tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41987660870450944642024-03-12T23:42:06.256-07:00Pamela Foster Secrets and VicesPamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-64703359326513427072012-08-19T19:10:00.005-07:002012-08-19T19:10:43.961-07:00I've moved to Wordpress<span style="font-size: large;">If you're looking for Pamela Foster, please go to:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'll see you there.</span>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-27769845127238233312012-07-09T07:35:00.000-07:002012-07-09T07:36:02.217-07:00But, I Didn't Pinkie Swear<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">How much of
what we experience do we have a right to share?
Or to put it another way</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">–</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I’ll keep your
secret. Unless it’s funny. Or profound.
Or quirky. Or sad. If the personal revelation you share calls
forth any of those aforementioned emotions?
Well, then, sooner or later, you’ll probably see a twisted version of
the tale in something I write.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">For me, this
creates the biggest challenge when it concerns one particular person in my
life. See this person is funny and
profound and quirky and, sometimes, sad.
And he has been very clear that he does not want me to ever use anything
he’s said in anything I write. Which,
because I love and respect him, I agree to do.
But, I’m here to tell you, it just about kills me. Just yesterday he made the funniest
observation I’ve heard in years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Which I’m
not going to share with you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Do you think
God will give me extra credit for keeping this confidence? You writers out there, how do you handle it
when a person with whom you share an experience is adamant about not wanting
those insights or feelings shared on the written page? </span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-19397650005425804582012-07-03T10:06:00.000-07:002012-07-03T10:06:06.860-07:00Fourth of July<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I got
thinking about just what we’re supposed to be celebrating on the Fourth of
July.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The signing of the Declaration of
Independence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An illegal protest against
taxation without representation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>History’s
a bitch, ain’t she?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I wondered
how many of the grand thinkers and philosophers who came up with the bright
idea of taking a stand for that particular cause actually fought for its implementation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turns out about half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fifty-six men signed the Declaration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seventeen fought in the American Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five were captured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eleven more had their homes confiscated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The reason
this all came to mind is that, as we submerge deeper and deeper into the
increasingly muddy waters of another presidential election year, I am more and
more irritated by those who wave flags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On both sides of the aisle.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are all kinds of ways to be
patriotic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And shoring up a fallacious
argument by jumping over the cerebral cortex and coming directly from the amygdala
is a time honored way to appeal to voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I get that.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, I don’t
mind someone wrapping themselves in the bloody flag to make a political
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except it maddens me when the blood
on that flag is not their own. It pisses me off when the blood of warriors is
called upon to justify what is simply a point of view and, not content to end
the farce there, anyone with an opposing opinion is demonized as an ingrate not
worthy of sacrifices of real patriots.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Our country is split down the middle with little
common ground upon which to build compromise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Here’s what I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>If we want
to honor those who fight in wars our government sends them to fight, let us
stop behaving like selfish children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s
reach out to one another, work to hear each other’s words, and find a way to allow
the country we profess to love to grow and to find, again, a righteous path to
greatness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/">http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/</a></span>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-84431401809874816142012-07-01T18:35:00.000-07:002012-07-01T18:35:31.368-07:00Southern Women<span style="font-size: large;">I've moved my writer's blog to </span><a href="http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/bigfoot-blues/#comments"><span style="font-size: large;">http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/bigfoot-blues/#comments</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> It'd be great if you followed me there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This blog is going to become my rift and rave spot. The blog is named Secrets and Vices, afterall. What's posted here has virtually nothing to do with any of my books. It's just a place to post observations and opinions and see what y'all think, hopefully get some feedback. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the
differences between Southern woman and the rest of us heathens is that Southern
women, as a rule, do not cuss and swear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean, unless they’re fighting with a computer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or quilting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During those two activities, all bets are off, but otherwise, nary a
crude utterance will pass their lips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, there are exceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
dear southern friend and I once had to pinkie swear not to say the ‘f’ word in front of
another friend’s eighty-year-old mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, by and large, woman from below the Mason/Dixon do not use profanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They especially do not take the Lord’s name
in vain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is a
challenge for me, a Pacific Northwest Redneck transplanted to Northwest
Arkansas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m telling you, it’s a hard
and trying cultural adjustment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The worst
thing I ever heard my dad say about a woman was, “She wouldn’t say shit if she
had a mouthful.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I ask you, is that
not a clear demand for a girl to call it like she sees it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I phoned my
sister the other day and asked her what she was doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m standin’ in my Goddamn garden,” she said
sweetly, “looking at my first water-fuckin’-mellon.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know
what to tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s how we talk if
left to our crude Yankee tendencies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other
difference between a southern woman and an old Humboldt Honey like myself is
that a southern woman will hang herself before leaving the house without a
bra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hell, most of em couldn’t be paid
to walk out the front door without foundation makeup, eyeliner, mascara and
painted nails.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do shave my legs, though since menopause
it’s more habit than anything else and I do wear a bra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though that last deal is more about the
vanities of old age than a defense against a lynching.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All that
said, my best friends in the world are from the south.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody is better at wearing a soul to
submission with pure-dee graciousness or knocking the argument plum out of a
body with words sweeter’n tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may not
be from around here, but I am de-damn-lighted to buckle up that bra and censor
my words a tad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a small price to
pay to live peaceably in this neck of the woods.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-41892725485281307202012-05-07T00:40:00.001-07:002012-05-07T00:42:57.424-07:00Bigfoot Blues Lurks in Woods<ul class="" id="menu-primary-items">
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<span class="comments-link"><a href="http://diannagraveman.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/coming-soon-from-high-hill-press-bigfoot-blues/#comments" title="Comment on Coming soon from High Hill Press: Bigfoot Blues!">1 Comment</a></span>
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<h2 class="entry-title">
Coming soon from High Hill Press: Bigfoot Blues! </h2>
<div class="byline">
<span class="sep">Posted <span class="sep"> by </span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://diannagraveman.wordpress.com/author/diannagraveman/" title="View all posts by Dianna Graveman">Dianna Graveman</a></span> on </span> <span class="entry-date"><a href="http://diannagraveman.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/coming-soon-from-high-hill-press-bigfoot-blues/" rel="bookmark" title="9:59 pm">May 4, 2012</a></span> in <span class="entry-categories"><a href="http://diannagraveman.wordpress.com/category/readers-writers/" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Readers & Writers">Readers & Writers</a></span> </div>
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<a href="http://diannagraveman.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/bigfoot-blues-arc-cropped.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-3583" height="259" src="http://diannagraveman.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/bigfoot-blues-arc-cropped.jpg?w=155&h=259" title="Bigfoot Blues Arc-cropped" width="155" /></a>The
daughter of a longtime Bigfooter enlists the help of her redneck
friends to teach a sweet-talking city slicker a backwoods lesson in this
rollicking tale by novelist <a href="http://pamelafosterspeakerwriter.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/origins-of-bigfoot-blues/" target="_blank">Pamela Foster</a> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Redneck-Goddess-Pamela-Foster/dp/1606530445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336186103&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><i>Redneck Goddess</i></a>, 2011).<br />
Samantha is a pretty, spirited bartender who manages VD’s with her
on-again-off-again boyfriend and business partner, Hawk. Although the
bar is named for their dads (Victor and David), “half the kids in the
county phone at least once to giggle some perceived original query.” The
Indian, as Sam calls Hawk, is half Yurok and all philanderer, with an
appetite for loose women and booze that threatens to ruin any chance of a
relationship between the two. Still, Sam isn’t ready to give up on
Hawk—yet.<br />
When a finely-dressed, big-city author named Mark Nielson wanders
into the bar one evening for a meeting of the believers, the locals
expect trouble. But Sam can’t help but be swayed by the sexy stranger
with “eyes the color of that variegated moss along a late summer river,”
especially after the shabby treatment she’s received from Hawk. Sweet
talk and flowers wear down her guard, and soon Sam has a new beau.<br />
When the relationship suddenly takes an awkward turn, Sam’s
allegiance to her beloved father is placed in doubt. Filled with
misplaced guilt, Sam begins to question her own beliefs, while fiercely
rushing to the defense of her dad. Armed with her .38 and a plan to set
things right, Sam leads her city-born suitor into the backwoods
wilderness, with Georgia-bred Bubba and childhood friend Lefty trailing
behind for support. But none of the four suspects the enormity of the
adventure that awaits the group—and the discoveries that will forever
change them.<br />
Full of humorous asides and swelling with redneck pride, <i>Bigfoot Blues</i> blends together an eclectic group of believers and nonbelievers for an offbeat but delightfully satisfying tale.<br />
Note: <i>Bigfoot Blues</i> is coming summer 2012 from <a href="http://highhillpress.com/" target="_blank">High Hill Press</a>! In the meantime, hop over to High Hill to find out about a contest to find Bigfoot…and to submit your own story to the <a href="http://highhillpresspublishing.blogspot.com/2012/04/find-bigfoot.html?spref=fb" target="_blank"><i>Bigfoot Blues Confidential</i></a> anthology.<br />
<h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="font-size: 1em;">
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</div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-65891993865336447912012-05-02T07:19:00.000-07:002012-05-02T07:19:53.780-07:00A Confused Sea<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A small boat in a rough
sea. I identify, lately, with that
image.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For five years I fell off the
side of a panga boat into the Caribbean Sea on a daily basis. Winds from the east flattened the waves and
we skimmed over turquoise glass on our way to the dive site. West winds ruffled the water and made for a
choppy ride. A storm blowing in from the
south or north created ripples or mountains depending on the wind speed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The local boat captains
navigated all of this. As long as the panga motor
could outrun the waves before they swamped the low back of the boat on the way
into shore, the captains powered out through the watery mountains and we fell
backwards off the boat and sunk below the surface chaos. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well, yes, there were those
occasions on returning home when we leaped over the side the instant the panga
cleared the opening of the cove and drug the boat to shore hoping to outrun a threatening wave. There was even one memorable time
when the waves caught us and the boat sunk in plain sight of the dive shop and
the sunbathers on the beach.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But, for the most part, as
long as the wind was consistent, the little boat bobbed on the rough seas and
was waiting to bring us home at the end of our dive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In a confused sea, the wind
can’t make up its mind what direction it wants to blow. Waves kick up from all
directions with the occasional rogue to make the boat captain’s life even more
interesting. A confused sea left a boatload of disappointed divers standing on shore cussing the weather
while a Mayan boat captain shook his head no and no and hell no.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So, in this time of my life,
when nothing seems constant, I remind myself that the weather will change. But mostly, I remember dropping down through
roaring waves into a world of such contrasting peace it always put a smile on my face big enough to leak salt water in around my regulator. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Peace is here. I just have to fall backwards into it.</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-24328015641210484422012-04-09T17:46:00.000-07:002012-04-09T17:46:41.449-07:00I'm happy for you . . .<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In the movie ‘Midnight in Paris’, Hemingway tells Gill, the young novelist, </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">“You don’t want the opinion of another writer about your novel.<span> </span>If is bad, I’ll hate it.<span> </span>If it’s good, I’ll be envious and hate it even more.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">There’s a large element of truth there.<span> </span>I pretend happiness in the success of other writers, but I’m seldom truly glad for them.<span> </span>For the exact reason Hemingway mentions.<span> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Writers are notorious for possessing that inner child prone to tantrums.<span> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">“Me, me, me.<span> </span>What about me?<span> </span>I’m just as good a writer as <i>they</i> are.” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">And, truthfully, if I don’t know you and read about your success as a writer, I’ll be a teeny tiny bit happy for you but mostly I’ll be jealous as a three year old at her sister’s birthday party.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Except, right in the muddled-middle of my tiny, selfish life, a funny thing has happened. I find myself with a group of increasingly successful writer friends for whom I am genuinely, joyously happy. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">And here’s the surprise, my life is richer, my joys are multiplied.<span> </span>Their success really does feel like my success and I know they share in my joys as well.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Ain’t life grand?</span></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-85465401269194046352012-03-18T14:47:00.000-07:002012-03-18T14:47:33.505-07:00Life Is Chock Full of Characters<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pan answered questions about where writers get their characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answers were insightful and entertaining, but in my experience, when someone other than another writer asks this question, they mean something entirely different. <a href="http://sisterhoodofthetravelingpen.wordpress.com/">http://sisterhoodofthetravelingpen.wordpress.com/</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When Redneck Goddess was published, the first question men friends who bought and read the book asked was some variation of:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Where’d you get the idea for the stud your ‘main character’ couldn’t keep her hands off?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By which they meant,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> “I know I’m the stud and the book is your public confession of your long time and barely concealed hots for me.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many of these men, bless their hearts, weigh well over three hundred pounds, are bald and have never heard of a nose hair clipper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, I made that part up, but, seriously, the love interest in Redneck Goddess is a hot young Latino with the personality of a sexy saint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come on guys, really?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Women, always more subtle, whispered some variation of:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t appreciate something I told you in confidence being put out there in black and white for the whole world to read."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s the thing, the protagonist is a hot twenty-eight year old with flaming red hair and legs all the way to her ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure why you think the book is about you and the waiter at the Mexican café who poured an extra shot of Padron in your margarita when you tipped him a Franklin on Cinco de Mayo? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You get the idea. The need for friends and family to define the book by their influence on you just seems universal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the same conundrum as that old query, “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is difficult for friends and family to look past ME to see the book, the message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know why that surprises me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>For twenty years didn’t I hear the surprised exclamation, “Wow, your boys are really smart?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is their dad a major brain?”</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-78497646005164680112012-03-11T18:55:00.000-07:002012-03-11T18:55:52.754-07:00The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Writing is a solitary addiction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Because of my craving for writing time and solitude, I’ve never been a person to have many friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I held people at a distance, my emotional force field protected the real me. Like any addict, my addiction was my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, imagine my surprise when I found, not one, but four women to share my writing journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From agonizing over plot, through the publication process and the challenge of marketing, these four ‘sisters’ have eased my pain, sharpened my skills and just generally made my life more joyful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few months back, we officially became The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pen. Our first speaking engagement was yesterday at the NW Arkansas Writers Workshop Conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our hope was to get our message across AND to entertain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we accomplished our goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ruth Weeks started us off by acting the part of a humble, frightened writer trying to pitch her work to a snooty agent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thirty seconds in, she flung off her jacket and revealed more bling than Liberace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And cowboy boots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hot damn, those boots of hers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ruth strutted a demonstration of stepping out, believing in yourself, and making the magic happen in your writing career. I mean, the woman showed us how it was done.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Once Ruth had folks fired up, it was my turn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I pointed to my tiara. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, you read that right</i>. Touched the giant, gold star hanging around my neck, whirled my feathery pink boa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I held my book over my head danced and yelled, I’ve been published!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My sisters yelled and stamped their feet and threw confetti. The celebration lasted approximately thirty seconds when Ruth, holding a sign that said Reality Check stepped up and, foot tapping, demanded my lovely glittery crown and my adorable star.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bitch even took back my lovely pink boa. I spoke on the reality of having a book published and likened the experience to running a small business.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Next, Jan Morrill acted out a skit she’d written about how, while the rest of The Sisters took that fork in the road marked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Small Press</i> and skipped happily to publication, she choose the road to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Publication</i> and spend a year waiting for the phone to ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This presentation came complete with the song<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Let it please be him. It must be him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must be him</i></b> bursting forth into the conference room<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></b>to demonstrate her reaction each time the phone rang while she waited and waited to hear from her agent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite part was when she skipped down the path to stardom in her sunglasses, the frames of which were in the shape of glittery gold stars. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In stained chenille robe, pajama bottoms and soft, fluffy slippers one of her dogs may have chewed, Claire Croxton demonstrated what happens when you sit down to write, but first, just for a minute, you check your email and your favorite blogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social Networking is vital to building a platform after all!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Ruth moved the hands of a giant clock, Claire tapped on her laptop, commented on blogs and just networked her little heart out until the clock showed eight hours had passed and she hadn’t written a word on her new novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Claire spoke on managing your time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Linda Apple stepped up with a rubber snake around her neck which, like Marlin Perkins with the giant Anaconda, she successfully wrestled into submission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her opening line was “Most people would rather wrestle a poisonous snake than speak in public.” She then beautifully demonstrated how to speak in front of an audience with ease and grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Linda spoke on the importance of building your platform as a writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lord, did we have fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who’d have thought that a lifetime of living in my own solitary little world, mainlining words and struggling to reveal the truth through fiction</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">–who would have even suspected that this</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> would bring me into the glorious company of a sisterhood like this?</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-56859746755649604042012-03-03T14:39:00.000-08:002012-03-03T14:39:27.753-08:00Times Change<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have three sons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re all grown men now, but in the 1970’s, from the time the oldest was about three up until they discovered girls, the older two boys were obsessed with the question:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Could a person jump from the Empire State building into a pool of Jell-O and live.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Answering this burning question required many trips to the local library where they learned, serendipitously, thousands of interesting answers to questions they hadn’t even thought to ask. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A professor of physics at Humboldt State University met with them, talked about interesting stuff like variable terminal velocity and demonstrated the practicality of math and physics. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They sent a letter to the Jell-O’s headquarters. The company didn’t have an answer to the boy’s question, but they did send a coupon for free pudding.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Basically, my boys still argue about this burning question (though admittedly now it’s mostly after a beer or two) and the only thing they’ve ever agreed upon is that the first to try the jump should be their youngest brother. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s my point.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, a child would find the answer to this interesting puzzle on the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She or he would learn a lot of miscellaneous information while ciphering the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of that I have no doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, almost certainly, the child would do this research alone, in his or her room and any interaction with people would be through tapping on a key board.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And that’s a shame, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just for the kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But for the parents who miss out on these adventures in learning with their children. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, times change and every generation bemoans the loss of the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The other day I stopped at a garage sale on the way home from Walmart and an old couple was selling one of those blood-red sets of Encyclopedia Britannica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One whiff of that book glue and dust and the feel of those old pages under my fingers and I was transported back to a simpler past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A time when the world was a place I discovered every day, right alongside the most important people in my life</span>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-68250897186442249212012-02-28T14:44:00.000-08:002012-02-28T14:44:21.140-08:00More -- On the Road with Chesty and RoccaWe left off this story having landed in Panama City.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, we need to clear customs before we can leave the building. This is expedited for us when the veterinarian comes to greet us as we wait in line. We are easy to spot. We’re the people with the crowd of giggling porters surrounding us wanting to see the two big dogs that we’ve actually brought in the passenger section of the plane with us. The vet and his assistant introduce themselves and take us to the front of the customs line. This seems unfair to those other folks waiting, but we let it pass.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are now in possession of two big, active dogs who have had no exercise and no opportunity to pee for fourteen hours. Chesty is absolutely goofy with pent up energy. He’s bouncing along beside Jack looking at the people, his tail in constant circular motion. Rocca is walking stiff-legged, plotting her revenge on Chesty who she is intent on blaming for all the difficulties of her long hard day. Gee, I wonder where she gets that from?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack and I are being careful to keep our own bodies in between the two dogs as neither of us trust Rocca not to tear into Chesty or Chesty not to provoke her just to get some action going. At this point the vet tells Jack to leave the dogs with me. Jack must go with three officials to fill out paperwork and pay the money needed to get us the hell out of the airport.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s the thing. I can control one of these dogs, but not both of them if they decide to act up. And they’ve already decided to act up. Rocca is doing a near constant low rumble and Chesty’s eyes are round and sparkling and he’s just waiting for a chance to play.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I put Rocca in a sit and tie Chesty to a steel rail that is bolted into the marble floor of the terminal. I move slightly away from Chesty and, making sure I’m in between the two dogs, tell the boy to sit. He looks at me like he’s never heard that particular command before. Could I maybe say it again, or better yet, bring that rumbly girl dog over here a little closer while I make him do what I’ve told him to do. I ignore him in the hopes that he’ll settle down, pray Jack won’t be gone long.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A porter is escorting our luggage through customs. The inspectors open the largest bag and discover the dog food, dog toys, and other assorted doggie paraphernalia. This causes the officials to call over all the other inspectors. The checkout line comes to a stand-still while five men in uniform peer down into our luggage. Are they going to tell me that we can’t bring dog food into the country? No. They’ve just never actually seen anyone stupid enough to bring a giant bag of dog food into the country and figure it has to be seen to be believed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually the other passengers have left the terminal and the porters entertain themselves by teasing the dogs. These playful gentlemen challenge each other to see who’s brave enough to get close to Chesty who is wagging that abbreviated tail in tight circles and itching for an opportunity to play. This little game of chicken ends abruptly when one of the porters gets too close, Chesty lunges and the steel rail to which I’ve tied him comes unbolted from the tile floor. Before it can come completely loose, bringing to fruition my nightmare of my dog running amuck in the airport terminal knocking people over and having a slobbery good old time while the police come to haul us all away, I manage to grab the leash. I have visions of having to pay for the broken rail, but the feeling seems to be that this is a hilarious happening and why don’t I tie him up again so they can return to their fun game. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have both dogs on leashes, one in each hand. Rocca, thank you Jesus, has decided that Chesty is too stupid for the likes of her to even bother to interact with and she is behaving wonderfully. Chesty, on the other hand, is bursting with excitement and energy. Another plane has arrived, bringing a whole new group of passengers as well as two crated dogs. The crates are placed directly in front of me and my two dogs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know that old saying about how two brothers fight, but when a cousin shows up, it’s the two brothers against the cousin. And when a neighbor shows up, it’s the two brothers and the cousin against the neighbor. Well, it works that way with dogs too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two dogs in the crates are yellow labs. No sweeter, more clueless dog exists. They bark a greeting to Chesty and Rocca.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>“Hey! What are you doing here? How come you’re not in a little doggie jail like us?”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chesty, nearly vibrating with joy, answers, <i>“Wanna play? Do ya? Huh? Huh</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca, giant head up, stiff with annoyance comes in with,<i> “Don’t you come near me. I’ll tear you a new one if you so much as look at me.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The yellow labs are now frantic to interact and they have a chorus of,<i> “Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!” </i>going nonstop.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chesty is lunging toward the crates and I am using an old dog trainer trick of which I’m not proud but that is effective in situations just like this. I lift him straight up off the ground by his collar, causing him to have to choose between lunging or breathing. He chooses breathing. But, remember, he was named after a marine, and he forgets the lesson basically one breath after I set him down. So we repeat the experience a dozen or so times as I back him and Rocca slowly away from the yellow labs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time Jack returns with all the paperwork stamped, signed and approved, I have both dogs across the terminal, Chesty is doing one of his loud whines and Rocca is rumbling like a volcano about to spew molten lava on everything in its path. All the passengers from the last flight of the night have been processed through and are gone. My arms and shoulders feel as though I’ve climbed Mt. Everest. Plus I have to pee again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-46092322764519147682012-02-23T05:54:00.000-08:002012-02-23T05:54:31.491-08:00No Knee-jerk Reaction<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Y’all know I don’t ‘do’ politics on this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That said, this morning’s local news reported a young Oklahoma warrior killed in Afghanistan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>National news reported riots in that same country, retaliation over the burning of the Koran by NATO troops.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, to me, sitting on my comfy couch sipping Sumatran coffee in sunny Arkansas, it looks like somebody did something disrespectful and, frankly, stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out of their own anger, maybe, or frustration, or hatred, who knows?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An individual or group of individuals burned a book that is holy to hundreds of thousands of people. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This disrespect triggered anger, hatred, frustration on the other side and people have died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not old men sitting in high towers, counting their coins or seeking justification for their power in heavy, well-used books, not the folks that start wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those kind of people are not dying. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The ones bleeding out on the streets of Afghanistan are young people with their lives ahead of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Children trained as warriors to march under a flag, young men and women doing their best to promote justice and good. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On both sides, under both flags.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me, safe and sound for now in my own home, there seems no way to break this God awful cycle of hate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except, maybe . . .</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What if one by one, in our own sphere of influence as the warmongers say, we respect the ideas and opinions and beliefs of others? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if we stop our knee-jerk reaction to any view or belief different from our own and actually LISTEN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if we stop labeling as evil every single thing we don’t understand and do our very best to HEAR what’s being offered?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That would be something, wouldn’t it?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the love of God and all that’s holy, today would be a good day to start.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=redneck+goddess&sprefix=redneck+god%2Cstripbooks%2C280</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-86729799370251657302012-02-22T17:45:00.000-08:002012-02-22T17:45:05.376-08:00On the Move with Chesty and Rocca - We land in Panama<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we walk the covered ramp to enter the second plane of the day, the flight that will take us out of the country and to our new home in the country of Panama, I am at that stage of exhaustion and anxiety known as walking comatose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I take the window seat with Rocca. I put her in a sit and physically hold her head against my chest so she can’t turn and look at Chesty as he, happy as the proverbial clam, backs into his spot and eases himself down. Convincing Rocca to lie down with her rump resting cockeyed up on top of Chesty is a challenge. She’s done this before and didn’t enjoy the procedure in the least. Putting my dog in position without her or the ever-playful Chesty turning their heads to make eye contact, leaves me shaking and twitching, but we eventually get both dogs adjusted with a couple of airplane blankets under Rocca’s head to even out her position a little. Jack and I each throw one leg over the necks of our dogs so as to prevent them turning and, God forbid, looking at each other. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca is already rumbling in the knowledge that Chesty is, sure enough, trying his hardest to twist around to see what kind of reaction he can get out of her. I bend over with her head held tightly against my chest and whisper to her what we’ll do to both males once we’re on the ground and safe somewhere. She and I stay that way, making our plans, until the plane is in the air. I don’t tell my furry girl that I have no idea when we’ll be anywhere that resembles safety. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the plane is in the air, Jack leans over to me and says, “We’re home free now. What are they gonna do? Throw us off the plane?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then strikes up a conversation with the three men in Hawaiian shirts across the aisle who are flying down to Panama for their yearly month-long fishing trip. These guys seem to know more about the gentlemen’s clubs in the city than they do about sailfish or dorado, but perhaps they’ve only heard rumors about such things. Jack tells them about his plans to raise guard dogs in Panama. I, on the other hand, spend most of the flight worrying about getting through customs once we land and don’t completely believe the pilot will not turn the plane around in a swooping U and carry Jack and me and the dogs back to the land of Federal Marshalls until the stewardess tells us we’re over half-way in our flight. Then I concentrate all my anxiety on the ordeal of getting the dogs through customs and out of the a</span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we walk the covered ramp to enter the second plane of the day, the flight that will take us out of the country and to our new home in the country of Panama, I am at that stage of exhaustion and anxiety known as walking comatose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I take the window seat with Rocca. I put her in a sit and physically hold her head against my chest so she can’t turn and look at Chesty as he, happy as the proverbial clam, backs into his spot and eases himself down. Convincing Rocca to lie down with her rump resting cockeyed up on top of Chesty is a challenge. She’s done this before and didn’t enjoy the procedure in the least. Putting my dog in position without her or the ever-playful Chesty turning their heads to make eye contact, leaves me shaking and twitching, but we eventually get both dogs adjusted with a couple of airplane blankets under Rocca’s head to even out her position a little. Jack and I each throw one leg over the necks of our dogs so as to prevent them turning and, God forbid, looking at each other. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca is already rumbling in the knowledge that Chesty is, sure enough, trying his hardest to twist around to see what kind of reaction he can get out of her. I bend over with her head held tightly against my chest and whisper to her what we’ll do to both males once we’re on the ground and safe somewhere. She and I stay that way, making our plans, until the plane is in the air. I don’t tell my furry girl that I have no idea when we’ll be anywhere that resembles safety. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the plane is in the air, Jack leans over to me and says, “We’re home free now. What are they gonna do? Throw us off the plane?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then strikes up a conversation with the three men in Hawaiian shirts across the aisle who are flying down to Panama for their yearly month-long fishing trip. These guys seem to know more about the gentlemen’s clubs in the city than they do about sailfish or dorado, but perhaps they’ve only heard rumors about such things. Jack tells them about his plans to raise guard dogs in Panama. I, on the other hand, spend most of the flight worrying about getting through customs once we land and don’t completely believe the pilot will not turn the plane around in a swooping U and carry Jack and me and the dogs back to the land of Federal Marshalls until the stewardess tells us we’re over half-way in our flight. Then I concentrate all my anxiety on the ordeal of getting the dogs through customs and out of the airport.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]--> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we walk the covered ramp to enter the second plane of the day, the flight that will take us out of the country and to our new home in the country of Panama, I am at that stage of exhaustion and anxiety known as walking comatose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I take the window seat with Rocca. I put her in a sit and physically hold her head against my chest so she can’t turn and look at Chesty as he, happy as the proverbial clam, backs into his spot and eases himself down. Convincing Rocca to lie down with her rump resting cockeyed up on top of Chesty is a challenge. She’s done this before and didn’t enjoy the procedure in the least. Putting my dog in position without her or the ever-playful Chesty turning their heads to make eye contact, leaves me shaking and twitching, but we eventually get both dogs adjusted with a couple of airplane blankets under Rocca’s head to even out her position a little. Jack and I each throw one leg over the necks of our dogs so as to prevent them turning and, God forbid, looking at each other. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca is already rumbling in the knowledge that Chesty is, sure enough, trying his hardest to twist around to see what kind of reaction he can get out of her. I bend over with her head held tightly against my chest and whisper to her what we’ll do to both males once we’re on the ground and safe somewhere. She and I stay that way, making our plans, until the plane is in the air. I don’t tell my furry girl that I have no idea when we’ll be anywhere that resembles safety. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the plane is in the air, Jack leans over to me and says, “We’re home free now. What are they gonna do? Throw us off the plane?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then strikes up a conversation with the three men in Hawaiian shirts across the aisle who are flying down to Panama for their yearly month-long fishing trip. These guys seem to know more about the gentlemen’s clubs in the city than they do about sailfish or dorado, but perhaps they’ve only heard rumors about such things. Jack tells them about his plans to raise guard dogs in Panama. I, on the other hand, spend most of the flight worrying about getting through customs once we land and don’t completely believe the pilot will not turn the plane around in a swooping U and carry Jack and me and the dogs back to the land of Federal Marshalls until the stewardess tells us we’re over half-way in our flight. Then I concentrate all my anxiety on the ordeal of getting the dogs through customs and out of the airport.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The requirements for entering The Republic of Panama with an animal are complicated. You need an international health certificate. We were lucky and our veternarian on Fort Huachuca was familiar with this document and actually had them on hand along with the official stamp that is required. Once in our possession, this piece of paper had to be Overnight FedExed to the Panamanian consulate in Houston for their official stamp and signature. This all had to be done so that the dates of the stamps were no more than fifteen days or less than ten days from the time of our arrival in the country. We did all that. Those papers are in my day-pack.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On arrival we will need to have the government veterinarian approve all this paperwork, examine the dogs and sign off before we’ll be allowed to leave the airport with the dogs. Our flight arrives in Panama at 7:45p.m. The vet works 8 to 5. However, he has been contacted by our realtor and asked to stay until after he checks us through customs because we refuse to leave our dogs overnight in the airport. The vet has reportedly agreed to stay and examine the dogs for the low, low price of $50. Which we gladly agreed to pay.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is supposed to be someone meeting us when we arrive. Here’s how that happened. We sold our house through our local ReMax company. The realtor in Arizona asked if we wanted a referral to a ReMax agent in the area where we were relocating. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I jokingly said, “Sure, fix that up for us. We’re moving to the Republic of Panama.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turns out there is a ReMax office in Panama and our agent hooked us up with a nice unsuspecting young man named Arie. This poor guy has been our contact person ever since. He’s the one who talked to the veterinarian at the airport and he’s the one who begged a friend at a hotel to rent a room to us and our two giant service dogs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hope he’s done all this. We’ve only spoken with him on the phone and I can already tell we’re making him half-crazy with our weird requests and questions. He’s been gallant and accommodating, but for all I know, we’ll never see him once we land and nothing has actually been pre-arranged at the airport or the hotel.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, you can see that I entertain myself with lovely, rosy thoughts on the three and a half hour flight from Houston to Panama City. I do supplement these images of impending disaster with holding Rocca’s head when Chesty’s wagging tail sets off her rumblings. I also break the monotony by digging my fingers into Jack’s arm, making little squeaking moans and sayings things like:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What if the vet’s not there?