Best Lies contest – winners and their answers :)

Dear Readers, I had a lot of fun with this contest. Thank you so much for your funny and often touching stories about lies. I know we all lie a bit when it’s awkward or hurtful to tell the truth, but some of these are hilarious. Have a look!

The most embarrassing lie was telling friends we were staying home and then meeting them unexpectedly at a restaurant with other friends.

Can’t really remember one, I’m so truthful. Maybe that is a lie… ?

I still hang my head over this particular lie—There I was, a 5th grader in gym class, not wanting to touch any of the boys. It was mandatory to participate in square dancing and that involved holding hands. The only person excused was one of my best friends who had a note from her mom excusing her because she had scabies on her hands. So, I got the brilliant idea to write a note that would excuse me from participation. Well, it was also forged *hangs head in shame* with my mother’s name and my excuse *covers face with hands* was that it was against my religion. I still wonder to this day why I thought it was a brilliant idea!

While I was a teenager I lied to a boy I liked because I was embarrassed to tell him I liked him. Instead I told him I liked him but not like that. To prove it, I started dating another loser. I really did like the first boy. I regret that now

I was very young and happily told my parents I’d brushed my teeth. Considering the meal we’d eaten, it was probably very obvious I hadn’t. Without a word, my father went to the bathroom, brought out my toothbrush and simply said, “It’s dry.”

One day we came home from the store to find several eggs splattered on the roof. We asked our boys, who had stayed home, what had happened. My oldest, who never got into trouble, stated with all seriousness that a bird must have laid them while in flight. So, you are saying we have chickens flying around here? we said. Must be, he said. He finally owned up and admitted that it was a pretty ridiculous stretch.

The funniest lie I ever told was when I was in high school many years ago. I was in math class with a friend when the teacher was writing/teaching on the whiteboard with his back to us. My friend and I were advanced in the class and often bored… One day I smacked myself in the face as hard as I could take it to leave a mark and make a loud sound, and exclaimed, “Ouch, damn it, Jacob.”

The teacher immediately turned around, pointed at Jacob, scolded him and told him to stop horsing around.

I’m sure my best lies would be telling mom – No, I didn’t eat it!!!

I don’t know that this is funny but it was my most tactful stretching of the truth!

For our wedding, my aunt from rural East Texas gave us a ceramic plate with raised fruit on it. The plate was intended to be a wall hanging. My aunt hand-painted it in bright colors, too! She was my favorite aunt but her talent was cooking, not art. It was soooo obviously an unskilled undertaking! So we hung the plate in our laundry area in the garage. Ouch! But when I wrote her my thank you card, I told her we hung it in a room that needed color! I miss her cooking!

I am a grandmother who enjoys traumatizing her grandchildren. My most recent was the story of where they came from. I told the eldest, a girl, she was left with her mother while she was waiting for the bus— an old guy came up to her and asked her to hold a bag for him but he never came back. When her bus came she decided to take it with her. Once she was on the bus and the bag started making noises, she realized it was a baby. I told the middle one, a boy, that she found him at the store when she asked the produce guy to pick her out a watermelon. She didn’t realize it was a baby till she got home and he started crying because he was hungry. The baby girl, well, it was storming outside and there was a huge boom and the sky lit up with lightening and a tree in the yard exploded. Their mother looked out the window to see the damage and there was a baby laying in a roasting pan on the front porch so she went outside to grab her. Yes the story changes. This is just the latest version and it depends on if they are harassing me or if I am being a brat. ?

Well it’s not so funny but the biggest whopper, was when I was in grade school, I have vitiligo and instead of letting the other students make fun of me, I said I was pushed into a bonfire and they were scars from the fire.

When my sister and I were was kids we were climbing a pine tree. The bark was skinned in a little spot and sap was running out. I told her it was where syrup was from so she tried it. Needless to say, she had that nasty taste in her mouth for awhile.

I’m not a good liar so I don’t tell them. However when I was a little girl I loved little Debbie oatmeal cream pies and I would sneak them out of the cabinet. My mom noticed they were disappearing rather rapidly and asked me about it. I told her I knew nothing about it and didn’t even know their whereabouts. I don’t know if she believed me or knew the truth. I just figure she blamed it on my Dad or sister

Thank you to everyone who participated. Leave a comment with your best lie!

 

 

Writing, the process

We found a garden slug travelling up the garage door the other day. It was a beautiful shiny black, moving so slowly I could have gone for lunch and come back by the time he moved about twelve inches. We have them here in various colours—tan, brown, spotted, as well as black. I’ve seen them crossing our gravel driveway, and wonder what benefit there can possibly be to travel at that pace across what must seem a desert of sharp stones on a smooth slimy stomach.

