Get Me Started! - #1

*From Danielle Mari's first sentence.*

Jackson almost left Lucky Lo without reading the fortune cookie. If he had--if he'd just tossed his three dollar tip on the table, waved goodbye to the cute little waitress who never charged him for his drink, and slipped out the bottle-green glass door with its chiming trio of bells without attracting the attention of Madam Lo herself, nothing about his life would've changed. He'd be Jackson Pierce--ex-college football star who still drove the Chevy Nova he'd purchased when he was eighteen, still kicked himself for breaking up with Jenny when anyone could see she was perfect for him, and still played at being a private investigator while waiting for his real life to start.

He'd relived the moment a hundred times in the last hour as he lie curled up inside the trunk of Madam Lo's old white Caddy, every bump and pothole slamming his head into the metal toolbox wedged beside him and his spine into the trio of cinder blocks--he refused to contemplate their intended use--at his back.

He had tossed the tip onto the table, catching the waitress's eye as he did so and giving her a little wink. When she hunched her shoulders, looked toward her left, and scurried toward the kitchen instead of smiling in return, he followed the direction of her furtive glance and found Madam Lo, perched in her red silk embroidered chair on the dais behind the cash stand, staring him down.

"You no read fortune cookie, Mr. Jacks," she snapped, her ruthlessly plucked brows meeting in a V of disapproval over glittering black eyes.

"That's okay. Seen one, seen 'em all," he said and pulled out a ten as he approached her.

"Not okay. Violate tradition." Crossing her arms over her chest, she refused to take his money.

"What?" He placed his check and the ten on the marble counter. If he hadn't already left money on the table, he'd tell the old bat to give the change to his waitress and be out the door.

"Must read fortune cookie after meal. Tradition," she insisted.

He shook his head. "Not in China, it isn't. Fortune cookies are an American invention."

"You from China?" her voice rose, coated with fierce indignation.

"Nope."

"Then you know nothing." She dismissed his argument with a wave of one tiny hand, the glossy red polish on her fingertips resembling perfect drops of blood.

"Look. I already left the table. I don't feel like walking back to get it. I'll just ..." he trailed off as Madam Lo lifted a bowl of fortune cookies from behind the cash register. Sheesh, the woman took her so-called tradition seriously.

"You take one. Open now," she ordered.

Jackson made a production of rolling his eyes. If Lucky Lo's lunch buffet wasn't dirt cheap--and if their Pepper Chicken wasn't the best he'd ever had--he'd tell Madam Lo what she could do with her bowl of fortune cookies and never return. Since he did love their Pepper Chicken, and money was a little hard to come by these days, he reached into the bowl and pulled out a cookie.

"Open," Madam Lo said, anticipation and something like hunger glinting in her eyes.

He popped the plastic seal, slid the cookie out, and snapped it cleanly half.

"Read," she said.

"I'm getting to it." He pulled the crisp white sheet free, checked his "lucky" numbers--not that he had enough spare cash to throw away on the lottery--and flipped it over to read his fortune.

"Today, you die."

"What the--what kind of fortune is this?" He looked up at Madam Lo who smiled, a slow, triumphant stretch of ruby lips over sharp little teeth.

"The best kind. The true kind." She lifted a small aerosol can from behind the counter, aimed at his face, and sprayed.

The next thing he new, he was wearing duct tape around his wrists and ankles, and two men he'd never seen before were dumping him--rather carelessly in his opinion--into the trunk of Madam Lo's Caddy.

He gnawed at the duct tape on his wrists, for all the good it did him. He gnawed at the enormity of his situation as well, with even less results. He'd eaten at Lucky Lo's for four years. He'd never stiffed a waitress, skipped on a check, or made an idiot of himself. Certainly, he'd never done anything to deserve kidnapping.

The car slowed, swung into a wide right turn, and crunched over what sounded like gravel before coasting to a stop. Before Jackson could form a plan that didn't include screaming for help like a little girl, the trunk popped open and Madam Lo, flanked by the same thugs who'd tossed him in the trunk to begin with, faced him.

