It’s weird to think Christmas is just around the corner. Only five weeks left, kids! You can feel it in the air, which is getting colder and crisper. I stepped outside the house last night, and it actually smelled like the holidays. People are treating each other a little more kindly because, you know, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the celebration of Jesus’s birth and all. Plus they don’t want to miss out on getting presents from someone they might have pissed off earlier in the year.
The last few months have been busy and eventful for us. In September, Wendy and I snuck out of the country and spent a week in Puerto Rico, which was lovely. Wendy had never been out of the continental US before, and I had never been to PR. The weather was perfect in a hot and dehydrated sort of way. Our hotel was right on the ocean, but we couldn’t go swimming due to the rip tide left over from the passing of Hurricane Lee. We spent an afternoon hiking through the rain forest with our guide. It was just the three of us because, according to him, no one else was dumb enough to vacation in Puerto Rico in the middle of hurricane season. Who knew? We had a great time though snorkeling with the sea turtles and hiking on the beach and visiting castles in Old San Juan. We even went kayaking at night through a mangrove forest and splashed through translucent water, which was amazing!
Last month was Halloween and my birthday. Wendy’s friend made this amazing cake with chocolate skulls. Yum! My daughter and her girlfriend drove down from New York to help me celebrate, and my other two kids also joined us. We played games and watched movies and stayed up way too late and ate way too much cake and ice cream, but it was great having the whole band back together again.
I also spent October writing micro stories for Inktober. I’ve always struggled writing short. Really. Ask anyone in my family. I tend to be long-winded, and that’s especially true for the stories I write. So Inktober was a nice exercise for me to work on my brevity. I didn’t write a story for every day, but I completed a little more than a baker’s dozen. I was really happy with how many of them turned out.
I’m still plugging away for Writers of the Future. I’ve got a story all outlined now that I’m working on for the first quarter’s entry. The deadline is December 31. This is always a hard quarter for me to write because there’s just so much going on with family and the holidays and the end of the year at work. I’ve received two more honorable mentions from the contest for stories that I’ve recently submitted. Those are back-to-back after receiving my one and only semi-finalist entry so far. Kinda feels like I’m moving backwards. At the very least, it feels like I’m not improving. Apparently I still have a lot to learn. I don’t know if I’m ever going to win this contest. That trip to Hollywood and the workshop and the award would be amazing. But here I am after twelve years — twelve years, people! — and I’m not really any closer to publishing anything. It’s such a long, slow process … much longer than I ever thought it would take. But the reality is that I don’t write that much. Not really. I’m a busy dude with a busy life. I write when I can, and I submit what I write. Life. Blech!
Speaking of life and busy and end of year and getting colder, Wendy and I are WAY LATE getting our firewood cut for the season. We hired a guy to come out and cut up some of the sections of downed trees on our property so we can split them into firewood. We’ve spent the last few weekends doing that. Man, is that a chore! But I’m confident we’ll get it done in time. And we’ve both promised we’ll get to it much earlier next year. Ideally, we need to cut it in the spring so it has all summer to dry out. We’ve estimated that we go though roughly four or five cords each winter.
Also, I voted early on two Ohio issues. Issue 1 is the Abortions Rights amendment to the Ohio constitution. I’m not in favor of abortion in general, except in cases where the life of mom or baby are in jeopardy, or in cases of crimes like rape and incest. According to the National Institute of Health, that only accounts for 12% of all abortions, which means the vast majority of abortions is simply because mom or dad wasn’t ready for a baby. I am 100% not in favor of the government telling anyone what they can and cannot do with their own bodies, especially when it comes to personal health care decisions. On the other hand, I’m also not in favor of using abortion as an alternative form of contraception. Ohio though, being the red-controlled GQP crazy majority that it is, wants to ban abortions entirely and leave few if any exceptions for anything, and I’m just not down with that, so I had to vote yes on the issue to amend the state constitution and allow the option of abortion when necessary.
The other ballot issue was Issue 2, which would allow recreational use of marijuana. Should people be given hard jail sentences for using marijuana? I believe the punishment should fit the crime, and I don’t believe people should be punished harshly for using marijuana. On the other hand, having visited states where recreational use is legal, and having walked through clouds of smoke and breathing that crap in and smelling it all over the city, I have to say that no, I am not a huge fan of legalized recreational marijuana. But other than having to deal with the constant stink, there’s another reason I’m against it too. We already suffer from a plague of apathy in this country, where people just don’t seem to care anymore about what’s happening. We elect morons into our government. We don’t care anymore about truth or science or integrity or responsibility or character anymore. We’re more interested, it seems, in lies and conspiracies and, generally, in just kicking back in front of our television sets and being entertained. As a country of citizens, we’ve become quite lazy. So now let’s legalize marijuana so everyone can kick back and toke and become even more apathetic?!? That idea just seems crazy to me. It’s almost like our government is encouraging us to get stoned, stay stoned, and let them do whatever they want. So Issue 2 was a big NO for me. In the end, both issues passed, but at least I did my part.
So that’s everything that’s been going on here the last couple of months. We are preparing for winter and the rush of the holidays. This year, as I do every year, I’m vowing to slow down and enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and make each day count. It comes and goes so quickly, and it seems like every year I just miss it.
Here are a few more picture to enjoy from Puerto Rico. Stay safe and warm, everyone. Any fun plans for the holidays?
It’s been a crazy couple of months