Rae Roy's Blog, page 79

Wonder Wednesday: The Call to Write

Image created using Bit Strips.

Today, I am wondering if my writing will ever accurately portray the story to the reader as I see it in my mind. I expect this is something all writers struggle with but it gnaws at me. This niggling feeling in the back of my mind says I’m not good enough.

But is it really our job to make them see every bit the same as we do? Or is it to provide the reader with enough to spark their imagination, so they can fill in the gaps?

Perhaps it’s somewhere in between those two extremes; in the Goldilocks zone.

When I think about my characters, I smile as though they are my best friends and I am enjoying their recount of the latest shenanigans we all got into. Indeed, sometimes I even laugh out loud because they feel that real to me.

I want my readers to know them as well as I do. Or at least pretty close. I like keeping some secrets.

I’m on a writing break right now, and my characters keep bugging me to get back to their story. I keep telling them to be patient because my house needs cleaning and I’m trying to wait to make more changes while the current version is being judged in a contest. They can be such brats. I bet they’ll sulk once I’m ready to get back to them. The living room/dining room/entrance/and kitchen are mostly clean. My bedroom/office is a disaster, though. Let me clean my writing nook at least!

“But writing will make you a better writer”, they urge.

I suppose I could write some new scenes while I’m waiting…

Fine, Josy, you win!

Dammit.

She’s almost as stubborn as I am.

Well, it looks like I have writing to do.

Ciao,

R~

PS. Yes, my site looks different for now. I’m troubleshooting a problem where image captions don’t display and one of the steps was to change themes. The other theme I had seems to be non-existent now but I like this one enough that I may just keep it. Hmm, I may have just figured out a workaround… Avoid using “Featured Image” and just insert the picture into the post.

Merry Monday: Father’s Day Weekend

For Father’s Day, I took a trip to visit the family. The drive was frustrating as people wanted to go about 10 below the speed limit. Also, there were some motorcycle enthusiasts who couldn’t pass cars in an appropriate amount of time.

I arrived Friday around 4:45pm, chucked a gluten free pizza in their oven, ate half the pizza, and got gussied up for a wake. My next door neighbor of almost thirty years passed away earlier in the week. He was very ill due to diabetes and kidney disease and is no longer suffering. But he will be missed. He made a mean Rusty Nail and loved getting into mischief.

On Saturday, I shopped. I had forgotten my phone charger and was trying to make plans with friends as I watched the battery dwindle. It shut off mid conversation with my brother. I bought some other things as well such as several new to me LPs between $2 and $5 each including:

– Fine Young Cannibals “Fine Young Cannibals”

– Bryan Adams “You Want It, You Got It”

– The Buddy Holly Story

– The Sound of Music

– Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe

– Amadeus

– Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons

– Warsaw Concerto

– Beethoven “Moonlight Sonata” and Chopin

– Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music (Boston Pops Orchestra)

– Morton Gould and His Orchestra “Greensleeves”

– 101 Strings Play The World’s Great Standards

Yes. My music taste is all over the map, though it’s predominately Alternative Rock if I had to pick a favourite genre.

I also got the two other Uncharted games for the PS3 and one dungeon crawler because those are fun and bring me back to the Dark Age of Camelot and Diablo days. They were used games, so inexpensive too[image error]

Oh, yeah it was Father’s Day Weekend, but also it’s close to my birthday, so I got presents too. My mom got me the parts to make pasta and grind meat for my mixer. Also two gluten free cookbooks. And all that stuff I bought was with my birthday money.

Saturday afternoon had me relaxing in the air conditioning while watching Thor 2. Somehow I didn’t know it existed but 2013 was a rough year for me. Next was dinner with the family. Then I hung out with friends and played the commander format of Magic the Gathering, which was a lot of fun! Now I want to find a green deck…

Sunday morning, a brother and I took dad to hit some golf balls. I didn’t do too bad! I should definitely check out the places in Ottawa this year.

I arrived back home on Sunday to sweltering heat. It wasn’t fun cleaning up for the maintenance guy to install a door this morning. I took it slow and drank plenty of fluids. Once the sun began to set, I opened my windows more. Also, not wearing pants helped with the high heat

Funky Friday: Light in the Darkness

Let’s face it, the world has been awful for a lot of people lately. Are mass shootings happening more frequently? In 2014, the data said no. In 2015, the data said yes. Did it really change that much in one or two years? I don’t have answers, only questions.

