Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Best short story EVER!!!!

This story is possibly one of the funniest I've ever read. It's classified under non-fiction, but I'm not sure I believe it..... ;)



The Ni
ght the Bed Fell
by James Thurber

I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father. It makes a better recitation (unless, as some friends of mine have said, one has heard it five or six times) than it does a piece of writing, for it is almost necessary to throw furniture around, shake doors, and bark like a dog, to lend the proper atmosphere and verisimilitude to what is admittedly a somewhat incredible tale. Still, it did take place.

It happened, then, that my father had decided to sleep in the attic one night, to be away where he could think. My mother opposed the notion strongly because, she said, the old wooden bed up there was unsafe- it was wobbly and the heavy headboard would crash down on father's head in case the bed fell, and kill him. There was no dissuading him, however, and at a quarter past ten he closed the attic door behind him and went up the narrow twisting stairs. We later heard ominous creakings as he crawled into bed. Grandfather, who usually slept in the attic bed when he was with us, had disappeared some days before. (On these occasions he was usually gone six or seven days and returned growling and out of temper, with the news that the federal Union was run by a passel of blockheads and that the Army of the Potomac didn't have any more chance than a fiddler's bitch.)

We had visiting us at this time a nervous first cousin of mine named Briggs Beall, who believed that he was likely to cease breathing when he was asleep. It was his feeling that if he were not awakened every hour during the night, he might die of suffocation. He had been accustomed to setting an alarm clock to ring at intervals until morning, but I persuaded him to abandon this. He slept in my room and I told him that I was such a light sleeper that if anybody quit breathing in the same room with me, I would wake Instantly. He tested me the first night-which I had suspected he would by holding his breath after my regular breathing had convinced him I was asleep. I was not asleep, however, and called to him. This seemed to allay his fears a little, but he took the precaution of putting a class of spirits of camphor on a little table at the head of his bed. In case I didn't arouse him until he was almost gone, he said, he would sniff the camphor, a powerful reviver.

Briggs was not the only member of his family who had his crotchets. Old Aunt Alelissa Beall (who could whistle like a man, with two fingers in her mouth) suffered under the premonition that she was destined to die on South High Street, because she had been born on South High Street and married on South High Street. Then there was Aunt Sarah Shoaf, who never went to bed at night without the fear that a burglar was going to get in and blow chloroform under her door through a tube. To avert this calamity -for she was in greater dread of anesthetics than of losing her household goods-she always piled her money, silverware, and other valuables in a neat stack just outside her bedroom, with a note reading,: "This is all I have. Please take it and do not use your chloroform, as this is all I have." Aunt Gracie Shoaf also had a burglar phobia, but she met it with more fortitude. She was confident that burglars had been getting into her house every night for four years. The fact that she never missed anything was to her no proof to the contrary. She always claimed that she scared them off before they could take anything, by throwing shoes down the hallway. When she went to bed she piled, where she could get at them handily, all the shoes there were about her house. Five minutes after she had turned off the light, she would sit up in bed and say "Hark!" Her husband, who had learned to ignore the whole situation as long ago as 1903, would either be sound asleep or pretend to be sound asleep. In either case he would not respond to her tugging and pulling, so that presently she would arise, tiptoe to the door, open it slightly and heave a shoe down the hall in one direction, and its mate down the hall in the other direction. Some nights she threw them all, some nights only a couple of pair.

But I am straying from the remarkable incidents that took place during the night that the bed fell on father. By midnight we were all in bed. The layout of the rooms and the disposition of their occupants is important to an understanding of what later occurred. In the front room upstairs (just under father's attic bedroom) were my mother and my brother Terry, who sometimes sang in his sleep, usually "Marching Through Georgia" or "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Briggs Beall and myself were in a room adjoining this one. My brother Roy was in a room across the hall from ours. Our bull terrier, Rex, slept in the hall.

My bed was an army cot, one of those affairs which are made wide enough to sleep on comfortably only by putting up, flat with the middle section, the two sides which ordinarily hang down like the sideboards of a drop-leaf table. When these sides are up, it is perilous to roll too far toward the edge, for then the cot is likely to tip completely over, bringing the whole bed down on top of one, with a tremendous banging crash. This, in fact, is precisely what happened, about two o'clock in the morning. (It was my mother who, in recalling the scene later, first referred to it as "the night the bed fell on your father.")

Always a deep sleeper, slow to arouse (I had lied to Briggs), I was at first unconscious of what had happened when the iron cot rolled me onto the floor and toppled over on me. It left me still warmly bundled up and unhurt, for the bed rested above me like a canopy. Hence I did not wake up, only reached-the edge of consciousness and went back. The racket, however, instantly awakened my mother, in the next room, who came to the immediate conclusion that her worst dread was realized: the big wooden bed upstairs had fallen on father. She therefore screamed, "Let's go to your poor father!" It was this shout, rather, than the noise of my cot falling, that awakened Herman, in the same room with her. He thought that mother had become, for no apparent reason, hysterical. "You're all right, Mamma!" He shouted, trying, to calm her. They exchanged shout for shout for perhaps ten seconds: "Let's go to your poor father!" and "You're all right! " That woke up Briggs. By this time I was conscious of what was going on, in a vague way, but did not yet realize that I was under my bed instead of on it. Briggs, awakening in the midst of loud shouts of fear and apprehension, came to the quick conclusion that he was suffocating and that we were all trying to "bring him out." With a low moan, he grasped the glass of camphor at the head of his bed and instead of sniffing it poured it over himself. The room reeked of camphor. "Ugh, ugh," choked Briggs, like a drowning man, for he had almost succeeded in stopping his breathing under the deluge of pungent spirits. He leaped out of bed and groped toward the open window, but he came up against one that was closed. With his hand, he beat out the glass, and I could hear it crash and tinkle on the alleyway below. It was at this juncture that I, in trying to get up, had the uncanny sensation of feeling my bed above me. Foggy with sleep, I now suspected, in my turn, that the whole uproar was being made in a frantic endeavor to extricate me from what must be an unheard-of and perilous situation. "Get me out of this!" I bawled. "Get me out!" I think I had the nightmarish belief that I was entombed in a mine. "Ugh," gasped Briggs, floundering in his camphor.

By this time my mother, still shouting, pursued by Herman, still shouting, was trying to open the door to the attic, in order to' go up and get my father's body out of the wreckage. The door was stuck, however, and wouldn't yield. Her frantic pulls on it only added to the general banging and confusion. Roy and the dog were now up, the one shouting questions, the other barking.

Father, farthest away and soundest sleeper of all, had by this time been awakened by the battering on the attic door. He decided that the house was on fire. "I'm coming, I'm coming,!" be wailed in a slow, sleepy voice-it took him many minutes to regain full consciousness. My mother, still believing he was caught under the bed, detected in his "I'm coming!" the mournful, resigned note of one who is preparing to meet his Maker. "He's dying!" she shouted.

"I'm all right!" Briggs yelled to reassure her. "I'm all right!" He still believed that it was his own closeness to death that was worrying mother. I found at last the light switch in my room, unlocked the door, and Briggs and I joined the others at the attic door. The dog, who never did like Briggs, jumped for him assuming that he was the culprit in whatever was going on and Roy had to throw Rex and hold him. We could hear father crawling out of bed upstairs. Roy pulled the attic door open, with a mighty jerk, and father came down the stairs, sleepy and irritable but safe and sound. My mother began to weep when she saw him. Rex began to-howl. "What in the name of God "s going on here?" asked father.

The situation was finally put together like a gigantic jig-saw puzzle. Father caught a cold from prowling around in his bare feet but there were no other bad results. "I'm glad," said mother, who always looked on the bright side of things, "that your grandfather wasn't here."

Sorry!!!

Hello once again, people!! I'm really sorry I haven't posted-our computer got a nasty virus via Google Images. :(
Anyway, I'm now having a major read-and-write marathon, trying to catch up with all my friends stories, e-mails, doodles, chain stories, etc. etc. etc. etc. This is tough!! :D

Anyway, I'm glad to be back! I'll post more the second I'm finished with all my catching up.....

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

More Doodles

Recently I dug this picture out of my folder:

It's a picture of two of my original book characters. The lady is Felix, the guy is Leo. Anyways, they're brother and sister, and I always enjoy doodling their polar oppositeness. So last night, while I was up at 2:00 thanks to a terrible cough, I decided to doodle them as kids. I think it turned out quite humorous.



Leo begging his sister for another cookie. Poor Felix, she's so short. Even as a four-year-old, Leo was noticeably taller. (You know, for the 7 year age difference.)



Fighting over the TV remote. Leo is now about the same height as Felix. :)



I had so much fun drawing these, I'm gonna have to do some more. Maybe them playing with Nerf (c) guns, or something. ;)

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Random Photo Shoot

Oh, I do enjoy taking photographs of myself and my dog. :D




Us posing, wearing our matching outfits. :D



Us posing to match each other. (Beowulf was working for cheese-it's a basic staple in any dog training class. Dog training class I run, that is...)



We were attempting to match this picture. ;)

It's a cat!!!

Yes, that wasn't a typo. We've got a cat!!! It just showed up begging for food and company last week. It hasn't left since.



(Very happy cat)





After a lot of naming drama (Kievan really wanted to name it Bast, after the Egyptian Cat goddess) we finally settled on Silva. It fits pretty well. :D

For my Aunt's Bridal shower :D

My mother and I wrote this poem to go along with our gift at my Aunt's bridal shower. Sadly, we weren't able to attend, due to the fact she lives 16 hours away.



It’s four o’clock in the afternoon…
and it is time to get out your cooking spoon.

Tyler will soon be home from work,
and if there is no dinner, he may go berserk.

To avoid that awful fate,
you’ll need to put something on his plate.

So, when you’re preparing something yummy for him to eat,
I will keep you clean and neat.





(our present was a Gigi's Toile Apron.... perfect for Aunt Angie, and her nickname is "Gigi.")

Women

by Alice Walker



They were women then
My mama's generation
Husky of voice--stout of
Step
With fists as well as
Hands
How they battered down
Doors
And ironed
Starched white
Shirts
How they led
Armies
Headragged generals
Across mined
Fields
Booby-trapped
Ditches
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we
Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves.

Thursday, November 04, 2010

MORE drawings! :D

I'm really sorry if you've seen these before... I've looked at these pictures so much that I can't remember if I've posted them or not, and I've made so many posts with my drawings that I can't find where I've posted them. :/

Anyway, these all feature three dogs, which do in fact have names. The black one is J.J., the white one is Valentina, and the brownish one is Hazel. They are my sister's, Kiki's, and my trademark animals. They appear in just about every story I've ever written/are writing, including my NaNoWriMo novel. (They are three rebels against the Big Bad Wolf.)

Anyway, just wanted to make sure I posted those. :D




Posing for the camera. (Hazel, SMILE!)



J.J. and Val dancing crazily, like J.J. and Val do.....



Hazel winning at Monopoly. That board took me forever. :D

You guessed it..... another amazing blog!

Well, two actually.

Thanks to my latest Stone Soup magazine, (check them out, it's an amazing magazine!) I found out about two more blogs that I'm now tuning into daily. "ZEKs LITE" is by the family of a Stone Soup illustrator, and "She Came From Planet Z" is her own personal blog. They are both sooooo fun to read! Also, Z is an extraordinary doodler, and K is a brilliant knitter. Although I'll most likely never be able to knit more than my trademark shapeless scarves, it's a ton of fun to see her socks. (Literally!)

Anyway, there's my random "I love this website" post for the day. :D

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Random Observation about Fairy Tales

In fairy tales, weird things always happen to the characters, and they never seem to bat an eyelash!!!

For example, in the fairy tale "Queen Cat", there's this prince who comes across a random castle is the middle of the woods. The queen of the castle is a talking cat, and all the servants are bodiless, floating hands. Now, a NORMAL person would have a nervous breakdown at seeing floating hands but nooooooooooooo, the prince is all like, "Oh, floating hands! I think I'll stay here for dinner!"

Anyway, there's my 2 cents.

So this is what happens...........

...........when I find a purple sharpie marker and a boring folder. Say hello to my new and improved Chloefied 4-H folder!!


I like Ike!

The dog, that is.

"Ike" here is part dragonfly, part pomeranian, and all predator. XD
I drew him the other day using Crayola markers. I think he turned out well.... but I find it amusing that his tongue is hanging out in every picture......

Welcome to November!


WOAH!! It feels like just yesterday it was September!! It's November already!! You know what THAT means.... thanksgiving, family, huge unfinished piles of homework, NaNoWriMo, etc. etc. etc.

I've already started working on my novel. My word count is at about 1,900. I'm really pumped about it!!

Anyway, Happy November, people!

Happy All Saints Day!!

Instead of participating in Halloween, our family dresses up for All Saints Day. This time around, we dressed up and then went to our local nursing home to say hi to the elderly. I had fun, but I'm not so sure that St. George/Ben enjoyed himself...





Kievan as Judith, who was some warrior lady in the Old Testament who killed a lot of men..... Kiki did a pretty good job acting like her. The duct tape armor was my doing...



Judith vs. St George..... Judith was winning....


Me as Queen Esther. You can't see it, but my hair was AWESOME!! I was wearing an extension... obviously... but I put this huge string of pearls around it. It looked so pretty. ^^
Anyway, my dress is actually just a sheet.......



Ben as St George. That armor (a Christmas present from family-thanks!) has come is super handy. Last year, he wore it as St. Michael the Archangel....



Allie as St. Therese Little Flower (hence the flowers). The costume was made by our wonderful father out of two black dollar-tree party tablecloths, and one white one. Bonus points for you, Dad!



A.C. was by far the biggest hit at the nursing home. Despite the fact that she had no costume, the little old ladies couldn't stop petting her and asking her questions. She couldn't care less: she just be-bopped around until she finally crashed. This picture was taken post-nursing home. Man, she was out like a lamp!