Today we are introducing one of our newer admin team members for the Garland Girlies Social Group – Mandie! Mandie organizes events in person and moderates our online Facebook group as one of our digital leads. She is an incredibly creative woman, and is sharing her short story with us! Comment below as a little thank you and to let Mandie know what you think!

This Guest Story was written by a member of our Garland Girly guest writer team. Amanda Martinez Whittington is a professional musician. She spent her 20’s doing opera and as a private vocal coach. She performed gigs internationally, and even performed for Spanish royalty. Amanda was hired by the Screen Actor’s Guild and 20th Century Fox Film to do soundtrack work for the TV show “The Exorcist” which was a spin off from the original 1973 movie. She is a professional flutist and has played the flute and the Irish whistle in Celtic gigs around the DFW area. Amanda co-founded and conducted the Lake Cities Chorale for over ten years, a community chorale based in Rowlett and Garland, that unfortunately did not survive lockdown. Today Amanda teaches choir in Mesquite ISD. She is of Mexican and Comanche decent and she currently resides in Rowlett with her husband of 22 years and her 14 year old son.

Joanie the Sea Witch

Joanie’s alarm rang way too early that morning.  “Surely it’s not time to wake up already!” She moaned. She opened one eye to see the time hoping the alarm rang in her dream and she could actually roll over and go back to sleep. When Joanie looked at the clock, to her dismay she realized it was indeed time to wake up and get ready for work.

Joanie laid under the covers for a few moments contemplating getting up at all. Lately her job had become so monotonous day in and day out. Joanie squeezed her eyes shut and found herself saying “I love my job. I love my job.” This had become her daily mantra which she found herself reciting yet again as she reluctantly crawled out of bed and began her morning routine. She continued the mantra under her breath in different vocal variations as she got ready. She grabbed her lunch and walked out the door.

It wasn’t a long walk to the office but Joanie always thought she was lucky that her commute was so scenic. She would always cut through the wooded area behind her house. It was beautiful. After a few minutes admiring her surroundings, Joanie turned onto the hidden path. It had become second nature and anyone else looking for the path would never have seen it. The path began to slope down in a pretty treacherous manner, but this didn’t bother Joanie because she knew exactly where to plant her feet to keep from slipping. As Joanie enjoyed her surroundings she watched the familiar boulders frame the path in front of her and finally cover the sun as she traveled underground.

“Good morning, Joanie!”

“Good morning, Iain.” Iain, the security guard was a kind, stout man. He could always put Joanie in a better mood, no matter how grumpy she was. She felt the corners of her mouth turn up as she walked through the damp halls to her office. She took a deep breath as she watched the sun reflect eerie shapes on the wall as it shone through the water. Joanie began to feel much better when she reminded herself that having an office built underwater was extremely rare, especially one that had a translucent ceiling that allowed her to see the loch above her.

Joanie’s office was at the very end of the hall. She walked by her coworkers’ doors and read the gold plaques as she passed: “Selkies”, “Kelpies”, Water Fae”, “Mermaids”, and finally she reached her office door that read “Sea Witch “.

As Joanie went inside her office she threw her jacket onto the sofa by the door, and stuffed her lunch into the mini-fridge. She then entered the changing room so she could change into her work attire. Joanie checked out her appearance and she felt ready to begin her day.

“I totally look the part!” She said with a smile.

Joanie opened the back door of her office and looked into the wall of water that magically stayed put and didn’t pour into the office. She took a step into the loch closing the door behind her. As she began to swim away, she felt her hem tug and rip. It appeared she closed the door on her dress.

Joanie inspected the damage. “Eh, what’s one more rip,” she said as she swam away.