Take off your party dress

I have a good relationship with my breasts, in fact I would go as far to say that I am quite fond of them. I think Dina Rabinovitch was quite fond of hers as well but cancer stole hers and left her in a position that most women would find unthinkable.

"In a world that doesn't do scar-chic, just what do you wear when you're one-breasted, or no-breasted? In my post-hospital weeks I'm not able to lift my arm so clothes that go over the head are out of the question. I phone Vogue to ask their fashion editor for advice."

A couple of weeks ago I hadn't heard of Dina Rabinovitch, or her missing breast. Lee at Lowebrow offered a copy of Dina's book and I put my name down. I am not sure why I did this. I am not even very keen on articles about cancer let alone a whole book of it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hide my head in the sand. I know cancer. Very well. I lived with the effects of cancer (and the cure) on my parents for the whole fifteen months it took both of them to die. Like Dina I learned all the technical terms ( I smiled at the word 'neutropenic' - dad thought his todger was going to fall off), saw the horrors and laughed through the tears that you think are never going to end. So why did I want to read this book?

" It's an illness older women expect to happen to them, if anyone. Breast cancer screening is given to the over-fifties routinely. But now breast cancer figures worldwide are running at one in nine women: the highest rates are in the Netherlands and the United States, the lowest in haiti and the Gambia. It is by far the most common cancer in women."

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This is why. Dina Rabinovitch is me, and I could be her. Her book doesn't wallow in self pity and it does not take you to a happy ending because she is still battling the beast today. She is all women, a working mum leading a fast and busy life as a writer and critic. She takes you through her experiences with a truth that at times brings you to tears of recognition in its honesty.

When the book arrived I opened the cover and found a dedication to me -

For Kate, Towards a cure! And with love, Dina (May 2007).

I have not contributed financially to this cure (as yet) because the book came free. Part of Dina's quest is to get the knowledge out to the world, to spread the word before the cancer.

I feel my copy has a job to do and I would like to send it out into the blog world to do its work. If you feel that you can read this book (and you must) then go and buy a copy but also put your name in my comments box for this copy. My only proviso is that the book takes a journey from blog to blog with each reader posting it on their blog and then sending it on to someone else. On the inside cover I will put my name and perhaps the next person will add their own and so on. It will be interesting to see how far it gets.

Thank you.

Dina Rabinovitch blogs HERE.

pee-ess Jeff at Archeo Texture is doing the same.


Update.

Take off your Party Dress will be winging its way to Cailleach in Ireland in the next few days. Off she goes......

Theft - a small fiction

I watched you today.

I watched a smile grow from your lying mouth and spread across your lying face. It never touched your eyes but he didn't notice. He was too busy with your breasts - hoping that if you leaned forward a little more he would glimpse more than the soft cleavage that was already on offer. His eyes glued to the young flesh that had been denied him for so long.

Did you know he loved me? I doubt it even crossed your mind. No one in the park would have known either, only seeing love spread out on a blanket along with champagne and my favourite chocolates. He never had much imagination.

As I sat watching you I saw your trick. A clever trick of youth that I can never compete with. I have long since worn the invisibility cloak of fortyhood and lost to all in a kind of sexless fog. He felt it too and went looking for you.

Your theft has gifted me dark glasses and a park bench, and denied me a security that was mine by rights. I watched your lying eyes and know clearly now that you never intended to involve your heart.

In a few weeks, months, you will grow tired of your prize, discarding him for the piercings and tattoo's that are age appropriate. He will look back then, realising that the bulge in his trousers has let him down badly and he will come for me. And there I will be. In the farthest corner of the darkness night he will find me waiting for him, ready to spit in his eye.

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8 things about me that are of no interest to anyone

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Tagged by Reluctant Memsahib and only forgiven because she don't know me horror of all things memish, I present Eight Useless Facts......

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(mini-minx 1965)
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1. I am the queen of quick birthing - I gave birth to Small Fecker in 30 minutes from start to finish. Waste of time all that labourin'.

2. I played netball at county standard for twenty years I had to give up after two operations to reset a dislocated jaw!

3. I have escaped death twice.

4. I have been pregnant six times, one nearly killed me - see above.

5. I was once a week late for a wedding and turned up someone else's.

6. My hair has been grey since I was sixteen. It has been every colour but normal.

7. I have lived with my partner (the MD) for 25 years - we haven't got married because I don't know whether he's Mr Right yet.

8. I hate spiders, prunes, bad manners and toenails but love driving, smoking, drinking and dancing. I can eat a packet of Cadbury's chocolate fingers in three minutes flat and stash my shoes all over the house so no one will really know how many there are.
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I have no wish to tag anyone but if you feel the need......

