December 14, 2009 - Birthday today and what went on yesterday

Today is my beautiful wife's birthday! "Happy Birthday, sweetheart!" (That's me, yelling to tell her that since it's difficult to hear in the utility room where she's doing the washing) "Is breakfast ready yet?" I ask... politely.

Yesterday evening, we had a very special event in our family. Our oldest son, Shawn, was baptized! This is not a small event. He is 43 years old, and it was something he chose to do, and was something we heartily supported him doing as it was something he really wanted.

We received a Sunday paper, probably by mistake since we don't subscribe, or as one person told us, it probably floated down to our driveway from someone else's what with all the rain we had. For the second time in less than a week we had a great deal of standing water in our yard. I fear that all the grass seed I put down in a few weeks ago has probably drowned by now. I guess I'll see come spring. It probably ended up in my driveway which is the only place where it seems to grow very well.

Back to the paper! I'm glad that there still are newspapers around considering that many are having a problem with loosing subscribers, advertisers, etc.. And I know that much of their income is derived from advertisers. In spite of that, I still wonder why do we end up with fourteen pounds of ads, and two ounces of news? I did use parts of the newspaper in spring to put around the roses and shrubs to prevent weeds from growing in there. That didn't work very well, either. They grew in the mulch I put over the newspaper. We do receive the daily paper, Monday through Sunday. That's so my wife can do the crossword puzzles so she can stay mentally sharp. I think it's obvious that I don't do them...

Yesterday it was cold with heavy rain most of the day. Until last evening when, believe it or not, it stopped, and within less than 20 minutes it was clear out! Literally! not a cloud in the sky! Amazing!

Yesterday was Sunday, and what is Sunday but one of the days when we grab our stack of current reading material and head to Starbucks! I told my wife that as nasty as it was out, they should reward us in some way for being such good customers. Once there, there were a few people inside, but not many. That changed during the course of the afternoon, but even so, the noise level did not deter us from our reading. And, Starbucks had those great cookies with the frosting on them! I became addicted to those last year, and then, suddenly, they stopped carrying them. I had to wait an entire year before they returned. And, I don't know if this is just a short time presence, or they will be there for a while. I guess we'll see.

Last night while I was taking my break from sleeping, I watched an ad about a DVD put together on a show called 'The Midnight Special", music from the seventies! Seeing all those bands and musicians from back them was interesting. I especially thought Rod Stewart in this suspenders, bright green shirt, and yellow, silky pants (at least that's what I remember - it was 2:30 am) and long dark hair, was something else. And then, on top of that, CBS Sunday morning had an interview with Paul McCartney (?). He's my age! But, he can still sing. He talked about the Beatles, and I thought back to where I had first heard them and what I was doing...

I was in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was 1962. I was in a place named "The Dixie Bar", dancing with a young Danish lady people referred to as "Monkey". We were dancing to, what else, one of the first Beatles songs I had ever heard. This was a good two years before they landed in America! When I heard them here I thought they were old hat, not realizing this was their first visit in the states, and that their music was not played here very often prior to that.

If you're like me and wonder why they referred to the young lady as "Monkey", well, unfortunately I learned that by asking others. The reply was, "Didn't you see the needle marks in her arms? She's a heroin junky!" I hadn't. A few days after that, she was arrested for prostitution because she did not have a card indicating she had a regular job. Back then, the Danish police felt that if a young lady did not have a job, she must be hooking to make a living, and it was prohibited. Sad to think of all the people who have given away their lives because of drugs or alcohol.

I will take my leave on that sad note, remembering that today is really a very happy day, for my wife and me. My wife, because it's her birthday, and me because I am privileged to be able to spend it with her. I intend on taking the redistributed wealth stimulus money I received from the "gubmint" and take my wife out for dinner... right... Hope she likes Big Macs...

December 13, 2009 Bits and pieces - some little miracles.

I woke up this morning, thankfully, and realized that I had slept through the entire night without waking up for one reason or another!

We won some money in the lottery yesterday. Afterward, we were out shopping, or my wife was, I was sitting on a bench enjoying the nice weather, and I started watching these young boys, cub scouts, ringing the bell near a Salvation Army collection kettle. They were really enthusiastic about it, showing each other the different ways they could ring the bells. It was fun watching them. When my wife returned, and we headed to another store, I told her I was so impressed with the young men's abilities I was going to place all our winnings in the kettle. She thought that was a good idea. So, as we walked towards the boys, I removed my wallet, and thoroughly enjoyed removing our winnings, rolling them up, and pushing the two dollars into the kettle! Hey! No comments! It was not much, but it was something.

We bought a Christmas tree yesterday. It's still on the porch. I guess at some point, preferably before Christmas, I'll have to put it up. I get to set it into the stand, and then drag it in through the door while it retaliates by dropping needles all over the place. After that, I get to put the electric lights on it and hope they all work. Then, my wife and anyone who has the urge, hangs all the coloured balls. Once that is completed, we all live happily ever after - until the day after Christmas when we reverse the process and the tree drops even more needles on the floor as I drag it out of the house.

Many times when I am doing something that requires little or no thinking, which is often, I remember things from the past. This morning, I was thinking of things that happened while we were in the company of our grandchildren.

The most recent was when our handsome grandson, Peyton Michael, was sitting on my lap. He stood up and looked at me and asked, "Grandpa, where's your hair?" To which I replied, "Unfortunately, it's all over the place."

One of our granddaughters, Devin Rose, has become a ten year old grammar teacher. We were in a restaurant recently waiting for a table. After several people ahead of us were seated, she looked at me and asked -

"When are we going to be seated?"

"Very shortly," I replied. "There's still a few people ahead of us."

She looked at me and said, "Grandpa, you use bad grammar."

"What do you mean?" I asked, faking indignation.

"You should have said 'There are several people ahead of us'".

To which I replied, "Well, what if there were only one?"

"Then you should have said 'There is still a person ahead of us'."

I knew then this was the kid I wanted to edit my writing!

At least I wasn't the only one she corrects. She and her father were having a discussion, and Devin said something, to which her father, Patrick, said "Are you implying....". Devin replied, "Don't you mean 'infer'?"

Then there was the time several years back, when we took our granddaughters swimming. I was, well, I weighed a tad bit more than I do now, oh all right!, I weighed much more than I do now, but anyway, they were in the water yelling for me to get in. So, I stripped off my shirt and jumped in. When I came up from under water, Shannon, who was around eight at the time took one look at me and said, "Grandpa! That's gross! Put your shirt back on!" It's so nice to loved...

And then there's Hannah. She is twelve now, going on 35, but in a very nice, interesting way. We were spending some time with her after we had dropped off Devin at her dance class. I asked Hannah what she wanted to do. She said she didn't know, and asked what we wanted to do. I told her, "I want to go to Paris." She piped right up from the back seat with, "That works!"

The beauty of grandchildren is that most of us do not have to spend the time making sure they are fed, clothed, and have a roof over their heads. Grandparents then have the pleasure, and luxury, of really listening to them, and watching them. Their expressions say so much. For me, grandchildren are the reward for raising our children.

Another great thing about them is the fact that they are honest about what they say to you. I have yet to encounter a comment from one of them that was spoken in anger, or maliciously, at least to me. It's almost too bad they have to grow up, become adults and see how shallow and false many adults are.

December 12, 2009 - The best laid plans...

One of the things I used to think about when I worked was having the time to spend doing what I wanted to do, which at the time was write and return to watercolor painting. I imagined myself spending the morning writing, and the afternoons sitting at my table turning out fantastic watercolor paintings with the hope of turning a bit of a profit when people saw how great they were.

Once retired, reality set it. I have not disciplined myself to write in the mornings, and paint in the afternoon. Excuses range from "I'm not ready yet" to "I'll start that next week," even though I realize that I may not have next week. Since I have retired, I have completed several drawings, and a single painting. The painting is okay, and it was done from a photo I took in Bayeux, France when we were there last year, but it is overly detailed, and I can't say I really like it enough to have it framed for selling.

Such is reality. We think one thing when we cannot do what we think about, but when given the time, how many of us actually do what we thought about? I guess this is where the word "passion" plays into our lives. I used to wonder why my sons, all gifted with really great ability in art, never did anything with it.

Our one son is now a chef. He is great at drawing cartoons. I have mentioned several times that there is no cartoon that I know of that involves a chef working in a restaurant, so why doesn't he apply his artistic ability into creating one? Now that I have the time to do what I want, but haven't, I've come to understand that in order to do things, and stick with it, one has to have a passion for it. I guess he just isn't as passionate about a comic strip about chefs as I am about having him do one. I need only to look at myself to see where his lack of drawing passion comes from.

Another son used to draw a lot when he was younger, but except for a few designs he has drawn, he has spent his time devoted to being a great policeman. He now has reached the point where he is instructing others to be good policemen.

Our third, and last son, received his degree in art from VCU. We have one of his amazing brush and ink paintings hanging in our living room. He did no preliminary drawing with this work, simply used a brush, and ink. Had I done anything like that there would be imprints of whiteout everywhere from the mistakes I made. But, even with his ability, and love of art, he prefers to run his comic store, immersing himself into the art and business of comics. He is hoping to be able to teach at VCU one day, if not as a professor, than as a person they refer to as an adjunct something-or-other.

I was never really one who tried to pressure any of our sons to do anything other than what they wanted to do. Their lives are not mine to live. The good part of all this is that they are doing what they want, and seem to be passionate about what they are doing. Passion is definitely something I did not have in my career, such as it was, in the world of IT. There were many days when I went to work where I had this desire to lift my terminal or laptop over my head and throw the thing through the window. But, having responsibilities, I did not do it. Oh, there were times I actually did enjoy it, but those were few and far between. Not only that, but after being in the field for several decades it was just doing the same thing over and over and over. The objective never really changed. Languages changed, terminology changed, but the fact remained - you have input, you process it to get a result, and the result is output. Simple. And boring. Except for learning, writing different stories, and creating art, all jobs are repetitive. I respect those who do have a passion about something and wish I had been able to have spent the greater part of my life being passionate about something as well.

Well, perhaps I will now start looking into actually doing what I keep saying I enjoy. I really do enjoy drawing and painting. I enjoy writing, and am writing, which is good. I need to reassess my wants, and establish some sort of schedule that will not allow me to make excuses for not doing things. I have a wealth of photos of people I want to draw. I only need to get off my ass, at least long enough to set it down at my table, and get busy! Unfortunately, it will have to be next week. Today is shopping day - grocery, Christmas, etc., etc., and later, over to a friends house for the evening...

December 11, 2009 - Best Laid Plans

When I thought about retirement I imagined all these things I was going to do. First and foremost was getting my first book published. This plan was what I would have to term as a plan put into effect with extremely bad timing. The economic downturn was in full swing when I retired, but I chose to retire anyway, and would again, regardless.

Once I retired, I polished up the book, wrote a summary, several in fact, wrote an author's bio, and a query letter. I purchased a book on agents, and started at the beginning of the category the book fell into, initially suspense, ending up in mainstream.

The first e-mail query I sent out was responded to within a half hour. I was amazed, and shocked, as I was not fully prepared for a response that quick. I replied to the agent and sent them what they requested, which included a summery that had not been completed. We corresponded back and forth several times, with the agent sending me some extremely helpful information. The manuscript at that time was over 105,000 words.

Along with helpful comments about shortening the length and finishing the summary, she said that she really liked the premise of the book, but that at the current time, what with the economy being what it was, it was very difficult for a first time author to break into print.

So it went. I sent out around 50 queries, some e-mail, some snail mail. I received many standard replies, but I also received some definite encouragement. The encouragement came from agents that had some interest in the story, but again indicated that it was really difficult for an unknown to break into print. Several suggested I go right to the publishers, as they were not taking on new clients unless you knew someone in the business that would assist. I didn't. And, I don't.

Finally, after nine months of "close, but no cigar", I decided to retrench. I reverted to writing short stories and sending them off to contests. The first one I sent to Writer's Digest Short Story contest finished in the top 100. When I received the certificate I found that the word 'artist', a word in the title of the story, was misspelled on the certificate. Coming from a writer's magazine it makes one wonder...

I then wrote three short short stories, stories under 1500 words, and sent them off to the Writer's Digest Short Short contest. If anything comes of those I will not know until sometime in late January of 2010.

In the meantime, I intend to continue to write short stories, and submit them for publication. I have had some success in this in the past, and hope there will be more in the future.

Also, on the book front, I will continue to research my second book, a sequel to the first, and begin writing that sometime in the second quarter of 2010. As for the first book - the title is "The Girl Who Lived In Colours" - I intend on submitting directly to publishers starting in the second quarter of 2010 as well. I have no intention on quitting the attempt to have this published. The length has been reduced to around 90,000 words, and several things changed to tighten up the story. I will make one more pass through it starting after the holidays while I am researching publishers.

So the dream of sitting in Barnes and Nobles, or Borders, or the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, anywhere for that matter, is something I was not able to fulfill this year, but I do have that to look forward to, perhaps in 2010. We will see.

In the meantime - keep writing! Keep reading!

And drawing - more on that plan later...

December 10, 2009 - Books and bookstores

I am a book collector. Not in the sense that I collect rare volumes. I just see books at the bookstore I'd like to read some day, and the next thing I know I am trying to find someplace to stack it. I have many, many books yet to read, and so have adopted the stance that I will not buy any more until I read all the ones I already have. Since I have so much time on my hands what with being retired, I felt that I have plenty of time to read. Well, that's true in a sense, but then most of us really don't know how much time we have... left, that is.

Having been in Spain just a year ago, I found myself interested in reading novels with the setting in Spain. I have read 'Winter in Madrid', written by C. J. Sansom, a German author. The book sold over 2 million copies in Europe, but few people over here ever heard of it.

Another of the books I have had for a while is titled 'The Spanish Bow', written by Andromeda Romano-Lax. The name of the author was enough to entice me to purchase this book, along with the setting of the story, which is Spain. The story involves a man's love of a bow for the cello that was sent to him as a young boy by his father. It was sent from Cuba prior to his father being killed during the Spanish-American war. The stories time period covers Spain before, during, and after the Spanish Civil War fought in the late thirties before the advent of World War II.

Anyway, when reading these two books I saw many references to Don Quixote, written by Miguel de Cervantes. While in Madrid, we saw that all the shops that tourists frequent sell statues, posters, what have you, of the 'Don'. This led me to develop an interest in perhaps reading the book, which I had never done. So, instead of going to the library and borrowing a copy of it, I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased a paperback copy. It's a good thing I did, as the book is over 800 pages long, and at the rate I'm reading, will take about three months. I find it interesting that the story is so well written, and is very funny in parts while at the same time it makes one feel sad because of Don Quixote's probable dementia. One loses the fact that the story first appeared in 1615.

Taking so long to read this book makes it seem like I don't really read that much, given the time I have. However, at the same time I am reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'August 1914 - The Red Wheel', which is also over 800 pages. This one, though, is being read at a faster pace, and should be completed in less than 2 months.

Along with the books I am reading, I am also reading writer's magazines, since I write as well as read.

I have several bookstores that I consider my favorites. By my ranking, they are:

Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont - I could spend days in there!,

Manteo Booksellers in Manteo, North Carolina; Manteo is on Roanoke Island, the sound side of the

Outer Banks,

Shakespeare and Company, on the Left Bank in Paris, France, and

The Red Wheelbarrow, on the Right Bank in Paris, France.

The last two, I could spend the rest of my life in. Were it not for young grandchildren, we would sell our house and be gone!

However, since we cannot be in Paris, we opt for spending several afternoons a week, usually Wednesday and Sunday, sitting in Starbucks, sipping on lattes or frappes, reading. This is where I do the bulk of my reading. My wife is a voracious reader, reading many more books than I do. She has the ability to read well into the night long after I have fallen asleep after reading perhaps 5 to 10 pages.

As long as I am breathing and able, I will never stop enjoying the feel of a book in my hands. I think it is sad to see so many people getting into their electronic books. There is something magical about opening the cover of a real book to the first page, and then turning page after page to discover what happens, seeing the number of pages read overcome and pass the halfway point of a book until, at last, one is at the end. It can bring about a feeling of satisfaction, even sadness if the book was so good you didn't want it to end.

On the other hand, at least the people with the electronic books are reading. But, I wonder, do they feel anything while they read, or do they just see words on a screen they really do not relate to?

December 9, 2009 - Opening Day

I'm known as a senior citizen. I have pondered over this for a few years trying to determine what is it that denotes a "senior citizen". Is it age, the fact that I am older than 60? Is it the fact that I'm retired? Is it the way I look, or act, or the things I believe in? To me, it is none of those, and it is all of those. I am classified as a senior citizen because someone, probably someone under the age of 40, decided that everyone must be part of a group, such as a "baby boomer" or "generation this", or "generation that", and this is the one I have been placed into.

Regardless of what "group" I am in, the definition of my classification as a senior citizen could remove the part on age. I say that because I have found that the majority of "young" people - those under 40 - stopped paying attention to anything I said long before I reached the age of 60. This, of course, does not refer to my children who stopped listening long before that.

To me, my age simply records the number of seasons, or moons, that I have walked the earth - or driven, flown, ran, or crawled over it.

They could also remove the part about being retired. Had I been able, I would have retired

fifty years ago, at the ripe old age of 17. I wonder if I would have been referred to as a senior

citizen if I had? Work, for me, was exactly that, work. Oh, there were times when I enjoyed it,

but those seconds and minutes were few and far between. I worked in the field of information

technology. It was an interesting field, and I owe a lot to having worked in it. However, my

problem was not the field I worked in, it was that I had to work at all. My perfect career would

not have been work to me. My perfect career would have been that of a professional appreciator.

It would have been my job to hire out to someone who was a workaholic and made a lot of

money. In their place I would go about appreciating the things they did not want to take the

time to appreciate, such as traveling to different parts of the world, trying different foods, going

to Broadway shows or musicals. It could have even been taking the spouse, or family, out for a

night on the town. Any and all of these things would of course be expensed, and added to my

hourly rate for such events. The amount charged would have been directly related to what it was,

and who all would be involved. Unfortunately, I thought about this after I worked for over 35

years, and by then I was old enough to know I didn't want to become involved in appreciating

anything with someone else's family.

Perhaps I am classed as a senior citizen because of the way I act. I have found, as most if not

all have found, that as senior citizens, each year that passes, it takes a little longer to rise from

ones seat, and several seconds, etc., to move after that. However, once upright and movement

has begun, it is pretty much back to normal speed.

As for looks, well, there's not a whole lot I can do about that. My hairline has receded back

to where I can no longer see it, except on the sides. There are still a few strands of hair that

show up as having colour to them, but I think most of that is in my eyes, and not in actuality. My

two year old grandson asked me recently where my hair was, and all I could think of was that it

was all over the places I've been.

As for the things I believe in as a senior, I will go into those over time as I add to my blog.

I am also going to write about anything that pops into my head, about the past, the way I have

lived my life, such as it is, the places I've visited over the years, and the things I did that

many others would not dare to do. I have lived on a day to day basis most of my life, and did not

listen to the doomsayers, or planners of futures. Irresponsible? Perhaps. Perhaps it will come

back to haunt me as my remaining time passes by. Perhaps it won't. In either case, I have not

many regrets to this point and can only look to myself should things turn out to have been the

wrong path. But then, when the decision was made, how would I ever know it was the wrong

path?