Home Coming Surprise by Kat Magendie

So, I get home from the Pen to Press Writer’s Retreat and my dogs are waiting, every last inch of their bodies wriggling. I pet them, my bones weary from the trip from South Louisiana to North Carolina. A friend has driven back with me, and she is anticipating a week in the mountains. I am anticipating the rest of my life here, and when I am gone, I want to be sprinkled on these mountains (and under a willow tree and under an oak tree – aw, friends, just sprinkle me in all my favorite places). When I step into the log-house, my husband stands grinning. I grin back. I say, “Hey.” He says, “Hey.” But, what we said isn’t as important as what I see. There is no way I can miss it. It is almost the size of a door. It is hanging over the double windows to my right. I stare at it, my mouth open as if to catch some flies and gnats and no-see-ums. I say, “Oh!” My friend says, “Wow!” My husband says, “You like it?”

And as I turn to say, “I can’t believe you did that!” I also see he has left fresh flowers about. And he has painted the ceiling in the bedroom the warm color we thought would look better than white, and pulled the same color into the hall, and as well the tall wall in the living room that isn’t log, just as we talked about doing. I am speechless. I turn back to what is hanged over the windows and stare again. It is a painting, one I learn he has almost completed in a weekend (we joke that he can draw and paint like I write, quickly and with a free hand). The painting is of me and of my dogs and of our view. In it, I am rocking in the rocking chair, my face half-turned to that awe-some view with a look of whimsy and pleasure and mischief, a bright red blouse for that shot of color to match our red couch; the dogs lie in their poses on the porch; there are the mists I love, blanketing; there are late-spring-rain clouds in the sky; there are trees, and ridges, and our porch things, and, some of my favorite birds on the feeders.

Now, how do you thank someone for that? Maybe a thousand ways. But for me, the one who loves to tease and hates mushy gooey globby romance stuff, all I needed to do was give him a hug and say, “That’s the most beautiful painting I’ve seen you do. What a gift you have. It’s so lovely. Thank you,” and to mean it; which I do. I really do.

A Fairly Fair Fairy Story by Kat Magendie

Once upon a time, in a land up high, there lived a Queen. This Queen’s King was on a trip to a mysteriously eerie swamp-land called South Louisiana. Whilst the King was away, the Queen danced and sang and had no fingerprints, dribbles, and the entire bedchamber was hers and hers alone. Then, came the morning when the Queen looked upon her larder in the Frigidaire, and noticed there were no more greens, there was no more grapefruit juice, and on the royal counter, there were no more apples, and in the most high royal pantry, there were no more Cheerios and Cocoa Pebbles. The Queen, in a panic, summoned her minions, but realized she had no minions, just two fat lazy dogs who, by the way, were almost out of their royal pain dog food!

The Queen fretted and moaned and gnashed her teeth. Where did these wondrous and nutritional items come from if not from minions? Surely they did not just appear out of the misty mountain air? The Queen sat her quite shapely for her age rump upon her stately throne and thought and thought, and the thoughts became more thoughts, and those thoughts went off into tangents of thoughts until her brain squeezed and she had to blink and give her head a shake and pronounce, “Where were art I?” Then, she recollected her mind, and sighed, “Yes, my larder is bare. I have none of the precious foodstuffs that I daily enjoy.” Then with a start, a horrified, “Augh!” The Queen also realized there was soon to be no more Charmin to be had in the Land of Mountains.

“Oh, Oh, whatever will I do?” The Queen sobbed. She paced the little log royal castle, wringing her royal hands. Then, it came to her, how these things suddenly appeared to the royal homestead. The King! Yes! The King went to the village and pillaged the Ingles Supermarket and brought forth his bounty for the Queen’s enjoyment so the Queen never had to leave her mountaintop. The Queen pondered and pontificated and gasped and ballyhooed. And when the King returned from his quest from the wet mooshy land of yore, she ran to him and rained upon his face kisses, and said, “My King! My King! Get thee to Ingles quickly, for my cupboard is bare!” And the King set off without complaint, off to the village to pummel and plunder for his Queen. And his Queen was ever so ever grateful, even if she sometimes doesn’t show the King thusly so. The End.

Alone Time by Kat Magendie

Sometimes it’s nice to be alone, completely alone. Although I have plenty of “alone-time,” seeing as I have no children at home, I work from home so there are no crowds of people around me, and my husband mostly stays out of my way when I’m working. But! He is still here, he still walks about, does his thing, takes up more than half the bed, says the answers to Jeopardy aloud, gets up earlier than I do and “quietly” (not) goes about the little log house doing whatever; or he cooks dinner, which I should not be complaining about, however, there are times I want no food smells, no clanging pots, no crumbs or drips he has not noticed that I clean up. I cannot in good conscience complain about my husband, for I know he does many things other husbands do not do, like his own laundry(!), however, there are still times when I wish to be completely alone, as in the house all to myself for more than a couple of hours.

Which is why, when Roger went to Baton Rouge and I stayed behind, the first thing I did that very day the left was to clean the house. Yeah, funny, huh? But it was as if I was preparing the house for Me. For My ways. I dusted, vacuumed, wiped, sponged, aired out, and I washed every item on the bed. Then, when all that was done, I sat down on the couch, with a salad, and watched television with candles burning in my spotless house. That night, I slithered into my lavender-scented sheets, and at first I scrunched “to my side,” but then! Wait! I had the bed to myself, and I lolled about, throwing my arms and legs out willy nilly. The next morning, I made my coffee, wiped up any drips, and admired how clean and orderly things still look hours and hours later. Wow!

Yes, there are times when I am grateful to be completely alone. I wonder, and I don’t see why not, if my husband feels this way when I go out of town and he has the house to himself. I imagine he thinks, “Ha! I can make food fingerprints, dribbles, and crumbs without her tsking me. I can have real sausage, and bacon! Ha! And I’ll watch Jeopardy fifteen hours a day and shout out all the answers. I’ll listen to my Richard Harris album that she detests. I’ll not shave. I get the whole bed to myself, including the covers!” Gratitude for alone time—it’s an equal opportunity thing.