You learn a lot of things over the years. One is that the old saying, “do unto others,” is reasonable. However if you live long enough you also learn a corollary. “Do it first, and then dodge – FAST.”
A String of My Articles Out.
Our local paper tends to use these in the Saturday Supplement, and over the last few months quite a few more have appeared. I cover recycling and consumer suggestions, and now and again something more general. But the last ones have been – COOLING CATS AND DOGS IN THE HOT WEATHER, A FEW NEW USES FOR YOUR EVERYDAY SPOON, MUCH TO DO WITH THOSE GIANT PUMPKINS, A NEW PURPOSE FOR OLD DRINKING STRAWS, WHAT NOT TO FEED PETS, SUGAR; MORE THAN JUST A SWEETENER, and BRIGHT IDEAS FOR RUBBER BANDS. Often the themes are based on something I do, or have been asked about, and on that basis I don’t think I’ll run out of ideas any time soon.
My Musings on Old Age 24
I don’t mind what beliefs other people espouse. But I get so tired of being preached at with the assumption that if I listened I would live longer, better, happier, or improve my planet. That’s so true of vegans/vegetarians. I have two problems with that, one is that I would NOT live a longer, happier, better life if I joined them. I have a medical condition where I can’t digest most vegetable fibre – and I prefer not to die thank you.
And the other problem is a lot more basic. You can keep your tofu, lettuce, bean curd, and alfalfa sprouts, I am a carnivore – AND THAT’S THE WAY i LIKE IT, okay. (Which is fortunate, I can’t imagine adoring vegetables and not being able to eat most types.) And quite apart from that, I read, I’ve seen the articles and the figures, which suggest that even if we all turned vegan/vegetarian, it would make very little difference to the planet.
So you go your way, and I’ll go mine, but please, as someone or another once said, “leave to others their otherness.” I don’t demand you all become carnivores, don’t you expect me to imperil my heath, possibly my life, and certainly my general physical comfort by trying to be something I am not.
Tararua Weather
Over and over again our major newspaper has said recently that it’s a dry year. Not here it isn’t. Last month was more than five inches, and so far this month it’s already been the same. Not too wet, mind you. Enough to be an excellent start to spring, but not enough to produce more than the odd shallow puddle, just until the drizzle stops, when the puddles vanishe again. We’re a medium sort of weather area. Others get floods, we get a good rainfall, others get drought, we have a dryish spell. And considering that, it makes me wonder why more people don’t buy and settle here, because it’s a good place to be.
Lorna Freeman – and WORD PRESS problems
I am sorry for everyone that can’t follow older comments, you aren’t alone. Some time ago I found that Word Press won’t allow me to look at my own blog from the outside either. Now it won’t allow me to add my own comments in response to yours. Contact the webmater? Oh, yes, well, tried that and all I get is a blank green page. Did manage at some early stage to get to their FAQs, (something I can’t do now) and that was so long and complicated I could never find an appropriate section to check. I tend to the technoilliterate, and frankly I don’t know what to do, or how to do it. And I’m busy writing books, novellas, and short stories, I don’t have time to spend days trying to thread my way through endless stuff that takes me around in circles. So, I’m really really sorry, and at least I can keep posting – when the site isn’t bleating about internal server errors – and if anyone knows how to presuade Word Press to be helpful, that would improve my life, your lives, and contribute to the dialogue.
My Musings on Old Age 23
My new mobility scooter cost $6660, my first motorbike cost me $750. Mind you, I’m a lot less likely to kill myself on the scooter.
Lots of New Work Out
yes, first I had confirmation earlier this week that 2 of my original poems, and two stories have been accepted, and immediately posted in the new genre magazine, ALTERED REALITIES, then I had a parcel in the mail. So – if you go to http://www.alteredrealitymag.com in general, you’ll find a new and interesting zine. If you want me specifically try http://www.alteredrealitymag.com/authors/meet-lyn-mcconchie/
Okay? As for the parcel, that was copies of MYRIAD LANDS Vols 1 & 2, a really nicely chosen and presented duo. It’s been an excellent week.
Update on Altered Realities. They have now added THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL CLAIMS and THE SEDRA ANOMALY.
Gales, Gales, and MORE Gales.
Sigh, forecasters say this is the result of el nino and an unusually warm winter. I don’t care what causes them, I just wish they’d stop. Last Saturday night we had the worst to date.I woke to 16mms in the rain gauge, and bits of twig all over the lawn.
(Neighbours found a large very heavy flowerpot knocked over, still more twigs about, and the electric fence so flung about that all their sheep are currently where they aren’t supposed to be.)
However I’d gone to bed at 9.30 with ear plugs and two tramadol, (my damaged leg apparently doesn’t like the gales any more than I do) I slept peacefully until 7.30, and woke with a happy smile – to a cat wishing maladictions on my head, I should get up AT ONCE and feed him.
It’s eased off a little since then but is promising to return later this week. Luckily I managed to complete the novella on which I’ve been working, and have made inroads on a matching short story. But it doesn’t help my concentration when the wind sounds like a fire siren screaming around the place. However, right now it’s quiet, the fire is going, the cat is parked in front of that, and I’m catching up on my blog – as can be seen. Now if only things would stay that way all week, I’d be happy – but they won’t.
New Story Out.
email from editor J.A. campbell of THE STORY EMPORIUM. Yes, I have a story – FOR LOVE OF MAXIE – in the second volume. Anyone who likes steampunk/weird westerns should take note.
My Own Little Cat Burglar
12 September 2016
I write a series of tales about Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson and their regular visitors, Miss Emily and her Burmese cat Mandalay – the cat burglar. Mandalay tends to come home with some very odd items at times. The stories are based on a cat a friend told me about years ago, and on my own feline friend. Now and again Thunder ‘acquires’ an item, when he does so he takes it under the couch to squirrel away and there, sooner or later, I find it. In the last few years he’s helped himself to the chimney sweep’s torch, and my house manager’s reading glasses.
Then last week it was my fly-buys card. I ran about for days looking for that, came to the conclusion that I must have lost it, arranged for a replacement, and then – just as the replacement arrived – I happened to be moving a power cord that runs behind the couch, and there was my card. I knew who’d had it all right. He sat there complaining as I picked it up. That was his, he’d gone to all the trouble of collecting it and tucking it away safely. It was HIS and I should give it back. I didn’t and I wonder what he’ll acquire next, but I have a feeling this episode too may end up in one of the Mandalay stories. And people ask where I find plots.