On impulse, Donald jerked the car into a strip center with a twenty-four hour veterinary clinic. “Doug, play along,” Hefeweizen ordered. He grabbed the cat, climbed out of his little car, and marched into the building.
It was a dingy, dismal place. Cracking plastic chairs whose vinyl-covered stuffing was coming unstuffed. A miserable florescent light buzzed continually and flickered intermittently. The odors of dog chow and pet urine mingled to form what was probably a biohazardous gas.
Donald sat, dropped Doug/Mr. Buttons on the grimy floor. “Take a peak out the door and see if it followed us into the lot.”
“By ‘it’ I’m assuming you mean the demon?” Doug purred the question as he made a figure eight around Donald’s ankles.
“Good kitty,” he smiled down at the former-human. The not-smiling faux-cat promptly nipped the ankle closest to his very sharp teeth.
Donald squeaked.
Across the waiting room, behind a sliding frosted glass window sat a pink-cheeked girl whose cornsilk hair was pulled into a ponytail falling past her shoulders. Her name tag read “McKinsey,” firmly placing her in “Generation X.” She was cute. Everything about her was cute, from her little button nose to her butter yellow nursing scrubs covered in little kittens and puppies. And she smiled. At everyone.
Including Donald. Which was surprising, since pretty much no one ever smiled at him. They glared. They grimaced. They even, occasionally, growled. But they never smiled, or grinned, or looked at him in any way that implied pleasure.
But there she was, smiling at an ugly man whose lazy eye and thin lips were screwed up in pain, making his throbbing white pimple the centerpiece of his visage.
The she laughed. No . . . she giggled, Donald observed. No woman had ever giggled at him. But this one was.
McKinsey couldn’t contain her amusement, when she politely asked the new arrival, “sir, I’ll need you to come over here for a moment.”
. . . to be continued.
(c) copyright 2008 Jennifer J. Knighton
Spending the same four hours in the same airport waiting for the same delayed flight that again WILL NOT take you home.
*insert frustration here*
Normally, I never win anything. Well, I win stuff, but only because I worked my @$$ off for it. And that's not really winning, that's earning.
Anyway, Simon at A Girl and a Boy had a contest, and I was one of his winners. Yay me!
So go now and check out the wacky list of summer driving songs recommended by the readers of A Girl and a Boy.
This is my favorite image from the color roll. I took this shot at Seattle's Pike Place Farmer's Market, which is open year round.
(c) copyright 2008 Jennifer J. Knighton
So, I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in gridlock in the Seattle-area. And since I have so much time on my hands, I began an informal survey of license plates to answer the big question: Where did all these people COME from?
They came from: Louisiana, Kansas, Nevada, Missouri, Alaska, Oregon, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina, Florida, California, Idaho, Maryland, New Mexico, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Delaware, Kansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Jersey, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Vermont, New Hampshire, Virginia, Michigan, Mexico, the European Union (!), and British Columbia & Ontario.
Folks, that's 47 states, and 3 countries.
No wonder the traffic is so bad!
Spending four hours in an airport waiting for a flight that WILL NOT take you home.
Had my first two rolls of film developed this week. Here's my favorite so far:
(c) copyright 2008 Jennifer J. Knighton
Many of you already know of my fondness for Jane Austen. Love, love, love those books. And the movies too. I'm not too proud to admit that pretty much any interpretation makes me happy, no matter how they differ from the author's works.
So, I finally saw Becoming Jane. Only so-so. Too bad because I dearly wanted to love it. Ah well, can't win them all.
On the other hand, I also finally saw The Jane Austen Book Club. And it was a mostly-faithful capture of Karen Joy Fowler's book by the same name. The movie made me just as happy as the novel. And true to Austen form, the main characters all got what they most desired in the end. And it was a very happy end.
At that exact moment, Donald Hefeweizen breezed down the interstate in his lemon yellow Smart Fortwo ultra-compact. He gaped as he passed an angel writing a speeding ticket to a demon in a BMW convertible.
Since when has the Dallas PD employed angels? he wondered.
Donald had always thought it was the other way around, with Satan’s minions writing all those tickets. Though he’d never had proof.
Although he could never figure out the cop who stopped him four separate times last June. Once a week for a month. Same cop each time. Definitely OTHERWORLD-ly. Wasn’t a demon. Or a troll. Could have been a goblin. But probably a faery. With a mean streak.
Donald shook out of his reverie, taking an exit toward downtown. And a certain Anti-Christ’s loft apartment.
He didn’t see the four car pileup that resulted from yet another distracted driver. Nor did he see the demon in the BMW follow him off the highway.
But the angel/cop saw it all. And she had the license plates. For both.
“D, I think we’re being followed,” mewed the fluffy white passenger curled in the back window.
“Of course we’re being followed. We’re in one of the largest cities in the nation. There are millions of cars here. Bound to be someone going where we’re going.”
“I think it’s the BMW we passed. The one that was getting a ticket. You know, the one with the demon in it!” The cat was screeching at this point. Not a pretty sound.
“Stupid cat,” the ugly driver grumbled.
“On second thought, maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s not following us. Maybe he’s just returning to headquarters.” Mr. Button’s self-satisfied grin was enough.
Donald exhaled. Painfully. “Well, crap.”
. . . to be continued.
(c) copyright 2008 Jennifer J. Knighton
So, I'm driving along in central Washington state, yesterday. I pop a piece of gum (Orbitz Raspberry Mint) into my mouth. And it crunched. Sort of.
Gum doesn't crunch, I thought. And, Hey!, where'd my tooth go?
*fishes in mouth like the mother of a toddler*
My crown came out! At least I didn't swallow it.
So here I am, in the middle of nowhere, where only 3 dentists within a 50 mile radius take my insurance. And one of them is on Spring Break.
