Your Presence Is Requested!

 

I am very excited to announce my participation in this groundbreaking event. I will have an aauthor'stable. I am trying to get back into promoting myself as a writer. I'm nervous, but I need to break through my introversion and get back into it.

As you can see from the flyer above, this is so much more than an author's presentation. There will be readings, contests, workshops, and so much more!

My good friend, Greg O'Driscoll, will be there, promoting his comic book. Both the Waycross/Ware County AND Pierce County Libraries will be there, with super information, giveaways, and contests!  

Fun for every reader of every age!

From Elizabeth Pond, Event Coordinator

We have a great chichildren'sea planned for the OHC We Love Literacy Book Festival on Saturday, February 7 from 10-4. Special thanks to the Waycross Ware County Library and the Pierce County Library!

Big Fun on the Big Front Porch

Join us on the porch for a full day of crafts, coloring, and free book giveaways!

DonDon'tss story time and visits with our favorite friends, Bluey and Pogo.

Story time: 10:15

Visit with Bluey: 10:30

Story time: 11:15

Book Character Costume Judging: 12:00

Visit with Pogo: 12:30

Story time: 1:15

Visit with Bluey: 1:30

Story time: 2:15

Visit with Pogo: 2:30

Story time: 3:15

Please come! You'll have a blast!

Sunny Bays: Flash Fiction

Look out your window.

What do you see?

I see sunny bays.  

I have a very comfortable lift chair.

One that faces my sliding glass door. Each morning, the nurses settle me there.

I wish they would do it in time for me to see the sun rise. That would be so beautiful. But they usually don't set me until after 8 AM.

Nevertheless, it is still beautiful. Much better than TV. I do have my tablet with me, with fifty ways to play solitaire. But most of the time, I just love to stare and let my mind float away.

The palm trees are gently swaying. The beach is pristine, the sand reflecting golden in the morning sunlight. When the tide is low, a strip of sand juts out and separates the bay into two.

There are a few beach umbrellas, striped red and white, with the logo for the Bay Resort splashed at the top. In the distance, I can see a lifeguard station. He is not yet on duty.  

The beach is empty, at least at first. A young family sets out camp, with beach towels and not much else. Mama has sunglasses and a paperback, the young children have shovels and pails, and the father has a Frisbee. I'm surprised they don't have a dog -but then, as if on cue, a teenager appears, a hyper cocker spaniel at his heels.

Others arrive, the beach filling out.  

The waves are modest. Still, I could hear the rhythmic motion of the ocean even through my closed glass door.

The tablet lay unopened on my lap. I don't need it. I'm somewhere else. I'm on the beach, Melinda holding my hand. Before we settle down, we race to the ocean. It is not as warm as I hoped, but it is bracing, and we quickly adjust. The water is up to our shoulders. I hold her close, and we kiss.

The current pulls at us, wanting to take us further out to sea.

This time, we do not resist.

The tablet drops from my lap.

The Appearance of Resistance

 

January started out rough.

The invasion of Venezuela. 

The ICE-engineered violence in Minneapolis.

The sabre-rattling over Greenland threatens to destabilize the entire world.

Not to mention the illegal noncompliance over releasing the Epstein files.

Our slow roll to fascism was picking up a tremendous head of steam.

But then, unexpected checks came into play.

In Venezuela, the gush of cheap oil became questionable.  The big oil companies proved reluctant to invest billions in something they were unsure would justify the results.  There is no surge of democracy or freedom, as the President seems satisfied to leave the country inthe hands of Maduro's subordinates - as long as the President gets to dip his beak into their riches.  He seems reluctant to take the next steps, so this great colonial exploitation remains frozen.

We were rescued from an invasion/takeover of Greenland, not because of a burst of conscience from Trump or MAGA, but by the reaction of Wall Street.  A slumping market reaction caused TACO to retreat. Good? Yes, I guess so.  But it is rather frightening to think the moral compass of the US is now the stock market.  The same group that rises in delirium when unemployment goes up? Boy, are we in trouble!

