The Problem with Mindreading by Konnie Enos

I’m beginning to think in all seriousness all men think women can read minds.

On multiple occasions Bonnie complained about Tom making plans for the day and then getting upset with her because she wasn’t ready to go when he was but she hadn’t known they were going anywhere because he never said anything. I honestly thought it was a Tom thing, until yesterday.

Yesterday, pretty much all morning my dear husband was asking when I had to pick up our youngest daughter from her class. I told him, more than once, that her class got out around eleven and I’d pick her up when she texted me.

He told me after I picked her he was going to take off, first he said one thing, then changed his mind and said another, but obviously both things had to wait until after I didn’t need our one car.

Finally I got the message from our daughter. I told him she was done but I was on Facebook and also didn’t have my shoes on. (I was in the house. Why would I have them on?)

My dear husband, standing in the room, fully clothed mind you, asked me if I was just going straight there and back. As I worked on closing tabs I said yes and he shot out of the room without another word.

Then I heard the front door open and close.

Curious I went to check and happened to see him getting into the front seat of the car.

“Okay then. I guess he’s picking up our daughter.”

I went back to our room and texted her the information and continued on Facebook since I didn’t have to leave after all.

Five minutes later he came back in. “I guess you’re not getting her after all.”

The man went and got in the car. He even started it. How on earth was I supposed to know he wasn’t picking her up himself? He never said a word to me.

And with all of that, he wouldn’t go get her even though he was fully dressed and could leave right then. Me, I had to close tabs and get my shoes on plus make sure everything I needed was in my purse. I really needed to go to the bathroom but I opted not to make her wait any longer.

He honestly never said what he was doing when he went out to the car and I knew he got in and started it. What else was I supposed to think?

I didn’t think for a second he was running off on some errand he felt he needed to do. He’d been pestering me all morning about when I had to pick her up and he’d just barely asked me about it before he took off out the door.

Personally, I saw one parent dressed and ready to head out the door without delay, and assumed he knew where she was since he has taken her to class before and I was going to take a few minutes before I could head out. Seemed logical to me that since he wanted the car he’d get the task of getting her home finished as quickly as possible.

But apparently he thought I needed the car started for me.

Men!

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Busy Days by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Konnie and I have talked about how our lives are different a lot, and I know I’ve told a lot of people I’m glad I’m not Konnie with all she has to do, because it always sounds like way more than I can handle. Then Monday came along. And I mean this past Monday.

I had a doctor’s appointment that morning and left my apartment around ten A.M. After my appointment with the doctor, I went to the lab, and from there I went to pick up my sister-in-law for her doctor’s appointment.

By the time she was done, it was lunchtime so I invited my sister-in-law out to lunch, afterwards, I took her home and hurried over to the store where I got my walker, because they finally had the part to fix the seat.

Next was my appointment with the physical therapist.

I returned home around five P.M.

Not as bad as the days when my sister-in-law and I spent the day running errands together, but I was still beat. And Konnie has days like this just about every day of the week. It’s a wonder she ever gets some writing done at all. I haven’t managed much of anything since I started going to physical therapy, well actually before that.

As I said last time, it’s been an awful last couple of months, and things are not getting any better.

But it got me wondering about stories that have characters doing a bunch of things in what the writer says is a single day and making me wonder if they have the timing right. Sometimes it seems like there is too much happening for it to be in a single day. Or am I the only one who feels that way?

We have to remember there are only finite hours in a day, even if we are writing fiction. And there’s only so much a person can accomplish in a day, no matter how hard they try. It takes time to drive to a different location, it takes to get something to eat, and eat it, and it takes time to do little incidentals like heed the call nature, all of which detracts from getting things done.

It also takes time for a washer or a dryer or a dishwasher to do their job. You need to consider how long it will take, which I know isn’t easy.

I myself have a scene where the heroine is cleaning the house, and planning for lunch and dinner. But in my case, I considered how long the washer, dryer, and dishwasher would take, as well as a slow cooker, and how much else a body can do while those appliances are working. And at the end of that morning, I have her husband comment on how amazed he is over how much she got done in just a few short hours.

But, not everybody is all that organized, and I could have easily thrown in a kid or two to make it interesting, or harder for her do what she did.

Anyway, do you ever feel a writer has the characters accomplishing too much in a single day? Or do you sometimes have to pare back what you have your character accomplishing?

Happy writing everyone! :)

Bad Day by Konnie Enos

Did you ever have one of those days? You know the kind where either nothing seems to go right or you just can’t seem to get enough energy to tackle the day, or its one disaster after another. Yeah, that kind of day.

Well that was yesterday for me.

It started out as a perfectly normal day around here. Bright and early, before the sun even got up. Then my oldest son complained of stomach pains whenever he moved.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t going to school and I would be calling the doctor.

I got his brother to school, then his sister to her school, I even managed to call the doctor then my other daughter came into my bedroom with a look of sheer panic on her face trying to get her dad’s attention.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Gunner’s bleeding.”

“What? Bring him here, let me see.”

She called him in and he calmly jumped up on my bed like there was nothing wrong but I easily spotted the gaping gash in his side. I’m sure I yelled, because unlike my daughter who’d been standing right next to him, I was able to get my husband’s attention from across the room.

While I quickly texted Gunner’s Mom (said daughter that I took to school), Dad found his leash and loaded him in the car. We were out the door in minutes.

Of course my daughter was still in class and didn’t get the message until class got out. Normally she’d text me to let me know she was ready to be picked up. This time she called, right as the vet came into the exam room, which set me flying across town to pick her up.

Then there was the mad scramble to figure out how we were going to cover this.

We finally got home from the vets and I had about half an hour before I had to take my son to his appointment. Mind you, I don’t normally take naps, but yesterday, at that time, it was rest or not drive my son to his appointment.

After his appointment I had about an hour before we had to pick up Gunner (after his surgery). You got it, I laid down again.

Not that I got much rest.

My husband laid in bed with me and seemed to think it was a perfect occasion to talk. All my kids (at least the ones who live with me) were home and they each had something they desperately needed to tell me, at least once each. I think one daughter came in at least three times. Then there was the fact that the few times I’d been online yesterday my sister had not been so she hadn’t seen me all day so she called to make sure I was all right.

“Yeah, can I go back to sleep?”

“Okay, maybe if you get some rest I won’t have to take another nap.”

“Don’t count on it, nobody will leave me alone.”

She finally said she was going to go take another nap.

I finally got up to go pick up Gunner, trying to beat the clock because the normal Tuesday night activity for our boys had been moved from the usual seven o’clock time up to six.

Yeah, that’s about the time we got home, but I don’t think my son, the healthy one, even noticed or cared that we didn’t take him.

Now today, I feel sick. That could explain my lethargy yesterday.

Here’s hoping today's a better day.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Bad Nights by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Have you ever had one of those nights where you just can’t get to sleep because you can’t get comfortable? Well, I hate those kinds of nights.

Of course, something like that can be good fodder for a book, but in reality, it’s annoying. Especially since, I hate taking pills. I drove my stepmother up the wall with my refusal to take anything. Every time I complained about any old ache, she’d ask if I’d taken anything for it. And, generally, I hadn’t, and you should have seen her face the one time I had.

That time she ran to the phone to make me an appointment with the doctor.

Yeah, I don’t take pain meds unless I’m in a lot of pain. Well, actually, I’ve gotten better about taking them since that incident, but still, I tend to wait longer to take them than most people would, so anyway. I took some pain meds last night, so I could get to sleep. Enough said.

But it also means I was up late, and ended sleeping in. What a way to start the day, behind already! Which is something that would make a good story, but only if the person has a lot more on their plate than I do, because I don’t need to be out the door until ten o’clock. To be a really good story, the person sleeping in has to have like kids, and a job, and --- oh wait, I think what I’m describing is that story about the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day.

Then again, that is a good story, and there are only so many stories, it’s in the telling that makes it unique. :)

Happy writing everyone! :)

Computers and Sciatica by BonnieLe Hamilton

Okay, here’s the deal, Konnie’s having computer issues, so you’re stuck with me another week, and I haven’t got much to say about being mirror twins or about writing because the only thing I’ve been dealing with is my sciatica. And if you’ve never been to the emergency room, simply because you were in so much pain you couldn’t move without bawling, then you don’t know how bad sciatica can get it.

Honestly, I’d had it happen to me back in my college days and that was a walk in the park compared to what I’m going through now. I can barely walk, with my walker. Getting into my car was another issue.

Of course, that wouldn’t be problem if I didn’t live alone. If someone lived with me, or if I had children, I could get to the car, and sit down, while whomever lived with me could put my walker in the car, and when I got to where I was going, that person could get my walker out for me.

Konnie doesn’t live alone. If this were happening to her, she’d have people to wait on her, so she wouldn’t have to keep getting up to fix meals or get water. She’d only have to get up to use the restroom, or go to bed. I don’t have that option.

Sometimes living alone stinks.

On the other hand, maybe I can use this experience in a story someday. Then again, there are things I’ve experienced that I’ve never been able to figure out how to put into a story. Thought about it though.

Are there things you’ve experienced that you’ve never been able to insert into a story you’re writing?

Happy writing everyone. :)

Mirror Opposites

Ever since Konnie visited me last month, all my friends have been commenting on how much alike we are, and it got me thinking about how, being a mirror twin is more about how much we are opposites then about how much we are alike. The definition of mirror twins is after all, “mirror opposites.”

Yes, we look alike but we are different. Though I admit those differences are things that most people don’t notice. I think it might have something to do with how most people depend too heavily on sight, or maybe don’t utilize it enough, maybe a mix of both. Because honestly, people fixate on our face, and don’t see anything else.