On the other hand, and in contrast to the slugs, we also have the Pacific chorus frog. They are so tiny, they often back into the petals of my dahlia blooms and wait there to catch flies or mosquitoes as they fly past. They are fast, I’ve only been able to catch one in all the time we’ve lived here on the west coast—or the wet coast, as we like to say. And unlike the slugs, they are loud. In February and March when the frogs emerge from the wetlands and begin to mate, it’s hard to sleep for the noise they produce.

Writing is a lot like these two little animals. Sometimes the process is so slow, it’s like watching paint dry, and about as exciting. Other times it leaps ahead so I can hardly keep up with the flow. One book will take six long months to write. Another will pop out in six weeks, and just need another two for editing. There is no predicting it.

Life happens. So when I am working on The Last War: Book Six and halfway through I have to start reading at the beginning yet again, to get a grasp of what has happened so far and what has yet to take place, I think of the slug moving slowly across the sharp gravel. And if I ever get to a point on this book where I can leap ahead to the finish, I’ll celebrate loudly like the little chorus frog.

What little animals inhabit your world?

Queen–I want to ride my bicycle

The weather is cooler and I went for a long bicycle ride yesterday. I ride along the road to get the best exercise—up and down the hills, some that are quite steep where I have to stop at the top of the hill to catch my breath and have a drink of water. Then I ride back home along the trails, which go up and down at a much more sedate pace, which suits me well as I’m tired by then.

Fall is definitely in the air. The huge maple leaves are falling heavily. Some of them are more than a foot in width. The colour is neat, but not as intense as in the east where the leaves turn a delightful red. Ours are more orange and yellow, depending on how fast the thermostat sank in the last few weeks.

I’m working on a new book—Book Six of The Last War, but it is coming slowly. There has been a lot of ‘life’ that has gotten in the way. None of which I regret. We’ve had family birthdays, family visits from near and far. We’ve had a new driveway put in, which is great because now the wave of dust from every vehicle is gone—what a relief.

So, as Queen so ably put it—

I want to ride my bicycle,

I want to ride my bike.

I want to ride my bicycle

I want to ride it where I like.

Blackberries, thick and ripe

I’ve been picking blackberries the last few weeks. They are the most aggressive plant imaginable. There is a local blackberry on Vancouver Island with small leaves and a thin vine that creeps along the ground in undisturbed forest areas. The berries are small and their season is short.

Then there are the Himalayan blackberries, with thick tough vines and huge thorns. We were picking the Himalayans. They have a long season, stretching into early October depending on the weather, and the berries are huge. The bushes were on the other side of a ditch, so we backed the truck across the ditch and stood on the flatbed to pick. I still got clawed and scratched but they are so plentiful we filled three buckets.

I learned how to pick these berries from the mother of a friend. She always went out prepared. She wore heavy jeans, tucked into socks, with heavy boots and thick soles. That way she could use her foot to flatten the vines and move forward into the jungle. She wore a cotton shirt, with a long sleeved shirt over so the thorns could grab the top shirt and she wouldn’t get clawed. She had a belt around her waist that was threaded through the handle of her berry bucket. Then she wore one leather glove to grab the vine and left her other hand free for picking. She also carried a wire coat hanger to hook the vines and pull them forward if needed.

I lived on Vancouver Island until my eleventh birthday. Then my family moved to the North Peace area. Time passed, we moved on again to the Kootenays, and it was years later that I decided to return to Victoria to attend university. It was early September, and I was waiting at a bus stop to take me up to the university campus for the first time. There was a blackberry bush behind the bench, and I leaned over and picked a few berries. They tasted like home. I had forgotten how good they were, but those few berries reminded me. I’ve lived on the island ever since.

What wild fruit do you pick near your home?

Larkspur, Roses and New Cover Coming

My garden has gone crazy with the heat, now that it has finally arrived. Here are some tall lovelies that shot up. We had quite a discussion about what they were – larkspur? delphinium? Etc. 

Turns out a larkspur is a delphinium, so we were all right!

The climbing rose is healthy. This is a rose that I got from my mother years ago, took some shoots and rooted them. It doesn’t have much scent but is the only rose that will grow in my new place, so I’m grateful.

Still waiting for the cover for Dead Wrong. It’s been a struggle, partly because I started off wrong with my ideas for it, and then I got sidetracked with life. Why does that happen? ? So my poor designer was left in limbo, but I think we are very close. Should be able to reveal it soon. Fingers crossed!