Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [14]

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14. Of course, now, as he fishtailed

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Loose ends

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Goines had decided that morning, urged on by Mrs. Goines, to stop going to the fitness center for a few weeks, or for however long the coronavirus threat continued. But while he could substitute home push-ups and other physical activities – “I could move furniture!” he told Mrs. Goines – he was worried that the Silver & Fit wellness program he participated in through his Medicare PPO health insurance might stop paying his monthly membership fee at the fitness center. Mrs. Goines told him to call the program and ask.

All Over the Place: The Shunning of Stanley McTick

By Michael H. Brownstein

Sometimes a wind is but a breeze and all of the birds twitter fretfully across branches, fish swim to the surface and study the weight of their skin, and dogs circle tightly in place before they stretch their long noses as far as they can stretch, their faithful tongues loose and hungry.

Poetry & Portraits: Rose

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Rose
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on May 10, 2014]

Today I found the body of the deer
who used to eat my garden rose by rose.
I recognized her by the ragged ear
she flared once when I sprayed her with the hose.

As the World Turns: Golden Years

By Ed Rogers

“Golden Years” is what they call this time in my life. I sure don’t understand where, or who came up with that name. I know David Bowie sang a song about it^*. I liked the song but never really understood how it related to me.
    I’m also not sure if your Golden Years start when you go on Medicare at 65 or when you retire at 67. At any rate, mine started with colon cancer at 64. I turned 65 the following January the 3rd and Medicare paid for my last chemo. We were lucky; my wife, Janie, who worked for cancer doctors, had very good insurance. So, along with my life insurance, I had a cancer policy that covered everything.

Penny for Her Thoughts: An explosion heard ’round the world

By Penelope Griffiths

I was all set to write a piece on Brexit, since Britain had at last left the European Union. But Nature had other ideas, and “boom!” COVID-19 exploded in the world.
    The first we knew of this new viral threat were the headlines of a flu-like disease in a particular area of China that was infecting people and killing many old ones.

My Life [7]

In healthy retirement

By Jim Rix

I now reside in South Lake Tahoe, where I manage my 5-unit apartment building (formally SoftRix’s offices) and my house in Tahoe Keys as a seasonal vacation rental.
    My older son, Leland, and daughter, Vanita, live just 30 minutes away, over the hill in Carson Valley, south of Carson City, Nevada. Both are teachers. My youngest child, son Marlon, is an accomplished woodworker/cabinet-maker in Clovis, California. From them I have one grandson and five granddaughters.

Postscript to 99.915 (a viral poem)

Especially for those who read only email notifications of postings here (and don’t read the comments)

By Moristotle

The comments following the publication yesterday of motomynd Paul Clark’s “viral poem” were almost as interesting as the poem itself –maybe even more interesting, actually, however brilliant the poem was (to quote one commenter).  So...
    I’ve selected and assembled some of the comments here. Let this be a lesson to those of you who generally read only our email notifications of blog postings: maybe you should change your ways and start visiting the blog itself...and reading comments....

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [13]

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13. “Charlie Dayton, he come to Dominica

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

99.915 (a viral poem)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)


Like most things, it starts overseas
before we know it, people dying like fleas
funny name, but a hellish disease
99.995 chance we survive

Goines On: Masked man

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To shop for bananas and bread and frozen vegetables, Goines wore the mask Mrs. Goines had made for him. Even though the five or six shoppers he saw entering Lowe’s Foods as he drove up were unmasked, he put his mask on before he entered the store. He was relieved that he was able to tie the four draw strings behind his head on the first try, for he had exhausted his arms trying to do it the first couple of times at home.

Morning Bathroom Manifesto

By Cory Adamson












There must be more to suffering
than grey Monday. Knife wounds.
Or when parents can’t help kids
with homework. This toothpaste
tastes grainy but biography helps
me forget sex appeal and the great,
golden “I.” Brush the tongue and

Ghost Fish (Part 6 of a Story for My Son)

Me, in a boat, obviously still
excited after almost stepping on a
sleeping 1,000-pound class brown (grizzly)
bear on Admiralty Island, Alaska

Conclusion

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

On a trip to Canada, in August 2000, I stopped to fly-fish a small stream while my hiking companions trekked back to camp. I was catching and releasing trout on a Royal Wulff dry fly when what looked to be maybe a 350-pound grizzly materialized out of the brush and stood less than 20 feet away, just across the narrow creek. We had been in the area several days without seeing any sign of black or grizzly bears, so I had carelessly left my can of bear pepper spray in my backpack, which was leaning against a tree several strides behind me. The bear could get to me before I could get to the pack, so I tried to stay calm and develop a plan. As luck would have it, I had just made a cast when the bear showed up, and a trout struck the fly, hooked itself, and jumped into the air. The bear became animated and jumped into the creek, same as the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers I used to raise would dive in and try to land fish for me. With the bear now barely 10 feet away, and its wet hair clinging to its ribs, I noticed it had a surprisingly rangy build: it looked and acted hungry. I landed the trout and heaved it across the creek; the bear spun, clambered back up the far bank, pounced on the flopping fish, and quickly devoured it.

Interview: Autobiographer Shirley Skufca Hickman

Shirley Skufca, in her years
at Tulare Union High School
(1958-60)

On the 4th volume of her life story

Interviewed by Moristotle

Early on, as I luxuriated in reading Shirley Skufca Hickman’s Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar, I determined that I had to interview Shirley, if for no other reason than to try to find out how she could remember so much of her life of 60 years ago – even stuff about me that I don’t remember. Yes, I am mentioned a few times in the book, which includes the story of her two years as a new teacher at Tulare Union High School – my junior & senior years and, more prominently, William Silveira and Jim Rix’s as well. Bill & Jim have already announced and written about Shirley’s book on Moristotle & Co.
    And as I continued to read, even more intriguing questions arose than how she could remember so much. Let’s see what the questions were, and how she replies to them. They are in italics.

Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar (Excerpt 2 from an autobiography)

Chapter 3 concludes

[Editor’s Note: The first day of the author’s first week as a new high school teacher appeared on Monday.]