The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[MillieDynamite]

I was going to chat with you guys for a bit but Jo and Mum have ordered me to take another nap!

 

[MrPixel]

I was going to chat with you guys for a bit but Jo and Mum have ordered me to take another nap!

Good for them! Rest! Get better!

 

[MrPixel]

I hope it went well.

It did, but she first insisted on doing a sh!tload of cleanup tasks around our studio. I stopped her - almost had to stand in her way - and scolded her that I had straightened everything up and set the loungers out in the courtyard expressly for her to lay back and soak up the sunlight on this totally non-winter winter's day. She finally relented and still I had to convince her to take off her clothes, "I did NOT just spend $6500 on a privacy fence for a secluded sunning spot for you to not enjoy it that way!"

Her mood finally lightened and she was happy and comfortable. I'm glad I stood firm. After an hour-plus she decided she'd had enough direct sun, dressed... and toured the campus picking up trash. I can only do but so much.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Small steps, MrP.

And something to make things happier. Here's our pup after a week at home. He's stalking a dandelion...

 

[NotWise]

Small steps, MrP.

And something to make things happier. Here's our pup after a week at home. He's stalking a dandelion...

View attachment 2484824

Cute. At his age it's probably good to pick prey that can't get away.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Small steps, MrP.

And something to make things happier. Here's our pup after a week at home. He's stalking a dandelion...

View attachment 2484824

Look at the paws on the critter! Have you selected a saddle yet?

 

[Rustyoznail]

Look at the paws on the critter! Have you selected a saddle yet?

No, but having seen his parents we have a good idea what size he'll be. Our last dog was a rescue, and he was supposed to be a labrador / kelpie cross. They got the lab right. The other half was great dane. He tipped the scales at a solid 55kg (120lb). Our niece could ride him when she was 3.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another morning and another pot of coffee started. I've refreshed the teapot and it is hot. I did make a cornbread yesterday and it's on the counter for your enjoyment. Mark Twain said something about how you could tell a person's politics by how they make cornbread so I'll leave it up to you to figure mine out.

I made some major headway yesterday with my writing and I'm looking forward to getting some more done today.

@MillieDynamite - I hope you get to feeling better soon. Take care.

 

[NotWise]

I wrote a few lines this morning, and I'm suddenly at the sequence of events the whole story sets up. It took me by surprise, and now I have to make my oh-so-rational female protagonist lose it in an emotional fit--briefly, anyway. I guess if I did everything else right, then that will come naturally.

I'll probably finish on Lit page six, then there's at least one earlier scene that needs a rewrite.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Does sleeping till noon as resting?

Good for them! Rest! Get better!

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm feeling a bit better today and I'm going to try and write in bed some today.

 

[NotWise]

Take it easy, Millie.

We had another warm day today. I don't know if it was another record high, but it was close. I got my 20-minute walk-around-the-park done in nineteen minutes, and I wasn't as out-of-breath when I finished. I'll call that progress.

I bought chile and pepper seeds for next summer's garden. Nothing new, but I'm getting them from somewhere else. Tomatoes next, I think. Then maybe melons.

 

[Rustyoznail]

No coffee. Milk in the fridge was off, even though I'd only bought it two days ago.

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

 

[Belegon]

I had a decent day, except for one idiot. I had a repair appointment booked for today because my cel phone got run over in the parking lot of the Verizon store about ten days ago. I waited for the appointment despite the time delay because it would be 100% covered by the insurance on the account. Figure, I've been paying monthly for the insurance, I oughta get some of that money back by having the repair done. Phone glass is shattered and won't display anything properly and if you try to run a finger across it you will get glass splinters in your finger... both of which things were clearly stated in the claim. They were supposed to be here between 11 am and 1 pm.

Right about 2 pm I got an email from them saying the tech had tried to call me and then left since I didn't pick up. I responded with an email that basically said, "You mean the tech actually arrived at my apartment complex and then called for the location of the apartment within the complex and gave up when I didn't answer the phone that he was here to REPAIR?????? Seems like a pretty obvious possibility why the phone might not have been picked up. Plus, the office for the multi-building apartment complex is the first thing you pass coming off the road and is very clearly marked "Office." Seems pretty obvious that even the slightest thought should reveal that you could go into the office and get directions to a specific apartment. I spent 20 years managing locations for retail corporate America and I guarantee you that any employee of mine that blew off an appointment with such weak grounds would be in trouble, and if this is indicative of the general intelligence of this tech's behavior, the help wanted sign would be in the window in no time and I would be calling corporate for the tech's final pay. And if I was told I couldn't fire him, he'd be so sick of me asking basic questions about how his job is performed that he would probably quit before they end of the month.

The tech DID call the secondary number listed on the claim... at 2:46 pm, nearly two hours after the latest time listed for his possible arrival. That number was my son's. Since my son was actually doing HIS job and thus didn't pick up his cel, they left a message... which is how we found out the tech had supposedly been at the complex earlier in the day. *head shake* At the very least, it's abominable customer service. Compounded by the fact that they told me in email and my son on voicemail exactly how thoughtless they had been in the attempt.

Millie, I'm glad you slept in... Now, do it again tomorrow instead of taking the extra energy you got from the rest and convincing yourself that you don't need to rest anymore. Get better!!!!

Candy, congrats on having a good quality writing day! Take them whenever and however you can get them!

