Finally Friday and time to get ready for the weekend. My favorite part of the weekend is not necessarily taking time off, but the thought time off is completely up to me. I have a self-imposed schedule that is a killer, but on the weekend it seems I cut myself some slack and goof off. It usually starts with a Margarita on Friday night to set the mood. It then works its way into actually taking time to relax. This is very hard for me and need to plan to release on a particular project. So this week’s Haiku hopefully captures this spirit. Hope you enjoy it.
Thank goodness it is Friday. It has been a hectic week. Right in the middle of everything my internet went down. After about two hours with the tech rep it was decided they had network problems. Was kind of funny since they swore up and down it was something wrong with my computer. You have to wonder about service protocols when I explained that:
My PC could not connect.
My wife’s Apple iPad could not connect.
My wife’s Apple Mac book could not connect.
The Femto cell which allows us to receive wireless calls could not connect.
The TV and VCR which are connected to the internet could not connect.
All our iPhones could not connect.
Yet, the tech continued under the assumption the problem was with my computer. FINALLY the engineering group got on the phone and did a download and upload path test. GUESS WHAT? The @#$%^&* problem was in the network. That’s not all. In the process, the tech did a hard boot of my router and reset all the values back to default. The next day we figured out all our Apple products needed a different frequency which we had set up originally. ANOTHER HOUR ON THE PHONE. Totally frustrating.
I did have to think that no animals or children were hurt in the drama and as a result, got over the feeling of being duct taped to a phone. So here is a little Haiku to take you to the weekend:
Friday is here. Happy Valentines day. Feels like we have been pulling a sled packed with tons of ice. Oh wait a minute, we have been pulling such a sled and have new meaning to the term “huddling masses.” I don’t think I have ever been this cold for this long. We normally have temperatures thirty degrees warmer and none of us are prepared for this. We go outside in flip-flops and shorts this time of year. If one were to do that now a frost bite kit should be carried along as well. It is so cold (how cold is it?) I saw a sea-gull trying to hitchhike to Miami. It is so cold, the coyotes have pulled out their human fur wraps. It is so cold, the pelicans have their bills packed with frozen fish. Anyway enough of the Henny Youngman jokes. Here is a Haiku to celebrate the coming spring.
This was a big day. My GRL is now on Kindle. The book cover is some how screwed (I have asked the publisher to look into it), but the content of the book and the ability to order is there. Go to my author site on Amazon and take a look. (You might even be tempted to download)
The day continued normally, but then went out of control when the dogs started barking at the UPS driver. He was standing on the porch at sundown with a thirty-two pound box pictured here.
Yeah I would say it was heavy and I did lift with care. I got out my trusty snap blade (you call that a knife?) and opened it to find inside my baby. I wanted to light the candles , but my wife would have killed me
And if that wasn’t enough, another box was on the porch (which in my excitement I didn’t notice). Inside were some display pieces that when loaded look this way:
You have to ignore the fish and the Sea Urchin and trust there are books in a display.
My GRL blog tour begins on Sunday so look for the posts. Have a wonderful weekend and for the next two weeks I will be publishing the recognition posts of a group of really great bloggers. Take a minute and go see them and say hello for me.
As you know last week brought my book launch and a call for volunteers. I am very happy to report the volunteer docket is filled. I have thirty really nice people who are kind enough to help me out. (I know. . . which way did you come in? *drum bump-de-bump and symbol crash*) I am going to officially close the request, but if you really want to sign-up you can still do it at johnhowell.wave@gmail.com. I want to thank all of you who signed up to help with the launch of My GRL. I think we are going to have some fun. As a reminder the tour starts on Sunday January 19th and runs until February 1. For all the volunteers, look for the material on the 16th or it really could be a little before. The e-book go live confirmation will govern the material.
Since it is Friday, I think a Haiku is in order to more or less move us into the weekend. This is a Haiku I composed while waiting for my e-book to go live which seems to be my sole focus these days. The print version has been available since January 2 and the e-version is in some kind of holding pattern. Like a new father waiting in the hall for the birth of a child I pace the floor like a wounded animal checking and re checking the Amazon site for signs of my e-book’s birth. So here it goes:
English: Christmas decorations illuminating the exterior of the Ellen Lovell House, also called Oakenwald Terrace, a bed and breakfast on the National Register of Historic Places in Chatfield, Fillmore County, Minnesota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Friday is here. Hoo Ray. Now is the time to start planning for an outrageous weekend. Those of you who are working full-time need to take some of the bosses minutes today and really think on how you want to spend the weekend. Go ahead the company won’t mind. After all you think about the company and your job on your time off don’t you?. . . *crickets* . . . Of course you do. You can’t fool and old fool. So what’s it to be? Here are a few suggestions to get the old thought process working:
Christmas is next Wednesday so how about packing up the kids, grandparents, and go shopping at the mall? Yes siree that sounds like a joyful thing to do. Don’t forget you will be out and about with thousands of your closest friends, enjoying the Yuletide spirit. If you have any luck you will be given the privilege of buying what you really didn’t want at a price you really didn’t want to pay. As a capper if you are really lucky you and the family will pick up a mild case of the flu that will progressively get worse by Christmas day.
Maybe you would rather go to an exclusive bed and breakfast just the two of you. There you can settle into a quant room that sort of reminds you of your grandma’s house. A degree of authenticity will be found in the mix of mothball, old sock, and camphor smell that you know and love. The real nice part is the cost of the room is just slightly below your month’s rent, but breakfast is included. Speaking of breakfast you will be able to join about ten of similarly minded people all dressed like you and all on their phones. The menu will include fresh squeezed gooseberry juice, cranberry scones with homemade elderberry jam, egg white omelet, and decaf cappuccino with soy foam. You are living now.
