Of Stress and Major Catastrophes by Konnie Enos

When it rains, it pours. Lately, it seems like everything that can go wrong, will. In the last few years, we’ve had several furry family members, other family members, and even some friends die. We’ve had multiple appliances break down and need repairing or replacing. We’ve had car accidents resulting in needing a new car. We’ve also had expensive maintenance on our house.

And if that isn’t bad enough, at least Melinda and I are having health issues. Melinda’s fibromyalgia and my arthritis are making it difficult for us to keep up with our chores. The gentlemen in our household aren’t going to pick up the slack so some things just aren’t getting done as often as they should.

 It also doesn’t look like things are going to settle down anytime soon.

A few weeks ago, Jerry asked a mechanic how much it would cost for some regular maintenance on our car. I was hoping it would be just a lube, oil, and filter.

Nope.

The transmission and brakes are due for service. It’ll be over a thousand dollars. The only bright spot is that we have some leeway to save for it.

I’m to the point of thinking we have this under control when Jerry decides he has to take his dog to the vet. The issue? He thinks the dog has an ear infection. What does he come home with? Stuff to clean dogs’ ears. Something that we already have in the house and Melinda has told him that. Over a hundred dollars we didn’t have to have a vet tell him exactly what our resident vet tech already had. (Part of that was just the fee to see the vet. The other part was the bottle of medicine we did not need.)

But the most stressful day recently was last Thursday.

Sometime in the middle of the night, early last Thursday, Royce and I heard a loud crashing noise. I was too tired to investigate it (already asleep in bed). Royce wasn’t asleep and did look around but couldn’t figure out where it came from.

Then around ten or eleven in the morning, Jerry left the house to go somewhere and noticed water flowing out of our garage.

Clearly, there was a problem somewhere.

We stepped into the garage to find water everywhere and a gaping hole in the ceiling in the corner near our hot water heater. Water soaked most of the garage, including many of the boxes we had stored out there. The smell from all those musty boxes was so overpowering that all four of us had issues with our asthma.

With water still dripping from somewhere, the first step was to shut off our water supply. The second was to call the plumber. Jerry dealt with the first while I dealt with the second.

The first issue was without water we couldn’t flush. Well, okay we could flush once for each toilet. With everyone being adults, we were sensible enough to know that we didn’t have to flush every single time. (You know only flush if it is brown, or red.) I used both flushes within an hour.

The second issue was the heat. Being over a hundred degrees out meant family members, especially those with fur, or in my case, diabetes, would need plenty of water. Fortunately, I have a twenty-litter jug which I had recently filled. Also, the plumber came fairly quickly and was able to figure out where the water was coming from and get our water back on.

He also told us to call our homeowners insurance. But then so did my friend from church whom I’d contacted to see if we could get help with the clean-up, which was clearly going to be a major undertaking considering how full the garage was. And that was just considering everything stored there. I still do not know how much sheetrock or insulation or anything else will need replacing.

Anyway, within a few hours, we had two guys here. One was the plumber. One was a guy from a company that cleans up water damage like this. Not repairs, just clean it up so someone else can repair it. One of their jobs is to make sure any mold is dealt with.

This is a good thing. Melinda is highly allergic to mold and before the day was over she was having a major reaction bad enough to consider using her EpiPen. Thankfully, Benadryl worked.

And our insurance said they are sending out their investigator this morning to assess the damage. Though everyone, even the people we’ve talked to from our insurance, are assuming this is covered. Hopefully, because we certainly couldn’t repair all that damage on our own.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

The Passage of Time by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Last week Konnie talked about her menagerie of pets, and mostly about how most of them are senior pets. Lakota being the exception. Around here, I have one pet. And Patches isn’t quite a senior, yet; he turned five this last weekend. I can’t believe it’s been nearly five years since I got him, but it is.

I also can’t believe it’s been over ten years since Tom died and I moved in here, but it has.

And my next post will come just two days before Konnie, and I turn sixty-two. Yeah, I can’t believe that either. Though it is pretty hard to think of Konnie and me as seniors when we don’t look our age. People still get shocked over how old I am, and who can blame them when I still have a mass of brown hair?

Yes, I do have some white hair, as I have mentioned before, but it is still just one streak down the back. A streak I can easily hide by putting my hair in a ponytail, which I usually do to keep my hair out of my eyes while I work.

I think I mentioned not too long ago when a coworker expressed shock that I was older than her.

Then there is the post I saw on Facebook where the person posting asked, “Have you ever gotten up in the morning, looked in the mirror, and thought that can’t be right?”

I didn’t respond on Facebook but my initial response to the question was, “Every frickin time!”

Though I have to admit it isn’t because of my age, which I’m sure is what the poster was talking about. No, I have been feeling the image in my mirror is incorrect for my entire life.

This is something I’ve mentioned before, because I can’t stand looking in mirrors for that very reason. I never see myself, I see Konnie.

I also have a whopping two mirrors in my house. A mirrored curio shelf in my spare room, which I avoid looking at (it was a gift), and the bathroom mirror that came with the place. I avoid looking in it too, as much as I can.

So back to the original question. Does my mirror image make me think, “That can’t be right?” Yes. Is it because of how old I appear in the mirror? Absolutely not!

Which is why I did not respond to that post.

A post I did respond to was about Harry Potter. The poster pointed out that Harry was born in 1980 and started at Hogwarts in 1991, and asked the readers to post about what they were doing, or what significant things happened in their real lives at key points in the Harry Potter universe.

Well, right off the bat, Konnie and I turned 18 in 1980. So, I wrote that down then I considered the year 1991. Well, the First Gulf War was going on then, that’s for sure. How do I know this? Simple, my second born came along in June of ’92, nine months after Tom came back from that little skirmish.

Tom participated in Operation Desert Storm and Brandon was part of Operation Desert Stork.

In another comment on that thread, a lady mentioned she was born in 1960, the same year as James and Lily. I responded that puts me two years younger than James and Lily, which means they were twenty when Harry was born.

At 20, Konnie and I had barely finished high school.

Another date in Harry Potter lore is May 2, 1998, the Battle of Hogwarts. That would mean during the battle I was preparing for the sixth birthday of my second born, which would have been in June, and the first birthday of my twins in July. My final baby came into the world on Halloween of ’99, can it really be that long ago?

But it has.

Like when I talked to a lady the other day, the subject came to the bad weather we’ve endured. I mentioned living through a couple of big ones that hit mostly Florida back in the day and she tried to think of a couple more recent hurricanes it might have been.

She was way off, mentioning some big ones that happened in this century. Yeah, try Andrew and Hugo. Those were the two that happened when I lived in Virginia from ’87 – ‘96. You know when Tom was in the Navy. Way back in the last century.

Man, that makes me feel old. Most of my life happened in the last century. But it wasn’t like the lady I was talking to was born in this century, she wasn’t. She’s in her late 40’s early 50’s.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Loss and Love by Konnie Enos

Sometime in 2016, Jerry decided to co-own an Akita with his friend Jimmy. In the beginning, Hmwun spent time living with Jimmy and here with us but then Jimmy’s housing situation made it impossible for Hmwun to stay with him. So, Jimmy would just visit him here. I believe I wrote about the time Mabel kicked up a huge fuss because Jimmy let himself into Hmwun’s dog run.

Anyway, because of his size (Akita’s are large dogs) and their natural tendency to be aggressive with other dogs, we kept Hmwun in his dog run. (Don’t worry. He had shelter and water. Jerry also spent a great deal of time out there with him.) We had talked about allowing Hmwun in the house, but he didn’t get along with Reeses or Mabel, and we weren’t sure how he and Xavier would get along. We were also positive Tiger wouldn’t like him in the house.

Well, last year after we lost Reeses, Tiger, and then Mabel, we decided to let him come in at least once in a while. We did, but he seemed to much prefer his dog run.

It was about this time that Jimmy’s housing situation calmed down and Jerry decided Hmwun should stay with him again. Jerry would regularly (mostly on Sunday afternoons) head over to Jimmy’s to visit them. Since Hmwun absolutely adored Jimmy, he was in heaven living with his favorite person. It should be noted that Jimmy, a man somewhere around 80 years old, wasn’t in the best of health, but he loved having Hmwun around to keep him company.

About a month ago, Jerry started bringing Hmwun over here for short visits. With the absence of our fur family members whom we knew he didn’t get along with, we tried letting him come inside. Our main concerns were Xavier and our newest dog, Lakota.

At first, both found Hmwun as someone new to play with but being a senior dog, Xavier quickly tired of attempting to play with Hmwun (a senior himself). Being still quite young, and full of youthful exuberance, Lakota was more energetic but eventfully gave up when Hmwun showed no interest in dealing with her.

Though we assured him all the dogs were fine, Jerry was concerned about possible fights, so Hmwun only visited for a few days before returning to Jimmy’s.

Then early last Thursday, I’m talking before the sun was even up, Jerry’s phone rang. He answered it on speakerphone, so we were both able to hear a woman bawling into the phone and saying something so garbled by her tears that it took us a few minutes to understand her.

Finally, she managed to make herself understood. “My dad’s dead.”

I’m lying in bed thinking this woman must have the wrong number because I couldn’t think of a soul who’d call us because their dad died. Jerry tried a couple of times to get her attention and ask who she was, and she finally explained she was Jimmy’s daughter. Someone Jerry had met before. She told him to go get Hmwun.

So, Jerry jumped into his clothes and hurried over to Jimmy’s. By that time, Jimmy’s body had been removed and Hmwun was there by himself in Jimmy’s backyard.

Now Hmwun was outside when Jimmy passed away but being so close to him, Hmwun still seems to understand that something happened to Jimmy. He is a bit mopey, so we all love on him and let him know he still has family.

Jerry is also a bit mopey. He misses visiting his friend. Sunday he expressed the desire to make his regular Sunday afternoon visit to Jimmy’s. It may take a while for both of them to come to terms with not seeing Jimmy.

Anyway, when Hmwun came to visit us Jerry began to notice some behavior changes in Hmwun. The main one being he was looking down at the ground a great deal while moving around and he’d stumbled a few times in situations that had never bothered him before. When we brought him back permanently, Jerry decided Hmwun was blind or at least going blind.

Melinda, our resident vet tech, checked him out and found indications that he was clearly losing his sight, a common issue with Akitas, especially male Akitas.

So, now we have a large dog somewhat terrified of change because he can’t see well and also missing the man he loved the most in this world.  Poor Hmwun.

He is, however, getting used to being here with us. He comes inside whenever he wants to but can still spend the night sleeping in his dog run, which he seems to prefer. I’m sure he understands that we all love him too.

Smile. Make the world a better place.

 

Just the Facts by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I know I’ve mentioned how I hate crime drama shows where they determine a suspect’s hair color from a single strand of hair.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with that, but just take a minute to examine your hair or the hair of some other family member. You’ll find that your hair isn’t one color at all.

Take my hair for instance. Most of my hair ranges from light brown/almost red to dark brown/almost black with dark brown being my overall hair color, except for that streak of white. And I mean white, not blonde, as blonde is actually yellow rather than white.

So, it always seems absurd when characters on TV determine hair color from a single strand.

But now I have a new one to complain about.

I was watching an episode of Bones the other day and Bones said something to the effect of her newest victim had to be between eighteen and twenty because her wisdom teeth hadn’t erupted yet.

Cue me yelling at the TV: “My wisdom teeth haven’t erupted yet!”

That’s right. I will be sixty-two next month and my wisdom teeth are still where they were when I was twenty-one, in my jaw.

I can clearly remember my freshman year of college going to a nearby dentist for a checkup. Of course, they took X-rays first, and while we waited for the film to develop, (remember it was 41 years ago) the dentist asked me a few questions about myself, among the answers was that I was a freshman at the nearby college.

I didn't mention to him that I graduated from high school a month before my twentieth birthday, nor did I mention I spent a year at home helping out before entering college.

He got the X-rays back, looked them over, and announced that I would probably need to get all four of my wisdom teeth taken out by the time I turned twenty.

I stared at him. “I’m twenty-one.”

“Oh, in that case, if they’re not bothering you, don’t worry about it.”

They have yet to bother me! But that also means a body that still has wisdom teeth that haven’t erupted doesn’t mean it is the body of a teenager.

Hence why I yelled at the TV. I haven’t watched Bones a whole lot since then either.

I guess I should be glad that they at least have addressed the issue of the eyes being a different color next time they see the person, however, they usually do that with the use of colored contacts, rather than the ever-changing hazel eyes, that I have, but oh well.

However, I have a book that I have a difficult time reading because at one point the author describes the female lead as wearing big frame glasses that supposedly hide her eyes, and more importantly her unusual eye color. At no point does the author say the lenses are tinted, in fact, she says they are CLEAR!

I hate to break it to you, but that’s not going to hide eye color.

And all that is plain irksome to me. I mean really, getting those details wrong in a show, takes me right out of the show, saying, “That’s impossible!”

And like I said, I have a difficult time reading that one story because of that one description. I always find myself wanting to yell at the book, “You can see eyes through clear lenses, stupid!”

A fact I know because I wear glasses. Tinted lenses or Sunglasses can hide the eyes and their color, but clear regular lenses CANNOT!

I just wish all writers would get their facts straight. It annoys me to no end when they get them wrong. And I’m not talking about stuff that only people in certain fields could know I’m talking about stuff that any observant human being can know just by interacting with other humans, or by their own experience.

It’s like when I complain about how authors, or TV writers, portray twins. Come on, give me a break. Not all twins are identical, and never in my entire life have I ever come across one sweet and one evil twin set of identical twins. In fact, the only time I have come across twins who are polar opposites has been when they were fraternal twins (generally boy/girl twins). But authors and Hollywood seem to think all twins are identical.

I don’t remember ever reading a book or watching a show where the twins are fraternal. Guess what folks, fraternal twins happen more often than identical ones!

By the way, the chance of triplets or higher all being identical is pretty slim, too, so please stop making all multiples identical! It’s unrealistic.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Sleep and Long Nights by Konnie Enos

At the end of a long weekend, my older son needed to return to where he works in the northern part of the state. The fastest way to get him to where he needs to be is for my husband to drive him there. He doesn’t want my husband driving back alone so my younger son went along for the ride.

This means several things for me and my daughter.

For starters, we’d have to do the chores normally done by the now absent men. Or more like my daughter would because I’m not able to do them myself.

The next hurdle would be dogs wanting out in the middle of the night. My daughter hates anyone waking her up at night, but I simply do not hear them when I’m asleep.

We know this because my family members have mentioned the annoyance of dogs barking to get one door or another opened. As a rule, when I lay my head down at night I’m down for the count within half an hour. I would never call myself a heavy sleeper. I can wake up to alarms, but not necessarily any other sound from my phone. My bladder wakes me about three times a night. My family can be talking, particularly if they are in my room.

Dogs barking in the middle of the night?

I don’t hear it. I wouldn’t even know they were doing it if my family members hadn’t told me about how annoying it is. As a result, me and my daughter discussed how to manage me not hearing them wanting out of my bedroom. The result was that we left my bedroom door open.

Now, with my door open, my daughter turned off all my lights so that it wouldn’t bother her. Since she goes to bed at least a couple of hours before I do, it means I am sitting in the dark.

No problem. Sitting up doing stuff on my tech, which provides its own light, is something I do most nights.

Now the issue.

At some point, after my daughter had gone to bed, my son, sounding rather tired, called telling me they were where his brother is staying. As I am telling him to get some sleep, I hear my husband in the background saying that they are turning right back around and coming home.

Then the phone went dead. For whatever reason, I didn’t call them back to clarify my husband’s intentions for the evening. One could assume I spent the next several hours concerned about my tired husband driving eight hours back home in the middle of the night.

I did not.

I had known how my night would transpire as soon as I learned he was going to be gone overnight. For some reason, I don’t sleep well when my husband isn’t at least in our bedroom when I go to bed. More accurately, I don’t get tired enough to go to bed when he isn’t here.

Under those circumstances, I either stayed up all night or did not crash until three or four in the morning. Staying up late means I sleep in. Often not getting up until ten or eleven.

Now the problem is that I often wait to write my post until around six on Wednesday morning. Staying up late wasn’t going to be a good idea.

