All posts by Laura Grimes

General, Humor, Laura Grimes

How to not buy school supplies

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By Laura Grimes

Fairy Girl, not exactly what a Large Smelly Boy is looking forCertain laws of buying school supplies are writ large in pink Pearl eraser and are never, ever violated. Herewith the laws:

–You will be slightly irritated with yourself for choosing to shop for school supplies at a certain store despite a bitter memory of hundreds of backpacks conspicuously blocking aisles the first week of school last year and were still supposed to be on sale two days later but had suddenly disappeared and been replaced by Halloween decorations.

–You will be slightly irritated with yourself for choosing to shop for school supplies at a certain store even though some mailing envelopes you bought there a few weeks earlier mysteriously never made it into your shopping bag.

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General, Humor, Laura Grimes

Whisky and the art of cleaning closets

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By Laura Grimes

Lonely Girl by Julie LondonDear Mr. Scatter,

I see you have delayed your return to the Scatter front for another day. Be assured that this does not reflect poorly on your dedication as a loving father and husband, though I did have to clean out the little black skillet again, contrary to what it says on our marriage contract.

Everything is fine here. Really. Take as much time as you need.

The Large Smelly Boys have called a truce at the dining table, but only because they know that the new Lego catalog will be mine if they don’t.

We are out of leftover pizza.

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Film, General, Humor, Laura Grimes

All’s quiet on the Scatter front

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Engraving by H. Humphrey of

By Laura Grimes

Dear Mr. Scatter,

Everything’s fine. Really. No need to hurry home.

Both Large Smelly Boys are making noises about wanting to be an only child, but I’m sure it’s nothing.

The Large LSB has a Judy Garland film on the telly. The Small LSB does not want the Judy Garland film on the telly.

The giant moth you tried to whack with a broom and some choice words is toast. I found it on the stove. It was near the little black skillet.

Don’t worry, I cleaned it — the skillet, not the moth — even though you’re the only one who had eggs for breakfast and it’s etched in the marriage contract that scouring it is your job.

Judy Garland is throwing statues across a room and trashing it. I didn’t know she was left-handed.

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General, Humor, Laura Grimes, Theater

Does this blog make me look fat? Musicals, comedy and a true confession

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Cast and set of "She Loves Me" at Oregon Shakespeare Festival/Jenny Graham

By Laura Grimes

Mr. Scatter has been hogging the blog of late. I forgive him, though. It’s not like he’s been eating bonbons. I know full well that he’s the muscle to my muse, the bacon to my trifle.

Art Scatter works to deliver a full-course meal, and I don’t mind being the pastry chef. There’s no shame in that. Funny writing comes with its own tricks and techniques, craftsmanship honed to a sharp wit.

I can’t do what Mr. Scatter does, and, I hate to tell him, but … let’s just say he suggested adding a line to one of my posts a little while back, which was a great idea in thought, but the words – well, I was at a loss how to delicately tell him that he just cast a lead weight in my lightly flowing stream.

I explained that one of the first rules of humor writing is not to reveal an obvious punchline straight off the bat. Take a joke and yank it in another direction and then yank it again. Come in sly on the side, tease it, stretch it and make people reach for it and discover it for themselves. Therein lies all the fun.

And then I stopped talking. I blinked at my current first husband a couple of times. He blinked back at me. I realized I was explaining the craft of writing – to my husband, of all people. But I was explaining a different type of writing than what he’s practiced for eons. It takes a whole different brain from a whole different angle.

Continue reading Does this blog make me look fat? Musicals, comedy and a true confession →

Books, General, Humor, Laura Grimes, Theater

Traveling a jumbled, rambly literary road

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Oregon Coast near Devil's Churn and Cape Perpetua

By Laura Grimes

We’re traveling, we pack of five breathing each other’s air and bumping inside each other’s heads. We eat the same food. We stop from spot to spot, sightsee, and mere snippets intermingle, weave together something anew and haul us along.

Everywhere we go we pick up words and take them with us. They lift us. They quiet us. We break bread with them. We swirl wine with them. They hang in the air among us.

Our books go from suitcase to table to car to kindle to stereo to suitcase to car to lap to bed.

Each time, bits let loose. Literary crumbs pinch and mold into a new story, unique and unashamed. It becomes our own literary travel journal. Jumbled. Weird. Scattered. And somehow cohered.

*

The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy FarmerWhen The Large Smelly Boys bicker in the car, I hit play and they magically silence before the almighty audio book. Nancy Farmer, god bless her. Past summers we plowed through her The Sea of Trolls and The Land of the Silver Apples. Just to be safe, we have along her The Islands of the Blessed on iPod, CD and hard copy. Thank heavens, because we’ve used all of them. In less than a week, the hard copy was devoured by two members of the Scatter Family.

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General, Humor, Laura Grimes

On the road with the centered asterisk

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"Asteroidea" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904/Wikimedia Commons

By Laura Grimes

When I complained to Mr. Scatter that I had only snippets, no whole stories, he said, “Do centered asterisks.”

“Wha?” I creased my brow.

“Do centered asterisks.”

Like that’s supposed to help me. I’m not sure what the heck he’s talking about.

Oh, wait, there’s one!

