Anyway, today, as I aerobicized to “Digging Your Scene” by the Blow Monkeys, I spied our erratic mail carrier meticulously placing our mail one by one through the swinging mail door. I thought this was out of character, until I realized the front screen door next to the mail slot hid none of my exercising and that my right boob had escaped my lycra top, and dangled there, like an abandoned Newport News catalog, caught halfway between the mail bucket and the water heater.

Sadder still, I briefly considered doing this everyday, same time, same place, to ensure timely and organized mail delivery.

I really need to stop working from home.

p.s. This happened in 2002, and needless to say, my boob didn’t inspire efficient mail delivery.

My wonderful longtime babysitter is now in her early ’20s and pretty much outta here, so I need to use this care.com dealio pronto.

You can get ALL THAT FOOD for $27. Wha-? Ho-?. I am going to make my Thanksgiving dinner with their $36 holiday pack and I never even knew grocery co-ops existed until now! Why isn’t everybody doing this? I don’t get it.

Is the food grown by magical fairies? Is it non-plastic? What gives?

I like it.

I need to get the hell over that. Being a mom and a wife and a worker means I HAVE to focus on many things at once. So I am just going to grow up now.

Which brings me to PROMPTuesday #80 (here’s where I take it full circle, folks!)… As I pondered how I am prone to drowning in the minutiae of my day, and as I considered how I go batnuts crazy if I have several items on my agenda, I realized I could turn those pig ears into silk. That thought is what begat Sunday’s post. As in: Hey! Maybe if I list the details of my day I could turn it into something writerly! There’s beauty in them thar details.

So, I came up with the idea to write “Seven Days of Minutiae.” Just write about each day, commit the this and the that to perpetuity, and maybe a story idea or poem would arise. Also, storyteller pundits always say that a great story is full of details, of specifics, of “his bald head popped sour beads of sweat as the wayward jalapeno from his girlfriend’s burrito made its brambly way down his unshaven throat” or some such like.

Anyway, I’m gonna do it. Seriously. Just not care how it sounds or if it’s well written or even interesting. I’m just going to write about what happened each day — down to the slightest detail — and find the beauty. It’s in there somewhere. Right? RIGHT?

I want you to do it too today.

For PROMPTuesday #80, please write about your day in specifics (yesterday counts). What happened (or didn’t happen more like)? Tell me the details. Did you wake in a bed of crumpled sheets and wandering pillows? Who was next to you? What did you have for breakfast? Where did you go? What’s the weather like over by you?

You can write it narrative style or as a poem or take a picture and let us read between the lines.

Get it all down. See what happens.

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

Quite tired are we, although the girls will not admit it, not for a chocolate cake or even a million pieces of their beloved Halloween candy. At 6:20 the night before, a neighbor bedecked in Bat Man rang the doorbell and coaxed us all outside, ten minutes before our planned departure. We join the throng, trying in vain to keep our eyes trained on an angel and a butterfly princess fairy, traipsing and hopping and fluttering from door to door, sidewalk to sidewalk. We greet those we know, surprised and delighted to discover that Booger’s preschool teacher lives at the end of the cul de sac, and Toots’ classmate is just down the block. Open garages beckon, deck chairs line up, and kids delight in caldrons of dry ice and boxes of brains.

The lot of us make our way from one end of the street to the other, and soon it’s time to join our friends on their street, a two-minute car ride away. I grab the salad I’d made an hour earlier, and add a few last-minute avocado and extra gorgonzola. The kids beg me to hurry, but there’s one more thing. I search for the cake we’d bought for the school carnival the night before, the one they didn’t end up needing. I unearth it from underneath wings and coats and we’re on our way.

We spot the orange twinkle lights first, then the driveway bonfire. We know that inside chili bubbles, cheddar bread warms, and friends wait. Carved pumpkins flicker, one for each member of the family, a pumpkin face for him, a princess for her, a witch for mom, a cat for dad. The kids scamper, the adults settle, a timeworn contradiction of states of being. A certain security rests in these things. Like a flannel blanket that wraps and smoothes, or covers a family packed foot on foot, knee to knee, cheek on lip on a Sunday morning.

Thank you for these things.

You know who you are.

First of all, it’s epic. Second of all, it’s told from Death’s point of view. Third of all, it’s historical fiction set during the Holocaust. Fourthly, the writing is unique and raw. Also charming, just not in the expected places. Fifth and foremost, the characters are so endearing and richly drawn and three-dimensional and multi-layered and become better people (or worse people) and you, the reader, are lucky to be along for the ride.

I’ve often found WWII narratives fascinating, especially as told through the eyes of the people who lived in the villages in the midst of all the chaos. I wonder how they felt as their towns were under seige, or when the Jews were marched through the streets on the way to their deaths, and why, why, why, did no one help? And then I think of all the times we don’t help now, when people are still being terrorized and ostracized and killed all over the world. Some in our villages.

I’m one to talk.

But Death talks in this book, and while he is dispassionate, he is also intrigued by the war and its casualties, and “haunted by humans.” His perspective is intriguing and beguiling, and the book reminds of own own mortality, and what kind of soul do we want to be? Then, there’s Liesel, the book thief, and she’s one of the very best reasons to read this novel.

I wish you would.

Let me know if you do.

“You’re not going to win you know.” She couldn’t look at him when she said it.

She kept her eyes away from him, but had to admit he was probably right.

For fun, let’s go back to the PROMPTuesday “rules” this week. They are:

• You must write your entry in 10 minutes. This encourages top-of-mind, primal thinking before the ego and judgmental brain kicks in. Just set a timer, make your kid count to 600 slowly, whatever. It’s an honor system. And I trust you.
• Keep to 250 words or less.
• Please have fun. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Together, let’s rediscover the simple joy in the writing process.

