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Creative Fancy

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Creative Fancy

Category Archives: Glynda’s Writings

New Year Resolution by Glynda Shaw

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dog story, environment, Glynda Shaw, New Year, resolution

1.

We were in what passed for downtown. So far we’d been lucky with the snowfall. Little had been felt this year before New Years day which it was right now, which generally meant we’d have our major dumps in Jan and Feb. For now though, It looked like just another chilly day, rife for walking.
We’d set off from our rather modest house, a repo purchased for sixty thou’, to this meager remains of a business district; objective, have something hot and oily at the local Thai restaurant.

We’d walked because the air was brisk and we feared the dulling effects of loitering around in stagnant air, or over-reliance on the Toyota Echo for mobility.

Standing now in front of Thai Cuisine, Eleanor read “Closed for New Year. Please have a safe and warm meal with family and friends.”

“Goddamnit!” I expostulated. “I know they’re closed for Oriental New Year. You’d think they could be open for our holiday!” I’d clamped my cane under my arm, preparatory to opening the restaurant’s door but now deployed it for further walking.

“Well,” Eleanor said “I don’t want to eat at Lynn’s. That place turns everything into a grease-ball!”

Grease balls just now were sounding to me much better than total starvation, but my belly sometimes can be melodramatic. It was then that she noticed the dog.

“Oh baby,” Eleanor said. “Did you get lost?” The dog walked up to me, bumped against my knees, presented a rather large head to my hand.

Feeling the top of the head I finger-traced the shark ridge atop and the bifurcation leading to each eye ridge. Lab or at least a mix. I patted the proffered brow. “Hi Sweetie,” I said. A long tongue came out lollopping my hand.

“She’s so sweet,” Eleanor echoed what I was thinking. “Somebody must care about her.” I felt the head shaking to accompany the wagging of a very long tail.

“So,” I said “We’re not getting dinner here. What else is in walking distance?”

“That Mexican place,” Eleanor said “And that Chinese restaurant across the street that always takes about a hundred years and serves you only one thing at a time?”

“Dubious,” I decided. “Our friend here,” I patted the dog atop her shark-fin ridge, “Needs to eat too.” The dog seemed to nod as I said this.” Some folks don’t appear to know this but when confronted by a stray dog on New Year’s day it’s really bad luck not to feed it. Bad luck accrues to anyone who is unkind or stingy to any animal any day of the year of course, but the new year definitely magnifies things, kind of double-dutch Kaarma if you can handle that.

“I guess we could make it to Jack in the Box,” Eleanor suggested. “We could get a plain burger for her, maybe a bag of fries.”

“Suits,” I said. “I think there’s a Congressional mandate that Jack in the Box is open on all federal holidays.

“I feel sorry for those workers though,” Eleanor said. I did too but not quite as bad as I felt for my depleted stomach.

Reaching the Jack in the Box drive-in Eleanor started reading off the choices on the billboard as soon as we got into perusing range. “Chicken nuggets,” she sang out. The dog was walking along sort of pressed to my right knee. I felt this sidewise waggle.

“She’s shaking her head no,” I announced.

Eleanor laughed. “Well how about a Superjack?” she said. The dog seemed to be describing yes on my pant-leg. “I think we’re getting warmer,” I said. “She seems to approve.” I thought about it a moment then inquired, “How do we know she’s a she anyhow?”

“She looks like a girl,” Eleanor decreed. The dog nodded her head.

2.

“You’re not supposed to walk up to the drive-in., the barely legal Jack’s crew-member gargled through the speaker. “You gotta come in.”

“I’m not allowed to drive,” I told her. “Besides I’ve got a dog.” She seemed to take a while processing this. “Hello?” I said.”

“Order please?” the girl said.

As it turned out, we all got Jumbo jacks and two orders of fries to share. It was walking weather but not at all sittting weather so we decided to find a dumpster to stand beside and eat standing up. We carefully spread our friend’s portions including ample fries atop the bag on the cement. Dogs eat incredibly fast and this one was no exception. She was done much sooner than we.

“Well good-bye friendly dog,” I said, folding up my wrapper and sliding it into the dumpster. We took turns patting that Labrador head.

“Go find your mamma and daddy,” Eleanore coaxed as we turned toward home. Like a suction cups on a sink mirror though, The Dog kept contact with my right leg and followed us.

“You need to go home,” Eleanor repeated with some urgency in her voice. No response from our new friend and continuing companion.
We increased our pace but of course nobody can outrun a dog and she kept right along jowl against my jeans.

“Where do you live?” Eleanore tried again, her voice gone plaintive.

“I could ask the same of you,” The dog said without rancor.

3.

“Are you shitting around with me?” Eleanore demanded, looking meward.

“Wouldn’t even consider it,” I protested. “It was you, wasn’t it, Girl?”

“Let’s get home,” the dog said. “I’m tired of this cold cement and I’m only about half full.” With an intro like that, who could do other than invite our canine friend home?

“Something I’ve always wanted to know,” I asked. “Do dogs have names for themselves? I mean do you just soak up whatever we humans hand you or is there some other name we never know about?”

