Once upon a time there was a lively old queen nicknamed the “Nosey One” who loved to slip outside the castle walls to spend evenings in the king’s beautiful fruit orchards. Her favorite fruit was from the wonderful, magical, purple, sweet plum trees that in the far future became the “Hollywood Plum,” renowned all over the world.

Once the queen started sampling one tree after another, she found she could not stop eating the sweet fruit. Each day the queen left the handsome castle to roam the gardens and orchards — always stopping to sample the plums first. After about a week of this daily routine, the good king, “Love Her Anyway,” warned there would be severe consequences of eating so many plums every day and she should listen to him.

The queen, who was very much of a know-it-all sort, who wrote the kingdom ballads sung in every village with the news of the area, shrugged off the king’s advice with “oh, tish and tush,” and continued her daily walks and sampling in the orchards.

Now, one day not long after the good king’s warning, while eating a handful of plums, the flux began to come upon her. Running as fast as her bad knees could carry her, she reached the castle only to fall over “Prince You Blew It,” the guard dog, who was sleeping in the entry. Picking herself up, she ran to the most used room in the castle, where the great king was sitting upon the less-than-regal throne and unable to rise and greet his beloved queen. She screamed “get up, get up” as the king’s cursed warning was about to come true. We shall leave the tale here to one’s own imagination.

The good king could not watch this daily routine any longer and sent his queen into exile until the orchards were picked bare by the villagers of Egling, a few miles away. Every year after that, the queen was permitted to visit the fruit orchards one day a week with a warning written by the Royal High Court of the kingdom of Dumlingham and signed by the king who added “no more than two plums per visit.’”The queen decided to obey the king from then on.

Every fable should have a moral and this story is no different. The moral: Every man’s castle needs two-throne rooms — a ladies and gents. So be it!

Vacation with a hint of embarrassment

I went on a short vacation with daughter Donna and son-in-law Jon, to Vancouver, Wash. As we shopped, people greeted me with wide smiles and I thought I must look especially fetching today. We spent the first night at Jon’s sister’s home outside of Tacoma. Donna at the dinner table suggested I use her new eyebrow pencil because it was more my color. I declined. For some reason, Laura had been looking closely at me since we arrived too.

The next morning, Donna again offered that I should use her brow pencil. Stubbornly I said no thanks. Then she hesitantly said, “Mom, you should know something, but I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She then told me my eyebrows looked a Florissant orange in the sunlight, and, thinking I was trying something new, felt I should know that it was not becoming.

I thought she had flipped, but the others confirmed the statement. Looking in my makeup case realized what I had done. In my hurry the day before had grabbed the wrong pencil and had used a light coral lip liner on my brows instead of my eye pencil.

Oh, what a picture I must have been!

— Contact Jacque Thornton at jacquejt@centurytel.net