My Age and Nano by Bonnie Le Hamitlon

 

How young do I look? I am serious here; how young do I look to you?

I’m asking because the other night I ended up taking my sister-in-law to the emergency room. Now, you need to know that my sister-in-law is only about three months younger than me and Konnie’s big sister, Jacki, AKA Dictionary. They were born the same year.

So, I took my sister-in-law, Shirley, to the ER the other day because she’d taken a fall (yes again) and passed out for a time. And this happened to me.

I had helped Shirley inside at the door, then went to park my car, when I joined her at the registration desk, the lady there glanced my way and asked Shirley if I was her daughter!

I said, “Come on, I don’t look that young, do I?”

This lady excused her faux pas because the masks we had to wear hid tons.

I simply pointed out that Shirley wasn’t old enough to be my mother.

But that wasn’t the last of it. Once we got to the exam room (and could take off our masks) the nurse walked in, glanced at me, and asked Shirley if I was her daughter.

Now come on! I do not look that young!

Yes, my hair was in a ponytail, just as it is in the picture above, but I have definitely aged over the years, just like everyone does. Okay, so I don’t show my age as much as others do, but that is just ridiculous.

Though I admit it isn’t the first time someone has considered me the daughter of the woman I was with when the woman I was with was only a year older than me.

The first time it happened, I was in Downtown I.F. with Jacki, and she ran into someone from her past, they spent several minutes catching up, then that person asked if I was Jacki’s daughter. Boy was Jacki mad!

Which seemed funny, since when Jacki was in her mid-teens, she’d been in downtown Poky with our mother, and they ran into someone our mother knew from work, that someone asked if Jacki was our mother’s sister.

Jacki had felt it was cool that an adult thought she was an adult too.

It had never once dawned on Jacki that looking older than you are at fourteen or fifteen usually means that you’re going to look older than you are at forty plus. (At this point she is now sixty.)

On the other hand, Konnie and I always could pass for younger than we are, which frankly came in handy being behind in school. But even still, our junior year, after moving to Tacoma Washington, I had someone think I was still in junior high!

Okay, I admit, it was January, and I did have my warm enough for Idaho winter's coat on, so that did cover my build, but still, I can’t possibly look that young! I was eighteen back then, not fourteen.

But over the years few people have ever guessed my age correctly.

There was once a lady who came within five years of my age, but she admitted she guessed higher than she normally would have guessed because I was there (this happened at Lagoon, which is a theme park near Salt Lake City back before I got married) with a bunch of clear young adults.

The people in my group ranged in age from pushing thirty to barely twenty-one, and I was not the youngest one there, I was in fact twenty-three.

The lady said I had been there in a group that was a mix of ages, she’d have assumed a “family outing” and guessed me to be a younger teen than what she had guessed.

I wasn’t even a teen!

I can think of plenty of other instances where people had my age all wrong.

I once mentioned my husband went to high school with my youngest uncle, and the lady I was speaking to said, “I thought he was quite a bit older than you!”

There was another lady present for that interchange whose husband is ten years older than her; Tom wasn’t even four years old when I was born, at least not quite. His birthday is in August. He’s not that much older than me, but then neither was my uncle. He was five when Konnie and I were born.

And I can’t tell you how many times someone has been shocked when I revealed my age! And that was even recently.

So anyway, how old do I look?

Happy writing everyone!

PS. I did finish Nano this past Saturday. How did the rest of you do?

Of Grand Stories and Elaborate Tales by Konnie Enos

A few years ago, my youngest son, Royce, came to me and wanted to tell me all about this new show he found and loved to watch.

I let him tell me about the adventures of Smith and Regg. That first one was about how Regg hoodwinked an unsuspecting Smith into helping him with his mission. Regg is something of a spy. Poor Smith was a very bookish accountant or something like that. They became quite the spectacular team, a la “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.” Their stories were entertaining and funny.

As time went on, he continued telling these tales and added other starring characters in this universe, The Grand Oracle and his friend LuLu (better known as Lucifer). His description of LuLu was a very tall, thin guy in a red suit (think three-piece and tailored). He’s also one of the good guys despite having a considerable temper issue. Namely, he abhors anyone so much as scaring an innocent child. As such, he is a terrific babysitter because if anyone even attempts to kidnap the kid, they’re toast. Kill a kid, and you will spend eternity feeling his wrath.

The Grand Oracle is probably the best character in the bunch. His usual form is that of a young man/older teen. But if you question his age or say he’s young, he could display a temper even LuLu would avoid provoking. Ask his age, and he’ll say “old, very, very old.” He’ll even tell you he’s older than Earth since he’s lived through the life span of 16 separate universes. (Or something like that.) He does have his quirks, but I think the best one is, he gets into his scraps and adventures because he’s bored. When he’s bored, he pretty much does anything that comes along to have something to do for a day or two.

Smith, that bookish accountant, is brilliant and created his own AI and security system, both personal and his home. He also got married and had a daughter, who later married and had a daughter. So the story went on for a couple of generations.

Then, of course, there is the family of dragons that live at Smith’s place. There are four of them: Mom, Dad, and their son and daughter.

Every story he told me was elaborate, full of detail, and usually hilarious. I got to where I liked him telling me what they were up to this time, and he would occasionally mention that he was looking forward to the next issue being out.

I got busy, and he’d come to me with his tales of Smith, Regg, The Grand Oracle, LuLu, and their friend less and less often. I even got to the point of thinking about looking them up to watch some of these great shows myself. Since Royce likes Japanese-style cartoons, I figured it was something similar and didn’t think it’d be hard to find. I just never bothered looking. Mostly because I already knew the stories thanks to Royce’s colorful storytelling.

Yesterday evening, not long after I’d returned home (that’s another story), Royce told me he had to confess. I could not figure out what he wanted to admit, but he told me his brother’s friend discovered his secret by searching online.

I’m confused. What secret and what did he find online?

Folks! HE MADE IT ALL UP! There is no show about Smith, Regg, The Grand Oracle, or LuLu!

Every story. All that detail. Everything my son created that whole universe!

We have told him he has to write every story down now.

He is resistant to this. Not only because he has been spinning these tails for a couple of years but because he insists he can’t read or write.

He can, but like his dear mother, he can’t spell. He’s also unsure of the grammar. My daughter, Melinda, suggested he start recording them.

So our task now is to convince this creative young man to get his stories on paper so that they can be published and presented to a larger audience.

But mostly, I’m blown away. He is my one child who has displayed the least interest in weaving tales, but he is exceptionally talented at it.

So the universe creating storytelling bug has struck all my children. We only have to convince Royce that he is imaginative and talented too.

We can also thank him for this post.

Due to yesterday being our 31^st anniversary, my mind had been on what I would be doing to celebrate. What did I end up doing? Visiting my husband in the hospital. That’s where I had come home from when Royce dropped this bombshell on me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Nano and Other Things by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

As you know, this is November, better known to writers around the world as Nano. I am yet again trying to accomplish this challenge. For those of you who haven’t heard of National Novel Writer’s Month (better known as Nano) it is a challenge to write fifty thousand new words toward a new novel in the month of November.

It is a challenge, especially when you haven’t been writing regularly in the months leading up to this, but I did have an excuse most of the time. Not just my work schedule, but my old computer dying on me last month.

(Yes, folks, I have a new computer. Thankfully.)

Its nice that this computer will work with me, instead of fighting me. With my old computer, I had to hit buttons several times for it to do anything  at all, and it would take multiple times to highlight any text so I could copy it. (Let alone it wouldn’t highlight all of what I needed.) I was constantly taking longer just to get my post from word to our blogsite than to write it and that was driving me crazy, but I was trying to make do with it, because I didn’t want to spend any extra money right now.

In the end I didn’t have choice.

I needed a working computer.

And this one is fantastic!

Would you believe I can start to type some phrases and longer words and my computer will, on its own, fill in the rest. I just hit the tab key when it does that for me to skip to the next word. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but its great. Some of the longer words, I don’t need to try to remember how to spell it, the computer will do it for me!

On another note, I am doing great on the Nano. I reached the halfway point a few days ago and am on track to finish early (per my usual).

Of course, I have had some extra time on my hands since I stopped working at DI at the end of last month but the new program, I applied for has yet to place me in a position. So, I’ve all day to waste and I promise, while I am doing well with my writing, my screen time on my phone is way up too.

I really need to curb that.

Also need to wrap what Christmas presents I do have, figure out what I still need, and get those gifts going out of town shipped this month.

Does anyone have gift ideas for a few of the men on my list?

If it were Tom, I could manage. Mostly because he was good about giving me a wish list. But also because I have a knack for seeing things someone I know would love and, well, I think about that person. So, if I think about that person, it’s a great gift for them.

I just wish it would happen more often with men like my one sister-in-law’s husband, Claire’s husband, and well, Konnie’s husband and one son. The other one I hope I finally picked the right gift for him. I did think about him when I saw it. So, that is a good sign.

And it would be nice if I were better at finishing projects, because I did start a gift for Konnie’s husband a couple of years ago and I still haven’t finished it. Yeah, that’s me, started but never finished. Is it any wonder I have so many more unfinished WIPs and only a handful of finished WIPs?

I’m counting myself lucky I actually got to “the end” as many times as I have. By the way, I believe my number of finished WIPs is six, but don’t quote me on that, I’m not looking at my list and for once my computer isn’t helping me.

I’ll figure it out, new system and all.

And I would write more right now, but I do have other things to do. Like write my newest WIP.

Are you doing Nano this year?

If so, comment your username on the Nano site and I’ll make you one of my buddies.

My username is FaithfullSpirit2. Look me up.

Happy writing, everyone!

Of Jury Duty or Not by Konnie Enos

Quite recently my income earning, therefore tax-paying, not to mention registered voter, son received a jury summons.

When he got his mail that day he came to me ranting about being called and asking if he could just ignore it. Not a good idea. Jury duty is mandatory but what consequences you’ll receive for ignoring one differs by the jurisdiction it’s for, local, state, or federal. The consequences range from receiving another summons for a different date, up to criminal penalties, including fines and up to 180 days in jail.₁

I explained to him that it was his civic duty.

He was not happy as he grumpily left my room and I heard no more about it until several weeks later. When he again came to talk to me. “You guys might have to take Andrue into work Tuesday.”

“Why? Why aren’t you going to work that day?” Tony has been driving Andrue to work since Tony does have a driver’s license and a car. But now they are also both on the same shift. Not to mention how close Andrue lives to us.

“I don’t know if I’ll be working that day.”

“Why not? Are you sick or something?”

 “No. I might have to report for jury duty. I find out Monday.”

Oh, yeah. Been there. “Okay.”

As it turned out, he didn’t have to report to jury duty.

Then I recently read something else about the writer getting out of jury duty because they had a nursing baby. Now I’m not sure about all jurisdictions, but in some, taking care of small children, especially nursing said child, is an automatic exemption from duty.

Oregon is one state that does give this exemption.

I know, because technically I got it.

While we were living there, I received a jury summons (i.e. before our boys were born). In this particular jurisdiction, they requested you hold three specific months for possible service.

I looked over the paperwork. Among the exemptions to serving would be a hardship in some way or you were a nursing mother. Technically I wasn't nursing. However, my third child was due in the middle of those requested months. So I would be nursing. Then again, this was my third child. Not only that, but I provided childcare for my sister-in-law. So at some point, I’d have primary responsibility for five girls under 6. Three in diapers/pull-ups and one of those I’d be nursing.

I let them know all of the above.

I never heard from them again.

I also know you can be released from serving for extenuating circumstances. One of those is not currently living in the area where you are registered to vote, such as being away for college. In my case, the first time I ever received a jury summons, I had only been on my mission about a month when my mail from home caught up to me. Yeah, I wasn’t anywhere near my home state and couldn’t return for about a year and a half.

So I received a jury summons in my mid-twenties and again in my mid-thirties.

Now I’ve had people tell me they’ve had multiple jury summons and even served a few times. And that’s including that a federal summons will exclude you from being called for several years after you've served.

So as the years went by I wondered when I’d get called again.

Now, mind you. Unlike the majority of people I’ve heard talking about it, I’m not opposed to serving. And ‘third times the charm’ so I have always figured I’d serve eventually.

Well, in my mid-fifties, I did get that third summons. Okay, I’m completely available. Jerry could deal with any appointments or anything the kids needed while I was serving. I did the paperwork and was notified when I’d have to check to see if they still needed me. I discussed it with Jerry so he was prepared for me being busy during that time.

Then before I got another notice. I was no longer needed. Because I was willing to serve on a federal jury that still exempts me for at least a year. It’s been longer than that so I’m wondering when I’ll be called again since they’ve been so few and far between.

I had about a decade between my first two calls, and two decades between the second and third call. If my fourth call is three decades after the last one I’ll be in my mid-eighties when I get it. At this point, I’m wondering if I’ll ever serve on a jury.

How many times have you been called for jury duty? And thank a vet for their military service.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Nano and Covid by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Nano (National Novel Writers Month) is finally here, and I finally have a brand-new computer! Yeah!

And I’m sure Konnie is cheering too. I can post this week for a change.

I can also access my notes and get to work on my Nano writing, which is even better. I have been stir-crazy this last week or so because I couldn’t so much as edit my sci-fi let alone prepare for Nano.

I might have been able to work on something, if I had hardcopy notes, but guess what, I didn’t. It’s way easier to type than to write longhand.

I’m so glad I finally have my new computer.

I just wish we could gather in person! I’m tired of only meeting on Zoom.

In-person is a lot more fun, but I guess I can put up with one more year of keeping my distance. After all, I do know Covid is real. I’ve lost family to it. The most recent was a week ago when an uncle of ours, and his wife both died of Covid.

Konnie called to let me know while I was shall we say, “otherwise occupied.”

When I noticed I missed a call from her, I called her and asked her why she was calling me so early in the morning.

Honestly, I should have realized it wasn’t good news.

Because of that call, I was running late for work, and then when I was finally on the road, I looked ahead to see a train blocking my path. For nearly a year I was working at DI (Deseret Industries) and I crossed those tracks every working day of that time both going to work and returning home. Never had I seen a train in all that time and now on the day I was running late, there’s a train!

I was thinking I’d have to call in and let them know how close I was (Close as in about a block away on the wrong side of the tracks.) and why I was going to be late when the train finally came to an end.

And the only reason I managed to clock in on time is that they give you a three-minute leeway. It was precisely 10:03 when I finally clocked in. My usual is to be three minutes early.

Not a good start.

At one point during the day, one of the other supervisors came into the area where I worked, and he didn’t seem all that happy, so I asked him how he was. He answered he was fine, then asked me how I was.

I let him know I wasn’t having a good day and even mentioned my uncle and aunt who had died the night before.

The supervisor immediately asked if they were from Pocatello, which they were, and he asked because a couple in the ward of one of the other supervisors had died of Covid the day before, just like my relatives.

Well, I have seen them on occasion, but I’ve never been to their place, I didn’t know what part of town they lived in. He asked me their names and went to find out who the other supervisor had lost.

Turns out, it was my uncle and aunt.

The other supervisor came by asking how I was related and asking about their kids and if they had grandkids, and I hadn’t seen the kids with spouses or children when I last saw them at our older aunt’s funeral.

But it gets worse, my supervisor came up to me after hearing about my loss and said, “He didn’t seem that old to me.”

Yeah, she knew him.

So, I spent most of the day talking to the bosses about my uncle and his wife, and about the fact that he was only five when Konnie and I were born.

Though this time it didn’t come up that he went to school with my husband, a fact which someone once remarked, “I thought he was quite a bit older than you.”

Excuse me? I’ve seen larger age gaps, so not even four years doesn’t seem all that much to me. I know couples who had ten or more years of age gaps. Starting with our father, whose second wife was ten years younger than him, and ten years older than Konnie and me.

And now I need to get going on my writing my Nano project! Are you doing Nano? What is your project? Mine is a romance, again. My usual.

Look me up on the Nano site. I am FaithfullSpirit2 on there.

Happy writing everyone and good luck with Nano!

 

Of Words and Surprises by Konnie Enos

 

I’ve enjoyed Reader’s Digest for well over forty years. I don’t remember the first issue I picked up, but I do know our stepmother had a subscription. One time, I picked up her copy and glanced through it, and enjoyed it so much that I got in the habit of reading it regularly.

Back then I rarely read all the articles but I did read all the humor sections and I’d read an interesting article or two. The “drama in real life” or a condensed story. I first read James Herriot in a Reader’s Digest magazine condensed story.

For years I just read my stepmother’s copies and when I wasn’t in the house for college etc. I just waited until I got back home then skimmed through all the past issues I could find.

Not long after I got married, I got my first subscription and I’ve had it ever since.

I was still only reading the parts that interested me. I’m not even sure when I started reading more but eventually, the Reader’s Digest coming in meant I was spending at least a day consuming it from cover to cover.

As the magazine got lighter (they print fewer pages in each addition now) I was able to read through them in less and less time. Now, I don’t spend a solid block of time reading it but the amount of time I need to consume each issue is only two or three hours depending on how “heavy” their articles are.

When I first started reading it, I might glance at the “Word Power” section and maybe spend a few minutes trying to get the correct meaning but often it meant that I had to “peak” at the answers. But I got older I was finding I needed to peak less often so I started marking my guesses and then seeing if I got those I guessed at correct.

Eventually, I got to where I was marking (or now that I have a digital subscription, writing down) all my responses then turning to the answers and seeing how I did. As a rule, I miss three or four of them though I do remember a few times missing six. There aren’t many times that I missed less than three nor more than five so I was always “middle of the pack” by their score chart.

I’ve always felt I was doing pretty well since I only have an average vocabulary, despite living with a living, breathing, walking, talking dictionary for all those years. (I mean Jacki did try to increase our vocabulary but I never bothered to retain anything I wasn’t using regularly.)

So what brought all this up?

I was reading my most recent issue of Reader’s Digest and finally got to the last pages where “Word Power” is. I read the caption first.

Oh, great. Science. Since that isn’t my strongest subject, I figured my limited knowledge in that department wasn’t going to help my final score. Even the proclamation that the words were also used outside of labs didn’t boost my confidence.

First word. It’s easy. Who doesn’t know that?

Second word. Well, duh.

Okay, they should get harder as we go.

Third word. Really. You’re going to make it that easy?

I continued. For each word, I either knew the answer or it was super easy to figure it out from the available choices, as in only one made sense. Then I got to one that stumped me a bit because I knew one meaning of the word, but it has nothing to do with the scientific use of the word and I wasn’t sure which of the choices to pick. I could make a case for all the possible answers being correct so I made a guess, knowing I was probably wrong because my rate of correct guesses is pretty low. The last few words I was sure I knew the meaning of.

Now I was really curious about the outcome because I had only questioned one answer. I was certain I knew the other answers, but I’d been wrong before.

I turned the page and checked my answered one by one circling each answer on my paper that I’d gotten correct. As I circled I was thinking, see I knew that, or that was easy to figure out.

Then I got to the one I did guess at. Guess what. I was right.

The outcome?

For the first time in my life, I got a full 15 correct answers. It has got to be the easiest Word Power yet. Either that or I know a great deal more “science” words than I thought.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Apologies by Konnie Enos

Our apologies but we will be unable to get a new post up this week. Bonnie's computer issues are beyond her limited resources to fix or even replace at this time and she hasn't got the means to even write a post, let alone get it on the internet. She is looking for a temporary solution but she hasn't been able to fix it this week.

In other circumstances, I would make the effort to write something for her, but between my college classes and some pain I'm currently experiencing in my arms (I have no idea what's going on, but the carpal tunnel braces are helping), I am unable to manage it.

I will put all my effort into getting a new post up next week and then hopefully Bonnie will have found a solution, however temporary it might be, to her computer issues so she can do her posts going forward.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.