A famous cowboy hangout in Meers, Oklahoma Best hamburger in the West!
I’ve been in my Briar Patch (research pile) this week. I thought my readers would enjoy this story…
From the Oklahoma Historical Society
Early Days in Meers, OK history
1901…On the list of wild animals in Meers, OK (located in the Wichita Wildlife Refuge), was included an animal called a Biff Bulger that evolved when local boys told a naïve stranger that “he was a medium-sized animal with two short legs on the left side and two long legs on the right side… he always walked with his short legs on the higher side of the path. He has a flat tail with which he throws rocks—his only method of defense.” The stranger was fascinated. From then on, when the locals heard a farfetched story, it was called “just a Biff Bulger”.
My Turtle Trilogy, set in Oklahoma Available on Amazon and others, PB & Kindle
One of the posters from the one-man show I wrote for Rudy Ramos poster credit: Graphics: Whitefire Theatre
The story of the Nerf ball (for Knight) Janelle Meraz Hooper
I posted this years ago but the link never worked with Pinterest, so I’m reposting it…
When my daughter went to Kindergarten, she came home one day with a “C” in ball. A “C”! Would this mean she’d never get into Harvard? Things like this can have a disastrous impact on a child’s future!
I set up an emergency conference with her teacher It seemed that Chanel had done poorly at catching a ball. Not possible, I insisted. Chanel has no problem catching a ball at home. She has footballs, tennis balls, golf balls, volley balls, basketballs, and even those bouncy balls you get from a machine for a quarter…she can catch all of them!
The teacher went to her closet and pulled out a soft ball made from colorful fabric and filled, it seemed, with some kind of pellet. I had never seen one before. She called it a Nerf ball. What’s this? I asked. And did she really call that thing a ball? It was so lightweight it didn’t go very far when you threw it, it didn’t make any noise, and it would be impossible to break a lamp with one of those things. Not only that, but this was the Northwest, what good would that ball be in the rain?
Well, the teacher stood her ground and I went crawling home (via K-Mart) to buy a Nerf ball with the black cloud of failed motherhood hanging over my head.
Knight, learn how to throw and catch this ball…save yourself! Harvard, Yale, and Brown are waiting for you!
I wrote this little blurb to go with a Nerf ball I gave a toddler in our family, because that’s what I do. I tell stories about everything…even the little yellow spider I found in my bathroom sink one time in the middle of the night. I made a video about her. She’s a star now! (See Zoe and the Internet Date on YouTube–search Janelle Meraz Hooper for my channel.)
2019 Oscars Yolitza Aparicio (I’ve also seen it spelled Yalitza)
Mexico charms the Oscars
Roma, starring Yolitza Aparicio and directed by Alfonso Cuarón
I’m normally into the Oscars for the dresses—my Hispanic mother was a seamstress and we watched the Oscars, noting every detail and sighing over the colorful designs…
And the dresses were beautiful, but I was surprised by what else I saw last night. The women wearing them were so different from the norm. Women of all colors and nationalities flooded the stage and filled the audience. Physically, these women looked suspiciously like real people—many of them lacked the thin, glamor-girl shape I was used to seeing on that magic night, and yet, they were so beautiful. Could it be the women were judged on their talent? And, need I say, one of the most beautiful was from Mexico and was a contender for Best Actress!
When I was a kid, we were lectured not to dream about success in Hollywood. We were not pretty enough. Not white enough. Not tall enough. Our knees were fat. And, get this: our gums showed when we smiled, making us unphotogenic. Last night boosted the morale and raised the hopes of thousands of little girls watching. Especially the short ones with fat knees and bad gums.
Roma, is directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who is also from Mexico, and is no stranger to the Oscars.
A Three-Turtle Summer
“It was A Three-Turtle Summer–hot–and Grace had to leave a man who was meaner than a rattlesnake and dumber than adobe.”
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Illustration of Reggae for “Boogie” video Illustration by Sherri Bails
Chapter 1. Cherry pie
The great guy Lily meets at her company’s St. Patrick’s Day party doesn’t own half of Microsoft, but he isn’t a leprechaun either, so he has that going for him…
Lily half-heartedly flipped through
the clothes hanging in her closet. Blue, blue, blue—yellow. White. Pink. Pink.
Pink. Black. Lots of black. There wasn’t a darn green top in the whole closet, and
she knew it, but she kept looking anyway. Why was it every St. Patrick’s Day
she had this lack of green thing going on in her wardrobe? Was there a law
somewhere against department stores putting a green sequined top on sale? Of course, there were green tops on the full-price
racks, but what woman would pay forty or fifty bucks for a green sequined top
if she didn’t live in Dublin?
Or unless she was trying to catch an Irish geek—who owned half of Microsoft—and
was a real hunk. Lily had a nagging hunch if there were any rich, Irish hunks
at Microsoft, they’d already been spoken for by women who had a lot more going
for them than she did. That was okay. She could settle for just hunky. Hunky could
be good.
Well, she’d just have to run
through the mall on her way home from work and pick up a green scarf or a pair
of green rhinestone earrings. She was in no mood to spend a bundle on something
she wouldn’t wear again until next year. She’d rather spend her money on a new
twelve-megapixel camera she had her eye on. Not only was it a better camera
than the one she had now, but it had a viewfinder in addition to an LCD monitor
and took longer videos. The viewfinder was necessary for her outside shots. The
monitor didn’t work for her when the sun was shining. She didn’t know why; no one else she knew had
any trouble. She’d found the perfect camera at a photography store near her
work for three hundred dollars. It wasn’t something a professional would drool
over, but it had every feature she was looking for plus it had the added bonus
of being as small as the camera she had now, so it would still fit into her
purse. Lily resisted the obvious option: buy a bigger purse.
Because she really wanted the
camera, even a green sequin top on sale probably wouldn’t have tempted her. Besides,
if this year was like the last, there wasn’t much incentive to spend a lot of
money and effort for this event. She knew from the last St. Patrick’s Day company party the
men there would be the same men she saw at work during the day, only drunk. And
still married. It was a pretty sure bet she’d end up spending the night talking
to the other single women on her floor, eating stale cookies with foul-tasting
green sprinkles, and drinking green beer out of a paper cup. No wonder St. Patty’s
Day was her least favorite holiday. Wardrobe stress, green beer, and no
eligible men, even if they were leprechauns. What was there to love? The year
before last, when she was still in college, the little tavern off campus at
least served free hotdogs with their green beer. She hoped this wasn’t a sign
she was moving down in the world instead of up.
Actually, Lily’s frustrated mood
had nothing to do with sequined tops or green beer or even leprechauns. Her
real problem was she was lonely. In her thirties, she was anxious to move on
with her life. At every company function, she looked at the executives from out
of town, hoping in vain to see someone who looked promising. Luckily, she liked
her job and it took her mind off the other areas of her life that weren’t as
fulfilling. Still, if she were ever going to have a family, she needed to get
started. She’d already looked in the usual places like the local grocery
stores, community events, churches, and social clubs without any luck. Since
she didn’t hit the bars like some of the other single women, there wasn’t any
place else to look except the Internet. She had no interest in picking out the
father of her future children on a dating website. Lots of women had been
successful and found wonderful men using an Internet dating service, but Lily
made her living with computers, and she knew how easy it was to make a donkey
look like a racehorse on a computer screen.
After work that night, Lily strolled
past the photography shop to look at the camera she wanted. It was still in the
window, and she knew there was no shortage of that particular model; she just
liked to look at it. Then, she grabbed a slice of pizza at the Italian kiosk
and headed for the jewelry section at her favorite department store. She was on
her way to the sale table when she spotted a pair of green rhinestone earrings
edged in clear crystals on a shiny glass counter. She yelped out loud when she
turned them over and saw the price tag. “Forty-three dollars?” she said out
loud. “For rhinestones?”
“Oh, they’re not rhinestones,
they’re real Austrian crystals,” said a helpful clerk.
They’re
glass, Lily thought. Crystals are just glass. And they’re not even set in
vermeil, but some kind of mystery pot metal…maybe salvaged from some old World
War II submarine.
The clerk, sensing one of her last
chances to sell the earrings was slipping away, said, “Wouldn’t they be great
to wear tomorrow night?”
What? Almost fifty dollars to go to the company lunchroom and watch everyone drink too much green beer and fall all over themselves?Not going to happen. Even so, she slipped the back of one of the earrings off and tried it on. Oh, she thought to herself when she looked into the mirror. They are gorgeous. The bottom half of the earring was set with a big, tear-shaped stone that caught the light with every movement and lit up her face with tiny flashes of green light whenever her head moved…
New cover!
Free preview on the book’s Amazon page! Cover by CreateSpace
Three romances for Valentine’s Day PB & Kindle Suitable for NA (ages 19-29) and up (Aw, heck! All three of them are harmless!) Samples of all of my romances are scattered in this blog. Go for it!
Photo taken the day my “Custer” came out!
Thanks for stopping by. Happy Valentine’s Day! Janelle