“Names,” said the dog “are as much a matter of odor as they are sounds. We don’t use a special bark for one another say. We pretty much just know one another. The name thing is totally a human deal.”

“Well,” I said, “would it be too forward to ask what name you might have? I mean were you given a name was anyone else–some human?”

“You could sniff my butt if you’re really interested in my identity,” the dog said, sounding matter-of-fact about it.

“Oh,” I said, “maybe later.”

“Yeah,” said the dog. “so far as the human moniker thing goes, I got one of those hung on me a while back. It’s Leah.”

“Leah?” Eleanor said. “That’s a nice name.”

“A family I was with for a while had a female child named Rachel and there seemed to be something really humorous about me being named Leah while she was Rachel.” Leah said. “Some sorts of humor things, I’ll probably never get.”

“So,” Eleanor took over again, “You’ve had a home?”

“Yes, several,” Leah said. “In each case it didn’t really… work out?”

“Work out?” Eleanor repeated, “Were they cruel to you, poor thing…?”

“Not cruel necessarily,” Leah said. “Just inattentive more than anything else.” Leah was silent for a few beats then “You know,” she said, I’ve been looking for you two for quite a while now.”

“You have?” I asked. “How come?”

“Several reasons,” Leah said. “You’ve got all the right visuals, you’ve got on what look like second-hand clothes, neither of you smell all of cosmetics and the like. You’re walking while everyone else is driving. Mostly though, we’re talking. I guess I’ve never really gotten over that hurdle before.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I can see that’d be a problem.”

“Ra-ther,” Leah said. The first person I tried it with dove head-first into a bottle then kept me up all night jabbering about not much of anything at all. Next morning he gave me a steak bone and showed me out the door. Next one, a woman thought she was having a psychotic melt-down and called for an ambulance. I ended up in a van destined for the local animal shelter. I was a bit of a while escaping from that. The two of you just stand here talking with a dog like nothing’s particularly unusual.”

“Well,” Eleanor said, “I guess we’ve always talked to our animals–” Her voice caught a bit as if she may’ve said something wrong.
Leah merely inquired, “but do you spend any time listening to what they have to say back?”

“Mmm,” I said, “I guess we would if they said anything. I assume we’ve been proving that point for the last five minutes or so.”
In a seeming change of subject Leah said “To be really sure, I need to have a look around your home. I perceive we’re close.”

“To be sure of what?” I demanded, “and how would you know where we live. Have you been shadowing us?”

“You walk a lot,” Leah explained. “Your scents are all over the place.”

“Oh.”

“So,” Eleanor said “are you planning to stay a while or what?”

“We’ll see,” Leah said. “First though we’ll, talk some more.”

4.

Coming to the edge of our rather generous yard, only 60 feet along the front sidewalk, but wedging rearward to nearly twice that; “Hey a ball!” Leah bark-shouted. Leaving my side she was back in a moment with a ball meant for horses but managed handily by Sally our Blue Heeler. Leah dropped it against my shoe. “Toss this it for me a few times will you?” she asked.

I obliged, lofting the thing by its carry handle across the yard. Panting and growling playfully Leah intercepted the ball on the fly, bringing it back to fall at my feet.

After a half dozen cycles Leah let go of the bully-ball. “Thanks,” she said, “Couldn’t resist that. Guess it’s in the genes, sort of like fucking up the ecosphere is in yours?”

“Say what?” Eleanor and I said together. “Do you know how many trees we’ve planted, how many low on the food-chain meals we’ve cooked, how many times we’ve turned the thermostat down, refused to use an air conditioner? We compost, recycle, as you pointed out we wear hand me over clothes!” Eleanor ran out of steam, stood spluttering.

“Yeah,” I put in, “What she said!”

“I know, I know,” Leah raised a paw, letting it fall on my knee. Your hearts are in the right place. That’s why I’m talking to you, not your neighbor over there (She nosed left), with the ride-on lawn mower, or your other neighbor (nosing right) with cement over most of his yard.
From inside Sally was setting off her customary flurry of barking. She’d have been out here with us hadn’t we planned to go to a sit-down restaurant dinner.

“Sounds like somebody I should meet,” Leah said.

“Sally,” I said. “Well, come on in and get acquainted.”

Leah bowed slightly. “Charmed I’m sure,” she said. We had the expected log-jam in the open doorway, Sally and Leah sniffing each other, engaging in mock combat.

“Girls!” Eleanor barked in her turn. “In or out!” The two dogs melted away into the living room, sprawling companionably on the rug.

“Sally,” I said. “Can you talk too?”

Sally made a low rumbling noise. “She say’s she generally doesn’t have anything to say,” Leah explained. “Besides it’s so much cuter to do the charades thing to let you know what she wants.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve heard that line before. I bent way down,” patting Sally’s head, feeling a little self-conscious in doing so. Was I being patronizing, or did Leah expect a pat too?

5.

“Now” I asked, “what’s this about us ruining the environment. “By the way do you want anything more to eat?”

After Sally and our guest had shared some kibble (buffalo and sweet potato with blue berry) out of separate dishes and water out of a common bowl, Leah belched, excused herself. Sally belched, not nearly so loud, looked to us for affirmation, said nothing. “It’s the carbon you know,” Leah declared.

