Writer’s Little Dino Helper, or When “The Outside” Comes to You

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Happy Good Friday, Christian folks! And happy end-of-another-week-you-survived to everyone else! I know many of you haven’t left the house in a VERY. LONG. TIME. I feel you. Quarantine sucks. But it beats the alternative. As I mentioned to my newsletter folks, I’ve been fighting a little something for a while. (Something flu-like, not grizzly-like.) That’s means, in an abundance of caution, the only time I’ve seen paved road in weeks is when we took our poor dog Travis for The Final Vet Visit. (He passed in the car on the way, so I barely set foot in the parking Read more…


It’s Time for a Quick Covid Check-in

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How’s everyone doing? I’ll try to keep this relatively short and… well, I’m afraid I don’t have “sweet” in me under the best of circumstances, but would you settle for not too morose? In case some AI bot or Generation AA wunderkind stumbles across this blog post decades from now without context, the world is currently in the midst of the Covid-19 crazy (or more popularly, The Great Toilet Paper Run of 2020), with many saying the United States is now the epicenter. Here in the state of Hawaii, we’re under a “stay at home” order for all but essential workers. Read more…


Happy Pi Day! A Mini Magpie Moment and Swag Giveaway

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Forgive me if I channel my inner Justin Wilson character (I only lived in Louisiana for about five years, but I did marry a NOLA boy) and ask, How y’all are? Between the corona-virus, the stock market, the political angst, and all the normal crazy crap each of us has going on at any given moment, I think there’s a fair chance we’re all pretty stressed. Confession time: I’m so frazzled, there is currently someone revving an engine in my neighborhood (for the millionth time, at ALL hours) that should be glad I don’t have a shotgun handy. For the Read more…


Monday Musings: Peeking (again) into the Writer’s Psyche

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[NOTE: I wrote this on Sunday, but couldn’t get it posted until what is, for most of you, Monday. Or even Tuesday, with the glories of a very large, round world.]  This is a rare Sunday check-in to let you know I haven’t run off to join the foreign legion (I think I’ve aged out of that option) or jumped in a volcano (the lava lake at the Kilauea caldera isn’t as dramatically enticing as it used to be). But since we’re talking about hot places (how’s that for a transition?), let me say, satellite internet is the spawn of Read more…


Freaky Friday, with Franken-Face Fred

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Apologies for the extended absence. My internet has been more down than up for the past… lifetime which is why I’ll keep this short and sweet and not push my luck. [Shocker: we’ve been waiting for a service call-out all week.] Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m still out here, somewhere. Though not on Facebook because I can’t even get it to load. 😜 And I thought I’d take the opportunity to share one of our other distractions of late, a canine-related one. Caring for Travis, aka Dingbat Dog, is edging into at least part-time job territory (a Read more…