Wruth's Writings and Art

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I made it to 18 but the last 10 didn't count......

[Ruth]

We celebrated tonight by ordering in a pizza and watching a Korean movie. Last of the party people, that's us!

Actually we usually celebrate by forgetting our anniversary completely until a month or so after it's passed.

[Scout]

Happy 37th, Ruth. Hope the movie was a good one.

[Ruth]

Thanks, Scout. It was a very good movie, called Mother. I highly recommend it.

[Carol]

I was going to ask you what the movie was called. My friend was asking me the name. Iwant to get it from netflix

[Ruth]

DING, DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!

Spoke to one of my (many) nice neighbors last night. The Neighbor from Hell has folded his tents and snuck off to drive another neighborhood to thoughts of hiring the Sopranos.

[Carol]

I pity the poor fools in the new neighborhood. Call in the A-Team.

[Scout]

I'm relieved, Ruth, that he's out of your life. I just don't understand people who enjoy making others miserable. I do believe in karma, though, and know that NFH will eventually get what he gave. A toast to you and a less stressful future!

[Ruth]

I'm so delighted I've been going around grinning all day.

I'd like to mail him a housewarming present for his new place of abode. How about a can of poison so he can poison his new neighbor's bushes like he did ours?

[Scout]

Oh, Ruth, I'm laughing, as only one who has a NFH can laugh. No one else understands; the craziness of the neighbors somehow taints us, and that's so unfair. I'm still having great revenge fantasies, while letting them run all over me. That's better, I know, than becoming like them. What they put out into the world will come back to them (I hope).

[Ruth]

Revenge fantasies. Oh yes!

[Scout]

I guess having revenge fantasies is a lot like writing letters to people and never sending them. It makes you feel better without incurring their wrath.

Do you find writing therapeutic? I wrote in my journals for years, but last year I destroyed much of what I wrote. I found that much of my writing was more like purging - nothing like what Emerson and Thoreau wrote - and I did't want anyone to have to read all that when I'm gone.

[Carol]

Erma Bombeck

[Carol]

Happy Birthday to Missy Ruth. Have a lovely day now that your home life is looking sweeter.



Gabi I can't think of anyone else. Sorry!

[Ken, Moderator]

It's Ruth's birthday? The 21st of Augustus? I got married on your birthday, Ruth. (Will coincidences never cease?)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Happy birthday Ruth! 60th? ;-)

[Ruth]

Why thanks, guys. And happy anniversary, NE. How many years?

Ah, Debs. I wish it were my 60th. It's my 75th! How did this happen? Yesterday I was 30.

My cousin drove up from Sacramento to spend the weekend. She brought a delicious bottle of Ast Spumante, Leif barbecued some steaks and we had a lovely birthday dinner on the deck overlooking the meadow.

[Ken, Moderator]

We should all have such meadows to muse on. Gabi, get painting!

And I've been married damn near 30 years now. Which is all a roundabout way of saying I'M OLD!

[Carol]

Ruth the view is so peaceful. No wonder you all love it up there. I am thinking it is in the gold country, right? We would go up to my grandfather's place and it looked similar. I think his was about 60 miles as the crow flies from Lake Tahoe.

Is there evidence of Indian habitation. We would find arrowheads and beads on grandpa's place. There was a large rock with all sorts of deep holes in it. He said the Indians used the area as a summer retreat, and the rock was where they ground corn.

[Ruth]

We're up near Graeagle, Carol. About 50 miles north of Tahoe.

I have to admit, the meadow is no longer a meadow. It's a damn golf course. It's there behind the willows, so we can't see it, and we do our best to pretend it isn't there.

[Carol]

Civilization encroaches everywhere. I guess when golf balls start breaking out windows it will be time to worry. It really is a lovely spot. I will be interested in seeing what you have in mind with the book Leif bought for your birthday. It sounds intriguing.

[Jonathan]

Drat. I didn't check in here yesterday, and so missed your birthday, Ruth. Sorry to be late with the good wishes, but I hope you enjoyed your birthday all the same.

[Ruth]

Thanks, Jonathan. I'll take good wishes any time they come.

[Scout]

I'm glad to hear that, Ruth, as I'm also sending a delayed wish. Here's wishing you many pleasant birthdays to come. Cheers!

[Ruth]

Thank you, Scout.

