confused, not recognizing sleep deprivation when they heard it.

Flash Fiction (Fire)

Posted in Flash Fiction, Good Things, travel, writingTagged , , , 3 Comments

This week’s prompt from Carrot Ranch immediately made me think of a campfire. My favorite time of year to go camping is in the fall. I suppose this is rather a riff on a “Good Things” post. I closed my eyes and imagined my family sitting around a campfire up at Aspen Campground on the Mogollon Rim. (Alas, the photo is actually from a spring trip to the Grand Canyon, the best I could do.)

Autumn Camping Joys

Crisp air

Achingly blue skies

Trees full of red and yellow leaves

Crunching leaves underfoot

Legs pleasantly aching after a long hike

Sizzling hot dogs over the fire

Laughter as yet another marshmallow bursts into flame

Smoke scented air drifting up

Hands stretched toward the warmth

Darkness falling

Stars emerging

Ghosts stories making you glance over your shoulder

Crackling logs

Steaming mugs of tea and cocoa

Sparks snapping

That drying leaves smell

Bursts of flames from pinecones

Snuggles under a fleece throw 

The hooting of an owl

 Moonlight shadows

Feeling the joy of togetherness under a vast sky

Contentment

Flash Fiction (Eminence)

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Eminence: a person of high rank or position or a lofty place

Here is this week’s entry for Carrot Ranch. There just may be a touch of fantasy in this scenario!

I dragged myself into the kitchen and apathetically checked the fridge.  Spouse and small child would be home soon and looking for dinner.  That was part of my “job”, cooking, meal planning, grocery shopping. I could feel the surge of pre-menopause hormones coloring my brain.  I wasn’t even hungry, why should I cook dinner?   I checked the freezer. The emergency frozen pizza had already been eaten this week. I started to cry and told myself, “enough”.  The eminences would have to fend for themselves this once. I retreated to the couch and a movie.  â€œDouble Indemnity” suited me perfectly.

Flash Fiction (Signs)

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To be honest this week’s 99 word flash fiction for Carrot Ranch isn’t totally fictional. To a certain degree these are both real events that I experienced.

Part I: ‘For Sale’ (True Love)

‘For Sale’.  The sign had been in front of the colonial with the lovely porch for months. This cold February morning there was a second sign: ‘Open House’.  

She walked slowly through the entire house: gleaming woodwork, an eat-in kitchen with a bay window looking over the backyard, a claw foot tub. It was too perfect. Her heart shouted she was home.

She felt herself start to tremble as she took the flyer from the real estate agent and glanced at the price.  “I’ll take it” she heard herself say as her head chimed in to match her heart.

Part II: ‘Stop Sign’ (Also True Love)

One balmy evening I sat on my front porch watching the fireflies appear in the gloaming.  A woman ran the stop sign at the corner and hit another car. A low impact crash: crumpled metal and shattered plastic bits but no one hurt. 

She must have lived nearby, her husband arrived quickly. The first thing he did was ask if she was hurt.  She started to cry and said, “I am so stupid.”  Her husband replied,  â€œI know you are but I need to know you are okay first.”  I laughed softly in the growing darkness.  Well, wouldn’t you?

Flash Fiction (Sea Mist)

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From the 99 word flash fiction challenge from Carrot Ranch.

Everyday for fifty-two years she went for a morning walk.  No matter the season or the weather. Three miles. First alone, then with her partner, now alone again. 

She loved all the weather she encountered, it made her feel alive.  This morning a soft gray sea mist spilled over onto the beach, curling her white hair.

She tried not to play favorites, enjoying what each day gave her but secretly she liked the fog the best. Maybe because it was the rarest. Maybe because it softened the day.  Or maybe because it obscured the fact that she was alone.

Flash Fiction (Shards)

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From the 24 January 99 word challenge at Carrot Ranch.

Shards of a Life

The line of soldiers walked slowly, cautiously, testing each step.  The IED detonated anyway, shattering the  Sergeant’s leg and leaving him mercifully unconscious. 

Thousands of miles away a phone rang.  The love of his life found her heart shattered by words as easily as his leg by explosives.

Months passed.  Months filled with hospitals and surgeries.  A leg put together with pins and rods. A person put back together with therapy and exercise. A heart held together with patience and hope. A couple linked together by the past.

Their bodies may have been shattered but their love remained whole.

Flash Fiction (Colonnades)

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Last fall I started participating in Carrot Ranch’s 99 word flash fiction challenges. Not all of them but more than I realized looking back. Now on to the next step, posting them here as well. Creative Courage!

This week’s theme (17 January) is colonnades (an evenly spaced row of columns); natural, architectural or metaphorical.

Giant Redwoods

She put the lawn chair all the way back and stared straight up.  It felt scary, a thrill in the pit of her stomach.  The trees towered so far above her, swaying at the top with the clouds holding on to keep them from veering too far.  She looked at the thick trunks of the redwoods, sure the movement at the top would topple them. How did the trunks stay so straight?  She wondered what would happen if a branch came crashing down.  Would she be able to move away, or watch mesmerized as the clouds let it go?