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do you know the name of the hotel where we’re supposed to be staying?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Watch your dog! He’s looking at mine!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If the vet’s not there, I’m not leaving my dogs!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I have to pee but there’s no way I can leave Rocca and make my way to the bathroom.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I hope Arie is there to meet us.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Chesty’s looking at Rocca!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If Arie’s not there, how are we going to even get to the hotel?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where is this hotel in relation to the airport?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I really have to pee.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack’s response to all of this is predictable.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. There won’t be any problems that we can’t handle. Did you hear what the guy said about the $50 lunch special at the gentleman’s club?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have gone now, out beyond comatose and into the altered state of consciousness where the mantra, “One breath at a time. One breath at a time,” has brought me to place where peace and calm are attempting to beat the crap out of a crazed lunatic that seems to be lodged somewhere at about the level of my gut.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flying into Panama City at night, skyscrapers light a black curve of bay and the bridge of the Americas over the canal is strung with lights like colored jewels. Low clouds race in the wind and create the illusion that the plane is standing still and the city itself is moving, flowing along in another world down below us. I relax a little. Maybe our new home is going to be okay. Maybe Jack’s right and everything really will be fine. Maybe pigs really can sprout wings and fly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once on the ground, while everyone else is racing for the custom’s line, I walk Rocca, both of us stiff-legged, to the nearest bathroom. By the time we leave the facilities, I’m feeling much better, but Rocca has still not been outside to pee since we left Tucson this morning before dawn. Getting both dogs outside has become a priority.</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-60461263138516660382012-02-19T09:23:00.000-08:002012-02-19T09:23:25.081-08:00On the Move with Chesty and Rocca - on the Plane<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I read an excerpt from this book at Ozark Writers League this weekend and folks said they liked it. They laughed out loud, and that's all the encouragement I need. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span>You can catch up by going to the previous post, of course, but to the gist is: Two clueless gringos move to The Republic of Panama with two giant service dogs, Chesty and Rocca. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span>We pick up the story as my husband, Jack, and myself board the plane to begin our journey.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span> </span> My husband is telling his new friend and fellow traveler about the history of the Cane Corso breed and how these dogs were trained by Italian ranchers to grab the bull by the nose and hold the huge animal while the farmer cut the throat at butchering time. Jack pays no attention whatsoever to me, his panicked wife. Rocca and I are pushed forward into our assigned seats. I am against the window. Jack has the aisle seat.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> I instruct Rocca to lie at my feet, wedged in between the seat and the bulk head, with her head facing toward the outside of the plane. My feet rest on Rocca’s back. Chesty lies with his head sticking out the aisle. The dogs are butt to butt. Okay. This is uncomfortable, but it might work. If the flight from Tucson to Houston isn’t any longer than ten minutes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Jack,” I say in a quiet voice, trying to keep the panic smashed down where it will only eat a hole in my stomach lining instead of leaping out my throat and spilling all over the inside of the airplane. “I don’t think this is going to work.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What? See, nothing to worry about. The dogs fit just fine in this space,” he says with his usual enthusiasm for impossibly difficult situations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s just me. Flying with both of these dogs in the passenger section at our feet, this is a sane idea? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now the situation moves beyond difficult and I am absolutely positively sure we’ve crossed that demarcation line into full-fledged-screaming-crazy-land-wacky-this-can’t-be-doneville. The head stewardess tells Jack that Chesty’s head cannot extend out into the aisle. People might trip over him. Which means that one of the dogs is going to have to lie on top of the other dog. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No way Rocca is going to allow Chesty to lie on top of her so we maneuver ourselves out of our seats. This proves the most difficult for Rocca as she is stuck and has to grunt and groan and look balefully up at me until she manages to wiggle her way out of this predicament into which we have placed her. Once in the aisle, we think our way through this arrangement like those big footed clowns at the circus trying to fit into the Volkswagen before the start of the greatest show on earth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chesty has to be able to see out the aisle. He’s had far too much training in watching Jack’s back to handle anything else. Rocca has to be the dog on top. The dogs have to be placed so that Chesty can’t look at Rocca and stir her up into a froth of irritation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">All right, let’s try this. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I squeeze into the tiny space between the seats and the bulkhead wall with Rocca and she sits while Chesty and Jack get into position with Chesty’s butt extending to the front of my seat. Then Rocca lies down with her butt on top of Chesty’s hunches. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Yeah. This is just perfect. I can’t see why this isn’t going to work for the four hour flight to Houston. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Both dogs look as though they are going to begin, the moment we get off the plane, a serious search for new owners. My feet are now perched on Rocca’s back which is on top of Chesty’s back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then things get interesting. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There is a passenger in the aisle who claims to have a ticket for the middle seat, the seat between Jack and me. An older woman who’s on her way to visit her grandchildren for the week. There are no other seats available. Jack gets up, Chesty goes with him, Rocca sits up. The poor woman seats herself in the middle seat. Rocca lies down. On the woman’s feet. I have Rocca get up, freeing the woman. The old lady puts her feet up on the seat. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See how this is going to work out!” Jack says, “Who’d have thought we’d be so lucky as to end up next to a woman agile enough at her age to sit with her feet perched up on the seat like that.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack sits and then backs Chesty into his space. Rocca lies down, wedging herself yet again into her allotted space on top of Chesty. Chesty looks goofily around, his rump pinned, his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>Are we having fun Dad? Is this the adventure you’ve been telling me about? Huh? Is it? Huh?”</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I apologize to the woman, who tells us that this will be a wonderful story to tell her grandchildren. Sure, as soon as the feeling comes back into her legs and she can actually exit the plane. Jack tells her the holding-the-bull-by-the-nose story and I don’t even interrupt to ask why in hell the farmer would be butchering a bull. Wouldn’t it be a steer he’d be killing? Somehow this detail just doesn’t seem like a relevant point at the moment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember those treats we brought so the dogs would be chewing and swallowing at takeoff and landing? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">These turn out to be a really bad idea. First of all getting anything out of my little daypack, which is on my lap, means moving around at least a little and there really is no room to move around. No room at all. But, more importantly, Rocca has decided in true female fashion, that all of her difficulties are the fault of this stupid male dog on whose butt she’s being forced to lie. She not only does not believe he is worthy of a treat, she doesn’t think he should be allowed to live. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The instant I break the seal and she smells the liver, she starts one of those low elephant rumbles of which I am all too familiar. I correct her, stuff the liver treats back in the backpack and beg the stewardess to put the pack in the overhead compartment instead of on my lap where the smells are going to waft down and cause a scene I am desperately praying to avoid. Rocca settles down and, in this fashion, several lifetimes later, we make it to Houston.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old lady’s grandchildren are there to greet her at the gate and she introduces us and the dogs to everyone. How else would they possibly believe her story? After meeting her family, we make our way to the gate for our Continental flight out of the country, to Panama City. We check in and again, not one single official person blinks at the two dogs with whom we’ll be boarding. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Evidently, as long as something, anything, is on the computer screen, it’s no problem. Now, sitting in those plastic chairs that are all attached together and to the floor, in the Houston airport, we lose our concentration for a moment and Chesty turns around and LOOKS AT ROCCA. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca, already madder than the proverbial wet hen, leaps up and jumps into the middle of this stinkin’ male dog who is the cause of all her freakin’ problems. Every single damn one. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chesty wiggles his tail and does his “<i>Aren’t I the cutest thing you’ve ever seen”</i> routine and I correct Rocca and move her away from Chesty. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The whole episode takes no more than three seconds. It clears all the seats around us for a good thirty feet. Jack and I act as though this is no big deal. Nothing to worry about. We move the dogs and go right on with our conversation about who should go and get us a Starbucks coffee. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Amazingly, it works and the stewardess let us board the plane with both dogs where, the good news is, there’s no one in the middle seat between us and the bad news is, Rocca has now decided that that freakin’ boy dog had better not even THINK of looking at her.</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-15832216637796218882012-02-16T04:23:00.000-08:002012-02-16T04:23:37.247-08:00The Saga Continues--On the Road with Chesty and Rocaa<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I hope you enjoyed last weeks interview with Claire Croxton. If you missed it, just drop down and check it out. It's a fun interview with a wonderful writer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Now, we continue with the adventures of two clueless gringos immigrating to The Republic of Panama with two giant service dogs in tow. You know the drill. If you missed a post, just drop down and read what you missed. Sort of like demand television. To catch you up on story, my husband, Jack, and I have sold our house in Arizona and are flying to Panama with two service dogs in cabin with us. Yes, in fact, I did say IN THE CABIN WITH US.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Read on, this just gets better and better:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My best friend Mona drives us to Tucson on Halloween. We’re scheduled to fly out the next morning at what Jack calls dawn-thirty. I hug Mona good-bye. She takes our picture. Two beat-to-crap suitcases, two scared leather daypacks, two large bright-eyed dogs, and two old fools standing in front of the Day’s Inn, as ready as we’re ever going to be for yet another adventure. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see Mona crying as she drives away. I’d love to join her but I need to concentrate on getting safely to our room with my suitcases and Rocca, the dog for whom I’m responsible. Jack and I have worked daily with the dogs. Their behavior has improved, but mostly, they’ve trained us on how to handle them in tandem. Rocca has transferred some of her allegiance from Jack and to me. This is good. It means she now looks to me for guidance instead of to him. Most of the time. We’ve learned to seat the dogs, whenever possible, back to back, not facing each other. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the move that all parents recognize as the old, “You look that way and you look the other way. Don’t even look at each other!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem with this solution, as all parents know, is that, sooner or later, you’re going to hear the dreaded words, “He’s looking at me!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our case, we would hear a low rumbling growl that sounds more like the noise an enraged lion makes than anything that should come out of the throat of a dog. This would be Rocca. Chesty would be peeking over his shoulder at her. Every time. His stubby tail jerking away, his eyes round and sparkling. The boy loves this game. I have learned that once we hear the sound of the ground shaking with Rocca’s warning, we have less than two seconds to prevent her from jumping up and into the middle of Chesty, giving him the exact feedback he seeks. You’ll notice I said, “I learned.” Jack, on the other hand learned that my nervousness and insistence on anticipating problems is causing the dogs to misbehave. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All right, so for now, we’ve gotten the dogs through the lobby and into the room at the Day’s Inn in Tucson without incident. Jack wants to take the dogs and go down the street to Burger King for dinner. I’m not leaving the room with both dogs unless I’m forced to do so. We compromise. We do it my way. He goes and gets burgers, I stay in the room with the dogs and attempt to convince myself that the shaking that overtakes me periodically is probably just excitement over the trip.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cane Corso mastiffs have been bred as guard dogs for centuries in Italy. Our two have been raised on a five acre patch of desert with the nearest road a mile away. People walking past their front door in the night, bumping suitcases into walls or doing that loud whisper common to all drunks are the equivalent, to Chesty and Rocca, to a band of trained guerrillas sneaking in to execute us in our big queen size hotel bed. Rocca, like me, is a light sleeper. I spend most of the night sleeping with my hand on her head, ready to grab her snout and whisper “No! Enough! Leave it! Stop! SSSSShhhhhhh! No!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like I never close my eyes, but truthfully, the snout grabbing thing probably didn’t happen any more than a dozen times in this, our first of a long line of nights in hotel beds. Jack and Chesty, both able to sleep through a mortar attack, wake bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready for the day. Rocca and I shake ourselves into a blurry sleepwalk and away we go.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dogs fall into formation in a heel beside us as soon as we buckle their working capes on them. Jack leads with Chesty, who’s trying already to turn his head to look at Rocca, and Rocca lumbers along beside me, she and I grumbling at each step. Onto the shuttle bus we go and are delivered to the terminal just as the sun’s light is beginning to reveal the silhouettes of the many armed Saguaro Cactus and desert palms around the airport. Inside, at the Continental check-in desk, the agents don’t even blink at the dogs. Jack has spoken with the manager several times and also, as luck would have it, Randy Todd, who works in air traffic control and is the breeder from whom we bought Chesty, is at the check-in counter. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides this lucky occurrence, many people at the Tucson airport are familiar with both Chesty and Rocca as we’ve brought them here often as part of their training over the years. Several of the security guards come over to say good-bye. Chesty takes all this attention with wiggling dignity until the stewardesses arrive. Then he throws himself on the floor, rolls over on his back, and presents his best side for rubbing. Rocca and I stand back and watch this foolish display of unprofessional behavior while Jack’s voice booms around the terminal announcing to everyone that we’re moving to Panama. Yes, the country, not the city in Florida.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is as good a time as any to tell you that while Jack loves to be the center of attention, I am happiest when I can come and go and no one even notices I’ve been there. Taking the dogs with us everywhere, puts us firmly in Jack’s glory and my discomfort zone. Having taken not one, but two giant dogs with us every single time we’ve left the house on absolutely every errand and excursion for the last month in order to accustom them to working together has left me a tad grumpy. All right, let me modify that self-assessment, I’m already a flaming bitch and we haven’t even gotten on the plane yet. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time we line up at the boarding gate, it’s full daylight and I’m saying a silent goodbye to the clear blue desert sky under which I’ve lived for the last six years. Jack is explaining to the passenger in front of us in line about how he’s going to breed these dogs in Panama and sell them to rich Latin Americans who will pay any price to get them as guard dogs. Chesty is prancing along in full handsome working dog mode. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocca is looking up at me and asking with her big ole eyes, “<i>So, last chance. Are you</i> <i>absolutely sure this is a good idea?” </i></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-81477235574278186272012-02-09T15:37:00.000-08:002012-02-09T15:37:17.659-08:00Claire Croxton Interview<!--[if !mso]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Summer Leigh reminds me of somebody I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somebody funny and wonderful and snarky and vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who could it be?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, while I’m ciphering it out, go ahead and read this interview with the stunningly talented author Claire Croxton.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I just finished <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex</i> and love it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which, and don’t take this the wrong way, surprised me just a tiny bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the novel is definitely a Romance and I don’t usually enjoy that genre. But, in the case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex</i>, I found the main character, Summer Leigh, absolutely irresistible. She hooked me from page one. Tell me, please, however did you come up with this glorious character?</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WRfQ5lpIRHU/TzRWbNabfgI/AAAAAAAAACY/_uSibvfd8NE/s1600/RedneckEx_w6665_750.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WRfQ5lpIRHU/TzRWbNabfgI/AAAAAAAAACY/_uSibvfd8NE/s320/RedneckEx_w6665_750.jpg.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You know, I didn’t think <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex</i> was a romance. I thought it was women’s fiction or its own groundbreaking genre. I was very surprised when The Wild Rose Press requested the manuscript and even more surprised when I was informed it was indeed a contemporary romance. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As for Summer Leigh, the experts all say write what you know. I know neurotic, snarky, confident-in-the-boardroom, yet hopeless-at-love women. If a man landed naked in Summer Leigh’s lap and asked, “Want to f***?” she would have to analyze the question and poll her friends before she’d understand what he meant. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When folks ask me how I managed all of Summer Leigh’s insightful internalization, I’m stunned. I have to admit that I was quite surprised that not everyone has an ongoing snark-fest playing in her head. Summer Leigh is flawed and she knows it. Every once in a while, she’ll try to do something about it, but she always slips back into her neuroses, which is why she has to think: what would Mama do? Mama always does the right thing. Summer Leigh? Not so much. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Part of the novel is set in Arctic Alaska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m one of the millions of people who are fascinated with that part of world while knowing I’d die within the first five minutes if I ever ventured into that land of snow and ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please tell me more about living in Barrow, Alaska. What was a typical winter day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Summer day? Tell me about the polar bears, Claire, tell me about the bears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you planning more books set in the Arctic?</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like Summer Leigh, I moved to Barrow, Alaska after I got divorced. (I really have no idea where I got the inspiration to write Summer Leigh.) It was August. I’ll never forget flying over the Brooks Range and watching the terrain change from mountains, to rolling hills to flat as a flitter. I was fascinated. It looked like the surface of the moon—flat with craters of water everywhere (well, if the moon had water that is.)I fell in love the second I stepped off the plane. It was surreal. It was at least seventy degrees cooler than the mind-melting heat of Arkansas. I taught high school. The first day of school it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit and there was enough snow on the ground to result in school being closed in Arkansas. Students showed up wearing shorts and flip flops. I knew Barrow was my kind of place!</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I always worked government jobs so I never had to spend much time outside, so the weather didn’t bother me much. I do remember fighting a blizzard when I lived in Kaktovik—a small island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean with a population of around 225. I worked for the City of Kaktovik and it was my job to update the bulletin channel on the city-operated cable system. I had to bundle up, walk into 80 mph winds to the shack that housed the equipment so I could post a bulletin that it was cold and the National Weather Service advised everyone stay indoors. Yep. Had to alert the local Iñupiaq (Eskimo) population that it was cold and windy. I believe the ambient temperature was hovering around minus 57 degrees. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The hardest adjustment for me was the sun not setting. The 60 + days of the sun not rising above the horizon was no problem. It was too cold to go outside anyway. I’d just burrow under the goose down comforter, read and mainline chocolate. The summer though, yikers! Drove me insane. I had to put foil over my windows so I could block out the sunlight and get some sleep. I’d wake up at 3 a.m. with an overwhelming need to bake something. It was ridiculous. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Polar bears. Oh, the lovely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nanuq</i>. Kaktovik is known for polar bear watching. The remains from the fall whaling season are dragged to the point and left for the bears. You could drive down the runway (when planes weren’t approaching,) sit in your truck and watch the bears feasting on whale carcass. Simply amazing. They are </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">magnificent creatures. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #f3f3f3; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Axe4H5pfadQ/TzRW-foOpII/AAAAAAAAAC4/jm0dZeH6xzY/s1600/fast++runner++3.jpg.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Axe4H5pfadQ/TzRW-foOpII/AAAAAAAAAC4/jm0dZeH6xzY/s200/fast++runner++3.jpg.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My current work in progress is set in Barrow as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about a woman who escaped an abusive marriage and is in hiding in the Arctic. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span>3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the scenes in the book I loved was when Summer used a tractor to gently move the paralyzed Dwight. How did you come up with that?</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aQco7KBJSKo/TzRXiDmlAVI/AAAAAAAAADQ/V7l6TNPv5c4/s1600/blogford.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aQco7KBJSKo/TzRXiDmlAVI/AAAAAAAAADQ/V7l6TNPv5c4/s200/blogford.jpg.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Naturally, I think every scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex</i> is pure genius </span></span><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, but there are a couple <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that are particularly special to me: the tractor scene and cousin Trixie at Kitty’s wedding. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As a writer, I could’ve made things much easier by making Dwight’s cabin at ground level, but where’s the fun in that? I’m not a plotter. I write by the seat of my pants. I had Dwight and Summer Leigh arriving at Dwight’s cabin in the backwoods of back-of-beyond and as soon as the car pulled into the yard, I realized I’d made a mistake. The house could only be accessed via stairs. I had two choices. Remove the stairs or use redneck ingenuity to find a way for the wheelchair-bound Dwight to get inside. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #f3f3f3; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oN0-gFtBMUE/TzRXryFHZ3I/AAAAAAAAADY/nuonLD5-cKg/s1600/popsturnip,jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oN0-gFtBMUE/TzRXryFHZ3I/AAAAAAAAADY/nuonLD5-cKg/s200/popsturnip,jpg.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I pondered, which resulted in naught. My dad was just outside my house cleaning turnip greens in the garden, so I moseyed out there to help. I explained my dilemma to him. I was going to use plywood to build a makeshift ramp. Summer Leigh could run up the ramp pushing Dwight’s chair. Pops then started doing some calculating. You know, being reasonable and all that? Using trigonometry, algebra and his alchemist powers, Pops deduced that I’d need 14 sheets of plywood (or something like that) in order to build a big enough ramp. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He could tell I wasn’t thrilled with being bothered with logistics and said he’d think on it and let me know. In all my *cough, cough,* years, my dad called me a grand total of 3 times. Seriously, 3 times. As a matter of fact, now that I’m thinking about it, this is the last phone call I ever received from my dad. Now, I’m crying. Thanks a lot Pam. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, Pops asked, “Does your boy have a tractor?” </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“He has a tractor if I say he has a tractor,” was my smug, author response. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Well, she could use the front-end loader to raise him to the deck.” </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Daddy, you’re brilliant!” </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I wrote the scene that night and gave it to him to read the next morning. Pops wasn’t much for talking. No need for words when you can convey all you’re thinking with a twinkle in your eye and a slight grin. I knew I nailed it when he said, “That’ll do.” </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Pops passed away one year (almost to the day) before I got the contract for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex. </i>There’s no doubt in my mind, he was grinning at me from the banks of the giant catfish pond in heaven. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The military hospital in the book where Summer’s “bull-riding, tobacco-chewing, coon-hunting, banjo-picking<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ex-husband” is taken after being injured in Fallujah is the same hospital where my first child was born forty years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coincidence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, still I’m curious as to whether you’ve actually been there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, also, I just want to say, anybody who can imbue<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a military hospital with hot sex really deserves some type of special writing award. So I guess this is a two part question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you planning on doing any marketing to military hospitals or V.A. wards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Redneck Ex would certainly go a long way in bringing these guys back to life.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have been to military hospitals and I’ve been to Germany, but I haven’t been to Ramstein where Dwight is sent. Summer Leigh’s realization that all the patients in the hospital were military personnel was based on my reaction to visiting a military hospital. It was a sobering moment for me. I was smacked upside the head with reality. I didn’t like it. The world in my head is such a nice place. It’s filled with hot, able-bodied men, calorie-free chocolate and free pay per view. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve known several soldiers. My uncles fought in Korea. I worked with guys who served in Vietnam and I have close friends who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t get it. I honestly cannot comprehend the mindset of a person who joins the military. But let me tell you this. Regardless of what I think of our government’s reasons for our involvement in any of these “conflicts,” I am thankful from the bottom of my heart for those men and women who fight for my right to write what I want, watch what I want, and say what I want. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redneck Ex</i> would buoy soldiers’ spirits, then heck yeah, V.A. hospitals can <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">have</b> my book. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As for “imbuing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a military hospital with hot sex,” the hospital is filled with sexy men who can’t get away. Hello. Captive audience. Who better to woo? I’m irresistible to men who are under the influence of morphine, so I decided Summer Leigh should give it a go. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Redneck Ex</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> is your debut novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s next?</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Santorini Sunset</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> will be released in May, 2012. I love the main character, Caroline Clayton. Talk about a neurotic mess. Her fiancé, Albert, dumped her for her thinner, younger sister Gabriella who just happens to be a supermodel. Then, Gabriella asks Caroline to be maid-of-honor. There’s no way Caroline is going to let anyone know how heartbroken she is, so she agrees to be in the wedding. She’s not about to go on her own though and she recruits her sexy co-worker, Raul Sobrevilla. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think the inevitable battle between Caroline and Gabriella is one of the most fun I’ve ever written. Let’s just say that everyone gets what they deserve. </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The final question, which is a blatant steal from Ruth Burkett Weeks, is: If you could spend twenty minutes with anybody - historical, fictional, or living person –who would it be and why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That Ruth Burkett Weeks is one clever gal. This is a tough question. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad or Zoroaster? Think about how much fun it’d be to learn from the very creators of our religious worlds. Shoot, can you imagine sitting down with them and playing a hand of poker? I’m pretty sure they would’ve all gotten along. No suicide bombs or burning crosses at that party. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sure, I’d like to meet some of the greats in history. Attila the Hun—was he really the fantastic lover they claim or where the women forced to embellish his attributes? Cleopatra—come on, how could anyone really look that good in a snake headband? Catherine the Great—you know my question there! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I think that if I had twenty minutes with anybody in history, I’d go back to 1888 and have tea with Alois Hitler. Accidently, of course, I’d spill battery acid on his privates rendering reproduction impossible. As a result, I’d completely rewrite the 20<sup>th</sup> century. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