“You mean greenhouse effect?” Eleanor inquired, “all that?”

“All that,” Leah agreed. “So much of that stuff in the air that you could build many buildings out of it each year just carbon. Eleven hundred billion tons of it per year.”

“So,” Eleanor said “We go to hybrid cars. we put solar cells on the roof. We minimize our carbon footprint any way we can.”

“Not enough though,” our guest growled.

“Well what else is there,” I snapped back getting a bit pissed at this superior pooch.

“New ways of thinking,” the dog said. “Live in greenhouses in which you reclaim water, releasing latent heat, pulling CO2 out of the air you breathe. All sorts of complicated chemistry to make the air clean again. Mostly though, band together with like-minded people!”

“You’re an alien aren’t you?” Eleanor accused.

“No more than you are,” Leah reposted.

“But why are you telling us all this stuff?” Eleanor plead. “We already know what’s wrong. We’re saving up to do what we can for the environment. We’re getting a Prius next year. What else can we do?”

“There’s a number on my collar,” Leah declared. She got up came over to where I was standing. “Here, feel.”

I touched the modest band of leather and it’s appended tag, still feeling rather intrusive though I’d been given permission. There were engravings in the leather, vertical strokes and what might be arrows downward pointing.

“A phone number?” Eleanor wondered bending next to me to examine the markings. “It’s all in roman numerals.”

“Right,” Leah said. “You recognized the eights didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” She said. Then to me, “see, VIII VIII, VIII–“

Once started it was easy to follow, “V, V, V, five, five, five,” I took over. “I, VIII, VIII, IV.”

“See?” Leah put in. “Most people would just blow it off as some sort of decoration.”

“So we’re to call this number?” my wife asked, rising again.

“If you want to find other imaginative folks,” Leah told her, “People with the imagination to talk to a dog.”

Leah dropped then into dog conversational mode. She and Sally demanded outside, went sniffing about the yard, playing tug of war with Sally’s rope. After sharing silence with one another for quite a while I called.

A neutral-gender voice asked me if we owned our home, yes. Did either of us have a technical degree? Yes. How did we find out about this number? Yeah, I told the truth.

Now we’re involved with a not quite secret but shadowy movement, globe-spanning, with support from off-planet but locally administered. We’ve bought into a sort of habitat for humanity on steroids, building houses which help clean the air, recycling food, water, materials.

In the high mountains of Ecuador a catapult is being constructed to fling rock into space where processing facilities will refine silicon, printing solar cells for powersats. We’ve found all sorts of uses for pure carbon from graphite to diamond and economic incentives for mining it out of the atmosphere. We pretty much ignore the governments, especially our own. Most of our representatives are more focussed on staying in office than working global change and how could it be otherwise? As A.C. Clarke said, projects of this magnitude need to be funded by the century not by the fiscal year.

Once things got started and that was long before we joined, a critical mass was reached very the process has been snowballing since.

When The Donald and his ducklings, notice us now and then, quacking after just why we think we’re so smart, we tell them, “Next time a dog talks to you, listen why don’t you?”

-Glynda Shaw

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Story for the New Year

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Glynda Shaw, New Year, short story, speculative fiction

New Year’s Resolution

by Glynda Shaw

1.

We were in what passed for downtown. So far we’d been lucky with the snowfall. Little had been felt this year before New Years day which it was right now, that generally meant we’d have our major dumps in January and Feb. For now though, It looked like just another chilly day, rife for walking.

We’d set off from our rather modest house; a repo purchased for sixty thou, to this meagre remains of a business district. Objective? Have something hot and oily at the local Thai restaurant. We’d walked because the air was brisk and we feared the dulling effects of loitering around in stagnant air, or over-reliance on the Toyota Echo for mobility.

Standing now in front of Thai Cuisine, Eleanor read “Closed for New Year. Please have a safe and warm meal with family and friends.”

“Goddamnit!” I expostulated. “I know they’re closed for Oriental New Year. You’d think they could be open for our holiday!” I’d clamped my cane under my arm, preparatory to opening the restaurant’s door but now deployed it for further walking.

“Well,” Eleanor said “I don’t want to eat at Lynn’s. That place turns everything into a greaseball!”

Grease balls just now were sounding to me much better than total starvation, but my belly sometimes can be melodramatic. It was then that she noticed the dog.

“Oh baby,” Eleanor said. “Did you get lost?” The dog walked up to me, bumped against my knees, presented a rather large head to my hand. Feeling the top of the head I finger-traced the shark ridge atop and the bifurcation leading to each eye ridge. Lab or at least a mix. I patted the proffered brow. “Hi Sweetie,” I said. A long tongue came out, lolloping my hand.

“She’s so sweet,” Eleanor echoed what I was thinking. “Somebody must care about her.” I felt the head shaking to accompany the wagging of a very long tail.

“So,” I said “We’re not getting dinner here. What else is in walking distance?”

“That Mexican place,” Eleanor said. “And that other Chinese restaurant across the street that always takes about a hundred years and serves you only one thing at a time.”

“Dubious,” I decided. “Our friend here,” I patted the dog atop her shark-fin ridge, “Needs to eat too.” The dog seemed to nod as I said this.