Minx needs....

This is so inspired that I just had to do it.

Good Thomas is a genius. He suggests googling "minx needs" - obviously you put your own name in when you do it.
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This is the best therapy I've come across in years, and it's free!
Look......

Minx needs to evolve (I am)

Minx needs restoration (this is true)

Minx needs the assistance of Bruce Willis (I do?)

Minx needs a little extra (of course)

Minx needs taming (grrrr)

Minx needs some gentle TLC (aww)

Minx needs more boobs and murder (well really)

Minx needs some new shoes (yes I do)


Not content with what I need, I then googled
"minx gets".......

Minx gets caught on radar (oops)

Minx gets spookey (all the time)

Minx gets bored (frequently)

Minx gets Dickensian (I think not)

Minx gets a dollar (miser)

Minx gets the paternity test result (what?)

Minx gets better (better than what?)

Minx gets some new shoes!! (got 'em)


This is a memy-taggy thing but there is no law. Do as you will.

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Song of Bragi

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The runes are cut, tis written plain
Graven on the tongue
Bragi, wordsmith, wisdom comes
From Valhalla’s raven depths
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Skaldic beauty, promised cup
Overflows in Edda song
Call to the wild, plead the wind
To bring the roar of Odin’s son.

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This is my poem to accompany my lovely lion (29), which will live in my sidebar, not eating tofu (oh read the comments below).
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Want a lion? Go HERE and join The Shameless Lions

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(he could have called it The Foxy Minxs - doncha think?)

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Not Steve

That smooth-tongued bloody Irish Kiwi has persuaded me to adopt a lion (adopt, at my age, I ask you).

Somehow I have landed meself with a rather fantastic lion (a lion of Lyon) and he is a very special Shameless Lion who makes up part of a bloggers writing group.

Not content with just giving away his lions, Shameless makes more unreasonable demands. I have to name my lovely lion and write a piece of prose or poetry to go with it - cheek!

So here is Bragi.

In Scandinavian mythology his name means God of eloquence, prose, poetry and song. This was not my first choice of name and I shall always think of him as Steve but I thought you would all laugh and not take me for the very serious person that I am.

I am also not very good at being a member of anything but I will try my valiant best to be a good member because this looks like a good thing to be a member of.

Check out the details HERE and get yourself a lion of your very own.

Now, what the hell am I going to write......

pee ess - I would also welcome any tips on keeping a lion. I am a vegetarian, do you think Steve will adapt?

'Take me now.' she cried.

I have been slaving over false writing hopes. I have got it all wrong and I am about to have a complete change of direction.
Indepth research has shown me the way (well, Longmire via Keris Stainton) and I now know where my true writing path lies.
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Look at these covers.......
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Do they not capture your imagination.....
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....stir yer loins.....
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....hoist up yer cleavage and plump yer thighs?
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Yes, yes, my love, take me now!

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I shall be known as Mildreda Flunkbouquet and I shall be a celebrated writer of

ROMANCE

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I have already set my dainty foot on the path to romancing stardom. My first novel shall be about a woman who falls in love with a man, who then falls out of love with the cad because of some minor mis-understanding and then all is well and they are back in love again.

Totally original I think, but I am, at present, without a title as catchy as these.

I am toying with 'The bump in his trousers betrayed him' or 'He knew what she wanted but the chemist had sold out of viagra'.

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Maybe you would be kind enough to offer a little help here, please....

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I want to be a tomato

I want to be a tomato
And hang around all day
With all my red-skinned buddies
In a tomato-ish kind of way

I’d love to be a tomato
and have a fetching pointy cap
I’d listen to the tomato vine
and be a social kind of chap

We’d hang about the fridge and chat
chill out, be really cool
making fun of cucumbers
and last week’s gooseberry fool

I be a fussy kind of tomato
juicy, plump and fickle
being choosy who I had as mates
finest cheese and ploughman’s pickle

No plans to be passata
not chopped, or tinned, or plum
and to think that I’d be ketchup
would make me rather glum because

I want to be a well dressed tom
wrapped in splendid mayonnaise
so I can look back and say
those were my salad days

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This is a poem for Poetry Thursday
The theme this week is 'bring in the humour'
click the link for more....

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London Refugee mailed his take on me veg - how clever is this?

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Lettuce beetroot to
Each other
Forget those leeks of mangetout
That sprout up now and then
And I beg you not to two-thyme me
For a sage
Accept my 3-carrot ring
(it's all I can afford on my celery)
And I will find a kohlrabi
I will pepper you with love
And radish you lentil eternity
Cos if you ever leave me
I'll become a has-bean and a vegetable

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pee ess - for a more serious read I have posted my entry in the Moon Topples competition over on THE LITTLE MINX - it is called 'The Ritual'.

Feeling beige

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I have just visited a house where I was almost too scared to sit down. No, there was no vicious dog and as far as I am aware I do not have a case of raging hemorrhoids. In short I had found myself in a beige palace, a sanitised box where the fringes on the rug had been brushed at precisely the correct angle and the towels in the bathroom were folded like origami napkins in a posh restaurant (and she didn't even know I was coming!). The house was an altar to Homes and Gardens but I was strangely disturbed as I returned home, only just missing the newly laid catsick on the kitchen floor.

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'You're weird.' Demanda said, arriving as if by magick as the kettle came to the boil. 'You wouldn't want a house like that, so why are you moaning?'
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Demanda is a fully paid-up member of the Gin Co-op, she has known me and my house for years. I looked around as she kicked off her shoes and flopped down, spilling coffee down the side of my saggy leather sofa. She swished her foot about a bit to mop it up.
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'Nothing matches,' I grumped 'and my towels would think I had gone mad if I asked them to do that origami restaurant thing, but why can't I be bit more, well, together.'
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'Your house is you.' Demanda said, as she missed the ashtray by a good five inches 'I wouldn't come here if I thought you wanted me to be uncomfortable.'
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I looked at my eclectic room with its eclectic adornments. I suppose she's right, they don't come to see my messy towels and my unmatched rooms and they would all be horrified if I ever did beige. Come to that, so would I.

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Telling tales

We are all writers of one sort or another, even if it is only the occasional letter, an email, or a note to school excusing ourselves from sport (yes I did, and my hand writing was more like my mums than hers was).

But what makes us want to take it a stage further and write prose, novels, short stories and poetry? What is this drive that wakes us at dawn with the seed of an idea, this overwhelming compulsion to commit everything we see and hear, stapling it to bits of paper, a word doc, or the back of a gas bill in a vain attempt to capture life at its best, worst or indifferent?

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I cannot go a day without writing something, adding to a current project, burning toast/dinner/midnight oil with my need to finish a blog post, or decorate a fancy tale.

I also adore reading, and reading aloud to children is a passion that I don't think I will ever be able to give up. My work allows this obsession but Goddess help my poor grandchildren, subjected night after night to Granns Fairy Tales.

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So, is it a need to be famous and go down in the annals of time as a 'writer wot wrote good words', or is it much simpler than that? I think I am a simple storyteller, a teller of short and tall tales. A modern version of a Bard, a Skald, or a travelling Minstrel, eager to spread the stories of our world that our ancestors would have listened to instead of Radio Four.

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Now my tale is done for today, what about yours?

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In laughter and tumbling we spend the whole day

til night, by arriving, has ended our play

the stories are read

the monsters are dead

as we tumbled all day

so we tumble to bed

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Please help yourself

**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**

It appears that some of you are going through a bad spell.

Take one of my charm bottles, fill it with the thoughts of things you wish to get rid of and send it off to the outer reaches of the ether with love and light. The problem should have gone by 7.31 a.m tomorrow morning, although this is not an exact science!

(please note that lazy husbands or wayward wives will need

something a little larger than a bottle)

**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**}{**

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Onan kara

She was laced in beauty once,
mirror honest, timeless
fresh as churned summer and
easy on the peacocks eye.
Laughter was her language
enough to clean a soul, that
hunted through the darkened sun
to find what must be held

She kissed the hand that thieved
rapt delight, unguarded thrall
smiling in self-cleverness
drunk on sapphire wine.
Glory was her clothing as
the fiddler played a tune, that
muted notes of candour.
She danced a tango just for one

Now summer weeps upon a floor
swept by winters hardest frost
barren scars replaced the dream
of promise deep within.
Onan kara,

long forgotten
faded skeins of lies
no artistry, no love libretto
or lasting, steadfast
song of life.

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Klepto

After sorting out my files I have turned my attention to cleaning up my favourites/bookmarks (oh dear, this smacks of OCD). Apart from the links on my blog there are a further million or so lurking behind the scenes and I have only just realised that I can't read everything!

Would anyone like to take voluntary redundancy?

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pee ess - The Great Big Awesome Thingy Whatnot Competition over at Moon Topples is now open for voting. Please go and cast yer valued vote and send Maht the results of your more than worthy opinion. There is some great stuff there.

