Category Archives: Arbitrary Thoughts
End Program
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, poetry
BAH HUMBUG!
Thank goodness the holidays are over! I have a true LOVE/HATE relationship with the holidays, especially Christmas. This year was worse than ever and by December 15th I was ready to rip all the decorations from the tree and call it a year. Now that 2014 is here I feel that the worst is over, yet the next holiday is looming just over the horizon. I told my family that I am thinking of traveling over Christmas next year. I would love to visit a place that celebrates with less commercialism. I wonder what New Zealand is like for Christmas?
I quit watching television for the past two months. Ten minutes of commercial time to sell me on the wonders of owning a push-up bra for the holidays. Really? It wouldn’t be Christmas without the perfect cup of espresso brewed in the amazing “espresso brewer that you gotta have!” at the very reasonable cost of $299.95 and all the while the sleigh bells ring in the background. Don’t forget the thousand ways to show Santa coming down the chimney bringing every gift you had on your list, especially the shaver that will bring flocks of women who fall over themselves to touch your face (and no, the girls are not included with the shaver).
The crowning glory of the buying madness? Black Friday. It has become a black day indeed. One dead and numerous injuries just to get the latest and greatest version of a tablet. I have boycotted Black Friday since it’s inception. The mob madness is what the retailers depend on to push those sales to the “break even point”. The cost of doing business. BAH HUMBUG!
For the 2014 Christmas season you might find me in New Zealand on the beach enjoying a Kiwi or two. There won’t be a tree put up and the outdoor lights will stay in the basement. My neighbors may think me a Scrooge. The millions of dollars spent during Christmas gift giving season will be a little less in 2014. My money will be going to the economy of New Zealand.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Holidays
From Kurt Vonnegut
“Go into the arts.
I’m not kidding.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.
Sing in the shower.
Dance to the radio.
Tell stories.
Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.
Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward.
You will have created something.”
~~Thanks to Delve Writing for initially sharing this on F.B. and inspiring me to re-share with you here.~~
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Art, poetry, Quotes, Writing
The Carnival
I couldn’t sleep. I laid in bed for at least 2 hours with a constant stream of nothing rolling across my brain. Then a childhood dream popped into my mind. It was the strangest dream I have ever had in my life.
My father was a spy. Not just any spy, but THE elite spy who ranked number one on most wanted list world wide. My kidnappers had been looking for him for the better part of five years and they planned to get to him through me, his daughter. They hauled me into a cave filled with light, music, and people. There were two ferris wheels, a merry-go-round, and dizzying roller coasters that defied gravity. People were everywhere laughing and shouting with glee. The three black clad men towered above me as I was dragged screaming through the crowd. We rushed by parents and their children holding cotton candy without being noticed. I thought we must be invisible. I cried and thrashed trying to get someone’s attention. Anyone’s. The carnival just went on.
At the far corner of the cave I was thrown onto a slab that mimicked a bed. The largest of the three men loomed over me and spitting his words asked, “Where is he? Where is your father?” Shaking my head I told them that I didn’t know. He had left three days ago and didn’t tell me where he was going. “You know where he is. Quit lying child. Tell us where he is!” His hot breath burned my face and he grabbed my neck and began choking me, “Tell us where he is or you will die.” My head began to throb as the blood and oxygen was robbed from it. My eyes felt as if they would burst from their sockets.
With a jerk I woke from my dream with both my hands wrapped around my own neck choking.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Dreaming
Waiting for a Table
The lobby was filled with hungry customers waiting to be seated, wait staff were running from table to table taking orders and delivering food, busboys cleared as quickly as the laws of physics would allow. The smell of steak and fish filled the air and our mouths watered with anticipation. Our hostess took our name with a smile that strained to be sincere. With a furrowed brow she added us to the wait list. “I will seat you as soon as a table becomes available. If you would like to wait in the bar area you may find it more comfortable. Your wait will be about thirty minutes.” Neither of us drink alcohol so we thought it more to our liking to wait in the lobby.
We needed to find a small spot of the floor we could claim as we waited for a table when a gentleman burst between us. “There are empty tables and I demand to be seated immediately! Look Miss, over there! I see three tables ready to go. I want one of those tables!” His arm swung wide nearly missing my head. Before any physical damage could be done the hostess turned him back toward her, “What is your name sir? Let me see where you are on the wait list.” He gruffly shared his name and she checked her list. “Well sir, there are several people ahead of you and I will be happy to seat you when your name comes up.” His glare would have melted the polar ice caps. This gentleman (and I use that term very loosely) would not be satiated. The hostess was a monument to calmness as she looked at him straight faced. “I would be happy to seat you at one of the empty tables, but there would be no one to serve you. Would you like to sit where you will get service, or would you like to sit where you will wait until a serviceable table opens up?”
She held up her index finger pausing his next tirade. With her other hand she held the intercom close to her ear and listened. Nodding to the voice on the other side of the conversation she turned to the gentleman and said, “If you will follow me sir, my manger would like to speak with you.” They headed out of the lobby. He sauntered behind the hostess like a man who had just won the war. Only a few moments passed when the hostess returned with what could only be described as a victorious look on her face. Soon after the gentleman squirmed back to the lobby of the restaurant and slid solemnly in his seat waiting just like everyone else. The lobby sighed with relief. Looking around at one another we silently agreed that it was nice to see who the true victor was.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts
The Sea
It exists in my mind.