Some folks don’t appear to know this but when confronted by a stray dog on New Year’s Day it’s really bad luck not to feed it. Bad luck accrues to anyone who is unkind or stingy to any animal any day of the year of course, but the new year definitely magnifies things, kind of double-dutch Karma if you can handle that.

“I guess we could make it to Jack in the box,” Eleanor suggested. “We could get a plain burger for her, maybe a bag of fries.”

“Suits,” I said. “I think there’s a Congressional mandate that JITB is open for on all federal holidays.”

“I feel sorry for those workers, though,” Eleanor said.

I did too but not quite as bad as I felt for my depleted belly.

Reaching the Jack in the Box drive-in, Eleanor started reading off the choices on the billboard as soon as we got into perusing range. “Chicken nuggets,” she sang out. The dog was walking along sort of pressed to my right knee. I felt this sidewise waggle.

“She’s shaking her head no,” I announced.

Eleanor laughed. “Well how about a Jumbo Jack?” she said. The dog seemed to be describing yes on my pant-leg. “I think we’re getting warmed,” I said. “She seems to approve.” I thought about it a moment then inquired, “How do we know she’s a she anyhow?”

“She looks like a girl,” Eleanor decreed. The dog nodded her head.

“You’re not supposed to walk up to the drive-in,” the barely legal Jack’s crew-member gargled through the speaker. “You gotta come in.”

“I’m not allowed to drive,” I told her. “Besides, I’ve got a dog.”

She seemed to take a while processing this.

“Hello?” I said.

“Order please?” she said.

As it turned out, we all got Jumbo jacks and two orders of fries to share. It was walking weather but not at all sitting weather so we decided to find a dumpster to stand beside and eat standing up. We carefully spread our friend’s portions including ample fries atop the bag on the cement. Dogs eat incredibly fast and this one was no exception. She was done much sooner than we.

“Well, good-bye, friendly dog,” I said, folding up my wrapper and sliding it into my side of the dumpster. We took turns patting that Labrador head.

“Go find your mama and daddy,” Eleanor coaxed as we turned toward home. Like suction cups on a sink mirror though, The Dog kept contact with my right leg and followed us.

You need to go home,” Eleanor repeated with some urgency in her voice. No response from our new friend and continuing companion.

We increased our pace but of course nobody can outrun a dog and she kept right along, jowl against my jeans.

“Where do you live?” Eleanor tried again, her voice gone plaintive.

“I could ask the same of you,” the dog said without rancour.

3.

“Are you shitting around with me?” Eleanor demanded, looking me-ward.

“Wouldn’t even consider it,” I protested. “It was you, wasn’t it, Girl?”

“Let’s get home,” the dog said. “I’m tired of this cold cement and I’m only about half full.” With an intro like that, who could do other than invite our friend home?

“Something I’ve always wanted to know,” I asked. “Do dogs have names for themselves? I mean do you just soak up whatever we humans hand you or is there some other name we never know about?”

“Names,” said the dog “are as much a matter of odour as they are sounds. We don’t use a special bark for one another say. We pretty much just know one another. The name thing is totally a human deal.”

“Well,” I said, “would it be too forward to ask what name you might have? I mean, were you given a name by anyone else–some human?”

“You could sniff my butt if you’re really interested in my identity,” the dog said, sounding matter-of-fact about it.

“Oh,” I said, “maybe later.”

“Yeah,” said the dog. “so far as the human moniker thing goes, I got one of those hung on me a while back. It’s Leah.”

“Leah?” Eleanor said then. “That’s a nice name.”

“A family I was with for a while had a female child named Rachel and there seemed to be something really humorous about me being named Leah while she was Rachel.” Leah said. “Some sorts of humour deal I’ll probably never get.”

“So,” Eleanor took over again, “You’ve had a home?”

“Yes, several,” Leah,” said. “In each case it didn’t really work out.”

“Work out?” Eleanor repeated, “Were they cruel to you, poor thing?”

“Not cruel necessarily,” Leah said. “Just inattentive, more than anything else.” She was silent for a few beats then “You know,” she said, I’ve been looking for you two for quite a while now.”

“You have?” I asked. “How come?”

“Several reasons,” Leah said. “You’ve got all the right visuals, you’ve got on what look like secondhand clothes, neither of you smell all of cosmetics and the like. You’re walking while everyone else is driving. Mostly though, we’re talking. I guess I’ve never really gotten over that hurdle before.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I can see that’d be a problem.”

“Rather,” Leah said. “The first person I tried it with dove head-first into a bottle then kept me up all night jabbering about not much of anything at all. Next morning he gave me a steak bone and showed me out the door. Next one, a woman thought she was having a psychotic melt-down and called for an ambulance. I ended up in a van destined for the local animal shelter. I was a bit of a while escaping from that. The two of you just stand here talking with a dog like nothing’s particularly unusual.”

“Well,” Eleanor said, “I guess we’ve always talked to our dogs.”

“Yeah?” Leah inquired, “but do you spend any time listening to what they have to say back?”

“Mmm,” I said, “I guess we would if they said anything. I assume we’ve been proving that point for the last five minutes or so.”

In a seeming change of subject Leah said “To be really sure, I need to have a look around your home. I perceive we’re close.”

“To be sure of what?” I demanded, “and how would you know where we live. Have you been shadowing us?”

“You walk a lot,” Leah explained. “Your scents are all over the place.”

“Oh.”

“So,” Eleanor said “are you planning to stay a while or what?”

“We’ll see,” Leah said. “First though we’ll talk some more.”

Coming to the edere of our rather generous yard, only 60 feet along the front sidewalk, owerging rearward to nearly twice that; “Hey a ball!” Leah bark-shouted. Leaving my side, she was back in a moment with a ball meant for horses but managed handily by Sally our Blue Heeler. Leah dropped it against my shoe. “Toss this for it me a few times will you?” she asked.

I obliged, lofting the thing by its carry handle across the yard. Panting and growling playfully Leah intercepted the ball on the fly, bringing it back to fall at my feet. After a half dozen cycles Leah let go of the bully-ball. “Thanks,” she said, “Couldn’t resist that. Guess it’s in the genes, sort of like F-ing up the ecosphere is in yours?”

“Say what?” Eleanor and I said together.

“Do you know how many trees we’ve planted, how many low on the food chain meals we’ve eaten, how many times we’ve turned the thermostat down, refused to use an air conditioner? We compost, recycle, as you pointed out we wear hand me over clothes!” Eleanor ran out of steam, stood spluttering.

“Yeah,” I said, “What she said.”

“I know, I know,” Leah raised a paw, letting it fall on my knee. Your hearts are in the right place. That’s why I’m talking to you, not your neighbour over there,” she nosed left, “with the ride-on lawnmower or your other neighbour,” she nosed right, “with cement over most of his yard.”

From inside Sally was setting off her customary flurry of barking. She’d have been out here with us hadn’t we planned to go to a sit-down restaurant dinner. “Sounds like somebody I should meet,” Leah said.

“Sally,” I said. “Well come on in and get acquainted.”

Leah bowed slightly. “Charmed I’m sure,” she said. We had the expected log-jam in the open doorway, Sally and Leah sniffing each other, engaging in mock combat.

“Girls!” Eleanor barked in her turn. “In or out!” The two dogs melted away into the living room, sprawling companionably on the rug.

“Sally,” I said. “Can you talk too?”

Sally made a low rumbling noise. “She says she generally doesn’t have anything to say,” Leah explained. “Besides it’s so much cuter to do the charades thing to let you know what she wants.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve heard that line before.” I bent way down, patting Sally’s head, feeling a little self-conscious in doing so. Was I being patronizing, or did Leah expect a pat too?

3.

“Now” I asked, “what’s this about us ruining the environment. By the way, do you want anything more to eat?”

After Sally and our guest had shared some kibble (buffalo and sweet potato with blueberry) out of separate dishes and water out of a common bowl, Leah belched, excused herself. Sally belched, not nearly so loud, looked to us for affirmation, said nothing. “It’s the carbon you know,” Leah declared.

“You mean greenhouse effect?” Eleanor inquired, “all that?”

“All that,” Leah agreed. “So much of that stuff in the air that you could build many buildings out of it each year. Eleven hundred billion tons per year.”

“So,” Eleanor said, “We go to hybrid cars. We put solar cells on the roof. We minimize our carbon footprint any way we can.”

“Not enough though,” our guest growled.

“Well what else is there,” I snapped, back getting a bit pissed at this superior pooch.

“New ways of thinking,” the dog said. “Live in greenhouses in which you reclaim water, releasing latent heat, pulling CO2 out of the air you breathe. All sorts of complicated chemistry to make the air clean again. Mostly though, band together with likeminded people!”

“You’re an alien aren’t you?” Eleanor accused.

“No more than you are,” Leah reposted.

“But why are you telling us all this stuff?” Eleanor plead. “We already know what’s wrong. We’re saving up to do what we can for the environment. We’re getting a Prius next year. What else can we do?”

“There’s a number on my collar,” Leah declared. She got up came over to where I was standing. “Here, feel.” I touched the modest band of leather and it’s appended tag, feeling rather intrusive though I’d been given permission. There were engravings in the leather, vertical strokes and what might be arrows downward pointing.

“A phone number?” Eleanor wondered bending next to me to examine the markings. “It’s all in roman numerals.”

“Right,” Leah said. “You recognized the eights didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” She said. Then to me, “see, VIII VIII, VIII–”

Once started it was easy to follow, “V,V,V,,” I took over. “I, I, IV.”

“See?” Leah put in. “Most people would just blow it off as some sort of artwork.”

“So we’re to call this number?” my wife asked, rising again.

“If you want to find other imaginative folks,” Leah told her, “People with the imagination to talk to a dog.”

Leah dropped then into dog conversational mode. She and Sally demanded outside, went sniffing about the yard, playing tug of war with Sally’s rope. After sharing silence with one another for quite a while I called the number.

A neutral gender voice asked me if we owned our home, yes. Did either of us have a technical degree? Yes. How did we find out about this number? Yeah, I told the truth.

