Ten O’clock Scholar – annoying

This snippet is written for Tuesday Tales, where a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘annoying.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Peggy knew she’d better get started. The reading and homework weren’t going to get done while she sat there and fretted about it. And if she dallied too long, the boys would wake up and her school time would be lost.

Opening the book, she started reading.

Mesopotamia? Where was that?

Peggy kept reading.

“The ancient Mesopotamians were particularly interested in using architecture to plan and advance their cities. Major building materials included clay and mud brick. From these raw materials, Mesopotamians were known for creating large houses with central courtyards and terraced pyramids called ziggurats.”

And what is a ziggurat? This is getting annoying. I don’t want to read about all this ancient drivel. What does this have to do with interior design? It’s not like I’m going to be decorating a tomb or anything.

I just want to learn to decorate houses in today’s time. I want to know how to pick furniture. How to pull different styles together. How to choose paint colors. How to buy paint. And wallpaper. Who to hire? Where to find the materials I need.

Peggy closed her eyes, and a slow sigh escaped her lips, as if its breath would ease out and surround her frustration and make it all magically better. She peeked her eyes open. It didn’t work. The book still lay open in front of her.

Shaking her head, she turned the page and continued.

Soon, she knew more about the Ziggurat at Ur than she wanted to know. Okay, she muttered as she read along, key words betting uttered out loud in exasperation.

“…one of the last standing monuments of the Sumerians…”

“…meant to honor the city’s patron god Nanna…”

She giggled at that thought. Her mother-in-law was a Nana, not ever wanting to be called Grandma.

She may be a Nana, but she’s certainly no god, although sometimes she seems to think she’s one.

Peggy’s hand flew to her mouth to clamp the words tightly inside, not wanting them to be spoken out loud. Oh gracious, wouldn’t that cause a war in the house if Derek heard her speak against his mother like that. He had his own issues with her. It was okay for him to find fault with his mother – but Peggy couldn’t.

Enough of that! Peggy chided herself.

Back to these horrid ancient monuments.

As she read, the initial aggravation about having to read about these archaic structures eased. She started to find the information intriguing.

“…there was a bedchamber for a woman of the village and the priest would bring things for the god’s use.”

“…meant to be meeting places between heaven and earth and thus, the stairs that came about as a result of construction were able to be traversed by humans…”

The further she read, the more engrossed she became. The pages now turned without a conscious thought. Soon she was deep in the pyramids. When her phone dinged with a text, she jerked to present day in surprise, almost ripping a page in the process.

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Trisha’s Website

Ten O’clock Scholar – lip

This snippet is written for Tuesday Tales, where a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘lip.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

She sighed, with a pang of regret. She loved her boys with all her heart. But…some days she dreamed of a different life. One without so many conflicts and struggles. One that included travel and weekend getaways to peaceful shores and mountains filled with breezes rippling through the cedar and pine trees. A life without so many arguments with a husband.

Looking upward, towards the brilliant orb making its way across the sky, Peggy stood up to turn off the sprinkler. She called out to the boys on her way. “Time’s up.

“But Moooooom…..” Clifford started to whine.

“Stop!” Peggy held up a hand, palm flat in the air. “No lip. I’m not in the mood.”

To their credit, that was the end of Clifford’s protest. Jonathan, as usual the more compliant one of the two, beelined for a towel without further urging. Clifford followed behind. The scowl on his face made his opinion apparent.

Once inside, both boys dropped their wet swim trunks in the bathtub and climbed into clean dry play clothes. Jonathan climbed into his bottom bunk and his eyes closed before Clifford had climbed up to his higher perch.

“Mom, can I have a drink of water?” Clifford called out.

“Just one.” Peggy sighed as she turned and wheeled to the kitchen to partially fill a small glass with a few sips of water. When she returned, holding the glass in front of her, Clifford was already snoring.

A rush of warmth filled Peggy’s heart as she gazed at the two slumbering boys. She almost felt bad about her feelings of wanting some time for herself. These two were her joy and her delight in life. Why wasn’t that enough? Why did she want to achieve personal goals that didn’t relate to motherhood?

Returning the unused glass to the kitchen, Peggy shook off the contradictory feelings that she struggled with.

Not now. I’ll deal with those thoughts later. Right now – it’s books and reading. The history of architecture calls me from afar.

Grabbing a cold Diet Coke from the refrigerator, she settled into an armchair, and opened the massive textbook. She’d recoiled when in the bookstore the week before when she saw the price of the text she needed for this class. Her only consolation was that this one book would last through three semesters. That almost justified the gigantic price tag. Almost.

She looked at her notes. How far did she need to read before class tomorrow?

Three chapters?

And complete a Q&A on the material?

By tomorrow?

She envied the youngsters in class that didn’t have the dual roles of student and mother. Most still lived at home and going to school was their full-time job. A wave of green washed over her as she compared her lifestyle to theirs. It seemed that they had such an easier time. Why didn’t she finish school ten years ago when she was younger and didn’t have a family to take care of in addition to scholastic pursuits?

