Hurricanes
Anyone that knows me understands that at times I see the world a little differently. The recent experiences this past summer and fall with the paradigm shift in Florida weather had given me pause to consider what is important in my life.
It should come as no surprise that my family matters most. I could not have made it through those couple of months without my kids. Then again, they were the only reason I wanted to make it through those couple of months. It is funny how that works out. I now understand that somehow my daughters have learned how to play all sorts of card games that I have never even heard of. After the couple of months of power outages I now know how to play them as well. Despite how large a pain in the butt it may have seemed taking them to this and that Girl Scout meeting or function over the years, they learned a lot or useful survivial things. Not only did they learn invaluable socialization skills but they also learned a few card games without which enduring the recent power outages would be much less bearable.
I have learned that for the sake of one’s nerves you really should evacuate when the authorities tell you that you should. Despite curiosity or stupidity, experiencing a Cat 3 storm at landfall is something best left to those stupid enough to do it in front of a news camera. At least they are getting paid for the effort.I have also learned that despite this being a ‘free country’, freedoms can be taken away in an instant for the public good. At my age having anyone tell me when I HAVE to do anything is at the least irritating. I am not certain that I like the fact that my county can impose a curfew but I do like the fact that the police seem very interested in relinquishing their power as soon as the emergency has passed. So maybe that is how our country really is different. They that have the power are really just like us and the authority is used only when it is necessary and in the interest of the safety and security of everyone.
I have seen first hand of how powerful nature can be and as a result I no longer think that I am ‘ten feet tall and bullet proof’, as that country music song goes. I think storms are a little, not-so-friendly reminder that despite anything else, every human really is equal. A storm does not give preference or deference to wealth, creed, ethnicity, sexual preference or any of that. It doesn’t care whether you eat white bread of wheat bread. It doesn’t want to know whether your belly button is an ‘innie’ or an ‘outtie’. It could care less about your Atkin’s diet or how great you were playing baseball in high school. It certainly doesn’t mind removing a few shingles from your roof either, if that is what it takes to get your friggin' attention.
I have come to appreciate electricity more than almost anything else in life except for my kids - that and having hot water to take a shower because I have electricity. It is funny though, I realize now why they refer to electricity as ‘power’. Having the ‘power’ is much preferable to having ‘no power’. However, it is always nice when someone that has ‘power’ offers to share with you in some way, like a well placed extension cord across the street where one side of the block has power while the other doesn't.
I think the strangest and most personally uplifting thing I have witnessed over the couple of months is that emergencies like the storms that this state had suffered brings out the best in some if not most people. I don’t know if it is an American thing or just a human thing - or even if it matters. I am relatively certain that it is part of the overall equalizing factor of an event or series of events like the series of devastating storms. When we are reminded how insignificant each of us is before the forces of nature, we tend to be nicer to one another. When was the last time you volunteered to help a neighbor trim some palm fronds? - Or remove a tree that had fallen in his or her yard? When was the last time you stopped to ask your neighbor if he or she wanted a ride to the distribution center where there was free ice. It happened in Florida last summer and fall, frequently if not daily!
I would not wish the disasters that I have endured on anyone. It is not that I feel blessed or even particularly singled out to have survived. I am grateful to be alive. It is only that I noticed a few things. I think it is just a pity that it takes a disaster to bring the ‘human’ out of ‘humanity’. It is a shame that most of us aren’t a little more human to one another all the time.
Being Real
I wanted to post some camera shots of the family. It is hard because there are really few recent pictures. A picture of me is rare enough let alone one of Amanda or all of us together. I'll post more as time goes on. I think it is good to know what someone looks like. Also it makes everything seem more real.
Back in September 2004 Hurricane Frances struck close to where we live. Although the storm weakened a good deal once it struck land, it lingered over eastern Florida for some time. It was a strong storm that did a lot of damage. It was a scary time as our house is about a mile from the beach and the news media did a very good job of compelling people to evacuate.
We had heeded the advice and evacuated to the west coast to stay with my sister, Joyce and brother-in-law Jerry. We were there for a number of days, or in other words just about long enough to have not quite overstayed a welcome. My daughter Sarah's birthday (September 4th) was celebrated during the evacuation.
When we returned home it was very difficult to navigate through some areas due to flooding, wind damage and very few working traffic signals even where there was working electricity. We were without power for about a day even after we returned home, meaning that the power had been off in our house for four or five days. Our food in the refrigerator and freezer was spoiled. Otherwise there was some uprooted trees in the yard, some damage to a fence outside and one shingle on the roof but otherwise the house withstood the fury of the storm.
We thought we had survived the rare storm that comes everyone generation or so. Certainly there had been more tropical storms than normal that tracked in the vicinity of Florida. Frances came after Charley hit the southwest coast of Florida and transversed the state. We had some wind gusts as Charley passed through Orlando (about an hour's drive from Satellite Beach) but that storm was a non-event for Brevard County.
It was with a good deal of confidence that we returned home and started cleaning up. I helped a neighbor trim her palm trees. My son and I removed a damaged section of fence and we cut down a couple of severly damaged trees. We were in the process of cleaning up. The debris from Frances' passing was still piled in from of everyone's house waiting for the special removal trucks to come. It was a monumental undertaking still Brevard was well on the way to getting back to normal.
There were a couple of hurricanes that seemed possible threats, Henry failed to appraoch Florida, Ivan went into the Gulf and plowed into the panhandle and lower Alabama. Then Jeanne looked like a threat then turned away. My neighbors were taking down the plywood from their windows the Sunday before the storm hit. All the media were announcing that Jeanne would miss Florida and like Henry go harmlessly out to sea.
Then around Monday Afternoon it became clear that Jeanne was making a loop and would not only hit the Bahamas but was turning onto a track to hit Florida almost in the same place that Frances had come ashore.
Because of the short window for preparation and because of my work schedule, we did not evacuate for Jeanne. It had only been a month since Frances and we had confidence in our house. We rode it out.
It was one of the scariest experiences in my life and something I don't think I will be doing if and when another storm like that rolls in. The house shook, the roof cracked and popped, the fiberglass garage door bowed in a good six inches. My confidence in the integrity of our house faltered. I don't think it could withstand a more powerful storm than Jeanne. I know my nerves could not.
At peak the storm had sustained 115 MPH winds with gusts up to 145 MPH or more. For about two hours, the storm was at its worst. It was the middle of the night, it was dark, there was no power and although my kids somehow slept through it I was constantly questioning the judgement that put all of us at risk.
E
"Sarah, we got you a hurricane for your birthday. How special is that?"
Back left Rob, back right Jerry (my brother-in-Law), front left Sarah, from right Amanda. Taken In Palm Harbor, FL (west coast) during Hurricane Frances evacuation.
Random Family Picture
Amanda, my oldest daughter defends herself from the evil camera using her well-honed martial arts skills.
Random Family Picture
My youngest Sarah (right) treaching her friend Kim how to stand still and watch TV at the same time.
Random Family Picture
The Rob, my son
Worn Out Dad at Disneyworld.
Me chillin' at da Mouse's House
One of the reasons for the delay.
Cover for Book 3: An Extreme Departure, due out in Spring 2005
What's For Dinner?
Grown-up: aka maturation, a condition a defined by one, all or a combination of the following:
1) You live outside your parent's house.
2) You pay your own rent/mortgage payments or own your house/condo outright.
3) You are married and living outside of your parent's house or your spouse's parent's house.
4) No one ever asks you where you have been all night (except for your spouse) or in the case that you work third shift, your other boss.
5) You at least attempt to pay all your bills on time.
6) No one cooks for you. No one cleans up after you. And you either eat out a lot and wear disposable clothing or you do it all yourself (or share the responsibility with your spouse).
I think the later definition is key. If you walk into your abode and have no one to ask 'what's for dinner' and you have to make it yourself or alternatively you are making dinner for someone else whether it is a child or a spouse, you are a grown-up person. It may be that you are cooking because it is your turn or you cook in a way that is edible and in the interest of public safety it is your agreed to role. It may be that because you cook well all the laundry belongs to the significant other in the abode or it is part of the on the job training assigned to the children.
I know how to cook...well, sort of. At least no one had died from a meal that I have prepared and I have been told that some of the meals are quite tasty. I know how to do laundry and have even figured out the riddle of the white and red stiped clothing and what to wash with such things. Soultion: don't ever buy the garment in the first place, convince yourself that it makes you look fat or silly. You'll be better off int he long run.
I used to think that I had matured too fast. I had my own place when I was fourteen. I was trustworthy, too. After all, I was quite the nerd in my day. But I didn't start supporting myself until several years later. So I was only partially grown-up. I think that I am still stuck in that partially grown-up stage. I don't think I am totally alone in that.
It is good to grow-up at some point but apparently it is not absolutely necessary. The alternative is that my definitions are a bit off. It could be that growing up is a process not a single point in time when all circumstances converge to affirm relative maturity. I am certain that I have not grown-up. Even my kids will attest to that. I am further along in the process than they are. Really, most of the time I am. I also think that it is not completely necessary or even fun at all to be completely grown-up.
As I have grown older the imaginary age of being grown-up has advanced out a little bit further. First it was 16. Yeah when I am 16, I can drive. That is freedom. Then I'll be grown-up.
Next is 18, certainly 18 is the age. I can vote so I must be grown up.
What about 21? I can legally buy alcohol in most states. Consuming large quantities of it may make you act like anything but a grown-up but if you are so determined to kill yourself you can legally accomplish it, one drink at a time.
25 is the age that I first decided that I am getting to old to be doing something that struck me as being particularly childish. I could also run for Congress if was rich enough or public minded enough to pursue that.
30, now that seems like a good age to determine whether someone is grown up or not. You can run for the Senate, now. I never figured out how if you even were to run at age 25 and be elected to congress, you could not then run for the Senate before you turned 31, not 30. And you have almost no chance or experience of getting elected to the Senate without political experience such as serving in the House of representatives.
Wait now, there is 35! Yes, I could run for President at age 35. That must be when you are certainly an adult and all grown-up.
I am 48. I am still getting there. I have not arrived. I do not want to be all grown up because that seems to have a certain finality about it. It is a morbid appreciation for one's own impending and inevitable doom. Maybe the immaturity expressed in the denial of growing-up is merely rebellion against that realization. Somehow if I admit that I am getting old I may actually have to start acting old. Acting old is something I have seen others do and it always leads to the same outcome that is for me at this moment undesirable.
I worked late today; I got home late. The kids were in bed and Jina is sleeping over. She made me a plate of rice and fish. I hate fish. She knows tha, too but insists on making it for me as it is good for me. At my age I should be eating a lot more fish. She is still trying to force undesirable behaviors upon me, like being healthy. Maybe that is her way of expressing that she still has parts of her that care about me.
One thing, I didn't have to even wonder what's for dinner tonight. I could smell it welcoming me or threatening me as I walked in the door. In the morning, I'll have to remember to thank her for thinking about me. I won't reiterate that I hate fish. It's small but maybe it is a start to thawing things.
E
Sample Of Recent Fantasy Writing
From: Specter of Dammerwald
1.
Waking to a wonderfully fresh morning and the thought of playing with her friends shot excitement though Ela’na. She had important plans and as always they focused on the other Wolfcat pups and the time that they spent together in play. She didn’t remember whether it was her turn to play hunter or hunted. Whichever it was, she didn’t care all that much. It was playing together that mattered.
She preferred to be the hunter, any pup would. She might have easily deserved to always be the hunter. Hers was the lineage of leaders and great hunters. The legendary Eltath was her great-grandmother’s great-grandmother. Even so, Ela’na had never mentioned her birthright. She treasured her friends and always played fair, taking her turn as any other would. Rank and privilege were the concerns of the adult Pack. Amongst pups everyone was equal.
Tharr was her father and as the lead hunter, of course he was the best. He could have easily been the Alpha Male had it not been for his lifelong devotion to serving Old Tull. In fact many a Wolf thought more than twice about challenging Old Tull for the leadership of the Pack but never followed through simply because of Tharr’s support and defense of the elderly leader.
She stretched as she stood-up from the warm, comfortable bed of leaves and grass in the alcove that was etched into the rock wall of the chamber where she had slept. She recalled some of the story that her father had been telling her the night before. Her eyes had closed long before he could reach the end of telling that story. She wondered how it ended or even if it ever ended at all. Every time he told that story she fell asleep before its conclusion. She wondered if her father continued to tell the story past his notice that she had fallen asleep.
She loved nuzzling into Tharr’s side, and hearing the legends of the Pack and stories of the great deeds of her ancestors. It was the only time that she really spent with her father. He was a very important Wolf, once a member of Old Tull’s private guard and now a renowned hunter. He was a provider not only for her but for the entire Pack. Even though she was proud of him she missed him whenever she awakened and he was already out and about his business. She understood the duty, the pack needed to be fed. Tharr’s hunters had never failed to provide the Pack the bounty of Dammerwald, the plains or mountains that bordered the great forest of the north. Still she loved her father very, very much. In the quiet of the late afternoon, when it was just the two of them together, she always seemed to fall asleep before telling him just how much she adored him.
Lately she was always hungry. To wake before the first sun’s rise wanting food was nothing new at all. She was patient though. She was becoming a little lady Wolf and no longer whined like a drooling first-season pup with her need for food. Soon enough the hunters would return to the commons at the base of the cavern of Belkul. The youngest always got the first right after Old Tull and The Wolfcat Mentha blessed the kill. She understood what respect was and it was treated as ceremony to honor the hunt and the achievements of the hunters. Her father had taught her well. The leaders never did more than sink their fangs into a carcass and tear it open so that the very young and recently weaned might partake of the fruit of the hunters’ labor.
Ela’na sat waiting for the return of the hunters, sniffing the breeze for the scent of any others. Her senses were as finely honed as any other Wolfcat her age. She knew, for example that her playmates were departing the caverns. In turn, they knew she was still in her alcove waiting for them, especially Rotor. He was already gaining quite a reputation for his keen sense of smell. Very soon he might even be permitted to train for the hunt. Tharr was already pushing for the waiver of an entire season as it was otherwise inappropriate. Ronin, Rotor’s father favored it. That would weigh heavily in favor of the waiver. Whenever that time came, she would miss playing with Rotor. He alone amongst the other Wolfcats was a challenge to her. He was male. From the size of his paws he would eventually grow to become a great warrior and considering his gift of smell he would be a renowned hunter, perhaps as good as her father or maybe just a little better.
As was the case with all male Wolfcats his traits were already favoring the lupine side of his heritage where the female Wolfcats tended to favor the feline. The Wolf-like traits that Rotor already displayed were immensely attractive not only to her but the other females of the Pack as well. Maybe she was a little jealous of the attention that he drew but he always seemed to acknowledge her first and foremost. So she did not care so much about the flirtations of others.
Ela’na had no problem with her appearance. She rather liked the fact that sometimes she mostly resembled a Cat. Others said that it made her look exotic. Some even compared her look to that of her ancestor Eltath whose beauty was still remembered and even compared to The Wolfcat Goddess Druella.
Apart from the look of a Cat that some Wolves either did not prefer or mocked, there were very few disadvantages that she could determine to the Cat heritage in her blood. She could climb trees with great ease. The demonstrated agility of her reflexes embarrassed the Wolf pups that were of her same season as they playfully tried to pursue her. Despite the Wolf pups attempts to show some interest in her, she could readily avoid many of their silly little traps.
Rotor growled at her, as was his way of demonstrating his impatience at having to come for her. She growled back so as to voice her humor at his taken offense. His responded with a whimper that no one other than Ela’na could have heard and in response to it she laughed.
“Just once, it would be nice to find you waiting outside for the rest of us. I know you are just as eager as the rest of us to go out and play,” he voiced.
“It is nice of you to treat me so special,” Ela’na replied.
“The princess of the Pack,” Rotor chided.
“Yeah right,” Ela’na shook her head. “Like you think that I even believe that.”
“I believe it,” Rotor replied punctuating it with a wink.
Ela’na licked his snout but then quickly looked around to make sure that no one had seen the display affection that might be misunderstood.
She did not really need Rotor’s escort. It was a courtesy that she appreciated but she had actually darted off to find the other Wolfcats leaving him well behind her. She had sensed the proximity of other Wolfcats long before and simply went to them. They were just ahead of her.
