Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 151

The Lost Is Found

Another blog written in Minnesota: Last summer or early fall, I lamented the fact that my high school yearbooks had been lost when I moved into my house in 2006. I'd been through every box in my house, preparing for a move to Atlanta and they were nowhere to be found. Or so I thought. The lost has been found! I'd been so sure they were lost forever, but as I was moving boxes from the center of the basement to shelves, I saw a box that didn't look right. I thought everything in this area was clothes, but this box wasn't a clothes box. Curious about what was in there, I lifted the lid and found my yearbooks. I don't know how the books got mixed in with the clothes, but I'm just grateful I found them. I kept very few things from high school, but the yearbooks were special and had signatures and well wishes from kids I'd gone to school with. Their (supposed) loss bothered me constantly and I'm so glad they're not lost forever. Also in the box were the other missing books on psychic phenomena, but those were replaceable if I really wanted them. The yearbooks were irreplaceable. I'm so, so happy they're not lost.

Say No to May the Fourth

I'm a day late, but it's still fun.

Fad Slang

Another blog written in Minnesota: I had a couple of opportunities while I was away to think about slang and when to use it. This came to mind because of a couple of songs I heard while driving, but it was reinforced for me while I read a book that is an old favorite of mine. Walking the language line can be difficult. When someone reads a book, the story needs to resonate with them, so if it's a contemporary setting, the language should reflect how people really talk. On the other hand, not all slang words are created equal. Some are mere flashes in the pan and will date the book. This isn't the first time I've thought about this, but the songs that got me going again were from the early 70s. I think. I have an eclectic taste in music and that includes groups like The Monkees, The Brady Kids (yes, those Bradys), and assorted other musicians. The song that started the reexamination of my opinion on slang was The 59th Street Bridge Song, also known as Feeling Groovy. It was followed later that day by another song with groovy in the lyrics. Groovy is an interesting word, one I've only heard used in reruns of old TV shows from the 70s and in a few old songs. Am I right in assuming that at one point, the word was commonly used by many, many Americans? It for sure was widely used enough to make it into the pop culture of the day. When was the last time you heard someone say groovy in real life? For me, that would be never. So a word that was once considered common is now dated. I'd say extremely dated. A few days later, I was re-reading a couple of books that were old favorites of mine. Both were published around 1989. It was the second book that used a slang term that stopped me cold. Turkeys. In all honesty, I don't remember anyone I knew using that word in 1989. If I had to guess when it was popular, I would have picked late 70s or maybe very early 80s, but that's going by references I've seen in television, movies, and other cultural media. But the fact that the word was probably already out of popular usage by the time the book was published isn't the point. The point is the word itself. It didn't hold in language. And that's where a writer walks the line. For me, I try not to use much (if any) current slang. Words come and go from this port all the time. In fact, I just starting using dude on occasion because it's been in vocabulary for something like twenty years now and has shown staying power. Most of the time, though, I still stick with man. That's been around even longer. Unlike Groovy or Turkey or a host of other once-popular words.

Sobering Drive Home

Another blog written in Minnesota: I left Atlanta on Good Friday to drive up to Minnesota. As I was driving on I-24 headed west, I saw an orange road construction sign that said Prepare to Stop. I didn't think I'd have to, though, because it was the Friday before Easter and the Department of Transportation had to realize there'd be traffic for the holiday. Surely, they'd suspended the work for the weekend.And then not too much farther up ahead, traffic came to a stop. It was around 12:40 in the afternoon. As we inched along, I cursed the DOT for having road work going on, but as the time dragged out and we still were only creeping forward, I turned on the radio and started scanning for a traffic report. There was nothing.At one point, I came on a three car accident. Someone had rear-ended another car and sent them into a third. I had to go around them, but that wasn't what had traffic backed up. It took 50 minutes in stop and go traffic before I saw why no one was moving.On the other side of the freeway, headed east, was the remnants of the most horrific car accident I had ever seen. There was one car that looked as if a bomb had gone off and destroyed it, a second had the front end bashed in, and a U-Haul trailer off on the grass. It didn't appear damaged, though. There were clothes and personal items strewn all over the road and there was a child safety seat sitting in the middle of the carnage.When I got to the hotel that night, I searched to find out what happened. I got the bare bones that night. The next morning, the news had the rest of the details.At 11:40 that morning, a black 1996 Toyota Camry headed west on I-24 crossed the median into the eastbound traffic. It made impact first with the U-Haul, but did only minor damage to the truck. Then it slammed head-on into the Rav 4 driving behind the U-Haul. The man driving the U-Haul was uninjured. His wife and two daughters were in the Rav 4.On the Saturday after the accident, the wife (who was wearing her seat belt) was said to be in stable condition per the news articles. The two daughters, aged 6 and 7, were in critical, but stable condition. They'd been restrained in child safety seats.The car that caused the accident was the one that had looked torn apart. There was a father and two daughters in that vehicle. All of them died. The 11-year-old girl was dead at the scene. The father died at a local hospital, and the 16-year-old daughter died after being transferred to Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville.What I read said that the father driving the U-Haul was freaking out and that people who stopped to help had to calm him down. Another quote was from a woman who was a former first responder who happened to be there shortly after the accident. She tried to save the 11-year-old girl who was in the Camry.I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. I imagine the father in the U-Haul watching his family get hit head-on. I wonder if he sat in the hospital replaying the accident, trying to come up with what he could have done differently. I wonder if he thought if only he'd done this, it would have deflected the Camry away from his family's car.I wonder about the wife and the two girls who are in the hospital. Stable doesn't mean well. It doesn't mean they don't have serious injuries that could take months to heal or might even cause them lifelong issues. I wonder about how much therapy—both physical and psychological they'll need to recover.I wonder about the mother of the girls who died in the other car. How terrible it would be to lose both daughters like that. How does someone deal with that kind of sudden loss?I think about the people on the scene. The people who saw the accident happen. The people who ran over to help. The people who saw the injured and dead loaded into ambulances. I think about the police and the firefighters and paramedics who arrived on the scene and did their jobs—and what they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives. And I wonder if they've seen other accidents this bad before.When I saw the scene, I started praying for everyone involved—both victims and families and first responders. And I said a thank you that I was safe and that I hadn't seen the true nightmare images of people hurt, dead, dying because I don't think I could have seen that and not had it impact me strongly. Just seeing the cars impacted me incredibly hard. And the thing is that I could have seen that accident. I could have been in that area at 11:20 if I'd left on time that morning, but I was tired and dawdling and didn't leave until later than I'd planned. And I said thank you for that, too.I still can't think about that accident or talk about it without tearing up. I can imagine the pain and confusion and hurt and aftermath too easily. How do you do a job like the police and firefighters do and deal with that day in and day out? I couldn't do it, but I'm very grateful that there are men and women out there who do what they do.

