Today's blog follows the same as yesterday. I'm off my game though because I'm still sick and my head is stuffy. Feels like I'm pinching my nose because I'm stressed, but really really hard.
Write a page in which you dramatize (not summarize) a noteworthy experience from today, yesterday, or years ago.

Walmart, my least favorite place to go, but because I'm poor that's where I head to do my thrifty shopping of household goods. I felt like crap and have a cold sore because that's how it goes down when I'm sick. I did almost feel serene when I walked in because I was on a mission, with a list allowing little thought to be involved in what I needed to accomplish. The problem that escalates every time I go into that vortex is that I want to buy everything. Most of what I grab off the shelves I don't need, I want. Trekking to the book section sent a thrill of anticipation through me because when I go to Barnes & Noble it's like I've entered Heaven.
I entered the one aisle and felt an immediate sense of pending doom. There was no way I was going to find a book of any substance in The Walmart. It sucks when you have to dumb down your expectations when it comes to literature. Rows and rows of books that have been made into movies lined the shelves along with a host of Nicolas Sparks books that tend to follow the same overwhelmingly impossible love patterns that bring tears to eyes of those that haven't read at least two of his books and then become desensitized. Twilight, Percy Jackson, and some other "Young Readers" selections and then walls of romance books.
To share a little piece of information, I read romance novels, especially smutty ones as a diet version of a love life. But I buy those said books incognito so that I don't get judged to harshly. I try to avoid ones with damsels draping themselves all over muscley men because they are so much more obvious, but I digress.
I managed to find a book that was no literary masterpiece, but that I knew I would enjoy and that my oldest daughter would read afterward in an attempt to get the most out of my six dollar investment. To my disappointment, there were no bookmarks. I actually found this hard to believe. Then I remembered where I was. I was absolutely not in Barnes & Noble.
From there I motored on to the hand lotion. There were so many choices and part of me wanted to go with the Bert's Bees stuff that was 13 dollars for a 4 oz. tube or some such nonsense. Ending up with a two dollar and fifty cent 4 oz. tube I continued on.
I filled my basket with the things on my list and some various other items, but the secret of my Walmart success is that if I spend enough time putzing around I eventually put things back, so I did. I am one of those people that put crap back on shelves where they don't belong helping to keep Walmart employees in their jobs. I figure it's a community service of sorts because now they have something to do. There's actually a game plan involved because I tend to not do that when I see them with big boxes all over the store because they got freight in. My little contribution to their mental well-being.
$85 later I walked out. No kidding. I bought toilet paper, paper towels, cleaner, socks, hand lotion, batteries, one book, and eight dollar outfits for Noah and Seldon, one each. $85 freakin' dollars. And after they took my money I walked outside into a downpour. I also watched some poor guy trying to change a tire on the car right next to me.
I felt like I should give him a hand, but that feeling was soon negated by the fact that I didn't have an umbrella because that's the only help I would have offered, to hold an umbrella over him while he changed his tire. Changing tires is kind of a one person job, but it does really suck in the rain and I'm really not that chivalrous, especially when I have a head cold and then broke out in the cold sweats after buying household goods.

So I'm on a journey. Doesn't that sound cliche? Because it is. Everyone is on a journey; to health, happiness, mental well-being. Mine may be far from interesting, but this is how it's going to go down.
I bought a book. It's how to tap into your creative writing skills using prompts. I'm going to do them, but I'm going to post them on here for all to read. Maybe you'll connect, maybe you won't, but I'm doing it despite the pounding in my ears and my shaky hands which are not a result of me coming down from hard drugs. I play a good game of not being shy. I'm friendly and outgoing and utterly useless when it comes to crocheting.
So here's today's prompt:
Write a page in which you dramatize (not summarize) a noteworthy experience from either today, yesterday, or many years ago.

When I was a kid I played at the beach...a lot. We lived maybe 10 minutes from the shores of sunny Southern California and utilized this convenience all the time. I had one of those swimsuits where the crotch liner used to be like a pocket for sand to accumulate and if you tried to get into the ocean to wash it out it only filled with more sand every time a wave lifted you off your toes. My strawberry blond hair was long and straggly and wild and usually filled with sand. I loved the beach, but each trip kinda blended in with the others because we did the same thing every time. I boogy boarded and made sand castles and watch the rollerskaters in their late 70s early 80s short shorts. On men this was not attractive.
Contentment is the only word I can think of to describe this ritualistic family thing. It was good. I got buried in sand by my twin sister while my mom worked on her tan.
Then one day Dad showed me the coolest thing. When the waves recede and the smooth wet California sand is revealed there are little air bubbles that look a lot like pancakes do when they're ready to be flipped over. I had my bucket ready to make yet another tower for my sand castle when he came over and started digging in silence. When he washed the sand away, there on the palm of his hand was a tiny little hermit crab.
He smiled at me with a mustachy smile that hid his upper teeth and when the next wave receded we started digging. I caugh five. Over the course of the afternoon I caught a bucketful. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I did it. I dug for hermit crabs until the sun was ready to go to sleep.