What happened?

It was well after two in the morning when I decided I was not going to get any sleep. I decided attempting to write my post would be an effective use of my time.

 Guess what happened within an hour of me starting to type.

Yeah, that’s right. I crashed.

I somehow managed to wake up with the sun even though that was something like two hours after I fell asleep. But, of course, that limited amount of sleep means I’m exhausted now.

My day can go one of two ways.

I could fall back to sleep. Melinda is the only one up and about, so the house isn’t noisy. I am also still groggy and periodically putting my head down for a few brief moments of rest. My body would love some more sleep.

The other option is that I can’t fall back to sleep because my husband isn’t here. Or the sun's up. Or my daughter is doing her chores. I did get about two hours of sleep. I’m not thoroughly exhausted anymore.

So, if my notifications on social media don’t go out at eight in the morning as usual, blame it on me falling back to sleep. I’m most of the way there already.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. 

Autism and Other Character Quirks by Bonnie Le Hamilton

At some point this last week I was watching a scene clip from The Big Bang when it dawned on me that Sheldon Cooper was on the spectrum. I have no idea why it hadn’t crossed my mind sooner; I have watched quite a bit of the series and I’d seen the entire episode the clip was from.

But it got me wondering why I haven’t written any characters on the spectrum. I certainly know what that is like; being on the spectrum and not knowing it.

Then I started thinking about some of the characters I do have and well, I figured out it would only take a little tweaking to make one of my minor characters into someone on the spectrum. The only thing is that I really want a main character who is on the spectrum. So, I find myself contemplating tweaking the heroine of that story into someone on the spectrum.

And why do I want it to be a female character?

That’s simple. Write what you know. I know what it is like to be on the spectrum and clearly, I am female.

Easy right?

Not likely. This character is already established. It will take a major rewrite to change who she is.

I guess, I could try to make my hero from that story to be on the spectrum but that is even more farfetched, though it is one of his younger sisters that is so close to being on the spectrum right now.

I have no idea why I haven’t used those obvious characteristics before, even before I knew they were what put me on the spectrum.

I mean my earliest stories did include a teenage girl that was behind in school; something else I know. I actually have several stories where the heroine is two years behind in school. Not all of those are finished, but I have started them.

Anyway, right now I am trying to think about some of the quirks that make me who I am and how they would work for my heroine’s characters.

Have you ever used your own quirks in your characters?

That seems like an easy route to writing, but I find, for the most part, it isn’t. Who wants to see their own shortcomings spelled out in black and white?

Then again, our characters need quirks, so why not use the ones we know personally? And why not have them exactly how it was in our own lives?

Konnie has at least a couple of stories where the heroine is 2 years behind in school, just like I have several. The only thing is in none of those stories are the characters behind for the same series of events that got us behind through no fault of our own.

Of course, the problem there would be that our stories have to be believable, and it is more believable that one tragic event led to the character being behind rather than a series of events over several years leading to it.

And let’s face it; the chances of that series of events happening again, let alone in this day and age, are pretty slim. Part of why we are behind is because of a stupid teacher who saw three kids from the same family in the same grade and decided we were all idiots on sight.

Yeah, we skipped school a lot that year, and that teacher was one of the reasons why we did it. Plus, that only got us put back one year.

We were put back the first time because the stupid teacher decided we couldn’t be smart enough for first grade because we didn’t go to kindergarten (this was back in the days when kindergarten wasn’t required).

In that case, the teacher moved us to the kindergarten with our younger brother without our mother’s permission. Things like that wouldn’t stand today. It shouldn’t have been allowed when it happened to us.

So, anyway, we were behind in school, and we use that in our stories, but in our stories, they are behind because of some tragic accident not because of a couple of idiot teachers.

Then again, in the WIP where I am contemplating making at least one character be on the spectrum, I have the hero of the story behind by two years.

Though I might have to change that; it seems farfetched that any parent can get away with keeping their child out of school until they are seven, especially when it’s only one of the parents doing it. Maybe a few months, but two whole years?

I just can’t figure out how else to do it. I don’t want it to be another accident nor because he couldn’t hack it.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!