Month: June 2023

My Adventures In Sunday School

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RDP Wednesday: RIPOSTE

Alfred Eisenstaedt1941

When I was a kid, maybe six or seven years old, I used to take a break from going to Mass and I would go to Church- maybe once every other month or so with my friend Lori.

Lori’s family were Lutherans and when it was time for the Sermon, the kids would be shunted off to ” Bible Class ” with their age group.

I was a Catholic kid and I was into the drama that is Mass.I loved the ceremony and those statues that were in cages or standing against the walls. It was spooky and mysterious.  But we were actually expected to learn things and nobody bribed me with cookies and punch to get through my lessons.

When Lori went to bible class they got to draw pictures, have snacks and the bible verses they had to memorize were easy easy compared to the prayers I had to learn. I enjoyed Bible Class, it was fun.

Given my nature though I was getting a little bored until  one Sunday we ended class with a prayer that we sere supposed to say at bedtime:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my Soul to keep
If I should die before I ‘wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

My ears perked up and in that moment I decided maybe Bible Class had some promise after all.

That night I was saying this prayer over and over under my breath during Star Trek. I kept  it up at dinner. I said it at dessert and finally my Dad asked me what was I chanting so I ran through the prayer that I could have said backwards and forwards at this point and then I laughed and said:

” If I die before I wake-” That’s when a vampire when it gets a stake through it’s heart. Before it wakes. They die before they wake.”

” What?” my Dad asked- if you think he looked surprised at what was merrily marching down from my brain to my mouth involved Dracula and a child’s bedtime prayer,  he wasn’t.

For a minute there I saw Bela Lugosi’s Dracula saying this prayer before he slammed his coffin lid down on himself and I started to laugh. Whatever I was eating or drinking at the time went up into my nose and I started to sneeze and cough.

My Mom looked at me and said, ” Bless you”

My Dad looked at my Mom, rolled his eyes to the ceiling and he added to that,  ” Maybe this time it will stick. ”

Lucifer Drawing by Franz von Stuck

Pretty Girls

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If I were forced to wear  the same outfit over and over and over again, what would this outfit look like? What would it be?

Would I be wearing my  favorite boots ( as pictured above ) ,  my perfect pair of jeans with the rip in the back right pocket topped with my favorite t-shirt  of the cat surfing on a slice of pizza ( God I love that shirt  )?

Now ” forced” implies I wouldn’t want to wear these clothes and that is not true. Sometimes I wear these all weekend by choice. So I will answer today’s WordPress  prompt this way:

If had to be  forced to wear anything , it would be a smile because what girl or woman has not heard-

” You should smile more, you look so much prettier when you smile.”

Artist Unknown

Straight on- If you wanted to  force me to wear the same thing day after day-a smile would be it.

The Snakes and The Bees

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RDP Tuesday: The Bee’s Knees

Mary Louise Brooks-American Film Actress

My Grandmother and her sisters were born in the 20’s and hit  the 1940’s just in time to enjoy the Big Band Era with great gusto.

Flappers were cutting edge girls to the girls in my Grandmother’s family, so following that lead I also  suspect they were party girls, but  they never let on. They weren’t fooling me. They were. I knew it, they knew I knew it but for some reason they wouldn’t fess up.

During the 70’s when I hit my Punk Music phase and I wore leather and played guitar and road motorcycles they  thought it was cool. They were encouraging. ” Be yourself or be something else but don’t sit there and be nothing ” was the message I got.

Also a few of them could really drink men under the table and walk away from that table as sober as a Judge.

At any rate, they thought my ‘rebellious’ phase was ‘cute’ and I think they liked seeing me sort of skate along the wild side of life but the biggest take away I got from them was that they thought me and my wild friends were lightweights, compared I am assuming, to what they used to do.

I guess that streak of blazing my own path, which had started 20 odd years before I was born, was bound to leave it’s mark on me- in big ways and in small ways-

like this way:

Once I stopped by Grandma’s on the way to a concert in Seattle so that I could say ‘hi’ and show my Grandma my outfit. I don’t know  remember  what I was wearing but I cracked open her front door and called in for her to close her eyes.

I walked in and closed the door. Then I told her to open her eyes and I twirled around and said ” I am the Snake’s Hips Grandma…the Snake’s Hips! ”

My Grandma was standing there with a cigarette in her hand and she was smiling. Approval was stamped all over her face. ” You’re the Bees Knees Anita Marie. The Bee’s Knees “.

 

The next generation of women destined to be the Bee’s Knees in my family- my Granddaughter, Jemma.

Jemma Moscoso
2022
Photo A.M. Moscoso

 

Look At Me

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Fandango’s One-Word Challenge- ANGER

 

My anger races around my feet

chattering and nipping at my heels

demanding for me to pick it up and show it

some love.

 

Sometimes I stoop down and scoop my

anger up

and I whisper in it’s ear that  I will not walk

away from it.

It has a home in my heart.

 

But there are times when I look down and

see my anger staring back up at me

so I walk away and I let it be

because I am terrified at what I see in it’s

face.

 

Terrified.