This year, my mother, who retired to Mexico fourteen years ago, finally got to witness the insanity of Halloween in my neighborhood.
While our community is not gated, it is relatively safe, a corner of a suburb equidistant from both Dallas and Fort Worth, with a high concentration of owner-occupied houses. When we first came to Texas in 2004, it was at this time of year, and one of the reasons we chose our neighborhood was the number of homes that sported Halloween decorations.
My own house, this year, featured a graveyard complete with rising zombies in front of the…
There’s another cedar box on the table in my living room.
The table in question is a half-circle console table — half an oval, really, because it’s long and skinny. We all grow up with tables like this one — it stands in front of the picture window and holds a few knick-knacks — tall cut-glass bottles, in my case, and a shell wreath with a candle in the middle, a vase of flowers (roses, at the moment, even though I’m not typically a rose fan), and, at the back, a pair of cedar boxes.
For four years, there was…
Listening to the Hombre Jesus Woman
It’s eleven in the morning, and I’m sitting in the DFW airport waiting for the AeroMexico desk to open. “Oh, they show up late,” an airport employee informs me when I approach him for assistance. “Usually around eleven-thirty.”
My flight doesn’t leave until a bit after two, but I’ve been conditioned to show up ridiculously early for international flights. Never mind that flying to Mexico, like flying to Canada, is only kind of international. I mean, yes, they’re different countries, but you don’t cross any oceans, and you don’t need a visa.
I look for a place to sit and…
A Quantum Relationship in a Cardboard Cup
It happened five years ago, but it could have been yesterday, or never, or even tomorrow.
My husband and I were on the way back from somewhere — church maybe, improv rehearsal, brunch — it doesn’t matter. We stopped at our neighborhood Starbucks so I could get a mocha (grande, nonfat, no whip, extra shot), and a bag of beans (Verona, ground for espresso, but destined to be brewed in a Krupps automatic drip machine).
The pattern of this visit was similar to most others: I bantered with my barista, who commented on the color of my hair that week…
Melissa A. Bartell
Word Ninja. Voice Actor. Bathtub Mermaid. Editor-at-Large @AllThingsGirl. Sometimes, I make stuff up. Sometimes, I don’t.
