More Stories

          This year is the celebration of Charles Dickens' 200th birthday. Dickens was a master at writing serials that he later turned into novels.  The trick was to end each segment  with a cliff hanger that kept the readers coming back to see how the story turned out.What he wrote in the 19th century is similar to what Wade and I have been doing recently  in our Black Coffee Fiction blog.  Each of us wrote a three part short story. 


           I posted the second part of my story on our Black Coffee Fiction blog at  http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com yesterday. This week I ended the installment with a rather nasty killing of a seagull.  I hope that will hold our short story audience until I come up with a conclusion next Friday.     


              Dickens traveled all over the world to lecture and read his stories to encourage a wider readership.  I send our blogs to public libraries to encourage the adult book clubs to read our words. I do this with by pasting a message into an e-mail with a click of a computer mouse.  Think what Dickens would have done with a computer!  His output would have been even more prodigious. 


           Wade and I do seem to have regular readers.  Last week Black Coffee Fiction had readers in every continent with the exception of Antarctica.  This week, this Storytelling Trails and Tales blog had readers in every continent with the exception of Antarctica.   I'm not absolutely certain how a "hit" from Antarctica would show up. Perhaps it would come through Australia or New Zealand.  


            Both blogs have regular readers in Germany and Russia though the Dutch, who for some time were reading this blog regularly, now seem to have quit.  Black Coffee Fiction once had 17 readers in Jamaica, all at once.  We assume that was a class of some kind and proposed they invite us to do a workshop in February.  There were no takers.   


            Whoever they are, we want to hold our readers. We read the classics and emulate the masters, like Dickens.   

Good News and Bad News

I have good news and bad news.

First the bad news:  Gary got the results from last week's physical and there were some problems he will have to address. His cholesterol and blood sugar are too high.

Now the good news:  Gary has some problems he's going to have to address.  He wants to tackle them without medication and that means he has to watch his diet and get more exercise.  This is good for me because while I don't have problems with cholesterol and blood sugar, I am overweight and have arthritis.  To work on those problems, I have to watch my diet and get more exercise.  Watching my diet while living with a guy who loves cheese, pasta and anything that puts pounds on my hips was impossible

We are finally on the same page.

We will continue going to the fitness center twice a week.  We are eating more vegetables, fruit and fish.  Today, we walked three miles together. As the daylight hours lengthen, we'll walk even more.

Gary's sister helped by sharing a big batch of heart healthy goulash.  I made another batch of spicy vegetable soup.  We shopped for fresh green vegetables.  Our one treat is a couple of squares of dark chocolate every day.

Together we are going to get healthy and have many years of camping, laughing, and traveling.  Working together, we have hopes that we'll even outlive Rascal Cat.   

Refund Day

There is a day in February I love and today it arrived.

On January 31, I sent my records to my accountant.  Two days ago, I got the folder back with a note from Tom telling me he had filed for my refund electronically.  I could expect my sizable refund from the State of Wisconsin by the first week in March.

The refund arrived this morning.  If you file early in Wisconsin, you get the refund back quickly.

First I made sure that all my bills were paid in full.  There was lots of money left.

I had my yearly eye examination and paid for it in cash.  Lots of money left.

I sent a check off to Tom to pay for his excellent services.  Still lots of money left.

I got my weekly groceries. (The Thursday-Friday sale combined with a lot of coupons, so I saved 52%.)'

And there was still money left, several hundred that I set aside for summer travels. Time to have some fun!

Refund day is like a holiday for me.

Winter Viewing

There was absolutely nothing on television tonight so I pulled out the two DVDs that I watch each winter.

The first is a Canadian film, Strangers in Good Company.  I first saw it on public television and loved it so much I got my own copy.  It's the story of seven old women stranded in the forests of Ontario.  During the course of the movie, each tells the story of her life.  That part of it is all true, because the women were not actors. There's a lesbian, a nun, an Oneida, a woman who recovered from a stroke, a divorcee. Cissy was in the blitz in London. "Whole streets disappeared." Winnie worked in a cigarette factory. Constance, the oldest at 93, was taking many pills, but in the end threw them all away. Somehow they all endured. It is a film about being old with courage and humor. I've watched this film so many years as I've grown old.

The Ontario forests are so much like Wisconsin's in the summer, so that makes me think of our camping trips. There's a continuing call of the white throated sparrow.  The background music is perfect and that, too, reminds me of our camping trips because Gary always has classical music CDs along to play in the evenings.

The second CD is a promise of spring, Winged Migration, a French film.  The five crews followed bird migrations through 40 countries and all seven continents. They used planes, gliders, and helicopters to follow the birds.  There's not much narration, just nature at its best.  I watch the birds and wish I could fly with them, following the warm sun.

I'll be waiting for them come spring.  

Squirrel Wars

It's an age old story, man vs. squirrel.

The squirrels have raided the bird feeders in the back yard for years.  Gary has fought them for years.  He threatens to shoot them but has too soft a heart.  When Jake Dog, our Australian shepherd was alive, he did a fine job of going out to chase them.  Being a herd dog, he never actually caught one, but carefully moved them out of the yard.  But old Jake finally went to his doggy heaven some years ago.

Rascal is too wise to go after a squirrel who could easily disembowel an old cat.  They are tough cookies, those squirrels.  

So Gary erected feeders on high on poles, but the squirrels easily jumped from the apple tree to the feeders.  Gary trimmed the tree. Next they leaped from the plant stand on the deck to the sunflower seeds.  Gary moved the planter.

They climbed the pole, so he greased it.  That didn't work either, so he wrapped the pole in shiny metal so they would slide down if they attempted any more assaults on the expensive sunflower hearts.

The result:

So far, it is the squirrels 100, Gary 0.

I understand some people watch football for entertainment.  

More on the Nook

The more I use the Nook e-book reader Chris gave me in December, the more I like it.  These days, I don't leave home without it.  It is either in my purse or my pocket.

There was a strong learning curve at first.  I am not good at technology, but I am willing to work on something  over and over until I get it right. I visited the library for help and pored over the instruction material.

Wade helped me download the first books from the Gutenberg Project (all classics), and for a while I was satisfied with those. Downloading books from Barnes and Noble was the easiest, but my budget doesn't allow too many of those. I figure I can afford one book a month. I ordered e-books from the library, but there is often a waiting list for favorite books, so it wasn't until this past week that they began to arrive. One book I wanted had over 500 holds.  Last time I looked, I was 55th in line.

Each time I downloaded it was relearning all over but each time, it got faster and faster.  With the Gutenberg books, I take five books at a time. I've gotten pretty proficient.

Gary originally pooh-poohed the idea of e-books, telling me that they would never replace paper, but he soon  liked mine and ordered his own.  Now he is reading Homer's The Odyssey which is so much easier when he can adapt the size of the font depending on whether or not his eyes are tired.   We've been discussing taking our Nooks with us when we work out at the fitness center to read them on the treadmill and recumbent bike.

Packrat Gary likes having lots of books on hand.  Now he can download all those books in one small Nook.
 
I particularly like the Nook when I have a night of restless sleep.  Last night, I found I could read a novel when I was flat on my back, something that doesn't work all that well with a heavy book.  How many times have I dropped a book, losing my place?  That never happens with my little e-reader.

This afternoon, I took Gary to his eye appointment.  With his pupils dilated, he couldn't drive home.  In the waiting room, there we were, reading our Nooks and ignoring all the dreadful magazines doctors seem to think we want.  I almost finished a novel and he managed to get to Ulysses killing Penelope's suitors.

We were satisfied with our gadgets.  I wonder what the next one will be.

The Way We Were

Today, Chris brought Evan over and for a while we watched some of my family movies but they didn't interest Evan much.  He is still too young to understand family history or the idea of time. 

But Gary and I understand all too well.  We were such adorable children once.  Where did the time go?   This little boy with golden curls from Dixon, Illinois, once pedaled his tricycle to go see his father at work.  He got as far as the busy Lincoln Highway before someone stopped him.  

Then he grew up to be a man of mature years.  (I still think he's cute. There's still a little boy in there.)

And of course there was the little girl, also with golden curls, who lived on a farm near Seymour.  She loved to disappear into the woods.  (She still does.)

She loved stories and books, and she grew up to be me, such as I am, telling stories to little children.

That is our story.  I hope some day Evan will remember us.