*

Oh, heck. Now it’s gone.

The Scatter Family is on the road. At the moment, we’re at the coast. Longtime Scatter readers know that when we’re at the coast, tradition calls for really roughing it — which means we buy a tub of cookie dough and then race to see if we can bake all the cookies before it’s time to leave. So far, our winning streak is perfect.

Some months back, we plowed through a tub of dough, blogged all about cookies and plungers, and got back home to headlines that the cookie dough had been recalled because of an e. coli outbreak. Coincidence?

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General, Humor, Laura Grimes, Visual Art

What’s in a blog name? Plenty

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"Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid" by Johannes Vermeer (c. 1670-1671), National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

By Laura Grimes

The Pantsless Brother has been lobbying for a name change. I’m not sure why. It fits so well (in a pantsless way).

I’m a little reluctant to cave in so easily to the whim of one whiny* reader. I still hold tight to my journalistic ethics. I insist on maintaining a little distance so I can keep my objectivity and my questioning edge. Should I cave? I mean, “I see London, I see France …” just wouldn’t have the same ring if I couldn’t poke fun at his boxers.

But … think Beatles beat now … today is his birthday! So as a little present I’m giving him a name-change story. I can’t put a ribbon on it. I can’t stuff candles in it. It’s not as involved or as painful as, say, a sex-change operation. But just the same, this is a very serious undertaking. This involves a lot of thoughtful consideration and deep soul-searching.

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General, Humor, Laura Grimes

Free to good home: One pubescent boy

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Project Gutenberg's Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880

By Laura Grimes

That headline was a perfectly innocent post on Facebook. How could I not? In the middle of the hot summer, after traveling long distances for two days, after having me all to himself for eons and then having to share me, after heat and humidity made sleeping tough, The Small Large Smelly Boy was, quite simply, in none too delicate terms, cranky. He wouldn’t quit pestering his brother. He wouldn’t quit pestering me. He refused to do a few simple chores. So I was happily ready to ship him to a new address, postage paid. Seemed easy enough.

I was completely unsupervised and I could barter with my children at will. Oops. Sorry. Typo. Try again. I could barter my children at will.

Mr. Scatter was out of town and mostly out of internet range. When he got back maybe he wouldn’t notice the house was a tad quieter.

The Small LSB didn’t have access to his computer anymore, thanks to a well-played Mommy Trump Card.

The Large Large Smelly Boy, in true teen fashion, refused to be seen on the same computer screen with me. He long ago stopped reading this blog. He long ago, in a little tizzy, defriended me on Facebook. Actually, he friended me, defriended me, friended me, defriended me, depending on his mood of the moment. He figured he had the upper hand. I figured I had carte blanche. Unchecked, imagine what I could write about him.

When I posted my innocent comment, at first I got a little friendly pushback from two friends telling me I couldn’t do that. Ethics, you think? It turned out they just didn’t want to be tempted to try the same thing. One was worried she would also throw in one cute 7-year-old sweetie pie who knows it all.

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Cities, General, Laura Grimes

Looking for culture in all the low places

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Downtown Leavenworth

By Laura Grimes

LEAVENWORTH, Wash. — “Is this a barbarian village?” the Small Large Smelly Boy piped up. “Do barbarians live here?”

He was jokingly referring to Leavenworth, Wash., the Bavarian village that screams for “quaint” to be added automatically to every reference. This is the place made for tourist buses and resorts.

I don’t consider myself a tourist in these parts. I can lay claim to family ties a few generations back. Great-grandma’s cabin wasn’t far from town, but it burned long ago and no one can remember quite where it was. We used to come here for uncles who had homes on Icicle Creek, not chalets with fake icicles.

On this day, The SLSB and I had serious business to tend to. Amazingly, we found a parking spot right near the gazebo in the center of downtown. As we climbed out of the Large Smelly Boymobile, the oompah music was just striking up. Such luck! I immediately dialed Mr. Scatter. I didn’t want him to miss this.

“GUESS WHERE WE ARE!” I held up the phone.

By his somewhat dismal, confused response, I could tell I had interrupted his reverie. I sweetly ignored it. “LET ME GET CLOSER!” As if on cue, the accordion cranked up and the yodeling kicked in. Excellent!

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Cities, General, Laura Grimes, Poetry

It’s hard to go home again, or is it?

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By Laura Grimes

The Small Large Smelly Boy and I have been on the road for a while, bravely negotiating a clogged highway along a lavender festival, fording a large body of water by ferry, climbing mountains, and gingerly making our way through Sasquatch Country.

JoJo can prove it. Our parenting thinking is so warped that we brought along a buddy to keep him company. Meet Bog. We’re hoping he will keep JoJo’s insatiable appetite for making friends in check. (After the whole embarrassing episode with the Stumptown Tart, we decided we better do something.)

JoJo and Bog hobknob with Sasquatch

We gladly travel through hill and dale for good reason. Now we’re in Eastern Washington, where the family roots run deep and the surrounding hills stay shaved and tan all summer long. Growing up, I played softball in these parts and got horribly sick on irrigation water (I was the stupid kid from the city who didn’t know any better). Good times.

Continue reading It’s hard to go home again, or is it? →