Like we dress differently. Oh, we both dress modestly, but we do have different tastes.

Our hair is also different lengths, well it is now, and really for a lot of our lives, just that we can’t ever seem to agree. Though well, technically, this last time I cut mine off, it started with the doctor shaving half my head.

(Let’s just say, he got it all, and leave it at that.)

But beyond that, people do change their hairstyles over time and we’ve gone from me having the shorter hair to me having longer hair and back again, several times. That has annoyed a few people over the years, those few who depended on our hair length to tell us apart.

And that is because too many depend on what they see, and not on what their other senses tell them, like the fact that Konnie is a soprano and I’m an alto. Although to be honest, our blind counselor in high school knew that about us, and still had to depend on our hair length to figure out which was which. And boy was he annoyed when Konnie chopped her hair off!

Anyway, we are different, in a lot of ways, because, after all, we are “mirror opposites.”

Happy writing everyone! :)

Reading and Living by Konnie Enos

In recent weeks I’ve seen articles about how reading is good for your longevity. Then today I found a list of five suggested books to read this summer and noticed something. Two were plays, two had already been made into movies and the last one; it was about how the internet is making us dumb.

I have in fact heard on several occasions the idea that in the age of instant everything, including answers, we’re becoming dumber. People want instant answers, knowledge, information, satisfaction. It’s becoming an epidemic of a total lack of patience.

Why wait to learn reading, writing, math, when the answers are right at your fingertips on the internet. Why bother to even retain any facts because you can just look it up again online.

When I was in school they at least attempted to teach us how to convert from our system of measuring to the metric system and back again. Who even remembers any of that? Just look up a conversion chart online.

My sister has a book with a perpetual calendar in it, but why bother looking things up in that. Just find the chart online. Let the computer algorithm find the date information you need in a matter of seconds.

Nowadays there is an app for just about everything, even finding trivia.

The problem with all this is it does make us dumber. We stop reading the books. We stop retaining information. We stop learning.

In Ally Condie’s “Matched” dystopia series she creates a world where people are so dependent on the information on the internet that they can’t even write. They don’t even know how to form letters. They don’t compose so much as a note without plagiarizing from what they find online. They literally just copy and paste words and phrases into the order they want to use. When the leading lady learns to actually write her own name, it’s a new thing to her.

You would think something like this was farfetched, but in this day and age, it really isn’t. We are really almost there.

Today’s kids have little time for patience.

They don’t understand waiting for anything, least of all information.

They’ve never had to wait for the slow churn of an ice cream machine to enjoy that cool confection.

They’ve never had to entertain themselves for an entire long, hot summer day with nothing but a park, and maybe a swimming pool, or a bike.

They’ve never had to get themselves across town without a parent to drive them, so it was either hoof it or bike it. No matter how long it took.

This Pokémon Go craze was intended to get people out and walking around, but there is apparently ways to get around that. My boys are playing it. My son has figured out how to convince the app he’s gone places like France, Britain, Brazil and Seattle. All yesterday, while sitting in his bed on his computer.

Kids want instant gratification without the effort to earn it.

Personally, I hope that being a reader thing includes reading WIP’s, because I don’t get a lot of time to actually read books nowadays between writing and you know, that busy mom thing I do every day.

I think we need to do better teaching that patience is a virtue and anything worth having is worth working for.

Maybe we need to turn off the tech more. (I say as I type on my computer with five internet tabs open.)

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Making it Worse by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Have you ever had one of those days when everything thing seems to go wrong? Well I’m having one of those months, and I think it might be two months.

All my problems actually started on June 24^th. I know the exact date because on June 24^th I had to drive all the way into I.F. to the airport to pick up Konnie, who was flying in to spend a couple of week with me over our birthday.

Or maybe everything started the day before when I got that call from the doctor’s office, saying the lab test came back and he needed to see me as soon as possible. Dang, yeah that didn’t help any.

But the next day with a bit of a limp, it wasn’t easy getting to the airport at all, but I managed, thanks to having a walker. Getting to my doctor’s office later that day wasn’t any easier because my limp had gotten a little worse, and my left ear was bothering me, that cough I’d developed wasn’t any fun either.

Anyway, long story short, along with having to change some of my regular medications, my doctor informed me my sciatica was acting up, I had a mild cold, and an ear infection. Oh swell. At least Konnie was around to help me while I spent a few days trying to stay off my leg as much as possible, but well, when things on that front got better, I suffered a small accident.

It was nothing major. I have one of those store-bought reusable plastic water bottles, 24 ounces. And I put it, full on my padded footstool while I turned to sit on the couch. I’d barely managed that when my bottle tumbled off the footstool and landed hard on my shin. I even remember telling Konnie I was going to have an almighty bruise on my shin in a day or two.

The only other problem I noted during those last few days Konnie was visiting was that while I had finished the antibiotics, my ear still was “clogged” to the point I couldn’t hear out of it. I made another appointment with my doctor.

Between making that appointment, and it actually happening, I took Konnie back to the airport, even though I was again limping. For some reason my bad ankle was acting up again. Or at least that’s what I thought, until I saw my doctor.

I must point out at this time, that I should have noticed there was only a barely discernable discoloration on my shin, and not the almighty bruise I expected. It hadn’t dawned on me that could be a problem, but it turns out, my shin didn’t bruise all that much because the blood was pooling in my foot and he instructed me to spend the next two weeks with my ankle elevated above my heart!

Do you have any idea how hard that is?

Well let me tell you, it isn’t comfortable to do while sitting up. Promise. But the hazards of lying in bed for two weeks aren’t so fun either, especially when my favored pastime is sitting on my computer, writing. Where do you put a computer while your in bed?

The easy answer is on a bed tray designed for a computer. I don’t own a bed tray of any sort. I grabbed my reader and a pile of books, and despite getting some time to read, I went a little stir crazy. I think the biggest part was that despite living so far apart, Konnie and I usually connect every day, online. We talk in AIM all the time, which of course we couldn’t do while I couldn’t get on my computer.

And believe me I did try, but the only place I could put this thing was on my stomach, and putting this big heavy thing on my belly made me feel like I was about to lose it, if you know what I mean. I couldn’t do it for very long, and I frankly avoided it as much as I could.

Then my ankle started to feel better, I was starting to think I would be able to make my brother-in-law’s wedding even though it fell the day before I was supposed to be up and about again, but well, the day before the wedding my hip went out. Or rather, I should say, my sciatica reared it is ugly head again.

Only this time, after 2 weeks of not sleeping on my side (the best position for my back problems) I was now in a lot more pain than any other time my sciatica had acted up. I, in fact, ended up in the emergency room one night simply because my pain was so bad I couldn’t manage to get myself into my bedroom, let alone my bed.

And, just as I am starting to see improvement on that front, just as the new month has barely started, what happens? For the first time in months, I get cramps. Here I hadn’t done anything more than spotting, if at all, since before Christmas, and suddenly, well until this ends, messes will happen, and I hate this.

And I’m beginning to wonder if someone upstairs is trying to keep me home bound for a reason.

But at least it got me thinking about how in writing we’re supposed to think of the worst thing that could possibly happen, and make it worse. Every time someone has told me this, I have always thought how could you possibly make the worst thing to happen worse? Now I know.

Why did I have to learn this the hard way?

Happy writing everyone!

The Flow of Things by Konnie Enos

I’m going to tell you the honest truth. Last night I had several ideas I could write about for my blog post. I really did. I don’t know if it was the hour (it was nearly 2 this morning) or they simply weren’t good ideas, but I couldn’t get any of them to flow.

I finally scrapped them.

Sleep. I need sleep. Then I’ll be able to think, write.

I went to bed. Then got up way too early to get my son up for school (he’s in summer school). I still had plenty of time to type up one of those ideas I had. I got him going then laid down to get some more rest.

Apparently my son, despite what he said, also got some more sleep. He missed his bus because he wasn’t looking for it.

That debacle at least got me awake. It also took me half an hour to figure out that he’d actually missed it. (I called the bus garage right away, I was on the line that long trying to find out where the bus was.)

So here I am, Wednesday morning less than half an hour before my post is supposed to go up and I’m tired from not enough sleep, plus I can’t think beyond the fact my son tried to get away with lying to me.

And to make matters worse my dear sister is complaining about how she feels every few seconds while I’m trying to organize my thoughts.

I suppose it could be worse.

I could have the rest of my family vying for my attention.

I’ve certainly been there. Trying to write and every single member of my family comes in and insists on talking to me interrupting my train of thought. But of course, I’m just on my computer, I’m not doing anything.

I could go on and on about family members who always interrupt me, who think I’m never busy and always have time since I’m ‘just on my computer’.

And now my post should already be up and I still can’t get the ideas to flow.

There are several things I should be doing.

Getting breakfast. Taking my medications.

Doing the chores I’ve been putting off, avoiding all week.

Doing the finances, because those always need done.

Getting a bath. Getting dressed. Though I doubt I’ll go anywhere today so I probably won’t do the last one.

And last of all, I could be editing my opus. I’ve actually been working on it for the last month.

In the end I just have to tackle one thing at a time and hope too many things don’t crop up to interfere with my plans. Because we all know life happens.

A child gets sick. A pet gets hurt. You run out of milk (ask Bonnie, that happens a lot around here). Someone needs a ride someplace. Or, like today, you have to write something and you can’t get a single idea to flow.

 Some days you just have to grin and bear it.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Illnesses and other things by Konnie Enos

Today is supposed to be Bonnie's post, but she is laid up and unable to get on her computer long enough to type anything.