Oh yes, she didn’t want to back then. School was boring. She wanted to start living life.

Well, here she was, ten years later – living life.

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Trisha’s Website

Ten O’clock Scholar – picture prompt

Our current story is Ten O’clock Scholar. This snippet is written for Tuesday Tales, where a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to a picture prompt. These snippets will be short. Each one is 300 words or less. There are several pictures to choose from and we each pick one to write to.

Enjoy the tale, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Later that morning Clifford started in on his campaign. “Can we play in the sprinkler, Mommy?”

“Not yet. After lunch.”

Ten minutes later. “Mommy…please…let’s go play in the sprinkler.”

He was nothing if not persistent. At five years old he’d already perfected the trick of the Chinese slow water drop torture technique.

“Pleeeeeease, Mommy.”

“Can we go out now?”

As irritating as his persistent demands were, a small portion of Peggy had to acknowledge that he was a little boy that knew what he wanted and put every effort into getting there. She chuckled as she thought that he’d been that way since he was a toddler.

She finally gave in by eleven o’clock. “Okay boys, go wash up.”

After a hurried lunch of bologna sandwiches and a handful of chips, the boys went to put on their swim trunks as Peggy sat the dirty dishes in the sink and wiped the crumbs off the table.

Clifford returned sporting his favorite trunks with sharks adorning them. Jonathan walked into the kitchen wearing his birthday suit.

Peggy sighed and shook her head. “No, son. You’re not going out in the front yard naked.”

After getting the youngest in appropriate outdoor wear, they headed out front where the thick Bermuda grass would happily absorb the water. Turning on the sprinkler, the boys screamed and dashed in and out in their joyful dance of delight.

Peggy retrieved a lawn chair from the garage and settled down to keep an eye on them as they played.

A jet roared over their heads, lifting in elevation as it flew away from Ontario Airport. The boys watched with excitement. Peggy watched also, but with a feeling of longing. What would it be like to simply appear at the airport and take off for some far away destination?

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Trisha’s Website

Ten O’clock Scholar TT – eighteen

Can I pull myself out of the past? I don’t know. After spending much of the past two years writing historical fiction, with a few occasional essays here and there, I’m heading back to a contemporary tale.

This story, Ten O’clock Scholar, isn’t new. I started it in July 2016. I used it for my Tuesday Tales work and posted 18 posts from January 2017 to June 2017. And then…I got bored. And rushed off to other projects and four years later have never gone back to it.

My goal for 2022 is to FINISH UP a lot of incomplete and neglected projects. Ten O’clock Scholar is on that list. So here we go, back to a forgotten tale. Peggy is a thirty-something mother of two young boys. She has dreams beyond what her marriage is providing. Going back to school to become an interior designer is top on her list. Her husband is not supportive of her endeavors. I’d gotten through Chapter Three before dropping this story. We’re starting off as Peggy is in her first week of school.

This snippet is written for Tuesday Tales, where a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘eighteen.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Before Peggy could arouse enough to stand from the chair she’d fallen asleep in, Derek stomped down the hallway, causing picture frames hanging on the wall to rattle. She looked at his face for clues to his mood, a habit she’d fallen into so many years earlier, and saw the answer in his tight, clenched jaw.

“Oh my, I don’t know—”

His chilly glare put an end to her explanation.

She opened her mouth again to apologize. He turned his back and whirled into the kitchen. She didn’t have to watch him to know what he was doing. The clanks and bangs announced that he was making his coffee. She cringed as he flung open the pantry door and banged the filter on the side, emptying the old grounds from the day before. The can of coffee dropped to the counter with a clang so loud she was surprised it didn’t wake the boys.

This was not good.

The last time Derek was this angry, he’d gone an entire week without speaking. The hardest part of that wasn’t the icy atmosphere that filled the house. In a way, his lack of speaking was almost a relief. At least he wasn’t busy berating her when he wasn’t talking to her. But it was that feeling of walking on eggshells that kept a knot tied deep in her belly that was so difficult.

Peggy laid her laptop aside and stood and stretched before making her way to the back of the house. Maybe she could grab a quick shower before Cliff and Jonathan woke up and set the day in frantic motion.

I love those boys to pieces, but boy, this will be easier once they’re eighteen years old!

Peggy tried to recall the peaceful carefree feelings she had the night before while searching for Bohemian images on Pinterest. If only she could channel that light emotion right now.

That thought didn’t work its magic.

School – she’d think of school. That should pull her out of the doldrums. She had homework to complete today. And class tomorrow! Another afternoon in the company of adults. Well, mostly adults. If you could consider the twittering twenty-something’s grown up. Today she’d face another new challenge in the mom-going-to-school dilemma. How to get homework done.

Fortunately, as early as Clifford liked to wake up, something he’d done since he was an infant, the boys always napped well. They were usually good for at least a two-hour snooze. Especially if she let them play in the sprinkler after lunch.

One day at a time. That’s all I can do. I’ll get through this. One day a time, one class at a time, one argument at a time. And then, many days in the future, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do with my life. To stay or to go will be a decision I’ll face later.

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Trisha’s Website