Miserable May

I mostly missed Beltane/May Day (the Gin Club didn't, see above) - it went by in a haze of prescription drugs, aided and abetted by the wonders of daytime TV. I have just been sorting out the calender for May. It is all looking a bit sad and it is another five weeks until the next sabbat. Oh poot.

Apart from being honoured by two bank holidays (whoopee for lazy bankers) there really isn't much going on apart from the odd birthday and Flora Day tomorrow, which is a local shindig that I will miss because I have to work.

I thought I would cheer myself up by having a special day this month just for me. I nearly decided on the 14th (Bowel Movement Monday maybe) but then I thought that it would be nice to have Worthless Wednesday on the 23rd. I have cancelled both of them in favour of Flat-on-yer-back Friday which will be held on the 11th.

In heavy discussions with the Gin girls earlier on, we have decided that much can be accomplished on yer back and have come up with a number of fun activities that require little or no movement. Sounds like hot-tub heaven to me.

So, help yourself. Grab a day, make it yours and mark it down on miserable May. Points awarded for originality.

pee ess - you can't have the 27th because it's Rising Cleavage Day in Prospididnick (a village near me) and I couldn't possibly miss that to attend your celebrations. So sorry.

UPDATE.

So how is May shaping up?

8th - Poncy Dress Day in Helston/ Paris Hilton Does Porridge Day

10th - Don't give a shit Thursday

11th - Flat on yer back Friday

14th - L>t's Bowel Movement Monday

13th - Wholly Holey Holy Holiday or CS Day

15th - Turn the Page Tuesday (Verillion Day)

18th - Farmpost Friday

19th - Debi's Long-Winded Title Day

20th - Rat Infestation Sunday

21st - Roberta's - Mundane Mud Pie Day

23rd - Worthless Wednesday

25th - Flaw in my Sanity Friday (Nooy Day)

27th - Rising Cleavage day

28th - Tweede Pinksterdag (it says it on my calender okay)

29th - Mutley's Non-Existent Day

Ahhh, much better - things are definitely looking up for May.

Great Big Awesome Short Fiction Competition

Maht's competition is well underway over at Moon Topples. Pop over to read some brilliant entries under the title of 'growth'.
Still a few days to go, so get on with it!

Also don't forget that Skint's comp is still going on HERE with categories for everyone.

Why would you want to enter a competition?

Before blogging I had only entered a few competitions. The whole fussy business of reading through the interminable rules and regs and then submitting the right type of copy to the right important person sort of pissed me off. You never knew if your submission was even read and only got feedback if your paid extra on top of the entry fee.

Blog comps are great. Not only do you get to see your work up somewhere else but you also get to link to some new blogs and make connections with writers who are all in this same mad boat. Apart from anything, even if you are writing out of genre and length they are a massive discipline (a word I loathe), they keep your fingers flexed and your mind sharp.

So even if you are toying with the idea of entering the next one I say - go for it. You have nothing to lose because it is not really about the winning, is it?

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Has anyone seen my sense of humour?

The witch's kitchen

My enforced rest has led to desperation for something to do that doesn't require much movement (I can still get chocolate in my mouth which is something). Today I decided to sort out all my writing files on my computer and on my pen drives (stick thingies).

I have always thought of my writing files as being akin to a larder, but have I realised that it goes much deeper than that and probably takes up a whole kitchen.

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In the larder there are ten novels, six of which are finished and four that are at first draft stage. I suppose those four should be in the washing machine, ready then to go through the mangle and on to the tumble drier at some point. Ironing comes later!

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My short stories have already sorted themselves into various jars labelled with things like 'complete tosh', 'wouldn't bother with this, you were on drugs when you wrote this' and a couple called 'maybe, possibly' and 'if you get your finger out of yer ass there maybe something here'. How I ever manage to sort anything out I don't know. I found one on a pen drive called 'Kate, you're a twat' but in looking at it again I think there may be some potential there. Hmmm.

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The trouble is that I can't chuck anything out. There are at least twenty poems in the fridge, cooling their heels, ready to be shaped into something that might eventually resemble something readable.

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I very rarely work on one thing at a time, so there is a line of pieces that are waiting to go into the food processor, mixed together, churned up, to produce something new. There are four projects busily simmering away on the range, a novel, a short story and a couple of poems, being stirred daily and added to. This cauldron is rarely cold and there is always something to do to them.

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Then of course, there's the microwave. I suppose all my blog posts come from here. Wayward thoughts that get zapped quickly and thrown out to the world (well, not recently).

The only thing my kitchen is missing is a bin. I suppose it would be a useful addition but then, what would I do with all the leftovers that I recycle?

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Please share your methods. It would nice to know that I'm not completely insane.

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