26 February 2014

Notes - simple humanity / happenstance and translucence / (final) Dead 21 / the Piper / Glenna Gooding Zarbaugh

         Shortly after noon, local time. This morning Rich G. sent you a short note on an advertisement that touches your humanity and you sent it on to friends and on to Facebook for your friends also. Now you want to share it with your friends and readers of this blog because to you it focuses on what it is to be human in life and also after physical death. Why, because friendship you can take with you. In these books friendship is a necessity. Is this not so, orndorff? – Amorella

         1224 hours. It is. I write fiction though. I agree friendship is important in life and after physical death too. I don’t know how it is important but I understand the world to be this way, at least a little bit. But I also think friendship may have courses that we cannot know, courses with bridges. That’s how I, as a romantic see it.

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A friend sent this to me. This is such an advertisement. Such simple humanity. I hope you enjoy it too.  - rho



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         Post. - Amorella

         1249 hours. We are about to go out to Chipotle/Panera for lunch but I forgot about a theme word for chapter twenty. I am thinking ‘soul’ or ‘souls’ but it appears too obvious.

         How about ‘Happenstance’? – Amorella

         1252 hours. Yes. I like this very much. Thank you, Amorella.

         Post. - Amorella

         You had lunch, but surprise, Carol wanted to go to Longhorn. Once there you ordered two their special one dinners, an appetizer, asparagus with dip, Carol had salmon and you had renegade steak; she had sweet potato with veggies and a salad; you have a loaded baked potato and mushrooms and onions for the steak. No dessert. You are now at Pine Hill Lakes Park and Carol is doing a walk. You have yet to do your exercises today.

         1502 hours. Jen (our server) suggested the appetizer, which was delicious. Carol got her salmon and I got my steak. We were/are both fully satisfied. It is quite pleasant being at the park once again. It is cold but not much wind, and it’s sunny. Earlier today I had an errand to run into Blue Ash and had the Honda washed and cleaned it up inside and out. Someone keyed the right front fender, which I had not noticed because of the dirt. When it’s warmer I told Carol I’d have the paint touched up; it has several paint scratches and a paint scraping on the lower right bumper that I caused by slightly tapping a large rock I did not see from the mirrors when backing up at a restaurant a year or two ago. Once that’s done I’ll have the car cleaned inside and out at the P&G car wash. It’ll look like a much newer car, well at least it will look a metallic green classic 2005 six cylinder Honda Accord EX with the tan interior, leather and wood-like trim at the center dash compartment (which was rather rare back then) and on the four armrests. The seats have butt warmers in front. We closed down the satellite radio but it still has a good sound system with subwoofer (we listen mostly to 103.5 oldies), and it only has 63,365 miles on it. If we don’t slow down on the new car it will have 20,000 miles on the Toyota the first year. That was and is not our plan so it is setting in the garage for a while. The Honda has always been a fun car to drive but I am still watching the miles per gallon (it averages 24.9 to 25 m/g for a year’s worth of driving). We love our automobiles.

         Carol has returned from her walk and you are presently parked on the lower north lot somewhat in the shade of mostly leafless trees. Patches of snow are scattered about in the opportune places; this suggests that Spring weather is not entirely right around the corner. Carol is looking at a new Good Housekeeping magazine and let’s go over this last chapter and come up with a likely candidate from its theme word. – Amorella

         1549 hours. I have read the chapter. I like the phrase “the back of the beyond” because Merlyn is reliving life in his dream from the Dead. And, I like Pouch because it concludes with “welcome aboard”.  ‘Beyond’ does not fit because it appears a cliché in context.

         How about translucence? – Amorella

         Translucence works. 

         Odd, but I do not see the whole picture in using the word but I like the sense of semitransparent.

         You miss the point, young man. I was thinking, “light allowed” with the added personalized pun in reference to ‘Lady Allowyn” in book two. – Amorella

         1602 hours. Sometimes in your amusement you do me in, Amorella.

         Post when it is convenient. - Amorella


         1707 hours. Dead 21 reads more easily with the shorter paragraphs. I don’t know how cricket it is grammar-wise but I like it better.

         Add and post. – Amorella

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(final) The Dead 21 ©2014, rho GMG.One

            Merlyn awoke from stone thinking, the Living do not understand how the Second Rebellion began when it did, let alone how it ended. How do I best explain these unseen and unknown events to the Living?

            In short order Merlyn had rolled his spectral eyes back into his spectral head to discover he was about to have a discussion with Glevema and Panagiotakis right in his own sanctuary.

            Within from the door way to his hut Merlyn saw the oak billiard table rise from the stone boulder just as he had risen from the stony sleep of the Dead. Merlyn moved, gaining confidence as he glanced down from the height of the giant oak to the table below to see two balls, each on a cue mark, and an oak cue stick lying on the table green near the white cue ball and on the other cue mark the black 8 ball.