She was not paying attention to the shadows alongside the path. There they lay in wait among the brush and in the shadowy places along the trail through the woods that led toward the clearing that the Pack used for assemblies. As she passed, they sprang out from all sides, startling her in attempt to surround her. They taunted her, playfully attempting to impress her with their skills acting in concert to attack their ‘prey’.
“Do you intend to eat me?” She asked as she sat back on her haunches and teased them in response.
They were young Wolves, but only older than her by a single season. They were, therefore already accomplished and trained in the art of the hunt and deception. Obviously at least some of them were good as they had tracked a second season Wolfcat that should have known better than to be trapped. Why they chose hunting her irritated her almost as much as it amused her. She sensed that they liked her, especially Scooter and Tekno. They were Wolves that she knew, cute Wolves actually.
She was just about ready to prove her agility in escaping them when as suddenly as the Wolves had surrounded her, Rotor leapt from the shadows and landed squarely in front of her, between her and the would-be assailants, the tuft of fur on his back raised in anger, his fangs bared as if he would defend her to the death, even against a pack of older Wolf pups.
“What is this?” Scooter laughed even as he asked.
“It looks like a pup that has finally tired of playing with the shewolves,” Slammer challenged.
“Why don’t you go back to playing with the Wolfcats, Rotor?”
Rotor changed his focus to Slammer and growled low and deep, in the threatening way that only a male Wolfcat can.
“Oh, well now I’m so afraid,” Slammer said and then laughed, even though he took up a defensive posture just in case the threat was real. Although both Slammer and Scooter were a season older, Rotor was nearly their size. He was a step quicker perhaps and he had the deadly retractable claws that made any Wolfcat an adversary to respect.
“Don’t mess with Ela’na!” Rotor warned with the authority of determination in his voice.
“Why don’t you go chase your tail,” Slammer replied, hearkening back to a time when Rotor was much younger.
“Better yet, do you still have that piece of cloth,” Tekno suggested. “You remember it, Slammer?”
“Yes, of course I do. Old Tull named him after that sound he was making as he circled around and around trying to attack it. Same sound he made when he was chasing his tail.”
“It was soooo cute,” Haplo said with as much sarcasm as he could as he came up from behind them.
“One day you will not be so eager to pick a fight with Rotor,” Ela’na said.
“Well, well, so it’s Ela’na that speaks for her supposed protector,” Jus’tn mused as he also came forward to join his friends.
“I think they are sweet for one another,” Dire added as he approached in reinforcement of his twin brother Slammer.
“You think so?” Slammer replied.
“Isn’t that obvious?” Scooter asked, rhetorically.
The brush behind the attackers parted and suddenly two adult Wolves emerged. “Well, well, well, now. What have we here?” the one voice asked.
“It’s just pups at play, Red,” Rotor’s Uncle Grem said.
“Not all that intelligent if you ask me,” Red said. “I don’t like the odds. Six Wolf pups against two Wolfcat pups, how do you think that would that turn out, Grem?”
“Six embarrassed Wolf pups is my guess,” Grem said as he laughed. “You Wolf pups are way over your heads and greatly outnumbered. You go home before any of you get hurt.”
Slammer began to growl a challenge at Grem, and then as Grem turned on him Slammer thought better of it. Grem was only a few seasons older than him. Slammer was solid but somewhat smaller than Red and about Grem’s size. So Slammer felt he could take him, maybe. Except that Red was there, too. Red was one of the instructors in the art of defense, and his skill was greatly respected. Even Damon, Old Tull’s great nephew and heir apparent to the leadership of the Pack would not challenge Red. Nevertheless, when he was a little more mature and had the fullness of size, he would remember this affront.
“We were just playing,” Scooter offered as an excuse.
“Well play somewhere else,” Red said. “The Pack doesn’t attack its own.”
“C’mon, Scoots,” Haplo said. “Lets go down to the river and have a swim.”
“Yeah,” Scooter concurred. “I could use a bath.”
“We know,” Jus’tn said in jest.
“You were reading my mind,” Dire agreed.
Slammer’s eyes glared at Rotor for one last time then he joined the rest of the sextet as they set out through the brush and trees toward the river.
“Thank you,” Ela’na expressed her gratitude to Red and Grem.
“Anytime, little lady,” Red said, and then he bowed.
“Not that your boyfriend here didn’t have the situation well in control,” Grem winked at Rotor as he said.
“I am not her boyfriend,” Rotor looked away as he said it, not wanting to have his eyes betray the lie.
“We are just good friends,” Ela’na confirmed. “Rotor always protects me.”
“As well he should,” Grem said as he laid a paw on Rotor’s shoulders. “I think you will be ready soon for the training, even if it is a season earlier than it should be. We have had our eye on you for many roles that you may serve for the Pack.”
“Yes, you have the size already to do the training,” Red said. “Your ability to acquire a scent even at a great distance is already well known. It is just the Council is always cautious.”
“I will discuss it with Ronin and Old Tull,” Grem said.
“That would be great,” Rotor said. “Thank you.”
“Meet us tomorrow, first light of the first sun at the clearing at the base of the caverns,” Red said. “Even if Old Tull and Ronin say no, what would it hurt for a pup to learn a few things?”
Grem grinned and winked again, but this time Ela’na was the intended receiver. Ela’na returned a smile.
As Grem and Red continued on their way, Jade and Alina were coming toward them side-by-side down the trail with Saffron and Tweety a little ways behind. Ela’na had wanted to start the day with a swim but with the older, rude Wolves there, she did not think it wise. They would just have to find some other diversions to pass the time. She glanced at Rotor, concerned that he was still agitated over the confrontation. The rage that he had dealt with would need some time to settle. She understood that. Even still it, the rage went even deeper with him.
From the first c’eun that he had opened his eyes, Rotor had been aware of his difference. Even at birth it was obvious that he was as much a Cat as a Wolf. Moreover he was mostly white, a trait that was so rare among the Wolves but even more so for the Wolfcats in the Pack that it was pointed out to his utter annoyance every time someone saw him. It was always the same with Wolfcats. The females were revered for their ability to tap into the forces of the world around them. It was of inestimable benefit to the Pack. The male Wolfcats were ever suspect as if they were some fulfillment of a dark prophecy.
The delicate blending of the features of Wolf, Cat and, as legend had it some other race of the Outworld produced a creature that was a marvel in both strength and beauty. The fact that any Wolfcat at all existed was a miracle to be accepted and dealt with. Male Wolfcats had always been somewhat rare, more so in recent times for whatever reason. The same elements that combined to produce female Wolfcats of overwhelming grace and beauty conspired to make a Male look rather awkward and silly until they neared maturity.
Rotor had endured taunts and teases for all of his life. It was little comfort that his father was well regarded and along with Ela’na’s father he usually led the hunt. It was considered inappropriate among the general Wolf Pack for young males and young females to play together. Rotor was often the butt of jokes as whenever he was playing with other pups he tended to play only with the other Wolfcats. All of them that were in his season were female.
Despite the situation, Ela’na had never thought of Rotor as anything except a male. Even when they were very young and sometimes wrestled on the ground in front of their fathers she felt the substantial difference between them. In contrast to her petite grace, he was strong and powerful. He never hurt her, though. Whenever she complained or even feigned pain, he would release her immediately and would apologize profusely.
She thought the world of Rotor. She suspected that it was reciprocated, hoping that it was so. She was proud of him, how he had endured the first two seasons, suffering the jeers of the Wolf pups. Now she sensed that something important had only just now happened. There was a subtle shift in the paradigm, but it was a significant new balance. Rotor had stood up to older, nearly adult Wolves. He had not backed down even when surrounded and outnumbered, despite what Grem had implied. Ela’na would like to believe that he did that for her, even if it was largely unnecessary. She understood why Rotor wanted to protect her. He wanted to feel that he was necessary to her. The truth was that he simply enjoyed being with her and would die before he let anything happen to harm her.
She also suspected that Rotor had other more personal reasons.
Wolfcats know the truth and can see through deception, even if the deception is from another Wolfcat. Rotor would never confess what was already obvious to her, though. It did not matter to Ela’na that he tried to deny his affection. She already knew. In her own way she was deceiving him as well. She had never told him that for the most part she felt the same way about him. Maybe some c’eun they would bond. That seemed a very long time away.
All the same it was a great comfort to her to know that Rotor was around and that she could count on him always.
