Ok, bad grammar. But it needs to be something innocuous. So if the bird site totally falls off a cliff (as is looking more likely every day) here is where else I can be found:
Below is just a photo. Click the link above to get the live links.
It’s funny how this answer changes with time. The older I get, the more time I spend thinking about the past. The things that connect me to that past are more and more dear with the passage of time.
I grew up in a time when people still wrote letters and sent them through the U.S. Mail. At 18 I joined the Navy (much to my father’s chagrin, and my mother’s envy). The letters my dad wrote to me as I traveled around the country and overseas meant more than I can say, and I still have them. One of my older sisters was insanely jealous when she found out Dad was writing to me, because in all the years she had been gone from home he had never written to her. But Dad served in the Army, and he knew how much those letters from home meant. There was nothing momentous in those letters, usually just a short page or two telling me about his day at work. When I first told him I wanted to enlist, his response had been, “That’s no life for a woman!” and he almost didn’t sign the papers. Ultimately as time went on and he saw me thriving in a military vastly different from the one he’d known in World War 2, he told me how proud he was of me. It created a bond between us that he’d never had with any of my four sisters.
So maybe it’s more than the letters; maybe it’s the memories I treasure the most.
As I get older, it becomes harder and harder for me to tolerate hot weather. My mother was the same way. She didn’t sweat, which was probably a large part of her discomfort in the heat. I… don’t have that problem. These days anything above 75ºF/24ºC is too much for me. So on one hand, cold weather suits me better, but the higher heating bills certainly do not!
And when the cold and snow arrive, I think of those who can’t afford to heat their homes, or have no homes. It all seems so medieval now, as we poor peasants suffer through the winter. Here it is getting to the end of May and I’ve had to turn the heat back on. Just a few days ago it was so hot I had the air conditioner running. There don’t seem to be any happy mediums anymore.
Another year winds down, somehow we’re all (most of us) still here. I call it a win. Still writing, sort of (barely).
I used to pass this house on my way to and from a job years ago. I should drive out there and see if they’re still putting up these decorations.
My writing focus lately is on my Kindle Vella story, “Outpost 93“. You should be able to read the first 3 chapters/episodes/installments for free. It’s a sci-fi adventure about people pushing out into the farthest edges of the solar system, largely character-driven (at least that is my intention). There are seven episodes posted so far, and I’m not sure how far I’m going to take this thing. If you do read it, I’d love to hear how you like it, what you’d like to see more of (characters, setting, etc.).
I have to say, too, that I’m enjoying resurrecting this blog. Some social media sites have somewhat lost their luster recently, and I’m spending less and less time on them. They tend to be a distraction and largely a waste of time, although I do get a lot of news via that avenue. Still, I want to spend more time writing, and as Ray Bradbury famously said,
You must stay drunk on writing so reality can not destroy you.
Ray Bradbury
This is my mantra these days. I should paint it on the wall.
So, is it time for my annual self-indulgent Christmas whine? You bet it is! This time of year always causes those feelings to resurface, and it’s not as if anything can be done about it. I guess it’s time to fully acknowledge that I will never feel about Christmas the way I used to, but it’s becoming more ok.
Holiday season is the loneliest time of year for many. I’m sure you all know that. This time of year I feel the loss of my family most acutely. I realize I had a very good childhood, and because of that I look back with such longing for those bygone days. So much of my family is gone, or far away, or simply estranged, making the memories of those happy, innocent days of my childhood that much more poignant. But many people, too many people, never had a safe, stable home with presents under the tree like I did.
Am I looking back with rose-colored glasses? Probably.
So what is “Christmas spirit” anyway? Every year it seems I see more and more people say they can’t find it, or they lost it. Are we all just longing for some idyllic time that perhaps never actually existed? Or is the stress of shopping and overspending on top of the pressures of everyday life just ruining it? I suppose I’m just missing those innocent days of believing in Santa Claus, while my parents dealt with the stress of putting the holiday together for us kids. But I genuinely enjoyed doing it for my own kids when they were little.
God knows neither of my parents had those perfect Christmases. My dad was born and grew up in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, W. 51st Street. His own father died when my dad was only 18, in 1939. My mother immigrated from Norway when she was 12. Her parents had been in the U.S. for several years before they could afford to bring my mom and her sister over (1934), so she and my aunt lived with their grandmother who by all accounts was a very stern old Lutheran woman. I don’t think my mother ever psychologically recovered from having been separated from her mother.
Despite all that, it’s pretty amazing that my parents gave me and my sisters the quintessential American Christmas with tons of gifts and the family all gathered together. I’m just missing that. I was damn lucky to have that growing up. Too many people will never know that kind of warmth and joy. I should just be grateful that I had it at all, and make new traditions for myself now. And considering what else is going on in the world, I have nothing to complain about.
