Tag: fun

COFFEE SHOP TALK-Resolution Time

January 11, 2018
by Sheila Horne
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The holidays are over and I’m back in Coffee Shop. I’ve missed it. The coffee. The newspaper. The morning quiet. Being with people but, at the same time not being with people. The woman at the counter is happy to see me but not enough to give me a free coffee. I take my regular seat and open the newspaper. At first I don’t recognize the man who stops at my table. Not until he removes his toque. it’s Hat Guy. “No one puts Baby in the corner,” he says. And I think: Am I Baby? And am I sitting in a corner? I give him an itsy bitsy teeny-weeny smile. He picks up on my confusion and says, “you know Baby, Dirty Dancing.” I get it. He doesn’t want to sit at the table behind the wall. And I think: You’re not sitting here. You talk took much before nine. He walks around the room looking for someone to chat with. He’s in luck. Muffin Man sits down with his muffin and coffee. Hat Guy heads over to his table. They begin a: resolutions conversation. All about getting out more, doing more, slowing down. And I think: Are they talking about resolutions or goals? Two words that can be easily mixed up. The difference being: A goal has an end point. One either meets it or doesn’t. A Resolution is a long-term promise and usually broken. And how does one do more and slow down at the same time? I don’t know. But I have a whole year to find out.

Sheila Horne at:  https://www.facebook.com/sheilahorneauthor/

COFFEE SHOP TALK-This Diamond Ring

April 10, 2017
by Sheila Horne
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Frank and his wife, the non-speaking couple, are in the coffee shop. Not much else is going on. Everyone is quiet and whispering. Maybe they realize I write about them. I open my book and stop. “This Diamond Ring,” by Gary Lewis and The Playboys comes over the sound system. And I think: Grade nine, Lamar Junior High School.

I sat next to Rhonda in art class. She was engaged to a boy who played football for Baylor University. Whenever the Texas A&M Aggies played Baylor, we all cheered for the Aggies, like everyone else in Bryan. Except for Rhonda, who sang Baylor’s pep rally song: Baylor University is going to beat the Aggies…hey, hey let’s go Baylor, over and over. She stuck her arm out in front of her and sang: This Diamond Ring. Then removed her engagement ring and ask if anyone wanted to buy it. Apparently, it no longer shone for her. I was in awe of her. She was the only fifteen-year-old girl I knew who was engaged, and not to a high school boy. I wished I had a ring to sing to, but all I had was one the nuns gave me in the convent school. It had the Virgin Mary on it. Somehow I lost that ring in the lake at Wasaga Beach in the ‘70s. But that’s another story.

I’m not sure what happened to Rhonda, if she ever married her Baylor University football player or if he broke her heart. But today, as I watch Frank trudge past my table to re-fill his coffee mug, there’s no skip in his step, not like the other day. Instead, his boots scrape on the carpet. As if he doesn’t have the energy to lift his legs. Or joy has been ripped from soul. And I think: This Diamond Ring is the perfect song for him.

COFFEE SHOP TALK-Something Different

March 20, 2017
by Sheila Horne
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The couple eat and drink their coffee without speaking to each other. They’re regulars. Not talking is normal for them. But today something different happens. Something unusual. Something interesting. The woman finishes her bagel and leaves. A few minutes later another woman walks to the table and says, “Frank?” He nods, and she sits down opposite him. He perks up. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh, or talk, or see him enjoy himself. They gab on and on. When he walks to the front to re-fill their coffee mugs, he has a skip in his step—an actual skip. And I think: energetic dynamo, who knew?

Two women, who I call, worker bees, are having an intense conversation. They whisper…whisper…whisper. One wearing black high heel pumps says, “she spills coffee and tea on the carpet near my desk every day.” She leans in close to the other woman and shouts, “Pisses me off.” Whisper…whisper…whisper. Their raised eyebrows and facial expressions fill in the missing details. “Exactly,” says her friend. “Know who I don’t like?” she asks. Now, they are almost nose-to-nose. Whisper…whisper…whisper. High heel pumps, says, “She’s a bitch.” And I think: bitches get things done.