Now we’re involved with a not quite secret but shadowy project, globe-spanning, with support from off-planet but locally administered. We’ve bought into a sort of Habitat For Humanity on steroids, building houses which help clean the air, recycling food, water, materials. In the high mountains of Ecuador a catapult is being constructed to fling rock into space where processing facilities will refine silicon for printing solar cells. We’ve found all sorts of uses for pure carbon and economic incentives for mining it out of the atmosphere. We pretty much ignore the governments, especially our own. Most of our representatives are more focussed on staying in office than working global change and how could it be otherwise?

As Arthur C. Clarke said, projects of this magnitude need to be funded by the century not by the fiscal year.

Once things got started, and that was long before we joined, a critical mass was reached then the process snowballed.

When The Donald and his ducklings, notice us now and then and quack about just why we think we’re so smart, we tell them, “Next time a dog talks to you, listen why don’t you?”

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Poem by Glynda – State of Mind

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by Rohvannyn | Filed under Glynda's Writings

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Poem – Winter Solstice

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Glynda Shaw, Solstice, yule

The earth lays aslumber as

Mother Nature pulls her white coverlet

Across the browning fields.

Though nearer now, to Sun’s burning

Than in those blooming days

The globe averts her visage now,

Shying for the Dreamtime,

A time of garnering warmth and

Exhilarating in the chill.

A standing still time.

A time for recollecting

And of foretelling.

The time of offering friendship and

Of Wishing well.

-Glynda Shaw

Author Feature

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

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Welcome to another Friday Feature. Today we have Glynda Shaw, who has written several rather interesting books. We have both a Q&A and a short bio at the end. Glynda, welcome to Mindflight! How do you get inspired to write? I think the thing that most inspires me to write is in reexamining my past […]

via Luck of the Scottish – Glynda Shaw, Authoress — Mindflight

Family Zoo

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

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Family Zoo
From my downhill paddock field I bray

“It’s breakfast time and bless this day!”

While plotting to elude the door

We three mew greetings on

The second Sunday, May.
I who from the snow came in,

One January Eve.

I who watch from the sidelines,

Yet in my way I care.
And I who reached to you

Through steel cage bars, aggrieved

When at first you went away,

But now you’ll never leave!

And you won’t be forgetting us, We girls mismatched,

Of forest, field and games of catch.

Those joyous wanderings we have with you.

We chickens and

Turkey too, join in,

Adding to the Maytime din!
For each cup of exotic chow,

For every feed of grain,

For every thatch of grass or clover pulled,

We wish your heart with peace be full.

For you the bright sunshine remains,

Your sight be filled with smiling muzzles,

Watching eyes and paws outstretched.

A joyous bark, A yowl and loud hee-Haw!

Marks this, your special Mother’s Day.

 

 

Written by Glynda Shaw, illustrated by Rohvannyn Shaw.

Solution for a messy problem

04 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Cooking and Home-making, Glynda's Writings

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composting, pickling, radishes, salads

Our local grocery store overwaters their produce and items are likely to arrive home wet.  I eat radishes as a low-calorie snack on my morning break and was often discomfited by the tendancy for the folliage with which radishes generally arrive, to become rotten in the fridge.  I’d been in the habit recently of pulling off the leafy stuff and composting it then washing the radishes.

More recently though I got wondering about the edible potential of radish greens.  Neither the donkey nor the chickens will eat them but I found that when steamed, these leaves and stems make a tasty addition to any tossed vegetable medley.

The radishes still could languish forgotten in a bag, behind stuff, in the fridge so one day I dropped the newly-separated radishes into a jar of dill pickel juice.  After several days the little globes pick up a pleasantly soured taste.  With repeated usage, the pickle brine becomes dilute so with every three or four radish bunches I pour off maybe a half cup of juice and replace it with vinigar.  My radishes don’t go bad any longer and we’re eating what used to go back into the soil.  I think that’s a definition of win-win!

Glynda Shaw

“Domnel, where’s your trusers?!”

14 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

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Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, political debate, sexism

I’ve had comparatively little to say about the upcoming election because most of what I’d have to say has been already said by countless folks. There is a concern I have however that I’ve not heard otherwise uttered. The closer we’ve come to the election, we’ve heard increasingly more damning things about Donald Trump, first, his various business dealings then his disrespect of women and other groups, his indiscretions on camera and among a male grouping, now his invasion of a womens’ locker room at a Miss Teen Pageant, his sexualizing of a ten-year-old girl and his putting his hand up the dress of a First Class seat mate on a commercial airliner. While I have absolutely no problem believing all of this I continue to have the question Why? Not why did he do it but why weren’t we told a long time ago, like when there was some practical possibility of doing something about it?

There appears to be some fund of Donald’s past misdeeds, the custody of which appears to belong to an individuals or individuals, who are feeding information to the general public in a precalculated and quite cynical fashion. It’s pretty plain to me that someone quite high in the Democratic Hierarchy has become quite frightened that Mr. Trump will actually be elected and though at first, conventional political mud slinging appeared to be sufficient to squelch him, now something other than mud might be required. For some reason however, these lurid episodes from Donald’s past and present are a little too hot to handle comfortably, perhaps a bit too much like liable? For the holder thereof to release, and feel quite comfortable about it. What is to be brought out next? Baby cannibalism? Drugs in the Trump Tower water cooler? Incest? Lobotomization of female staff (and likely quite a few of the male supporters too) and why are we required to wait? What is the big secret that’s being saved for last?

