My blog for 5/25/2013 Spokane Serial Episode 2

            Half way back home her SUV sputtered and died at a stop light, but it started up again.  She dreaded having it break down.  She’d freeze solid if it did.

             She had a dead man in her loft.

            A blue car was parked in front of her shotgun two-on-two ancient vintage bastardized bungalow.  Cars all looked the same to her, but this one had steamed up windows.   As she passed the car the SUV, of course, died.

            As she frantically tried to restart it, a hole in her side window popped open, the bullet angled into the front windshield, spiderwebbing them both.  She actually heard the bullet go past her head.

            “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”  Another bullet hit the side of her SUV just before the vehicle finally started.  She slammed it into reverse.  That’s when she saw the license plate on the blue car lit by her headlights--which she made herself memorize, go figure.  Somehow her brain still worked.

            Fumbling the cellphone, she managed to dial 911 for the second time today.  She headed to the North Market St. Police Department.  “GJX473,” she hollered to the 911 operator who answered her call.  “Write it down.  Write it down.  It’s the license number of the car that shot at me.”

            Sirens blared in the distance while the operator asked a hundred questions.  She skidded into the police department parking lot, jumped out and ran to the PD’s front door. She grabbed the door’s handle but stopped and looked back for the blue car she was sure followed her.

            When no cars tore into the parking lot with gunmen blasting away at her, her heart rate started to slow down.  She shut the door behind her.

#

            Magers showed up an hour later.  She guessed he had to cover the search of her loft, call all the people whose names she’d given him, take care of the body, talk to the Coroner, have time to get to his office.  It seemed like it took a century.  His remarkable blue eyes had turned the color of granite, which bored into Belinda.  She was okay until he looked at her with such sympathy.  It made her cry again. 

            “Don’t do that.  You can’t help us while you’re out of control.” He walked a circle and stopped in front of her again.

            “But I don’t know why that guy shot a gun at me.  I don’t know why the dead man was in my loft.  I’m afraid to go home.”

            “Somebody is looking for something.  Any idea what that might be?”  He reached for his iphone, scrolled through some items, stopped and said, “We got enough glue off the dead man’s face to get a profile picture.  It’s rough but I want to know if you recognize him.  You’re okay, right?”

            She’d never be okay again, but she clenched her teeth and looked at the small screen on Sam’s phone.

            She choked.  “Th-that’s Reedy.”

            “So who is Reedy?”

“He was my husband until he disappeared four years ago.  I got a divorce decree from him just this morning because he is presumed dead.  Oh my god.  I had no idea he was even in Washington.”

            Chris texted to her:  where r u?

            She looked at the text message but didn’t want to tell Chris she was at the police station.  He’d freak out.

#

            Sam insisted he take Belinda home to pack then some place to stay a few nights because she shouldn’t be alone.  He said, “A person who is more concerned about blood in her paint than who killed cock robin isn’t thinking entirely straight.”  She could see his point. “And, the blue car that held the shooter at your house two nights ago has the wrong serial number.  It’s registered to a Tom McKinzie.”

            “But it looked like my step-brother’s car.”

            “Is his name Tom McKenzie?”

            “No.”

             “Tom McKenzie is dead.  He was 84 when he died of a heart attack, best I can tell.”

            “What?  That’s insane.”

            “I know...stay tuned for the next episode, whenever I find it.”  He rolled his eyes.

            He opened the door with the key she dug out of her purse, looked inside.  “Oops.”  The couch and other furniture were torn and upside down, the glass on the front of her mother’s picture was broken out of its frame.  Her fairy figurine collection was pulverized to powder on the hearth.  Sam pulled his gun out, firmly pulled Belinda away from the door on the front porch, said “you stay here,” and left her to search all of the rooms for any intruder who may still be there. 

            When he hopped into the room, gun in both hands just like the movies, her heart pounded as she plastered herself up against the outside wall of her house and waited in terror.  When he returned, he brought her inside and shut the door.  “Don’t touch anything.  Just look around and see if anything is missing.”

            “Right.”  Like she could tell if anything was gone in the mess that greeted them.

            A leather bound set of the classics had pages torn from them, wadded and thrown around the room like litter.  Her father had given those to her for her 21st birthday.  She thought she had no tears left.  But she did.

            “Think, Belinda.  What do you have that’s valuable enough to...” Her front door began to open. He shoved Belinda behind him.  He whipped out the Glock 17 again and honest to God she thought he was going to fire it or die. 

            “Yikes, Linny! A woman’s head poked insided.  She froze when she saw the gun. Soft and round and short, she took two steps backward when she noticed his uniform and badge.  “Are you okay?”

            “ No, Maddie, I think I’m not okay.  You scared me to death!  How did you know I was here?” Belinda said.  “Somebody shot a gun at me. Somebody wants me dead and I don’t even know why!”

            “I parked down the street and saw you both come inside.”  She looked around her feet, horror written on her face. “The loft is a mess too.  I was just over there. 

My blog for 5/24/2013 (Revision of Serial, Spokane)

SPOKANE

A

THRILLER

Belinda Marshall skipped down the stairs of the Spokane, Washington courthouse.  The beautiful 1895 building still housed the Clerk of the Superior Court Office where Belinda finally had divorced Reedy.  The statute of limitations required three years of abandonment to obtain a divorce, but it had taken four because he was assumed deceased.  Her heels clicked on the hard steps like the tap shoes she’d fallen in love with when she was six years old. 

            Belinda hoped Reginald Oliver Marshall (Reedy) had found the pot of gold he sought.  She hurried to her Bronco SUV that made her frugal mother cringe, and headed across town to her Nevada Street art studio.  The building had belonged to her father, who converted it from simply a pin-ball machine shop to a full fledged casino gaming machine factory.  He was its only employee and Belinda inherited the building when her father died.   A huge modern painting was due to be hung in an art show in the promenade at Nashville, Tennessee in a few weeks.  Overworking a painting to death was a habit she thought she’d dropped.  Perfection was in the imperfect.

            As soon as she stepped up into the SUV, she texted to Chris:  it’s a dun deal.

Two minutes later her iphone dinged:  gud now you cn marry me, he replied.  She laughed.  Once was enough.

            The warmth of the SUV made her sleepy.  Then she stepped out.  “Wow, it’s colder than I thought,” froze her words, balanced them for a couple of seconds in a cartoon balloon, and dropped them.  If she hurried maybe her nose wouldn’t turn red.  On the way upstairs, something felt wrong.  She peeked into the other studio.  Finding nobody, she shook off the odd feeling.  Now unlocked, the loft’s door was locked when she left.  Wasn’t it?  But, the outside door at the bottom of the stairs had been locked, so it wasn’t a major issue.  At twenty-five she wasn’t a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease quite yet.

            There was no chance in minus three degree weather that she’d air out the stuffy studio.  A coconut-scented candle lay behind her wash sink for that purpose.  Nothing looked out of place.  Paints lined up like colorful messy soldiers in their rack.  Brushes looked trashed, but that was normal.  Canvases leaned against the inside wall, waiting to realize their potential.  The new painting was so large it dwarfed her easel so was set on blocks against two-by-fours.

            She donned her paint-splattered apron, filled a can with water and turned toward her work across the room. 

            Water splashed all over the floor and her shoes when she dropped the can.  It rolled under the sink.  A man’s body--a manikin--had been painted over her picture as if he were walking through the canvas.  She peered at the kaleidoscope of stained glass faux art and tried to not let her eyes roll up into her head as she stepped closer.  For a fleeting second she thought he might be a real human. Right before she passed out onto the floor.

            He was a human alright.

            She surfaced, made herself look closer.  Heels protruded light green.  Each of his toes was painted a different color and his Achilles tendon was streaked red.  Was that paint or blood?  With her hands shaking so badly she clutched the phone and dialed 911.  Then she ran downstairs.  Five minutes flat is how long it took the EMTs, police, and sheriff deputies and to trample up the stairs past where she stood inside the stairwell.  Reporters were corralled outside the street-level door.

            Blonde, blue-eyed Sergeant Sam Magers shooed a reporter outside with the others, ran upstairs two at a time.  He came down and gave Belinda a bottle of water.  She’d never talked to a policeman before.  She didn’t know they were so gorgeous.  If she weren’t crying so much she could have asked him to pose for her.  But she remembered why everybody was there. What a stupid idea.

            Several cops got busy taping and measuring, looking through her supplies. Magers took Belinda to the other studio that opened onto the hallway and asked if she needed an ambulance.  

            Her “no,” sounded hollow.  They perched on two high stools.  A plain clothes detective with his badge clipped to his belt walked past the door, saw them and stepped  inside

            “Granby!” Magers said.  He introduced Belinda as a witness. 

            “Sammy, how you doing?” Granby said, his eyes grazing the room.  EMTs lumbered up the stairwell and past their door with a gurney.

             “Hey!” somebody out of sight called into the hallway. “You aren’t going to need the gurney.”

            “Ms. Marshall here has no idea how this happened,” Sam said.  He wrote something on his notepad.  “Do you know the fellow on the painting?” he asked Belinda softly.  Great bedside manner.

            “No.  No!”  she said.  “I couldn’t see his face and there was so much paint on him I didn’t even notice he was there until I stood right in front of it--him, I mean.”

            “Right, Granby said.  “Well, he’s been super-glued to the art work, as well as impaled on a large hunting knife.” Grandby’s gritted his teeth. “The handle protrudes from the backside of the picture frame, through it into him.”

            “Canvas,” Belinda said.

            “Canvas.”  Sam looked at Grandby with a half smile.  “What I’ve got to wonder is where did anybody get enough superglue to stick a body on a canvas?  The perp used a lot of little tubes of the stuff for that job.  It would take time.  His eyes had a question lingering in them when he looked away. 

            “The responding officer says the docs have a compound that will dissolve the glue and not mess up skin.  When would there have been enough time to paint all over him?” Grandby asked Belinda.  “Aren’t you here every day?”

            “Not this week.  It’s been cold, and half the time my heater in here doesn’t work very well.”  She sighed.  “I don’t guess there is much of the painting to save.”  What happened to the blood?  Tears gushed.  “What happened to the blood?  Wouldn’t there be blood?”  Blood is important.  Her skin tingled and her body froze still between statements.

            “Well, there doesn’t seem to be any--it wouldn’t mix in with oil paint, so if there were any here, we’d see it,” Granby said.    

            “But it’s acrylic paint, which is water soluble, not oil. You mean I could have blood mixed in with my paint?  A shudder started up her spine.

             “Yeah, she’s right.  He was killed somewhere else or there would be blood for sure.  Looks like the painting will have to be a do-over.”  She headed for the bathroom to lose her breakfast.

            Belinda returned feeling no better.  Magers looked warm and safe and in charge while she was cold, scared and confused.  He looked so concerned, she realized that

he had more there than professionalism.

            Sergeant Magers asked who else had access to the loft.  “Madrigal,” Belinda said,  “and a guy named Donny who uses the other studio for pottery making.  He’s on tour right now though, so he’s not in town. Donny rents the loft we’re standing in.  He does sculptures.”

