From the Bunker Tuesday Tidbits

The siege is nearing it's end, but we're not there yet.  Given the nature of what I do (more work at the beginning of the process than at the end), it should clear up before the 18th, but it is still too early for that. Right now, I'm dealing with a couple returns that are real bookkeeping challenges.

There is an OHC Writer's Guild meeting tonight, and it pains me a great deal that I won't be able to go.  It will be, I believe, the first time since I helped create the Guild that I will have missed two meeting s in a row.I feel like I'm letting Grace Lee down, as I help provide our gifted eightysomething writer transportation to the meeting. Hopefully, that can be picked up by someone.

I feel like more of an outsider than ever, as I sense the organizations I'm involved with changing, some in fundamental ways, and I have not participated in any of it.

My physical pain from back and right leg has diminished somewhat, but it is still there, particularly in the mornings and evenings.  I'm hoping that when the season ends and I resume my off-season schedule, that the reduced sitting in my office chair and lowering of stress will help.  We'll see.  I really want to bring fiction writing back, and that requires greater concentration than I have been able to give.

I'm also hoping a regular routine of walking/exercise will help.  I have noticed that when I have walked, it has not added to the problem.

We got a scare when we came back form our brief Atlanta fling.  We'd rigged the screen porch door so that our dogs could go outside or sit on the porch during the day, and a neighbor friend, whom we also watch their pets when they take trips, would come in for food and check that they're OK.  Well, when we got back Alison went to the porch and was warmly greeted by three of our four dogs.  Pixie, our smallest, was nowhere to be found!  She had dug a hole by the fence and had left for parts unknown!

We went around the neighborhood, searching for her, desperation and fear overwhelming us.  Other neighbors began to help, one whose children had seen Pixie an hour earlier.  They went out in a golf cart, and found her three streets and a couple blocks away, playing with some children in their front yard.  Thank goodness Pixie loves children!  And thank goodness we live in a neighborhood with such friendly, helpful people!  We are grateful beyond belief.  And we have refortified our fence.

Till Tuesday Tidbits again,

T. M. Strait