The good old boys are back. No tractor talks today. It’s all about Buicks, Fords and Cadillacs, until one of them gets a call. He puts the phone to his ear. “Speak,” he says. And I think: must be his dog phoning.

Chatty woman from two weeks ago says she looks for me every day. Now she knows I hide at the back. I ask about her dating life. “Oh, you’ll never guess,” she says. She recently went on a date with a man who had a tiny head. She can’t believe Match.Com matched her with someone who looks like a squirrel. “Do I look like a squirrel?” she asks. And I think…

 

Coffee Shop Talk-800 Calories

February 23, 2017
by Sheila Horne
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 I walk to the counter and say, “coffee in a mug and one of the kitchen sink cookie.” The woman behind the counter frowns at me. “You’re having the 800 calorie cookie?” she asks.
I nod. She turns to her co-worker and points at me, “She’s having the 800 calorie cookie.”
Her co-worker shouts to two people in the kitchen, “She’s having the 800 calorie cookie.” One of them comes out and asks, “You’re having the 800 calorie cookie?”
And I think, this is turning into something from a Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. After weeks of looking at the cookie, craving it, talking about it to everyone who works in the coffee shop, I’m finally going to have it. I explain to them that I didn’t eat breakfast and now it’s lunch. Therefore I can eat the cookie and call it two meals.
“Get her the 800 calorie cookie,” the manager says. They present it to me on a plate with a napkin. I fill my mug with coffee and head to my favourite seat at the back of the room. Today, it’s packed. Two girls are drinking coffee and chatting. One says: and I like went…and he like went…and I like went. It continues right through their conversation. A boy tries the door at the back. It’s locked. I ignore him. The girls ignore him. Everyone ignores him. It’s a security thing. He walks away, and a few minutes later another boy tries the locked door. One of the girls gets up and opens the door. Whoosh…icy air floods the room. He thanks her and walks to the front to order or maybe he’s doing a walk through. And I think, hmmm….The woman across the room smiles at me then stares at the ceiling as if she has forgotten something. Something important. Something she’s supposed to remember. I open my book, sip my coffee and take a bite of the 800 calorie cookie. I am disappointed.

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The Secret

December 17, 2016
by Sheila Horne
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I’ve often wondered: What’s the secret? I found out the other day. In need of a bra for a low cut dress, I took it to one of their stores—you know the one with the sexy lingerie. The sales clerk checked the front of my dress and said I needed a plunging bra. She handed me a few: A fully padded push-up, demi, semi-padded, an unpadded one that hooked in the front, and a bustier; she thought I should try on just for fun.

Since I wore push-ups in the 1970s, I started with that one. I slipped my dress over it and looked in the mirror. I laughed. My breasts spilt out of the top like two globes, which hadn’t seen the sun in forty years. The lyrics, blinded by the light, silicone sisters and boulder on my shoulder by Manfred Mann came to mind. Believe me, they were practically on my shoulders. The demi was perfect, not as much spillage as the push-up. “But not enough plunge,” the salesclerk said, examining how it looked with my dress. Next came the semi-padded. It worked, and I put it in my buy pile. No problem with the bralette. It was also a go. I took the unpadded one with the front hook from its hanger. I wore them in the ‘70s, so I knew I would buy it if I could get the clasp open. I had to put on my reading glasses to see what I was doing wrong. While I struggled with it, two young women were having a fashion show in the changing area. They came out of their cubicles, strutted around in various kinds and colour bras, critiquing each other. “I don’t like that colour on you.” “The pink is much better.” “Leopard is not for you.” “I like the coral.”

