Life's Changes

 "Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are." ~Bernice Johnson Reagon



There are those moments you come to in life -- the make or break moments -- where you can't truly appreciate how terrifying they are unless you're living it. Moments such as now. My Captain is out of a job, let go last Friday after seventeen years with his company. After the WTF? moment, it was hard for both of us to breathe. Two kids in college, two in high school and one week later, we're still swimming in the WTF moment.

And today, as I'm finally seeing the horizon after months and months (years) of writing and editing my first novel, I hear this from Dorchester -- yes, they're going digital with barely any notice to the authors expecting release dates in the next few months. Which begs the questions: what is happening to the publishing industry? Can authors make as much in e-book sales as in the traditional way?

I have to wonder if pursuing a writing career is really the wisest thing to do right now, especially in my circumstance. Is it even lucrative anymore, or semi-lucrative at least? Yes, it's been my dream since before I started college. Yes, I put it off to raise the kids. And yes, it's still my biggest dream, even beyond traveling to exotic lands and suddenly finding myself able to eat dairy without breaking out in hives.

But at what point should the dream stay a dream for awhile so you can get your ducks in order? Guarantee things such as food on the table, mortgage paid, bills done?

My dream is so near. I won't give it up yet because I've invested a lot in my novel. And I finally almost have it to the point where I'm comfortable shopping it. But in the meantime, I'm at a terrifying place in my life. I hope, as Bernice Reagon said above, I discover who I really am. And what I discover will be good.

Transformer 3 Cars

And oh yeah. . . .

Cars, cars and more cool Transformer 3 cars, driving down Clark Street in Chicago.

I Love A Good Explosion

Transformers 3 in Chicago? Filming on Michigan Avenue?? Explosions and car wrecks and very cool automobiles in a blaze of glory?! Hell yeah . . . 

Shia LeBeouf on set - Michigan Avenue

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, with other actors including co-star Shia LaBeouf on Sunday before filming a scene of the third Transformers movie.

Explosion on Michigan Avenue Bridge (simulated of course)

LaSalle Street. Wooot! 

Rubble at Nathan Hale Court at the Tribune Tower

*Photos courtesy Chicago Tribune

God Bless America - Happy July 4th

Happy July 4th - 2010

2010

Father's Day -- a weekend graced with good food, great drinks and fabulous conversation. You never expect to get outstanding steaks or meat from someone's cookout. You expect that from fine restaurants with chefs connoisseur. But at a cookout? Hell yeah. 


This was no ordinary burgers and hotdogs with perhaps a side of brats to tempt the palate. This was a cookout meant for kings! I just happened to be the lucky queen on the side.


The steak was melt-in-your-mouth butter. I had mine served with mushrooms and an oriental salad on the side. Afterward, there was ice cream cake. I was a heavenly passenger this weekend and no one could pull me out of my bout of divine experiences.


The awesome Lynn Viehl has a cool post listing random generators, from plotting to generating horse's names. Can you say Mr. Ed?

Turtles and things

This time of year, the turtles shamble out of our lake in the back and find the nearest mulch patch to bury their eggs -- which always happens to be my garden. They dig and destroy all plant life nearby with single-minded resolve in their effort to protect their unborn. I don't mind so much. I just replant whatever they dug up and it always survives. The law of nature I guess. But there's another law of nature that disturbs me more. After the poor turtles fastidiously waddle slowly from their homes in the lake, after they bury and rebury and sigh over the laying of their eggs, after they waddle back content that their offspring are now safe. . . the coyotes come along at night, dig up the eggs and --


Well, need I paint a picture?

Not that I want to make my first post in a long time a complaint post, but it's hard to write pithy comments when something funky's going on with the back. Yes, my back. As in 'baby got back.' I always thought I'd be pretty cool about things like pain. I felt sorry for those 'older' people who talked about their back pain in great detail at family parties. Now yep, there's me, waxing eloquent about my damn back.

I woke up yesterday and something with teeth and claws had gotten a hold of my lower back over night. I felt like an accident victim bent over all day and groaning every time I had to twist, or turn, or move -- which was pretty much all the time.

Good new though, it is better today. Not by much, but better. I still am finding it hard to write, thus here I am on blogger. Blogging. Writing to a vast audience of one. Me.

Now I'm off to go contemplate the virtues of the Kindle vs the IPad. I want both. Is that too greedy of me?

Gizmo

GIZMO


On the day you died, God gave us sunshine and warmth after a long winter. I like to think it was for you -- to give you a last day of sun, to light the way home.

You taught me to live life to its richest. To experience the simplest of moments to its fullest. You will always be in my heart, etched with the most permanent of engravings. I will never forget how you raised your tiny face to the wind, how you found the smallest patch of sun in the yard and rested, how your eyes closed under the sun’s warmth. I won’t forget how eager you always were at the sound of a crinkling treat bag, or the splashing of ice into a glass, or the clanking of your food bowls when I prepared your dinner. I won’t ever forget my loyal friend. Your footsteps followed me wherever I went. Your blue eyes watched every move I made. You defended me even from your pack mates if they got a little too rough, or more excited than you would’ve liked.

More than anything, you taught me that life has purpose. Death has meaning. The things we take for granted are the very things that make life worth living. Knowing you were alive one moment and gone the next is easier to bear only because you gave your life willingly to defend two souls whom you loved more than life itself. I know in my heart you entered Paradise with your head held high, that trumpets blared when you arrived because you are a hero, that Gabe greeted and romped with you in a sun more brilliant than any sun you could’ve felt here with us.

You taught me that courage isn’t measured by the things you are afraid of, but by what you are willing to sacrifice in the name of love and devotion. I thank you, from the deepest part of my soul, for saving my little girl and your best friend, Bear.

Rest in Peace, Gizmo. I know I’ll see you again one day and you will jump into my arms as if you’d never left. Until then, I’ll reserve a place in my arms just for you. Because you became much more than just my loyal friend. You rose to a stature most humans can never achieve.

You became my hero.

Rest In Peace, Gizmo

1/19/2000 - 3/16/2010