Of Birthdays and Age by Bonnie Le Hamilton

This past Monday was my sister’s-in-law birthday. No big deal except this is the sister-in-law that lives here in Pocatello. Needless to say, I attended her birthday party Monday after work.

At one point during the evening, Shirley tried to tell a young friend of ours that she was fifty-eight.

I looked at her and said, “You are sixty-one as of today.”

Breanna, our young friend, took that in stride, but later when I mentioned I was forty years older than her, her eyes just about bugged out.

Now I must point out that Breanna is a home health aid for both myself and Shirley, and she knows that we have to be at least fifty to qualify for the program paying for her services. Also, she knew that Shirley was older than me, but apparently, she hadn’t gotten the memo on how much older Shirley is. As such, she had figured my age to be somewhere in my early fifties.

She was closer to correct than most people usually are. 😊

Breanna doubted I was really as old as I said.

I told her I was born in 1962.

She was still shocked and actually asked her coworkers present if they thought I looked sixty.

They were all surprised.

Okay, it’s in my genes. I do not look my age. I never have. Konnie can say the same thing.

And it really has little to do with our height. We just don’t look our age, and that has something to do with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Anyway, EDS is genetic.

Konnie and I have mild cases of it, but a prominent side effect of this condition is not aging as fast as others. People with this syndrome just don’t look their age.

Now Konnie and I are on the recessive end of this problem, hence the “Mild” part. Konnie’s middle daughter inherited EDS from both her parents, and her father’s isn’t a mild form. It seems that mild plus medium equals severe. The poor kid got it worse than any of her siblings.

Of course, if she reads this, she’d probably point out how far into her twenties she is.

Yeah, I know, even Konnie’s youngest has surpassed the 20-year mark. Technically none of them are kids. But they are all twenty-nine or more years younger than me, so yeah, they still are kids to me.

By the way, for those of you who hadn’t heard already, my doctor confirmed I have a mild case of EDS on my last checkup. Explaining all my problems with my knee going out of joint. Which is minor compared to Konnie’s husband Jerry, or well, most of their kids have had way more problems than I have. They all have it.

Such is life though.

Konnie and I have other relatives who most assuredly had EDS. One uncle, in particular, could bend his thumb all the way down to his wrist. EDS is essentially “loose ligaments” some people have “looser” or more flexible ligaments than others.

Most contortionists probably have EDS.

In fact, CSI: NY did have an episode where the victim came from a long line of contortionists in a circus. During the show, a character pointed out that a lot of people with EDS became contortionists, simply because it was something not everybody could do.

Don’t ask me to do that.

I mean, back in my younger, slimmer days, I was quite limber, surprisingly so, but that was several decades ago.

Nowadays, the only aftereffects of EDS I have is a bad knee and the luck of not looking my age.

Then again, maybe Breanna and her coworker, all being in their late teens to early twenties, expect anyone who is sixty to have a head full of gray hair. 😊

Well, I do have a little white, down the center of my otherwise brown hair, just not a whole head of it. I also don’t have a whole lot of wrinkles.

As a teen, I hated not looking my age. Now it’s kind of fun.

But all this got me thinking about my characters and why I haven’t had one getting mistaken for being younger than they are. Or something like that. It’s not like it doesn’t happen to other people.

I read a story a while back about a young lady who was a teacher, and a fellow teacher took her for a student and snatched her phone out of her hands. And another young lady had a fellow teacher haul her into the principal’s office for being out of class when she was on her break period, and the principal was her friend.

So, there are stories about people not looking their age, and I’ve certainly experienced it, so why haven’t I written it?

Anyway, happy writing everyone.

 

Of Pets and Old Age by Konnie Enos

 

Some months ago, noticed that Mabel wasn’t her usual energic self, something we could expect from an older dog, but this time her tail was also tucked under. If you know anything about dogs, a tucked-in tail is something to pay attention to.

We took her to our vet.

She ran a few tests and we concluded that something was up with her liver. The easiest solution was a course of medications. The hope was that it would cure the issues and things would be back to normal. We ended up trying a few different medicine regimens until we hit on the one that we are now using. It looks like she will have to take medicine every day for the rest of her life.

So now our normal routine includes giving Mabel her medications twice a day. It’s a good thing we discovered Pillpockets because our dogs like those “treats” and rarely realize there are pills inside them. (Not even when they watch us put the medicine in them.)

Mabel got in the habit of chomping down her food and then running to me to get her twice daily “treat.” Since we weren’t having to fight her about taking her medicines, it was easy enough for me to give them to her.

So, no issues.

Then in late April or early May, we noticed she was running to get her medications before she finished eating. However, we just had to redirect her once and she would finish eating.

I thought she liked the treat so much she didn’t want to wait, so I started dropping her Pillpocket in her bowl with her food. Problem solved.

Until it wasn’t.

Most of our dogs when they are eating will put their face in their bowl and not look up until they are finished. Mabel’s always been one to at least glance around while she’s eating. There’s even been a few times when she went running to a door barking her alerts only to remember she was eating and run back to her bowl.

A couple of weeks ago we noticed she was constantly leaving her bowl. To go bark at a door. To take a trip to the backyard. To bark at another one of our dogs she thinks is misbehaving. Pretty much any little noise could distract her from her food.

We started having to watch her eat and constantly reminding her to finish eating.

Then I noticed some concerning behaviors.

When we first got her she displayed some serious territorial issues and wouldn’t let any of our children on my bed. She barely allowed Jerry to get in our bed. With effort, we eventually trained those territorial tendencies out of her.

This last week alone we’ve had several near scuffles where she snapped at one of the other dogs, but we were able to intervene before it became a dog fight. At least twice, the dog she snapped at didn’t appreciate it and we nearly had a full-on fight as some of us humans waded in, pulling the combatants apart. Which just required getting ahold of Mabel and pulling her away from whichever dog she’d decided to fight.

Thankfully, we’ve managed to stop them before any blood was drawn.

So now, her aggression is returning and she’s not eating without a ton of coaching.

This time our vet called me. No, not because she thought something was wrong, but to let me know what her latest blood work looked like. I asked her about Mabel’s behaviors.

She agreed that it was odd how Mabel wouldn’t stick around to eat her food anymore. Then, as any good doctor would, she asked me about specific things going on with Mabel. One was diarrhea. Another was bumping into things. Another was about her sense of smell.

Okay, she doesn’t appear to be blind, and she doesn’t seem to have diarrhea. So, our vet told me some things I could try to entice her to eat.

So, we keep trying.

Now she is refusing to finish her meals and is still being aggressive with the other dogs.

My thoughts keep going to the conversation I had with her vet because there was one other reason why we might be seeing these new behaviors.

My dog, who is now 11 years old (about 65 in human years), might be experiencing dementia. My husband still thinks she is losing her eyesight, and that would be a lot easier to deal with than dementia, but we don’t know for sure yet what the issue is.

For right now, we’re still attempting to find solutions. If those continue to fail, we’ll have to run some more tests and see if there is anything medically that we can do.

All this on top of the stress of taking 15 credits.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. (I could use it.)

Decoration Day by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Monday is Memorial Day, but you know what it’s about?

 

The other day at work, they asked everyone what Memorial Day means to them. The Vet in the group said it was remembering those who have died. I was the one who said it was to remember and honor fallen heroes.

 

Who’s right?

 

Guess what, I am.

 

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and it was to honor those who lost their lives in the Civil War.

 

After World War 1, it became Memorial Day, but it didn’t become a national holiday until the late 1960s.

 

And it wasn’t always celebrated on the last Monday in May like it is now.

 

But let me point out, that it wasn’t so we could honor and remember our ancestors, it was so we could honor those people who gave their lives for our country!

 

Now for Konnie and me, that does include some ancestors, especially if you go back as far as the Revolutionary War. Then again, nowadays everyone includes all military vets, so we have quite a few more family members who will have flags put on their graves this weekend. Our father, an uncle, and a great-uncle on our side. I also have my father-in-law.

 

And that list doesn’t include the vets in our family who are still alive, like Konnie’s husband, my husband’s two brothers, and one of our cousins.

 

I’ve mentioned before that our great-uncle survived Pearl Harbor. My father-in-law served during the Korean War, our father and uncle served during Vietnam, and both our husbands, our cousin, and my husband’s two younger brothers all served during the first Gulf War (better known as Operation Desert Storm).

 

And I will certainly remember all of their services for our country this weekend, even if Veterans Day in November is supposed to be for honoring living Vets. I’ll remember them then too.

 

I’ll also remember them on Flag Day (June 14^th), Independence Day, and of course Veterans Day (November 11^th). Though I will also remember them on Thanksgiving Day, because without them where would this country be? Where would I be?

 

It is the men and women who gave their lives to this country that made this country so great. I will always be grateful for them.

 

So, this weekend, I will be going to McCammon, and possibly have a picnic. What will you be doing for the holiday?

 

And where it comes to writing, have you ever written a story that took place around Memorial Day? And if you have, what sort of things do your characters do for the holiday?

 

Whatever you have planned for this weekend, drive safe.

 

And happy writing everyone!

Of Efficiency and Focus by Konnie Enos

One of the classes I’m taking currently is Operations Management. Now going into this class, I knew it was about management, but I thought it was more about how you interacted with and managed your workers.

It is not. It’s about learning how to manage your workflow to efficiently produce whatever your product is.

 We’re learning things like how to order your processes efficiently and where to place stations to minimize movement between stations. Now as I was looking at this information, I thought of Lillian Gilbreth. She and her husband Frank Gilbreth were efficiency experts. Lillian used her understanding of efficiency to redesign kitchens from the large country kitchens that used to be common, to the modern efficiency kitchens where you can reach everything from the middle of the room, therefore requiring less time-consuming walking.

Turns out, there was a reason the information reminded me of the Gilbreths. They were among the people named in the book who contributed to the operations management systems we have today.

What this information does is brings the story of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and their large brood of 12 children (six boys and six girls) to the forefront of my thoughts. Since I’m thinking about them and their efforts to reduce wasted motion, I’ve been noticing when myself and other household members waste motion.

I realized I wasted motion going back and forth between my bedroom and the kitchen when I needed food or had to do a chore. So, I started eating in the kitchen (as opposed to my bedroom) and doing some chores before I returned to my room. Then I realized I wasn’t remembering to take my morning pills when I did return to my room. Since one of those must be taken in the morning, and with food, I figured out my best option would be to take my medication with me when I went to eat breakfast. Problem solved.

Then I noticed how family members efficiently use or waste motion.

One way was watching how family members handled the chore of washing dishes.

As a rule, we household members will gather, wash, and rinse everything in steps. Doing each step before moving on to the next one. For the most part, where we differ is in how we dry and put them away.

Royce will dry every piece, placing the dry ones on the counter while he dries the next piece. Then, with the dishes gathered according to where they belong, he puts them away. Mostly efficient, but there is some wasted motion in how often he picks up each dish. Particularly to dry them and then put them away.

Melinda and I do the same steps, right up to drying and putting them away. We don’t place them on the counter between drying and putting them away. Those things that belong in the cupboard above the counter by the sink, we dry and place in the cupboard. Those that go across the room (mainly the silverware and utensils) we dry as we step toward where they go, putting them away as we finish drying. With the silverware and utensils, we grab all of them at once to dry and put away, so we aren’t going back and forth. This is the most efficient way because we aren’t wasting motion to pick the dishes up one more time.

Now Jerry is a different issue.

He doesn’t always gather all the dishes before he starts washing so he must make additional trips. He’s also prone to getting just some of the dirty dishes in one area and going back for the rest. (For example, taking only the plates off the table when there are also cups and silverware.) He will get all the dishes washed before he rinses anything, but then he really wastes motion.

Like Melinda and I, he dries all the things larger than silverware and utensils and puts them away. But then he will pick up each piece of silverware or utensil and then dry it, still standing at the sink, before stepping over to the correct drawer and putting it away. Then repeats it until they are all put away. Thus, repeatedly going across the room, with an already dry item, wasting motion.

I’m noticing all this wasted motion and I’m realizing what you are thinking about the most is what you will notice the most. It’s along the same lines as to how we notice the things that are most familiar to us. Such as twins noticing other sets of twins. Or noticing all the cars of the same make, model, or color as yours. It’s not that there are more of them, just that you notice them more often.

What do you notice?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Memorial Day and Veterans by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Memorial Day is coming up, and this is National Veterans Appreciation Month. And I’d like to put in a word or two about just a few Vets I know.

We’ll start with Thomas Al Hamilton. My husband served in the active Navy with honor until they decommissioned all their boiler ships. (He was a boiler tech.) He was also still in the Navy during Deseret Storm, making him one of five men I’m related to that served during Deseret Storm.

The other four men are: in the Army – Clifford and George Hamilton (Tom’s younger brothers), in the Marines – Jeff Metcalf (our cousin) and finally, someone Konnie knows better than I do, in the Navy – Jerry Enos.

But military service doesn’t stop with them.

Our father and one of our uncles were in the Army during Vietnam. Tom’s father served in the Navy during the Korean War. And Konnie and I have a great uncle who survived Pearl Harbor.

And that still isn’t all, because Konnie and I are direct descendants of at least one fellow who fought in the American Revolution. He’s the only one I know of for sure. But that makes him a Vet! A very important one, since we wouldn’t have America without him and the other men he fought beside.

And my father once told me that he was pretty sure members of his family served in EVERY American war from the Revolution to (well when he said it), the Vietnam War. And it was his uncle that survived Pearl Harbor, so I don’t doubt it. Just haven’t proven it.

I have no idea if any of the younger generation have served, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had, or maybe even are.

Men and women, who have served in this country’s armed forces are the people who have been and are keeping this country free. They are our protection.

And it isn’t easy serving in the military. Leaving your family behind for anywhere from two weeks to several years depending on the situation, going into unfriendly territory, and not knowing if they’ll ever get back home. Worse still those that didn’t come back in one piece or didn’t come back at all.

Like Billy Ray Cyrus says in his song “Some Gave All”: All gave some, some gave All!

All our veterans are heroes.

Not just the ones who came home in one piece, but those who came home broken and hurting, and those that didn’t come home at all.

Here’s to the men and women who willingly give of their time and talents to defend our borders, and our freedom, because like Toby Keith’s song “An American Soldier” says: Freedom don’t come Free!

Our freedom was won and is maintained at the cost of thousands of lives. I wouldn’t want to count them all, but I wouldn’t discount them either. They served; they gave. As a country, we need to honor and praise the sacrifices they made for us.

Can you tell I’m patriotic too?

If that doesn’t convince you here is a list of some of my favorite songs:

Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America!”

Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA!”

Toby Keith’s “An American Soldier” and “Courtesy of Red, White, and Blue”

“America the Beautiful”

“The Star-Spangled Banner”

“My Country Tis of Thee”

And finally, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

And if that list isn’t enough, my favorite colors are Red, White, and Blue and one of my favorite birds is the Bald Eagle. When the color guard passes during a parade, I always put my hand over my heart, and when I was younger and able, I would stand while it passed. I inwardly morn because I can no longer stand for the National Anthem, and it infuriates me when I see people sitting and chatting as the color guard passes, paying it no mind at all!

Yeah, I’m patriotic, always have been.

Next to Christmas and Easter, my favorite holiday is Independence Day, and well, I’m sorry, but Jesus comes before my country!

It is on the list of the ones I look forward to every year.

And it's not just because of what comes the day after Independence Day, even though as a young kid I thought all those fireworks were to celebrate mine (and Konnie’s) birth. Give me a break, I was a kid, I was still learning.

But I know now, and I know the story behind when Francis Scott Key penned his poem that later become the lyrics to our beautiful Anthem. By the way, that was the war of 1812, and the flag was still standing come morning because of the men who sacrificed their lives to keep it standing!

Anyway, happy writing everyone! And don’t forget to honor the Vets in your life.

Of Furry Obstacles and Other Things by Konnie Enos

Some of the things I’ve experienced or witnessed in the past couple of weeks.

Most of these have to do with my continuing issue with my dog, Mabel, and Jerry’s black dog affectionately referred to as Fluffball. They both like sprawling out on the floor and usually choose someplace near either Jerry or me. A favorite spot for both is between our dresser and the foot of the bed. This action completely blocks my access to get from my bed too, well anywhere else.

Fluffball, generally, will see me heading toward him and immediately make efforts to stand up and move out of my way. However, he is getting older and the act of picking himself off the floor is a laborious task. This might be the reason that he has taken to just not moving until I ask him to. You know, like I have to do with the other furry family members who block my path. Even so, he still moves upon request.

Now I think Mabel has some cat in her because she simply does not care. She might look up at me, but unless I insist, she doesn’t move. Fortunately, she’s smaller than Fluffball so I can generally step over her. The times I can’t is when she is lying behind Jerry’s chair (when he is in it) and thus blocking my path out of the room or, you guessed it, between the dresser and foot of the bed. I can step over the width of her body but not the length.

So, a few days ago I needed to use the bathroom and found Mabel sprawled out on the floor in front of the bathroom door. She just looks up at me as I approach.

“Really?” I look at her waiting for her to move but she is just looking at me. “Move!”

She moves. When I got out of the bathroom I went back to my bedroom/bed because I still had homework to do. What do I find? One gray dog sprawled out between the dresser and the foot of the bed. I again had to ask her to move. Only then did she stroll away.

Then Tiger decided to get into the act. He sprawled right in the middle of the hallway. Being a cat, he’s not taking up that much room and most family members could step around him with ease.

I cannot.

Now, normally I could either step around him or take a slightly longer stride to step over him. However, since my left foot is encased in a boot, I can’t currently take that long of a stride. The boot also makes it impossible for me to step to one side or another. Meaning, while he wouldn’t have been in anyone else’s way, he was mine.

Fortunately, he decided he didn’t want my boot encased foot swinging anywhere near him and therefore quickly moved to a much lower traffic area.

Then there are events like last night when Mabel decided the best place to sleep was right against my backside. Since she is a sound sleeper all my attempts to get her to move were going unnoticed. I even tried to push her away. Have you ever tried shoving 25 pounds of dead weight away from you when it’s behind you and you can only get one arm into a position to even touch it? Yeah, I couldn’t even budge her.

I finally sat up (the only way I could move without falling out of bed) and used both hands to flip her over, so she was resting closer to Jerry. She was still a dead weight in the bed but at least I now had room to move.

Though I think the funniest one was last Sunday. Royce was by the kitchen counter talking to me, Melinda, and Tony when he happened to notice Melinda was not only limping some but one leg was fully encased in a knee brace.

“What happened to your leg?”

Melinda said, “Life.”

While I said, “EDS.”

Melinda then said, “I was born.”

It’s not like any of our answers were wrong.

We then had a short discussion on genetics while I contemplated my oldest child, also currently encased in a knee brace, but also looking at possible surgery, all because they inherited some crappy knees.

Then this, talking to some classmates.

One guy said, “I’m taking 16 credits and working full-time.” I was already astounded by how much he was taking on when he added something else that he was doing part-time.

I’m barely covering 15 credits and struggling to keep up with those and my family responsibilities, you know, like paying the bills. I’ve already spent two days on the monthly finances and still haven’t gotten the bills paid.

Such is life.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Spring and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I finally saw a robin this past week.

Though when I posted on Facebook that I’d seen a robin and about spring officially being here, a distant relative who lives just outside of town informed me she’d been seeing robins for several weeks.

Okay, first off, let’s note that she lives in a rural area, whereas I live in an urban area, and I would think more birds would be out in the country than in the city. My opinion only. Though the real issue is that I spent two whole weeks in March stuck at home on muscle relaxants because of a strained back, and I wasn’t even finished with that when I got tendonitis in my right foot.

Ergo I spent most of March and the first week and a half of April stuck in my apartment, and the only time I even went near a window during that time was to see what the neighbor kids were up to because I could hear them laughing.

Needless to say, with little kids running around making lots of noise, there were no birds within sight. I have been out and about since the eleventh, but I never saw a bird in my travels around town. I did hear some chirping outside my window a couple of times, but those were probably the starlings that are nesting in the eaves since I no longer have a row of trees shading my parking spot.

My landlord had all of them chopped down last month.

To be perfectly honest, I was surprised to see that robin outside my place at all. It just didn’t seem logical they’d stop here anymore.

However, on the bright side, I got a lot of editing done while I was laid up. I pulled out an older unfinished manuscript trying to fix the issue I have with it and realized what I needed most was a timeline of the backstory so I could keep it straight when each event that will eventually come into play in the story happened.

I already had a calendar of events in the story. At least the start of it. But I was getting confused about the backstory details, which turned out to include just how old two of the characters were. On re-reading what I have of my manuscript, I realized their ages were too vague and I wasn’t even sure how old they are.

Then, once I fixed that, I realized I might not have their reaction in a certain scene correct, because when I wrote it, I was thinking they were younger, and I honestly wasn’t sure.

So, there I was, staring at the screen trying to decide if I should change the scene, and not knowing if Konnie would know the answer when it dawned on me that my home health aid has younger siblings in the age range needed. And she was right there!

I asked her to read that portion of the scene, pointing out the ages of the three school-aged kids in the scene, and asked her if the two elder ones (8 & 10) would understand the full scope of the conversation going on around them.

The answer was, yes, they would. The five-year-old wouldn’t, but the other two would.

Long story short, I did have the reaction of the five-year-old down pat, but the reaction of her big sisters needed to be changed.

That scene is now fixed.

Now to move on. I need to make other changes because what I did have wasn’t working the backstory in well enough, and some of it was being ignored.

And I have a feeling this isn’t going to be any regular-length novel.

In fact, it may end up as another series.

It seems when I start writing, I tend to include the whole family. And to get the whole backstory in this time, I may have to write several novels. Though I think this time I’ll do what Konnie did to her epic sci-fi and write the whole story from beginning to end, then divide it into books.

And that doesn’t include my epic sci-fi, which needs work, and I have another group of stories, of which only two are completed, but I have several others either started or in outlines.

Yeah, I really need to buckle down and finish more of these stories.

Not sure I will though, especially for the group with two completed stories, because I’m not sure I’m up to the research it would take to write her ancestors’ stories. But I really should finish my sci-fi and the one I’ve been working on.

Do any of you have a series you’re working on?

Anyway, happy writing everyone.