"What are you doing?" Jackson demanded.

"Giving you your fortune, Mr. Jacks," Madam Lo replied, her face lit with excitement.

"Okay, no. No! It's just a cookie. A wierd one, yes, but still, just a cookie. They make those things by the hundreds in some factory somewhere. The fortunes aren't true." He ordered himself to stop babbling.

She leaned toward him. "Yours is."

It's Like A Potluck Of C.J. Facts!

Location: My comfy over-sized writing chair, hoping the rest of the crew hit their beds soon so I can write for an hour before going to bed.

Playing on my iPod: "With You" by Linkin Park

1. Tomorrow I work from 10 am to 9 pm.

2. If you're currently thinking something along the lines of "Oh, C.J. must be excited/happy/looking forward to that" please slap yourself until common sense returns.

3. If you missed the fabulous new heels coming out in Chanel's 2009 collection, go here and check them out.

4. Yes, the black pair would be an appropriate Christmas gift for me. ;)

5. Also, if you missed it, scroll down and check out the uber-cool Halloween cake my hubby made this weekend.

6. I took the kids shopping on Saturday to figure out the whole costume thing. We're going to have two rock stars (Starshine and Daredevil) and one Army Special Ops (Scientist). My hubby is going as a wizard. I've got the stuff to be either a witch or a Celtic princess but maybe this year I'll go as a novelist.

7. That way, I can wear my sweats and mutter things to myself as I jot notes on the back of my checkbook while people around me give me candy instead of strange looks.

8. I'm considering doing some short fic pieces and giving them away on the blog.

9. I think I'll do snippets of Alexa's life pre-Shadowing Fate. We'll see if I can fit it into my schedule.

10. I'm a little disturbed at how many of you chose the "goat" option on the recent survey.

11. Although I suppose if you have a goat, you don't need trash pick-up or a lawnmower, so that's a bonus.

12. You have to deal with the whole horizontal eye thing and total lack of respect for personal space or for humankind's strange aversion to being rammed from behind, but I suppose the trade-off is worth it for some.

13. We're getting our first freeze tonight. This means the scenery is going from pretty to gorgeous.

14. It also means the 9-4 is going to start each morning with great reluctance.

15. One of my co-workers (we don't see each other often) told me a few days ago that she always listens to my hubby each morning on her way to school.

16. Me: "That's nice."

17. Her: "I just love listening to him!"

18. Me: "That's good. I'm glad."

19. Her: "I can't stop thinking about him! I think about him all the time."

20. Me: "Hold it, sister."

21. It's such a weird thing when people I barely know (or don't know at all, for that matter) think my husband (and often me) are community property because of his job. I don't mind people admiring him. I admire him greatly. I do mind someone thinking it's somehow appropriate to tell me they have a fantasy life that stars my husband.

22. Besides, telling me something like that just shows how little you know me. I'm not exactly the non-confrontational type.

23. Reader Question: Will you dress up for Halloween? If so, what are you going to be?

Ooooh, Shiny!

Peter Von Brown just sent me this link saying "Doesn't this just scream C.J.?"

Shiny fabulousness inside


Yes. Yes it does. I want a pair. I've always wanted to take over the world. Now, I can accessorize like I mean business.

Bat wing and eye of newt

Have I mentioned before that my hubby is brilliant and talented? Especially when it comes to cake?

Here's a cake he made this past weekend for a Halloween party. This is absolutely one of the coolest cakes he's ever made (in my opinion). After watching the video, would you rate it and comment on it so he can get it up to Featured Video status on Youtube? He's also entering this in a contest on cake.com. Very cool!


Halloween Cake

God Save The Queen

A message from the Queen:

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to manage your economy, or to nominate competent candidates for President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.


** Important, please read thoroughly! **

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.


1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
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2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary'). The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.


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3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
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4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

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5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

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6. The Former USA will adopt UKprices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

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7. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut.

