Emma’s color coordinated binder. One of four.

Karen showed us an article from Blackbook Magazine, which described The Hemingway Challenge. Ernest had been asked to write a story in six words and he produced this: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” That inspired Blackbook to ask 25 other writers to produce their own six word stories. Here are a few:

“He remembered something that never happened.” AM Homes

“Saigon hotel. Decades later. He weeps.” Robert Olen Butler

“She gave. He took. He forgot.” Tobias Wolf

“Shiva destroys earth: “Well, that’s that.” AG Pasquella

“I saw. I conquered. Couldn’t come.” David Lodge

“Poison: meditation: skiing: ants ñ nothing worked.” Edward Albee

Last night at La Cantina, Diane and I came up with a few of our own.

I began: “Campfire food. Bugs mixed in. Yummy.”

Diane: “Loon calls. No response. World ends.”

Me: “Open blouse. Two Drinks. Marriage ends.”

On the way out, Diane waited for me to catch up and said, “Man compliments bartender. Falls down drunk.”

Chris’s parents, Karen and John, invited us over for dinner Friday. Sometime during the night, Karen said to me, “How come you only have photos of women from the gallery opening? I wanted to see Merriam’s art.” (If Karen is reading this she now knows what liberal gobs of poetic license I use to recreate these conversations.) I scurried behind the prickly bushes of It’s not my fault, I shouldn’t have been taking photos anyway defense. After dinner I ran home and zoomed in on a few of those photos .
We also talked about all gold, gold finches, which both Diane and I claim to have seen on the thistle feeder. I couldn’t find the photo I bragged about, so today I sat motionless in my truck, window open, about three feet from the feeder, and waited for the unsuspecting to land. Nope, no birds without black wings, except for one little guy who looks like a finch in winter.

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