Microfiction Monday

The lovely and exhausted Susan still kindly allows us to travel via her site to places prompted by her microfiction Monday meme. It's simple: use the illustration that Susan provides and write a story of 140 characters or fewer. No cheating -- that 140 includes all spaces and characters and punctuation!

Here is this week's illustration, followed by my microfiction.

Leaning to the left or the right just didn’t matter anymore. It was the eternal zip code that one should have gotten right.

Good Eats

We tried a new recipe this evening.  Pretty good stuff.  No one died.  So if you're tired of what you've been doing with chicken, and have a little bit of heavy cream left over from T-giving, give it a try!

Chicken Lazone

1 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp chili powder

3 tsp garlic powder

2 1/4 tsp onion powder

3 whole boneless chicken breasts, split in half

6 T unsalted butter, divided

3/4 cup heavy cream

Pasta to serve over

To make the chicken breasts easy to split in half, put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.

1. Combine the seasonings and coat chicken breasts

2.  In large saute pan melt half of the butter and cook the chicken over medium heat for about 8 minutes, on each side.

3.  Pour the cream into the skillet and lower the heat.

4.  Simmer for several minutes, stirring until the sauce thickens.  Add remaining butter.

5.  Serve over pasta, topped by sauce.

I didn't have any onion powder, so I cut half an onion into small pieces and threw those in the butter at the beginning. Then used the other half on the grater and put that juice on the chicken breasts.

The original recipe calls for a lot more salt, but we found it too salty.  It also calls for whole breasts -- but only 7 or 8 minutes total cooking. That just doesn't work -- the chicken wasn't cooked through. So I've tweaked it for our taste.  I think next time we'll add a touch of cayenne!

So be smart - if your chicken breasts are truly whole and fat, either cut them, or increase the time.

Poetry Bus

Trepidatiously, I board the bus again this week. A new driver. I hope I'll have the correct fare.

Kat from Poetikat is driving, and the assignment is to write a poem using the name of a favorite pub, bar or restaurant as the starting point for the story.

Well, we don't have pubs, but we do have a great Sports bar. I think there are more TV's in there than they can seat customers and during the 'season' the place is packed. Their beer is cold, their atmosphere is friendly and if it's too loud, they have outdoor seating.  Did I mention their food is great?  And best of all, they don't turn down ANY high school athletic teams looking for fundraising ideas. This place is truly a part of our community -- even though they're a franchised business.

Now, I have to say, my poem is NOT about sports or the bar...but the concept of Glory Days. I struggled with how to convey what I feel.  As an Air Force vet myself, I look back on those days as some of the best ever, so in some small way, I get it. Hope you do too!

GLORY DAYS

He’d been only 21 that summer

When honor claimed his time

He sought a justice day, in his own small way

To avenge a terrible crime.

He’d been to the field in Pennsylvania

Bowed his head near the hole in the ground

Imagined the plane falling, hearing them calling

But realized the wind was the sound.

Traveling to the five sided building

Homage again he would pay,

And in Manhattan the prayers were like satin

As many remembered the day.

He elected to serve his country

To try to make sense of their hate

To hold his head high as he fought not to cry

When the evil just would not abate.

Old at only age twenty three

A leader of men he became

They went out on patrol and returned to cajole

One another to keep them all sane.

He was proud to serve these men

And loved them more than brothers

Celebrated their gains and shared their pains,

Enjoyed cookies sent by their mothers.

An explosion ended his duty

And took away two of his boys

At home he found treasure and cited his pleasure

In life’s simplest of joys.

He’d come back to great celebration.

A patriot beloved by his town

He didn’t feel like a hero, rejected that mirror

But didn’t want to let anyone down.

"What I was doing wasn’t heroic

Every man there did the same

We took care of each other and tried to do right

Without thought to money or fame."

But his wife knew a particular look in his eyes

As he relived those Glory Days

The ones where his lads gave it all that they had

In firefights, poker or play.

He’d come back to home to red, white, and blue.

To his loving children and wife.

But the thrill and camaraderie of brothers in arms

Would be the sweetest memory of his life.

copyright, Kelley Westenhoff, 2010

Contest Out West!