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8. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

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9. You will cease playing the hybrid game you call football. There is only one proper kind of football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Be warned, however, that if you try Rugby, the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, as they regularly thrash us.

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10. Further, you will stop calling the event at the end of your baseball season the World Series, since so few civilized countries play the game. Since less than half of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

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11. In time, MI 5 will tell you who killed JFK.

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12. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups and saucers, not mugs, with high quality biscuits and cakes; plus strawberries in season, with cream.


God Save the Queen!

My Personal Motto For All Things Idiotic

1. Because I have a full To Do list tomorrow, I'm posting my Friday's Week in Review on a Thursday night.

2. This shows an astonishing degree of foresight and planning on my part and should in no way alter the usual helter-skelter daily blogging you've come to expect from me.

3. Want to know which authors made the most moola over the last year? Go here.

4. I'm truly surprised Nora isn't on the list. The woman publishes four books a year, at least.

5. Recently, my children have found opportunities to lament my various domestic shortcomings.

6. I'm a great cook. I keep a relatively clean house (as long as you don't enter the landfill that is the boys' room). I don't forget to feed the animals.

7. That's the extent of my domesticity. I don't have baked goods waiting on the counters every day. I don't mop very often. And you better believe, I don't sew.(That's a post for another day.)

8. Starshine explained to me today that he wishes I were more into cake, but he's glad his father makes up for it.

9. The Scientist lost a button on his pants. When I told him that was an easy fix (even I can sew on a button), he looked concerned until he remembered my mom was coming for a visit. When I said, "I can sew on a button," he replied "Like I said, good thing Grandma's coming."

10. I'm not going to discuss the fact that my mother did indeed sew on the button.

11. Today, I coached my children yet again on the virtue of turning off lights as they leave the room to save electricity.

12. The Scientist decided it would be much easier if we were Amish instead.

13. Immediately on the heels of that announcement, he issued a retraction because, in his words, "Wait. The Amish are farmers with no electricity. That means they just go to bed when it gets dark. Sometimes it gets dark at 4! Forget it!"

14. I went to see Max Payne with hubby and Paul today, and I really liked it.

15. I wanted a bit more focus on the supernatural element, but I was satisfied.

16. One of my friends hated it, but she went into it with preconceived notions based on her knowledge of Max Payne and I went into it going "Hey, Mark Wahlberg and some freaky supernatural creatures! I'm in! Now, who's Max Payne?" so perhaps I had the advantage.

17. My friend nomadicdragon has this site on Etsy where she makes customized lotion, bath salts, body spray, and shower gel. She made a scent just for me called (naturally) Stiletto. It's a yummy pomegranate scent (Which you can buy if you love something deliciously fruity with a hint of spice. Or if you love Bath and Body Works pomegranate stuff. Or if you've always had a secret yearning to smell like me. If the last option is true for you, kindly keep that to yourself.)

18. I got my package of products from her and can't recommend them enough. The lotion is absolutely amazing and all of her stuff is very affordable!

19. Also, here's a fun site for you ebay auction junkies (or those of you who love a bargain). This site pulls up misspelled listings on ebay, where there are little to no bidders, and helps you get stuff for next to nothing. (Try typing in a search for jewelry and see how many people misspelled their entry!)

20. If you missed the opportunity to give me a great first sentence for a piece of creative writing, check out the post below this one and leave me a comment. I'll start the pieces next week. =)

21. Reader Question: Surprise me with something I don't know about you. Yes, yes, I realize it isn't technically a question but you're able to get past that, right? ;)

Get Me Started!

Once again, I'm going to let you tell me what to write. Sort of. Here's the deal (for those of you who weren't following the blog last year):

1. You think up a cool/funny/interesting/challenging first sentence.

2. You post it in the comments section.

3. I take the sentence and turn it into a short piece of creative writing.

Last year, some of you threw some fairly challenging sentences my way, and I loved the writing that came from them. Very entertaining for all of us. :)

So, give me a first sentence and I'll go from there. I only ask that there be no profanity in it. Blood and guts are fine. =D