I don't know what's going on with the Epstein files.  But despite all the noise, people still want them to come out, even many MAGA supporters.

The hopes with the ICE invasion of Minneapolis was to rile up the citizens enough to justify a martial law takevoer of Minnesota.  It was a test to see how Trump's Gestapo could shut down a state and its elections.

They failed to achieve this.  Instead, the good people of Minneapolis took to their whistles and phones and recorded the insanity and violence that ICE was bringing. The resulting tragedies that occurred were recorded, and the lies the Trump administration tried to impose on them made it impossible for people to believe them.  All but the most MAGA-infused could see, undeniably, the federal government was lying to them.

They are not out of Minneapolis yet, but they are in retreat.  They are like a snake that has not yet realized that its head has been cut off.

The battle against fascism is far from over.  But we have gained a foothold against the avalanche of evil and suppression they have hurled at the American people and the world at large.

Resistance is not futile, but itain't easy.

God bless Renae Good. God bless Alex Pretti, and the minimum seven others who were killed by ICE so far this year. God bless the people of Minneapolis and the countless others across the world who are standing strong.

May the force of goodness, decency, and hope be with you all.

Mysterious Photograph #7: Chips Ahoy

I have not received official word on this story, but enough time has passed that I can only assume I am a loser.  Nevertheless, here it is!

Chips Ahoy

 I was beginning to regret my decision to kill Kevin so impulsively. Now I only have a photo on my phone. So many parts inside these old watches! Oy! Why don’t I think these things out?

          Living next to the Cambrinis, I knew that Grandfather Gino was a consummate watch repairman with a garage shop. He had dozens of old watches he tinkered with, still there after he died. Father Robert used his inherited talents for tiny parts, working on a revolutionary chip for the next generation of AI. Kevin thought the chip could be worth BILLIONS.

          When Kevin’s father was fired, he stole the chip and hid it in one of the old watches. Kevin made the mistake of telling me. Remember? Impulse problems? We tortured his father to get him to tell us exactly where the chip was. Unfortunately, I tortured him a little too hard.

          Kevin got angry and started beating me. Well, he did for a little while. Then I got the upper hand.

          Now I had to find the damn chip by myself, with only their cat to keep me company. I had a pile of watch gears, nothing that looked like a chip.

          I refused to give up. The cost had been way too high. Then Eureka! I found it. The cat swooped in and swallowed it whole.

          Should I gut the cat and get the chip, or should I wait for it to pass? 

          I decided to wait.

          I’m not a monster, you know.

Kaleidoscope Not Required: Saturday Political Soap Box 302

 

I admit it.

Alison and I watch and read a lot of True Crime. I'm not going to explain or justify it. That's for another post. Just accept it as a backdrop for this blog entry.

One of the bizarre cases we've read and watched is The Yogurt Shop Murders, where four teenage females were killed while closing down for the night at a TCBY (This Can't Be Yogurt) shop at a strip mall in Austin, Texas. This was in 1991.

No one has been caught. Every few years, the case is looked at again. Every time, they twist the kaleidoscope and come up with a different view. Every time we think we have it figured out, a twist of the kaleidoscope will turn up something else, and we're lost and confused as to what really happened.

This can apply to many true crime cases, including the 2005 Tifton area murder of Tara Grinstead, the assassination of JFK (many people have made a lot of money twisting the kaleidoscope on that one), just to name two examples.

But not all crime looks different in the kaleidoscope. Some answers remain the same no matter how you taste.

No matter how you twist the kaleidoscope, the answer always remains the same -

Ice Agent Jonathan Ross murdered a young mother in cold blood.

IN. ICE. COLD. BLOOD.

We're Running Out of Time

 

For the first time, I am doing the reverse of what I usually do - instead of first posting this as a blog entry, I wrote directly on Facebook. Yes, it received much more reaction than when I try to post my blog directly onto Facebook.

