Dogs and cats

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The world is divided into two categories, dog people and cat people.
Which isn’t quite right. It should more like a Venn diagram.
I can’t be the only person in the world who likes both dogs and cats. I refuse to believe that.
That said, I haven’t had much opportunity to get to know any cats in recent years. My husband’s allergy to the little critters made sure of that.
But I do have a dog, or to be exact, one of the cutest dogs that has ever existed. She’s scruffy, fluffy, playful, and so soft and cuddly that she could be mistaken for a toy animal.

She loves us unconditionally and has a very sweet personality. Give her a toy or scratch her behind her ears or on her belly and she’s in hog heaven…or maybe dog heaven.
Recently I finally got the chance to spend some quality time with a feline friend. A little black ball of fur named Jinx.
At first, I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d heard stories of fiercely independent cats who would rather watch a fly navigate the ceiling than give a person the time of day.
Could I make friends with such a creature? Would she scratch me or bite me? Or worse, pretend that I didn’t exist?
I am very happy to report that my fears have proven to be unfounded. Little Jinx is a friendly creature who seems to love unconditionally and has a very sweet personality. Give her a toy or scratch her behind her ears or on her belly and she’s in hog heaven…or maybe cat heaven.
Hey! That reminds me of someone. But who?

Free for all!

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I’ve read about them. Those caped crusaders who troll the Internet, searching for poor consumers who are unable to pay for the movies, books, and articles they crave.

“No fee, make it free! Free for all,” they cry through their masks. “No one should charge for content on the Internet. It must be made available to all who want it, for free!”

So they set up sites to provide that much wanted content to the poor, helpless, needy masses trapped in the wasteland of the virtual world. The angelic smiles of the masked ones glow sweetly as they watch the poor, starving masses ravenously gobble it all down.

Virtual feeding of the masses. A noble life’s work indeed.

So what if the content is stolen?
And who cares if the caped ones populate their sites with ads to make a few bucks on the side? Who can blame them? Behind those masks they are real people. They do, after all, need to eat.

The important thing is that they have provided for the little people.

They have righted a wrong. They have taken what was created by the greedy–the writers, filmmakers, photographers, and other content creators–and made it available to all.

Copyright, schmopyright.

Those content creators–the writers, filmmakers, software developers, and so forth–aren’t real people anyway. They don’t need to eat.

Besides, why should they get paid for what they call their “hard work”? What’s so hard about it?

“No fee, make it free! Free for all!”
The caped crusaders troll on.

That CRASH can only mean…

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I am sitting in my office (a comfy chair in my kitchen) when a loud
CRASH
in the living room startles me.

It’s 8 am. My husband has already left for work and my two daughters are both still snuggled in their beds, sound asleep. The dog is upstairs dreaming about cats. Or maybe bacon.

So why the noise?

The light from my laptop is bright, but not bright enough to see into the other room. And if any truism of life works, it is that mysterious noises will make me crave light. Lots and lots of light.

I quietly put down my laptop and tiptoe over to the nearest light switch. As light floods the kitchen I breath a sigh of relief. There are no monsters lurking in the kitchen. I’m safe.

Except the noise came from the living room, not the kitchen. The oh-so-dark-with-no-nearby-lightswitch living room.

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and quietly place my foot on the first of two steps into the living room. I scan the abyss of darkness, searching for any sign of movement. Luckily, there is none.

I step down again, but this time the stairs squeak. In a panic I throw caution to the wind and race to the lamp to click on the light.

As glorious light floods the living room I take a moment to calm my frayed nerves. I scan the room, looking for something, anything, that could have made that horribly loud CRASH.

That’s when I spotted it. A flower in a pot on my dining room table, lying on its side.

It was the only thing in the room out of place.

But how did it fall? What could cause a plant to suddenly tip over like that?

And then I realize there is only one explanation that makes sense.

The Jupiterians are back!

You might think me crazy. After all, the Jupiterians are prone to annoying pranks.  But I’m kind of glad they’re back. I’ve missed the mischievous little aliens.

I wonder where they’ve been for the past year and a half?

Accidental irony

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According to the dictionary irony is the use of words to convey an opposite meaning. Like when a person says, “That color looks so good on you!”

It could be a compliment.

But add a touch of sarcasm to the tone of voice and it is easy to see that it is really an insult.

Irony is all around us. It is used in advertisements, literature, entertainment, and in everyday conversations.

Sometimes it can be found even where it isn’t meant to be.

Take the other day.

I was at a meeting and the man at the front of the room was passionately making his case. He wanted those of us in the audience to donate our hard earned money to his cause.

“And so you see, we need your help. With the money you give we can do a lot of good. Especially now. Seated behind me is our new leader.”

The man waved his hand back but maintained eye contact with his audience. He was determined to keep our full attention, so he wasn’t going to give even one of us the chance to drift away.

“A man who is poised at the starting block, anxious to be given the chance to do good works. All he needs is for you to open your wallets and give generously. Then he’ll be able to use that excessive energy–that energy that pours from him at all times, that is at this moment radiating out to all of you–to help people.”

The audience craned their necks to get a glimpse of this powerhouse, who was seated comfortably in a chair at the back of the stage, head tilted slightly to the side as he slept peacefully.

The speaker never looked back at the man he described as having such an overabundance of energy, so  he had no idea that the powerhouse was suffering from a shortage and was taking a nap onstage. He never knew of his accidental irony.

But we in the audience knew.

I don’t know about anyone else, but it made my day!

The sixth begins

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As I put my fingers to my keyboard this morning a thought popped into my head. This that I’m doing right now, blogging, seems natural to me.

Maybe too natural.

So I went back and took a look at posts I’ve done in the past.

There are quite a few, all neatly categorized by month and year.

It only took a moment for the epiphany to hit. This is my sixth year writing this blog!

Sixth!

No wonder I feel I’ve been doing this forever. I pretty much have.

So here’s to us, the joys of blogging, and the coming adventures of the new year.

Life can be odd

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Life is rather odd sometimes.

I was browsing Amazon and came across an author who had at one time written a review of one of my books.

The review was written in March of 2011 by a woman who claimed she was a writer who had never written a book. It was a particularly painful review for me to read. It was nasty enough that I felt almost like the woman had some sort of grudge against me. Like it was her goal to inflict pain.

I remember wiping away the tears so I could reread the review, in the hopes that I would be able to learn something, anything, from the hurtful words.

The second reading left me even more confused, since some of the critiques in the review simply did not make sense.

I spent more brain power than I should have trying to figure out if I was crazy or the reviewer, and then I let it go (pretty much). Hanging on to the hurtful feelings certainly wouldn’t help me write the next book.

So when I came across this reviewer’s name as an author I was curious. I wondered what type of book she would write.

I clicked on the book, and of course scrolled down to the reviews she had received. I was surprised to see that of the four reviews she had received two of them were worse than the one she had given me.

And that is when I discovered the oddness of life.

I fully expected to gloat a bit as I read those negative reviews, or to at least feel a glimmer of vindication that she had received a taste of what she had dished out.

After all, she had only gotten a dose of her own medicine.

But instead, I only felt sorry for her. I knew how those hateful words could hurt.

I shared her pain.

Life is very odd indeed.

A writer without ideas–

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–doesn’t exist.


I’ve met a few writers in my time.


One thing we all have in common–other than a burning need to write–is an overabundance of ideas. Every writer I’ve ever met has way more ideas than they will ever be able to use. Folders and folders of them, either in paper or digital form.


Which is why I have to laugh at every Craigslist ad I come across asking for a writer that will write for free. 


The idea appears to be that writers sit around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for inspiration to light the proverbial lightbulb over their heads.


So the ad posters claim they have the solution every writer seeks. They will supply the idea, the writer will write, and the profits will be split between the two of them.

I’ve even seen some ads that state that the writer must have connections in the publishing or movie industry.

Right. As if any of us were that naive!

We’re supposed to do all the work, spend years developing our craft, and agree to share half the credit and earnings with someone who just wants to take a shortcut? All unpaid?

No thank you!

Oh, wait. That gives me an idea. What if…?

Sigh.

I guess I’d better open a new Word document and start a new folder. Yet another idea has come my way.

See what I mean? No dearth of ideas, just the actual hard work of writing them into stories.

Haunted by Connecticut

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Christmas day is exactly one week away.

This is a season of joy. A season of giving, of lights, of putting others before yourself.

Yet, no matter how much I try to focus on the good of the season, to wrap myself in the snuggly warmth of Christmas and all it stands for, the events of last Friday haunt me.

Which is how it should be. How it must be.

Because I’m human. If I didn’t grieve with my fellow humans, it my heart wasn’t heavy because of their tremendous loss, I wouldn’t be true to my humanness.

It takes a particular kind of evil to target innocent children. And even though I know that evil has walked the earth as long as humankind, this shocked me.

What happened in that elementary school in Connecticut should never have happened.

How and why that evil entered that young man we may never know. We can only mourn the consequences and try to understand.

Because it is only by understanding that we can prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

 

A happy choice

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It is absolutely amazing how once something is brought to a person’s attention, suddenly it is everywhere.

My last post was all about how we are where we are because of the choices we make.
Heavy stress on CHOICES.

And now today I watched a PBS show about the work of Shawn Achor, a researcher who studies, of all things, happiness.

Not only has he researched how a person’s level of happiness effects his longevity and health, but he has done research into what exactly is needed to make a person happy.

Here’s the kicker. We control our own happiness. It all comes down to choices, plain and simple.

It is all about how we choose how we see the world. Are we grateful for the rain or do we grumble about it? Do we smile or scowl at our spouse? Do our children make us giggle or groan?

According to this Harvard researcher we can nudge our thoughts into a more positive direction and give ourselves the happy outlook we all crave.

He laid out the steps everyone could take to create this positive outlook. Little steps. Easy to follow steps. Steps anyone can do.

The best part is that there is a ripple effect that occurs when we take these steps. Making yourself happier will encourage those around you to become happier too!

It turns out that smiles are just as contagious as yawns and chicken pox.

The world is already a sunnier place.

Can you see my smile?