I’d promised her I’d let people know why her post wasn’t up but I ended up working on my opus all night. Yes, I do mean all night, reading and trying to edit my work in progress. I went to bed after the sun got up. I very nearly forgot. I also still need sleep. Food and my medicine would be helpful too.

I hope to see all our reader’s next week and I’m hoping Bonnie is feeling better before she has to post again.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

The Case Against Tickling by Konnie Enos

Okay, yesterday I found this post on Mom.me by Sandra A. Miller (posted July 11, 2016) titled “Tickling Kids is Not Okay”. Well of course I read it.

I’ve never aggressively tickled my children. In fact I’ve never so much as hugged them without their permission and I’ve never ever made them hug or kiss anyone if they didn’t want to.

There are several reason for this.

First, like this lady pointed out, aggressive tickling is abuse and bullying. It IS NOT FUN for the victim. I know. I’ve been there. You may be laughing when it is happening, but believe me it hurts when people are aggressively holding you down and poking at you. NOT FUNNY. On the other hand, I happen to like the gentle tickling my husband gives me when he is being affectionate. There is a HUGE difference between the two.

Second of all, and I believe this is most important, when you show kids by your actions that they can’t control what is done to their bodies, i.e.: they can’t stop someone from aggressively tickling them, hugging or kissing them when they don’t want it, then you show them how to be abused. As I said, I allowed my kids to say who touched them, when and where, even when they were telling me, because they learned they could control who touched their bodies. Most importantly sexual abuse starts by the predator FORCING unwanted attention on the child. If they don’t know they can tell an adult not to touch them, what are they going to do?

I mean it. This includes not forcing a child to hug or kiss a relative they either don’t see much if at all, have never met before or have shown in the past that they don’t want to be around them. Just because that person is family doesn’t mean the child has to kiss or be kissed by them.

Forcing kids to hug and or kiss adults who are veritable strangers to them simply because they are visiting family members tells them they can’t control who touches them, that adults control their bodies, creating the potential for another victim of abuse.

I grew up with abuse in many different forms and I have tried hard to raise my kids without it. That’s why I taught them they could control who touched them when, how, where and how much. I taught them good touches and bad touches, and how to tell the difference. I even taught them where their private parts are and our standards of modestly keeping them covered. I talked about our standards of saving sex for marital relations, and I continue to discuss with them how they can follow that standard. (None of them are married yet.)

My hope is that by openly talking to them, they’ll come to me when they have a question so I can impart my knowledge and beliefs to them. Then, of course, it will be up to them to decide what they will do because in the end, it’s their body. They have the controls.

But I can say I agree with Sandra A. Miller. In my house we DO NOT abuse anyone by forcing them to endure any sort of torture including NOT tickling them when they don’t want it. I’m not saying nobody in this house is ever touched when they don’t want it, but then it’s a fight, and that’s a different matter. I’m still working on that one.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

http://mom.me/kids/little-kid/33502-why-tickling-your-child-not-ok/

Stuff Happens by Bonnie Le Hamilton

It’s been busy week for me, or should I say us. Though honestly, in ways, I’ve had a different week than Konnie has. For starters, she isn’t the one that started out with her sciatica acting up, and having a cold, and an ear infection, all at the same time. She’s the one who arrived in town looking forward to a couple weeks of not having to tend to the needs of others only to have me barely able to get myself to and from the bathroom.

Of course stuff happens, and things rarely goes as planned, though around my place things usually go pretty quietly, and about the only mishaps happens when I trip and something falls, but its just me. At Konnie’s, just someone knocking on the door causes havoc, and the potential for a lot more, what with all those dogs running and barking.

In our writing we need to remember there is always a potential for disaster, and they can be pretty big, particularly if you add into the picture other characters to stir the potential for disaster. A single character suddenly getting saddled, if only for the day, with several children, or even animals, for whatever reason, is one disaster after another in the making.

Think stories like Mr. Popper’s Penquins. Which was very funny by the way, but it shows how this is done in the extreme. Of course, we don’t need to get into the extreme for our stories, we just need to realize that things do go wrong, and few things rarely go just as we had hoped.

Just like this past week has been more me, nothing like what I planned, not even our birthday, but I’m sure glad Konnie was here to share the ride.

Happy writing everyone.

United We Stand by Konnie Enos

Enough already!

When I look at the news nowadays I wonder what has come over everyone. Why are we always fighting and in disarray? I see all these news reports and all I can think of is hasn’t anybody ever heard the old saying “divide and conquer”?

We are dividing ourselves up, with labels.

We label everything.

White, black, brown, Asian, Hispanic, disabled, learning delayed, Native American, European decent, LGBT, the labels are endless, and everyone falls into one category, or two or three.

But what everyone fails to see is this dividing of the people is working.

Divide and conquer.

The forces against us as Free Nation want us to fall apart. They want the constitution to be shredded. They want America as a free nation to end before we celebrate 250 years. The worst part is they are succeeding.

