Slice of Life: An interesting Monday morning for NYT games

 On Tuesdays, Two Writing Teachers hosts the Slice of Life. Everyone is welcome to share writing and comment on others in this special community. 

  

 

Spoiler Alert: Answers to yesterday's Wordle and Connections included in this slice. 

Content Alert: Inappropriate innuendos

As I do every morning, I began my morning puzzles with Wordle. For reasons I won't get into, I started with PAINT. Not good. STARE? Still not good. And even a dumb mistake caused by playing too quickly so I could get to some slice reading. When I got to my fifth guess, I was reasonably certain of the answer, but surprised at the choice of words. I mean, I know the word has multiple meanings, but still, I was a little surprised. 

Our family shares the daily Wordle results, and, since Julia and I were the early players, I laughed at her text:

Thinking about the teacher I know who usually plays Wordle with his class, I figured he could explain the meaning of BOOTY if he had to. Yes, some of the kids would have some previous experiences with that word, but I could envision the possible giggles being manageable. 

Then I played Connections. Again, I was a little wide-eyed at the purple category. _____ PLAY? Horse, screen, word, and... wait for it... fore? C'mon NYT! It couldn't have been 3-point? Or childs? How about re? FORE??? 

I sent one of my colleagues a warning about Connections since his class loves to play. 

Booty and foreplay would be a tough double whammy for a Monday morning! Here's hoping no one had to deal with that! 

Slice of Life 2025: 31 of 31- Wrapping up the SOLSC 2025 Challenge

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

I've enjoyed hosting the final week of the Challenge, pushing myself to read different slicers, carving out time to check in on comments throughout the day instead of my early morning and evening routines. I've written before about how the slicing community reminds me of a coffee shop in that so many slicers have their posting routines. There's a cluster of people who I feel like I met every morning between 5:45 and 6:30. We all shared our comments in much the same way as we might line up and place our coffee orders. Dawn, Jess, Tracey, Molly, Amy, Cindy, Kim, Ana, Fran, Sally... I'll miss you in the early morning commenting brigade! 

I'd thought about the important things I wanted to say in this post, but my imposter syndrome is real, and other slicers have already written such beautiful reflections about the importance of writing and of this community. I'm inspired to spend time in April returning to some of my posts from previous years; I think I'm consistent with my writing territories, but I'm curious to see if my theories align with the patterns I may discover. 

Thank you to all of you who have shared bits and pieces of your lives through your writing, and who have supported the bits and pieces of my life I've written about. March 2025 has been a healing journey, and my world has been much more confined that it usually is. I'm grateful for the connections of the community, maybe more this year than in any other. 

I know that I'll continue to connect with some of you throughout the year on Tuesdays-- as soon as tomorrow. Others, I look forward to March of 2026. 

Onward, 
Melanie

Slice of Life 2025: Day 30 of 31- Healing, automaticity, and writers

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

Today is Day 30 of the writing challenge, and it is also Day 32 of my healing challenge. I've accepted the fact that the two are phenomenally intertwined. Even though I am keeping up with daily videos and notes about my knee progress-- that was how I was trying to compartmentalize slicing and healing-- this damn knee keeps showing up in slices. 

But I had a moment of bringing many aspects together this week. Stay with me. I think I can make this make sense, but I'm using writing to process an idea right now. Over the last several months, I've been working on a book about the foundational skills of writing-- those skills and strengths that have to be in place or on the way to being in place for writers to have meaningful access to their writing process. Core strength to sit up, fine motor skills to make lines and curves, handwriting skills, spelling, sentence structure, oral language, and the metacognitive power to direct all of it-- and then start generating ideas, planning, drafting... What a feat writing is. 

As I've been healing-- Heal is my OLW for 2025, and a perfect one so far-- I've been paying attention to the work my brain has to do to accomplish basic tasks. For the first couple of weeks, I couldn't remember or make myself lift my leg. I'd lie there and will my left leg to move. Will my left quad to contract. Will that heel to get off the bed-- just a little. I'd lift and lower my right leg almost like a coach. C'mon lefty, this is what it should look like. Still, getting through those two sets of twenty leg lifts was a major accomplishment. I know that I closed my eyes and maybe even legit-napped after some of those early sessions. Now, thirty-two days later, leg lifts have regained automaticity, but I talk myself up and down the stairs, using verbalization to remind myself how to place that left foot ahead, contract, and balance to move that right one behind it. On about day twenty, I stood in front of an escalator, and I had to watch Clare navigate it in front of me in order to remember how to do it. 

I've known that healing is exhausting and zaps energy, but until now, I haven't thought about how part of the reason for the energy zap encompasses the amount of cognitive energy that regaining automaticity consumes. Walking is a very different activity when you have to think about and direct what part of your foot hits the floor first, how your leg should bend and straighten during which part of the process, and how high your foot should come up from the floor. All of those thoughts make a walk across the kitchen a significant effort. There's something about this that relates to the writing process. It's a very different process if you have to think about holding yourself up, manipulating your fingers, forming the letters, and spelling the words... I'd like to believe that I've always celebrated young writers and all they are pulling together, but I think that losing and having to regain my automaticity in activities as basic as lifting my leg gives my greater appreciation and awe. 

If you're still reading, Fran Haley's post this morning is a lovely thank you to the slicing community. There are so many reasons to write, so much insight, so many connections. Without sounding corny or overly dramatic, her post is a beacon for the importance of empowering every young writer with the automaticity they need to write with humor, sorrow, courage, encouragement, belief in themselves and in others... her words, but in a different format. 

This rambling, unplanned, post has brought me to how, like Fran, I'm grateful for writing and this community and the ability to be a part of it. 

Slice of Life 2025: 29 of 31- Dinners and bedtimes

 

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

Even though I have tried not to focus on my knee and its rehabbing (TKR on 2/26) this month, the topic tends to sneak in, and I have to preface this post with the admission that 8:00 pm is late for me this month. And for whatever reason, nerve pain seems to wake up at about the time the rest of me wants to sleep, so there hasn't been a lot of flexibility with my early bedtime. 

Clare's slice from yesterday details our Friday night dinner plan. Go me. A restaurant! Sort of a recovery milestone, right? If you read her post, and you don't have to, you'd know that her schedule mandated a 7:00 pm reservation, which she did communicate to me, and I did repress. That extra hour was a stretch, but the lure of normalcy was real. I took an afternoon nap, and I kept my pants on. (Literally).

We had some early warnings as we prepped for our 7 p m reservation. Winnie, known in this community for her occasional rolling moments, had in fact had a smelly afternoon binge, and she needed a bath. With fifteen minutes allocated for our fifteen-minute drive to the restaurant, we needed to make a five-minute stop at the pet store for shampoo or we'd be bunking up with a smelly dog. (Not happening). Yes, that math made us a tad late for our already too-late reservation. 

The restaurant, new to us, was a little too bright and a little too loud, but more concerning was the fact that our table was much too high. A bar height table is a challenge for a person who can't comfortably hand one's leg for extended periods of time or bend past 100 degrees to rest on the chair rung. I had to admit hurt-knee status and ask for an accommodation. A stool under the table solved that problem. I thought about ordering a beer-- the place was owned by a local brewery-- but I was slow on the decision-making process. When Garth's beer arrived, it was a little warm. Since it was nearing my bedtime, I kept my intake to occasional sips of his not-quite-cold-enough beer and my water. That was fine. 

Maybe our real rookie move was ordering a couple apps before our dinner, but we were hungry. Or maybe the waitress didn't get our order in when she should have. Or maybe they had to catch the chicken for Garth's sandwich...

Whatever the answer was to the maybe, it took a long time to get our dinner. Long enough that I asked if it would be soon. (As a former waitress, I don't like to do that.) Long enough that I thought about asking for a to-go box. (I was splitting my meal with my mom so that wouldn't have worked.) Long enough that we all ate fast and had zero interest in dessert. (Good for the calorie counters.)

At least Garth dealt with Winnie when we got home. I was close to sleep when that clean little dog snuggled in next to me. 

Slice of Life 2025: 28 of 31- My dad's life in cars

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

Ten years ago when I spoke at my father's funeral, the focus of the eulogy was on passion, purpose, and play. Those were the perfect unifying threads for his life. But having dinner with friends tonight, we heard stories about one of their mother's ill-advised car shopping escapades. I had some entertaining thoughts to myself as we drove home, thinking about how car stories could have been the unifying thread for my father. 

The first car I remember him driving was a Plymouth Duster. A gold one. A gold one with a crocodile roof, or so he told us. According to my father's lore, the roof had come from a successful wrestling match between my father's doppelganger, Okie from Muskogee and a Mississippi crocodile. Okie used to visit when we were kids, showing up at the front door with my father's bathrobe on, a guitar, strange hats, and sunglasses. He played guitar badly and handed out jelly beans and jujus, my dad's favorite candy. Strangely, Okie NEVER showed up when my dad was home. We believed it all, and I can still feel that roof under my fingertips. I know I've written about Okie in past years of slicing. He was a lot of fun. 

At some point, the Duster was upgraded to a Saab which was totaled when my dad fell asleep driving home from an all-day fishing trip. Saabs are solid, so he was fine, but RIP cute blue Saab. Somehow the dealer convinced my not-so-agile dad to buy a black 16 valve VW Scirocco with special racing seats and lots of bells and whistles. I think I was in college during the short Scirocco era, which means that my younger brothers were new drivers. I shudder a little at the slices they could right about driving that car. It gave a fast lesson in going fast. 

I don't think it was more than a month old when he parked it on the wrong side of the street and some drunk driver hit it head on. The damage might have been less if it hadn't been head on. (Lesson: Never park on the wrong side of the street.) Since it wasn't totaled, the new black car got towed to service station to await the insurance inspector, but entrepreneurial car strippers got there first and stripped clean-- anything they could take, they took. That totaled the VW. RIP hot fast car. A more sensible Saab returned to my father's garage bay. 

In the twilight of Dad's driving years, he got his self-proclaimed dream car, a BMW that was too big for any of us to feel comfortable in. His driving skills, never great, diminished, and that boat-like Beemer had a number of bumper blemishes before it morphed into a smaller more manageable, but somewhat eccentric turquoise Volvo which eventually got sold right out from under him-- if you asked him. "One day my car was in the garage," he'd say to anyone who'd listen, "and the next thing I knew it was sold right under my nose." (Note: It's tough to revoke an older person's driving privileges.)

Tonight, listening to the stories of an older mother negotiating used car deals as we finished dinner, I thought about my carless but car-craving father negotiating a car to be delivered to his driveway. (The car arrived, my mother and I intervened, and the disappointed salesperson brought the car back to the lot.) Even when dementia was in full force, he loved cars and worked to broker a deal. 

Dad definitely had some great car stories. Thinking about his cars and his retirement plans of restoring a Model T, an earlier post of the month, Dad and his cars really did encompass the passion, purpose, and play that defined so much of his life. 

Slice of Life 2025: 27 of 31- Ladder time

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

When Julia and I went to see her physical therapist-- for her knee, not mine-- the topic of ladder work came up. Julia had already mentioned it to me. "You'll need to do some ladder work," she'd said when I talked about my worries about not being able to move well on the tennis court any time soon. 

I'm still high-fiving myself for walking up the driveway and going foot over foot on the stairs, so the idea of ladder work? Not anytime soon. 

