No one but me thought it was a good idea to hire a live-in maid and nanny. My mother reminded me that she had raised three kids and worked full time, and still managed to keep a cleaner house than mine, all on her own. My mother-in-law pointed out that neither of my sisters-in-law had maids, and they could actually afford…
YOU WONDER WHY I TAKE BATHS ALL THE TIME Ten p.m. He would be home in about an hour. She jumped up and turned off the television. Nothing romantic about having the television on, especially at eleven o’clock. He’d come in, tired from working the night shift, pushing the door shut so he could put his coat…
GOG AND MAGOG. THE PORCELAIN NOSES of the two opposing lions posed staring at the ceiling for what must have felt a decade. Their postures sure. Their motives steadfast. First and last, beginning end, alpha omega. Never the leaders of any pack, they preferred to sit and ponder the world. Philosopher cats. The interior worlds within…
Harry lingered over the single serving TV dinners and pondered the colloquial reference to TV dinners and how they must have come up with that in the 50’s when families first got tvs and would sit in front of the only shows that aired. The Ed Sullivan Show. Maybe I Love Lucy. Harry knew he…
The pages of the cooking magazine are sticking together just enough to slow down her flipping. She shakes a page loose and it sprinkles her with floury dust as it falls open with a papery crackle. A photograph of yellow and pink frosting swirled into lofty mounds atop cupcakes spiraled on a stand evokes for…
In a different life I’d paint the streets By night, a stealthy lord. An artist loner dreamer type, Allegiance shown in words. On business walls and reader boards On windows and on signage. I’d Banksy this and Fairey that Along my pilgrimage. Art speaks the words I cannot say Graffiti…
The following is an excerpt from JULES AND THE DJINNI MASTER, a middle grade fantasy novel by J.M. Roddy. From J.M. Roddy: This scene happens about midway through the novel. Jules, a fourteen-year-old boy, joins the members of a secret community hidden in the mountains in a world where animals talk. This scene came about from…
Kindred 