Dave's First Fiction, age 11!

 

"Mom, how do you spell 'crash'?"

"Mom, how do you spell 'marines'?"

"Mom, how do you spell 'yeti'?"

Eventually Andrea came to help him, and for a couple hours they were in the corner cackling evilly over the computer.

They didn't finish that day, and the next day I was enlisted to help. It was about the time the marines got to the woods, and were about to set up camp.  If the ending seems a bit rushed, it's because Dave had a list of marines and was crossing them off one by one, and my suggestions were based on trying to have a few names left to rescue by the time the helicopter got there. Typical Mom move?

Wait until Dave's old enough to spell everything himself, and see how many marines survive the night.

 

* * *

The Crash To Home

September 10th 2011

The radio started crackling: "This is Doctor Ronald Panettiere of the Himalayan Lab! We are under attack by hundreds--"

There was a fierce ROAR heard, then, "AHHHH!!!"

And then the communication was lost!

Lots of Army officers sat around a huge table for a top level meeting, with General Clarkson attending.

"I am Captain Hoskins of Washington DC military base. I have just received a distress call from Doctor Panettiere of the lab in the Himalayas. They are under attack by an unknown enemy and we are requesting permission to send scouts to the airbase."

"Permission granted, Captain Hoskins!" said General Clarkson.

"Thank you, Sir, we will have jet pilot Sanders scout the area. No further actions will be taken till the report has been received."

Circling above the Himalayas, Pilot Sanders made his report. "I see broken windows and busted doors. This place is a mess! But there are no bodies visible."

"I will send off six marines to the Himalayan lab," said Captain Hoskins.

The helicopter took off three minutes later, and they were off to the Himalayan lab. When then got there the eight marines slid down by cable onto the lab roof.

They immediately start climbing down the ladder, when they touched ground they entered the lab with extreme caution. Just as the pilot had reported, there were broken windows and busted doors, and debris scattered everywhere. After checking around, they signaled the helicopter that it was safe.

So the helicopter began to land, but all the sudden there appeared one great white beast that rushed from around a corner, and jumped onto the nose of the helicopter causing it to drive downwards. The blades were still running and came dangerously close to the marines. The marines all started shooting like crazy. They killed the creature, but now the helicopter was flipping around and coming straight for them. They dodged out of the way of the helicopter, which rammed into the hill behind them and exploded.

"There's no way the pilot could have survived!" shouted Danny, the medical officer. He ran towards the body of the beast, but when he got there he looked very confused. "I have no idea what this thing is!"

Danny rolled the body over and looked at the face. Mark ran up to Danny, and they all gathered around and looked.

"It's a-- it's a--" Mark stammered in horror. "It's a yeti!"

Frederick just started laughing, while Davis stood by frowning.

Louis, the commanding marine, didn't know what to think. "It isn't a bear and isn't human! But it's impossible to be a yeti! They don't exist!"

William, the radio officer, called for emergency backup.

Louis shouted, "Marines! Check the perimeter!"

Before they could move, they all turned at the sound of loud tumbling coming towards them. They saw one yeti and started shooting, but ten more came up from behind.

Louis shouted, "Retreat down the slope!!!"

Mark was the first to jump, Danny right behind him, then Davis and William, and Louis himself. Frederick got snatched by a yeti and ripped to pieces.

Seven yetis were still in pursuit, while four of them stopped to fight over Frederick's body. Mark rolled to the bottom of the slope, jumped up and fired in a hurry, killing one yeti. Danny tumbled down beside him, got up and fired his guns for all he was worth. Davis, William and Louis were down as well. Over the sound of everyone shooting, Davis yelled, "Take cover!!" and he pulled the pin out of a grenade and threw it.

The grenade exploded, taking out three yetis. There were three left, but they immediately turned on each other, killing two.

Now there was only one yeti, and he sprang with his claws out on top of Danny. His friends all fired, and they killed it quickly, but still Danny didn't make it. Mark crouched by Danny to take his dog tag.

They looked up the slope at the four yetis still eating Frederick, and saw more yetis come up behind those four.

Louis yelled, "There's no time! Look!" Mark stood up and shouted, "How many of these stinking freaks are there?"

They all sprinted towards the woods. As soon as they made it to the forest line, the roaring yetis had already reached the bottom of the slope and were chasing them. William gasped, "We can't outrun them!"

Louis yelled, "Shoot them!" and they all opened fire from the forest line into the pack of howling beasts.

But the last one jumped onto William and killed him and utterly crunched the radio. The other marines immediately killed the yeti. Then they sadly took William's dog tags.

