Go Deb!

I emailed the contest coordinator to express my concerns and got a very nice email back, saying that I shouldn't have been marked down for first person, and she'll definitely keep a closer eye on this judge in the future. I've also written my thank you notes to the coordinator and judges to mail out today, including a perfectly polite though distant one to the problem judge.

That felt good to cross off the to do list.

Susan, that's a very good way of handling that situation. If the judge has that deep an issue, they need to know about it.

Your current Anna chapter is next up in my queue!

New drabble time!

Drabble challenge #38 (falling) is now closed.

Challenge #39 is: Upside-Down.

No weird stuff where you post in upside-down text, or I'll send my goons after you....

Who are your goons?
I might like it.

or

.it like might I
?goons your are Who

or

.ti ekil thgim
?snoog rouy era ohW

Cindyyyyyyyyy....

You'd better lock your door, girlie, because I have dispatched my goons.

Deb--I don't suppose you've emailed me your Anna comments yet? I ask not to nag--there's no rush at all--but because I haven't gotten an email I was expecting that I know other people got, and the internets have been kinda random and screwy today. So I'm testing the theory that some of my email is getting lost or delayed somehow.

Upside-Down (and Nowhere Near Happyland) Drabble:

All I wanted was to be upside-down in the water. To be looking up at my mother’s face from underneath the shimmering ripples in the pool. I dove under and started doing a somersault. At once, the water that seemed so buoyant and clear when looking down on it became a mirror that reflected only myself back at me. Disoriented and panicking, I pushed against the bottom of the pool. “Let me out!” Let me out!” I wanted to scream. Lungs nearly bursting, I remembered that I was holding my mother’s ankle. I pulled myself up, back into the sun.

Ooh, that's the stuff of nightmares, SailAweigh.

I think I used up my best "upside down" in the last drabble. I'll see if I can come up with something different.

Tell me about it. I never felt safe in the water after that. Seriously.

It never kept me out of the water, though. Even took a diving class in high school, besides the mandatory swimming.

Upside Down

I was alone in the hospital waiting room except for the receptionist. I sat on the too-tall vinyl couch, my legs stuck straight out, working through a pile of Highlights for Children. I found the 10 squirrels hidden in the tree. I worked the puzzles, which had the answers printed upside down on the bottom of the page. Since my sister was born, I'd learned to shake my parents awake when she had a seizure, to run for a spoon to hold her tongue down, to listen for the ambulance. I had also learned to read the answers upside down.