Eide Nooroz

This week's Trifecta Challenge was to incorporate the word doctor into a piece of writing, using the following definition...a : material added (as to food) to produce a desired effect b : a blade (as of metal) for spreading a coating or scraping a surface. 



The busy executive started as the intercom beeped and the voice of his whiny
secretary came across.

"Sir" she said, " the cook from your house called. She said that either your wife didn't leave all of the appropriate ingredients for the khoresht bademjoon, or it needs it bit of something else for flavor. She said she's not that great at making Persian dishes."

"Thank you, tell the cook I will call my wife and have her do something about it."

The exectuive sat back in his chair and gave a long exasperated sigh. Why didn't the cook simply call his wife? Oh yes. That's right, she belonged even less in a kitchen than he did. Had she ever even been inside of it? Hmm. Maybe once.

Must he juggle the problems of Wall Street and culinary problems at home as well?

But this was important. It was Eide Norooz. Persian New Year. Half of the Persian community of the town would be at their house for a dinner. Heaven forbid if this traditional stew was lacking in flavor! How the old biddies would gossip! "These Americanized Persian women" they'd cluck their tongues and say.

The executive typed a hurried text message to his wife.

"Cook says khoresht bland. Not Persian. Says she doesn't know how to doctor it."

 There. She could see to it that the cook got the proper ingredients.

That crisis solved, he went back to the world of Wall Street.

One hour later at the executive's mansion. 

Cook was in the kitchen when she heard the doorbell ring. Oh thank the Lord! Perhaps that was the boss's assistant with the turmeric for the khoresht!

The door bell rang again. Where was that butler? As if she didn't have enough to do with cooking a full Persian feast for 300 people without having to stop to answer the door!

Cook jerked at the strings to her apron, wiped her hands on it, and then threw it onto the counter. It slid off into the open trash can.

She ran as fast her knobby knees would carry her to the side delivery door.

She jerked it open, "I'm glad to see you! Have you got the turme-".

She stopped and stared.

The gentleman started talking. " I don't usually make house calls, but Mrs. Executive insisted that there was an emergency."

Cook's jaw dropped. The ditzy lady of the house had called an doctor.

An actual doctor to flavor the stew.

Falling Trees and Itchies

Since the end of last year and the beginning of this new one, it feels like all I do is apologize for the time that has lapsed between posts. Once again, citizens of Blog Land, I must apologize...and hope that I can find the time to start posting regularly again. I won't bore you with the details of school life (which is boring, even to me), money problems, single-hood problems, ....blah, blah, blah...I will simply say that life in Wonderland is as cRaZy as ever.

This week, Little Sis was on winter break from school. Strike anyone else as odd? Winter break? In February? Weird. Anyway, it reminded me that as much as I love the little booger and hope for kids of my own one day, I am NOT ready for that just yet. Since her brother now goes to a different school, it was left completely to me to entertain her. From 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Oh heavenly Father.

By body was in shock from having to wake up at 6 a.m. Now, I know that this is normal for most people, but I'm a woman who doesn't go into work until around 2 p.m. Needless to say, going from working a 4 hour day to an 11 1/2 hour day is enough to leave even the most rested person reeling. I didn't get anything done around the house all week and I think the dog was beginning to think I had abandoned him. By the time I got home each night I didn't want to do anything but eat and go straight to bed. Which is what I did.

Now, I don't know if I was just slap happy from the long hours, but by Thursday afternoon, everything the kids were saying was hilarious. Little Sis randomly started crying at the doctor's office because it started to rain and she didn't want her favorite tree at the bus stop to get knocked over. Mind you, it wasn't storming...just raining. I had to bite my lip to keep the giggles inside. She had real tears in her eyes. Then her brother reminded her that it was just a tree...like any other tree in the whole world...."Besides" he said, "do you even KNOW that tree?" I was through. I was glad we were alone in the waiting room because an obnoxious snort flew from my nose and a peal of laughter straight from my gut ripped through my mouth. Little Sis just looked at me with an expression that said, "traitor". I couldn't help it! After all, this wasn't a tree in their yard...this was a random tree at a bus stop!

Later, when we were in the car on the way home, and I was sufficiently recovered from my giggle attack, Little Sis says randomly, "My butt is itchy". My jaw dropped and Big Bro says, "Eeeeewww!" and then bursts into giggles. Once again, I'm trying to hold the giggles in, because really...that's gross. I asked her why her butt was itchy and if she had had a shower the night before. She said no, but that she thought it was because of the huge poo poo that came out of it earlier. Big Bro and I were undone. I was laughing so hard I was crying, and once again Little Sis couldn't understand what was so very funny. Really, I guess it wasn't that funny. Then she said, "Well it was a really big poop". We laughed all the way home.

Oh Mercy.

Of That Which Cleopatra Speaks

The Trifecta Challenge for the weekend is a simple one: to take 33 words from one of your favorite piece of literature and give the best 33 words you can find. A seemingly simple task...but quite huge when you consider the fact that I LOVE books and so many of my favorites contain words that are all just about as equally profound. How can I choose just 33 from just 1 book?!

Sigh.

After quite a bit of thinking I decided to choose a quote from The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George. Ms. George is by far, one of my favorite authors as she does my favorite genre, historical fiction, the justice that few others can. She takes the facts that history  provides us with and then weaves it so perfectly with human emotion and feeling that it becomes so believable and relatable that the seam between what is fiction and what is history becomes invisible, making for a perfect piece of writing.

"Words, once spoken, linger forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish"