Tag: random

Fire and rain

I’m determined not to obsessively check weather updates over the next few days, but it’s hard. Hurricane Hilary seems pretty nasty and could bring flooding along the south Pacific coast and also to several western states that normally don’t deal with this kind of weather event. It could also exacerbate the excessive heat the southwest and midwest are experiencing, AND ultimately contribute to the wildfire issues the northwest coast is grappling with. We’ve just seen how hurricane-spawned winds can impact an area as it did with Hawaii.

Since I’m still not ready to jump into writing the seventh book of the Neverending Saga, I’m continuing my binge watching of “Suits.” I spent a goodly portion of my adult life working with and for attorneys in many settings: family and probate, corporate, environmental, commercial real estate, and financial. Still, I can’t say how accurate “Suits” is in matters of law–I’m watching for the characters, narrative arcs, and witty banter. It’s been a good diversion throughout August.

Watching television always comes with a sense of guilt for me. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because many years of my adult life were spent without even owning a TV. I was never one of those people who turns on a TV as soon as I got home or woke up or settled down for the night. I watched sitcoms in the Nineties so I could join in “water cooler” conversations at work. I’ve rarely been able to adhere to a weekly schedule to watch shows, so streaming services are ideal for me. There are some shows Tom and I have watched together in the evenings. “Downton Abbey,” “Yellowstone,” “The Crown,” and “Bridgerton” come to mind in most recent years, and also a few comedy series, but even with all those, I tend to watch them either when the entire series has completed or at least when a season is complete. In years past, I did that with “Absolutely Fabulous,” “Sex and the City,” and “West Wing.”

Maybe to offset guilt, when I’m watching shows solo, I often multitask by doing something creative at the same time. This morning, I washed a quilt we throw over the sofa in the office and call “the dog quilt,” since it’s mostly to protect the sofa from the dogs. It has lots of worn places and dog-gnawed places, so I’ve brought out the plaid and patterned cotton fabric to begin cutting squares to start patching those spots today while I watch “Suits.”

The mending doesn’t have to be pretty–the dogs won’t care. This will give the quilt a few more years of use, which is better than letting it end up in a landfill.

In the season of “Suits” I’m watching now, a new character showed up and I kept wondering why I immediately liked him and felt like I knew him. Finally I looked him up and realized the actor, Dulé Hill, played Charlie Young on “West Wing” and was one of my favorite characters.

Another character showed up played by an actor who isn’t familiar to me, Scott Lawrence. I looked him up, and he’s been in lots of movies and TV shows, some of which I’m familiar with but never watched.

In researching him, I discovered that a LOT of people think this actor could portray Barack Obama. I see the similarities, but to me, he looks more like one of my Action Figure Obamas–this one:

That’s the 2007 candidate Obama manufactured by Jailbreak Toys®. I prefer the 2018 Factry© President Obama (also manufactured and distributed by Jailbreak Toys®). His hair, like many presidents, shows how the responsibilities and gravity of the office aged him.

Enough playing around. Tom just brought me the clean, dry, folded quilt. Time to start cutting fabric then sewing to the accompaniment of characters who can give me a refreshing break from the ones who live in my head without paying me a dime, despite the wealth several of them enjoy.

I know, I know

I previously posted a photo here of a painting called Piano Man. It looks like something I’d use for Mood Monday, but music I’m listening to made me look up art with pianos. The red guitar was a bonus. The painting is oil on canvas done in 2019 by Adriaan Lotter.

I need to leave the names below so I can find them again later. They’re helping me start the seventh book. I’m hoping their mid-century, easy-listening instrumental music is what I’m looking for.

Les Baxter
Ray Conniff
Martin Denny
Percy Faith
Heinz Kiessling
Sven Libaek
Henry Mancini
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani
Piero Piccioni
Tito Puente
Nelson Riddle
George Shearing
Werner Tautz
Cal Tjader

Since I gave you something pretty to see, I’ll leave you with something pretty (titled “It Never Entered My Mind”) to hear. =)

Inspirations (a blog post on hold)

On Saturday, like many of us, my eyes have been on the news about Hawaii. I just read that the death toll has risen to 89, and that number is expected to increase. The property damage is extensive, some of it to historic places.

Earlier in the day, I spent a lot of time writing a blog post and inserting photos, and when I went to do some editing, changes to the blog host’s features caused me to lose all my work. I was upset for a while and decided to take a break before I rewrote it. Now I know it can wait until next week.

I’d rather acknowledge that our fellow citizens in Hawaii are suffering. I know people who live in Hawaii, and I hope to figure out something I can do, or where to donate, instead of focus on things that don’t matter a lot in the scheme of things. This link to a Washington Post article provides links to reputable aid efforts.

Much love to our beautiful state of Hawaii and its residents. Aloha.

Watermelon sugar


Today is National Watermelon Day! Lindsey has grown some sprouts from seeds and given a couple to Debby, the plant person of Houndstooth Hall.

Today, I am the RELAX person at Houndstooth Hall, so a bit of watermelon and some cherries fit right in with my plan: drink water and start training my eyes to read with the new bifocals while delving into this 2016 biography of Randy Newman that I’ve had on the shelf since February of ’22.

It’s like my third rendezvous with watermelon this week. This one on Sunday:

And this brunch on either Monday or Tuesday of watermelon, veggies with ranch dip, hummus with pita chips, and walnuts.

I wonder if I can read and listen to Harry Styles at the same time.

Good goin’, stranger

Post title is a quote from Madonna, as Susan, in the film Desperately Seeking Susan, a movie I still enjoy and watched again as recently as some point during the pandemic. This post that showed up on Instagram is what made me think of it, and I have a similar story to share.

It was likely early in 2008 when I made a small shopping list and went to Kroger. This was at the point when I was having such severe back pain (later diagnosed as caused by swollen disks and hairline vertebral fractures) that I wasn’t able to do much. It was also during the last few months of my mother’s life, when she was getting hospice visits in her residential care home, was admitted to hospice for a short period to provide respite care to me, and then was admitted permanently to hospice before she died in June.

I was also under deadline to turn in my second Coventry novel, which my editor blessedly extended to take some of the pressure off of me.

Clearly, I was under a lot of stress while dealing with physical pain. One of the things on my shopping list that evening was Velveeta (TexMex queso night!). Though I had a few of my items in my cart, I couldn’t find this on any shelves or in any dairy case, and I was leaning on my cart, taking as much pressure off my back as I could, until I froze in the way pain can have of making a body lock. Tears of frustration and pain streamed down my face, and a Kroger employee who’d come from one of the back rooms to restock something saw me. He immediately came to me and helped me to a patio table display so that I could sit down. I knew I sounded stupid when I said, “I can’t find the Velveeta.”

“I know where it is; what size do you need?” he asked.

Then he took my shopping list from my hand, handed me my purse from the cart, and took the cart and the list through the store to find everything remaining on my list. When he came back, he helped me up, pushed my cart to check-out, and grabbed a bagger to make sure I had help out to my car.

Of course I thanked him profusely, still crying as I can do when someone’s kind when I’m already in melt-down mode, and thanked the cashier and bagger, too, for their help.

His actions that day are often the reason I notice other people showing patience and kindness in similar situations. There may be no videos of those moments on social media, and if anyone even shares a story (as I’ve just shared mine), there’ll most often be cynical and jaded comments along the line of, “Things that never happened!” as if people are never kind to strangers. I think even believing in kindness makes us more likely to see it and show it.

Saturday summary


An attempt to order new glasses didn’t work earlier this week (though I did pick up other stuff I needed or wanted), but today, I had greater success! Hopefully will have new glasses in about a week, and the headaches I get after I read and edit on or off the computer will go away. I’ve downloaded a couple of ebooks I’m looking forward to reading at some point.

It’s weird to realize I haven’t worn eye makeup since the beginning of June. I haven’t driven at night in more months than I can remember. I haven’t driven myself in any direction too far from our neighborhood since surgery, probably a half-dozen times. Debby doesn’t drive, so Tom and Tim have picked up slack, and Tim has been without a car twice during that time.


Requires a lot of logistics, especially since all the dogs except Pixie have needed varying degrees of vet care (even if just annual checkups) or grooming services. And Debby, Tom, and I have all had routine doctor appointments in addition to all my eye appointments.

Finished editing and printing the third book in the saga, and am well along in the same process for the fourth. While all that’s happening, my brain is busy looking forward to writing the seventh book.

Eva says your glasses size can match your courage or your face. Guess which she chose…

Tiny Tuesday!


It’s work to love, but the small print is tough. I have post-surgery prescriptions for both my bifocals and my computer glasses, and you’d think after several months of vision misery, I’d have raced to get my new pairs of glasses. But you’d reckon without the heat, the other demands on my time, and my currently-limited driving.

I’ve reread the first book in the saga, made edits, and it’s ready to print. Today I start my reread of the second book. I’ve learned I need to pick my glasses from my (top to bottom) older bifocals, computer, and last year’s bifocals, because what may seem to work is not always the best choice, and even when I pick the best choice, my eyes easily tire, and moving on to a different pair helps. I plan to take a day’s break between each manuscript I read.

The novels themselves are a pleasure to revisit, however. Looking forward to the day they’ll be ready to release to 1. no fanfare 2. a world that barely reads 3. no way to classify as a genre to find an audience 4. no publisher/industry oversight 5. the potential distaste from anyone who liked what I’ve written before 6. the people who do read but don’t read ebooks 7. this is a list that can go on and on and on and it’s not unique to me. Writing is not a best choice for the faint of heart or the glory seeker or the person who just wants to be a storyteller telling stories about people who are all storytellers in their individual ways.

Saturday chill


Yesterday was a challenging day, and it’s just so freaking hot here, like everywhere, that when I finally settled in last night, I decided to open up my ebook of Carolyn Haines’s latest Sarah Booth Delaney mystery set on the Mississippi Delta, Tell-Tale Bones. I just kept reading and reading and finished to realize it was around three am. Oops!

Still woke up a bit early, so I decided to make it a gentle kind of work day in front of the fan with lots of water nearby.


For one thing, after that big writing sanctuary reorg and cleanup a couple of weeks back, I put my day planner, for which I use Patti Smith’s book as a reflection point, above my eye level. Thus I was something like eighteen days behind in making entries. But there were lots of things I wanted to make note of during those days (like, for example, the birth of our grand-niece!), so I applied myself to getting everything up to date.

On a whim, I pulled the 300 Things To Make Me Happy book off the shelf, too, and flipped through it until I came to this page and answered the questions.

Recently, when I was organizing some craft bins, I found a bunch of 30-year-old iron-on transfers that I’m sure are way past their usable date. Instead of tossing them, I decided to save them as coloring pages.

I colored this one today and kinda love him.

Now I’m ready to read and make small changes to the first book in the Neverending Saga. I hope this is a fast process for all first five books. Then I’ll be ready to input my edits to the sixth and move on to writing number seven!

Hope you’re all having a comfortable Saturday, whatever the weather’s doing where you are. Please stay hydrated!