Mark said, "The radio is broken! How are we ever going to make it back?"

Louis said, "We'll just have to figure something out. We have to stay alive until the reinforcements arrive."

Moving cautiously, they went back up the slope. They found where Frederick had been killed, but he was gone now, along with the yetis. A hideous trail of blood led away up the mountain.

"We don't even have his dog tags to bring back to his family!" Louis said angrily.

The surviving marines tried again to enter the lab. Going deep inside the building, they found where the scientists had all died. But they also discovered some advanced weaponry and explosives. Louis, Mark and Davis all armed themselves with huge guns and filled up their belts and backpacks with bombs and ammo and grenades.

Mark said, "Why don't we go and find where the yetis are and kill them all?"

Louis said, "Good idea! Let's follow them back to their cave and destroy them all!"

They all came out the door, and walked about two miles following the trail the yetis had left. Eventually they came to the cave. They could hear noises inside it going chomp, chomp, chomp.

"Those hideous beasts are not going to survive to kill any more!" muttered Louis.

With a huge yell, Louis, Mark and Davis leaped inside the cave. They started throwing grenades and bombs all over the place until the inside of the cave was lit up like the 4th of July. There were yetis roaring and trying to jump to attack them but the yetis all died.

After the massacre was over, they looked around for what was left of Frederick and found his dog tags. "Buddy, you are not going to be forgotten!" they vowed.

They went outside that bloody dark cave, ate MREs and walked back to the lab about the time they heard another helicopter coming to pick them up. Then they went home.

THE END

Andrea's Paper Doll Dresses

They are from a few years ago, and not as good as the current ones, but she supposes I can post them  :-) 

Andrea_paperdolls01 Andrea_paperdolls02 Andrea_paperdolls03 Andrea_paperdolls04 Andrea_paperdolls05 Andrea_paperdolls06 Andrea_paperdolls07 Andrea_paperdolls08

More From My Fruitful Recycle Bin

Who knows how old they are.  They got sorted out of Karen's pile of sketches and TRASHED.  I saved them! 

Karen-purple-pegasus Karen-white-horse-rearing Karen-dresses-designing Karen-carousel-sketch

Planting Flowers Outside

On the fourth nice day of 2012, I planted a bunch of pansies outside. 

planting-flowers-1204-1 planting-flowers-1204-2 planting-flowers-1204-3 planting-flowers-1204-5

Of course my concrete is that beautiful.  No, I didn't Photoshop that at all!   What are you implying?

planting-flowers-1204-6

The trilliums grow by themselves. 

planting-flowers-1204-8 planting-flowers-1204-9

Chadwicks Again

The latest catalog had a lot of things I really like! 

I won't buy it, not only because it's all "imported" from origin unspecified.  But I'll save the pictures for inspiration   :-) 

 ch_50014_multi ch_50020_blue  ch_86732_royal-multi ch_40011_purple2patchwork-print ch_00810_multichadwicks-crinkle-skirt-2 

Even if that last isn't a spiral skirt, the hemline sure resembles one! 

My Blue Cheese Salad Bar

It was one of those days, you know the kind. Bothersome things that had to be done, nothing too awful, just a pileup of minor annoyances. I had to make a long transmission-related journey in the rain and hail-- made quite a bit better by one of the cheerfuller of the Brandenberg concerti coming on the radio-- that, and the happy expectation of going through a salad bar at some point in the day!

I found a pizza place near my destination and kept my hopes fixed on it like the distant star in the twilight. That was going to be the UP in the middle of the hail and the transmission. Then I picked up DH and found that although his plans did involve stopping for lunch somewhere, a pizza place wasn't what he had in mind.

He said we'd just take off back towards home and see where we ended up. I knew that left to himself he'd end up somewhere Chinese, so I made some phone calls while driving and found that the QFC next to the Safeway whose location I happened to know might have a salad bar.

First we went to the Safeway because he missed the "QFC next to the" part, and got all comfortably parked and didn't see why QFC's food would be any different from Safeway. I was gonna have to be sad if we didn't go to QFC! Then inside QFC I saw a bar in the distance, but it turned out to be an olive bar. A what??!

It was too late by then. DH ordered a roast beef sandwich and started eating it, while I wandered disconsolately up and down every single aisle in the store waiting for something to look good. I eventually got a cup of yogurt and sat down.

DH handed the last 1/4 of his sandwich to me. I pulled off the bread and roast beef and ate the lettuce, tomato and avocado. He said, "You just did that to amuse me, didn't you?"