* * * *
Rotor’s heritage had produced many leaders. His mother Belma was Old Tull’s baby sister, the proof that Old Tull’s father was just as prolific in his later years as Old Tull had proven to be. Belma was older by two seasons that Ronin when they had conceived Rotor. They had both known that she was a little old to be having a pup. Their first born, Leme had died within her first season, and Mentha had said that it would a very rare thing for them to even have a viable pup at all.
It had been many seasons since Ronin had mated. His first mate and he had barely conceived a pup when she left him. He couldn’t really blame her as he was always away on a hunt. He had never thought again of taking another mate until he had met Belma. She was amazing, understanding and most of all she made him feel young again.
She had problems throughout the pregnancy. Early on she had nearly miscarried then again a little later on she had severe complications that had required her to remain bed ridden and under personal care. When The Wolfcat Mentha’s understanding of healing lore had failed to cure Belma’s sickness, Ronin had set out to find Magus and bring him to help her.
Ronin had traveled for many c’eun to the place in the mountains in the east where it was believed that Magus dwelled. All along the way he called out, beseeching Magus to appear before him. In his discouragement he gave up his quest and turned back toward Dammerwald, fearing that in his absence Belma might have already died.
From his vantage on the descent from the mountains, Ronin saw a solitary robed figure that was approaching from the distance. As he neared it he looked at it and suddenly there was a vision that he saw. It was a frightful future and his son was there. It had frightened him but even so he continued on.
As he stood there the concerns evaporated and finally the robed figure pulled back the hood of the robe. Suddenly a bright light issued that nearly blinded Ronin. Suddenly where the robed figure had been there was only Magus, wearing the shimmering robes of a Wizard.
Ronin knew that in dealing with Magus there is always a price. He did not appreciate the conditions but also did not want his mate to suffer the pains of a near full-term miscarriage. Belma had wanted her pup for so long that even though the bargain was severe, to the extent that it was hardly a choice at all for Ronin, he had presented it to her in a lucid moment that she was not racked with pain. She had agreed to the conditions. Ronin had left that mortal decision to her, except that he demanded one further condition of Magus: that he would see to it that his son became a legend and a leader and that both his son and the legend would outlive even the Wolf Pack.
Magus had laughed but then he cast a spell over Belma and to Ronin’s surprise she improved immediately, except that her life was then forfeit only for her unborn pup. The moment that he would utter his first yelp would be the last breath that Belma would ever take.
Ronin had never told Rotor the full truth and it was just as well. Ronin felt that he had bargained with Evil forces and even regretted it. His obsession turned to an old Prophecy that he worried that he might have inadvertently brought to bear upon the current times.
The short version was just fine for Rotor. His mother had loved him so much that she had given her life to bring him into the world. Even so Ronin told his son of his heritage and that one c’eun he might even become the Alpha Male of the Pack.
The Wolfcat blood was respected in a leader even though it was very rare for a full Wolfcat, one that strongly showed the traits of both heritages almost equally, to become the Alpha Male. Even in the times when male Wolfcats were more prevalent, they simply did not seem to want to challenge for the leadership of the Pack.
It had sometimes fallen upon the Council of Elder Wolves to nominate the Alpha Female, the one that would thereafter be called The Wolfcat and wear the Wolfstone as a symbol of the position. The Wolfcat was then chosen by the designate of the previous Wolfcat as he alone among all Wolves had the knowledge of the signs. He could recognize who among the Wolfcats was the strongest in the gifts of the Wolfcat Goddess, Druella. In recent times that designate was the Wolf named Night.
Ela’na trusted Night. He was father to both Grem and Gold; two well-respected members of the guard and at times each had been her guardians. When she was very young, in the absence of Tharr, Night had taken care of her whenever Red was not available. Even if it were merely to take her to her aunt Helty’s den where she could play with her cousins Jade, Tweety and Saffron. Her fondest memories of that first season were of the time she spent with her cousins and the first time that she had ever met Rotor.
Rotor was very different. He even smelled different than the other Wolfcat pups. From the start, he smelled a little bit like her father in some ways and perhaps that was what it was about him that had set her at ease.
They had something in common. Each of them had lost their mothers shortly after their births and had wet nursed the same shewolf named Helty. For Ela’na Helty was a paternal aunt. For Rotor she was a distant cousin. Rotor was a little younger than Ela’na but they were both born in the same season and had nuzzled to Helty side-by-side taking adjacent teats for a very long time.
Even after Ela’na and Rotor were weaned, their fathers were such close friends that they had often visited one another. Other times when Tharr and Ronin were out on the hunt together, Night brought Ela’na to stay with her aunt Farra and uncle Carg. As Ronin was good friends with Ela’na’s aunt and uncle, they usually looked after Rotor as well. So for much of the time Ela’na and Rotor were virtually inseparable. It was almost like they were brother and sister except that there was no sibling rivalry between them.
There was comfort for each in the other’s presence. Whether it was one of the many Wolfcat gifts, she sensed it. She was almost always aware of where the others of her kind were and sometimes even knew what the others were thinking. Wolfcats really could not have secrets. Besides that, Ela’na and Rotor had been together so much that there was hardly and space in time that either of them even recalled not being together except for the brief times that they spent alone with their fathers.
* * * *
“The Wolves went for a swim,” Ela’na pronounced her complaint to going swimming.
“Aawww, and I wanted to go for a swim, too,” Tweety said with disappointment in her voice.
“Slammer always ruins everything,” Alina reacted.
“Of course Tekno and Scooter were with him,” Jade said with a wink. “You may have your pick of them, Ela’na. I will take the other.”
“You can have them both, if you want. After that stunt today I don’t like either of them,” she replied.
“I’ll take Tekno,” Alina said. “You can have Scooter, Jade.”
They both laughed until they noticed that Rotor was sitting off to himself, staring off into the woods as if he were bored. It had been exactly the sort of conversation that would have been of no interest to him.
“Let’s play hunter and hunted, then,” Alina suggested.
“It is unfair,” Tweety protested, “Ela’na and Rotor are too good for either of them to be the hunter. It isn’t fair for either of them not to have a turn as hunter”
“Yeah, I can’t seem to hide from Rotor,” Saffron agreed. “I think Ela’na lets me win sometimes but that is because we are friends.”
“I do not,” Ela’na said, and then she laughed. “Well, maybe once I did.”
“More than once,” Saffron countered.
“Well then how about this? Ela’na and Rotor are the hunted. The rest of us are the hunters.
"We’ll hunt them, like a pack,” Jade proposed.
“I don’t know. I never seem to find Rotor either,” Tweety said.
“Yeah, but it will be all the rest of us. Jade is a good hunter,” Saffron said. “Alina is pretty good too.”
“Thanks a lot,” Alina said.
“Well you are pretty good. It’s just that Jade is better,” Saffron clarified.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay?” Alina replied as she shook her head.
“Touchy,” Saffron said but thought it was only loud enough for Tweety to hear until she saw from the corner of her eye that Ela’na was also laughing.
“It’s a great idea,” Ela’na said, as she positioned herself squarely in front of Rotor. “Do you agree?”
Rotor looked up and met her eyes, her magically enchanting eyes. How could he resist that look?
He needed to say what he really felt, that he wanted to be left alone. Ela’na already knew that, though. She was doing this on purpose. She knew him too well.
Rotor stood up and without saying a word motioned for Ela’na to join him in the shadows away from the others.
“What’s the matter?” Ela’na asked him quietly.
“I feel really strange. I can’t describe it. I mean earlier when the others were threatening you, I knew they were just playing but it made me so angry that I couldn’t just let it go.”
“I am grateful for what you did.”
“Even after what I did I have no respect. Even after Red and Grem showed up…”
“Well they are going to train you, and they said that they plan to start you early,” Ela’na said.
“That will be a great opportunity.”
“I know that,” Rotor said. “It is just that I really don’t want to play with the others right now.”
“Aawww, it will be fun,” she pulled his chin up with her paw and forced him to look into her eyes.
“We will be together. That will make it fun.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“We can.”
“They will find us.”
“So, let them win for once.”
Rotor grinned.
“You are always so competitive,” Ela’na said and then turned back to the others. “You all go off, out of sight and up wind so we know where you are to start. We will be downwind so you will not know where we have gone. Give us to the count of 100.”
“Good,” Jade said.
“Okay,” Alina responded, “Just no cheating.”
