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Bainstorming - October 29 to December 25, 2016

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Copyright © December 25, 2016, by Darrell Bain
http://www.darrellbain.com

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Subjects in this blog: Political correctness corrected, Life spans of readers, my burn, Pending Books, Truck and Car, New Book, Betty, Christmas, Writing and Editing.

Political correctness corrected:

“Buffalo Wings” are nothing but chicken wings with the skin left on. Calling them “Buffalo Wings” allows them to be sold at three to four times what they are worth, as much or more than chicken breasts!

“Financially challenged” means you’re broke or bankrupt. Nothing more, nothing less.

That’s a start. Now make your own corrections.

Readers’ lifespans

Readers live two years longer than non-readers, on average. Probably because they avoid all that nasty exercise. Now that was intended to be facetious and it’s not derived from me. I read it somewhere but it probably makes some sense. I think a lot of long lives have to do with keeping the mind active and interested in something. For instance, while we can always use the money, that’s not why I write. I write because I like to and it does keep my mind active and thinking. Any money I earn is just a bonus.

Burn

That nasty burn I suffered to my back is slowly improving. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, it happened when I fell and was trapped, unable to move my arms because they were pinned and my back was resting against a space heater that was on. I was like that for ten of fifteen minutes before Betty finally heard me call and came to my rescue. Before she did I’d suffered a bad burn on my left side and back, spanning at least a foot in every direction with the worst of it centered. It is down to about six inches in length and height now, but I figure it will be a month to six weeks before it is healed.
I am back to exercising with weights and walking but didn’t realize how weak I’d gotten over the five months when my back was akin to a train wreck. Back surgery and recovery and the burn all took place the last two months during that five month span. I waited three months for surgery. First to see my doctor, then referred to a pain doctor, then pain doctor referred me to surgeon, then saw surgeon and he had to find open surgery date. Three months and I was taking so many pain killers I hardly knew what I was doing and it still hurt like hell. There ought to be a quicker way. Anyway, I had to begin exercises much slower than I thought I would. I could only walk a quarter mile before being exhausted, and had to drop down to a ten pound weight rather than the twenty pounds I’d been using for upper body exercise. On the positive side I should have an interesting scar to talk about.
Then, no sooner than I had gotten that under control than Betty came down with an issue that required surgery. She finished that just in time for Thanksgiving, but was under Doctor’s orders to stay out of the kitchen and rest. Naturally, she didn’t and had a mild relapse that sort of made her think before doing. We attended the meal at our daughter’s home but had to leave soon after finishing to allow both of us to rest. It was nice to see so many of the family gathered to give thanks for being together.
After that Betty got a virus that hung on for a couple of weeks, then I had “Jungle Fever” again. First one of us then the other appear to develop medical problems. Nothing life-threatening, though.

Pending Books

Getting my books back into circulation is taking longer much than I thought it would. I guess it’s time to talk to my publisher and see what we‘re going to be doing after Christmas. For the books I am self-publishing, two more of them are ready now. Alien Seeds will be re-titled as The Golden Seeds with a new cover, and No Heaven, No Hell will be re-titled as The Afterlife Cabals and also have a new cover. Both have had some light re-editing. Look for them, especially The Afterlife Cabals. It is one of the strangest books I’ve ever written, but anyone who has followed my career knows I don’t stick to the same formula as many writers do. I write whatever kind of book that suits my fancy at the time. The Golden Seeds is one of my more adventuresome books, involving aliens much superior to us that have to be stopped, romance, combat, spaceships and all manner of derring-do. Anyone who likes adventure will love this book. I dedicated it to my adventuresome younger brother, Gary, and named one of the characters Gary just for kicks.

The Afterlife Cabals isn’t a space opera but I believe you will enjoy it and I left it open for a sequel if I live that long and stay out of fixes like where I get the crap burned out of me. Have a look at it and The Golden Seeds.

