Raquel Martina Martinez

(To be sung to the melody of the 12 Days of Christmas.  Good luck.) 1. The first must-do for Thanksgiving: buy a pair of sweatpants in one size larger. 2.The second must-do on Thanksgiving: run both parades on the TV even though no one will watch them. 3.The third must-do on Thanksgiving: watch all three NFL football games (or take a nap while they are on). 4.The fourth must-do for Thanksgiving: create four meals with the leftover turkey. 5.The fifth must-do: eat five servings of your favorite dish: stuffing, potatoes, pie, whatever. 6.The sixth must-do: eat six pork tamales to offset all that turkey. 7.The seventh must-do on Thanksgiving: watch seven holiday specials (parades and football games count also). 8.The eighth must-do: take 8 shots or 8 squirts of any or all of the following: booze (tequila), beer, wine, canned whip cream. 9.The ninth must-do of Thanksgiving: if on the ninth day, you still have leftovers in the fridge, throw them away, plastic container and all. Eww. 10.The t…

Our eighth anniversary is right around the corner.HoneyBunch and I were just discussing how our eight years together have been the easiest years of our lives. Eight years is a good amount of time, yet it has sped by. It feels like we have always been together, yet we were married for long amounts of time to others and we have grown children to prove it. HoneyBunch is my true soul mate; the kind one reads about in romance novels.  He is the true love one writes about in journals. He is the knight in shining armor discussed in legends. What makes him so easy to love is that he is a true gentle man. To say I love him is not sufficient. There is no word in our language to describe what this man means to me. He is my friend, my lover, my husband, my critic, my comfort, my true other half.   He has never done one thing that would make me lose my trust, my respect, or my affection for him, but he is not perfect.  He does sometime annoy me or cause me to roll my eyes in embarrassment or boredo…

I used to be hot.  I could walk into a room and the music stopped, heads snapped around to get a better view, and women knew they had been outmatched. Yes, I used to be sizzling.  Even when the pounds started pounding and the years started whizzing by, I still had my groove. I was a Ten before the world even had the decimal system.  (Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture.) Then all of a sudden, I lost my groove. Instead of “Hey, Baby,” winks, and ogles, I started getting a lot of “Yes, Ma’am,” frowns, and respectful regards. Instead of men blocking my path to bug me about my phone number, men rush to get the door for me because I remind them of their grandmothers. I went from Groovy to Grandma in a matter of years. I blame this durn gray hair.  I should never have stopped dying it.  I was going to “make a statement.”  I was going to “age gracefully.”  I was going to “accept the inevitable” with a smile. Well, pooh. I want my groove back.  I want someone oth…

In the movie Men in Black, the agents have a pen-like gadget that causes amnesia.I could have used one of those this past week. Two years ago I wrote on how to show and when to tell, so I wanted to be able to reference the older post. In it I gave five pointers on how to “show not tell.” That advice turned out to be erroneous.  Yup, it was wrong. I wish I could take it back, erase it from cyberspace, claim an alien abduction, but alas, I can blame no one else for that post.  In all my eagerness and ignorance, I wrote it and I apologize. Now, not all of it was bad advice; it just wasn’t what it advertized. I suggested that a writer could ensure “showing” by eliminating the passive voice and limiting the use of adverbs in the manuscript.  That, folks, is not “showing;” that is a key to strengthening any kind of writing.  It makes for well-written sentences, meatier passages, and stronger manuscripts; and it strengthens both showing and telling sentences. Showing is more complicated than t…