Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Say it with flowers

The easy way

Today’s find isn’t one of the incredibly useful publications I sometimes tout.  Nor is it a fabulous musicion or a crackerjack piece of software.

It’s just a bit of fun.

Courtesy of a German web services company.  I think they are German, anyway.  Their main web page pops up in German.  And their contact address includes the word Zugerstrasse.  I remember just enough of my high school German to be reliably certain that “strasse” means “street.”

On the other hand, the company might not be in Germany so much as any German-speaking country.

And none of that matters, because the web page I’m going to show you does not care what language you speak.

That’s because, in one sense, it speaks the language of flowers.

What it actually does is let you draw or write with flowers.  You can change the color, you can change the size, you can change the number of petals, but if you hold your mouse button and drag the mouse across the screen, you’ll get something like this:

(It looks better on a big screen.)

Anyway, try it.  You’ll like it.

Just click here.

Someday

I’ll be thankful for this again.

Today, I’d like to suggest something for which you all should be thankful.  Just at the moment, it’s out of my reach—literally.

Working shoulders.

It’s nice if you can take them for granted.

Your shoulders are sort of amazing, providing all kinds of mobility and all kinds of stabilizing strength.  As such, they tend to attract problems other joints don’t seem to have.

And that’s when you stop being able to take them for granted.

A couple of months ago, I started to have serious and sudden pain in my right shoulder whenever I moved it in certain ways.  Drop-to-your-knees-and-howl kind of pain.

I thought, at first, that it would pass.  Rest a bit.  Stop working so hard in the yard.  Take it easy.

It didn’t pass.

So, I went to a sports doctor.  Got X-rays.  Got a cortisone shot.  Let’s be thankful for cortisone shots—even though this one’s effect was not as miraculous as I had hoped after various relatives’ stories of bursitis treatment.  The efficacy of the cortisone shot for me was compromised by the fact that I don’t have bursitis.

I have adhesive capsulitis.

Otherwise known as “frozen shoulder.”

I’d never heard of it before—and I am here to tell you if I never heard of it again, it would be too soon for me.

The good news is it is known as a self-limiting condition.  Supposedly, it will eventually wear off and I’ll regain most of my shoulder’s mobility.

Supposedly.

Meanwhile, I go to physical therapy a couple of times a week and do exercises on my own every day. I have a new appreciation for medieval torture chambers—because this hurts.  A lot.  In a way that mere words cannot describe.

However, I am thankful for the physical therapist who is able to ignore my gritted teeth, whimpers and occasional quiet screams as she works on my shoulder.  I dread going, but I think it’s helpful.

And I’m thankful for the insurance that picks up most—although not all—of the cost of this.  I’m spending a fortune in co-payments, and I shudder to think what the bill would be if I didn’t have insurance.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the years when both my shoulders worked well.

And I think you should take a minute and be thankful for yours!

 

What shall I write?

Something simmering.

Ever since I wrote my play and it had its first reading, people have been asking me what else I have, telling me I should be working on something new, and wondering if I am a one-trick pony.

I have wondered that myself.

The thing is, there was a lot of work to do to get the play to a production.  Every playwright is his or her own first producer, and if you’ve got a play in which you have faith, you owe it to the play to try to be a good one.

In my case, that meant a steep learning curve since I had never approached the theatre from that angle.  In addition, I had some early luck with casting that seemed to make it imperative that I do the very best I could to insure the play got every opportunity possible.

It took longer than anyone could have possibly imagined.  Anyone, that is, except another playwright.

And I don’t know that I did everything, or even anything, right.

But the play is going to have a production—(Yay!)—and I am saved from being the Emily Dickinson of playwrights.  Whatever happens now, I will not end up with a drawer full of unproduced plays.  I might end up with a drawer full of unproduced plays and one that made it onto a stage, but it seems like whatever was paralyzing my impulse to write may have lifted.

In the last couple of days, I have been wondering what’s next.

And, at the moment, I am wondering if I could write a farce.

There’s a part of me that highly doubts it.

Farce is the form most violently dependent upon plot.  Plot is not something at which I excel.  It always seems to me that I am interested in character.  Dialogue flows somewhat rapidly from my pen (or keyboard), but, often, I am casting about for a believable situation imbued with enough conflict to get these characters I have conjured through a play or a story or, heaven forfend, a novel!

I went to see a production of Moon Over Buffalo recently, however.  And I remember, with great fondness, seeing Noises Off on Broadway in the weeks following 9/11.  At a time when we thought we could never laugh again, more than a thousand people a night were rolling in the aisles.

That production was profoundly important—a gift of incalculable value to a grieving city—and cured me forever from any tendency I might have had to look down on farce.

So, what I’m wondering now is—could I write a farce?

Maybe we’ll see.

Don’t tell the refrigerator

You bought a new car.*

Today’s tip is based purely on superstition.

I don’t give much credence to superstitions.  I quote from the Scottish Play (although I do tend to call it “The Scottish Play”), I walk under ladders, I’m fine with Friday the 13th and black cats.

And this particular superstition is not one I discovered for myself.

I got it out of the Reader’s Digest.

Thanks, Reader’s Digest.  (insert sarcastic growl here)

This is another one of those things where I would like to give credit where it is due, but I can’t remember who wrote the article.  I’m not even sure of the title, although I think it was the same as the headline and sub-head of this post.  That’s how I’ve always remembered it, anyway.

It was a humorous piece about how you can’t quite get ahead of the financial curve.  As soon as you buy a new car, the refrigerator breaks.  (Hence the advice not to tell the refrigerator.)

I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that this is true often enough to suggest, tentatively and with tongue only partly inserted in cheek, that you might want to be a little cautious.

Just recently, I decided we had enough in the remodeling account to replace some fogged windows here at Casa Lagarto and to finally get a tub for the bathroom where what was apparently a clawfoot tub had gotten up on its little clawfeet and walked out of the house with the former owner.

The result of that is that I am spending a fortune in co-payments for physical therapy on my shoulder.

Are the two things related?

Any rational person would say they are not.

I, usually, think of myself as a rational person.

In the middle of the night, giddy from lack of sleep (a frozen shoulder is extremely annoying in that way), I rather wish I’d somehow managed to do the tub and window research so that the left brain didn’t know what the right brain was doing.

So, that’s my tip.  I don’t really think you should lend it any weight.  But, hey!  You never know.

Laundry!

I remembered to do it!

This is what you might call a minor miracle.

The thing is, I brought the laundry basket downstairs two days ago.  Actually, the MotH* brought it downstairs—because of my pesky shoulder.

And therein lies the problem.

You see, the MotH took the basket all the way into the laundry room.

I rarely go into the laundry room unless I am doing laundry.

I don’t do laundry if I don’t remember that I have laundry to do.

My usual modus operandi when not actually starting the laundry the minute I bring it downstairs is to leave the basket in the middle of the floor in the more populated part of the house.  That way, my feeble mind can be recalled to the necessity  of transferring those clothes from the basket into the washing machine by the ever-present sight of the basket.

Fortunately, for some unknown and possibly miraculous reason, a little voice in my head announced, “Laundry,” a few minutes ago.

(This is a voice that should be encouraged.  It needs a paycheck.  Or cake!)

Anyway, I remembered the laundry, and I am doing the laundry, and this is a miracle on several levels.

First—that I remembered, second—that I have a washing machine and don’t have to go down to the creek with stones, and third—that I will have workout clothes for my next physical therapy session.

It’s not that my PT sessions are particularly strenuous, but I do think it’s wise to be able to move.

It’s not that I don’t have plenty of workout clothes.

It’s just that I don’t have very many respectable workout clothes, since I no longer belong to a gym.  All in all, since I no longer go anywhere, almost, I don’t seem to have very many respectable clothes of any sort.

However, I have a couple of decent sets of workout clothes, and they are going to be clean.

Because I remembered the laundry!

 

 

* MotH = Man of the House

The mythical smiths

Where it all began

You know, Smith is the most common surname in the United States, Candada, and Great Britain.  Its equivalent or translation appears in the top five in almost all European countries.

I’m thinking maybe I should have saved this discussion for Wondering Wednesdays, because I sure wonder why that is, don’t you?  The name’s origin is trade-related.  Blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, locksmiths—all were known as smiths.  And, I guess that covers a multitude of trades, but was it really so many more than cartwrights or wainwrights?  Or were smiths just naturally more prolific?  Maybe, being necessary for the creation and maintenance of weapons, they were behind the lines at most battles, so more of them survived?

I don’t know.  But I wonder, don’t you?

I suspect, actually, upon further research, that I may have hit on something with that theory of being behind the lines.  The three major smiths of mythology were all lame.  It seems likely that able-bodied men would be warriors.  The disabled, congenitally or through injury, would be smiths—and survive.

Wayland, the Norse hero smith, was hamstrung by King Niohad, and forced to forge items for him.  In revenge,  he killed the king’s sons, made goblets from their skulls, jewels from their eyes and a brooch from their teeth.  He also raped the king’s daughter.  (Maybe the moral is—don’t cross a smith?)  He is also famous for fashioning the mail shirt that Beowulf wore.