If you aren't Quilly or Thom, get over to their blogs and get in on the contest! Each day one or the other of them posts a Christmas movie post. E-mail them the answer, and cross your fingers to win FABULOUS prizes...

Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little about the prize - nothing with an engine or wheels is included. But it's a fun way to revisit Christmas movies, and see a new blog if you've never been there. And they're both nice people who are fun to visit!

So there!

Wait...what am I saying? If more people play, my chances of winning just went down...

Oh well,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

The mystery continues.

Wherefore Art Thou, Emajean?

Prior Installment

Emajean’s background was very different from László's. She was the daughter of a coal merchant. Her father was much older than her mother, and had been married once before. His first wife had died, leaving him a son, Walter, who Emajean’s mother raised as her own. Walter was ten when Emajean was born. Ten years later, baby sister Frances was born. Frances was a sickly child and demanded a great deal of her mother’s attention.

Walter took it upon himself to walk Emajean to and from school each day. Although he was a grown man, in many ways his mind was still that of a child. He was fiercely protective of Emajean and began to interfere with her relationships with her classmates. When she complained to her mother, she was told that she was lucky to have an older brother to look out for her. Overhearing this, Walter appointed himself Emajean’s protector for her own good.

When Emajean was in high school Walter got a job working on a farm just outside the city. Whenever he had an afternoon off, he walked to the street car line and then caught a ride to Emajean’s public school where he waited to walk her home. One afternoon, she came out of the school building and didn’t notice Walter. She and a young man turned to walk down the street together. The young man bent his head to say something to her and took her books from her arms to carry them for her. Walter saw her look at the young man with a sweet smile, and  snapped. He rushed over to the couple, seized the boy by the shoulders and threw him into the street. An oncoming truck was unable to stop in time, and the boy’s leg was broken as the truck ran over it. When the police came to the house that night to question Walter, Emajean’s father told them he had sent Walter far away already, where he would not bother anyone anymore.

From that time, no one in the family mentioned Walter. Emajean could sense that her parents wondered what had gone on between Walter and Emajean in those first couple of years when baby Frances was so sick. But instead of asking, they pretended that he did not exist. The denial of his existence was so complete that Emajean began to wonder if she had indeed done something wrong, whether she had encouraged him in some  way that was wrong. A feeling of responsibility descended upon her, so she joined in the artifice whenever her parents were around, and gradually, their life went on as if Walter never had been part of it.

Emajean never knew where they had sent him, but once, when she was home sick with a fever, she heard the postman call out to her mother as he brought her mother the mail. She heard “here’s a letter from the Yukon! That’ll be young Walter telling you he’s discovered gold!” Emajean did not hear her mother’s reply. She heard her mother telling her father about it that evening, angrily declaiming the mailman's nosiness. Emajean tried to find such a letter, but was never successful. In the end, all she had to remember her brother by was an old photo, taken when he was working with his father on the coal wagon. In it he was dressed up, and looked out shyly, as if he was unworthy of the time and expense of a photograph.

Emajean graduated from high school with honors, and received a scholarship to study nursing at Loyola University in Chicago. Her first semester she had been a little homesick, but after the first trip home for Christmas, she knew that Lincoln was not where she wanted to live. She returned to Chicago with a zeal for enjoying the city and her college life, changed her name to Jean, and pursued her studies. Although she hoped to find a husband and start a life in Chicago, she never would have dreamed of meeting a man like László.

Because Thom is BACK

I've been not doing license plates because Thom was away...but since he's such a good sport and always leaves a guess, these are for him, and for anyone else who appreciates a little vanity in life.

IC RINGS

(guess what kind of car this person was driving)

He was driving a Saturn

S T8BLDR

(saw this one yesterday - cracked me up)

(tomorrow I'll tell you why!)

I think Thom is right on this, although we
first read it as Estate Bleeder and
thought they were avaricious

BLESS U

(do you think they got it for the cold & flu season?)

speaks for itself

SIT TYT

(a message to tailgaters?)

Sit tight -- as in stay put?

HANG UP

(my favorite!)

And oh, if people only would just
hang up and drive!

Get the Tissues

Watch this and smile.