To give you an idea, I've grabbed a picture of a PT ladder from the internet and included it below. The idea is that you do various agility moves within the ladder rungs. It's harder than you'd think with a limb that is learning to move again. 

In any case, while I was at PT yesterday, I was paying attention to Jen and what she was doing. I'm nosy that way at PT, but when you're' just sitting there with ten minutes of heat or another ten minutes of ice, you have the choice of phone scrolling, watching the weather channel, or checking out the other orthopedic woes. I know other people pay attention to me, as well. Adele, an older woman who's been in a couple times when I've been there, has had to bear witness to my PT's (borderline inhumane) bending of my knee. I've tried to keep my moans in check, but I can neither confirm nor deny that I've made some noise no and then. Adele told me on Monday that she thinks of me when she wants to complain about her PT. (I'm not sure how to feel about that!)

Getting back to the ladder focus, but still as an aside, I was a Jen fan because she brought her 2 to 3-ish daughter in a stroller and that little girl spent the whole time in the stroller watching the goings-on and looking at her book. Not an iPad in sight. It was so refreshing! 

I finished my exercises on the staircase and headed to the squat wall as Jen's PT laid a ladder down on the floor for Jen. 

I couldn't help it. "A ladder," slipped out of my mouth. 

"You'll get there," the PT said, understanding my point. 

I did my squats, and I did the bike, and I worked through my lunges. And Jen skipped, hopped, and bounced through the ladder. 

"I want to do ladders," I said to Kate, my therapist, as she rigged me up the ice boot. 

"Yeah?" she said. "Let's do those on Friday." 

Did she not realize I was being aspirational? I didn't really mean Friday. 

However, Kate was serious. On Friday, she's laying down that ladder. For me. 

Slice of Life 2025: 26 of 31- Living life more than once

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

Alan Wright used to slice in this community, and I loved the name of his blog which was Living Life Twice. He still writes a lot, although he doesn't participate in this challenge. I love the idea that writing and sharing allows me to revisit moments that have mattered and share them, talk about them, giggle over them, cry over them... 

March in the Meehan community is interesting because every interaction has the potential and possibility of ending up in a slice. There's a little joy and a little worry mixed with that. Our four daughters have been rotating through the house this month, and three of them are slicing. You may have already met them in the community. I've had many moments where I've wondered if a snippet of the conversation would be captured in writing. March Madness and Meehan Memoirs...

The other night, Julia was in bed with me, and we were watching basketball as she was doing some work and I was reading some posts. "Oh look," she said, showing me an email that had just arrived in her box. 

I smiled at the response she'd gotten, a little smug about the role I'd played. 

The next thing I knew, the bed started shaking a little as Julia couldn't control her laughter as she write a post. You can read it here. Yes, she wrote that slice while she was sitting right next to me. I've now lived that moment once, twice, and more, Writing and slicing and being in this community has given me that. 

Today's conversation with Larkin was across many miles, but it was all about the rightness of oldest daughers, and we both had some aha moments. I wasn't surprised that it was the focus of her slice today, and it was fun to read her written rendition of the conversation.  I have a feeling we'll continue to talk about it, but I wonder if we would have thought about the patterns and the truths without the power of written reflection. The moment would have been much more fleeting. 

And Clare was home and I thought reading and baking bread while I tutored, but I found out from reading her slice that she'd gotten a little afternoon siesta! She and I have been spending a lot of time together, and I've loved reading about her interpretations of some of the same experiences we've shared, and, when she's been away, I've gotten peeks into what she's up to. There's something intimate about these peeks. 

Yes, I teach students that they can write to entertain, inform, and persuade, but writing also deepens relationships and sustains memories. I've been struck this year at the interactions and connections between slicers, as well as the family members who have been willingly brought or coerced into the fold-- conversations about or within slices or even guest appearances have brought me joy. How lucky we all are for this community. We all get to live the moments we share on repeat and have an archive of written memories and comments as well that we can visit whenever we need it.