Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I’ve learned to accept my older self. I’m no longer slender or muscular with thick, shiny hair, striding through places like I might be someone famous. Now I’m graying, thinning, bloated. Sagging and wrinkling skin mark the progress of decades of being.
But I’ve learned that if I don’t look in a mirror, I’ll be alright. Makes shaving my face a serious challenge, though.
Beware of what I say and do. I’m frequently an optimist who is often wrong.
Doesn’t stop me from trying to learn and trying to do better. As I said, I’m frequently an optimist.
Our contribution to the Friendsgiving gathering, as assigned to us by the host, are appetizers. Here’s this year’s offering.
The photo makes it look yellower than it actually is. There are five cheeses on it, deviled eggs, three kinds of crackers, and some puff cheese pastries, along with smoked mesquit almonds, carrots, celery, and cauliflower.
We also provided a vegetable platter with spinach artichoke dip. The food from both trays were delicious.
Jill made a great list of things which she is thankful for. I didn’t change it, but I’d add some personal names under the letters: Keri, Dee, Frank, Lisa, Gina, Pat, Amy, Sharon, Debby, Jonathan, Jessica, Cynthia, David, Andrea, Michael, Barb, Jon, Becky, Brenden, Landon, Colten, Lauren, Audrey, Rhea, Matt, Vince, and many other nieces and nephews. Beer was added under B, and wine is found under W. Knowledge is added to k, and L is amended with learning.
Oh, yeah, you’ll find pizza and pie under P. Can’t forget them, along with writing. You know where it goes.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I haven’t been employed for about seven years, and today I find myself nostalgic for that old corporate work routine when I worked from home from 2005 to 2015. I think it’s because I was alone in the house, on my computer, and it was quiet and rainy.
Good times.
I previously wrote about a couple of coffee-shop regulars who disappeared. These were Austin and Ross. Now both are sort of back.
A reminder, Austin was a tall, fair man with red hair and hiking gear. When I first saw him in the coffee shop in late spring of this year, I assumed that he was off the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). Several trailheads are right by Ashland, and we’re use to hikers coming into town for supplies, mail, or a break.
But he hung around through the summer and into autumn, stopping by the coffee house several times a day. And then, he just stopped, but I also didn’t see him elsewhere in town. I wondered and worried: where in the world was Austin.
Well, he just walked in one day recently like nothing had changed. Something has changed, though; I see him walking around town now, but he doesn’t come to the coffee house as he used to do. Good to see him and know he’s well, but questions remain about that disappearance and why his habits have shifted. Not any of my business, of course; I’m just nosy.
Likewise, Ross turned up in the coffee house yesterday. He’d been banned for comments he was making to the staff and for disturbing other patrons with his economic and religious ideas. No other details are available.
I saw him come in yesterday and head to a table. Then he went up and ordered. A few minutes later, the shift manager went over and reminded him that he’d banned. Ross went albeit not without shouting, “At least say it with a smile, you fascists.”
So, he’s still banned but at least I now know he’s still alive and in the area. Like Austin, though, there’s a mysterious gap over the last few months, which is always fodder for a fiction writer.
I ended up talking to the baristas about my hair this morning. The conversation launched off their casual question, “What do you have going on today?” I mentioned that I needed to have my hair cut.
Showing sympathy and politeness, they talked about their own hair woes. Then one barista mentioned that he has one part of his hair that always flips up. Drives him crazy.
“A cowlick,” I answered, adding, “I have one, too.”
The young baristas stared at me. “A cowlick?” one repeated for the group.
I laughed hard from the blank look accompanying the question, and then explained the expression, learned from Mom when I was a young boy.
It started with the quote in the graphics on the coffee shop tip jar and the question, “Who wrote this?”
I admitted, I didn’t know it, though The Neurons declared that they knew it and would deliver the author’s name if I just gave them more time. Already shifting into my own writing mode, I rebuffed their request.
Two days later, the situation has been modified. Now, the quote is above two tip jars. On one jar, it says, “Taylor Swift” while the other is annotated, “Shakespeare”. Apparently,
It’s Shakespeare, of course, Sonnet 65, which The Neurons again insisted they could have told me if I’d given them some time to think. Meanwhile, the baristas informed me that several customers guessed it was Taylor Swift. Hence, the change.
I admire this sonnet:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
h/t Wikipedia.com
So much said and unsaid that ends up compounding and bolstering its meaning and intentions.
And it’s very satisfying that my coffee shop put it up there on their counter’s tip jar.
Michael Seidel, writer 