Writing 101- Day Eight: “Death to Adverbs”

Day Eight – Death to Adverbs:  

* Today’s Prompt:  Go to a local café, park, or public place and report on what you see. Get detailed: leave no nuance behind.

* Today’s Twist:  Write an adverb-free post.

Just after readying my usual afternoon cup of tea, I check the outdoor thermometer. It shows a reading of 70 degrees, which is downright balmy for Minnesota in the middle of April. Right on cue, my little toy poodle Lucy begins dancing at the door, and then she begins to woof, as if saying to me, “C’mon, Mommy. You know it’s time for us to go out now. Let’s hurry!”

I haven’t even opened the screen door more than a crack and out she sails, bounding across our driveway and sprinting through our backyard just like a deer through a forest meadow, her ears flapping through the breeze and her tail straight up in the air, wagging to and fro. Her speed belies her nine years of age; it was no wonder everyone who meets her for the first time thinks her to be a puppy.

She heads straight for the back fence, checking for other signs of domesticated life forms such as herself, meaning of course, the dogs who belong to the neighbors who live right behind us. I watch with amusement as she stands stock still at the fence, with one front paw in the air as if she is frozen in time, waiting for her little friends to appear. When they do not, she begins to amuse herself by sniffing the ground for other interesting things to keep herself occupied. This procedure goes on for several minutes until all of a sudden there is a chattering from the fence between our house and our neighbor’s house. The noise comes from an albino squirrel which I had spied several weeks earlier once the snow had melted.

Lucy’s ears perk up, and upon seeing the squirrel, she races at break neck speed towards the fence, while barking her most ferocious bark, eager to capture her quarry. The squirrel scampers along the fence, but upon realizing that my dog just cannot jump to the full height of the fence, stops, looks down into my dog’s frustrated countenance, chatters right at her, and then scoots up a neighboring tree trunk and becomes lost among the tree branches. Lucy, upon realizing that she has lost the battle, whimpers and with a slow pace goes to lie down on the warm pavement of the driveway to sun herself for a while.

All is quiet in my back yard at this time of day. Because it is still April, the neighborhood kids are still in school. The only sounds are the songs of the birds as they sing back and forth to each other in their own special language and the already-mentioned chattering of the squirrels as they scamper in the tree branches overhead. The breeze blows with soft whispers through those same branches, as the trees lie in wait for their buds to begin to blossom.

And even though Lucy did not catch her squirrel today, I know that all is well in our world; or at least in our own little backyard.