The house near the mountain was surrounded by unknown flowers. It was really a hut, the kind witches live in. My blouse was torn and my knees scraped from my fall on the road. The hut had a chimney. I hate chimneys because they remind me of Hansel and Gretel and concentration camps. What was peculiar about the little hut was that it had no door. The only way to enter it was through one of the three windows. All the windows were open. I climbed in and took bread and fruit from the wood table. In the corner of the room I saw a scythe leaning against the wall and to my horror, it moved without being touched. I left the small place as soon as I could and rushed through a valley of dark trees to find myself here.

~ Barbara Alfaro    

Barbara Alfaro is one of my favorite writers. She is prolific and talented and able to whip up poetry or prose, nostalgia or modern day humor. You can find her work here at Amazon, or on her website. Enjoy!

Deary me. Do you ever do that thing where you walk into a room and have no idea why, or open a kitchen cabinet with zero recollection as to what you are looking for? A show of hands again people.

Or, how about receiving a DVD in the mail or coming home from the local video store (we have a fabulous one!) only to remark, "Why look at this? Wonder what this is about?"

Well, that's how I found myself with The Big Year. And what a Big Surprise! Don't let the opening to this trailer bother you. The performances from this cast of clowns are actually restrained, slightly silly, but a tad on the poignant side. I like all of these actors in their own ways for different reasons. But I was delightfully surprised at their collective energy here. And I am growing more enamored of the more mature, and muted Jack Black (remember Bernie from a few posts ago?) Take a look and give it a try. This was a serendipitous find for us. Besides, it's migration season after all!

Ah, dear readers...who among us is old enough to remember card catalogs in libraries? A show of hands please!

On a college tour sometime in the past year, we were in the library when the guide pointed out the catalog room. My son and I ducked into it and pulled open a few drawers. They were predictably empty.

My son asked me what used to be the drawers. "Little cards," I replied, "that you'd then copy the number of the book from and write it on this scrap of paper with the little pencils. Like so." I then reached up where relics of pencils and scrap paper laid.

"What then?" he asked, practically scratching his head.

"Well, then you'd take this piece of paper to the circulation desk, and either they'd get the book for you, or you'd retrieve it from the stacks."

"You're joking, right?" he muffled a laugh.

"No. And in my college we'd take a whistle from the basket and bring it up to the stacks with us in case a creep tried to hurt us." But by then, the tour was moving on and we had to rejoin it.

My son turned back to me. "So you've got the book from the stacks and then what?"

"Well, then you'd come back down, pick up your spear and go out and hunt for dinner." 

At least I got a good laugh out of him.

Digital literacy. It's in their DNA. And I am happy for them. But I recall with great fondness the way the drawers slid out. I will forever love the smell of libraries. I can recall with precision the color and texture of the velvet cushions on the window seats in my childhood reading room. I love the "hush" atmosphere that libraries invoke. These things will forever be in my personal and mental time capsule. 

Oh I love me some great writing. And in their page thriller, Steven and Michael Meloan never fail to please. Why this page-turner is not yet a movie is beyond me. But in honor of fall, Steve has graced us with a season-appropriate passage. You can check out more on The Shroud here. And don't miss this latest article on Huffington Post authored by the California-based brothers. 


Strickland finished his breakfast while leafing through the Sunday New York Times. Weeks had passed in the lab, and he had followed every lead, every conceptual path. There had been some intriguing possibilities, but so far, they all had led nowhere.

Thinking back to the early examinations of Einstein’s brain, he wondered whether his analytical tools were simply too primitive to reveal what he was looking for. Clearly, there were unique aspects to the sequences. But the uniqueness, if it was of any consequence, seemed beyond current understanding. Even using the open-source analysis engines, the interactions were simply too complex and too poorly understood. He had hoped for some kind of revelation, a kernel of insight within the static of the Shroud’s billions of nucleotides.

He poured another cup of coffee just as his father’s antique clock began chiming from the mantel. Beneath the timepiece stood a framed black-and-white portrait of the elder Strickland. It had been taken in the man’s early thirties, at the beginning of his medical career.

He suddenly remembered being driven to junior high school by his father, an extremely rare occurrence. It had been a fall morning very much like this. His mother was suffering from “exhaustion” again, and was unable to get out of bed. On the drive, he and his father talked briefly about a radio-controlled model airplane they were building together. But then the boy realized he had no idea what to say next. He sat quietly during the long drive, taking in his father’s odd metallic odor.

After the last sip of his morning coffee, Strickland folded the newspaper. Then he pulled back the curtain to gaze out the breakfast nook window. It was a beautiful autumn day, with the outdoor thermometer showing 53 degrees. On the spur of the moment, he decided to take a motorcycle ride through the surrounding woods. With recent rains, it had been weeks since this was even a remote possibility. Minutes later, he hit the ignition and was rewarded with the soft, low rumble of the big 1,200cc engine.