And meaaaannnwhile….Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

I will engage in a PR relationship with a PR person in a PR-y way if:

1) There is cheese.

2) The product/service reminds me of when I was young and bouncy (the good kind of bouncy).

3) I get to decorate things.

The above is my triumvirate of PR goodness and as such, I will be engaging in a lovely platonic relationship with The Corner Bakery to put on a party of such amazing proportions that all of San Diego will be talking, and I will probably be featured in all the hoity toit mags, like Ranch and Coast and the Rancho Santa Fe Equestrienne.

Just kidding. Only four people have RSVP’ed so far. And I expect maybe one more yes.

Doesn’t matter. Entertaining makes me happy, even if it’s for a small gaggle. Or a tiny quartet.

I don’t understand the things I say sometimes.

Anyway, check it. So The Corner Bakery is giving me free food and I get to use it any way I want (except nakedly) for a party. The only catch? I have to make a cool food display, something holiday-y maybe, or neat-o, or sparkly. I don’t know yet. And so what I’m doing is having an essential oil party, because The Corner Bakery and oil go together like two peas in a pod.

No they don’t.

That was weird.

Let me make sense for a minute.

One day my friend Abby began to talk to me about essential oils. She told me stuff like “put them on your feet because skin absorption is high there,” and “eat this orange clove stuff and you will never be sad again,” and “pat this on your zits and your face will be that of a porcelain goddess.” I told her she could change my life and I wanted to have a party where I tell other women this essential oil magic because we all need less zits and sadness, am I right?

And then, The Corner Bakery people emailed me and we’re all, “here’s some free food! have a party!” and the universe aligned right there in front of my eyes.

So I’m having a party! An essential oil party! I bet the Corner Bakery people are going to love this.

My dilemma now is how does one decorate food in an essential oil theme? I was thinking of putting flowers on stuff, but that’s so obvious.

Maybe bamboo in restful pots of zenness?

Spa rocks? Sprinkled on the table?

Fountains of the purest water from some Swiss lake?

Tubs of Crisco?

I’m working on it.

As for the good bouncy comment? I used to eat food from The Corner Bakery almost every day when I was young, sassy, wore short skirts daily, and worked for a Michigan Avenue ad agency. Of course, I never actually bought food from the Corner Bakery…I’d just eat the leftovers after client meetings.

I never said I was classy.

That’s why this essential oil party oughta be a real hoot.

I’ve observed for myself and heard from other moms that in many cases, pediatricians are not testing for H1N1 in their patients with flu symptoms.

When Toots went to the doctor last Monday with fever and arguable fluey stuff going on, my pediatrician, whom I respect and trust, told me he “thought” she had the swine flu, but wasn’t going to test. Tired and unthinking, I didn’t press the matter and so left the office not knowing if Toots had the virus. Later, I complained to The Rock that she absolutely should have been tested, and he countered that it wasn’t feasible to test everybody. I thought about it a second and retorted hell yes they can. And should. At least for now.

First of all, in these initial days and months of the flu season, with everybody freaking out and not knowing which symptoms are H1N1 and which are not, we can considerably cut back on unnecessary hysteria if a sure diagnosis were made. Eliminate the wondering and over-the-top speculation. Also, because we don’t know how the flu will “present” in all cases, it’d be helpful to know if in confirmed cases, fevers always ranged above 103 degrees, or if there were always muscle aches, or if the thing lasts for more than 4 days, etc. Build a composite of anecdotal information for reference.

But most importantly, where children are concerned, and in school, and have siblings, we should know for sure whether the swine flu is circulating in our midst. Because it will change our behavior. And could actually decrease the incidence of the virus. If I had known for sure whether Toots had the flu last week, I would have for all intents and purposes, quarantined her (and the whole family). Not had her sleep in the same room as her sister. Not brought her back to the doctor’s office for a second appointment. Not have gone to mom’s night out last week because people are contagious up to 24 hours before they have symptoms, meaning I could have theoretically infected 14 moms. Moms who would have them transmitted the virus to their kids, and the kids to their siblings.

But I didn’t know. My doctor didn’t test for H1N1. So I made assumptions with very little data. I assumed Toots just had any virus. I assumed that because her fever came and went, then came and went again, it wasn’t the swine flu. I assumed that it’d be OK to send her back to school today after five days of absences.

And there she is now, back in school. Where I discover that another little boy, the brother to someone in Toot’s class, “most likely” has the swine flu. He had a 104.8 degree fever, complained of his neck hurting, became lethargic. But the doctor didn’t test, so the mom doesn’t know and assumes it’s OK for his brother to go to class. And that brother is sitting close to Toots right now. Toots, who is still a little coughy and snotty, and shouldn’t be exposed to more sickness right now. Not to mention the other kids, who are all getting over something or other.

I heard all this “through the grapevine” when a friend on the edge called me this morning to tell me the rumors. See, the mom from above is scared to say anything to anyone because of the possible hysteria it may spark. Because she doesn’t know whether or not her youngest has the swine flu, she doesn’t want everyone to freak for no reason. I know, because I felt that way last week — afraid to tell anyone that my daughter “might” have swine flu. This is part of the problem. If I knew she had it, I’d be broadcasting it to the school, to the people we spent the weekend with, to grandma who watched Toots the night she came down with the fever. They should know. It might change how they act, where they go, if they visit the doctor sooner, rather than later. Confirmation is so much better than hypothesis.

But my doctor? He said don’t say anything. Because he didn’t know for sure and it would just make people worry.

So then? Do what it takes to know for sure. Seems simple.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the swine flu is going to kill the world. I observe the media hype and it makes me crazy. I don’t wear face masks to the Vons. But I do think that with anything, especially anything contagious, the more information we have, the better.