Category Archives: miscellaneous bits

02/19/2020 · 10:56 pm

Resignation and, well, resignation

I made a tough decision last week, but one that had been a long time coming, to be honest. After 16 years of membership, including two years serving on the board of my local chapter, I resigned my membership in both RWA and that chapter. This will not surprise those who have been following this debacle since the events that came to light on December 23. Those who don’t care and have not been following along . . . well, you won’t care about my reasons and, frankly, you’re better for not knowing.

But just in case there is some third group of people who do care and don’t know what I’m talking about, or in case you just want to see what I sound like when I’m being all stern and serious, here’s a link to the twitter thread where I posted a portion of my resignation letter.

I normally wouldn’t share something like that publicly, even though many other writers have done so. But part of the problem with RWA is the dearth of communication and lack of transparency about process and decisions. So it felt important to be clear and open about my decision and the reasons behind it. After 16 years, I figure I’ve earned the right to Say Some Things.

As I mentioned, this has been a long time coming, a response to deep-seated bigotry and discrimination in RWA that might never be resolved. I expected to feel some degree of loss or remorse or maybe have second thoughts. Interestingly, I don’t. It’s more a feeling of immense relief. RWA is not my problem anymore.

It’s a heavy toxic weight off my shoulders, a clearing of brain space, a freeing up of energy. Much needed.

*   *   *

And then there’s the other definition of resignation, which I also dealt with around the same time:

“2. the acceptance of something undesirable but inevitable.” – Dictionary online

I refer, of course, to my trees. Specifically, to my trees, and parts thereof, falling.

OK, here’s something you might not know about me: I have fears.

Everyone: We knew that.

Me: FEARS, I tell you.

Everyone: Yes, we’re aware.

Me: Good. Glad we cleared that up.

Mostly these fears involve storms, especially storms with high winds. I refuse to qualify these fears as phobias — which I also have, thanks brain — because they aren’t irrational. And they’re different from general anxiety — which I also have, thanks again brain — because they’re specific.

I’m trying to be less fearful and more resigned to the fact that if you have tall pines and massive oak trees in your yard, and I do, and you also live in an area where occasionally there are storms with strong winds, and I do, eventually those trees are going to fall. And they do.

Obviously, it just serves to reinforce my fears, rather than alleviate them, when this happens.

It’s always disorienting to look out the window and see a large piece of tree or a root ball in a place where it doesn’t belong. My poor flowering cherry tree, getting crushed like that. There’s a fraction of a second when your brain refuses to accept what it’s seeing. “How can that possibly be there?”

Followed swiftly by, “How much is it going to cost and how quickly can I get that mess cut up and hauled away before the city gives me a citation for blocking sidewalk traffic?”

Partial answer: Before noon the next day, for the cutting up part. Impressive response time, yard guys. And see how neatly they piled it up?

Still waiting for them to find time in their schedule to come back and haul it away. And send me the bill.

Luckily, as you can see if you look waaaaay up (I’m guessing that’s about 80 feet up, on a 110-foot-tall tree), losing a limb of that size didn’t damage or weaken the pine tree AT ALL.

Probably the rest of it won’t come crashing down with the next strong wind. Or heavy heaping of snow.

Did I mention tomorrow’s forecast is for some unknown description and quantity of wintry precipitation? It might be anything from some light cold rain to perhaps several inches of snow. Or maybe just sleet. Or freezing rain that clings to branches and weighs them down and . . .

*twitch*

So far, I’m one-for-two on achieving various definitions of resignation this month. Fingers crossed I don’t get the opportunity for more practice any time soon.

 

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04/20/2019 · 5:48 pm

Between Seasons

We had severe storms here yesterday, as predicted, with heavy rain and strong wind gusts and multiple tornado warnings in areas all around me that lasted for hours. It’s unsettling how quickly tornados pop up and how fast they move, unlike a hurricane that you can see coming for days.

Graphic credit: WRAL.com

Today is sunny and cool and breezy, a storm-washed crispness in the air usually only felt in the fall. I’m fortunate that debris cleanup in my yard will be minimal. A few small branches, several downed clumps of fragile new leaves, a scattering of maple “helicopters” and oak tassels carpeting the deck.

The blossoms from the flowering cherry tree are blown or washed away from where they adorned the sidewalk just last week.

A small child (I assume; perhaps a playful adult) helped with the first pile of petals, an unexpected bit of “artful destruction” that made me smile.

A few weeks earlier, the dark bark and purple blossoms of a redbud stood out against a thick morning fog. So hard to capture a good picture of elusive fog (especially with my amateur photography “skills”).

The dogwoods are mostly done blooming and in full leaf now, the azaleas and camellias hanging on to a few stubborn displays of red and coral and white among new growth.

Signs of spring in the process of giving way to eventual summer.

I’m sitting here with the back door open, listening to birds and the lull of distant traffic. Too wet still for the intrusive drone of leaf blowers or lawn mowers, an occasional gust brings the rustle of young leaves and, no doubt, our persistent spring pollen through the screen.

The breeze is cool enough that the cat is curled up in a chair, burrowed into a carelessly thrown blanket, snoring softly.

It’s a quiet afternoon.

I’m feeling the kind of melancholy that is more pensive or nostalgic than true sadness. Memories are there along the edges my mind, as are plans and anticipation, the past and the future, pushing gently or pulling insistently as is their wont. I acknowledge both, allow neither, pausing for a moment in the now. Between seasons, as it were.

 

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10/24/2017 · 3:04 am

From chaos to quiet, a family story

It’s been a quiet week in my hometown . . .

Okay, fine, it’s been way more than a week. It also hasn’t been particularly quiet.

Where did we leave off? Looks like mid-August. Well, since then, my daughter and her husband found a house they loved, made a successful bid for it and bought it. No one was allowed to talk about it until it was a done deal, for fear of jinxing it. That’s how fraught that competitive process had become. They accomplished a relatively fast closing and moved out of my house and into their new one in mid-September.

Sometime in there, my daughter got a new job and her husband settled in to his shifts at the hospital (I’m happy to report that being an attending physician is far less time-intensive, averaged over a month, than being a resident). Along the way, they cooked in my kitchen. And cooked. And cooked. Both of them. The results were delicious. And of course, they cleaned up after themselves. Mostly.

We all jockeyed for stove time as well as space in my fridge and pantry, and gave my dishwasher epic daily workouts, while trying to respect conflicting sleep schedules.

Just for the record, and I don’t care how quiet you are about it, no one can sleep through the aroma of frying bacon. Or sautéed garlic and onions.

I wouldn’t describe them as loud, exactly. But my daughter and her husband are intense. Full of non-stop energy and motion. It was exhausting just watching them. Several mornings, as I was finally drifting off to sleep around 6 AM (I am not kidding when I say I’m nocturnal), they were up and dressed and out the door for a 2-3 mile run around the lake. No caffeine, no food, just get up and GO. Insanity.

Apart from the running, there was a lot of coming and going. Much of it move-related. I think they slightly underestimated the amount of belongings they’d managed to accumulate in my house when they decided not to rent the moving truck for an extra day after they cleared out the storage unit.

“We’ll just move the rest by car, Mom. It’ll be fine, stop worrying.”

Uh-huh. Like I’ve never moved before. Suffice to say, many many car trips were involved.

Oddly enough, there were no reports of domestic disturbances or related trips to the ER. Just a few incidences of slightly sore tongue, due to judicious application of teeth to same. On the whole, we did all right.

The White Ninja was in charge of inspecting the unusual influx of cardboard boxes. She was unimpressed that these did not appear to be cat-sized, but mostly took the commotion in stride.

 

The dog was another matter. Poor Jenny. She is so sweet and so well behaved. But she’s been so confused. She stayed here with me for a while until the kids got major stuff unpacked and somewhat settled. Then, finally over at the new place, she freaked out about uncertain footing on the hardwood floors. And then, just when she was getting comfortable there, she came back here for two weeks because of conflicting work schedules and trips out of town.

Of course, there were still the usual ridiculous text message conversations, even while my daughter was out of town:

Kids. Never wanting their parents to have any fun.

But Jenny went back home last Thursday and is reportedly thrilled to be there. The White Ninja misses everyone — so do I, honestly — but life here has gotten quiet again and I’m settling back into my own schedule. Uninterrupted sleep and long quiet stretches of time to concentrate on writing. Bliss.

Speaking of breathing a sigh of relief, fall is by far my favourite season and the weather is finally cooperating. Summer extended its stay this year and temps haven’t really been cool enough yet for many leaves to change colour, but all in good time.

You know where it does look like fall right now? Minnesota. My youngest sister took these pics a couple days ago and gave me permission to share them here. Isn’t my home state gorgeous? Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

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08/21/2017 · 9:51 pm

That time I wasn’t excited about the eclipse . . . until I was

Are you tired of hearing about the eclipse? If so, this post is not for you. Or maybe it is. Yeah, I was heartily sick of hearing about it too, days ago. I vaguely remember the one from 1979 and it wasn’t all that special. Sure, there was eerie spooky light, like dusk but with light and shadows at all the wrong angles. But mostly it was an excuse to stand outside doing nothing for a while.

I tried not to roll my eyes when my daughter and her husband bought the special glasses and planned to drive to South Carolina where it would be 100% totality, versus the 93% projected for this area. I mean, good for them. Sincerely. I applaud their enthusiasm.

But as for me? I didn’t really care. I know, I’m horribly jaded. Until I looked out at my deck about a half hour before total eclipse and saw this:

 

I’d heard people talk about this online, about how sunlight dappled through the trees would let you “see” the eclipse. And I thought, “Yeah, right. Sure it will.”

Okay, here’s where I admit I’ve never paid much attention to dappled sunlight. Never really noticed, or cared, that it presents itself as little circles. LIKE THE SUN. I don’t know, maybe I just assumed the spaces between leaves were all perfect circles. Or something.

Suddenly, here was something VERY COOL. And just as suddenly, I was all excited about the eclipse.

So I took a ton and a half of pictures of the little sunlight crescents and their progression on my deck. Why, yes, I am going to subject you to them. But I’ll put them in a slideshow, so as not to completely overwhelm my blog (and people’s RSS feeds).

If you can’t see it in your feed, it’s here:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

slideshow

Isn’t that cool? I even made a short video, because I realized that when there was a light breeze, the little crescents moved around, winking in and out, and looked a bit like a kaleidoscope effect. You have to watch closely to see it, as the wind was very light today (we just won’t even talk about my less-than-steady video skills). Here:

video

Good grief. Short of creating a YouTube account, I had to first post the video to facebook and then insert the URL here. *sigh* Sure hope I didn’t break anything.

There aren’t many “after” photos, as the sunlight shifted and was hitting the maple tree at an angle that no longer allowed for the dappled effect. But did you notice how the crescents moved from the upper right to the top and then to the upper left?

I’m writing this at roughly 8:30 PM and my daughter and her husband are still slowly making their way home through horrendous traffic. Current ETA 9:15. (Update: After a six-hour drive, roughly twice as long as it took to get there, they’re home!)

I pleased that my eclipse watching experience didn’t include that sort of nonsense. And I’m really glad I watched.

Were you able to see it in your area? Did you watch? More important, did you pay attention to the dappled sunlight? I’ll never again look at it in quite the same way.

 

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03/31/2017 · 9:41 pm

And now for something . . .

. . . completely different? Well, slightly different.

How did it get to be the end of March, already? Yes, of course, in the usual way, days passing one after the other without pause. Perhaps the better question is why haven’t I accomplished as much as I had planned to by now. I am making progress, but it’s been slow.

Speaking of time passing (and in an effort to post something less “controversial”), on my latest birthday (in December) my Bossy Older Sister sent me flowers. Red orchids, to be exact:

I’d never seen red orchids before. Aren’t they gorgeous and exotic? The enclosed note said something about the flowers helping me celebrate all year long. Which confused me, because these were cut flowers and I didn’t see how I was going to keep them alive for an entire year. I asked her about it and she said, “No, silly. You’ll get new flowers every month, for a year.”

WOW. What a wonderful gift. I love flowers, absolutely love them, but never buy them for myself. It just seems . . . overly self-indulgent.

So the red orchids lasted almost three weeks, but then they were gone and I’d pretty much forgotten about the “every month” thing when one day in January, these showed up:

MORE ORCHIDS. I thought the red orchids were just a lucky selection for one month, but no, turns out it will be an entire year of ORCHIDS.

These were delivered in February (sorry, by the time I realized it was a horrible blurry pic, it was too late):

And just last week, these arrived:

You can’t tell from that pic, but the centers of these look like Johnny Jump-ups, so it’s like getting two flowers in one. Wait, here’s a close-up:

So this has been delightful, getting fresh flowers every month. Luckily, The White Ninja is indifferent to the additional coffee table décor and hasn’t eaten any of them. Yet.

What other innocuous things have been going on . . .

Oh, my daughter and her husband took a two-week vacation in Europe. I freaked out just a wee bit after their plane took off and I realized they were going to be 30-some-thousand feet over the vast, deep, unsearchable expanse of the Atlantic for several hours. Which was unsettling because I hadn’t anticipated being bothered by that. But I was, on both their departure and return.

They’re back now [whew] and my daughter has been sending pictures, most of them the usual touristy sort of thing: here I am next to some ancient stone structure, here we are drinking beer, here’s a lovely landscape. Great shots, but you know the kind of thing I mean.

But this one is different and it really caught my attention. And my imagination:


She titled it: Rainy Cityscape

I love that it’s not the usual tourist picture. I love the shine of wet cobblestones at night, the juxtaposition of the modern bicycles and the centuries old Bächle. But mostly I love the mysterious, almost spooky, atmosphere it invokes.

Makes me want to tell a story.

Yeah, maybe I’d better finish the ones I’m already working on first. Before another month comes and goes.

 

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