The thing is, we can cause ourselves pain in constantly ruminating on an issue we feel powerless to do anything about. Normally, my advice is to break something down into smaller chunks to find the pieces that can be fixed by me. The thing is, many of these issues feel too big to me. What can I do about the mass shootings in the U.S.? I’m not even a citizen of the U.S.

It’s quite like the wars overseas. I feel powerless to help them too. Indeed, a friend went over there and came to the conclusion that outside help is making the problem worse; they need empowerment to clean their own houses. Someone from outside is impartial and objective but will ignore key details that those involved require and thus fuck everything up worse.

I’m not saying it’s time to move on. I always wonder whether my signature counts when I sign a petition for another country. That’s something I can do but is it helpful? Does it matter whose names are on the petition?

I always wonder whether my signature counts when I sign a petition for another country. That’s something I can do but is it helpful? Does it matter whose names are on the petition?

I can be an ally to my friends who are emotionally affected by such tragedies. And if any want to talk, I think they know I’m available.

But what can I do to help fix the problem? Generally, one must determine the root cause to solve a problem. The thing is, we don’t know what the root cause is. So many weigh in each time tragedy strikes. On the list is upbringing, nationality, religion, insanity, stress, sexual orientation, peer pressure, bullying, PMS, jealousy, hatred, and it goes on.

But I do think something needs to be done. Maybe a “go fund me” should be set up to find the root cause of these horrible things. I have no idea how it would work. I’m completely out of my depth on this. Maybe looking at other countries that don’t have this problem will help? I know our education system here has a focus on healthy expressions of anger. I’ve always been taught to get my anger and frustration out in healthy ways like art (writing, painting, building), fitness (martial arts). and therapy. Maybe we have a larger focus on gun safety and certification that ensures users aren’t mentally unstable? What about the European countries? Again, I really have no clue.

Because I’m accepting that I don’t know any better than anyone else, I’m choosing to focus on things I can do something about. Right now, all I can really handle is cleaning my own home, writing stories, and living my life.

I really like this quote and hope it helps others through these sad times:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” — Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

A lot of things that happened this week.

Personal

Sad: My old next door neighbour passed away. I’ve known the man since I was six years old. It’s still not really real to me. He was the same age as my father. It’s father’s day weekend and his kids have no father to celebrate it with.
Hurt: I managed to reinjure my neck and shoulder by sitting at a booth in a restaurant.
Torn: I’m excited to see my dad this weekend for Father’s Day. I feel a little guilty about that because there are so many without fathers for whatever reason.
Happy: I opened a new section of FREE Flash Fiction on my site. I hope people enjoy the little stories I put up. Feel free to comment on them. Many of them are experimentations, so please let me know what you liked and didn’t like about them.

Ottawa

Hope: A life was saved. Good things can still happen in this world.
Worried: Lyme disease is on the rise in the Ottawa area. As I quite enjoy geocaching, I’m worried about this. Also, the treatments for Lyme disease are inadequate.

World

Hopeless: Orlando. I don’t have adequate words for this. It doesn’t make sense. These things never do. I want them to stop happening. Stop the hatred of others. Live and let live.

Well, I’m off to shower, eat lunch, and finish packing. Then it’s a car ride East and slightly North to see the folks.

Ciao,

R~

New Section! – FLASH

I’ve added a new FREE content section for little stories that I write for fun or to improve my writing skills.

There’s only one story up currently, but there will be more in time.

Check it out here!

Wonder WTF Wednesday: It’s all the same sickness

I’m sorry for this post, but the world is sick and I just need to get this out of my head.

There are lots of other awful things I won’t talk about today, but two I do want to talk about. There are boys being raised who don’t understand they’ve done wrong when they’ve raped girls. There are people who think killing others is an acceptable way to deal with their personal issues. And there are politicians wanting to exploit these situations rather than fix anything, but that’s par for the course.

What the actual fuck?!

I first drank alcohol at age 16. In high school, we partied whenever we had the opportunity. There were a couple of occasions that I passed out from over-drinking. Most of my friends were male. Guess what? They treated drunk me the same as their drunk male buddies. They didn’t try to have sex with me or their buddies. In fact, they watched to ensure no one tried that bullshit. They didn’t feel entitled to my body. Any that were interested in me in a romantic way knew it was a thousand times more enjoyable to have a willing partner actively engaged with them and waited for a day that I wasn’t passed out drunk to show their interest in me.

I’m the beginning of the millennial generation. I was not raised to blame the teacher if I got a bad grade. I was raised that you take responsibility for your actions. You live with the consequences. If I got a bad grade, it was nearly always because I was being a lazy student. I had one math teacher that was awful, though. I tried getting help from him and he wouldn’t help me. What did I do about it? I got help from a different math teacher, so I could pass his class. I got help from classmates too. I took responsibility for my own shit.

You’re not entitled to kill other people when life gets hard for you either! EVERYONE living in North America knows killing other humans is wrong. There is literally no excuse for his behaviour. Even if he truly is struggling with his sexual orientation. I’ve had more than a few friends struggle with this. One friend was excommunicated from his church. It was very painful for him as he loved his church and the people that attended it. He didn’t shoot others to deal with the pain of it. He talked to his friends. He accepted the reality that coming out meant his life was going to change.

I believe part of the problem is how we’re raising children today. I agree there’s no need for physical violence. But I don’t think we should be worrying more about our friendship with our children than whether or not we’re raising assholes.*

I’m not a parent, yet. I do want to be someday soon. What am I waiting for? I’m looking for someone who doesn’t want to raise entitled shitheads,  someone who treats me properly, and someone who has a social conscience. There are other elements to my match, but those are a few of them specific to child rearing.

In my opinion, the job of a parent is a huge responsibility. You are a role model. You are supposed to strive to produce children that are good humans. Good humans respect other humans. If you treat your spouse like crap, your child will learn to treat their partners like crap.

When you find your kid hitting another kid, you don’t excuse it because he or she had a bad day or life has been a little uncomfortable lately. Guess what? Life is full of uncomfortable and shitty days. Your job is to teach them to behave properly. Find a way to make them understand that hitting is not acceptable. Correct them repeatedly until they get it. Some kids get really frustrated and need something like a stress ball to squeeze. That’s what worked for one couple I know. They didn’t say their kid is a boy and allow him to continue hitting people because ‘boys will be boys’. No, they said hitting is wrong and corrected his behaviour. They did their job.

Because parenting isn’t a hobby. It’s not a thing you do in between your real life. What you do as a parent will reflect on generations to come.

I will never understand the need to kill others who hold different religious beliefs. But if you were to attempt to categorize my belief system you’d find I’m a Unitarian Universalist. I don’t understand the need to agree with the parts of any religion that we know lead to self-hatred to the degree of killing others**. I don’t understand the need to avoid proper healthy adult relationships, which we know drives priests to sexually abuse boys. I don’t understand the need to accept any hateful acts prescribed by old men who claim they spoke to God. What makes sense to me? Be kind to your neighbours and everyone else. Help others where possible. Stand up against bullying. Don’t kill people. Don’t rape people. Don’t abuse animals or other humans.

I wonder, will it ever truly get better?

This is something I worry about. I want to bring children into this world, but should I? Should I raise children in the hopes that they will help improve the world or is it shitty of me to put them through living in this world?

I have more questions than answers, but I like what Chuck Wendig has said about this all.

Again, sorry for all the ranting.

Ciao,

R~

* Thankfully, most of my friends get this. Their kids get told no frequently.

**It has not yet been confirmed whether or not the gunman was a closet homosexual. All we know is that he was full of hatred.

Merry Monday: This Relaxation Thang

It’s weird “relaxing”. I’m interspersing it with getting things done around the house.

I’ve hung a bunch of things on my walls such as art, medals, and diplomas. I’ve learned not to trust any “damage less” hanging things. Everything I’ve hung up lately in that way fell off the walls on Saturday. It was really annoying. I felt like everything I had worked on had been pointless, but I switched to nails to fix it for good. Really, nails don’t make large holes anyway. I’ve done almost all of my laundry and I’m working through the dishes.  I’ve planted peas, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, scallions, flowers, kale, dill, and basil. I’ve organized my guitar sheet music.

I’ve played hard too. I watched the Martian and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, it was the first new movie in a very long time that I wished hadn’t ended. Conversely, I also watched the new Captain America and was bored and disappointed by what has been done to the character. I’m catching up on Bates Motel. Norman has finally cracked and I’m wondering when the next season will come to Netflix Canada. I’ve also been playing a variety of video games. The list includes Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360), Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3), and Final Fantasy X HD Remaster (PS3). I’ve enjoyed playing Uncharted the most. I’m not generally a first person shooter gamer. Indeed, I often prefer games like Mario, Lego Harry Potter, Little Big Planet, etc. Uncharted has a good amount of non-shooting play time and a great story that has me coming back to it. Confession: I actually like shooting games; I’m just terrible at aiming with a thumbstick. Take me back to the days of Duck Hunt and Virtua Cop where it was a gun pointed at the screen.

I’ve played guitar nearly every day. I’m going to start playing along with videos to ensure I can play what’s already in my repertoire at the proper speed. I want to get an amp for my guitar and a case. The case I need before winter, so I can store it properly with a humidifier to prevent neck twist. I’m getting better at techniques like pull-ons and hammer-ons. They’re fun.

I’m also working on my French learning again. I will speak that language. I’m more stubborn than it is difficult! I have too many French family members to give up. I’ve told myself that I need to remember I wasn’t born speaking English fluently either.

On Sunday, my sensei pulled off a delicious BBQ despite the nobs melting off his BBQ. We cut mats (tameshigiri) with live bladed swords. I will remember to take my socks off in the future as they didn’t provide me with the best footing on hardwood floors. That sword was either much lighter than those used in previous years, or I’m stronger than I used to be. I hit the floor once with it. I need to get better at stopping the blade.

I learned that while I seem to be able to eat most gluten-free foods OK now, cider is not my friend. I’m still ridding myself of a headache that drinking it brought on. Oh well, I’ll just stick to vodka.

I’m already feeling the pull to work on my other novels. This relaxation thing seems to be hard for me. I’m spending a lot of time knocking other things off my to-do list. I suppose it’s because I’m my father’s daughter.

31 days to go.

Ciao,

R~

Funky Friday: Week of June 10th

Well, it’s been a strange week.

Personal

Tired: I raced feverishly at the beginning to meet my deadline and submit my novel for the Half the World competition. The next day, I thought I would be tired. It wasn’t until Wednesday that the tiredness came. But I wonder if the tiredness was because of all the pushing I have been doing on the novel, or because I started working out?
Sore: On Wednesday morning, I did a 7 minute HIIT workout. On Thursday morning, I did some belly dance. On Friday morning, I was supposed to do HIIT again, but I’m still sore and needed to give blood.
Productive: I played quite a lot of guitar, finished planting my vegetables, and am making headway on my messy home.
Relaxed: I watched a movie without feeling guilty because I wasn’t writing. Also, been playing video games without guilt. Feels so weird.
Thrilled: I have been able to eat both yeast and cheese without having any allergic reactions! Man, did I miss the taste of real cheese!!!

Ottawa

Shocked: The sinkhole. A fair-sized chunk of the downtown core was swallowed up by the earth. This necessitated evacuations due to gas leaks. There were also broken water mains. A minivan fell in and is likely lost forever. Somehow, no one was hurt or killed. Many were pointing blame, but it seems the cause was the water main break rather than the LRT, Harper, or Trudeau.
Cold: It’s been a chilly week in Ottawa. I’m glad the weekend is predicting more seasonal temperatures.

World (*Warning, NSFW due to strong language and upsetting content*)

Angry: Another privileged white kid got off with barely a slap on the wrist for raping an innocent girl. I wish it was just this one case, but there are too many that have gotten out of their crimes like this. It’s sick that it continues to happen. I wrote a bit of a song about it that isn’t attacking any particular person because there are sadly many more of them:

It’s Up To You And Me

Rapists go free in this society

Their victims take the torture and blame

Because they are lacking in piety

Things won’t change until we make it our aim

Chorus:

He’s a fucking rapist

The judge has set him free

He’s a fucking rapist

It’s up to you and me

Bet daddy never made him wait for tea

He should have to pay deeply for his crime

Not be allowed to pay with dad’s money

Forced to work hard and serve all his time

Chorus:

He’s a fucking rapist

The judge has set him free

He’s a fucking rapist

It’s up to you and me

The only way things will change is if we

Teach our boys it’s wrong to mistreat others

We don’t need to take them over our knee

Be good role models fathers and mothers

Chorus:

He’s a fucking rapist

The judge has set him free

He’s a fucking rapist

It’s up to you and me

Chorus:

He’s a fucking rapist

The judge has set him free

He’s a fucking rapist

It’s up to you and me

Australia has about the best campaign I’ve seen in regards to this. Have a look at it here.