Okay, I’m open-minded and I’m not old. I don’t consider 60s old. But as they were commenting about each other’s bras, I couldn’t help but think: What does it matter if pink is not your colour or you like coral. No one will see them. If they were thinking men—well I’m not sure about that. If I recalled, we had beige, black, white and pink. They never stayed on long enough for men to admire or mention. Maybe they did, and I can’t remember. But it seems the world is different in 2016. Women are no longer hiding or burning their bras. They’re proud of them and showing them off along with their cleavage. Maybe if I were in my 20s, I too would be particular about what colour bra looked good on me. And want to show off the ones I was about to buy.

Anyway, while they discussed colours and styles I was sweating and swearing and fighting with the front clasp on the bra. I’d gotten it on. Loved it, but I couldn’t get it off. I tried to pull it over my head; that didn’t work. In the ’70s they were so much easier. And what about a man removing a woman’s bra with the flick of a finger, does it still happen? If so, was there one nearby? Or Houdini. I could have used his help. Since I was alone, on went my reading glasses again. When I finally got it off, I realized that as much as I loved it, there was no way I wanted a bra I had to put on glasses to hook and unhook. It went in the no pile. Then came the for fun red and lacy bustier. I decided it was a definite possibility. But it turned out to be more work than I planned on doing to be sexy. By the time I got it on I would need a nap. And I think I hurt my back. So here’s what I found out about the secret. You either have to be an escape artist or have perfect eyesight

Sex Or No Sex

October 26, 2016
by Sheila Horne
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sunshine-girls=product-photo-new  Half way through my first novel, Sunshine Girls I realized I had four      22-year-old female characters in 1973, but no sex. How could that be? After all wasn’t, sex, drugs and rock & roll the mantra of the decade? I took the problem to my writing group.

“You have to have sex,” one person said.

“No one wants to read a book without sex,” someone else added.

Since I’d never written a sex scene before, I headed to the romance section of the nearest bookstore. The first book I picked up, a bodice-ripping historical piece gave explicit descriptions of body parts. I perused a few paragraphs and put it back on the shelf. Too much like porn for what I had in mind. The next one about a woman being coy in 2011 was a little unbelievable for the era. Then I remembered the best seller, Fifty Shades Of Grey. Women loved it, so I bought a copy. I read one chapter and browsed through a few others and put it down. I’m picky about dialogue, maybe too much. From the way Christian Grey spoke, he seemed more like a vampire than young, good-looking and rich. Not the kind of person I wanted touching my protagonist. Besides my four characters were not into kinky. Or maybe they were, and my protagonist didn’t know about it.

In the four years of creative writing courses, not once did our teachers give us any hints on how to write sex scenes. And none of the articles I read on the subject seemed to fit what I wanted. I was on my own. It took me five hours to write one sentence. Mainly because I felt I needed to be careful with the protagonist, after all, she was a naïve twenty-two year old in 1973. Women still had a long way to go to lose the slut label. Once I got through the first scene, the others were easier and fun to write. I even laughed and enjoyed stretching my imagination.

paper-sun-product-photoThe sex scenes in Paper Sun were stress-free. The characters were fifty. By the time we get to forty, the word promiscuous should no longer exist. I even put my character in a no commitment sexual relationship with a man twelve years younger.

I still don’t know everything about writing sex scenes. But here’s what I figured out:

  • Relax.
  • Make sure no one else is around when you’re writing the scenes.
  • Unless it’s erotica or a bodice-ripping novel, keep it tasteful and simple—no need for long drawn out details.
  • Don’t forget the characters’ emotions.
  • Use your imagination.
  • Sex scenes do not have to be romantic.
  • Most of all be playful, laugh  and have fun with it.

In my third book, the characters are 65 years old and older. I’m dealing with bodies that are no longer youthful. Not to mention the up and down feelings that go along with aging. Up to now, my research describes all the physiological problems of people sixty and over. I haven’t found much on the emotional part of older adults having sex with a new partner or someone they haven’t seen in years. So, I’m back to asking myself the same question: sex or no sex.

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