[Ken, Moderator]

Hey, as long as you can move around and think like a clear day after a Canadian Clipper has blown through, keep accepting those carefully wrapped gifts of 25 years in a box. (It's not the most creative gift, but it's practical as hell and no one ever uses the gift receipt for a return.)

[Savvy]

Adding to the birthday wishes Ruth!

Keep those verses flowing...they are great!

Susanne

[Ken, Moderator]

"Thoughts on My 60th Birthday" by Ruth. Looking forward to it.

[Ruth]

Thanks, everyone.

Heck, NE, I don't even remember my 60th birthday.

[Ken, Moderator]

The poem will be that much more imaginative. (Thank Odin for poetic licenses!)

[Scout]

Ruth, finally a little good news about my NFH. A couple of days ago, he hired some guys to cut the five dead tree trunks in his yard. I sat outside and watched as the trimmer cut the one by my shop down from 70 feet to 30 feet, the trunk swaying and shedding bark all the while. I heard the cutter say that he could lay down the rest of the trunk and remove it completely, and NFH told him to leave the 30-foot stump. His meanness is intact. I'm still looking at five dead stumps, but I don't have to worry about them falling on my house, so that's good. Has your neighbor moved?

[Ruth]

We got home today, and he is well and truly GONE. Had an impromptu YAHOOOO!!!! on the sidewalk with several other neighbors right after we pulled up in the car. I only wish I'd been here when he pulled out. I would have liked to give him a "gesture" of appreciation.

Scout, don't you long to strangle the guy?

[Scout]

Oh, Ruth, I laugh, imagining you sending him off, dancing, with a bird in each hand!:)

Yes, I've imagined strangling (and much worse), but I think he'll get what's coming to him. Bad people attract bad things.

[Scout]

Gabi, the workmen could probably sue him, but the NFH lives next door to NE's and my property. He's proved himself to be unbalanced and sadistic. He's meaner than we know how to be, and retaliation is a real option for him. Who knows what damage he might do. Your solution is really no solution. Where in the heck do you find a 6'8" woodsman with an axe or six Hell's Angels? People are always telling me that they wouldn't put up with this crap, but what exactly would they do in my shoes? Hire a hit man? Attack him with a club? Shoot him? Burn his house down? Really, there's nothing to do but let it all come back to him. Karma.

[Carol]

NE That is an underhanded way to get free labor. These people unknowingly fall into his trap and there is no way to warn them. I wonder what happened in his life to make him so bitter.

[Ruth]

Scout wrote: "Gabi, the workmen could probably sue him, but the NFH lives next door to NE's and my property. He's proved himself to be unbalanced and sadistic. He's meaner than we know how to be, and retaliatio..."

Exactly why we never retaliated to our NFH.

You and NE are neighbors???

[Carol]

Ruth sounds like Scout and Ne are a couple. Now they have us intrigued or nosy. hahaha

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Sounds to me as though they share a property! You will all be very disturbed to know that last night I dreamed that NE came all the way to NZ to mow my lawn for me! And he really DOES look like Paul Newman!!!!!

[Carol]

LOL (coughing) Don't drink water while reading comments , bad for your health.

[Ken, Moderator]

I haven't mowed a lawn for a long, long time -- but I look like Paul Newman every day (er, when he was alive). It's about all gray hair has going for it.

[Jonathan]

Can you hustle pool like Paul Newman?

[Ken, Moderator]

No. Can't race cars, either. Or make salad dressing. But I can do the blue eye thing. (Thanks, Mom.)

[Scout]

Well, I overdid it there, speaking of NFH as if he were some sort of cosmic entity - the sadistic neighbor who could move in next door to any one of us. I have to say, though, that NE's six pack is amazing!

[Ruth]

I'm happy to report that my poem, "Solstice," appears in the latest issue of San Pedro River Review.

[Ken, Moderator]

Yay! Another notch on the belt!

[Ruth]

Thanks, NE. It's still a thrill to see my words in print.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Well done Ruth.......a printed anthology would be nice now....one that I can put on my bookshelf or next to the bed.

[Ruth]

Thanks, Deb. I've got a manuscript. I just need to start tarting it around.

[Ken, Moderator]

Chapbook, I think they're called. I just read somewhere that poetry is now a niche thing. It was an article where a guy said he hoped short stories didn't go off the same cliff.

Talk about being trivialized!

[Ruth]

My manuscript is for a full-size book, not a chapbook. But I plan on putting together a couple chapbooks too and trying their luck.