“I never cheat,” Ela’na said.
“Never?”
“Almost never, and never when I promise not to.”
“Well, okay then,” Alina laughed.
“I’m good with that plan,” Tweety said. “How about you, Saffron?”
Saffron nodded, and then asked. “What are we waiting for?”
Ela’na watched the others moving off upwind and kept track of them as they went through the trees and out of sight.
“I am a male. It is my nature, you know.”
“What?” Ela’na was lost and confused.
“You said that I am always so competitive,” Rotor said.
“Oh. Well, yeah. You are.”
“I’m a male.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I have to be competitive. I need to win.”
“Like I never want to win,” Ela’na countered.
“You care what the others feel. That is why you will one day be The Wolfcat and succeed Mentha. The Wolfcat is a care giver at times.”
Ela’na grinned sheepishly. Apparently Rotor knew her at least as well as she knew him. “Do you think I might be The Wolfcat? Really?”
“I know. Who else could it be?”
“It could be Alina, Jade, or any of the others perhaps.”
“Get real.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to be The Wolfcat?” Ela’na asked and then she urged him to go before the others started to pursue them.
“My father always tells me that I will be whatever is in me to be,” he said as he followed her lead.
“Your father is a good and wise Wolfcat,” Ela’na said. “Except that I want to choose what I am to be.”
Rotor smiled. “Just as long as you choose to be my best friend, then I will be happy.”
“I am already that.”
“I never want to lose you.”
“You say that as if that could ever happen.”
“It could.”
“It never will. How could that ever possibly happen?”
“Someone or something could come between us.”
“Well, we will just never allow that to happen. That will be easy to fix.”
“You can’t possibly see what will happen, not everything. Even Mentha cannot see that far into the future.”
“I do not need to see the future to know the truth,” Ela’na said. “We will always be best friends.”
“I would want to die if I ever lost you.”
“Aawww that is sweet, Rotor. You won’t have to die. I’ll always be with you.”
“How are you going to accomplish that?”
“I have my ways,” Ela’na laughed. “You’ll see.”
Rotor smiled, “I suppose at some point I need to take over here, find a good place for the two of us to hide from the others.”
“You dare to suggest that I am incapable.”
“It is not that I don’t trust that you can, Ela’na. It is more my fear that you will feel sorry for the others and make it too easy on them.”
“Oh, you are selfish. You want to keep me all to yourself.”
“That is as always.”
Ela’na laughed. Then she drew a deep breath. “Rotor, you know, I am kind of glad we are alone, together.”
“Really? I mean well, yeah so am I. Why?”
“Well I have been thinking, thinking a lot, really. I can tell from what you have said that you have been thinking too and about some of the same things.”
“Such as?”
“Future things, you know. Mating and bonding; all of that forbidden adult stuff.”
Rotor felt the blood rushing into his ears and swirling in throbbing beats in harmony with the increased rate of the beating of his heart. “Mating and bonding?”
“I was thinking who I would want to mate with. I mean mating to have pups.”
“I don’t know Ela’na. I mean we are both still in our second season. I am not sure we are even supposed to be thinking about such things.”
“Whoever made that rule?”
“Well, I don’t know. There has to be a reason for it, though.”
“Haven’t you ever wondered what it is like?”
Rotor was speechless for a time, feeling the blood again surging to surround his ears and immerse them in the noise of his body.
"Well, ?" Ela'na prompted.
“Of course I have,” he said and then closed his eyes, too embarrassed to see her reaction, “I have only thought of it with you.”
When he opened his eyes again, it was to see the broad smile on Ela’na’s lovely face. He was certain that she did not intend it to be so seductive but at that insant he thought that his heart would explode if he did not turn away from her. In self-defense he had to.
“What is wrong?”
“You are so beautiful. I don’t think you even realize the extent.”
“Why, thank you Rotor.”
“I am… I can’t… I mean… I need you.”
Ela’na paused in mid-stride, “Rotor, lets go off somewhere, a place where they will never find us.”
“I thought that was the objective of hiding.”
“No, no.” Ela’na shook her head. “You misunderstand. I mean let’s pretend we are adults.”
“What?”
“Adults, as in you know… like The Wolfcat Mentha does when she is in the trance and dancing the ritual before an assembly of Wolves. We have watched that before, together. Remember, we were hiding in the shadows outside the clearing.”
“I saw some of it, yes.”
“It is the most amazing thing ever! It is so wonderful and beautiful. I need to feel that, Rotor. I want to feel complete. Just like Mentha when she accepts a Wolf to bond with her for the night. I cannot do that on my own. I need help, I need you.”
“You are not yet The Wolfcat. I am sure that someday you will certainly be that. Maybe then we can do it.”
“Rotor!” Ela’na reached out to him with supple paw, caressing his chin and with her tongue she licked his snout and then stared at him with her eyes, those amazing eyes that only she possessed. With her eyes alone she could speak words that only his heart could hear.”
He could not resist her. How could he fight it? ‘No’ was no longer part of his vocabulary. With a paw he reached out to return the caress in kind.
“Do you love me, Rotor?”
“I will always love you, Ela’na,” he said as he licked her snout, then came up beside her and brushed his tail against hers.
She giggled, “Not here, not yet. I don’t want them finding us.”
“That would be embarrassing,” Rotor agreed.
“You are good at not being found. You find the right place for us to hide.”
Rotor laughed, “My mind is not thinking all that clearly just now.”
“It will clear if you really want it to, if you really want to be an adult with me.”
Rotor again stared into her eyes. She had the power with her eyes to steal any Wolf’s soul. It was a dangerous thing for someone so very young to possess. All the same he could not even venture a simple protest. She consumed his every thought. He looked for the nearest place that was safe according to what she had required and they went there to explore the secrets of being adults, together.
Line Art Drawing of The Wolfcat Ela'na by Amanda Williams
The Wolfcat Ela'na
Last Night
Yesterday was Ela'na's birthday. As I have been so frequently reminded over the years that January 13th seems to be a frequently significant day, I am always wary of the things that might happen. This year was a fairly eventless anniversary.
I went in to work a little early and arrived shortly before 10AM. Nice customers prevailed over the couple of them that had a bad disposition from the moment they walked in the front door. I don't know why people want to act that way. I am certain they would not want someone coming to their place of business and acting like a horse's patoot. I deal with problems and problem customers all day long but the nice customers tend to get the most attention and the best service. Why? I guess depite the conventional wisdom of a squeaky wheel always getting the grease, I really want the nice customers to keep coming back. It is human nature. Having said that I also want to make certain that all of my customers have a good shopping experience. When any of my staff including myself has failed to provide a good shopping experience, I need to hear about it and make corrections. Very often when a customer is being loud and obnoxious it is because of something that an employee triggered. My point is that all the children on the playground should play well together or leave the sandbox.
I really, really, really try to treat every customer with the same respect to which all people are entitled but some that do not respect me as even a person are probably not going to get the utmost customer service.
I got out of work a little late, which is not unusual. On my way home, I phoned Ela'na to wish her a happy birthday. We had not connected the other night to get her computer fixed so I wanted to apologize to her for that and tell her we could reschedule it very soon. I know how hard it is to get along without a computer when you are used to having access to the world.
When I called her, she was in the financial aid office of a college near to where she lives and so we couldn't talk for long. Our conversations are usually pretty brief and to the point, anyway. I try not to intrude on her privacy. Sometimes she has something to discuss at more length. Sometimes I need to ask her opinion. Despite her youth she is gifted with a nice blending of street smarts, insight and intuition. I had not intended it to be a long call. I just wanted to tell her happy birthday, indicating that her friend remembered.
As she has been out of touch with the other Wolves for a while, due mainly to her computer problems, some of the other members of the old Wolf Pack had asked me to pass on their wishes for a happy birthday. They know that I can usually reach her in a day or two.
I am very pleased that she is going back to college, though. I am very proud of what she had done for herself this past year. She has a remarkable will and undying determination. Her example has inspired a good many of the characters in the series, either by direct suggestion or by some seemingly insignificant comment in conversation that caused me to think along different lines.
Some of the people that have read the books and have been in contact with me know that the Ela'na character is based on someone that I know. Some have asked me what does Ela'na look like? I don't know why that matters except that humans are visually oriented creatures. I really believe that I Ela'na is simply a very kind, beautiful and spontaneously funny person that I find is devastatingly attractive as well.
Toward the end of the First Edition of Book 1, there is a line art drawing of her as a Wolfcat, based on a picture that she sent to me a while ago. My daughter Amanda drew it. As it has been used before in the public domain I don't think Ela'na would have issue with my posting it here. She has been a model previously, though so I would not post any other image of her without her expressed permission. Since she has served as a basis for so much that had evolved into the storylines of the books that I have written, it seems relevant to post her image.
Ela'na was very pleased and flattered by the drawing that Amanda did. Both my daughters have artistic tendancies. My son does too but in him it is more obscure. He is more of a writer, like his dad. I think Amanda and Sarah received a decent blending of talents from my aunt Sylvia on my mother's side of the family and from their mother who is also very talented.
E
Us and Them
There was a period from October 1997 to October 1999 when I could not see my children on a daily basis. They had moved to Florida with their mother. I have had other bad periods of life. Those two years were the worst.
I probably would have never finished From The Inside To The Closer had it not been for that period. I had no distractions. I also felt like a total loser for a lot of reasons. My wife had told me before she left than she had not loved me for quite some time. There had been an affair that she denies to this day but I already knew about it. I had some motivation to get things done.
I visited the kids in Florida around Christmas 1997 and again in 1998. Jina was very cold and distant toward me. We talked a little bit but it was a little bit more than either of us probably should have.
My kids came to Connecticut and stayed in my apartment with me for the whole summer in 1998. I built them new computers and when they left I shipped them down to Florida. They came again for a visit in the summer of 1999. We took in a lot of movies on my days off. We ate a lots of fast food. We went to Riverside Amusement Park in Agwam, Mass. Oh, yeah, and we played putt-putt golf a few times.
All along I thought that living apart was a temporary situation. I put in for a transfer. I was more than entitled and felt assured that my company would take care of it. I had relocated from Florida to Connecticut at their behest. They had made promises to me and my family, promises that they did may have intended to keep at the time but had forgotten over the years.
The deal has been that I would go to the Northeast to help bring the corporate culture to the new territory as the company expanded. I need only remain there for two years then the company would return me whenever I desired but could not promise me which store in Florida I would be assigned. It was a sales pitch that sold Jina on. Even though we were having a baby in September and we would be moving in October it seemd like the right thing to do. My other two children were also very young at the time. Moving was not an easy thing to do.
The mover were to pack up everything and when they got there unpack everything. That was the deal. I did not want Jina to have to stress out and besides the company was only giving me a couple of days to get up there and get settled. I had to be at work the day the furniture was going to arrive.
Of course when the truck arrived it was all news to them that they were expected to unpack. That was not the deal and it never was. I got on the phone with corporate from work and tore into someone that had assured me that everything was handled and Told them to tell the truck to pack everything back up onto the truck and move me back to Florida at company expense.
They finally arranged to have a crew come in and unpack things. Still, it was several days before anyone showed up. The house was a disaster.
The way the relocation was presented to me, it was absolutely essential that the company grow into the lucrative Northeast. The plan to one day become a major player in retailing depended on the growth. Expanding the company without bringing the culture along would be detremental to the overall success. My stock would quintuple in value if key people like me relocated.
Those who know me personally know which companies I have worked for in the past and can connect the dots, here. I do not want this to come off as a tirade against a company that I believed in for over 12 years. This is a mere statement of the betrayal that one can endure whenever the ideals of a corporation are adopted in lieu of one's own common sense and self interests.
After a few years Jina was tired of living in Connecticut. Even though she had a couple of very close friends she hated the cold weather and wanted to return to Florida. I was doing very well at the time so I resisted. I felt that a long desired promotion was finally imminent. I had even been sent to a special training camp that taught group solutions to problems. It was intended for future general managers. I did not want to take a career set back just then.
I spent more and more time at work and less and less time at home with my family. I could accept this disproportionate time allocation on a temporary basis because I was doing it for my family's future. I understood that I was introducing a lot of tension and stress into my relationship with my wife but I really believed that she understood .
The company was aware of the difficulties the company could cause for married couples. The divorce rate within company management was disproportionately high. What's more a great many of the district level managers and above were divorced or single. Either way they had very little appreciation for the tension they were putting into the home lives of the general managers and assistant store mangers.
The company even had a meeting for wifes and they presented to them what the company vision was and what each of their husbands were doing in support of that future. My wife came back from the meeting with a warped idea that in a couple of years she would be driving an expensive luxury car and we'd be rich.
My family lived very well. I don't pretend that any of that would have been possible without the incredible luck of working for one on the fastest growing retail companies at that time. We lived in a $300,000 house and I had essentially paid cash for it because I did not make enough money at work for a bank to risk financing it. I'm serious. I built a house that the bank was telling me I could not afford to mortgage. So I had sold stock, paid for the house and then with a clear deed, financed enough of it that I could afford the payments.
I hate banks. I filled out more paperwork than I ever had to either entering or leaving the military. I didn't think that was remotely possible. I was wrong.
It was the largest house in the neighborhood. Jina and I had greatly modified the design to suit us. It was a very comfortable house even though she always complained that the kitchen should have been larger.
I bought Jina a new van for her birthday one year. I wrote out a check. That was how much money I had access to. It was stupid to do things like that perhaps but until you buy a car with a check or pay cash for a house...Yeah, of course I wish I had that money now.
At the time I had a lot of stock in the company that I worked for and received stock options each year. For tax reasons I had to sell my options in order to afford to keep any of the proceeds. The stock options had usually gained so much value within a year, that I had to do something with the options or suffer the double taxation of alternate capital gains tax. In any given year in that period the income from my stock options exceeded the income from my salary. I could not afford to keep the options. I had to sell them just to pay the tax on them.
So we lived large, way too large. My kids were spoiled. We installed a swimming pool and a large deck on the back of our house for entertaining. We attended exclusive $100 a ticket News Years Eve parties each year for which I bought a tuxedo because in the longrun I would save money verses renting one.
I helped Jina buy a karate school franchise. It was her dream to go into business for herself and I tried to help her with the resources. I should have been more directly involved in the business but I was spending 70 to sometimes 90 hours a week at the store.
The franchiser provided a 'qualified' instructor who was not able to sell contracts for some reason. After a year of patience and losing money, he was replaced with another 'qualified instructor' that not only skimmed money off what little income the school was generating and cooked the books to hide what he was doing but was also dealing drugs out of the school. The later ruined the image of the school as it was apparently common knowledge throughout the community. Under the terms and conditions of the franchise, we were legally obligated to keep the franchise going even though the name of the school was destroyed. We did look into legal action against the franchiser but were advised that it would be tied up in court for years and probably we could not prevail. We had entered into the contract willingly.
Unbeknownst to me, all along the way Jina was borrowing money on credit cards to keep the school afloat. Somewhere in all that I took seriously ill, ended up hospitalized for a month and had open heart surgery to repair a faulty mitril valve.
We not only lost money in the karate school, my wife had gone heavily into debt trying to keep the school and her dream of owning a business alive. When I got out of the hospital she told me about the debt that she had been hiding from me and I sold stock to pay some of it off. Maybe that was wrong. I was always able to bail her out and she came to expect it. She hung on to the karate school and another instructor was provided that was worse than the first two. Once more she was going into debt to stay in business. But now I did not have stock that would be available for another six months. I also had $137,000 of hospital bills that my health insurance had refused to pay due to what they had determined were charged about the 'reasonable and customary', experimental or unnecessary services, double billing and every other excuse imaginable. I had worked for my company for 8 years at that time and had never missed a day. Except for my wife having two babies that were charged against the insurance and the usual checkups and visits for the sniffles, we had never used the health insurance. Someone recovering from open heart surgery probably should not have to debate every bill with an insurance adjuster that is in South Dakota.
I had a lot of free time while recuperating but did not always feel up to wrestling with the insurance company. I managed to go over every charge on every bill and had a complete understanding of the charges. I got copies of my medical records and the procedures that were performed during the surgery. This was how and when I had discovered that I died seven times during the surgery and they almost did not get my heart beating again.
The insurance was disallowing every procedure as being unnecessary, even those that had been employed to restart my heartbeat and stabilize it with a pacemaker. I sent faxes and follow-up faxes to show the insurance company the very same bills that they were sent and did not accept. I explained the bills to them. I even showed them the line and verse in the health plan where it was stated that such services were covered.
Examples: they were disallowing a $450 ambulance bill because it was above what they considered 'reasonable and customary'. I called every ambulance service in the state and got a quote for the same service and no one was cheaper than the $450. I asked the insurance company to provide me with a list of the 'reasonable and customary charges' and where those rates came from. They initially refused to do that until I threatened to call the state insurance commission. They were basing the rate on Albany, New York not Central Connecticut.
Another example: the insurance company challenged a $20,000 hospital bill and a $17,000 hospital bill because they claimed that they were being charged two different rates for the same services. The $17,000 bill clearly stated that if they company had paid within 30 days that they would received a $3,000 discount, otherwise the bill would be $20,000.
My surgery was in May, 1995. I was still dealing with insurance issues in late August and was almost ready to go back to work. Finally I had to pay a lawyer at my own expense to intervene on some of the disputed bills. In the mean time I was receiving threats from the hospitals and doctors involved, a couple of things had already showed up on my credit report. Eventually the insurance that was supposed to have a maximum $1600 out of pocket per family per year had paid everything but $7000. The fine print apparently supported their disallowing the remaining bills and so, I had to pay them. A $7000 bill unexpected considering all the other mess the karate school had gotten us into may as well have been a ball and chain. I had to borrow money against the equity in the house.
I hate insurance companies. I have no doubt that they would have preferred that I had died. It was porobably all worked out on paper somewhere that it would have cost them less.
From that point my personal life declined and grew worse. My health was fine. The doctors released me for normal duty with no restrictions. However, my career was on hold because of concerns that I would not be able to handle the stress of running a store after having hopen heart surgery. It was never really stated in those terms but every time I saw anyone at the divisional level they always asked about my health - even four years later the divisional president asked me if my health was better.
I know now that I should have been more directly involved in what Jina was doing. But I trusted her judgement. She is not stupid just inexperienced. It is hard to oversee a business when you are recovering from surgery and then going back to spending 70 to 90 hours a week running a high volume retail store.
All the time that I was waiting for a promotion that never came, my wife was decided that she wanted to go back to Florida even if it was without me. She was running away from a lot of things, but mostly the reason she was leaving became me. In 1997 she put the house up on the market for immediate sale. In October we packed up everything in the house and she moved to Florida and I moved into an apartment. Except for the aforementioned visits, for the next two years I did not have access to my children except by phone.
E
Take a Bath, Towel Off, and Have a Drink; Your Socks Have Holes In Them.
I used to get a lot of emails with jokes. Maybe the novelity of that has worn off to the extent that I now get only a few over the course of a month. I know the novelty of the jokes has diminished over time. When I was new to the Internet the jokes seemed fresh. I guess they have been circulating for a while, long enough that when I receive them now I have already memorized most of them. I prefer original stuff. Fresh bread is much better than stale bread.
If you are reading this Blog and know any jokes, humorous stories or whatever you think is funny look up my email under my profile and forward the stuff my way. There are always days when I c ould use a laugh.
My publisher sends me jokes every now and again. He usually changes the old jokes that have been around for a while, puts a fresh coat of paint on them, twists them or something that refreshes the humor. He takes stale bread and turns it into lightly seasoned crutons to make my same old daily salad more tasty.
Some of what he sends me if original, though. He can be a very funny man at times. He usually sends me golf jokes, like I could ever possibly appreciate them. He golfs; I putt putt. I think we have similar senses of humor, though except that I can be a little more off-the-wall. He might debate that point.
Did you ever notice that there are a few people that you know that makes being around them a good time. They are your best friends perhaps. Not only do they make you laugh but you return the favor. Everything either of you say is hysterically funny to the other. You feed off one another's openings, never missing the opportunity to go for the laugh. There are a few people with the gift that are lucky enough to know more than just a few people that make them laugh. Then there are the professional humorists, comics or stand-up acts. They can find humor in the strangest places, even in a lonely motel.
Example: I had a conversation with a friend that is a semi-professional comedian. Semi-professional in this instance means that he can't make a living at it but he does get paid sometimes to perform. He seems to be able to push the 'funny guy; button within him in the blink of an eye.
I was sitting in the lobby of a motel pretending to read a local paper with the requisite passing interest for someone whose only purpose for being in town was a business meeting. While waiting for my friend to finish his complimentary continental breakfast, I noticed that he kept looking my way and laughing. That made me uncomfortably self conscious. Had I put on my shirt wrong-side out or something? Was I wearing my briefs on the outside of my trousers? Did I have the dreaded open fly in public going on?
When he finally joined me he asked, "Did you learn anything relevant about the community?"
"What do you mean?"
"The local paper that you have leafed throug three times."
"Oh, you noticed that."
"I notice a lot of things."
"I do too."
"Have you ever noticed how many friggin' different towels and wash clothes they give you in the bathroom of these places?"
"Now that you mention it, yes. I am neve certain what they are for. One is a wash cloth for your face. I got that one. Another one looks like a floor mat."
"Yeah yeah, you got the easy two. There are four different sizes of towels. I'm thinking I am not properly trained int eh fine art of washign the stank off of my bod."
I chuckled.
"I mean like maybe it is like the table etiquette with all the different forks."
"Exactly. Maybe one of the towels if for when you take a long, skin wrinkling soak in a tub full of hot water bath."
"Yeah, yeah, but then which one of the towels is for the gotta run I'm late for my meeting quickie shower towel?"
"The smallest one of course. You didn't have time to blow dry your hair so you didn't shampoo."
"Yeah, yeah you are onto something. But what about the other ones."
"That is the petite chick towel."
"The what?"
"Ya how, guys after a shower can walk around for hours before they put on boxers or briefs. We let it drip dry."
"You do that?"
"Like you don't," I said.
He looked down his nose at me.
"Well anyway, a big woman needs the monster towel to wrap up around her while she does her makeup thing. A petite chick can wrap up in the smaller towel and look all the more sexy because of it. Either way both of them need the towel for the hair, wrapping it up and stacking it high like The Great Karnak the Magnificent's headdress."
"Uh huh," he responded still looking down his nose at me.
"Hey, you have never been married."
"Yeah, well...maybe so, then."
Me:
I say odd things that at times are funny but maybe not so funny outside of the context. I am not consistently funny. I am prone to doing and saying odd things just to break the tension or tedium. I want people around me to have some fun. The world is bad enough without taking everything so seriously.
I think this tendancy has been misconstrued many times over the years. It probably has gotten me into trouble more often than it had lightened a heavy situation.
An example: I had a former boss named Randy. He was a big red headed southerner with a Cajun accent from his years of livign and working in Baton Rouge. One day he came into work and was all pissed off about something and his bad day infected everyone else that he came into contact with as he pretty much pissed them off as well. I went into his office and plopped down in a chair and stared at him as he had his nose burried in some report. Finally he felt the heat of my glare and looked up at me, "What?"
"Do you have holes in your socks?"
"What?"
"I asked you if you have holes in your socks?'
"No, of course not."
I got up from the chair. "Hmmm, that is odd," I continued talking as I heading for the door.
"What is odd about not having holes in my socks?" Randy called out after me.
I peered around the door frame and poked my head back into the office. "How'd you get them on?"
I went back to work.
Randy paged me a few minutes later to call his office phone and I complied. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Your socks."
"That's all?"
"Yeah I couldn't imagine talking about anything more serious than your socks. Something completely pissed you off and it has already infected the whole building."
"Maybe you think I should just go back home and come back when I feel better," Tandy suggested with a hint of sarcasm.
"Go do something spontaneous and stupidly out of character."
"You have suggestions, of course?"
"Go have a drink."
"What? I don't drink. It's ten in the morning anyway."
"Does it have to be a certain time to have a drink?"
"It is customar to not drink before noon."
"Wow, I'd be dying of thirst by then."
"You drink in the morning? Like you have a drink this morning before you came in to work.
"Of course I did."
"You know you could be terminated for that."
"What I drank some orange juioce with breakfast and I had a cup of coffee when I got here."
"Oh, well that."
"You've never had a glass of water, milk or orange juice?"
"Well, yeah I drink. I just don't drink as in alcohol."
"Fine. Drink whatever you want. Just get out of the building and have a drink."
"Thank you. I think I will."