We are a divided nation.

We are no longer Americans.

We are a nation of people divided by race, creed, gender, ability, sexual preference and socio-economic background. We are a nation that will find anything little label to divide us from each other.

The longer we stay divided by all these labels, the more labels we have, the more we fight and argue about these labels, the more we let these labels define us, the faster this once great Nation is going to fall and be no more.

I’m an unapologetic patriotic American. I believe in the principles written in the constitution and I believe if we would stop this great mass division among the people we would be able to find the freedoms, the pursuit of happiness, that our founding fathers envisioned or all of us.

I’m greatly saddened by what appears to be a slow march into socialism and communism for this once great country, most particularly the currant attacks on our Second Amendment right to bare arms.

All of it is focused on gun rights, but what both sides fall to realize is that this amendment had very little to do with gun rights, but much more to do with the rights of the people to GOVERN.

Our government is a REPUBLIC, meaning we’re supposed to be governed by THE PEOPLE. Our right to bare arms is so that those in government positions don’t forget for whom they are working for and attempt to take over. You, like they are trying to do right now.

Throughout all recorded history the first thing ALL tyrants do is take the weapons away from their citizens so that they have no means to fight back. Hitler being just one of many examples.

There was a poem, written back in Hitler’s time, by I believe a Catholic priest. It said something about not speaking up for the Jewish people because he wasn’t Jewish. And then listed others that he didn’t speak up or because it wasn’t him, but then he ended with but there is no one left to speak up or him.

Are we going to let that happen here? One by one people are going to disappear but well it isn’t my group of people so what do I care?

As long as we are divided, they will conquer us, and America will be a free nation under the constitution no longer.

Let me quote Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He got that from the holy bible though I can’t quote scripture and verse.

This Fourth of July, let all of commit to drop the labels and be Americans, undivided, standing together for freedom and justice for all.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Waiting by Bonnie Le Hamilton

In, I believe its Harry Potter Goblet of Fire, J K Rowling writes something about how time plays tricks on people. When we’re looking forward to something, time tends to slow down, dragging its feet, and when we’re not looking forward to something it speeds up, bringing the event you don’t want to happen up faster than you would have liked.

And I really hate that isn’t fiction, its fact.

You see I’ve been counting down to this Friday for it feels likes months, and during that time there have been a few events I wasn’t looking forward as well, that did come and go really fast, but this coming Friday is taking its own sweet time in getting here.

Now technically, I know that time passes at the same rate day by day, we all know that, but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re anxious for the ensuing days to pass so the waited for event can occur. And I wonder how many of us, beside Rowling, have ever used this effect in our stories.

We know it happens. We’ve experienced it often enough ourselves. I’m sure lots of children know the feeling of looking forward to Christmas but hate the idea of that trip to the dentist. And we all know that dreaded trip is always upon us way faster than we would like while Christmas takes its own sweet time arriving. It happens every time.

At the beginning of this month, I wasn’t looking forward to my father-in-law dying. Intelligently I knew it was coming, he was fading fast, but it is always hard to watch a loved one go. I didn’t want him to go just yet neither did anyone else in the family. We wanted more time however the clock had other plans.

Before long, I was attending his funeral.

But while I wasn’t looking forward to his death, I was looking forward to this Friday, and it seems to me that time is really dragging its feet!

You see, Konnie’s and my birthday is coming up, and some time ago we discussing how nice it would be to be able to be together on our birthday. She even suggested I make another trek down to her place.

I told her flat out I wasn’t ever going to go down to Vegas during the summer, not if I could help it anyway. She insisted she couldn’t afford to come up to Pocatello, and I could afford the trip to Vegas, which I could, but I decided the solution was for me to pay for her plane fair.

Anyway, this Friday morning I’ll be heading to I.F. for the airport to pick up Konnie, and we’ll have a couple of kids and menagerie free weeks to spend together, well aside from Konnie will have her phone, but still, it should be fun for my friends to finally see for themselves just how alike we are.

And sometime I should try writing a scene where the character feels that time is playing tricks on him, might be interesting.

What do you think?

Happy writing everyone. J

Intelligence Quiz by Konnie Enos

While online yesterday I found an infographic that presented the conclusions from several different studies about intelligence. Each of these studies evaluated different things to see how they indicated a person’s IQ. Two of them were based on genetics, two on family dynamics and the remaining four on things that can change throughout life.

The two based on genetics are being tall, and being left-handed. I guess one of the two isn’t bad.

The family dynamics were being the first born, and having music lessons, which cuts out a whole lot of kids who come from poor families. My own son, has never been able to have them, because they weren’t offered in school and we couldn’t afford them, yet he’s extremely intelligent, even if he isn’t first born.

Three of the remaining four things involve your health. One was being thin. One study correlated healthy mind with a healthy body. According to that study the intelligent people took better care of their physical health, and one of the other studies agrees with it. They concluded that highly intelligent people were non-smokers. However, another study said highly intelligent people, at some time in their adult life, used, yes, I said used, illegal drugs. It seems contradictory for a person who intelligently takes care of their health by staying a healthy weight and not smoking to engage in risking behavior like drug use which is proven to destroy a person’s health. I’m intelligent enough not to engage in such risky behavior.

The last one was being a cat owner, well I’ll generalize it to cat person. Apparently cat people tend to be introverted and pursue more intellectual hobbies, you know, like reading and writing.

As I discussed this list with my daughter it occurred to me that she could prove them wrong. Okay, she is a thin, non-smoker and being ambidextrous can claim left-handed, plus she did have a little bit of music lessons in grade school. She is however, my middle child. She’s also intelligent enough not to use illegal drugs and although we consider her tall in my family I sincerely doubt those doing the study would consider her petite 5’4” frame as tall. Plus as she pointed out, she is a dog, not a cat, person. However, her hobbies are more intellectual ones. Namely the reading and writing.

Recently, to enroll in college, because she hadn’t been able to take the ACT, she took some entrance exams. When her counselor saw her scores she commented that she had never seen such a high grade in language arts before, it was off the charts, and my daughter did it fresh out of high school. And though her math scores were lower, they were still high enough she didn’t have to enroll in remedial math classes but could start with college level classes.

So she gets four out of eight. Then again so do I. Seems to me we’re doing pretty good in the intelligence department.

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking about how we have this tendency to judge people, trying to put everyone in neat little categories, and I find myself repeating my favorite saying.

No two people are exactly alike.

Think about it.

Putting people into neat little categories says we’re all alike in some ways. That it’s impossible for a cat lover to be an extrovert or a dog lover to be an introvert, or an intelligent person to be fat or a smoker, or the middle child.

Be intelligent.

Think outside the box.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Big Words by BL Hamilton

 “Don’t use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.”

Every time I read this, and I know it’s true, and a very necessary part of writing, but I can never help reminiscing about an incident, which happened in sixth grade.

It all started when the teacher changed the sitting arrangement, placing my seat between two boys who were close friends, and they couldn’t stop discussing all sorts of things over and around me, while the teacher was instructing the class, making it impossible to hear her.

For several days, I tried without fail to ask them to stop talking, but my request seemingly fell on deaf ears. So by the time the weekend came, I totally frustrated, and searching for some way to get it across they’re thick skulls to be quiet during class, and my big sister, Jacki, came up with the answer. (Her nickname isn’t Dictionary for nothing.) She wrote out a twenty-five word sentence of singularly loquacious words, which frankly I wish I could remember today, but back then, Jacki spent the whole weekend coaching me to memorize the phrase.

The following Monday, at the first opportunity, I spewed forth this enormous sentence and, just as Jacki had promised, it stunned both the pains into jaws hanging open, stunned stares, silence. A fact that caught the attention of the teacher who asked what was going on.

Both boys pointed at me and said, “You should hear what she just said!” making it sound as if I’d broken the rule against foul language. The teacher asked me to repeat it, so I did. Now, the only ones in the room that didn’t have their jaws hanging up were Konnie and my best friend Sherrie, who had helped me learn the sentence.

The teacher stared at me for at least a minute before she finally said, “Do you even know what it mean?”

“Yeah, it means, ‘Shut up!’ They keep talking and I can’t hear you!”

She moved the boys in question across the room from each other. Problem solved. And I learned a valuable lesson about big words. Sometime you need them. Then again, sometimes you can go overboard.

Years after that sixth grade experience, I entered college and signed up for a class title “Concise Writing” in which I think I was little ahead of my fellow classmates.

On like our second or third class, we entered to find the teacher had written a particularly long quote on the blackboard. It was a rather easily recognized quote from the ever-loquacious Howard Cosell, and, per his usual, four paragraphs long.

As class started, the teacher said we could form groups and work together to cut the quote down to as concise a form as possible.

  So, while all my classmates busied themselves with moving into groups and dividing up who would look up words, I remained in my spot and read through it a couple times. In previous lessons, the teacher had instructed us to never use two words, which mean essentially the same thing, and having grown up under the tutelage of the aforementioned Dictionary, I knew quite a few words, enough to know all the words utilized in the subject quote.

So, while my classmates discussed which words they needed to cut, I simply wrote down my concise version. Then sat there twiddling my thumbs until the teacher decided the class had had enough time. Then the fun began.

He asked for a show of hands on how many cut the quote down to two paragraphs or less. Everyone raised their hands. Then he asked for a show of hands on how many cut it down to just one paragraph or less. Most of those hands dropped.

Then he asked for a show of hands of those who got it down to two or fewer sentences. More hands fell. Then he asked for those who had a single sentence, of sixteen or fewer words. Still more hands fell. So he asked for ten or fewer words, and eventually six or fewer words.