Anyway, enjoy the holiday in whatever way you can, even if it’s just a day off from work for you. Sending love and blessings and wishes for a good 2023 to everyone.
One of the things that really pulls me into a story and transports me to a fantastical or future setting is the language, specifically the invented slang and terminology for various things. For example in Star Trek we have “phasers,” “beaming,” “transporters,” “replicators,” “tricorders,” “hyposprays,” “Jefferies tubes,” “Turbolifts,” and on and on. Firefly didn’t have as much tech to name, but had a wealth of other slang such as “shiny,” “brown coats,” “the Alliance,” “reavers,” “core planets,” “the rim,” and so on.
For me this is one of the hardest things to do, authentically and with any originality. My mind tends to be too literal. And yet this is one of the aspects I most like about science fiction, imagining how language will change with the passing of time.
Big shows don’t always get it right, either, although I suspect they don’t want to take it too far and risk alienating (no pun intended) their audience. I found a line in Star Trek: Voyager ep, “Demon” a bit jarring. While Tom Paris and Harry Kim are on the demon-class planet, Tom attempted a joke, which Harry declared “lame.” And I thought, who is still going to be saying “lame” in 500 years? Probably no one, at least not in this context. Consider what the English language sounded like 500 years ago. Shakespeare’s jokes are often lost on modern ears. I understand they had to straddle the line between appealing to today’s audience and envisioning the future, as we all do. If it’s too strange, they’ll miss the meaning or misconstrue the tone of friendly banter. But if it’s too contemporary the story will quickly become dated, and the terms can destroy that suspension of disbelief. I don’t mean to pick on Voyager, it just happens to be fresh in my mind from watching it a couple days ago.
In the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the group of children he encounters who’ve raised themselves and each other grew up relying on the limited vocabularies they had before all the adults vanished from their lives, so they’ve adapted the language as they needed to. Star Trek: Enterprise riffed on this in S1E6 Terra Nova. The survivors of a group of settlers who were children when they arrived on a new planet are now adults with children of their own and have much the same language skills they had as children. The terms they use are simplistic and child-like, but because of that it’s easy to understand what they’re talking about.
For a more mature cast of characters who haven’t grown up in isolation, better options are needed for language adaptations. Language is fluid, dynamic. For instance, not so long ago “Groovy” was popular but today it’s only used in a humorous context, and that didn’t take anywhere close to 500 years.
Anyway, I need to go dream up some fun new phrases for my characters in my Kindle Vella series. I’ve only got two episodes up so far. Time to get cracking!
Or maybe I found it.
Most folks probably know I’ve been out of work for the majority of this year, and that hasn’t changed. I had some promising interviews with Large Company that will not be named, but has so far come to nothing, so I’m still looking. Not sure if they’re ghosting me, or postponing the hiring process until after the holidays or what. Anyway, on we go.
I saw a tweet this morning of someone asking to be hit in the head with the “Christmas spirit” already, clearly not feeling the joy. I can relate. It’s actually been many years since I felt that special joy that is supposed to magically appear in December. Even with my own grown children, they take such a different approach to the holiday that it doesn’t do much to lift my mood. My younger son and his family aren’t even putting up a tree this year, first year in their own home, which even to me is almost incomprehensible. I hauled my artificial tree up out of the basement and decorated it by myself. I put out my little Christmas village of tea light holders, and so on. I don’t know why, since no one comes over and it’s just me and the cat in the house now. But I realized it cheers me just to see the pretty decorations.
I even made this little quilted wall hanging
But the biggest change this year, courtesy of my employment (or rather, lack of) situation is that I’m not giving any gifts. Can’t do it this year.
And you know what? It has destressed the season for me beyond belief. Occasionally I feel a momentary twinge of panic that I haven’t bought any gifts, but it soon passes and I go back to listening to the Christmas music on the radio and relaxing. I still have some baking to do, I promised pie and dinner rolls for dinner at my older son’s house. With the whole notion of gift-giving off the table, so to speak, I feel like it’s put everything in perspective and in its proper place. It’s not that I don’t enjoy giving gifts, but it’s not the end of the world that I can’t indulge the family this time around. If you’re in the same boat, I hope it won’t ruin the season for you entirely.
Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season, and many blessings in the new year.
As years are wont to do, this one is at last beginning to wind down. This has not been one of my best.
It started January 4, with the sudden death of my younger sister. I’ve been very sad to discover I have no recent pics of her, and none of us together. It had been many years since we’d seen each other so there had been no opportunity. We live on opposite coasts. I still have days when it feels unreal, like when I see a gift that she sent me, and realize she’s just not there anymore. It’s very strange.
In June I was laid off from my job. It was a good job, close to home, decent pay, but I’d been half expecting it since we started working from home in March, 2020. This is the fourth time I’ve been laid off over the last 20 years. I’m so tired of Corporate America. I am still looking for work with not much hope of landing another job due to ageism. Why do they keep raising the retirement age when no one will hire older people?
In August I had to euthanize my most beloved cat, Lizzie. Lizzie was a stray who I coaxed out of the neighbor’s backyard and into my life almost 6 years ago now. I kept hearing him crying from somewhere in the next-door neighbor’s backyard, and finally after weeks of calling to him managed to get him up to my yard to feed him. I estimated he was somewhere between nine months and one-year-old at the time. He was starving and ate three 9oz cans of food in one sitting, so it’s unlikely he belonged to the house next door. In fact I once saw the guy the neighbor ostensibly employs (I assume he’s paying him, but the guy practically lives there) to help in his yard throwing stuff at Lizzie to drive him out of the yard. Lizzie had been neutered, and I didn’t really check too hard, and assumed he was a female, hence the name. I only found out he was a boy back in March when the vet treated him for FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease). I never bothered to change his name, because what did he care? He was used to “Lizzie.” He didn’t care what I called him as long as I didn’t call him late for dinner, although it required constant explanations every time I had to take him to the vet. He had another episode of FLUTD on August 24, while going blind from uveitis and glaucoma (so many eyedrops, around the clock for a month with no effect. Goddess love him he was so good about it). The vet suggested euthanasia, it was a shock to me. I knew he wasn’t adjusting well to losing his sight, on top of the recurrent infections. He was just so young. I thought we would grow old together. There is a hole in my world. I am still mourning him.
The summer was brutally hot here, as it was in many places. My air conditioner got us through the worst of it when it hit 116ºF, and then took a powder. It was about 25 years old and had been having some problems right before the heat hit, but after that weekend it would only come on for one cycle in 24 hours. So… along with the furnace that had been problematic for many years, I replaced both. But not until September. Apparently there were no units to be had, I guess thanks to COVID and shipping issues. We still had a lot of heat to get through, so in July in desperation I bought two of those portable units, an expense I really didn’t need but would have died without. So yeah, in addition to being out of work, I had to cough up almost $10K for new heating and cooling. Thankfully I had the money, but you can only spend it once.
And now my son and his family, who have been living with me for about 12 years, suddenly announced they bought a house and will move out within 2 weeks. It was only in the last couple years they even paid any rent, but I could really use it right now. Also they’re planning to take the two cats we have. Both were refugees from the crack house a few doors down. One ran away from them, and although the people knew he was living here they never tried to come get him. The other one was abandoned when they were evicted. Just moved out and left her behind. Well, there are lots of cats in the world that need homes. I’m so used to just taking in strays, maybe I’ll wait for another one to show up.
Anyway, it’s been a helluva year. Here’s hoping the universe will cut me some slack in the coming year.
Click on the image below for a preview.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of my favorite memories is my whole family together on Christmas Eve, trimming the tree together. My mother was born in Norway, and the tradition (at least in those days) was to put the tree up on Christmas Eve, so somehow she convinced Dad to go along with it). To help set the mood, Dad would get the reel-to-reel tape player set up with what I suppose was the one and only Christmas music reel we had. I don’t know how he made it, if he taped it off the radio or some LPs that we owned. This was the 1960s, after all. I remember the house we were living in then, a large old farmhouse in Massachusetts where we lived when Dad was involved in working on the Apollo space missions, and the same living room where we all gathered to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. What a house that was. I still miss it.
Once the tree was placed in the stand, centered and straight and watered, Dad would string the lights, those enormous old C9 bulbs. Then my sisters and I would begin hanging the ornaments as high as we could reach. Dad did the top of the tree. I remember him singing “O Tannenbaum” in decent baritone as he reached to place ornaments on the branches. Once all the ornaments were in place, the tinsel went on. I love tinsel. I think it gives the tree a more magical, fairy-tale appearance than big bushy garlands. I don’t think anyone uses it anymore, though. I don’t dare now with my cats.
Both of my parents have been gone for a long time (Dad in 1983, Mom in 2006), so holidays have long been a bittersweet time for me. When I had my own children I tried to keep that festive family spirit alive. We were living on the opposite side of the country with no other family close by so it was all on me. In the last few years I’ve become estranged from the last of my sisters (I have four) who are all on the opposite coast anyway. It’s one reason I’ve chosen to stay on the west coast.
So, I listen to the old music and the classical Christmas music that my dad loved so much, and think of my mom whenever I hear her favorite, “Silver Bells.” The music helps me connect to happier times in a way that nothing else does. Maybe I spend too much time looking backwards. It’s a kind of homesickness, I think. As they say, you can never go home again.
That’s me on my mother’s lap, with Dad and 3 of my sisters (the youngest not born yet). The fireplace behind us had a door in the bottom that you could sweep the ashes into, down a chute to a clean-out in the basement. I assume it was to keep the ashes from getting all over the living room when the servants cleaned it out back in ye olden days. The house was built around 1850.
fillingspaces.wordpress.com 