Hephaestus, the Greek god of blacksmiths, was thrown out of heaven because of a shriveled foot (or he injured it when he was thrown out for a completely different reason).  In revenge, he fashioned a throne for Hera that would not let her rise once she sat upon it.  Dionysus had to go get him, get him drunk, and bring him back to Olympus to release her.  (Don’t cross a smith.)

Vulcan, the Roman god of blacksmiths started out as a fire god.  As the Romans conquered the Greeks, they associated many of their gods with Greek equivalents and incorporated the Greek myths.  Consequently, Vulcan got thrown out of heaven, too, (by his own mother because he was so ugly) and broke his leg.  In revenge, he, too, trapped his mother Juno on a specially-fashioned throne.  The Roman version of her release, however, doesn’t involve alcohol.  Jupiter gave him Venus for a wife, and in return, Vulcan released Juno.  (Not only shouldn’t you cross a smith, but you have to buy them off when you do.)

This has all been very interesting to me.  It just goes to show that the study of mythology is rewarding.  I’m thinking this concept—don’t cross a smith—might be a useful one to adopt (always bearing in mind that “First, do no harm” is probably the best over-riding principle).

A whack

On the side of the head.

That’s what today’s Friday Find is all about.

In fact, that’s the name of it.  A Whack on the Side of the Head is a book by Roger von Oech.  It’s probably his most well-known book, and the reason I’m bringing it to your attention today is its subtitle:

“How You Can Be More Creative”

I don’t know about you—well, actually, I do know about you.  There isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t like to be more creative.  In my particular circle, it’s a mortal lock.

Actors, writers, directors, painters, programmers, parents.  Everybody can benefit from an increase in creativity.

This book can help.

It’s an easy read.  Large type, plenty of illustrations, lots of white space.

And, the content is good.

It’s a whack on the side of the head.  New ways to think about things.  Exercises to shake things up, questions to ask.

Advice, like give yourself permission to be foolish or reverse your perspective.

Stuff many of us have heard before, since and in other places, but it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of it in different ways and in different words.

It’s a book I keep on my shelves and ought to re-read more often!

Look at this!

Our new bistro table.

We’ve got some new outdoor furniture at Casa Lagarto.

We still don’t have very much indoor furniture, but, hey!  A sale.

I’ve had my eye on this table and chairs for more than two years.  Finally, it went on sale just at the point I was feeling temporarily solvent.  (It’s like a perfect storm in reverse.  When everything lines up so you feel like you really can buy something.)

We got it at Kirkland’s.  You can see it here.  I try not to go to Kirkland’s very often, because they have all kinds of things I like.  Mostly, what I drool over at Kirkland’s are the decorative objects.  And I feel that when the house still needs a bathtub and some carpet and other large items one should eschew decorative wall plaques.

So, I go to Kirkland’s, and I talk myself out of things all the time.

This time, however, I didn’t talk myself out of it.

We bought it.

Cast iron.  It’s not going to blow away in any of the strong breezes that come off the creek.

The perfect size for an area of the patio that looks like it was made for some sort of table and chairs.

A sale price.

And now the outside of the house looks a little more finished.

There’s a long way to go, but I’m thankful for this step in the right direction.

 

Where am I?

I wonder.

No, I have not lost my mind.

Most likely, at the moment you are reading this, I know exactly where I am.

The difficulty comes because I am not writing it at the moment you are reading it.  In fact, in this instance, I am writing it a couple of weeks early.

The reason for this extraordinary lack of procrastination is that my niece is visiting this week.  (Yes, this week—the week you are reading this post.)

The decks have had to be cleared for fun and frolic.

The thing is, I don’t know whether we will be going to the beach, to St. Augustine, to Fernandina or where?  I don’t know if her uncle will have convinced her to zipline over the ‘gators at the Alligator Farm.  (I hope not, but there’s no telling.)

Will we have gone hiking?

Will we be at the Kingsley Plantation?

Will we be trying on clothes at the outlet stores?

Will we be out on the boat spying on manatees and egrets, ospreys and eagles?

Or will we be lounging on the dock discussing the meaning of life and what she wants to be when she grows up?

I have no earthly idea.

I do know, whatever it is, it will be fun.

She’s a pretty cool kid.

Past visits have included Cape Canaveral, flea markets and horseback riding.  Stuffed piglets and straws.

She’ll be staying with my mom, but there’s a good chance we get her for a night or two.

So, at this point, now in the past, I don’t really know where I am today, in the present.  (This post is getting as complicated as one of those Star Trek episodes where they run into a rupture in the time-space continuum.)

So, I’m wondering.

Maybe I’ll tell you when I find out.  Maybe I won’t.

You get to wonder, too!


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