By that time, there was only one group, and me, with our hands still up. He asked the group how many words were in their sentence. They had exactly six. He asked me how many words I had. I had four. He stared at me and asked what my sentence was.

Now, today, I can’t remember what dang team Cosell had been talking about, but I’m sure anyone who knows who his favorite team was can fill in the blank, but here it is:

“The (insert team name here) are good.”

All my classmates erupted in protests because Cosell had most decidedly not used the singularly unloquacious word “good” in his rather pompous soliloquy, but the teacher had never said we had to use the exact words, only that we needed to attempt to make it as concise as possible. I nailed it.

After all, if twenty-five words boils down to just two words, then four long paragraphs can boil down to just four words, which, as this post shows, is something I learned in sixth grade thanks to Dictionary. J   

Happy writing everyone! J

To Remember By Konnie Enos

Growing up Memorial Day was always a long weekend were we had picnics and put flowers on all the graves of our loved ones. I never thought much about it and as I grew up I learned many cultures have customs which include a yearly remembrance of loved ones who have passed on, which is what I understood Memorial Day to be.

It isn’t.

It isn’t about remembering veterans, now dead, who once served in the armed forces.

Sorry Dad.

Originally Memorial Day, which was at first called Decoration Day, was a day to remember those who had died in war. Eventually it was declared as a national holiday then Congress made it the last Monday in May.

Over time people have used Memorial Day to remember all their dead, which I have no problem with. As I said, many cultures have customs to remember their deceased, but don’t confuse remembering those who died in war with honoring all who served who are now dead.

During this month of May we had another holiday which very few people even mentioned. If you want to honor those who are now serving our country, remember Armed Forces Day. Officially it’s celebrated on the third Saturday in May each year.

To remember those like my husband, father, great uncle, brother-in-law, father-in-law and so many more who have served in the military at some time in their lives, thank them for their service and decorate their graves on Veteran’s Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th of each year.

http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/memorial-day-history

http://www.military.com/military-appreciation-month/history-of-armed-forces-day.html

http://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp

I’m proud of the men and women in my family who have served. Let’s all remember their days.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Bullies And the Zero Tolerance Policy by B.L. Hamilton

I know Konnie already commented on this last week, but I’d like to say, “I told you so!”

Okay, back when they first started this policy I didn’t have any way to make the powers that be listen to me, so they never heard my words, but I said them. I said it often because I know one major thing about bullies from sad experience. They’re favorite method of intimidation is to goad and harass their victim to the point that the victim lashes out, physically.

And given this knowledge, I knew, the zero tolerance policy would backfire, big time, because it would be punishing the victim and still avoiding or ignoring the real problem, which is of course the bullying. (Something they have been doing for a long time.)

I would go on to say I’ve been saying, “If you’d have listened to me, this wouldn’t be happening,” when the outcry over kids committing suicide over bullying started. Let’s face it, folks, if they can’t lash out at their abusers, how else are they going to get out of that untenable situation? And who could these poor victims have turned to for help?

After all, Adults have been ignoring schoolyard bullying for probably a whole lot longer than my school days, let alone this disastrous “Zero Tolerance” rule, but with said rule in place, the kids couldn’t do what the authorities wouldn’t do, and punish the abuser.

(By the way, for all those who take exception to me using the word abuser instead of bully, please look up the meaning of the two words. They are the same thing. And having been on the receiving end of a bully’s treatment, and having compared that to what officials say a spouse abuser does, I’m bound to say they are the same thing. )

Now back to the schools, even when I was a kid in school the teachers and other adults in authority ignored bullying. Why my sister and I got behind one year in school because we ditched so often we missed too much school, and we did it partly because the teachers did nothing about the fifth and sixth graders pushing around the first and second graders on the playground. Those kids literally would shove us out of the swings or off the other playground equipment and the teachers did nothing. If we complained, they told us to stop being such babies.

And that doesn’t even address the fact that through most of my junior high and high school career I was the victim of repeated propositions from the boys. Though the worst part of all of that is those boys were never taught the difference between a proposition and actually asking a girl out! And I’m afraid that situation is worse today. (I’ve actually addressed this topic in more than one of my stories.)

Back in my day, it was bad enough when guys wolf whistled or cat called when I walked down the hall, but I’m told now-a-days boys actually try to cop a feel in the hall! And no one does anything about it, but when the girl lashes out at her tormentors, she gets suspended! Outrageous!

All of this has to stop! We need to lay down the law, starting with name-calling; it’s unacceptable. We shouldn’t be allowing it, ever. If I had children, I wouldn’t allow name-calling in my house. I know how bad it is, and I know that is where bullying starts. I would also ban just touching someone without their permission, ergo, poking is not acceptable behavior. I’d teach everyone to respect everyone else’s personal space as well. And I’d discipline violators, so they actually learn it is not acceptable behavior.

And that is what I have to say about this deplorable situation.