Truck and Car

Our faithful old Toyota XtraCab truck that we bought way back in 1984 is going to be sold. My brother wants to buy it and fix it up as a classic. What is amazing is that it still has only 90,000 miles on the odometer. It still has the original motor and transmission, too. Not bad for 32 years of driving, but we used it mostly on the farm and as a loaner for the kids when their cars weren’t working. I believe I can safely say that we got our money’s worth. Now we’re keeping the Mercury Marquis as our spare vehicle. We bought it new, too, in 1995, so it is only 21 years old. Our new car is a Honda Accord. It has many bells and whistles neither of us have figured out yet. I hate a car that’s smarter than me. Yesterday it started talking to me while I was driving and I didn’t understand what it was saying and didn’t know how to shut it off. I think I must have brushed an icon or somewhere while setting cruise control. Like I said, it’s smarter than me.

New Book

I do have one new book I intend to self-publish once the others I’m self-publishing are available again. The New Types is the title. I need to do one more edit to hopefully weed out the last typos and inconsistencies. It should be out after the first few months of the new year.

Betty

Today is Sunday the 4th of December. Betty goes to see her surgeon tomorrow. She wants to find out when she can began easing into driving again and what else she‘s going to be allowed to do. I’d like to see her driving again, too. Having to run all the errands is really turn about because she did them all while my back was so bad and my burn was healing. I think I’ll still owe her quite a bit of time regardless of what the surgeon says.
Post-appointment: She may drive now and do light housework but not much lifting. A great improvement!

We celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve. We chose that date as a year from our first real date, a meal at her house (she made gumbo) and seeing the New Year in together. Seems like only yesterday in many ways, despite the added years. Betty sees her surgeon again the 27th of December. I hope we’re able to celebrate our anniversary properly, but…well, just have to wait and hope. Note: Appointment changed to January 2nd, so…oh well.

Both of us are still relatively healthy for our age, Betty especially. She’s a few years older than me and I’ll be 78 come February. Fortunately, we both come from long-lived families so I imagine we have a good bit of time left. Also there is no dementia or Alzheimer’s in our families, so I expect to be writing for a good many more years yet. It is something I enjoy and it keeps my mind sharp, sort of.

This year really has zoomed by. The older you are the faster time seems to pass and neither of us want it go so fast. It means we’re older and neither of us has many years to spare at this point in our lives.

Betty is indeed driving again (although not far) and doing light work around the house. And cooking again. I cooked a lot while I was farming Christmas trees and Betty was still working in nursing outside the home, but I’ve forgotten most of what I knew then. I can still make a pretty good pot of stew and baked beans and hamburger steak and some other simple dishes but nothing like I used to cook. We’ve begun to eat out a lot now or sort of snack. Whatever works.

Christmas

I had intended to finish this issue and get it posted before Christmas but didn’t. Christmas morning is here, but Betty is still sleeping. We’ll open our presents to each other after she awakes.
I finally managed to find a suitable Anniversary gift and ordered it this morning. I have my doubts it will arrive in time, though. I do hope so, but the red roses definitely will and we’re expecting her new chair and ottoman the 27th. We were hoping for the 23rd but no such luck.
My youngest son and his girlfriend and their son, our youngest grandson, managed to make it here for Christmas Eve Day. We had a great time watching Rowdy Justice Bain open his presents and play with them. He just turned four. Actually, we even have one great, great grandson but they are in the service and in Hawaii so we didn’t get to see him.
As usual, Santa came during the night and filled our stockings so I guess we were good, barring a bundle of sticks or a lump of coal inside them.
Note: No sticks or coal. We were good.

Writing and Editing

I’ll be writing and editing, switching between the two for the next year, it looks like, but my next project for myself is to go through The New Types one more time then I’m going to self-publish it. Galactic Frontiers re-write is complete and in the hands of its editor so it should be out soon, with a new cover. The biggest change is the extension of the hurried ending that I had written previously, and now has a lot of action and changes. I’ll look forward to what the editor thinks of my re-write since she is the one who wanted it.

End

And as they say in the old cartoons, That’s All Folks!

Darrell Bain
Shepherd, Texas
December 2016

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