A final choice might be a simple weekend home with a few friends. Y’all can start on Saturday with the favorite punch before the football game. You remember it from last year. It’s that milk kind of thing with a rum base and kerosene taste finish. A few of those and you are suddenly transformed back to your undergrad days. You can try as hard as you will, but resistance is futile. Luckily the rest of the weekend will be a blur of football game on the TV, a pickup game of touch football in the snow, several bottles of wine and drinks, something for dinner, exactly what escapes you, and finally to bed in the car in the driveway. (Why you can’t explain) Sunday morning will be all about trying to figure out how many of the guests were offended by whatever when on before you went to sleep in the car. You will tread carefully until the Bloody Mary kicks in and then you will find out the whole truth. Of course you will never do this again.
Hope your choice is at least as good as these. Have a great weekend.
Friday has arrived (Ta Da) and it has been a very good week. The household managed to survive the Fall Back to standard time. We now get a lot of things done between six and seven when we used to lie around in the bed SLEEPING. The reason for this situation is, our two dogs cannot get used to the time change. I think the real issue is we never taught them how to tell time. They use little inner clues like; hungry, potty, and sunrise to let them know when it is time to alert their humans that the sleep cycle is over and it is now time to hunt.
Our boxer is used to placing her nose right under the sleeping human’s nose to detect life. (Or not) Once life is detected, the emotional glad-you-are-still-able-to-provide-kibble-and-a-walk lick is placed starting from the chin and ending at the forehead. No amount of holding breath or other forms of faking it works. When the lick is applied, the human is expected to throw back the covers and exit the sleep module. Failure to do so is challenged by a quick, but piercing bark followed by what can best be described as a butt sit. This is where all sixty pounds of the boxer is concentrated in her butt which she promptly finds a spot to perch on you. If this fails to produce the results, she then goes to the Silky Terrier to generate a response which produces a round of barking that only the dead could sleep through.
Instead of this process beginning at six-thirty it now begins at five-thirty and there is no sign that it will ever change until we go back to Daylight Savings Time again.
Here is a little Haiku in honor of Friday and Central Standard Time.
Friday at last. I don’t know about you, but I have had a grueling week. I finished up a couple of short stories for submission to several magazines. Never know if they will be accepted, but since I am planning an anthology of them, nothing is ever wasted. In the anthology I don’t believe I will have to give a disclaimer that “this story was rejected by the New Yorker,” or anything like that. So it really doesn’t matter if the story gets published or not, since I will be able to use it one way or another.
I am also still working on editing my second novel. I won’t bore you with the fact that my first is still with the publisher and no date of release as yet. WTF. . . it is a good thing I made my fortune in freeze-dried tacos* because if I relied on book sales to eat I would be a very skinny guy indeed. Right now I am going through the entire text with the idea of eliminating certain words that are the hallmark of an amateur. These are the kinds of words that have the effect of slowing the action or at the least, making strong sentences very weak. So that you may benefit from my pain, here are the words that I am eliminating while choosing other ways to complete the thought that I am trying to project. The are: about, actually, almost, like, appears, approximately, basically, close to, even, eventually, exactly, finally, just, just then, kind of, nearly, practically, really, seems, simply, somehow, somewhat, sort of, suddenly, that, truly, utterly, were.
I wish I could say when I use the “find” feature on Word that the results come back with no matches. I wish I could say that, but unfortunately it just doesn’t happen. When writing sometimes we fall into the lazy mode of getting the idea down on paper (so to speak) and not looking at construction. There is really nothing wrong with that as long as we go back and make the corrections.
*Piece of fiction warning
To end the week I have a little Haiku which sums up the editing process.
English: Diagram used in proof of barometric formula (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It is Friday and it has been a lovely week. Here in South Texas we got a whole bunch of rain. This means that the water restrictions, as a result of the drought, will be lifted soon. A cold (relatively) front moved in on Tuesday so the night-time lows are in the sixties for the next few days. This means we can open some windows and allow the air conditioner to have a few nights off. We’ll be back to the higher degrees, but for now it is great. The cold front also signals the end of the hurricane season so we can put the survival gear back in the closet and enjoy the rain and wind without worrying about the surge and damage that hurricanes bring.
You know you live in a tropical climate when you become pretty nonchalant about storms with names. The only time it gets dicey is when the barometric pressure starts dropping toward the nine-hundreds. Oh yes we have a barometer that we read and understand. I never thought I would ever be able to understand the barometric pressure situation. There are other things about living in a tropical climate that I never thought about. Here are some:
Never thought I would understand the difference between a cockroach and Palmetto bug. (hint: there is none, nicer name is all)
Never thought I would need a dermatologist on call. (Knows me by name)
Never thought I would stop wearing socks. (and underwear)
Never thought I would be concerned about gophers and spiders the size of gophers. (Both carry weapons)
Never thought I would be concerned about door hinges rusting off from the salty spray. (No slamming of doors around here)
Never thought I would have to have the house repainted every three years. (salty spray again)
Never thought I would be concerned when a gang of ants decide they want the patio furniture. (I just give it to ‘em now)
Never thought I would be glad for a cloudy day. (Few and far between)
Never thought I would be super happy to have spent the money for a parts and labor extended warrantee on the air conditioning system. (Full ten-year and the system has been replaced twice)
There are more, but it is time to wish you all a happy weekend
Friday has finally arrived. If you are like me it is a welcome sight for sore everything. Even though I don’t have a traditional workweek, I still like to kick back and celebrate its close. In fact, someone asked me my idea of a good Friday. I said, “A good Friday is where I write my ass off, reward myself with a Margarita and then try to explain to my wife what I had done all day.” I wrote a little Haiku to honor that Margarita and the Friday celebration. Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend.