Wonder Wednesday: Extreme Editing

Prescheduling this one as I think I might be incapable of much on Wednesday.

The day before I submitted my manuscript to the Half the World competition, I signed up for Grammarly Premium. Grammarly found nearly 2000 issues. This was bad, yet good. Bad because time was so short and good because there was time to fix things before sending it out.

It was submitted on the morning of Tuesday, June 7th.

What I learned:

I had messy battle scenes that I was convinced I needed to print out in order to cut up and move the pieces around. Well, my printer was out of ink. I was about to head out and buy a better printer because I actually hate inkjets. Then I said, “Don’t be stupid. All you need are your brain and fingers.” I hunkered down and it was way easier than I thought. I’m still going to replace my printer with a laser printer but it’s not pressing.
I used to have excellent grammar skills. I used to tutor others. Somewhere along the way, I forgot proper comma usage. Indeed, nearly half of the 2000 errors were related to commas.
I like the word though quite a lot.
It seemed my manuscript had a lot of repetitive words but they were all located near each other. Like my brain locked onto a word for the day or week and it was going anywhere it could.
Editing both battle scenes on the same day helped me fix both of them even though they were very different from each other.
Somehow I can function on very little sleep without caffeine. I have had about 3 hours of sleep. I edited for the bulk of one day before going to sleep then the novel beckoned me to wake at 2AM after closing my eyes at 11:30PM. I continued to edit for about 2 hours. Then I tried to sleep but I doubt I fell asleep. I rose with the alarm and continued to edit. Then I submitted and hastily showered before going to work. I am now wondering if I am really human.
I learned how to write a synopsis while driving in my car. “Oh god! I have to write a synopsis. I hate those things! Whatever shall I put in it?” I asked myself. “Just run through the story, include the main plot points and the ending.” My brain is wonderful sometimes. Other times I wonder how I managed to put my laceless shoes on my feet.
I write rather lazily because I know there’s no point in making it perfect before I’m sure I have the right words. I get the idea down and it might be in simple language. “Josy was hungry. Josy ate food.” Later that may turn into, “The hunger pangs disrupted Josy’s ability to concentrate. She retrieved a yogurt from her little fridge and mixed it with some granola.”
I’m neither a pantser nor a plotter. I’m a weird hybrid.
My book is currently as good as I can make it on my own. After the contest is done, I’ll search out an agent and try to get it published. The winners are supposed to be announced about a month from now.
I’d like to try a relaxed writing pace of about 350-500 words a day or about 1 page. After 1 year of that, there is a complete manuscript.
Don’t bother with the free version of Grammarly for MS Word. What happened? I used it first and it created more advanced problems. If you just use the premium one, you avoid that issue. Sign up for a month then cancel before renewal.
Work on my grammar, writing skills, and vocabulary. These will make editing less painful. Especially learn to use the damn comma properly.
Grammarly premium gave me pretty good editing advice. I got shown my issues one at a time, almost like find and replace. It was slow at times, though. There were some suggestions I ignored as they were just wrong for my fantasy novel. For example, it would suggest plant should become building when I was literally talking about a green leafy thing. It suggested best word pairings. It informed me I was using the same words too often and I could work with one problem sentence at a time. It usually suggested words that were helpful or I would realize there was a problem, but I had a better idea of how to fix it. I often chose to rewrite a sentence and eliminate the issue entirely. I imagine this to be part of an editor’s job. Now, when I get a professional edit done, it can be focused on story rather than grammar and spelling.

I’m now on a writing break for at least a month. After that, I’ll probably work on the roller derby one unless the alien conspiracy takes hold of me first.

For now, I’m catching up on sleep amongst gardening, cleaning, guitar, and video games.

Ciao,

R~

Merry Monday: Brief Update

Hi, readers!