 

[Duleigh]

This company that Verizon has contracted with to do delivery, set up, and repair SUCKS. When I got my new phone my wife selected "free delivery and set up" and set up the appointment. They guy never showed up. I looked on their website and their reason for not showing up: "Cancelled by customer." He just didn't want to drive to a rural town. It took almost two weeks to get my phone and set it up properly. I swear that Verizon is run by the VA. I've never seen inefficiency, laziness, poor customer service and self contradicting regulations like this. Oh well... back to work

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I've got a fresh pot of coffee going and the teapot is hot. There are donuts on the counter and I' sitting in the corner with a nice cup of Earl Grey enjoying the sunny morning. Had a little trouble sleeping last night so I'll really need the caffeine this morning.

Sounds like customer service is going to hell in a lot of places. I hope I don't have that problem if I ever need help.

 

[NotWise]

Y'all sound like cranky old men.

It'll be another beautiful weather day, and this should hold into the weekend when the temps might drop back toward normal. Unfortunately, we don't have a chance at moisture in the foreseeable future.

 

[Belegon]

G'morning Candy, G'Morning Duleigh! Coffee for me please. Gonna try to get at least another 1000 words today, which should be a pretty achievable goal... The current WIP is approaching the end of what was a decently long sex scene, but I think the story is far more about the emotions than the physicality, thinking about putting it in romance... I took the main characters from the first couple stories I ever wrote here and imagined them meeting up again as people roughly my age. Easy to do since twenty years ago, when I wrote those stories, I was channeling several features of one of my own early relationships. So when the idea came to revisit them, I pulled some of my own circumstances I've been thru in the intervening years and used the memories of those emotions. I also used a restaurant I used to frequent with a couple of girls (a quick web search told me the restaurant was still in business at the same location) and my real experience of having found one of my first girlfriends high school class rings during my move from San Diego to West Virginia back in 2007, plus my current status of being still officially married but no longer living with my wife. Some of it is idealized, no doubt, but it was kinda fun to write while trying to imagine what really may have happened in the lives of two women I haven't seen in almost forty years.

Hard enough for me to think about the fact that it has been that long and fit my own experiences into that framework, let alone what experiences the two girls who kinda were melded by me to create the singular female lead in this series might have had happen.

Oh, and G'morning NW. You weren't here yet when I started this post. (but I did run to the kitchen and get coffee in the middle of it....)

 

[glynndah]

Oh! It's so nice to find out this place is still open. I was away for quite a while {real life *sigh*}. I look forward to seeing old friends and maybe making some new ones.

 

[Belegon]

hey, Glynndah! Just came back here myself about a month ago after a gap of many years. How have you been? Think I saw you on Facebook a couple of times in the last few years, but the Will Belegon page had been ignored by me while I wasn't writing.

 

[Duleigh]

VA Hell Update
After receiving a second bad pair of glasses following numerous trips down to Duval county, my optometrist sent me back to the doctor that first did the eye exam. (that's two more trips)
- Did a full eye exam with the NON VA doctor, all the while he told me about the great military discounts he gave if I had my glasses made there. I don't have the money so I took the new prescription to the VA.

- Went to the VA today for a scheduled CPAP exam, the pulmonary tech said "Why are you here?" (Actually it was nice talking to a pulmonary tech, I know a lot about their job (the hard way) so we could talk frankly)

- As I was heading back home I got a call from the VA. It was an optometrist technician, she said "You need to get in here" I drove back to the VA and she gave me these weird glasses and said try these on. I put them on and it was horrible, blurry, fuzzy, I couldn't see at any distance and I couldn't force my eyes to focus on anything. "That's the prescription that doc wrote you." I said, "Do you get the feeling that he's writing bad prescriptions for the VA to make glasses from so he can tell me it's the VA's fault?" She was an army cynical old cuss so I felt right at home. She gave me an exam then came back with her "space goggles" set to the prescription she came up with and they were great, so she had a VA doc sign off of the prescription. I've now got 465 miles invested in these glasses, at 14 MPG, and I still don't have the glasses.

Worse off, I've been getting jerked around so much, it's taken me all week to do a read through of my book which was due to my publisher today, and I'm still not done................. damnit

 

[Duleigh]

For anyone that has read my Andi's Dream Series, after today you'll know what this means

 

[JGittes]

When I opened the front door for this morning's 3:30 a.m. dog walk, a fox ran down High Street toward the village pond. A couple of years ago, we had a fox that sat a little up the High Street and waited to greet us for our early morning walk. Sometimes, they followed us on the loop around the pond through the allotments, and back around the Coop home. Sometimes, they sat waiting for us to complete our rounds. The dogs quickly get used to wildlife. We've come across hedgehogs, and the dogs learned to ignore them.

The Canada geese appear to have begun their residency. At least one pair has stayed in the pond for four days.

 

[NotWise]

Welcome back @JGittes!

* * *

The end of my WIP is in sight, and I found my thoughts turning to an older story that I synopsized in detail a few years ago then set aside because it was too dark.

It's a mom-son story--which usually means meaningless froth--but I failed miserably to make it frothy. I changed the working title from "Into the Dark" to "Trainwreck," but the short description is still good ("Mom, sex and drugs, guns and rock'n'roll") but I changed the female protagonist's name from Zelda to Madeline and read through it for the first time in a long time.

I could make it dirtier, but not much. I couldn't make it much darker. It's full of end-of-life contemplation and ends with Zelda/Madeline having sex with her son then killing herself. Figured that ending would get me drummed out of LIt, so I've chickened out on the ending. It's still pretty damned dark. I guess an alternative would be to keep the ending and not publish it on Lit.

 

[MrPixel]

I've now got 465 miles invested in these glasses, at 14 MPG, and I still don't have the glasses.

And you're so friggin' mad you can't see straight.

Colonoscopy in 8 hours. I think the worst of the prep is behind me. Da boom tisssssh.