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</div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-85980967463939610712012-02-06T06:40:00.000-08:002012-02-06T06:40:02.385-08:00On the Move with Chesty and RoccaBack to your regularly scheduled programing. If you're just tuning in, you might want to scroll down, and read the previous four entries or so. The gist of the story at this point is that my husband and I are selling our house in Arizona and immigrating to The Republic of Panama with two, count them two, giant service dogs. <br />
Here we go . . .<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ten days on the market and no one has even looked at the house when the realtor calls and tells us a woman has called from Scottsdale. She’s seen the house on the internet visual tour and wants to buy it. We immediately envision 100 dollar bills overflowing the pockets of some fool who wants to live in the high desert. Two hours later, the house is sold. The only catch is that the buyer wants to move in on November first. Just under a month away. Jack feels this is providence as, what a coincidence, that’s exactly the date of our tickets for the planned reconnaissance trip to Panama. I, on the other hand, am starting to feel the definite rumblings of danger in the landscape.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I vote for putting the dogs in a kennel for two weeks, making the planned trip with just the two of us and then, having set up a place to live temporarily, returning for the dogs. This is how that conversation went, to the best of my recollection.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m not spending another $2,000 on round trip tickets to come back and get the dogs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But, if we have the dogs with us, how are we going to explore the country?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I can take those dogs anyplace.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You can take them in a taxi from the airport to a hotel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Won’t be a problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You can get a room in the city with two giant dogs in a country that has never heard of a service dog or the concept of taking an elephant-sized dog with you everywhere you go?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Won’t be a problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“How are we going to fly them from Panama City to Bocas del Toro?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’ll buy them tickets if we have to. It won’t be a problem. Why are you being so negative. Trust me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except I don’t and Jack knows it and his reaction to that is to get angry and my reaction to his anger is to get more frightened and increasingly anxious. So, you can see where this is going, right? Can you almost hear the shifting of that rosy boulder?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dogs are accustomed to working one on one with Jack in any public situation, but they have never worked side by side. Jack is, predictably, sure this won’t be a problem. However, former Marine, big tough warrior, whatever, like all intelligent men, he’s a little afraid of his wife so he humors me by bringing both dogs with us when we go out. I have Rocca, he takes Chesty. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For our first outing we go to the coffee shop where both dogs have been dozens of times. All the waitresses and regulars know them, this is familiar territory. This little trip should be a breeze. Both dogs act like untrained jackasses. Chesty shows off for Rocca by being hyper-alert to every little spoon drop, cough, and loud voice. Rocca, trained to protect Jack, isn’t happy about being next to me instead of within touching distance of the object of her devotion. She growls to intimidate Chesty. Chesty jumps up, stubby tail straight out and wagging, and barks. Rocca leaps up and growls and jumps in the middle of Chesty to show him who is the real working dog around here. We leave the restaurant in disgrace. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, actually, I’m the only one with her tail between her legs. The dogs have no regrets whatsoever and Jack is impossible to embarrass. So, now we know. Working the dogs in tandem is a completely different deal than working them individually. Jack is pleased that we’ve found this out while we still have, let’s see, 24 days before we lead them into the passenger section of a plane and fly to another country.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did I not mention that these two dogs, because they are service dogs, will be flying in the passenger section of the plane with us? Take a minute and picture that. How would you like to be the passenger next to us when we board the plane with these two massive dogs? U.S. law dictates that a disabled person can bring his dog on the airplane with him. Because both Chesty and Rocca are service dogs and because I will be flying as a designated trainer/helper, both dogs will walk right up the ramp and board the plane with us. Jack is delighted with this, I am less so. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next twenty four days go something like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lie awake all night listening to Jack and both dogs snore, and imagine all the ways this adventure can go terrible, irretrievably wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The airline can, once we’ve arrived with the dogs at the check-in counter in Tucson, announce they’ve come to their senses and, of course we can’t board the plane with two monstrously large dogs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dogs can break away from us in the airport in Tucson, or Houston, or Panama City and run amuck through the terminal, frightening old ladies in wheelchairs and spilling Starbucks coffee on men in business suits talking on cell phones with those stupid little earphone things.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On arrival in Panama, customs can refuse to clear the dogs and take them away from us, where someone will steal them and enter them in dog fights. Chesty will be killed in the first fight as he tries to play with his opponent and misses completely the concept of the whole fight to the death idea. Rocca will become the heavy-weight champion and we’ll hear rumors of her from time to time as we search ever more frantically for our furry baby girl.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll be unable to find a hotel in the city that will take the dogs and we’ll be spending our nights on the mean city streets of a foreign country, cuddled together in a big wadded mess of fear against a moldy cement wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each dawn I’m just about asleep when Chesty wakes me up. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>“Did I hear a rabbit in the yard? I’m sure I heard a rabbit. Open the door quick so I can catch him and play with him. Hurry! Get up! Get up! Come on. The rabbits getting away.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And another day begins. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time to get rid of more earthly possessions. Salvation Army, friends, rummage sale customers, they all help us empty the house. We need to get rid of this crap and fast. We will be leaving with two suitcases each and two dogs. The biggest suitcase is already packed with dog food, dog harnesses and leashes, vitamins, glucosamine for their joints, and a couple of their favorite toys. My carry-on bag has liver treats for the plane to keep them entertained and to help with clearing their ears at take offs and landings. Every day is the same -- keep moving toward the goal. Plenty of time at night to review all the things that can go wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here. Right here, is where an interesting thing begins to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I edge beyond worry and begin to think, somewhere in the back of my overtaxed brain, that if I can anticipate all the things that might go wrong, I can prevent them from happening. This is when the jagged rocks directly above us begin to shift. You know the boulders I’m talking about, all those ordinary bits of life supporting that bone crushing chunk of pink granite just waiting for gravity to instigate its descent.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I hear it at all over all those wheels turning, turning, spinning faster and faster in my head, I interpret the rumbling of all that shifting rock as the grumbling of a nervous tummy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miss the warning completely and take a flying leap directly into that chasm named Obsessive Anxiety.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point I mostly travel this rocky path in the dark. During the day I do all the things I have to do to rid myself of all the stuff I thought I couldn’t live without at varying times over the last six years when I accumulated it. By the way, standing at an airport in the pre-dawn hours with nothing to your name but two small suitcases, a day pack, your confident and smiling husband, and two large dogs, is an incredibly freeing experience. It’s also absolutely terrifying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-13919653735651654092012-02-04T08:19:00.000-08:002012-02-04T08:19:17.066-08:00The Call of the PloverI've been posting chunks of my book, On the Move with Chesty and Rocca, and for the two people out there who are reading it, I apologise for the interruption. I'll go back to posting the true tale of two clueless gringos in paradise on Monday. For now, something different.<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Warm wind bruises my cheeks. The small pond in the field behind my house is dull and gray this cloudy winter’s dawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A flash of white and black in the air to my left draws my attention from the gnarled oak tree that is my walking-goal this morning. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wings hard-hinged, body heavy and sleek.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My mind seeks to identify the bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Memory accumulates like water on the tip of a rainforest leaf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cur-wee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cur-wee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The call of the plover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Plover. The name, heavy with forgotten memory, completely formed, drops onto my tongue.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This process of retrieving knowledge we don’t know we have works even when results are less joyful than those called-up by the call of the wild plover.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our minds collect pain too, like drops of rain on a greasy window. This acid gains weight, stretches the molecules of our understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until finally, poison, corrosive, and unstoppable, this wisdom too splatters into our soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s a natural process, this collecting of knowledge, the stretching of the cohesive images we carry with us until the very weight of these truths break the bonds of our understanding and, like that raindrop hanging on the pointed end of a leaf, eventually fall into the larger stream that is our consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We regroup then, re-think, continue the cycle of understanding that makes us grow as humans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-50634175563605491602012-02-01T07:32:00.000-08:002012-02-01T07:32:29.116-08:00On the Move with Chesty and Rocca - Huricane SceneWe're rushing headlong into selling our house and moving out of the country when I begin to panic. Here's the next installment on that story: <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Again, Jack gives me the tone, the head tilt, the cocked eyebrow. “Stop worrying. Everything will turn out great. Hasn’t it always turned out good for us when you just trusted me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And, just like that, I’m remembering the hurricane and, before I can open my mouth, he’s read my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“One tiny little mistake and you’re never going to let me forget it!”</span></div> ***************<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We’ve been married 15 years, Jack and I. In that time we’ve lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, the Caribbean coast of Mexico, the high desert of Arizona, and traveled the U.S in an old motor home. Jack says before he met me he changed jobs and wives every five years. Now he’s retired and this wife just moves with him to each new location.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a lifestyle for everyone, but it works for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The hurricane episode happened when we were living on the beach in the Mexican Caribbean, about sixty miles south of Cancun, in the community of Paamul. At that time, Paamul was a small, funky little trailer park where an interesting, slightly shady, and decidedly odd collection of gringos rented narrow slots of sand from a local politico. We all built wooden decks along one side and shade palapas over our trailers. Palapas are palm-leafed shelters the local Mayans are happy to build to protect a gringos frog-belly white skin from the tropical sun for the low, low price of whatever the above mentioned clueless foreigner is stupid enough to pay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We had dragged a 35 foot park model trailer the length of Mexico. A trip that still makes me shake and my left eye twitch whenever I think about it. But that’s another story. Let’s just say we were robbed at gun point, held up for three days by a political demonstration which blocked the only road south while hardy little brown men with large machetes ranted in Spanish what we assumed were the instructions, “Kill all the gringos first.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That was the good part of the trip, before the transmission died three times and we sat in three different dirt yards and visited with the locals while the children chased the geese and turkeys and pigs and chickens to retrieve the small, probably inconsequential parts of our transmission that were scattered about in the freshly swept dirt. I’ve pretty much recovered from that little adventure, but, still, please, give me just a minute. The twitching goes away much quicker now. I just need a moment or two.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay. So. We’re set up under our termite infested palapa on the Mexican Caribbean, enjoying the pale blue sky and the clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean, when we begin to hear rumors that a class five hurricane is headed our way. Let’s rethink this. We’ve built a grass house over a mobile home in a hurricane zone. Huh. Remind me again. What happened to the little pig that built his house of straw? We throw a couple of hurricane parties, talk loud and bold, keep a sharp ear cocked to the weather channel, pack some clothes and a couple bottles of water into the van. We do our best not to hear the wolf calling for us to come on out and play.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Just after midnight on the third day, a knock at the aluminum door of the trailer announces the evacuation order. We had a dog then too. Truffles. The best dog in the whole world. Calm, disciplined, only slightly neurotic, a Shar-pei the color of milk chocolate. So we load Truffles into the car along with a cooler of gold fish. We had the fish in an outside pool. We couldn’t very well leave them to fend for themselves in the hurricane. Could we?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Off we go, headed inland, fish water splashing onto the carpet of the van at each turn. Truffles, always fastidious, refuses to put even one paw on the quickly soggy floor of the van. She rides perched on the tool box which is in between the two captain’s chairs in the front. Each time a turn causes a little more water to fly from the crest of a fishy wave and onto the floor, she gives a small, but clear humph and glares at us. We really never were good enough for that dog.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">By daybreak we’re about fifty miles inland. It’s raining and the wind is blowing, but nothing too impressive appears to be happening. We try to find a station on the van’s radio to find out if the hurricane has hit land. We locate several, all in Spanish. All we can understand are the words Hurricano and Cancun. This is not especially useful information.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Some of the people with whom we left camp decide to travel another 100 miles inland to the city of Merida. They figure they’ll get a hotel room and hang out until the storm has passed. We decide to stay where we are. We play cards, walk around the tiny village where we’re parked, walk the dog, and pick the pig teeth out of the meat from the local taco stand where we’re buying breakfast, lunch and dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">By noon on the second day, the rain seems to have let up a little, we’re tired of pig head tacos, the novelty of a dog covered in wrinkles has worn off for the local kids and we decide to start cautiously back toward Paamul and see what we find. I did warn you earlier about our lack of common sense, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Here’s the thing. The further we drive toward the coast, the harder the wind blows. Or so it seems to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But, when I mention this to Jack, he says, and this exact quote is burned indelibly into my memory banks, he says… and can you hear the tone of voice? Can you just envision that eyebrow cocked in frustration, the portrayal of exasperation at having to explain the way the world works to a woman?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He says, “Do you see that the wind is blowing counter clock-wise?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“No, not really,” I say. “It just seems like it’s blowing harder.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Trust me, if it’s blowing counter clock-wise, than the hurricane has already passed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Well, see that’s the thing, I’m pretty sure the clock-wise/counter clock-wise thing has to do with where we are in the world. And I don’t guess I do actually trust you to interpret the conditions of a hurricane. <i>Since you’ve never seen one before</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, more or less, is what I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidently, to a man, that actually means, “You have an extremely small penis, are an inadequate lover and general all around fuck up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I know what I’m doing,” he says and we keep heading for the coast. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few tense minutes later, after he’s dodged a fallen limb and one of our windshield wiper blades, having been turned up to maximum speed, has flown off into the jungle, he says, “This is all just windfall from the hurricane. See? So the storm has past.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Truffles can hear the uncertainty in his voice as she gives him a look and one of her snorts.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just about now, as we’re creeping along the obstacle course of fallen limbs, that a policeman in a brown poncho runs up to our van, taps frantically on the driver’s side window and begins yelling, “Hurricano! Alto! Alto! Ven conmigo ahora!” which, roughly translated means, “You fucked up and drove directly into the hurricane. Your wife is never going to let you forget it and, yes, you really do have a tiny little penis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are shown where to pull our van off the side of the road and hurry toward a small cement school house. The officer clearly tells us to leave the dog in the car. I just as clearly make him understand that if the dog doesn’t go, neither do I. With no time to argue, we bring the dog and step into the school house where we join a dozen Mayan families and a scattering of truck drivers and police officers. Standing room only. The toilet is a bucket in the corner of the room. There are a few pieces of soggy cardboard scattered on the cement floor which the children are using to make themselves little beds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is where we spend the next thirty-eight hours. The walls bend and bow and the men line up and push from the inside to offset the winds on the outside. The children, at first frightened of Truffles, and of us, settle in and use Jack as a shield at the height of the storm and the dog as a pillow. When the eye of the hurricane passes over, we all rush outside to pee and hurry back inside before the next wall of destruction hits. A person can’t remain standing for 38 hours, so long before the end is in sight, we’re all curled together, lying in a foot or so of water and balancing the children along our bodies to keep them as dry as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you get the idea. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Jack says, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing”… tone of voice and lifted eyebrow notwithstanding, I do get a teensy bit nervous. It’s taken six years for his penis to reach its current size, we don’t need to do anything to shrink the little guy again.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I digress. Back in Arizona, I, the instigator of the plan to move to Panama, am getting nervous, while Jack is in full-speed-ahead mode. I can only pray we’re not headed directly into the eye of yet another storm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-56743592470617728272012-01-29T19:24:00.000-08:002012-01-29T19:24:03.992-08:00On the Move with Chesty and RoccaHere's the third installment of the true story of how my husband and I sold everything and moved to The Republic of Panama. If you've tuned-in late, just drop down and read the previous couple of blogs. Think of this story as House Hunters International - the rest of the story.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay. So, the dogs. Chesty and Rocca. Male and female. We got the male first and the Veteran’s Administration sent Jack to school in Hutto,Texas to learn to train the dog to assist specifically with his disabilities. Because part of the dog’s job is to watch Jack’s back, Chesty is big. He weighs just over 110 pounds. That’s a lot of dog to take everywhere with you, so Chesty had to be trained to behave perfectly. No screwing around here or the whole deal wasn’t going to work. It took a lot of time and cussing and patience and fussing and energy to achieve this goal.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Our biggest mistake, I believe, was in naming the dog after a Marine. Chesty Puller. <i>The</i> Marine. At any rate, precisely like a Marine, the dog had to be re-trained every day. Like a Marine, Chesty was the handsomest thing on any block, especially in his red and blue working-dog cape. And, once again like all Marines, he forgot everything he’d ever known the very instant a pretty woman paid any attention to him. Still, eventually, Chesty was ready to begin his working life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then, because we have very little common sense between the two of us, and this is going to become increasingly clear to you as I continue with this story, we got a female pup to train as a backup for Chesty. Making herself comfortable in our home in the desert, our baby girl, Rocca, now weighs 148 pounds. Fully trained, she is calmer than Chesty and more protective, but not as attuned to Jack’s moods. She’s also the undisputed boss of our macho Marine-named boy. Except, of course, on those occasions when she has a need for that lovely appendage he carries between his legs. Then she’s the quintessential southern belle.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">All right, so now you’ve got the picture a little more clearly. We’re bored. We’ve been in Arizona long enough for the minimalist beauty of the desert to have long ago worn off. We’re ready for our next adventure and, on this journey we’ll be traveling with two humongous canine companions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The house is on the market, the recon flight is booked and we’re entertaining ourselves by reading everything we can get our hands on about The Republic of Panama and visiting all the chat rooms for ex-patriots living in that central American country. The place continues to sound good. We’re told that the Caribbean island section of the country, Bocas del Toro (translation: Mouths of the Bull) is thirty minutes from a hospital and a Price Smart. So civilization is within easy reach, but far enough away not to encroach too aggressively. We figure we’ll get a little panga boat instead of a car and take the local buses once we get to the mainland. When we go out for the day, we’ll be able to leave the dogs with the maid or the gardener. Everyone down there has one of each according to our research. It’s the way of life in Latin America and expected as a boon to the local economy. Panama is looking like an undiscovered tropical paradise. Clear blue water, little verdant jungle islands edged in white sand and most of the comforts of home too. Plus, they speak English.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay, okay, okay. I know. Way too good to be true. But you’ve gotta remember how bored we are, how desperate to find something with which to entertain ourselves besides looking deep within our souls to discover the truth that surpasses understanding. It’s time to move on and Bocas del Toro in The Republic of Panama looks good. We’ll go and check it out and, if it looks as good as everything we’re reading, we’ll head on down. If not, well, Jack assures me it’s a big world out there. Here’s how that conversation went:<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“I don’t know Honey,” I say. “I mean, if it were just you and me, then I agree, we could go anywhere. Assuming we can find a buyer for the house. We could just leave the money from sale in the bank and travel the world and explore. But we have these two giant dogs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Try to see this with me, the exact condescending tilt of Jack’s big white-haired head, the slight cocking of the left eyebrow indicating irritation, the precise tone of voice as though speaking to a not-too-terribly-bright child.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Why do you have to be negative?” He sighs. “There won’t be any problem with traveling with the dogs. Trust me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“But, maybe we should wait to sell the house until we know exactly where we’re going.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, I know. It was me who had the bright idea to move in the first place. I’m the one who mentioned greener pastures, where the summers didn’t feel like walking into a pizza oven each time I stepped outside. But we seem to be building momentum at an alarming rate. I can almost feel that boulder shifting its position ever so slightly above our heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-33756155844927902362012-01-27T07:33:00.000-08:002012-01-27T07:33:11.258-08:00On the Move with Chesty and RoccaHere's a page or so of a non-fiction book about how I ended up living for a few years in the Republic of Panama. The previous post is actually the prologue of that book. Disconcerting that the sentiments fit so well into my life now, but what're you gonna do? I'll post a little bit every day. See what you think. This will make you feel better about your own marriage and, if you're not already in love with one, probably discourage you from ever getting a large dog.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We sit, my husband, Jack, and I, in our old-people recliners, watching CNN and petting the fur- covered, 150 pound trunk-less elephants we call dogs at our house, contemplating another winter in the high desert of Arizona.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“You know what?” I ask my husband rhetorically.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He doesn’t answer. We’ve been married long enough that, first of all, he knows one of my lead-ins to a discussion about our lives when he hears it and, secondly, he’s trained his brain to simply filter out nine tenths of what comes floating out of my mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Knowing this, with no encouragement whatsoever, I continue, “It feels like we’re just sitting here waiting to die.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He turns his head and looks at me. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A minute later, he says, “Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">After breakfast, I say, “Let’s move to someplace green and warm with a beautiful blue ocean.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This, right here, turns out to be the equivalent of saying, “I’ll bet we could strap these two giant dogs to our backs and, even at our age, we could just leap right across that rocky abyss over yonder. Don’t worry about those loose boulders. We’ll be fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">By noon, I’ve been on the computer and found Bocas Del Toro in the Republic of Panama, a thousand tiny islands in the southern Caribbean, right across the border from Costa Rica. Palm trees, pale, cerulean-blue water and monkeys. Too close to the equator for hurricanes. Plus, every internet site assures me, they speak English. Our new home? By early afternoon, Jack has called a realtor and set up an appointment for her to come out, take a look and tell us what we might get for our adobe brick house and five prickly desert acres.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We keep doing our research about Panama. Everything looks good. It’s affordable. The political situation is stable. Noriega’s in jail in Florida. Right? The government has set up lots of appealing incentives to encourage immigration and investment. The islands look beautiful. White sand beaches and clear blue water. The place looks like heaven. And they speak both Spanish and English. Hard to believe, but, what do we know, we’ve never been there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We did live on the Caribbean coast of Mexico for six years. In a trailer set up in a tiny beach community called Pamuul. Gringos, all gringos in this place. Lots of Texan spoken there, but nothing but Spanish outside the community. Of course, Panama has had a huge community of Americans for years because of the canal. So I guess they learned English while our forefathers were fighting off yellow fever, building, and then managing, the waterway for a hundred years. Yeah, that makes sense. That must be how an entire, albeit tiny, Central American country became bi-lingual. The internet wouldn’t lie. Right?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay. So, a week later, the house is on the market and we’re booked on a reconnaissance flight to Panama for the first of November. That’s forty-seven days away. I was going to say we were making progress, but, in retrospect, moving toward our chosen goal is probably closer to the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">You need to know about these dogs we have, these Italian Mastiffs or Cane Corsos. Chesty and Rocca. But before I can tell you about the dogs, I have to fill you in on a little information about my husband.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jack is a former Marine. He served in Vietnam. Well, he was there when there was a lot of shooting. Who the hell he or any other military personnel were actually serving over there is still up for debate. The point is, our government sent him and, in all ignorance and patriotism and innocence, he went. Into the quagmire. Six months in country, he disarmed a landmine the Marine Corp way. Put his fingers in his ears and stepped softly with the toe of his combat boot. Or, so he tells the story. At any rate, he died and, given the place he was leaving at that moment, he was happy to go. Except the damn corpsman dragged him out of the nice, warm, peaceful light and slam back into the pain and stink of the jungle.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So, it’s thirty years later and, except for the constant pain and raging PTSD, he’s pretty much gotten over the whole war experience thing. He’s still pissed at the corpsman, but he’s managed to live with it and make himself a good life. There’s not much to be done with the physical pain, but one of the ways he deals with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is by having service dogs. Another way he handles the residue of the trauma is to make chronically impulsive life changing decisions based on nothing more than an overriding sense of boredom. But you have, perhaps, already caught on to this.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The dogs are trained to let him know when someone is coming up behind him, to cover his back when he’s in public, to distract him when he gets anxious and to reassure him when he’s nervous. It works slick. We haven’t had to flee a grocery store leaving a full cart of food since he got the first dog. We even go to movies now. And restaurants. Of course, he still sits with his back to the wall and he persists in believing that the name of Ted Turner’s ex-wife is Jane Fucking Fonda, but, really, he’s pretty much recovered from the whole war trauma thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-50671958952554184982012-01-22T18:40:00.000-08:002012-01-22T18:40:56.001-08:00Marriage and Drinking Your Own Urine<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">You know that guy in Utah? The one that went hiking around Moab and ended up trapped by the boulder from hell and had to hack off his hand at the wrist with a pocket knife? I’m beginning to think of that tragic tale as a near perfect analogy for marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I mean. Think about it. The guy works like a fool just to get himself to this glorious, starkly beautiful environment of lurking death. He be-bops along, enjoys the rose tinged boulders, thinks he’s the luckiest, cleverest fool in the history of the world to have discovered these deep clefts and smooth surfaces.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Next thing he knows, he jumps down into this inviting crevasse and looks up just in time to see this bitch of a boulder falling through the air to pin his wrist to the side of the mother of all rocks. You know he’s gotta be looking up at that stone prison falling toward him in slow motion, like an innocently smiling virgin stepping inexorably down the aisle, and part of his brain has got to be screaming, “N-o-o-o!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And the boulder. Let’s think about that for a minute. Birthed by the bedrock, prepared for eons by rain and wind and the natural erosion of the mother rock to fall with no more thought than, well, than a bride going to her goofily smiling groom. Slipping, as easily as nature herself, through the golden, red-tinged air, to fall precisely, pinning the hapless young man to the side of the canyon he thought to plunge into with the reckless joy of ignorant youth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Okay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So he’s pinned.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He spends a day or two trying to think his way out of his predicament. He denies he’s stuck. He wiggles and squirms and stretches and moans. He enjoys a sunset or two. Prays to the God that created the freaking boulder. Watches a couple of killer sunrises. Decides to cut off his hand to save the rest of his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If you’ve ever been married, go ahead, tell me you’ve never been right there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But, nuh uh, nope. That hand’s not coming off that easily. His tiny little pocket knife is not going to cut through the solid bone of the good wrist given him by a loving Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So he waits. He gives up. He resigns himself to living the rest of his short, miserable life, trapped by this rosy stone to the side of the bedrock. He waits. If he’d had a TV, he’d have watched it, remote clutched firmly in his good hand, proof of his amazing control over his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He thinks about all the people he knows who seem to skip merrily through their little jaunts in the countryside. He wonders what the hell is the matter with him that he didn’t just leap over the abyss and keep enjoying his sunny freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He remembers the life he had before he trapped himself in the wilderness. So long ago now, it feels like it happened to someone else. Someone happy. Someone free.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Maybe he thinks about his mother and the lies she told him about the joys to be found in committing to that leap of faith. He waits. He drinks his own urine. Watches the fuzzy black images of the circling buzzards.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He waits. He thinks about what he’d do with the rest of his life if he could just get out of this mess. He drifts for a while in a haze of pre-death exhaustion. He thinks about those dark, feathered portents of rot and decay gathering silently over his head, drawn by the smell of the gangrene. He smiles. He waits just a little longer, letting his hope build his strength and courage. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then he plunges his tiny steel blade into the now rotten bone of his wrist. Even now, nothing is quick or easy. He cuts and scrapes and digs for the joint. He screams and rants and gives up a dozen times. Only his sure knowledge that he will die if he can’t escape, keeps him hacking away at his stinking flesh.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In the end, he’s free. Missing a part of himself, half-dead from the ordeal, but free. And still miles from safety or any solid hope of survival. Now he puts one foot in front of the other, prays he’s lucid enough that he’s navigating in the correct direction, and just keeps walking. For many, many steps, long past the time when common sense dictates he give up, curl peacefully in a fetal position and embrace his death, he walks. One painful step at a time. Not letting himself think about the reality that he’s hacked off a vital piece of his own body. He just staggers toward what he hopes is the direction of progress and life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Having done all he can to save himself, it’s a combination of luck and love that save him. Other hikers, strolling blissfully along on their own adventure, stumble across him, very nearly dead on his feet, though still standing. At the same time, his mother, frantic for days now at his disappearance, has begged, prodded and threatened the authorities into putting a helicopter in the air to look for him. That helicopter is less than a mile away when he’s discovered by the happy family of hikers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">At the hospital, the experts bring him back from the dead. Then they cut off his arm again. Higher up and cleaner. They rig him up with an artificial hand. He even has a prosthetic with a climbing hook. Unbelievably soon he convinces himself he’s come out of his ordeal better than new. He gets on with his life with a new joy in each new dawn. He rushes right out and looks for another virgin wilderness to explore and enjoy. After all, he’s better prepared this time. Why, he even has a steel hook to replace the soft, vulnerable puny hand he had during his first ordeal.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Admittedly, I might be having a bad day. But, seriously, isn’t that whole trapped-in- the-desert-drink-your-own-urine ordeal a perfect analogy for marriage? That platitude that everyone tells you when you’re going through a rough spot in your marital life? You know the one.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Bullshit.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Life can be hard enough that it leaves you crippled and panting on the side of a forsaken road, just praying for the rot to set in so you can scrape, hack and saw your way out of yet another disaster, leaving an additional appendage to feed the earth off of which you’ve managed to drag your sorry ass.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.35in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And yet, we love, we risk, we throw ourselves into that narrow canyon and thank God for the opportunity. Because love, when we get it right, changes everything.</span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-6662808693742473942012-01-09T13:32:00.000-08:002012-01-09T13:32:07.174-08:00Six Degrees of Freedom<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">According to shipbuilders and mariners, there are six different motions a floating vessels can make.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rolling – the oscillating movement of a vessel from side to side<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Pitching </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">– the rise and fall of a ship on calm to moderate seas. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Yawing </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">–The back and forth movement of ship caused by a high seas in a confused state. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Heaving </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">– The rise and fall of a vessel in high seas.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Swaying </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">– The side to side swing of a ship in moderate seas.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Surging </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">– The propelling of a vessel in a sudden forward movement when powerful waves hit the vessels stern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s the nautical name for these six movements that intrigue me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Six Degrees of Freedom</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reminding me that:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>no matter how rough be the sea we navigate, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">no matter how difficult it may be to keep our bearings<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as life rolls, pitches and yaws, our footing heaving, swaying and surging beneath us,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All we need do to keep our freedom <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is to<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not sink.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-61398473240673471052012-01-03T10:08:00.000-08:002012-01-03T10:08:46.479-08:00Blackbirds and Death<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Light explodes the dark</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Blossoms of red, white, and blue</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Blackbirds fall from skies</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Red wings in black night</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Freedom stolen, cold, hard death</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Join hands, stay alert<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once again, while fireworks celebrated the remembrance of freedom, redwing blackbirds have fallen from the night skies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Odd that only the explosions over NW Arkansas have this effect on birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Makes me suspicious that, for our own good no doubt, someone is hiding the truth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Makes me consider the possibility that the liars are the same people who insist on the necessity for the new law enabling the government to pick up and hold any one of us, indefinitely, on suspicion of supporting terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not proof of being a terrorist, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">suspicion</i> of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> supporting</i> terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In my mind the image of those plummeting blackbirds is superimposed over the picture of protestors hunkered down while a uniformed protector of our freedom sprays pepper spray directly into their faces. I keep seeing Japanese rounded up for internment camps, Indians marched on trails marked with death and sorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Without the freedom to fly, what will we become?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is no one else frightened that we’re falling into a cold world of darkness and death?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is it time we joined hands and figured out a way to get past our differences?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4198766087045094464.post-48831519614022405432012-01-01T09:15:00.000-08:002012-01-01T09:15:41.530-08:00Dal baht and Elephant Sweat<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been over ten years since I’ve eaten dal bhat, the national dish of Nepal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rice and lentils, that’s all it is. We backpacked around Nepal with a guide, SK, who found us the first morning of our trip and attached himself like some crazy super-glue-alien-creature. Seriously, we fired him no less than a dozen times on the month long trip and he just kept coming back.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We spoke only one phrase in Nepalese. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Namaste, y’all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In restaurants we were at his mercy and he ordered dal bhat, every damn time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is what he’d eaten twice a day his entire life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presumably, he liked it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We liked it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first six times we ate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, not so much. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Every morning, even when we changed guesthouses in the middle of the night, there SK would be, with a big accommodating smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Why you no like me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Mother, father, </span>I show you good things.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When we snuck off, rode a bus a couple-hundred miles to the Indian border, and booked an early morning elephant ride, there was SK perched on the elephant when we arrived for our jungle trek.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yesterday, for the first time in over ten years, I got a hankering for dah baht. When I pulled the recipe from between the pages of my old notebook, the smell of elephant sweat floated up into the air with the yellowed page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An image filled my head of a young macaque monkey sitting in a sunny circle under huge trees where his family swung and chattered. The monkey raised his hand at me when I swung by on the back of the elephant, mimicked my wave of hello.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here, finally, is the point of this post.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Smells trigger memory </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">– </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">harsh blood-red flashbacks or soft, velvety shadows of feeling and longing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In this instance, the case of the elephant sweat, just the thought of the dal baht triggered a false smell which set off the memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s powerful stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be good, as writers, to use it in our work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Oh yeah, and Happy New Year. May all your smells be good.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Pamela Fosterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08733582747329915399noreply@blogger.com0