I am putting it here now for my handful of readers who go directly to the blog. You will always be first in my heart!

We're running out of time.

We may have a week to ten days, and it will be too late by then.

We're not going to make it three years. We may not even make it this month.

Things are accelerating far too fast.

Minneapolis is under attack RIGHT NOW. People are dying RIGHT NOW. What happened to Renae Good is, tragically, just the beginning.

The Venezuelan takeover was not just horrible; it made no sense whatsoever. The oil is not wanted, not at the cost of developing it. It is the beginning of an evil dream to dominate and exploit ALL the people in the Western hemisphere, not for the benefit of the American people, but for Trump and a handful of his billionaire buddies.

The biggest nightmare right now is Greenland, and how Trump wants to take it over. For the same reasons as Venezuela, for the exploitation of resources to benefit the few. If he does this, it will trigger World War III. And this time, we'll be the bad guys. We'll be fighting our own alliance - NATO.

He is marching towards this. I wish it were a joke, just his usual bluster. But we can't count on that. Too much is at stake. I have already read that many children in Greenland are terrified and have trouble sleeping at night. Trump supporters - THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE LED US TO.

We may have a week or two before we are on a course that we cannot reverse.

Impeachment is too slow. The 25th Amendment is not likely. And JD Vance waits in the wings.

We need Republicans to pass a measure that makes it clear he can't invade any NATO country or ally. We need it NOW.

Most importantly, we need someone to make the ultimate sacrifice. Someone who knows and can do so to release the unredacted Epstein Files.

I'm open to other ideas, but it has to happen FAST.

We're running out of time.

Flash Fiction: I Read the News Today

 

I read the news today.

Well. I read some headlines on my phone. I had a choice between several sources.  Which one you picked depended mostly on which billionaire you liked best. 

They all pretty much said the same thing.  Explaining in great detail why Greenland should be a part of the United States.

One billionaire said it should be for national security.  He had many military contracts with the United States.

Another billionaire said it should be to gain the oil resources under the permafrost.  The implication was that Greenland would become more valuable as global warming melted its glaciers.

Yet another was a tech bro, and coveted the abundance of rare earth elements - once again, under the melting permafrost.

Finally, one was a real estate mogul who saw it as an opportunity for development.  It helped that he was also the son of a former President of the United States.

I wondered who lived there and what they thought.

For that, I would have to read deeper.  I wasn't going to do that. Too much time.  I had other stuff to do. I had to get to my second job. Help earn enough to keep the family afloat amid our rising bills.

I thought about stopping at Chick-fil-A for a morning biscuit.  But I didn't want to spend $12.99 to get that.  I could eat after work.  Esmerelda, my beautiful partner, was a whiz with PB & J.  If she had any time between her three jobs.

I arrived at Hobby Lobby at 6 AM, just in time for my morning shift: stocking, cleaning, and preparing sales merchandise for the store's 9 AM opening.  Today was going to feature a special on the Twin figurines - Jesus blessing his representative on Earth, President Vance.

There was also a display honoring our dedicated immigration enforcement agency, ICE.  Last year, this day was declared National ICE Recognition Day, where we celebrated their vigilant protection of our borders and saving us from the wrath of the evil and illegal aliens.

Not all the aliens were deported, of course.  Many remained in camps, and as prisoners, supplying their labor to farmers and hotel owners, and maintaining the yards and homes of our beneficiaries of the Prosperity Gospel. I had a friend tell me this was just a modern form of slavery.  We had no follow-up conversations.  He was sent to a re-education camp.  We had a lot of camps.  None that I would want to go to, though.

My two workmates, Marvin and Matilda, and I worked hard and got the store in order with fifteen minutes to spare.  We thought we could take a few minutes to relax, but the manager told us to re-clean the windows.  Again.  For the third time this morning.

The doors opened.

The crowd came in.

They were very white.

As usual.

It's another great day in the Kingdom!

All hail President Vance and his lovely spouse, Vice-President Kirk-Vance!