Clearing the suburbs and rising up into the hills, Strickland leaned in hard and accelerated through the winding back roads. The air was crisp and bracing, the highways snow-scrubbed and bone dry—perfect for high- speed maneuvering.

It felt good to be outdoors. There was something viscerally pleasing about the smell of trees, bark, forest duff, and the hint of wood smoke in the air. Maybe it was genetic memory, he pondered—earth, air, fire, and water: the prescientific elements of the universe, and the necessities of life.

Strickland hit a straightaway lined by towering white poplars, their long, narrow shadows striping the road in the low winter sun. He took the approaching turn more slowly as the sun momentarily blinded him. Suddenly, an oncoming vehicle appeared in his lane—the driver was attempting to pass but couldn’t get back in.

Gripping the handbrake, Strickland stepped on the brake pedal. The antilock system chattered and the bike oscillated wildly from side to side. He fought for control and headed for the shoulder, and as he came to a skidding halt on a patch of moldering leaves and mud, the rust-red Ford pickup screeched around the bend and was gone.

He sat there for a long moment, arms resting on the handlebars, chest heaving. In the instant the truck had passed, he had caught a glimpse of the driver’s face—he looked remarkably like Strickland’s deceased father.


Copyright:  Steven and Michael Meloan, 2011.

Gates took a swing at his face, which cause me to suck wind and grab the arm of a server carrying a tray of teensy juice glasses. One shattered to the paving stone temporarily causing the crowd to shudder before turning back to the scene on the lawn. Somehow, the man had fallen and Gates was now fully on top of him. The repeated smack of his fist against the man’s skin was horrifying. The mother screamed. The father cursed. Several guests flew onto the lawn outdoing one another with their own shouts and curses. They started to pull Gates away but not before the man, now grasping his eye and nose, gave a final yank to Gates’ ponytail, which gave him a clear shot at the pale face sunken with grief. With near comedic timing the teams pulled their fighters apart and headed for opposite corners of the grassy mat.

My hands flew to my mouth. Others were equally speechless. While some mourners escorted Gates to the patio, no one else acknowledged the young man, now creeping down the lawn, his parents holding him up on either side, back toward Lake Anza Road where they had apparently parked.  No one, that is, besides my photographer who had come around a tree mid way down the lawn and, as I would learn later, fired off her motor drive throughout the entire episode. Head down at an angle to accommodate her good eye and engrossed in the view-finder of the digital camera, she hiked toward the road nearly smacking into an old oak on her way.

Friends diverted Gates to a bench, the one nearest the statue of Major Tilden smiling like a big stone idiot in the center of the patio. With a hankie pressed to his bloodied nose, Gates now appeared as dazed as he did in his kitchen. The world would be blurring for me too. I certainly didn’t expect him to identify me out of the dozens of mourners there to honor Amy.

So what happened next surprised me. Just as someone ordered a server to get some ice and another hollered for a blanket, Gates lifted his head with his icy blue eyes now fully dilated and said in the coldest of tones, “You want to be a reporter again? Then nab my wife’s killer. If I’m not mistaken, he’s probably back in his car by now. You can probably catch him before he drives out of the park.”


                                                                                  ###

Copyright:  Laura Novak, 2012

Lately I have found some fabulous indie flicks that I highly recommend. This one in particular, Bernie, nodded to me from the top shelf at my local video store. I'd never heard of it but damn, as they might say in Carthage, Texas, I sure am glad I found it. My family was as transfixed as I was by Jack Black's amazingly subtle performance. For days I've been mulling over his character's "character" and that age-old question of how someone can be good and do bad. So I give this two thumbs up from me and four paws up from Buggy. Not to mention a few tomatoes thrown in for good measure. This dog do indeed hunt. Check it out.

Jotter, another of my favorite authors from Scribd, a man whose writing can make me blush, laugh and cry, graciously shares a gorgeous poem about fall with us here. You can find more of his work on his website called Jotting Down A Life. Steve U., take us away...


… where children play outside between school and supper,

a place where mums bloom in palettes but other flowers

brown and shrivel, a crisp between-ness nearing that we can't see,

but we know the subtleness of the whisper in our ear,

like the almost-bounce of a branch after a bird wings away,

our attention is pulled to the side as if a curtain is pulled,

a sense of the between places being readied

for a crossing. Dutiful spirits oversee

the between-ness of our lives that is the falling

of wakefulness to sleep, of warm day

to cool night, of walking from the sun of mountain-top

to the shade of down-walking in the valley.

The crossing to autumn is in the air, the exit

from summer just beyond our grasp, and just remembered

is a list next to our reading glasses where not all is crossed off.

Our senses tell us the change is about to fall,

when the leaves will change their last this year,

and winds will blow cool and curve around,

and picnics will need a light coat.

It is in the silent approach and the raspy shadows,

and one morning when we wake we will find

this Autumn between-place will be behind us,

and wonder at the change over a cup of coffee

brewed and sipped in the late dawn light,

between our waking and starting the day.


Copyright:  The Jotter, 2012