This display consists of haiku journals, haiku poetry and teacups and can be seen at the Copper Cliff Public Library for the next while. Each of the cups came from my own collection and are gifts from friends and relatives. I have an emotional attachment to each and know the history of the cups. It is the same with the poetry, each of these poems has been published in the past, every publishing opportunity feels like acceptance of what I do. I am inspired to write mostly senryu, human haiku, however, I also write nature haiku. If you are in the Copper Cliff neighborhood, please stop by the library and see what you think.
CBC and Daisy Chained
I had the best time talking to Markus Schwabe on CBC Sudbury’s Morning North broadcast. As a relative newby to the online/website situation, I have no idea how to give you the link to listen to the interview. However, I know people who know things and when I get the proper info, the link above will work, I promise.
I so enjoy radio, please listen to what went down 🙂
Life’s Firsts
Eventually, for all of us, those lovely ‘first times’ grow hard to come by. During the past month, however, when it comes to firsts, I’ve had way too many. Granted, some of them were great.
On my to-do list was, get my first book of short fiction, Daisy Chained, published, check. Sell a book, because nothing in life is guaranteed, check. Celebrate writing in a big way, check.
The not-so-great firsts were a lot less pleasant. Health scares for both my husband and myself, mostly resolved now, thankfully, gave me and my husband a kind of radical downtime. Now, we are in the rest and healing portion of that exercise. Not going to lie, that was some scary stuff.
I honestly thought the firsts were over. That I would start this new year, a first of another sort, without any surprises. Nuh-uh! There was another surprise in store.
Today I got an envelope from the Guv. and inside was the receipt from Library and Archives Canada. I sent copies of my book in weeks ago and today, it’s official, my book is high on a shelf in the government of Canada’s library. Another freaking first and a very happy one.
Woohoo for me! Too much? Sorry, can’t help it, this is exciting.
#DaisyChained #shortfiction #firsts #writing
Aftermath
Last post, I was deep in technical troubles, that’s history now. In fact, it was such an easy fix that my husband and I went out to dinner with friends to celebrate.
This was not the first time, we’ve dined with this couple several times. In spite of her quirk. We arrived at the restaurant and were seated right away. The order was taken and our food arrived in good time. It was delicious. My friend and I waffled on whether we wanted to eat dessert. When we’d protested just the right amount of time, fooling no one, we both ordered lemon Meringue pie, with two extra forks, to share the pie with our husbands.
The pie was delicious, I ate my part and passed the plate over. At this time we noticed that my friend was apparently not ready to give up the pie, in fact she had eaten away at the lemon part until all that was left was a fringe of lemon next to the back crust. The Meringue held firm above, hiding the lack of pie filling from her husband. When she noticed that we’d noticed, she slid the pie plate and clean fork over to her husband, hiding her devious deed by giving him the back crust of the pie to look at.
We laughed. We couldn’t help it. This is the same friend who, when we were out for dinner years ago, ordered the last piece of cheesecake in the restaurant knowing it was my favourite. She’s generous, she asked me if I wanted to taste it, I said yes, please. She took her fork and dug out a piece of cheesecake the size of a pea. And here, I may be being generous. I couldn’t believe it, I had to ask.
“Are you sure you can spare that?” I said.
She began to laugh, embarrassed? No, not at all, A lover of dessert and unwilling to part with a full bite? That was closer to the truth.
When her husband finished his portion of the pie my husband asked him if he enjoyed his pie crust. He said he did. I guess he’s used to being shafted when it comes to dessert.
Another fun story from my Cast of 1ooo players.
How I Spent My Morning
Waiting is not something I do well. I’m way better than I used to be, but I’m still not expert material. This has been a waiting kind of day, I am frustrated.
Today, as I do daily, I opened my e-mail. The first thing I discovered was a long list of people, I assume spammers, trying to help me make myself a web page. Is this not what I have? And look at that, I did it with the help of someone who did not spam me.
The phone started ringing around eleven, same deal, people from goodness knows where, all wanting to make me a web page. Obviously something was rotten in the Denmark of my new web page.
I guess this would be a good place to state the obvious, just as you should never drink and drive, text and drive, text and cross a street, you should never try to fix something when you are frustrated, somewhat angry and, let’s face it, supremely incompetent with technical matters. When I successfully got myself locked out of my own site, I had to call for help.
I went online and accessed the host support team, they shot up a chat window that said I was first in the queue, all good, and they said someone would be with me in two minutes. Half an hour later I stepped away for a moment, came back and discovered that, yes indeedy, that was the moment the chat window went active. Now I had to enter all over again. This time the waiting time was less.
I explained the problem and the lovely person typed out a few instructions. Nothing helped. Now, somewhere in the universe a ‘ticket’ is waiting for expert attention.
And here in my office, I continue to wait.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun…