postaweek

Pardon My French

/ Janna Hill / 9 Comments

Pardon my French or rather my lack of. While you’re at it please pardon my inability to speak any language that doesn’t include ain’t and y’all. I’m a Hick. There, I’ve said it.

I have at times been mistakenly called a hillbilly but that is not the correct terminology. For the record I am not a hillbilly. The only hills in my neck of the woods are inhabited by moles. I, sir or madam am a Hick. A Hick from the sticks, residing in a rural wooded area shared with other uncouth creatures and Hick type peoples. I do not live in a mobile home but would like to when I get rich.

I am however a worldly Hick.  My electronic travels have taken me places I never knew existed, far beyond the bounds of a barbed wire fence. I converse with all sorts of people from different creeds, castes and cultures made possible by use of a translator tool. I am getting quite an education.

I speak Hick and a little bit of French. You see around here we say “pardon my French” in conjunction with cursing. It is a built in irrevocable vindication. Calling it French makes it completely pardonable, e.g.  “He is a lousy son of a bitch, pardon my French.”

I think the translator tool is an awesome invention but sometimes what one intends to convey gets a tad bit distorted in the conversion. (Note: English is the closest dialect to Hick currently available)

Here is an example of how the aforementioned statement describing a worthless man can get misconstrued in a non- Hick translation.

From English to French “iI est un fils de pute moche”

From French back to English “He is a son of a ugly bitch”

No, no, no! Calling him a ‘lousy son of a bitch’ was about him. Calling him ‘a son of a ugly bitch’ directs the insult to his mother. (Whom you may happen to like very much)

I suppose calling someone a son of a bitch is technically an insult to their mother regardless, but calling her ugly just seems too rude.

Linguistics. Now that is some interesting sh*t.  Pardon my French.

What the Heck? Door Number Four (IIII)

/ Janna Hill / 4 Comments

What the Heck is Door Number IIII

My proofreader asked that very question along with “where do you come up with this (umm) stuff?”

Answer: Door Number Four (IIII) was a short story concept designed for a specific market.  It was essentially a job interview with the challenge being “Give me something mysterious and unique with a defined beginning and ending tied up in a neat little package in six thousand words or less.” Well I screwed up on the word count (damn you Microsoft Word! 😉 I think it ended up around 6150. As a consolation I was offered $500 dollars for the concept and all rights to the story. That is a months’ worth of groceries but it is also exactly the sort of thing that drove me to becoming an indie using my real name, no matter how sullied that name may become. So here it is I’m sure I could have gone on to add more depth to the story but I really wanted to keep it as limited, raw and original as the first effort/presentation. Am I cutting my nose off to spite my face or am I saving face? Once again time will tell but I’m not going back. I have established the course and set my compass.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Door Number III sold a million copies and Mr. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ said, “Congratulations you made that $500 bucks the hard way”

Hmmm. Dream on 🙂

Another leg on my journey as an indie.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

/ Janna Hill / 8 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

They’ve flown south now for the winter. The last bottle of red colored sucrose hangs fermenting. The Petunia and Morning Glory have bid them farewell as the Four O’clock and Salvia prepare to sleep.

Seed and root resting in the shadow of nature’s understanding.

Oh that I might fly with you..

Until the next Equinox, buenas noches little bird.

A Brief Moment of Rest

Writers are Bizarre

/ Janna Hill / 7 Comments

 

Writers are Bizarre, oh yes they are. I feel certain the majority of authors know this – those who don’t have not yet had their epiphany or come to terms with the fact. If the truth be told they are more than strange, they are obsessive odd balls bordering on schizophrenia. I suspect many have prescriptions but refuse to take the psychotropic medication because it hinders their creativity. They need to feel alive; to interact with the personalities dueling inside their heads, not subdue them. Their characters must be allowed a chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as well as the right to die.

Writers are bizarre, oh yes they are. From my observations this peculiarity seems to afflict creative writers especially. Creative writers and poets. Oh, poets are creative writers? Okay. Poets are a also a grievous lot. They are constantly imagining, seeing, and feeling or thinking. They are a curious hand with six digits and a raw nerve. Most of them are bereaved with some sort of incurable pain. Odd thing is it’s usually not their pain but the aches of every one and every thing around them as if they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. On occasion one will write about the joy or beauty found in something. Usually that something is what the rest of earth’s inhabitants dismiss or take for granted on a daily basis.

Writers are bizarre, oh yes indeed they are. They carve out niches for indolent thoughts, sow seeds of cerebration, offer rest to weary secrets, and give birth to imagination.

Now what sort of world would this be without these flaky, freakish, alien-like individuals?

Gone would be the greens and reds, lost to slow decay. In place of all the rainbows bled – a shade of muted gray.

Weekly Photo Challenge: BIG

/ Janna Hill / 7 Comments

 

This is BUD. See BUD stand

The Big Ugly Dish designed for C-band

                                                                      BUD stares south, stands guard all day

                                                                     Directing Bravo West while watching buzzards play

In the sky that is… OMG The Ballad of Jed Clampett has consumed me. Y’all come back now, y’hear.

 

The Rewards of Spontaniety

/ Janna Hill / 3 Comments

Last week my husband phoned form work at 7:30 A.M and said “start packing.” I didn’t question him I just threw a few suits of clothing into a suitcase along with the laptop and camera, gathered up the dog’s bare essentials and waited. He had been talking about heading south when October’s first cold front came through to do a little fishing but his work schedule did not look agreeable. Apparently something changed and he seized the moment.

“Carpe diem!” I said. “I don’t care for Carp – I’m after a Redfish.” He replied with a wink.

I think know he dreams of catching a trophy Red.

Within thirty minutes he has his 16 foot 1957 aluminum boat hooked up and ready to roll. We have a skiff but he likes that old dinghy. Anyway seven hours later we are standing in the salty breeze assessing the conditions. The tide, the wind, the weeds and the water temperature. Fishing is very serious business, that’s why I usually leave it to him. Thank goodness a cousin showed up to keep him company on the water while I undertook the tasks of reading and snapping pictures. All in the name of research of course.

Taking off on a whim is something we haven’t done in a very long time and you know what? I loved it!

These are the rewards of spontaneity

Hopefully he laughed himself to death
No, those are not Redfish but they will do.
The “cold front” brought some awesome clouds
I’d like to think they never knew what hit `em.
Trophy? No but by golly they are Redfish!
The birds gather as the tide goes out. I was so excited to catch a few shots of these elusive pink birds.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

/ Janna Hill / 10 Comments

This weeks photo challenge is Happy.

What makes me happy? This gallery could go on forever with an endless list of small things that bring the greatest joy. It is probably a good thing that I am away from home right now, saving you from a trillion gigabytes of what makes me smile. I’ve narrowed it down to five from my hard drive.

An over-sized chair in a remote location…
Easy people and anticipation…
Bright flowers and blue skies…
Contented tiredness and toothless smiles….
Family and Food and the faces they make…

Weekly Photo Challenge (Mine)

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Nestled in the woods there is tiny space of refuge. A place of respite and reflection and it is mine. At least that’s what the sign says.

[For the weekly photo challenge titled Mine]

When I look up at the sign that says it is mine I pause and thank The Creator.

Weekly Photo Challenge (Solitary)

/ Janna Hill / 3 Comments

This week’s photo challenge is titled Solitary. Though solitary is defined as: solitude, alone, secluded, singular or without companions the word itself conjures a multitude of images.

I immediately imagine a one man game of cards, confinement, loneliness, punishment and isolation. Well those things along with an old song ‘Countin’ Flowers on the Wall’ overlapping the imageries

Yet what I chose to submit is an empty chair. Now I sit alone pondering what that means (if anything) while I scroll through the other intriguing submissions and wonder what solitary means to so many others.

Alone in the Woods

Here is an excerpt from the lyrics of Countin’ Flowers on the wall.

Counting flowers on the wall,
That don’t bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don’t tell me I’ve nothing to do

P.S.  A personal tidbit. Dour Number IIII was inspired by these very woods. Just beyond the barn in the background another world exists.