Travels of Tracy - Winter

Good Morning FFFs,
I hope your week has been more relaxing and that you've gotten a lot accomplished! I did fairly well at the beginning, but I didn't get anything on my list done yesterday.

Here's my week.
We went to a wedding on Saturday. It was huge but really nice. One of the delightful things about weddings here is seeing friends you haven't seen sometimes for years! I really enjoyed visiting with different ones.
Sunday was usual.
Monday I got a good start on my list of things to do this week. I don't know about you, but I like to start out my week with getting a lot done. For some reason it seems to make the rest of the week productive.
When Tuesday arrived, I got more accomplished and finished grading all my writing students' papers. It is quite delightful to have them done already.
On Wednesday I got a lot done! I even read an entire book in the late afternoon and early evening while I was waiting for a project to upload. Don't worry, it was a fast paced, fairly short book. :) My project never did upload. My computer kept dropping the internet.
Then came yesterday. I didn't do a think I could cross off my list. But, one of my mom's friends came over to visit with her in the morning, then my brother dropped the kiddos off and I read stories and played, ate lunch and read more stories. I even made a pizza with Funny Boy. Well, let me clarify, he was the pizza. :) Then he wanted to make one with me. :D The kids didn't leave until after 2:00. I tried to upload the project again. No success. I had tried at least 5 or 6 times during the day, but it never would get finished. My grandpa came down last evening and he and I went to a concert. It was a quartet and they were charming. We heard "Quartet in E-flat Major" by Boccherini, (very delightful) "Quartet No. 6" by Bartok, (Intense, emotional and sad) and "Quartet in F Major" by Ravel. (soothing, enlivening, incredible)

You want to hear about my writing? Let me see. I finished a second try for the first story for "Project 12" but am wondering if I will have to try a third one. I started the second story for "Project 12," and then got tired of writing about them and started on TCR. I now have two TCR parts ready to transfer to the computer for printing and proofing. While I was writing TCR, I paused to think about how I should finish a sentence and all of a sudden, without the slightest inkling beforehand, a thought popped into my head. At first I thought it was rather interesting, then I shook my head and thought, "It just doesn't fit." But the idea persisted. So, switching to an empty file on NEO, I copied the last sentence and just let the idea start. It was nearly 200 words before I reached a pause. "It might be interesting," I mused. "But not for here. I think I'll save it for later." Then I went back and finished the sentence the way I was going to finish it.

This story was a fun, quick, write-it-all-in-one-evening story. Do any of you remember Tracy Linnet in "Ruined Shoes"? Well, my mom suggested that I keep the same character and her cat, but put them in a different setting. I finally did and here is the result. I have three more settings to put Tracy and her cat in, but they will be written later. I hope you enjoy this one.

Travels of Tracy - Winter

    “It’s a good thing Tad insisted I get snow tires put on before I tried driving to Grandma’s,” Tracy Linnet remarked. There was no reply, but Tracy didn’t expect one, for her companion who occupied the other front seat of her small, blue Road Runner, was Madalyn, a long-haired, yellow tabby and her almost constant companion.
    The sun was bright in the frosty blue sky and everywhere it could possibly lie, was snow. It was piled on bare branches and rail fences. Large evergreens stood weighted down with heaps of cold, white glitter. Everything looked cold and white.
    “How nice Grandma’s warm kitchen will be, won’t it, Lyn?” Tracy glanced over at her cat who purred from a soft little nest on one of Tracy’s college jackets.
    A sudden noise brought a worried frown to Tracy’s lips and a pucker to her forehead. The car gave a sporadic cough or two and then died.
    “Oh dear,” Tracy sighed, trying in vain to restart the little engine. “Lyn, what are we to do?” Picking up the cat, Tracy squinted about her at the snowy landscape, looking for a house or another car. Nothing but unbroken snow could she see until she saw the little covered bridge. As she peered at it, she thought she could see tracks leading either in or out of the bridge. Where they came from or where they were heading, she couldn’t make out from where she sat.
    “Lyn,” she rubbed her cheek softly against the furry motor that rumbled in her arms, “if you were bigger, you could run the car instead of the real engine, but you aren’t. What should we do? Should we sit here and hope someone comes along? That might not be until tomorrow.”
    Lyn yawned and flicked her tail.
    “That’s what I thought. It might be warm in here now with the sun shining, but it won’t be up many more hours and then it will be cold, and Tad would worry if he tried to call me at Grandma’s. Maybe there is a house on the other side of that bridge, hidden behind that pine tree. At least we can go to the bridge and take a look around.”
    Reaching back and picking up her warm coat from the seat behind her, Tracy managed to pull it on in the close confines of the car. Replacing her jaunty little cap at the correct angle on her head, she tied her scarf, pulled on her gloves and opened the door.
    “Come on Lyn,” she said, turning to scoop up the cat after she stepped out into the snow. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
    Once the car door was shut and the keys were in her pocket, Tracy started forward. She was thankful her new, black GoGo boots came nearly to her knees because some of the drifts she was discovering were quite high. The wind was rather biting and Lyn meowed plaintively.
    “Oh, you poor thing,” murmured Tracy, unbuttoning her coat and tucking her beloved cat inside.
    Soon she came to a rail fence covered with snow. Most of this she brushed off before attempting to climb it. “I’m afraid these clothes weren’t designed for climbing fences,” she sighed as she heard the sound of tearing fabric. “Oh, brrr!” A bit of snow, knocked off the fence, had fallen down the top of her boot. “Perhaps I should have stayed in the car and waited for Tad to come along tomorrow.” Sadly she looked back across the fence at the bright blue car sitting so contentedly in the sunshine.
    Discovering that the footprints didn’t go farther than an unplowed road but returned again to the other side of the bridge, Tracy decided to follow them, but paused to read the sign above the bridge. “Please walk your horses across.” She gave a little laugh. “If I had a horse, I’d be happy to walk him if he just didn’t break down.”
    It was a neat old bridge and had Tracy not been anxious to find help, she would have stopped to admire it. As it was she trudged steadily on, feeling the nippy wind on her face, the rumbling purr of Lyn tucked snuggly in her coat, and the cold, wet snow in her boot.
    At last, rounding a bend in the road, she discovered to her great delight, a house. It wasn’t large, but there was smoke coming from its chimney and someone was outside with a snow shovel.
    “Hello,” Tracy called.
    The figure with the shovel turned around. “Hi! Where did you come from?”
    Tracy couldn’t help but laugh. The boyish figure and the blunt question reminded her of Tad’s younger brother. “I came from down the road. My car is stuck.”
    “In the snow?”
    “No, it just quit running.”
    “Hmm,” the boys pondered this while he leaned on his shovel. “Well, my brother’s at college and Dad’s still at work. Mom can mash potatoes and roast turkeys and bake the best tasting pies you ever had, but she’s no good with engines. Of course there’s Gramps. He can fix anything. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll ask him.”
    To this Tracy nodded agreement.
    “Mom!” the boy hollered as they stepped inside the warm house.
    A clear voice answered, “I’m in the kitchen, Dean.”
    At his beckon, Tracy followed Dean down the hall and into a snug little kitchen with cheery red walls. A pleasant faced woman turned from the sink.
    “Her car’s broke down. Got to see if Gramps’ll fix it.”
    Tracy blinked. The boy had spoken rapidly and then disappeared from the room.
    “Where did it break down?”
    “On the other side of the covered bridge.”
    “And you walked all this way in those shoes. You poor thing.”
    Lyn, disturbed from her nap, tried to stretch and Tracy unbuttoned her coat to let her out asking as she did so, “You don’t have a dog, do you?”
    “No.” The woman turned. “Well, so you carried your cat in your coat!”
    It was only a matter of minutes before Dean came back with Gramps.
    “Gramps’ll fix it.”
    “We’ll go in the truck,” Gramps said and Tracy quickly picked up Lyn, said a quick good-bye and hurried after the two figures.

    The ride in the truck was much quicker and to Tracy’s delight her car’s trouble was fixed in half an hour.
    “Well, Lyn,” she sighed when they were alone. “Here we are again. I wonder what Tad will say tomorrow when I tell him? Maybe I won’t tell him,” she decided. Then, reaching down and unzipping her boot, she pulled it off. Rummaging around in her bag on the back seat, she remarked to Lyn who was washing her face, “I’d rather drive with my slippers on than with a cold leg and foot.”

What did you think?

Comments or questions?

Suggestions for other travels for Tracy?
P.S. Please go to the top right of the page and answer the survey question that best fits you. Thanks.