See Through Chimneys and Other Fun Friday Round-Up

I bought a dress online that the minute I put it on my husband will say, “Where’d you get that schmatta?” Schmatta, if you aren’t aware, is a Yiddish word, loosely used to refer to an old, raggedy piece of clothing that also gets applied to a lot of other things. My husband once had a dog named Schmatta (or Schmatte, if you’re a purist). He has used this term about my attire just once in forty years. It was when I put on a denim, calf-length jumper right after we got married. This could be time #2.

The men working on the neighbor’s chimney two doors down informed us that they can ‘see through ours.’ That is not good. However, it’s not as bad as our other neighbor, the next house down, whose chimney is buckling. Who knew? We never look at our chimney, mostly because we’re always looking down, so we don’t trip over the cracks in the sidewalk. The peril is endless.

We are still celebrating having found our cat after he went missing for four hours on the Lake Superior beach. It’s a longer story which I’ll tell a different time. But the gist of it is a lot of people helped us look for our cat, many of whom we didn’t know at all or scarcely knew mostly because we keep to ourselves when we are up north. So, a lot of gratitude and joy about the cat and the neighbors. Here is a picture of the cat lounging on the piano bench back home in Milwaukee.

I have been asked to be the emcee of an event because I have ‘gravitas.’ Interestingly, the event is called Pancakes and Tales of Terror. Sounds pretty serious and dignified to me. It’s about the now notorious Project 2025 and how its insane ideas would affect older adults. I might have to wear a tie in order to bring that solemnity they’re looking for.

My biggest accomplishment this week was digging back into a story that I’d left by the side of the road a while ago and turning it into a pretty darn good piece. Revision has never been my thing. First draft last draft (which is why I love blogging), but, boy, a story really gets better with a second or third working. What I realized was missing from my first draft was the relationship. The setting was great, the premise intriguing, but the people hadn’t connected. I connected them. Rennie’s Log Slide Dream.