I being totally blind, don’t get the visual signs from Mr. Trump, his evidently predatory stalking of Senator Clinton all over the stage during debates, his evidently intrusive holding and kissing of his daughter en camera and doubtless, lots of other things. Also being blind as well as being not unskilled at reading people, I am a counselor and a social worker; I perhaps more than most people, hear a certain little boy hurtfulness in Donald, a sort of sense that he feels picked on and would like to have friends if only he knew how to make them. While I’ll never vote for him, nor do I approve of much of what he says or how he acts, I can’t truly hate Donald Trump. I guess in my innermost caretaker self, I’d like to give him a big chocolate chip cookie and maybe a tall glass of Scots whiskey! (Yeah, I know he’d probably sell it at an inflated price then make fun of me!  Don’t bother.)

I’ve supported Hilary to one degree or another because I rather admired how she appeared to keep her dignity during the Billygate with Monica and all that. Also she’s a woman and as a feminist I would like to see a woman president before I die. In saying this however I am aware of the inherent hypocrisy in assuming because someone is female, she is entitled to my vote. Feminism is supposed to stand for the rights of all people and of course it generally doesn’t anymore than any of the other isms. As someone who loves our country deeply in spite of our history since Watergate to the present era of robot bombing (under a liberal administration) I’ve entertained a perhaps forlorn hope. The hope that a woman, a mother and grandmother will bring a different perspective to the bloodstained arena of world politics. I can’t honestly say that Hilary brings that motherly, goddess-like wisdom to the table and that anything she offers will depart from what we have now. Yes I know she fought for children and minorities since way back when but in the era during which she began and built her career, standing up for minorities was becoming the passport to future success in the same way that today, politicians wishing to secure future tenure, find it expedient to support gay and trans causes. Hilary gained a lot more from her stands than she risked, which is not to say that the causes themselves were inappropriate or wrong. Still when Hilary Clinton’s supporters trumpet about her record working with minorities and children, my response is “What else should she have been doing?”

There is no significant doubt in my mind that both of our leading contenders for President this year are crooked as a dog’s hind leg and by this I mean no disrespect to dogs. They use their anatomies pretty well for self protection but dogs in most cases harbor a certain loyalty to those people who keep and feed them. One wonders whether this can be said for either Hilary or Donald. Again like in the last several elections; we are asked to decide not who would be the best for the job but rather which one do we think will do the least damage. It’s sad. I’m making myself depressed. The subject is easily tiring. But oh yes, what will be the next Big Surprise and from which vault will it be drawn?

Glynda Shaw

Interactivity

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings, Science

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co-planting, gardening, soil nutrient

Originally posted on May 29, 2014 at 1:35 AM

About a week ago I heard a feature of NPR in which a restaurateur discussed his holistic approach to serving organic food. Tomatoes were popular on his menu and since tomatoes require a good deal of nitrogen to grow, he co-planted legumes with his tomatoes in the dedicated restaurant garden, in order to maintain the nitrogen balance of the soil. He said that if he were to serve tomatoes, he needed to serve legumes in the same meal to ensure that wastage didn’t occur. A similar practice was observed among the Natives of the American Southwest, who co-planted corn, beans and squash which formed the basis of their diet. This arrangement balanced soil nitrogen, conserved water and provided a “Complementary” food diet, making the major nutrients available.

I wondered how many people today and in this nation, think about using something because it occurs as a byproduct, or “coproduct” of something already in use. I’ve tried to do this sort of thing for many years. For instance when I make beer I try to get my egg-layers to eat the non-alcoholic, high-protein mash. When I’ve made Gluten from wheat, I’ve tried to find ways to use the starch and fiber which are left over from the sticky protein extraction process.

Villages, then towns, finally cities developed largely because farmers were sufficiently successful in tilling the fields to make it possible for some people to leave the farm and take up crafts. Since it was easier for everybody to go to one place to find most of the crafters in the area, communities tended to develop. We’re still doing that sort of thing today with our industrial parks and our Silicon Valleys etc. When people moved away from the natural interactivity of the ancient farm however, production processes became more and more isolated in the sense that individual processes operated more or less in isolation and did not necessarily feed back into the overall ecology which keeps the planet alive.

While a tree cut down on a farm might be burned for winter fuel and the ashes put into the soil to grow perhaps corn or cabbages, a tree cut down and hauled to the city to make a table for instance, might yield it’s best heart and sap wood to the artisan while bark, branches and shavings might molder in a pile or if burned, might never again reach the soil. These processes have progressed to the point that a modern farm may send away all of it’s produce to a foreign country and be fertilized with ammonia generated from petroleum or natural gas. The land is merely a stopping place for material streams to touch down and interact for a time.

The problem with this is that “Balance” is virtually impossible when there is no real concept or practice of “Residency” keeping materials at the point of origin to whatever extent is possible. Ideally the restaurant should not only be located by a garden/farm but should water the garden with dish water and provide composting toilets for paIMG_0040.jpgtrons.