The weekend was packed. Saw the Rideau Valley Roller Girl travel teams take on those from Tampa Bay Florida on Friday. Ottawa, unfortunately, got crushed but I think they learned a lot. They should be proud anyway. When you’re ranked 60 and you go up against a team that is ranked 17… Well, you have to have some gumption to even try that. Tampa had many phenomenally skilled skaters. Seriously, some of their jammers looked like ballerinas because they were tiny and extremely light on their feet. Perhaps we’ll see the Vixens catch up in the future. Watching Roller Derby on a Friday messed with my brain as it’s usually on a Saturday. When I realized I still had tons of weekend left, well that felt pretty awesome.

Saturday had me at Prose in the Park. The weather was excellent. I should have drunk more water as I felt a little awful at the end of the day after running around in the heat all day. I bought three books. Two are award winning and I’m looking forward to seeing how an award-winning book differs from the rest of the stuff I read. I capped Saturday off with work on my novel.

Sunday was filled with novel writing and a break for Iaido. Partner practice in Iaido was fun though I didn’t really want to be there. It helped with my writing to take the break and get in the right frame of mind for writing battle scenes. It dawned on me while editing that I should change the title and luckily a natural title came to me.

As of this morning, I have two chapters left to edit.They are both of the battles because these are the messiest things to write. I can’t really stick to just one character as they all have to come together at some point. If I stick on one character too long, it gives away part of the rest of the battle. I’m going to print these out and cut each sentence out so I can literally move each sentence around. Sounds silly, but I feel this is the only way to work with these two chapters.

Oh, my word count is currently 66, 594.

This start of this week will be finishing the book and submitting it. Then I get to chill and play video games as a reward. Also, clean my place.

Ciao,

R~

Funky Friday: Week of June 3rd

What’s been up this week? More than enough.

Personal

Happy: There’s a new member of my extended family. A healthy 7lb boy.
Worried: The mom of the baby had a tough time delivering and is in ICU. Many moons ago she was my flower girl. Hopefully, mom and baby will get to go home soon.
Stressed: My writing deadline is fast-approaching and I keep finding major issues in my manuscript! They’re all near the end of the story. My word count isn’t high enough either for the genre.
Well: I’ve done some trials with yeast and dairy. So far I haven’t been reacting to them. One major change I made recently was to go completely gluten free.
Tired: Been working so hard on my book it’s probably wearing me out, but it must get done!
Excited: My new boss likes meetings way less than the previous one.
Nervous: I haven’t met my new boss yet. That happens next week. I’ve worked with him a tiny bit but have little idea what he is like as a boss.
Anxious: I put one of my tomato plants outside overnight. I had bad dreams of it being torn to shreds by the wind. There are a few battered leaves, but it mostly made out OK. The other isn’t big enough yet. I guess I’ve spent so much time nursing them over the past couple of months that I care what happens to them. Silly, right?

Ottawa

Ready: Prose in the Park is tomorrow! Come to Parkdale Park between 11am and 6pm to meet Ottawa-area authors, listen to interesting discussions about a variety of topics (some writing specific), and buy some good reads. It’s free admission and the panels are free too. I’ll be around. It’s a small park, so I shouldn’t be too hard to locate. There’s a poetry night tonight for those who can make it as well at Origin Studio from 6:30-9:30pm.

World

Sad: The gorilla thing made me upset. My first reaction, like many, was to ask why the parents didn’t keep a closer eye on their child particularly when he said he was going to go in and tried several times. But I’m not a parent. I do know how hard it can be to keep a toddler from running off with several adults watching. It only takes one very brief moment for them to get by. And they run fast despite their short legs. My next reaction was that they should have just knocked the gorilla out. Since then, I’ve read a lot about the issue. People who have extensive experience working with gorillas have stated a tranq wouldn’t have taken in time. The boy would have died because despite what it looked like to the untrained eye, the gorilla was not protecting the boy and it was not happy that the boy was in its cage. The public is to blame for this. Why? Because the only reason the boy could get into the cage in the first place is because any more stringent measures to keep people out will diminish the “natural” view of the animal by onlookers. In other words, we’d see more of the cage. People have stated they don’t want to see the cage. A lot of people say zoos shouldn’t exist at all. I’m not weighing in on that one. The few I’ve been to operate as rescues for animals people tried to have as pets, but couldn’t handle once they got bigger.
Relieved: Precious art is being moved from the Louvre to get out of the flood zone. Hopefully, people are too?

Well, I’m off to get ready for work. Roller derby bout tonight. And Prose in the Park is tomorrow. Somehow I’ll manage to get this book done before Wednesday.

Ciao,

R~