No, I did it because I wanted a salad bar.

After that he decided we just had to go to the hardware store. THAT I happened to KNOW was right past a Top Foods where they have this EPIC salad bar that I just love. It's by the pound unfortunately, but I've gotten to be an expert at making a $4 salad.

The main reason I love a salad bar so much is because of the blue cheese dressing! DH won't let us buy blue cheese dressing any more because it's all made with soy. Not a single brand that I can find is made with anything but soybean oil.

I said I wanted to go by Top Foods, but he was all on about Costco and dinnertime and I don't know what all and he DROVE RIGHT BY the Top Foods exit. Then I started thinking seriously about crying. I do not care about dinnertime! Don't care what the kids want to eat! Do not want lamb chops! I just want what I want when I want it, is that too much to ask?

And then inspiration struck. "Blue cheese dressing" doesn't only come in jars. Buy some blue cheese and make it your own self!

salad-bar-blue-cheese salad-bar-with-blue-cheese-1

Tiny little chunk from Denmark for $4, or gigantic block from Costco for $4. There's various recipes on the internet, but the bottom line is blue cheese + mayo + sour cream + milk to consistency + blend. I can do that.

salad-bar-with-blue-cheese-4salad-bar-with-blue-cheese-5

I didn't just want a salad, I wanted a salad bar, and finally I got one, with everything I wanted on it, and there was happies in every bite :-)

Andrea said, "You're taking a picture of your plate to post it on your blog?"

Um, yes.

My Cool New Ersatz Piano

When I was first married I bought a piano after a lot of shopping, a Baldwin Hamilton chosen for its tone rather than appearance. It cost more than the others and I had to make monthly payments, but the sound was worth it.

Then I had a bunch of kids, and had less time to practice. The computer's easier to manage, because you can save work to resume later, and the projects don't have to be shared until they're ready! Anyway I'm not the performing arts type. I've talked about that before (huge rant...)

Then to top it off I got that magnificent yellow dog, who took up all the available room in this rather small house of ours. As the dog grew larger and larger, I sacrificed more and more things to try to keep him. I figured I wasn't playing the piano much anyway, and I could put his magnificent kennel where the piano was. So I let the piano go to a relative who wanted to borrow it / store it for me.

Once the dog reached full size, he went bonkers being confined inside a small house, and I didn't want him as an outside dog getting cold and lonely in wintertime, so he had to go.

Then I had neither dog nor piano.

piano old

I kept the twins!

Being pianoless was okay for a while. When I began to need music, I spent some time trying to play my old guitar, which happens to be a nice one, very mellow and soothing.  

But then I really started missing my piano. I found myself thinking of it at nights again. Now I have the space for it, but no way to get it back home. Estimates for piano moving started at $400, and I don't have a pickup and can't very well move an 800 lb piano with just me and DH anyway (were he willing to try it, which he isn't)

Sigh.

Andrea has an electronic keyboard, which I am allowed to play, but not exactly encouraged, shall we say? It's kept up on her top bunk with its wires wound around the bed frame...

(Anyway her middle G doesn't work, due to long-ago cat barf. Last year I cleaned it and got it working, but recently the same key went silent again. Middle G is kind of important. Here's the inside of a Yamaha keyboard, in case you're curious, with the "before" view of the problem. )

cat-barf-keyboard

But, guess what! I have a piano again!

Kinda.

A lady offered this 80s electronic keyboard which has been in a church attic for years. It weighs a ton, and it's obtuse; at first I despaired of it working because it wasn't making any sounds in the headphones, but it turns out you have to read the manual and push a few buttons before it'll do anything! But it does work.  The keys are weighted, it even comes with a pedal. It requires external speakers, and I happened to have a set of computer woofers and tweeters up in the attic which I'd been about to give away thinking I'd never have a use for them! At first I despaired of them working too, but it was just a bad audio cable. I tried another audio cable, and that one was bad, too. Luckily there are at least five audio cables in the attic. My Dad was right, you should keep everything that might EVER be useful! :-)

The cool part about a real piano is that it plays even when the power's out, but the cool part about the electronic keyboard is that it's always in perfect tune. I would never spend the money to keep my poor old piano tuned. I did tune it myself with the free utility Tunelab, but that was such a big operation that I only did it every couple of years, and anyway it just doesn't sound quite as lovely as when the tuner does it.

piano-keyboard-1203

This satisfies my "piano" urge, it sounds lovely and the keys feel almost like the real thing, and this all cost $0 to put together.
See, that's the top hutch from my old computer desk!