In order to take advantage of distributed energy such as sun and wind and to slow the loss of vital minerals, I think we must think in terms where possible, of small businesses/factories/shops which either recycle their own scraps, either making a secondary product or exchanging with neighboring businesses. An example of the first option is a business in Western Washington, near Mount Vernon, where cow manure is anaerobically fermented to yield methane gas for fuel and liquid effluent for agricultural fertilizer. Some cellulose residue is left over from the process and this is dried and pressed into biodegradable planting pots. If an alcohol operation can’t suitably process it’s grain residue then a feed producer or bakery might be enlisted. Carbon dioxide given off by the fermentation process can feed a green house. Even a coal-burning power plant, generating millions of kilowatt hours of waste heat per year, might heat an algae pond or evaporate seawater.

No these ideas aren’t new nor are they simple but if we wear cotton, do we find a use for cotton seed oil? If we use wood for fuel do we see to it that the ash returns to the soil—somewhere? If we grow a lawn do we even consider feeding the grass clippings to chickens, cows, anything? Obviously we won’t always know what else is produced along with something we’re used to consuming or which things are consumed to make that thing we use but we can find out and even in so doing, we become more aware of how the system which supports us all works and become more sensitive to the complexities upon which we depend.

Time Rewrinkled

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Glynda's Writings

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a wrinkle in time, tessering

Originally posted on May 23, 2014 at 8:40 PM

Yesterday I was thinking about Madeleine L’Engle’s incredible children’s novel “A Wrinkle in Time” and how it has passed into the realm of moral and social commentary since I read it in November 1963, and as we original readers grew toward Seniority. The book has many things to offer and is still worth rereading but the engrossing nugget of the story, this Tessering Thing, this leaping through space without benefit of spaceship or matter transmitter; this concept that resolved me to take physics in college, long after I ceased believing in my ability to Tesser, seems to have been largely neglected.

In reading reviews of Wrinkle online and descriptions of the Tessering process, it seems that nobody (at least nobody I’ve found) has thought much about how tessering really works on a practical level. I don’t mean exactly how it can be made practical for you and me, but how do we think the three W. Ladies and Dr. Murray made it work.

Tesser of course comes from the term Tesseract which in geometry means an hypercube, which can be represented by placing eight cubes at the corners of a larger, imaginary cube. It’s what a cube is supposed to look like in four dimensions. Don’t worry about that so much though, how do we use the concept of four dimensions, (or as Ms. L’engle described it, five dimensions) to travel from one planet to another? When we first read the book, my friend and I mined the text, reading the book over and over for clues. What was that blue liquid Mrs. (Dr.) Murray was processing in her home lab the afternoon Meg Brought Calvin home for dinner? What was the significance of Mr. (Dr.) Murray grabbing Meg’s wrist as he Tessered them off that frightening planet of Camazotz? (A planet in fact, which reminds one more and more of contemporary America.) Why did Dr. Murray (father) tell Calvin while Megt was trying to unthaw on Aunt Beast’s Planet that the scientific team that developed Tessering on earth wondered if the process might simply cause one to disintegrate? I know I spent hour upon hour trying to get my head around being able to transport off a planet, possibly through structures, to some other place entirely.

Whether ESP was having a renaissance at around the time I read Wrinkle or I just happened to stumble upon the concept at the time, I somehow got hold of the idea that tessering had something to do with the mind. Nobody seemed to have any little pocket devices or any essoteric elements about them when it happened. I thought perhaps there was more than one way to make it happen but perhaps if two minds could connect in a particular way, perhaps this mind-melding might also somehow warp time and space and cause a physical body (like mine) to shift to some distant place and since nobody knew how large these effects might turn out to be, perhaps one could leap between star systems through Tessering. Of course this gave no hint how a person might aim for a given destination unless one could visualize the destination as one tessered. Also why could Dr. (Mr.) Murray tesser all by himself, though he missed Mars and wound up on the C. Planet?

Only twice have I found references to tessering that suggested the mind might be involved. In the Wrinkle in Time movie the Tesseract appears to be some sort of universal phenomenon/structure? Into which people can somehow tap, sort of like an interstelar tramline I guess. Well that’s fine too though the original question remains how does one tap in? With the mind? With some sort of conditioning? With some sort of technology we don’t get to see? I think I’d have been happier with Wrinkle as a book had Ms. L’engle given us a hint. (It has to do with some mental techniques a psychophysicist taught us, Guys).  This concept, via a drug worked well enough in The House on the Strand by Daphne Dumaurier, for time travel. Perhaps though, is she had directed us toward PSI or extrasensory phenomena, I might not have developed a fascination with physics.

About a year after I read wrinkle I was told by a Responsible Adult, a woman in her mid-20s, that if four people sat around a metal card table, with one on the north, one on the south, two on the west, leaving the east open; and if everyone places her/his fingertips on the table and thought the same thing at the same time, the table would raise off the floor. Does this really work? I can talk about mechanical forces, the enrgy needed to lift a table compared to the amount of energy produced by four brains and it seems like a marginal possibility, but has anyone tried it? Perhaps I shouldn’t have stopped believing in a personal ability to tesser. Who knows?

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