Melonie Johnson

8Sunday (7): In Honor of Pi Day

March 17, 2013Blogroll, WritingWrite a comment

Happy St Patrick’s Day! Yes, it’s 3/17—and as a mom to an Irish Dancer, I’ve been hopping all over the Chicago suburbs, taking her to performances. But I’m taking a moment this morning to slip jig in here with my eight sentences! (Random fact: did you know the slip jig is called the ballet of Irish dance, and is only supposed to be performed by females?)

Today’s snippet (from To Catch A Fetch) is in honor of another day in March: 3/14, the unofficial holiday math teachers across the nation celebrate the formula for pi (3.14 and a lot of other numbers) by having students bring in lots of pie. My heroine, Devyn, loves pie. It’s a guilty pleasure for her. And she indulges in this pleasure at a place called Delilah’s…here are Ronan and Devyn on their way to the house of ~~sin~~ pie:

Devyn hadn’t been to Delilah’s in more than a month, and once the idea popped into her head, she couldn’t get there fast enough. While she waited for Ronan to take a quick shower, she daydreamed about flaky, buttery crusts and forkfuls of sweet succulent fruit. By the time they got on the road, her taste buds were in a frenzy of anticipation.

“If I gain five pounds in the next hour or so, it’s your fault,” she told Ronan as they wound their way through town.

“And I’m guilty how?” he asked.

“All your talk about the number seven,” she reminded him.

“I don’t recall mentioning desserts anywhere in the conversation, although gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins.”

“I don’t care, one bite of Delilah’s pie, and you’ve died and gone to heaven anyway.”

And that’s today’s 8! Hope my fellow Weekend Writing Warriors are spending a very happy St. Patrick’s Day morning reading snippets over eggs n’ kegs (or like me, a dram of Baileys in my coffee). Visit the WeWRiWa site to see a list of this week’s participants...and if you can catch some Irish dancers performing somewhere in your corner of the world today, please do!

8SentenceSunday

All Things Irish: The Kilt Debate

March 13, 2013IMO, Products, UncategorizedWrite a comment

Soooo…in my first year of teaching high school, my classroom was across the hall from another new English teacher, we were friendly to each other as we stood outside our doors during the passing periods, joking with students as they walked in to our rooms, reminding them what homework was due so they could race back to their lockers before the bell rang. Anyways, I kind of always thought of him as a little bit…snooty? I don’t know if that’s the right word…but you get the idea. On St. Patrick’s Day, he came to school dressed in a kilt (alas, not as sexy as it sounds) and I was curious. “A kilt for St. Pat’s?” I asked. “I thought Scots wore the kilts.” He looked across the hall and down his nose at me and said, “Oh no, the Irish wore them first. This pattern has been in my family for ages.” I wasn’t so sure about that…but the bell was about to ring, and as I didn’t care to get into a kilt debate, I shrugged and said, “Cool.”

I had pretty much forgotten that discussion until the subject of kilts came up last night. A commercial for “Celtic Thunder” flashed across our t.v. screen and the following conversation with my husband occurred:

Husband: Oh, Celtic Thunder, you saw that group, right?

Me: (looking up from my Twitter feed) Huh? What group?

Husband: Celtic Thunder, the strippers.

Me: I don’t think Celtic Thunder is a strip act.

Husband: You saw it with your friends, remember?

Me: You mean Thunder Down Under?

Husband: Right.

Me: (Now thinking about this…) I think I like your idea better. Male strippers wearing kilts sounds good.

Husband: Kilts turn you on?

Me: Um…yeah?!?

I did not realize my husband didn’t know this about me…of course, it’s not like I go around ogling kilted men on a regular basis (though if given the opportunity…)

Which is why it was extra funny a friend on FaceBook posted an ad for THIS COMPANY today. They don’t offer service in my area (yes, I checked) but I still think it’s a hilariously awesome idea. If you are lucky enough to live in area they do have a franchise, I hope you hire them…and send me pictures.

Ok, but back to the kilt debate. So, the whole conversation about kilts reminded me about Mr. McSnooty, the kilted teacher across the hall. I thought kilts would make a fun All Things Irish post…but my doubt about the veracity of his claim was still there…so I did a bit of Googling – and whaddya know – I WAS RIGHT. The Irish were not the first to wear the kilt, nor were kilts ever an actual part of historical Irish dress. The patterns of today’s “Irish” kilts were created, for the most part, by tourist companies looking to sell more crap. If you want to see more heated Irish/Scottish kilt debate – check out THIS FORUM THREAD on Amazon, of all places.

So take that and smoke it in your peat fire mister.

And stop wearing your kilt on St. Patty’s Day—you look like an eejet.

Sidenote…if you (like me) find kilted men to be attractive (usually), you might want to check out this Tumblr feed, the title says it all: Men In Kilts.

All Things Irish

All Things Irish: Rainbows and Unicorns

March 12, 2013Celebrations, Products, Recipes, Time Wasters, UncategorizedWrite a comment

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching, only 5 days to go!

If you are looking for a fast, sweet, and easy treat to make for this holiday, why don’t you get the help of a leprechaun? You know the one I mean…his treasure consists of a stash of a rainbow’s worth of colorful marshmallows, let me see if I can remember this piece of my childhood: “green clovers, blue diamonds, yellow stars…” I’m stuck (I was that weird kid who didn’t like marshmallows in my cereal…or frosting on my cupcakes for that matter). I do remember at one point they added purple horseshoes to the mix. The treats are a snap to make, just use the same recipe you’d follow if making something involving a cereal promoted by 3 elves named via onomatopoeia.

Lucky charm treats

These treats will give you a killer sugar buzz…you’ll be ready to hop on a unicorn and chase down a rainbow like a little leprechaun yourself in no time.

I’m not sure how well they go with a Guinness, but you’re welcome to try it out and let me know.

Can’t find a unicorn to take you to the end of a rainbow? Do you know the “story” behind why unicorns disappeared from the world? Well, as one famous Irish ditty tells it, the flighty creatures were so busy having fun they forgot to get aboard Noah’s ark. But don’t worry, with the help this item – straight out of WTF-land… unicorns can once again roam the earth. Sorta.

(Sigh) If only we could all be as happy as the dude in the picture. Unfortunately, wearing this item does not seem to have the same jubilant effect on cats—as demonstrated HERE. (But if YOU are in need of a smile, check out some of the customer product reviews).

All Things Irish Food Holidays

8Sentence Sunday (5): Serendipity

March 2, 2013Blogroll, Uncategorized, WritingWrite a comment

This week’s snippet pays homage to the beginning of March, and my blog’s annual17 Days of Irish series. The hero from today’s book, To Catch A Fetch isn’t Irish – but he’s Welsh, and that’s pretty darn close (I would like to note book 4 in this series, To Bet A Banshee will be set in Ireland…though at the moment it is only in the proposal stage)

Anyways, the oddest thing happened one day while I was working on a scene for TCAF…let’s call it a bit of writing serendipity, if you will. Earlier in the book the heroine Devyn confronts the hero and demands to know more about him – who he is, where he grew up, etc…and when Ronan tells her he was born in a place called Snowdonia, she thinks he is pulling her leg. But no, as Devyn discovers in the scene below, Snowdonia is a very real place – and Ronan has been telling her the truth all along.

Now, the funny thing about this whole bit is I just made the name Snowdonia up. Maybe…probably…at some point in my past I had read or heard about Snowdonia, Wales and the information got filed away in the recesses of my brain…but I’d like to believe there is also the possibility the muse blessed me with a dash of serendipity. For I have to tell you, when I first discovered Snowdonia , Wales was a real place…that it actually existed in real life…well, my reaction to the news was pretty much on par with Devyn’s.

Devyn tossed everything on the table and started thumbing through the more colorful of the two books she had pulled on Wales. Images of mountains and valleys and picturesque stone castles flipped by, and she found herself slowing down to take time with each page and absorb the breathtaking Welsh countryside. Her eye caught the word Snowdonia, and she stopped, feeling slightly nauseous.

Snowdonia, Wales—the damn place even had a national park.

She felt like a complete idiot.

Scanning the page, she saw a reference to a website and flipped her laptop open. Devyn logged on to the library browser and typed in the address…yep, there it was, “Welcome to Snowdonia.”

Maybe, if I’m super lucky, I’ll take a trip to Wales one day (and write it off as a business expense, of course).

You can follow Devyn’s trail of research and visit the Snowdonia Wales info page for yourself.

And while you are at it, be sure to stop by the WeWriWa page to read more snippets from this week’s 8Sentence participants.

8SentenceSunday To Catch A Fetch

All Things Irish: Gettin’ Jiggy With It

March 2, 2013UncategorizedWrite a comment

I have 2 daughters—both red heads—and both Irish Dancers in training. I don’t know about all Irish dance schools, but in the one my children attend, the first dance they learn is the Traditional Irish Jig. The dance has 5 “steps” (which each step breaking down into a series of steps, repeated on both right and left leg). It can take a new dancer (especially if she is very young, like my Lil’ G) a year or more to master this first dance. I think though, that like riding a bike, once you learn the jig, you’ll know how to do it forever. For more about the Beginner’s Jig, see THIS post from a 2011 day of All Things Irish.

And speaking of Lil’ G, I think she’s finally catching on…the other day I overheard her teaching her Lalaloopsy doll how to do the first step of the jig. “Jump over, jump lift, jump back, 1-2-3-4.”

And now for some fun, last year talk show host Ellen hosted an “Irish Dance Dare” and some girls from my daughters’ Irish Dance school decided they were up to the challenge: here they are jigging their way through the aisles of the circle store.

And to shake things up a bit, here’s another video of Miss A’s dance school from a feis (that’s a dance competition, pronounced “fesh”). For more information on what a feis is, check out THIS POST from a previous 17 Days of All Things Irish.

Video Credit: Rick DeSalvo of RCD Media

Still hungry for more jigs? Watch the movie: JIG, a documentary that takes a look at the fierce, glittery world of competitive Irish Dance. (Bonus! If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can watch it for free!)