            Merlyn blinked. I am the stick, Takis is the white and Mother is the 8 ball. The pockets shift. One pocket connects to the heart, another to the soul, and a third to the mind; the other three are random existential nightmares. My cue tip needs to strike old Takis and send him to lightly kiss Mother and send her towards the far right corner, estimated Merlyn.

            Before I ask my question I must strike with the cue ball and drive her into her most focused heartansoulanmind corner of the moment. I can only hope to drive Mother into heart's pocket for a truthfully honest response.

            Semi-conscious of the timing Merlyn struck the cue ball, which, as the physics would have it, tapped the 8 ball a bit further and harder to the left side of the ball than he had anticipated.

            The white ball rolled to the left and almost scratched in the far corner pocket, and in Merlyn's mind the 8 ball unfolded an almost unlikely destined path to the left corner pocket and dropped in. 'Not good,' concluded Merlyn, 'A faery's trick,' added his struck heart.

            His understood questions on the Second Rebellion had drilled into Mother's soul and into his heart instead. "I should have stopped with Takis," grumbled Merlyn, "I should have let the cue ball run the table." 

            The Victorian styled oak billiard table collaborated into mist and sunk into the stone bolder. Merlyn stood alone with Mother three arm's length away, boldly staring at him, as almost all mothers are wont to do with a naughty child near hand.

             Mother asked, "Do you think I did not see through your tactics of using my grandfather to soften my soul?"

            "I was aiming at your heart, dear Mother of all mothers. I see I missed my mark."

            The soul tends to show an armor of indifference, thought Mother while considering a response to Merlyn's initial question. "Nuclear weaponry," declared Mother, and all those dead from murdering in political conflicts and two major wars during the first half of the twentieth century.”

            She continued, “Even my first friends among the Dead, the marsupial humanoid Dead, pleaded for a short-ordered Second Rebellion to address the parental anxieties of both species for their living children."

            "The Living do not know about the marsupial humanoids other than my fictional stories, Mother. How do I turn this into story form?"

            "You were sorted out, Merlyn. I assume you are up to the job," replied Mother rather huffily. "Once the marsupial humanoids actually landed on Earth and tragically died in secret attempt to present themselves in July, 1947; their Dead decided it was time to re-introduce themselves to Mother.

            The reasonableness of Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech became the trigger -- the madness of a world of industrial-military complexes would eventually create a horrific global social circumstance in which humanity both collectively and individually would have no choice but to shut itself off soulanmind-wise, Merlyn.

            This is something you can certainly understand and sell to the Living; individual and collective humanity essentially becoming a closed camp within, the breadth of the human heart struck with the cryptic thought that work alone can make you free." She paused to let this sink in, and then added, "Merlyn, how would we many Dead grow and flourish under such heartless conditions of power and consequence?

            Subdued or not, a reckoning would come, ruminated Merlyn, as surely as I, one of the Dead, walk with or without consequence among these presently Living. The Second Rebellion ended while I have been here, in two places at once, among the Living and among the Dead.

            Even I, Merlyn, do not know how or why this came to be. But who really knows the how's and why's of any rebellions or wars. Freedom, what is freedom without the fullness in one's heartansoulanmind?

***


          Time for a break, orndorff. You are suddenly in a rush to complete this chapter, but for what? You do not have the desire to learn how to set up the manuscript for an ebook, but that is what you will have to do. We are not setting up the run off draft for final copy to meet printed publication standards. You don’t want to do that and you have good reasons for putting this work out free for at least a limited amount of time for those who bought the books and want the revision this should be free, and free for anyone else during that time. Let’s make it ninety days. After that you charge for the book. We’ll set the price later, but readers who want the book will have to pay for it just like they pay for anything else. Nothing is free, boy, and neither are you. – Amorella

         1726 hours. I am surprised at your tone.


         I am not surprised by your arrogance. No human being provides a service for free. And, those who think they do are not looking closely enough. Post. - Amorella

        1730 hours. I disagree. Some devote their lives in/for service to others. I think you are being harsh.

          People pay one way or another. Everyone pays the Piper, boy. You are no exception. - Amorella

        You ate cereal for supper and watched “NCIS” and “Person of Interest” as well as the national news. Cathy called and you have further family funeral services on Friday afternoon. The aged mother of her fifty-five year old child, Jane, who died last week, died today, apparently of stress or as Cathy said, “of a broken heart.” Glenna in her eighties was not well before Jane died and now presently she too is also at peace that is your hope. – Amorella

         2132 hours. Glenna’s mother was my Great Aunt Betty Freeman Gooding. Betty's sister, Elizabeth Mae Freeman Schick was my grandmother. My Aunt Ruth Ann is Glenna’s first cousin. Glenna has lived in or near Lewis Center, Ohio most if not all of her life. She is outlived by her husband Kenny Zarbaugh. who is not well, and their daughter, Linda. This has been a sad week for the family. I feel particularly bad for Kenny, Linda and Aunt Ruthie. 


         Enough for tonight, boy. Post. - Amorella

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