Down the Rabbit Hole

Magical Kisses

Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise
Day 690 January 27, 2016
Prompt: Do you believe that if you went to Ireland and kissed the Blarney Stone, it would bring you good luck?

I think the legend of the Blarney Stone is a charming one. I do however also subscribe to the school of "one makes their own luck" and so I would have to say its difficult for me to put much stock in what the Irish believe. There is something appealing though that you could make a pilgrimage to such a place. Its entertaining to think that you could embark on an adventure that could, with one little kiss, change your luck. I think its made of that same eternal hope that makes people buy those Powerball tickets, even as the odds decrease with each monetary increase of the prize. I don't buy lottery tickets either.


Blogging Circle of Friends
DAY 1169: January 27, 2016
Prompt: Write a short story or poem that ends with "And so the day ended." Be creative and have fun.

The southern New England winter bore down on me with all its brutality the instant I jumped from the car and made my pilgrimage to the gym doors. I stood, with all the other parents, waiting in the icy wind. At last a teacher appeared at the double doors and barely managed to lock them open in place before the frigid crowd rushed through them. The kids were all lined up, red-faced in their full winter wear, eagerly craning their necks to look for their incoming parents. I found Danny among them, her winter coat zipped up to her chin, her eyes red and puffy, her cheeks flushed. I signed her out and opened my arms. Instead of running full bore into me as usual, she lurched her to feet and trudged over. She looked up, rubbing her eyes with one gloved hand and smiled weakly.

"I don't feel good" she announced, and leaned into me.

I hurried her out into the cold. After I removed her coat and got her settled in her booster seat, I pressed my lips to her forehead, an almost pantomine gesture I remembered from my old childhood.

She did feel abnormally warm. We rode home in relative silence, it would be a brief respite for us both.

Within the hour, my normally mild-mannered daughter had turned a common cold into the plague from hell. She cried after every sneeze. Screamed when her eyes refused to stop watering. She magically forgot how to blow her nose, resorting to snuffling the snot rather than expelling it. The soup was too hot, then it was too cold. The blankets would not stay on her. The commercials were too long. The dog bothered her. When I finally managed to get a dose of cold medicine in her, no easy task because it was cherry flavored and not grape, she had worn us both out with the drama and angst.

It wasn't until I had her tucked into bed, the box of tissues and her stuffed elephant by her side, that she began to calm down. She curled against me as I read her bedtime stories. With my fingers stroking her shoulders and back, I felt her little body begin to ease. I knew it wouldn't be long until she slipped off to sleep, granting us both some well deserved peace.

"Thanks for taking good care of me Mommy, " she suddenly said in her sleepy little voice.

Danny wrapped one arm around me, dropped her face onto my belly and began snoring softly.

And so the day ended, with my little diva curled around me. I thought to myself how difficult it was to see her sick but how much I missed moments like this one, moments when she still believed I had the magic recipe to make her feel better with one kiss, some chicken noodle soup and a few bedtime stories.