One day a patch of mud on the sidewalk approached the dream that surrounded Claire. Claire’s green eyes always sparkled, but today the sparkles were as brilliant as stars. The dream always rested on Claire’s head, but no one could see the dream – except for the mud. Claire could see the dream in her mind’s eye, but that was about it.
“You must tell her don’t watch the ground too closely,” the mud urged the dream.
“You mean she shouldn’t be afraid to walk in the mud? What if she doesn’t want to ruin her shoes?” the dream tried to clarify.
“Oh,” said the mud, “I meant, she shouldn’t focus where she walks so much that she stops moving. She’s got to follow you – her dream! There will always be something in her way at times – that’s normal. But it would be a shame for her to give up on you!”
“Ah, yes, that would be terrible,” agreed the dream. “Right now, when she’s finally following me, the future looks bright – sort of like the starlight I give her. Back when she lost me, she was so forlorn and lost. But now that she has found me again, the sparkles are back in her eyes. She walks so gracefully and confidently with her head held high. This is what she has been wishing for, for a very long time!”
“Wonderful, Dream. I wish Claire all the best. By the way – what is her dream?”
“To write for a magazine, but that’s all I can say for the moment,” Dream answered.
“She’ll be good at that,” Mud affirmed. “Not even I will be able to keep her down.”
THURSDAY
Freezing sleet and hail, oh boy!
but this did not affect my joy
‘Twas very dangerous to walk on the sidewalk
I, Ms. Happy, could not even talk
I even saw a man on a bicycle
what was he thinking, he won’t slip on a nickel?
So I drove my car Claire home, she was left unbathed
slowly but surely we got home, relatively unscathed.
Later came the snow
Hubby took me to dinner
to anyplace farther than the closest restaurant, I would not go
it took us half hour to go a mile, this weather was a dubious winner
Guess what, folks? I have written the story below and want to play a game with it…I’d like you to count how many times a song title or words to a song appear within the story. (Some of the titles, of course, are underlined, but believe me – there are many more!) Submit your guess to me, and I will let you know the answers the week of December 17th. The winner will receive a prize from yours truly. Do not worry, no booby prizes will be given, because those are something I don’t have anymore! LOL
MOLLY AND CLAIRE
The Night Chicago Died (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Molly was a sensitive girl. She mourned over the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. She said, “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue“. Later on Molly learned how to dance at a disco and a man said, “Good Golly, Miss Molly!” about her dancing skills. Then, The Night Chicago Died, disco died too, and Molly set about reminiscing for the good ol’ days. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end” was her greeting whenever she saw her former classmates. “To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn, There is a Season, Turn, Turn, Turn”, was their reply.Molly confided in her friend, Sweet Caroline, about mourning the loss of disco and how songs nowadays were so negative. (She was thinking of “Short People” because she herself was not on the tall side.) “Well,” Sweet Caroline remarked, “Back home, I’m known as The Kentucky Woman, and I guess they think I’m pretty special. . . Maybe I’ll fix you up with my brother. He will notice your good qualities.”Molly agreed to a blind date unless Sweet Caroline’s brother was Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. Nope, his name was Sam. Sam was the Guitar Man for the group Strangers in the Night. Sam also played the drums and bongos and even knew Soolaimon, the person that the song was written about.
Well, poor Molly had some turbulence in her relationship with Sam. She told him, “You’ve lost that loving feeling.” He had said, “I think I love you” to Claire, the tiny dancer. Oops, he said it to the wrong person! He was blinded by the light and couldn’t tell that it wasn’t Molly right in front of him. In turn, when Claire found out about Molly’s existence, she let loose of her dreams with Sam. She went after the lonesome loser but she still felt guilty about Sam. Pretty soon she was sighing, “Torn Between Two Lovers, Feeling Like a Fool”. She ran away, then, to be sitting on the dock of the bay. You Are So Beautiful, she said quietly to the waves that lapped at her feet hanging over the edge of the dock.
Claire then got her kicks on Route 66 when she hitched a ride to Arizona with The Easy Rider and went to live with the Cherokee People. She got to be friends with Half-Breed and no longer cared that people had always called her Georgy Girl. “Oh, what a night” she recalled when she thought about Sam and how he always said “Another Saturday night, and I Ain’t Got No Honey”, even though she was there for him. But yes, they did have some wonderful times together. Then after an especially active night, he left for good in the morning, and she said “Just Call Me Angel of the Morning“. Well, maybe she was being paid back for ruining things for Molly, was her way of reconciling the situation in her mind. She also went out into the field with some needlepoint project to take her mind off things. Ouch! She got poked with the needle and there she had it – crimson and clover. But, she thought of the good days out west when she rode a horse with no name. The persuasion she could sense coming from the horse was crystal clear and made her feel blue. She had never experienced crystal blue persuasion before.
Claire had anticipation bubbling up inside – she would start a new life. This living in Arizona wasn’t what she had had in mind. But where could she go? Indiana wants me, but I can’t go back there, she reasoned. Well, I can always go farther west, Claire decided.
Claire let the horse with no name go free, and she hitchhiked to a small town where she went to a car rental agency. She rented a little deuce coupe and drove on Ventura Highway for quite a ways before stopping at an old broken down hotel for the night. In the hotel’s bar she met a man by the name of Pinball Wizard. She was good at pinball, too, but she decided she didn’t want to have to convince anyone. Let someone else be the wizard here.
Sunrise. Claire started to get some radar love vibes. Were they coming from Sam? Or someone she hadn’t met yet? She didn’t know why, but she knew she needed to keep moving on. Back on Ventura Highway, she then saw it. Saw what? The Hotel California. Good, there’s a vacancy here, it looks roomy enough. Maybe I can stay awhile. In fact, I hope I can always live here.
Claire was so happy to be here that she literally danced her way to the entrance and waltzed up to the front desk. The look the clerk gave her turned her cold and like she wanted to die.
The clerk was Molly. Payback time!
OK, hurry now, if there is a tie, I will choose the player who turned in their guess first. Have fun! Debb
The Sunshine Factor 