E
Some News Regarding One Over X and Many Other Things
Book 3, titled An Extreme Departure will be available in advance reader's copies for reviews sometime in the spring. The book has been finished for some time. There were other projects at the publisher that were advanced for one purpose or another. The delay allowed for the production of a much more interesting cover. For a preview of what the book cover looks like, check out
www.acbooks.com
I will probably post an excerpt from each of the first three books sometime in the very near future, so check back regularly. I have the Blog settings checked to email a notification whenever a comment is posted. I will read and respond to comments if it is called for. I want this Blog to be pretty wide open and unstructured.
My email address is also under my personal profile information. If you are here I would like to hear from you.
The books are available online through
www.amazon.com and
www.barnesandnoble.com but the later never has any inventory. I don't want that to be miscontrued. Locally the Barnes and Noble at least sat down with me and explained how they schedule book signings. They also expressed an interest in supporting local writers. The local media were also very cordial but they wanted to see some promotional efforts before they would schedule any interviews. 'Promotional Efforts' is a euphemism for 'show me the money'. I think that if I was advertising in Florida Today or the Orlando Sentinel I might actually get a call back for an interview. As it is I doubt my messages or notes even made it to the real decision maker's desk. At Florida today the recpetionist spent a good ten minutes telling me how busy the book critic is and how she does not accept unsolicitied self published material.
I am not self published! Arrrrgggggghhhhh!
I have to promote my books. That is what an author has to do. I am not a celebrity. Having met a couple of celebrities in passing I am not sure I want to be a member of that club or any club that would have someone like me as a member, to paraphrase Groucho Marx. Being a celebrity looks like it is not always fun. The wealth part that usually goes along with it would be good but I am so used to not having money that I would likely turn out as one of those mega bucks lottery winners that is bankrupt and in jail within two years.
A few people have asked me when the books will appear on shelves in book stores. Well that requires sales and promotional efforts such as $60,000 full page ads in the Sunday Boston Herald - I certainly could not afford a full page in the Sunday New York Times. It is a cruel world this publishing business, where you have to belong to the 'good-ole boy' network to get distribution and you have to have money to back the promotional efforts and regardless all that at some point you have to just flat-out sell some serious quantity of books. Then the brick and mortars will stock your books.
(Insert future rant here about celebrities selling their ghost-written autobiographies and famous people getting the default leg-up on publishing.)
I have a day job that utilizes 60 to 70 hours of my work week. Retail management sucks sometimes. I write, revise and edit for 4 to 6 hours a day seven days a week. That is not an excuse just a fact. I like working in retail or I wouldn't do it. I meet really interesting people all the time. I rarely meet anyone famous. Martha Stewart yelled at me once. I didn't know who she was until someone told me and even then I asked, "What does she do?". When I was a vendor representative for Symantec (Norton's Anti-Virus, etc.) I was working in a store on the north side of Orlando and met Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson from All In The Family and The Jeffersons). He lives near Sanford, a town north of Altomonte Springs on I-4 just outside of the greater Orlando area. I had a digital picture taken with him at the store but they never gave me a copy :-(
I have been around famous, semi-famous and hardly famous people from time to time in my past. Overall it is just as my father used to tell me. We all get into our pants the same way. People tend to be people. The famous people that do not have time for the rest of us have lost touch with reality. The masses are the reality. They confer the privilege of fame upon certain individuals that are for a moment or a period in time deemed worthy of adulation, immitation or whatever.
I used to work road crew for a couple of obscure rock bands. I was in a jazz/rock band as a bassist for a while. We were destined for mediocrity and we trully really reached our fullest potential about two weeks after we began playing together. We did a benefit at the Children's Home in Springfield, Ohio. We sounded pretty good for once. I remmeber being asked to sign an autograph afterwards. That was the first time I think that anyone ever thought I was famous.
I ran lights for a promoter that rented out the Mars Theater in Lafayette, Indiana. It was an old full-stage theater that had been converted to present movies before the surrounding urban blight closed it down. My friend, Mike Wienstein brought in rock bands to the venue. It was fairly close to the Purdue campus across the river.
The bands were second tier acts at the time but the novelty of having rock concerts in little old Lafayette was very cool for the local crowd and the students. I worked lights for Head East and did stage security for Cheap Trick. I helped with the cabling for The Pousette-Dart Band, which may be a band that you have never heard of but that is your loss. The band was very, very good. Jon Pousette-Dart is an amazing lyricist.
Lyrics are poems intended to be set to music. When I was in a band I wrote a rock-opera based on the epic poem Beowulf. No seriously, I am not kidding. My band actually recorded if for a project in my senior year English class in high school. I got an 'A' on the project probably because it was a pretty radical project idea. The recording sucked, the music lagged the lyrics were banal but damn it I wrote a rock opera and performed it for my class!
Poems: I have done a few in my day. Girls like it when guys write poetry for them. Poems do not usually win a girl's heart but they like the nice words, especially coming out of a guy. It is so uncharacteristic. I wrote my first poem when I was seven. I still remember most of it.
That poem inspired the title of Book 6, Sages and Lesser Fools.
I was just trying to think if I have met anyone famous in the last couple of years. I know a couple of local radio DJ's in Melbourne that buy stuff in my store. I sort of know a couple of guys, through emails that do a hilarious morning show in Orlando. I used to exchange emails with Larry the Cable Guy, a home grown comedian that has some national following now. He is one seriously twisted but funny individual. He cracks me up consistently. His humor is based on how people are. Larry sees the irony in everything and bends it back to where it hurts it is so funny. That is a gift. I take no offense that he is usually describe my relatives.
One thing I would like to have some feedback on is whether I should continue to post examples of other writing I have done over the years or post examples of the sci-fi/fantasy genre material that I am probably best known for at this moment. I have no issue with being classified as a sci-fi writer but I am being very honest when I tell you that based on the volume of what I write I am not really a sci-fi writer. I am probably not even a fantasy writer. I am a fiction writer, yes. That label fits.
I admit to loving science fiction. I grew up with it but I was so enthralled with the TV that I never read in the 1960's. I was seriously a fan of Lost In Space, Star Trek and Time Tunnel.
I watched TV a lot during the decade. I watched The Munsters, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Guilligan's Island, It's About Time (how is that for an obscure one-season show) , F-Troop, Batman, The Monkees, The 1968 Democratic Convention (almost gavel to gavel), Julia (portrayed by Diahn Carrol one of the finest and perhaps least appreciated color barrier-breaking actresses), I Spy, The Cosby Show.
Returning to the writing culture, I still feel that it is perhaps the most wide open vehicle for creative writing. I respect a number of authors in the genre and consider them among my favorities: Harlan Ellison, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Samuel R. Delany and Ursula K. LeGuin.
Lately my writing has tended toward the fantasy genre and neo realism. I think I writer needs to explore and where ever his or her comfort is found there is a basis for future writing. If I decide to write something that is out of the stereotypical sci-fi genre, then so be it. As I say, I am not really a sci-fi writer. I have written a couple of books that are in print that have some of the attributes of sci-fi. There is also a good deal of fantasy in those books which may or may not be a subset of sci-fi. Even in Book 1, there is a lot of neo realism. My books are very hard to categorize. My publisher had informed me on several occasions that I need to write something more traditional that maybe will establish a wider reader base. My daughters tell me to write down the stories that I tell them.
My publisher is right. My daughter are right. I know that. I worked in marketing and advertising long enough to know that is going on. All that is in conflict with the artistic parts of my being, though. You see except for Jina expecting to gain some sort of windfall from the massive sales of my books (that she never supported at all when I was staying up late to write them) or the proceeds from potential movie options, there is nothing expected of the books at all. What I want to have is a base of people that read my books and let me know if they like them. I can get by on what I do in the other part of my reality, the one that involves money and paying bills. I would like the books to sell well for the sake of my publisher who is a very nice guy. He believes in the work that I have done for him thus far. I have also donated hours of editing and formatting of other books for him.
If this post has one central theme it is that we are all one people and we are all so greatly alike that any differences are minimal and may as well be rendered insignificant.
Long day; long Blog.
There have been a couple of interruptions. My best friend Ela'na called me earlier. She needs some computer tech expertise. If I resolve the matter over the phone from 2200 miles away then I am the man. If not she needs to send her computer here to get the evil influences removed from it.
E