I am engulfed.
The sea of confusion
Pulls me down, pulls me apart.
I run, try to hide
Can’t run.
Fight
It is a sea,
Deep, dark, lost.
© 2013 K.J. Scrim
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, poetry
Kind Of….
The catastrophe here in Colorado is something that I would expect to see in a movie. It is beyond a catastrophe and the floods are still surging into Nebraska. My post today is actually not about the strife of the flooding, loss of life, nor the property lost to the poor people who have suffered. These stories are already written and have the event well covered. This post is about the live news coverage and the on the spot reporters who, in their vast array of word knowledge, could only KIND OF put their words together. Don’t get me wrong, the reporters are brave souls who venture out and face dangers in every type of disaster and l, for one am glad that they were out there and not me. What they do is quite heroic in its own way.
A news report came from one of the many flooded areas. The reporter told her listeners that there was water kind of everywhere. Really?! The camera shot most certainly showed water all over the place. Do rivers and streams only kind of go over their banks? Throughout this report, and others, I heard the newscasters say, “kind of” more times than I could count. The water kind of went through the house behind me…. This car kind of came down stream…. Raw sewage is kind of leaking into the flood waters…. The water WENT through that house and destroyed it, there IS raw sewage in the flood waters, and vehicles of every kind DID float into houses, and pile up everywhere. There is, and was, no kind of about it.
These two little words are a non-commitment that gives everyone an excuse out. A person should commit to the situation, “the car floated down stream.” This simple statement commits the speaker to the fact that the car did indeed float down the stream, but what if it was already there? What if there was no floating involved? This lack of confidence, in terms of speaking, has permeated our culture. Are we so afraid of saying that something IS? Have we lost the confidence in the use of the word “is” that we now have to fall back on “kind of”? Take these famous quotes (Shelley, Einstein, Buddha), and how they are completely deflated when there is that added piece of uncertainty.
Go forth and kind of prosper.
Imagination is kind of more important than knowledge.
The tongue like a sharp knife kind of kills without drawing blood.
The rivers in Colorado didn’t kind of overflow their banks, they did. Let’s take those two words and put them to better use. Colorado is a proud state and will be a stronger community. The flood waters are receding but the mud remains everywhere. Are the people kind of taking care of it? No, they are tackling it. They have shovels, buckets, and strong backs that will scrub every nook and cranny where the mud is. I hope that the media does more than kind of follow the clean up.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Language, Quotes
Do Not Mock Me
There you are, sitting in front of me, mocking me. Do you not understand what it takes to decorate your face with just black ink? How am I to write upon you when you are not giving me any expression or meaning? I have needs too you know? Are you amused when I wince uncomfortably searching for just the right word, sentence, or structure? I am a writer who crafts words to put on you while you laugh each day that I struggle to fill you. Be wary my white friend. The day will come when you laugh too much, or taunt me into a cruel corner. I will crumple, shred, and send you into oblivion without a thought then turn my back on your pitiful pulverized mess and pull a clean sheet from the stack. This new paper will not disrespect me, and I will continue to write whether you are a clean slate or a small mount of powder in my waste bin. I am a writer and I will fill your face with my words, and laugh at your weak attempts at ridicule. Now, step aside, I have a story to write.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Writing
Life in the Mousetrap Factory
One of my first jobs was in a mousetrap factory where we built “Can’t Miss” mousetraps. I sat in front of a bin, a monstrosity in itself, filled with the wooden 2”x4” bases that all the mechanical killing equipment was attached to. Each day I sat at my chair with the saw dust smell filling my nose and the sounds of the oily machine as it pulled each plank in, one at a time, and slammed in two staples and the “tail” of the trap. Eight hours a day I sat and shoved traps into the machine and eight hours a day the traps were spit into a bucket with two staples and a tail. A small mouse could have easily loaded this empty frame of a trap onto it’s back. By sliding it’s arms through the two staples this little fellow would have a bit of armor to fight off any foe that may approach.
There were two of us that stapled the mousetraps on my shift and side by side we had identical work stations with identical bins with the same number of traps in our bins. To keep things interesting we would have contests each day to see who could staple and tail the most traps in a single shift. Invariably she would beat me, but I always gave her a good run. On our record day, we slid and stapled and tailed 45,000 mousetraps. That’s 46.875 mousetraps a minute each. Where did all those mousetraps go? Just think, 45,000 mousetraps each day, five days a week, 56 weeks a year, where two shifts of trap crafters spewed out 25,200,000 traps from this one trap factory each year. That’s a lot of dead mice.
It has been many years since my life at the mousetrap factory. I heard that they are still open and still making mousetraps. My sister found an old trap from the day and sent it to me. I proudly hang it from my office wall where I gaze upon it knowing that I was a part of this great cause to bring about the reduction of the mouse population. This one tiny trap has never been a part of the violence that brings fear to every mouse in the United States, but it has been a part of one day that one crafter put two staples and a tail on it.
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts
The Jewel of Life
A drop of water is the essence of life. Be a drop of water.
~K.J. Scrim
Filed under Arbitrary Thoughts, Nature Photography, Photography
arbitrarydustbunnies 