            “Madrigal?”

            “My friend.  She shares my studio to do her art.”

            Magers poised his pen over his notebook. “I need your name and address and those of Madrigal and Donny. 

            Belinda still clutched her iphone.  She scrolled through its address book and relayed those items to him.

            “Are you married?” he asked Belinda.

            “Nope, not since Reedy.  I’m divorced.”

            “Boyfriend?”

            “Well, Chris I guess.  I haven’t really dated anybody else lately.”

            “Any reason why he would be angry with you?”

            “Not unless you count not agreeing to marry him.”

            Sam’s lips curved up just a little bit.

            “Sergeant Magers, I...”

            “Sam.  Sam Magers.  What about your family?”

            “Well, I don’t really have one unless you count my step-father’s children--all adults.”

            “Your step-siblings.”

            “Yes, but they don’t particularly like me for my mom horning in on their dad’s life.”

            He raised one eyebrow.  It stood out like a huge question mark on his forehead.

            “What?  No, take that out of your head.  My mother and step-father made a pre- nuptial agreement and made new wills when they married.  I saw them.  Besides, neither of them had anything anybody would want anyway.  They lived on retirement checks.

            “Sam, I don’t know why somebody would do anything like this.  I’ve been painting for several years and nobody has ever been in this loft without me here.  At least not that I know of.”

            “As soon as we can identify the body, I’ll be back in touch with you.  He gave her his card.  “You call me if you think of anything--that’s my personal cell number.  I can be here in five minutes.”

            She picked up her thermal jacket and Sam walked her down the stairs.   Icy tears formed on her cheeks before she got to her SUV.  She thought vaguely that salt water isn’t supposed to freeze so easily.

            “Are you okay? Is there somebody you can stay with?” Magers asked.  “You don’t look so good.”  He succinctly slammed the driver’s door of her SUV. 

            She lowered the window a couple of inches. “I’m good, I’m good.  Just cold.”  She pulled away, leaving him silhouetted by flashing lights from the police cars.

            None of this made any sense.

My blog for 5/7/2013 Chattahoochee Dead Photographs.

This is the marina where Mason Walker keeps his houseboat on Lake Lanier.  He bought the boat after he left San Diego, California where his wife, Tracy, had died of cancer.  He promised her he'd make a new start after she was gone, and that when he left town he would follow their dream of living on water one day.  He had already checked out the costs involved with San Diego Marina charges and Florida Marina charges and decided his best move would be to give up on oceans and investigate lakes. Lake Sidney Lanier has the largest inland houseboat marina in the United States, so he made his way to Atlanta and moved to Cumming, Georgia where he started a private investigator service and shopped for a houseboat.

At last he found one that was in terrible condition but thought he could restore it to enough splendor to keep himself happy and comfortable. 

Shortly after that, he met Maria Sebastian at a Business After Hours meeting in Cumming, and couldn’t keep himself from falling for her.  However, Maria never found out anything about Mason because he would change the subject when she questioned him about his job, about his family, about his life before her.  All she knew was the story about the houseboat and why he purchased such a junk pile.  Maria was jealous of Tracy’s memory and couldn’t quite get comfortable with Mason. 

This is the boat's porch where Maria and Mason got to know each other better, if you know what I mean.

But when she was in trouble with some very bad people who had persecuted her father’s family, Mason knew more than anybody else about the reason.  He also used gadgets that Maria could not find anywhere else.  It made her edgy having somebody know every minute of her day, but she was grateful when her cousin got her in trouble with the Atlanta Mafia and Mason showed up like a white knight to save her from enslavement or death.

The thing that drove Maria crazy was he popped in and out of her life without warning or explanation after being gone for sometimes six months.  She knew he was high on the CIA list of agents, but not an agent.  He was well known by the FBI, but not on their employee roles either.  If he hadn’t been so downright gorgeous, sexy, tall, lean and Irish, she would have dumped him for neglect.  But every time she saw him he treated her like a queen, promised her nothing good or bad and lived his own life, pulling her into it a little bit at a time. Not to mention he made her knees weak.

Chattahoochee Dead will be out in November 2013 and maybe you can figure out just what it is that Mason does.

My blog for 5/6/2013 The parrot from Chattahoochee Dead

We had a great adventure today when my photographer and I visited a parrot breeder and we fell in love with "Amanda," an African Gray Parrot who will probably be doing the stand in for Epifanio Alejandro,
the parrot of Chattahoochee Dead that Emily stashes in Maria's house so Antonio Lionetta who is  chasing her (Emily) won't find him (the bird). Emily tells Maria that Antonio (Tony) is chasing her because he wants to marry her and she's not interested.

Of course, Maria doesn't know Epifanio is in her house and panics when she hears "don't take your love to town," coming from around the bathroom corner where she finds a humongus bird cage complete with bird.   She does not want or need a bird and wants him out of her house. With promises from Emily that Epifanio won't be there very long, Maria agrees to keep him for two days.  However, she grows to really like the bird, and doesn't want Emily to take him away after all.  But that's another story.

My blog for 4/20/2013 Review of The Aviator's Wife

This book is historical fiction and is well done, told from the first person perspective of Charles
Lindbergh's wife, Anne.  The fiction is imperceivable from the history, the way it's written.  I knew so little about Charles Lindbergh until this book that it filled in all the gaps I've always heard about their family.

Anne Lindberg was a long-suffering sort, who gave in to her husband on almost every single request.  She lost her own identity as soon as she was married, and  became an appendage of her husband, who was a control freak.  He accomplished this by appealing with the logic of his requests and expectations, and of course, she was very pliable.  He had more belief in what she was capable of doing than she, so she let him "guide" her into all aspects of his life. He soaked up all the adulation for her.

She was so fascinated by his aura, his fame, his apparent 100 percent belief in her capabilities that she allowed herself to be guided into becoming a pilot herself, a navigator both in the air and on the sea. When he sent her off a cliff in a prototype glider, she panicked, but made her way to the ground whereas anybody else would have told him where to go.   She learned to navigate by the stars, which was the method navigators used in those days (@1929).  Then she was automatically expected to be his "co-pilot" both in the extensive mapping done from the air, and on the homefront.  She was not given credit for these accomplishments, however, and the further they got into their marriage, the more he was intransigent about her "place" and she was more frustrated that she allowed him to do this to her.  All this while she yearned to be home with her children.

He fell from her grace at the point where their son was kidnapped for ransom, as he insisted upon taking over the search for the child, against Anne's wishes.  I always thought their child had never been recovered, but found that not to be true.  His body was found, as apparently the kidnapper accidentally killed him, yet did receive the ransom (in marked bills due to Investigator Schwartzkopf's insistence).  Therefore, the kidnapper was found through the marked bills given to him and he was imprisoned and executed.  This Schwartzkopf, I believe, was the father of  the current General Schwartzkopf (four star general) who was responsible for the invasion of Iraq some ten years ago.

Charles was the supreme ruler over his home, his mapping business, his wife and children.  It didn't seem to be just an ego thing, but total confidence in his ability to overcome any obstacle and thinking nobody could do anything as well as he, just as the world had accepted him in that role. That  stood him in good stead when he left the United States to be the first man to fly over the ocean to Europe.  I can say he was the  person most responsible for the very beginning of today's global economy.  However, his later beliefs around 1939 that Hitler had the machine to show off his might during the Olympics held in Germany, led Lindbergh to admire the organization of the Hitler regime.  He was so impressed by the show Hitler flouted, he could relate from the perspective that the Jews were infliterating the United States and needed to be stopped,as they seemed to be controlling all the money.  This of was, of course, before the Holocaust. 

Because she would not tell him no, Anne in a more mousely role than I expected from the book's voice, agreed to write up Charles' beliefs in a book they published to sell in the U.S.  It turned into the downfall of the huge myth of epic proportions that Charles was the great American Hero everybody in the world had considered him to be.

I think one of the reasons Charles flirted with Communism, Socialism, Stalinism and even dictatorship was because his life in the U.S. had become so famous that his clothing was literally torn off his body by admiring fans (think Elvis Presley).  His family was captive to their home, with stationed guards posted everywhere, his child was stolen out from under him, and it took almost a year for the authorities to find the kidnapper and his dead child's body.  He was not happy with democracy, as he saw only the underbelly permissiveness. His image as everybody's hero could not be shaken or removed so he was truly cursed with the trappings of fame.  The U.S. had made life so difficult for their family that they often  moved to other countries.

I wanted Anne, throughout the book, to stand up (as she constantly thought about doing) to Charles and take a stand to make any decision of her own.  But did that only by default and never by her choice over his.  Theirs was a marriage of a hero and a mouse, a constant competition in which Anne always lost.  There was no doubt who would win.  The book she wrote caused her to go down with him, which she knew would happen before she wrote it.

My blog for 4/19/2013 Miss Amanda the African Gray Parrot.

Isn't she cute?  And only 19 years old.  They live to be 60.  Did you ever inherit a parrot because grandma died and left it to you in her will?
           Don't be deceived.  That isn't a beady eye you're seeing --she's a very curious little cookie.  Please note her red tail.   I think she's a great standin for Epifanio Alejandro.

My blog for 4/10/2013 The African Gray Parrot search

I have begun thinking about the cover for Chattahoochee Dead.  Since one of the lighter items in the story involves a talking African Gray Parrot, whose name is Epifanio Alejandro, I would like a bird like him to be on the cover some place.

Since I'm fresh out of African Gray Parrots, I went on line and looked up "exotic birds."  Of course all the ones I found were in different states.  So I went back on line and looked up Melody's dream idea of "African Gray Parrot Breeders," thinking I could go to Atlanta if I had to. 

But a miracle happened and a name came up of a breeder who LIVES IN DAWSON COUNTY!

Jump back!

That would never happen again in a hundred years.    Naturally I emailed this person and she emailed me back and we've agreed that I can go to her aviary and see her African Gray as soon as possible.
Later when we have the cover under way I'll know more about the angle we will need for a picture, and then I can take the photographer over there to take pictures of her.

My blog for 4/8/2013 Chattahoochee Dead is put to bed.

Okay, the deed is done.  I have signed with Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC in North Carolina.
A very nice man runs this company.  I feel good about this.  However, as usual, it will take time before it is out in paperback and ebook--we all have to wait until November 2013.

In working on finding a place I could get a picture of an African Gray Parrot--there is one in the book--I found a breeder right here in Dawsonville!  That will never happen again in a hundred years.

Melody's blog for 4/7/2013 Publishing Chattahoochee Dead

I've got a publisher for Chattahoochee Dead in case I want to publish that way.  I don't have all the information yet, so am not positive.  Of course I've investigated all the other avenues for getting this done and have come down to using Amazon's publishing company (which I'd get to pay for) or another one like I-Universe (which I'd get to pay for).  Or go with this publisher who only does books regarding the Appalacian Mountain range (and I don't have to pay for).   I've sent Chattahoochee Dead to so many publishers that I'm disgusted with the whole industry.  Of course it's still out with about 13 others, so I suppose something could turn up I'd like better.  I've talked to a few other publishers who have indicated some interest in the series I'm working toward.  But no contracts yet.  I really like the offer I got.  But what's best for Chattahoochee Dead?  What's best for Melody?  I think any self-publishing costs would vary from about $600. to $2500.  And there is no knowing what the figure would actually be until the commitments are made, one at a time.

Actually Melody has a lot on her plate right now (seems it never goes away) and will not necessarily have time to deal with a self-publisher.  I think like an old person sometimes--if it isn't good enough for a publisher to take it, it's stigmatized, to my way of thinking.  And the new news is I'll get the rights back on Auraria Dead at the end of July and can think about using it as a guina pig to learn how to self-publish.  I mean, it's already an ebook, so how hard can it be to continue that?

Regardless of who publishes Chattahoochee Dead, there will be no advertising budget from them--that's a given.  So I'll be responsible for 99% of whatever sales I can make.  On the surface I'd like to just contract with this guy who's interested and get it out of my brain.  Of course, that's not how it works--there must be editing, scene decisions, cover design decisions, ISPN application, and lord knows how many more decisions.  So I guess there is no easy way to do this, which I knew all along.  I was just hoping it would go away after I was rich and famous.

Pray for me.

My blog for 4/1/13 Teaching Responsibility

When Danielle (Danny)  was twelve years old, she wasn’t particularly interested in just about anything,  including schoolwork, athletics, hobbies, computer-driven games, etc.  Her parents were frustrated.  So, they gave her some responsibilities that would engender self-confidence. They turned all of their household budgeting over to Danny.  She was responsible to pay all the credit card bills, the utility bills, take care of the cash budget and in general be the household’s money manager or the family bills really would go unpaid and all of them would have to live with the consequences.

The telephone bill went first.  Danny forgot to pay it on time, received a notice of disconnect, and immediately got it caught up.  Next came the gas bill, which went neglected until the heat was turned off.  Danny was responsible for “finding” the funds to pay that utility’s re-establishment fine.  The family was without heat in the middle of winter.  So Danny became responsible for hunting, cutting and bringing in firewood so she and the rest of the family had some heat.  Meanwhile, they all wore a lot of clothing.

 

It was a little touch-and-go at their house for two years before Danny got the discipline to follow through on obligations. 

As things progress in life, the siblings grew up and were gone from their home by that time, and the parents found work in another town on a temporary basis.  Danny was still in school, so she lived in the house of their small town by herself while her parents were gone making a living for the three of them.  She paid the bills, she made her own food, got herself to school and back, athletics and back, wrote birthday cards to family members, and bought clothes/shoes on her budget.  She slept and ate when she wished, she washed clothing and cleaned house by herself.  Her support was a cell phone she paid the bill for monthly to keep in touch with her parents.

Today Danny is the most responsible person, the most independent person, the most industrious person I know.  She found work to pay her way through college after messing up the first semester and having to start over again.  She worked as a path-clearer for the Bureau of Land Management during the summers to earn school money.  Last year she graduated from college.

 

If she had gone without the responsibility her parents foisted off on her, there would have been a fifty-fifty chance as to whether she'd ever have developed into a productive member of society.

 

If you don’t mind surprises as to whether you’ll have any utilities tomorrow, what this family did just might be a remedy for motivationally-challenged children.

My Blog 3/21/13--Book Review--The Light Between Oceans

 

The first thing I have to say is M. L. Stedman is a wonderful writer.  His phraseology caused me to fall in love with his words to the point that  I was willing to accept a second rate story.   However, the story is exceedingly good.  Adept at painting word pictures, the writer captured the exact settings at all times.  The reader can feel the sea spray, the fog in the woods, the heat from the lighthouse light, see the ground crowded with crawly bugs, the expressions on faces.

The story takes place in circa 1926 Australia, as well as a lighthouse and one-acre island off the Australian coast.  The Aussie terminology is not overplayed, the descriptions clarify the differences Americans would find unusual--like kangaroos, the resourcefulness of a 1920’s war-damaged population, both physical and mental.  A lack of phones, TV, radios, the ingenuity of the way people functioned without these things.  Flag signals, morse code.

It's my theory that the best books cause a reader to be sympathetic to all the characters, whether “good” guys or “bad” ones.  But how about a book where all the characters are “good” as well as “bad?”  Human you say?  Probably the most human book I’ve read.  At least the best-of-humanity human.  Entwined are all the truths and all the lies, all the sympathy and empathy of each character for the other.  And thankfully, it's not overburdened with a cast of thousands.

This story is a state-of-the-art model for honesty and all its ramifications. “ Extenuating Circumstances” should have been the name of the book. The Light Between Oceans points out the clear path one strives for:  honesty, idealism, integrity.  As well as how perilous the danger of being idealistic can be.  It’s about one tiny decision and how it can effect unintentional collateral damage.

The Grand Grandson Adventure

We had an adventure last night.  It all started when the grandson and friend of his (both 19) decided they wanted to try out some old kayaks, one of which, as grandparents, lay under dust in our basement.  The other kayak was in somebody else’s basement.

The grandson showed up at 4:00 p.m. to pick up the one we have.  It was a lovely afternoon--precursor of Spring.  The plan was to meet his friend and hustle over to the lake and paddle around for a little while then return the kayak until next time. 

The friend went to pick up his kayak while the grandson came to get ours. The kayak would not fit in the grandson’s SUV no matter what we tried.  There is no rack on top of his SUV.  The plan was about to fail when I suggested he take our utility trailer (which doesn’t get much use and the SUV does have a hitch on it).  Problem solved.  But that did entail cleaning the hitch enough to allow the parts to attach, find a padlock so the trailer wouldn’t disappear while the boys were paddling around like ducks.  Grandpa had all the necessary items including tie downs.  He even knew how to make the cinching knots in the straps. And bring the air compressor up from the basement to fill the tires with a little more street-worthy air.

HOWEVER, when the trailer was about to be attached it was discovered that the spare tire on the back of the SUV stuck out further than the hitch, so the grandpa suggested they take the tire off.  But, oops, the tool kit for the SUV had gone missing, so the tool to take the tire off was not present.  We were about to be foiled.  But teenage enthusiasm prevailed.

A call to the friend who by this time had his kayak in a small pickup truck, diverted him to our house and the trailer re-hitched to HIS truck.  There was the commotion of switching the kayaks around as the truck bed was too short for that kayak.

Hitch in place, chains attached, kayaks tied down, they were finally on their way with the admonition of being back before dark (7 p.m.) because the truck had no hookup for the rear trailer lights.

Two hours later (about 6:30) we got a phone call.  They’d been to the lake, kayaked for about an hour and were on their way back home when the truck’s tire went flat, and there was no jack for the truck.  That’s when our adventure really started.  The grandpa put every tool he thought he’d need into our car, including a truck jack, a drill, and ratchet set, and we set out for the “Shell Station on 400,” of which there are three and the boys didn’t know the cross street name.  We started with the closest one and worked our way down to the second one.  They were parked safely at the rear of the station.  By now it was dark.

The boys thoughtfully had removed the trailer from the truck so they could get the spare tire out from under the tailgate. The boys looked up how to get the spare off by going on line with their cellphones.  They’d examined the problem by using a flashlight app in those phones too.  However, they couldn’t get to it because the tool kit that had gone missing included the proper tool for removal. Grandpa had one, quite by accident. 

That’s when the boys learned the emergency brake must be on, rocks found to put under the vehicle tires so it won’t move, the jack set in the proper location (three tries to get it right) so it will raise the axle instead of the bumper. While they worked on that problem, the grandpa addressed getting the flat tire off the truck.

The truck had lost its tire iron.  The tire iron brought by grandpa was not the right kind for the problem and the drill wasn’t strong enough to get the little rusted nuts loose.  But there was a wrecker truck at the gas pump with the owner just getting ready to leave.  So I ran over to ask him if we could pay him to change the tire.  He was on a call but very kindly pulled over to our problem and took time to loosen the nuts.  Would take no pay for it either.

With the spare tire eventually loose¸ we could start this second phase of the adventure.

Now the jack was ready to be raised.  After a hundred winds of the jack by first one set or arms and then another’s the truck came up high enough to remove the tire.  All of the nuts that had been loosened were removed with a bucking drill, but one stubborn one would not relent.  However, the grandpa had brought a magic ratchet!  The last nut finally gave in and the tire was finally off and tossed into the truck bed with the kayak.

The same bucking drill was adjusted so it tightened the nuts of the spare tire, the jack was lowered and also used to reassemble the works that hold up truck spare tires under the back bumper area.

Then the confession of being stopped by Mr. Policeman between the lake and the Shell Station for not having taillights came out.  When the kayaks had been replaced into the trailer and truck bed after they’d been in the lake, they hung over the corners enough to block one truck taillight.  He also mentioned there were no tags on the trailer.  Grandpa said trailers under a certain weight didn’t need tags.  Maybe they don’t tell the police about that.   Fortunately the Law gave the boys a warning.  Because of this we followed the boys back to our house in the dark so the absence of trailer lights (and one truck light) would not be noticed.

Now all we had to do was get the trailer backed down the driveway, detached and replaced, our kayak returned to the basement, the gathered tools replaced in their various storage places, and two hungry and late boys on their ways home.  They still had to take the other kayak back to wherever it came from as well.

I think those boys need tool kits for their individual vehicles.  They both now know how to change a tire with more than a cell phone.  They did every step under grandpa direction, not his doing it for them.

I’ve thought about this for 24 hours.  It is likely that the effort to earn the money to support a car, including the price of gasolene, let alone dates, etc. interferes with safety measures, always the last to be addressed since it’s not imperative in order to drive the things.

I’m old but not so old I don’t remember those days from my past.  We rode in cars that had no floorboard, whose doors would not close so they were roped closed.  I’ve helped push cars that constantly ran out of that pesky gas, even though it only cost 26 cents a gallon.  Only putting $1 of gas in the car because that’s all the money I had.  I remember starting one particular car that always had to start at the top of a hill by rolling down and popping the clutch.  My friends’ cars were rolling disasters.  I guess my father got wind of it at some point and began inspecting my dates’ cars before I was allowed to go any more places.  It was very embarrassing.  But then he didn’t know about a lot of other things we did, never since spoken of.

I suppose my grandson will live through this episode of his life.  I’ve seen it happen before.  Anyway, yesterday was a fun adventure down memory lane for me.

Friends and Death

            I have a friend who has been given just a few months left to live. It's made me think about what I would do in her shoes. Would I try to finish off my bucket list? Would I feel like even getting up in the morning? Would I feel "ready" and have accomplished what I wanted to do with my life? Would I just savor every day, every conversation?           
           Would I notice things about people, about my home and neighborhood that I never noticed before? Would I be scared out of my mind? Would I be concerned about how leaving would affect the lives of my family and friends? Would I even care? Would I hope there had been a misdiagnosis and it wasn't really true?
            Would I get by every day by pretending it wasn't true? Would I try to forget about it and just live the life I had created?

            I have no idea about these things.  Two thoughts have sustained me through previous deaths of relatives/friends.  The thought of all of the people in my family who are already deceased welcoming the newby into heaven has been helpful.  Because I know how much I'd appreciate it when it's my turn.  The other thought that I suppose is heresy, is what the Buddhists believe--that every life comes from the same source.  When a baby is born a pinch of this "life" is created into a human.  When that person dies, that little pinch of life (along with its accumulated wisdom) goes back into the ball of original source.  It sounds nice to me, like being part of a world whole.  Whereas, we're all alone in this world when the bottom line gets drawn.  Whatever it is, it'll either be a big adventure or a silent hole of nothingness.  The nothingness thing is what people fear, I think.
            As a Christian, the options are heaven and hell.  And I know plenty about both of those.  It just makes me more satisfied to think my life would not have been in total vain if I were a tiny part of the whole world that would go on forever.  Heaven sounds safe and beautiful, doesn't make me feel useful.  I don't even want to talk about hell.
             And even though I know I make every effort to "fix" things gone wrong in lives I touch, I do it alone.  If it satisfies me and those I'm able to "fix," does it satisfy God?  After all, even through all my efforts at doing the right thing, I'm automatically a sinner because I'm alive.    That doesn't seem very "Christian" to me.
             It isn't I who must face this "adventure" alone, at least at this moment. But having lived almost 90% of my statistical life, it won't be long before I'll have to think about it if I'm able.

            I think I'd pray for grace. Grace from God as well as grace in handling the time I had left. I probably wouldn't accomplish grace since I'm such a wimp, but at least knowing perhaps would give me a chance to be in charge of what's left.

            It's sad to think about being mortal. It's been a long time getting here and time is easily forgotten. Mortals have the arrogance of thinking only about today and me, me, me. Put all things bad out of my mind and I can pretend it into never.

But I will miss my friend, for a hundred reasons.

CHATTAHOOCHEE DEAD EXCERPT

                                                        CHAPTER ONE

 

            Challenge sucked at Maria.  It tingled in an all-or-nothing opportunity to starve or crawl back to Phoenix.  Make the deal fit through the bunghole or starve.  Yay!  The nineties in north Georgia had been a grand old cherry pick for the real estate market.  Show three houses and one would sell.  That time was gone forever on pretty much a slide downhill ever since.   Last week she'd shown twenty-two houses to a couple.  They went back home to Michigan to think about it. 

            Land was a different story.  Nobody bought land who needed the magic commodity—a mortgage.  People without financing lined up weren’t looking.  Frantic from a ten-year wait at one percent interest, baby boomers fixing to retire had finally crawled out of their chrysalis, bringing their fortunes back to the land.  Tough enough to endure the game called Short Sale, accustomed to patience to wait out land appreciation, buyers were solid and Maria loved them. 

            Killer depression soared as she watched her over-leveraged friends fall one by one into a financial abyss inconceivable twenty years ago.  She'd been lucky...she didn't have anything to start with—nothing much to lose.  Life for Maria was a do-over, the new part was real estate, the old part a failed marriage.

            A Missing-In-Action boyfriend, sellers refusing to sell, lenders refusing to lend, a zero bank account and a recent chigger attack scrambled her brain.  She trudged through the woods on sun filtered mulch, hardwoods limbs overhead dressed in eighty shades of green.   Alone in a world straight from God. 

            Her Florida buyer, interested in seventy two acres of hardwoods for his retirement, would arrive Saturday.  When they’d walked the property, they could not determine the sidelines.  He didn’t want to pay for a new survey but didn’t want to put earnest money into a deal until he knew where its perimeter lay.  She needed the sale, so that meant scouring the land for old survey markings.

            His need for an emotional comfort level made the plat, tax records, seller confirmation, or at least ancient survey markings critical to this deal.  Best choice, she needed to find the listing agent who was off somewhere dancing the Macarena.

            She squinted at the sun, glanced at her watch and compass, looked north.  A glimpse of red stood out, forgotten storm debris.  The sun began to bake.  

            Ascending from a ground cover of leaves that lay as fallen for countless years, silver maple, hickory, sweetgum, and black oak towered over her.  Their magnificence made her woozy.   Her good fairy pretended to not notice when she stomped a poofy swollen mushroom that exploded into spores.  Her bad fairy’s eyes were closed.

            Before wearing its web on her face, she ducked a fat yellow bellied orbweaver perched in the middle of her path, suspended in time.   A length of barbed wire lay draped on the ground ahead, one end embedded in a red oak standing in for a corner fencepost.   She unfolded a land lot map and noted where she thought the corner tree stood.

            Seeing the Georgia woods in person, how impossibly close together the limitless trees grew, she visualized a tattered Confederate army, mostly shirtless and shoeless, running pell mell through the woods, long rifles in their hands and knives clenched in their teeth.  Impossibly gritty and what else?  Romantic?

            Georgia owners knew their land. A seller told her a recent description...”You know that red boulder next to the creek 200 yards from the road?  If you go east about 500 feet you come to a dead pine with no branches.  Turn south fifty feet and you’ll find some fine mushrooms.” 

            Better keep her mind on the present if she didn't want surprises.  She scanned the ground for snakes.   A knee tree artificially bent toward a dogtrot.  A little further on, a second one pointed toward something.... on the other side of wire fence remnants hillocks loomed six feet long and four feet wide in two rows.  In all she counted seven.  An Indian burial ground.  She wriggled through a dilapidated barbed wire fence and quietly approached the center mound. A piece of trash lay on the first grave among tall stalks of planted buttercup leaves, their blossoms gone for this year.

            She picked it up.

            No birds chattered, no leaves fluttered.  Ever present squirrels disappeared.  Long dead ancient eyes crept her.  A sudden violet burst of wind spurted adrenaline into her veins.  The sun folded behind a smudgy tin ceiling of thunderclouds.  She could taste being unwanted, even though in the back of her mind fresh dry earth lying exposed on top of the leaf cover at her feet was just wrong.  Funny.  The woods still dripped from last night’s shower.  She wanted to touch that rich dry dirt. 

             “RUN!” said her good fairy.

As Golden as the Anniversary

Lately my time has been spent in preparation of a huge anniversary party.  About midway through gathering snail mail addresses (think monster Christmas Card list,) having formal invitations printed, deciding on a cake and on the flowers and on the venue, it took on the aroma of a whole wedding.

I had to stop and think what I was doing here.  It seemed like I was having a huge party for myself for something I'd done already 49 times over 49 years.   When I let myself second guess me, I could see that there was no way we were going to get all our friends and relatives to come all the way to the outback of Georgia for a couple of drinks and some nachos, and this encouraged me to continue toward a bit of a gala affair.

Did I mention the retinue of party planners we've accumulated on that list of friends and relatives over the years?  Volunteers popped up from everywhere.  Who I loved before this event but whom I now cherish as thoughtful talented people who work toward creating beauty wherever they go.
Diane Kulish, in case you don't know her, is a delight.  She's like the girlfriend you had in fifth grade who was ready for anything.  Celeste Caudill surpasses all with her impish addition of delightful ideas such as pork crudites, water bottle labels with our old wedding pictures on it.  Gayle Horne, Terri Tragasser, Jeanne Tompkins supplied glassware, dishes, silverware, gorgeous serving trays and chafing dishes from their own homes and turned a plain old (but beloved) building into fairyland with gold tablecloths, covered chairs, trays and trays of cute foods.  Blankets of flowers reigned over the food tables and spread across the visiting tables like little blankets.  It smelled like an inside garden.

A raft of loved ones, Kate Brandt, Kirstin Pedersen, and the genius of Lorin Small threw  together fifty of these labeled bottles about an hour before the event.  Lording over all, presided a "wedding" cake filled with raspberry and ten gorgeous flower arrangements to die for, and a hundred of our best friends.  I didn't even know I HAD a hundred best friends.

Kate and Kirstin and Lorin also compiled old pictures from our albums for a slideshow that continued during the party at the Bowen Center for the Arts, such as these below.

Since after all our years we have friends from all over the universe, one of which is an ordained minister, we considered renewing our vows.  Then decided that should remain a one-time occasion, just as this one should.

We had a renewal of love and fun which everybody brought as a gift we will never forget.

When the pictures come in I'll post a few.

The Outpost

I'm reading "The Outpost" about an Afghanistan battle because a family very close to me pointed out .  Their son in law, Clint Romesha, was in that battle and is going to receiver the Medal of Honor on the 11th of February in Washington D.C. 

I thought I ought to try to understand the complicated story since it starte.d in 2004 and ended in 2008.
Anyway, the book is written very well so far.  I know because I pretty much can follow what the author has to say.

Clint was raised in a tiny town of about 500 up in the California extreme northeast.  He met and married into a family of six (now 15 more) tough people who have weathered storms of all kinds over the years.  At the time I met him he was a highschool kid wooing a girl from this family.  His father was a farmer in this valley 200 miles above Reno, Nevada. 

There was very little to attract a young family in that valley to stay for their lifetime.  It does have a post office, but only six other "business" buildings which include two restaurants and two grocery stores.  We carried a lunch and finally found the place in the outback of the Nevada high desert at tje California line after these people moved there.  Our friendship went beyond the boundary of extreme isolation.

I never really knew Clint.  But this I can tell you...anybody who can live and thrive in the environment where he was raised has what we used to call "grit."  Inhospitable winters, no resources they didn't supply for themselves. It came in handy when he became a hero of the grandest sort.  I can tell you his acts were against all odds, with our military working in its inefficient fashion, keeping its fighters in the dark about reasons for putting their lives in sure harms way for a questionable war.

I expect Clint feels more badly about the men he could not save than receiving a medal so many years later for making the best possible decisions under an impossible situation.  I've known some heros just like him, who remain unsung.  It's a pleasure to see one of them honored.

Apology

Because of personal problems and the holidays, my horse painting project was suddenly stopped.
I have three paintings and a mural  I've fallen behind with, and I still have not heard about the status of "Chattahoochee Dead" which was sent to my preferred publisher in September 2012.  Latest word says their readers are still in process of reading it.  I have no idea if this means there are 20 readers who pass the manuscripts around or if one person reads it, gives their opinion about its saleability and sends it back to the main office only to be sent to another reader.  I did start another book, but like the paintings, it has been put on hold as well.

I hope to put the next stage of the horse painting here in the near future.

My view of The Stand by Stephen King

I have to wonder at Mr. King.  He writes so beautifully, with word pictures that pull the reader into the story.  His characters are distinctive.  His plot is well thought out and interesting.  However.
My book club chose The Stand for November, and I really tried hard to do it justice.  But the man's mind is too full of the worst of the human experience.  The book, of course, is about "good" vs
"evil" personified by a "good" old woman with visions and a satanic leader/cult of mind controlling
abilities to make people draw up sides as to whether they will sell their souls to the devil or not.

If there was any disgusting thing one human might do to another, it was brought to life in that book.
It was 400 pages too long, which was not necessary, and when I started getting nightmares from it I knew I was through trying to slog through the deprivation.

Why would he write a book like that?