The Dreaded Guitar Lesson
I so did not want to go to my guitar lesson yesterday.
I wanted a piece of chocolate cake instead.  Tiramisu.  In a cafe.
I wanted to organize my files.
I wanted to vacuum the cat hair off the dark green velvet sofa.
I wanted anything but a guitar lesson.
I was too old for a guitar lesson at 44.
I should have been 4.  Or 14.  Or 24.  Or 34.  Not 44!
I was dreading the excruciating amount of work I'd have to produce after my guitar lesson, i.e.  ... practice.
I wanted to sleep rather than go to a guitar lesson.
I wanted to sit at my computer like this and find the perfect rhyme for "was."
The more I thought about that guitar lesson, the better a nice piece of fluffy cake soaked in liqueur with extra whipped cream and some kind of chocolate mousse sounded to me.  With a cup of tea.
I did not want a guitar lesson.
But I put my guitar in its bag, along with my pick and my capo and my tuner and my metronome.
I schlepped to the copier and copied the music for "Sugar Lady" and "What'll I Do With Me", even
tho "What'll I Do With Me" was in the wrong key.
I put the guitar in the car.
I got in the car.
I turned the key in the ignition and drove towards the guitar lesson lady's house.
All along the way I looked for signs of a cafe which would have nice spongy creamy chocolatey cake.
I did not see any such cafes.
I passed a park.
I crossed a bridge.
With my bottom lip out in a pout, I waited at a red light with  my shoulders hunched down.
After the light went green I passed a row of windmills with their rainbowed colors (they didn't have to go to a guitar lesson.)
I passed a row of palm trees.
I passed a homeless man with very slim, very tanned legs.
I passed the Peter Pan Mini Golf.
I passed a guy on a bicycle picking his nose.
I passed the Convention Center with its merry fountains (they didn't have to go to a guitar lesson either.)
I passed a snow-cone place, there wouldn't be any chocolate cake there.
I waited at another red light where the leaves on the tall trees were the obscenest green I've ever seen.
I passed a florist.
I passed a soft ice cream place and a burger place.
I passed Threadgill's, their star jasmine was blooming so nicely along the fence.
I passed a Hooters.
I passed under a banner that said "Family Day - Saturday, April 26th."
I passed La Bare Strip Club with its sign touting "The Ultimate Ladies Club." (I've never seen male strippers but highly doubt I've missed out on anything.)
As I left  downtown and headed into a more surburban area, my hopes of a chocolate cake continued to fade.
I passed a bunch of posters urging me to vote for certain politicians.
I passed Joe's Crab Shack.
I passed a man wearing only a long flowing skirt.  (Really.)
I passed Travis Heights Blvd.
At I-35 I got the red light.  It was still 25 minutes until my lesson and only a 5-min drive there.
Maybe I could still get cake somewhere.
Blessedly, at that long red light the start of my migraine seemed to lift some.
I thought about Noam Chomsky.
Then about Charles Bukowski.
Then about Jim Ignatowski.
The light turned green.
I pressed the gas pedal down.
I tried not to tailgate.
I crossed over I-35.
I approached an area with many commercial buildings.
My eyes scanned for a Starbucks where I could at least get a dark-chocolate-covered graham square. 
I saw none.
I passed a bingo place.
I passed a Major Brand Gas where unleaded was actually $3.39 a gallon and I made note of that for the ride back 'cause even tho I'd put $30 in 2 days ago, I was almost on empty again.
I passed a Walgreen's.
Passed a liquor store.
Passed a pawn shop.
Passed a Pizza Hut.
A couple minutes later I parked my car on the street outside my teacher's house.
I grew more anxious.
I wanted more than anything for the next hour and 20 minutes (still had 20 minutes until the lesson,) to be over.
I sat in my car humming to myself, (a new song I might put bagpipes on.)
I tried to tell myself I'd lived through much worse things than an hour-long guitar lesson.
I reminded myself of all those Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings of nerves and nausea before Marci's performance classes.
I wanted to flee.
Fright or flight.
But I didn't flee.
I turned off the motor, took the keys out of the ignition and tossed them in my purse.
I opened the driver's door.
I came around to the passenger's side, opened the door and lifted out my guitar.
I had a sudden urge to smash my guitar in the face (but I didn't.)
I locked the car.
As I slowly walked up to my teacher's door, the heat of the Texas afternoon hit my bare forearms and I realized summer was coming and there wasn't a dang thing I could do to hold back its onslaught.
I rang the bell and readied a smile.

Not that you asked... but some of my recurring dreams entwine themselves in and around skating rinks, concert arenas, hillside villages above bodies of water,  The Chatham Exhibition,  ring roads, school drinking fountains, Gram Knowles' house, the room up-over-the-kitchen at Mom and Dad's, D'Avray Hall and plane rides that never get off the ground.  Typical stuff, I guess.

AND AL FRESCO BRUNCH

Easter dinner for six was going just fine until Granny started sneezing and keeled over backwards onto the sleeping dachshund who then bit the long-haired persian, who in turn grappled onto Grandpa's skinny bare legs and scratched them 'til they bled into his new white loafers he'd gotten at the yardsale for two bucks.

What with the ambulance strike going into its second day and our van still in the shop for top-end damage, I ordered our sixteen-year-old twin sons to help my husband and me duct tape clean towels around Grandpa's lower legs and stuff him and Grannny into the  back of our  '91 Honda Civic Si.  And off my husband and I motored with the two delerious seniors to Chockpick General E.R., ending up with an almost-speeding-ticket BUT... a police escort along the way.

Thankfully, Granny suffered only minor bruises and a sprained elbow from her fall and Grandpa was bandaged and shot up with antibiotics pretty quickly but meantime at home, the dog and cat whom I stringently keep either in the house or the backyard because they invariably get into trouble when let out front, escaped through the wide-open entry door with the twins in hot pursuit just before the tea kettle boiled dry, its handle melting to a lumpen ooze which burst into flame on the red-hot burner, sending sparks flying onto a roll of paper towels and up the eyelet curtains Granny had made from the bodice of her wedding dress, all of which didn't take long to destroy almost half the house and the entire garage by the time someone finally spotted the smoke rising from our semi-remote country bungalow and called the VFD.  By the time the firetrucks arrived, there was nothing left but wires, whirls of smoke and the staves from Grandpa's whiskey barrels.

Tuffy and Fluffy came sidling home that night from God-only-knows-where to ashes and cinder to immediately run off again but four days later we reclaimed them at the pound and snuck them into the Silverline Motel with us until the hardwood floors at our new condo in town were stained, varnished and the fumes had died down.

As luck would have it, we sold our house lot to mall developers for twenty times what it formerly would've been worth and so far we've been living pretty happily ever after.