âœHi, I'm Michael, I'll be your sonographer today,â he greeted me, in a tone not unlike Julie announcing she is your cruise director, though his curls were natural, I'm certain.

I followed him into the dimly lit ultrasound room, exchanged my t-shirt and loose black pants for a stunning cotton gown with blue ties at the back, and the heady scent of bleach issuing from the fibers, and then took my place on the exam bed.

While he squirted my stomach with warm gel, and then took pictures of my internal organs, we chatted about children's literature, and hurricane victims. At the end, he assured me that I do not have appendicitis, and left me with the oddest compliment ever: âœYou have pretty ovaries.â

And I do.
I've seen the pictures.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Happy birthday to my dearest darling !!!!

Louise Marley

In The Child Goddess Louise Marley introduces us to a future in which the Catholic Church, bowing to peer pressure, and the need for clergy to serve on Earth and various other worlds, has allowed an order of female priests, the Magdalenes, celebate Enquirers who have accepted Mary of Magdala as Christ's first disciple.

Despite that, it's not a religious novel, as much as it is a good first contact story. A power company on an obscure, mostly-oceanic world discovers an island of lost children, remnants of a 300 year old colony. There's the inevitable skirmish, and one child is brought home to Earth, where Isabel, the Magdalene priest who is the lead character, is assigned as guardian, and with the help of a friend (which backstory, I'm hoping, is in one of the other books in this series) discovers the truth of the girl's life and culture.

It's an excellent novel as a stand-alone, and I enjoyed it as much for the plot as for Marley's feminist sensibilities with regard to Catholocism.

I look forward to visiting her work again, in the future.

Permalink at Zenitopia.com

In lieu of a real post, I offer bullets.
Also, the word of the day is tomato. I challenge everyone to write a blog-post or a flash-fic piece interpreting that word.

1. I woke up this morning with Ruby Tuesday on my lips – the song, not the burger joint – and it's still echoing in my head as I write this.
2. Inspired by a friend, I wrote some flash-fiction this morning, which you can check out at MoonChilde.com, my fiction site. If you read it, please leave a comment there. (LJ users can ignore this, as MoonChilde also mirrors to this journal.)
3. I really wish I had a butler who would make french toast and coffee and bring it to me, poolside. Well, one can dream.
4. Yes, I AM stil in bed at one, but I've posted to my new account at Blogit.com, and written a book review, and the above-mentioned flash piece. (Most of the Blogit content is the same as here, some is not.)
5. I love the way Zorro's fur smells like cinnamon and honeysuckle. He's so comforting. Cleo is also comforting, but she just smells like sun-baked dog.
6. When I first read Harriet the Spy, as a child, I began eating tomato sandwiches. Sometimes, I still do.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Joanne Fluke

Hannah Swenson owns a bakery called The Cookie Jar in a fictional town in Minnesota, and when she's not pushing sugar, she solves crimes. The formula for a Culinary Mystery is not new: cozy murder mystery combined with a cookbook, but unlike Diane Mott Davidson's tales, the mystery here is predictable, and the text is desperate for a good editor.

I confess that the book did inspire the need to make cobbler (mine was strawberry), and the recipe worked, for the most part, but I find it jarring to have the recipes within the chapters, and not grouped together at the end.

Permalink at Zenitopia.com

They wait at the corner, behind the picket fences that do less to protect their property and more to support the wild roses than any fences really should. Clad in ancient calico, with their white hair covered by straw hats, they work the soil, with serene smiles on their weathered faces.

They are always slightly built, but their arms are lean and strong, and on their feet are sturdy shoes, and stockings that have fallen down to reveal legs mapped with varicose veins. Their eyes are masks; behind their wide-open stares they could be plotting to take over the world, one batch of cookies at a time, or just re-writing their Christmas lists, putting whichever grandchild is 'in favor' at that moment, at the top of the list.

They carry with them the co-mingled scents of sun and soil, and Chanel No. 5, the latter spritzed on quickly, every morning, more from habit than anything else. They wear lipstick, but generally no other make-up.

They wait at the corner, and hold out bags of sun-ripened tomatoes, and ask, âœWouldn't you like to take some home, dearie? I just picked them this morning.â

Permalink at Moonchilde.com

Woke up this morning feeling groggy and drugged, looked at the clock and went back to bed. Spend the day floating in and out of sleep, thought about writing something real, but the words wouldn't come.

My head feels oddly disconnected from my body, and sinus pressure has formed invisible rings around my eyes. Sinus congestion would be an extremely effective form of torture, I think, if only it were controllable, but perhaps too inhumane.

Endless glasses of ice water laced with lemon or lime are my balm today.

Note to self: taking benadryl at 4 AM ruins your day.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

I say… And you think… ?

1. Julie:: Andrews
2. Emotional:: blackmail
3. Head of household:: me?
4. Diva:: I wish!
5. Devastation:: hurricane
6. Business or pleasure:: travel
7. Crown:: triple
8. Eastern:: seaboard
9. Buzzed:: wired
10. Officer:: of the court

Like this meme? Play along here.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

Sunday afternoon found me jumping into the deep end of the pool rather than mincing into the water, step by step from the shallows. Cool liquid enveloped me, and I was suddenly a mermaid, splashing and frolicking with innocent delight.

Green and blue foam “noodles,” the aquatic colors matching the stripes in my swimsuit, were my toys, alternately forming an ersatz raft, or a free-floating obstacle course.

I floated on breeze-created waves with my eyes closed, later opening them to sudden disorientation caused by the leafy canopy of the trees, and higher up, the beginnings of a mackerel sky.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com

It's been a lazy Saturday, spent mostly in bed, the four of us, two human and two not, cuddling, reading, napping, talking quietly.

I left the bedroom at three and sat by the pool but couldn't find the motivation to actually swim. The dogs flanked me, glad I was on dry land â“ the pool makes them anxious â“ they seem to think it's a giant sloshy monster, devouring their people, then returning them, dripping wet.

I returned to the bedroom at six, napping through the and of some movie I'd seen a thousand times before. At midnight, we might get waffles.

Permalink at MissMeliss.com