New Adventures

Posted on 05/31/2015 by Andrew Reynolds

A couple of weeks ago I announced my plan to get 50 rejections by the end of the year.  As of today, I have four rejections with three pieces still under consideration.  I know that’s not a blindingly fast start to my plans, but I have an excuse.

Or rather an opportunity has come up, that I’ve decided to take.  It’s so nice that I’ve decide I’ll risk not making it to 50, to pursue it.

I’ve been in conversation or rather an email exchange with the good folks over at Today’s Author and they’ve kindly asked me to join their group of writers.  They are dedicated to helping encourage writers to keep writing.  They offer writing prompts, a support forum, and posts from the writing team offering insight and encouragement.

Today they posted my bio page here  and soon my introductory post will be published.  I’ll let you know when it’s up.  If you’re interested in improving your writing or just need some encouragement to keep writing, stop by Today’s Author and see what’s going on over there.

This is something new for me and gives me an outlet for a bunch of blog posts that don’t really fit into what I do here on Andrew’s view of the Week.  I’ll be maintaining my posting schedule here, and of course I’ll let you know when Today’s Author publish my words.

I am excited about joining the crew and hope they’ll find my little writings useful.  What I like about this opportunity is the fact that it is a way for me to practice a couple of useful skills: meeting a deadline and writing for a specific audience.  There are times on this blog where I can get lazy and just skip a post; and sometimes picking a topic to write about can be a challenge.  When the whole world is open to me to write about, I find I can waste a lot of time exploring options rather than writing.

More importantly though, I hope this will be a way to give a little back to the writing community and possibly help someone else out there on their journey.

Community is the word and one of the many reasons I’ve continued writing here.  Over the few years I’ve been posting, I’ve gathered a few blog followers and follow a few blogs myself.  It’s hard to describe the good feeling I get when a blog friend clicks the like button on something I’ve posted.

I am thankful to all of you who keep coming back to look at this blog and I always look forward to reading the bloggers I follow.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General, Writing | Tagged , , | 33 Comments

Friday’s Music – Kimber’s Men

Posted on 05/29/2015 by Andrew Reynolds

It’s no secret, I have a non-standard taste in music.  Another of my favorite groups to listen to on YouTube is the British group, Kimber’s Men.  Someday I hope to make it to one of their shows, but the travel time has been a little difficult to arrange.

Instead I’ll just offer a small sample of what they do:

I am off to do some heavy lifting and loud singing,

Andrew

 

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

A Memorial Day Poem

Posted on 05/25/2015 by Andrew Reynolds

I’ve been to Arlington National Cemetery three times in my life.  The first time was on a cold mid-December day.  While on a break from a conference, I boarded a Tourmobile. There were three of us on that bus, the driver, the tour guide and me.  I told the guide that I wanted to see the Tomb of the Unknown.  She looked at her watch and said I could just make the next changing of the guard.

There were four of us at the Tomb, the guard on duty, the relief guard, the officer of the guard and me in the stands with my camera.  As they started the solemn ritual, but my raised camera felt wrong and I lowered it.  Remaining standing, I watched as the guard was changed with a gentle snow falling, and a cold breeze starting.

I remained with the new guard as he walked his post for a few minutes before I retreated to the Tourmobile stop.

I wrote the following poem about that afternoon and it remains my only memory of Arlington as my camera remained in its case until I crossed the bridge back to the mall.

Twenty-one Guns

The tour bus rumbles past
the quiet monuments to the fallen.
Shutters click as the tour guide
speaks the litany of the shrine,
that once was the Lee estate.
Now it is that hallowed ground
where solders come for that long rest.

The Quick rumble passed the carved stones
of the Dead, that once placed
boots of war on their feet.
Their soles now silent.
Now day-trippers take aim and fire.
Cameras, not rifles.
Pictures, not prisoners taken.

The bus stops. The microphone is silent.
To the left a horse pulls a caisson carrying a flag-draped box
That contains a name who once walked.
The warrior sent at our command.
The sightseer sees and falls silent
And hears the echo of guns.
Three volleys and then the mournful notes.

Boys became men
And men became names
And names became graves
Gone is the sun,
Day is done.
God is Nigh.

Posted in General, Poems | Tagged , , , , | 26 Comments

Cats

Posted on 05/24/2015 by Andrew Reynolds

There are five cats in our household and we had just about got them all trained and behaving well, when last Saturday one of them started acting weird.  “Spotty girl” was extra fussy, affectionate, rubbing her head on everything, crying, and holding her backside up in the air.  All classic signs of being in heat.  Her behavior was affecting the other cats and the kitties and humans were all on edge.

So it was off to the vet to try to figure out why a spayed cat is in heat.  Theoretically, once you remove the reproductive parts, girl kitties don’t go looking for boy kitties in that way.  Well, after a bit of web searching and conversation with our vet, turns out it’s possible that the original spay operation may have left some female parts inside.

We managed to get our Spotty kitty scheduled for surgery last Tuesday.  Our vet found an entire ovary was left behind by the surgeon at the animal shelter where the spay was done last summer.  Our vet removed it, but I think he was a little hurt when I declined to take home the little test tube where he’d placed the offending ovary.  I explained, again, that we hadn’t paid for the first procedure so the evidence of error wasn’t going to be that useful to me as I had no intention of confronting the shelter people.

Since Tuesday we’ve had to keep our little patient separated from her siblings who don’t understand the concept of, “your sister has just had surgery and you can’t play chase and fight with her.”  The separation hasn’t been met with joy and has been a source of human and kitty stress.

As if that wasn’t enough kitty fun, our senior cat, Spirit had her six month senior check up on Thursday, which resulted in a rather large number of lab tests as we suspect she has kidney disease.  Have you ever had to get a urine sample, from a cat, for your vet?  I won’t go in to details.  Somethings are better not known unless you really, really need to know.

Either Myself or Heather, have been at the vet’s office every day this week except Wednesday.

Today life is somewhat better in the house.  Spotty is recovering and we’re allowing some play-time between the siblings, I finished Spirit’s new kitty tower, and I’ve delayed my retirement plans for a couple of years so I can finish paying all the vet bills we racked up this month.

The cats are cute and expensive.  Let’s just say the vet now has a down payment on that new car he’s thinking about.

Next week I’ll have pictures of the new room we’re having the contractor build for our kitties.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments