Author Archives: Alice
At Least It’s Not A Bridge in Brooklyn
Jane and Marge met up in a coffee house in Clinton Hill, Vermont. They hadn’t seen one another in several months. “So?” Marge arched an eyebrow over her cup of decaf. “Why did you want to see me?” “It seems like we are both so busy traveling around the world that we never see one another any more. Don’t you miss the old times?” Jane smiled ingratiatingly. “No,” Marge said bluntly. “I’ve got the perfect solution.” As usual, Jane ignored […]
Kasongan Pottery Works
The area around Jogjakarta, including Kasongan Village, is considered an important area for pottery in Java. It’s called a center for the arts, and know for pottery as well as theater and fabric. The two places we visited both had pottery brought in and added the finish for resale, mostly on a wholesale basis. The first shop focused on large vases. They painted the outsides with glue, then attached pieces of colored glass for a mosaic effect. Several women did […]
Suzie’s House 437 : Climbing in Her Own Window
Emma crawled into her own window around six in the morning. She wasn’t quite sure why she felt it was necessary to pretend she’d been home all night even though she’d only crashed with Tracy and Lisa because the gig at the bar went until closing, and she didn’t feel like trying to explain things to her father because she was so tired.
Mystery Volcano
See it? Yeah, I didn’t either. It’s there on the right. Or so they told me. The whole time we were in Yogjakarta we were within a couple dozen miles of a fairly large volcano. We were also shrouded in a haze of volcanic ash the whole time. Although I caught glimpses of the volcano, and even walked on it, most of the time I didn’t see it. In fact, when I was walking on it I wouldn’t have guessed […]
Suzie’s House 436: Late Night Talks
Sophie had floated her way into the ER today. To think that when she’d used her nurse training before, she’d only ever taken care of old folks in their own homes, and now she could handle the ER. Maybe nobody else noticed, but she was proud of herself. Still, even if she hadn’t made any mistakes, the tension was very high. There had been three code blues on her shift alone. Everyone kept joking about full moons and bad luck […]
Dreadful Sink
That dreadful sink. Audrey pulled out the plunger and gave the drain a perfunctory clearing. Over the thirty plus years of her marriage the drain had clogged thousands of times. She didn’t dare complain because she was the reason it clogged so easily. When they built the house the plumber had said the sink must go in a place that the carpenter said could not be opened up for a window. Visualizing year after year of staring at a wall, […]
Kasongan Village
Kasongan Village is a place our tour guide was familiar with. On arrival we went wandering along the byways of the town, sometimes cutting through what I could swear were their equivalent of back yards. As we ran across people we would stop to talk. Although I’m sure many of those we visited have visited with tour groups before, who we encountered seemed entirely random.
Suzie’s House 435 : Home Sweet Home
Ethan stood on the stoop of his own house and looked at the key on his chain, glanced at Gabriel, and offered up a sick laugh. “I’m not quite sure what the protocol is here. Should I knock?” “It’s your family. I haven’t been closer than a hundred miles to my family since I left home.”
It’s Freezing!
This winter is hitting me harder than most. It’s not just the extreme swings in temperature. We have gone from highs in the low teens to rain in the last couple of weeks. This is on top of the normal extremes of living out west. It’s not just that my exercise program has me outside more than before. What’s more, because we only get about nine hours of sunlight a day I tend to find myself out walking in the […]
Big Bird Bites the Big One
“Oh noooooo! Big Bird is dead!” Ernie rolled his eyes to the heavens and swooned. “No he’s not.” Bert didn’t even put his newspaper down. “But he’s laying on the floor with his eyes closed.” “So? He’s napping. Naaaaaapping.” “But he’s not breathing.” “I got news for you, Ernie. None of us are breathing. Not Big Bird, not Oscar, not you, and not me. All of us are just dolls waiting to get the stuffing knocked out of us.” “Yeah, […]
13 Pictures from a Cyclo-Rickshaw
I considered calling this 13 pictures of a back side because I was at the end of the line, but decided I couldn’t really call a rice paddy a “back 40”. This was the trip from the glamorous country-side restaurant to Kasongan Village. 1.
Suzie’s House 434 : A Ring of Useless Keys
Nathan told himself yet again that he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. There’s no way he could have hitched home any faster than Gabriel was willing to drive, but did they have to stop at every friend’s house along the way? At least he was clean, well fed, and warm. He had shelter for the night. It just wasn’t the shelter of his own home.