My Favorite Superbowl Commercial

Real Life Heroes

I don't usually write blog posts more than a couple of days ahead of time, but because I was going to be in MN for three weeks--and because I don't have any internet access while I'm up there unless I go to the library--I wrote a bunch of posts ahead of time. I also wrote posts while I was in MN as a topic occurred to me. This was written on April 19th, the night the younger of the two Boston Marathon bombers was captured.

As a news junkie, I've been glued to the television set since late last night. I was just about to go to bed on Thursday night when I saw a Breaking News alert come on CNN. I stayed up watching events unfold until 4:30 in the morning. I know that was pretty stupid, but every time I thought about going to bed, something new would happen.
 I heard about the firefight between the suspects and the officers and special agents working the case. The last estimate I heard said some 200 rounds were fired and explosive devices such as pipe bombs were lobbed at law enforcement. And they were in my thoughts—one officer slain in his police car and another critically wounded and in the hospital fighting to survive and the situation wasn't resolved yet. I couldn't help but wonder how many others would be hurt or killed in the line of duty? Then on Friday evening, more rounds of gunfire were heard. This time things felt different and I had this sense that this was it, that they'd finally get this last guy. They did. Captured!!! the Boston PD's Twitter feed said. Something pretty cool happened that evening. As the police withdrew from the scene, the people of Watertown, MA gathered on the sidewalk and cheered the officers and special agents as they left. They cheered! They cheered and chanted and said thank you to law enforcement for what they'd done, the risks they'd taken to keep them safe. I teared up, I admit it. This was that awesome. Our society calls overpriced professional athletes (some of whom have arrest records) heroes and cheer them on for winning a championship, but you don't see cheers for the men and women who work every day to keep us safe. But Bostonians did. They cheered for their police, for the FBI, and for all the other people who put their lives on the line to arrest a man who'd already killed 4 people and injured hundreds of others. (I'm supposed to put allegedly in there or something, right? Pretend I did.) The people of Boston had already impressed me during the week. The way they rushed to help after the bombings, the way they refused to let the event on Monday cow them, the crowd at the Bruins game singing The Star-Spangled Banner so loud and proud, drowning out the man who was officially singing it, and the way they helped each other in the days afterward. But of all the things I saw, cheering for the people who actually deserve it and are too often taken for granted was the best. Part of being a writer is being able to imagine things really well; it's why I'm a borderline hypochondriac among other things. And I could imagine being a police officer. I could imagine pursuing two men who'd carjacked someone at gunpoint. I could imagine them throwing explosives at me. I could imagine being involved in the gunfight that followed, knowing that the men shooting at me had just savagely killed an officer at MIT a short while earlier. I could imagine thinking of my family—spouse, kids, parents—and being scared that I wouldn't be able to go home to them at the end. That I'd take a bullet, too, despite the tactical gear. I can imagine trying to control the adrenaline, to do my job and keep the people in the houses around me safe. And because I can imagine all of this, it makes me appreciate what these people do all the more. I can't help but wonder if these events will alter the relationship between the citizens of Boston and the surrounding environs and their police officers. I wonder if they'll remember six months from now what these men and women did for them and still be grateful. Time has a way of dulling memories, but I hope this does change things and that maybe people will remember who the real heroes are and say thank you whenever they see one.

Another Condor Chick

If you followed the blog last year, you know I was fascinated by Condor Cam from the San Diego Zoo. I posted screen shots of the little chick and everything. Well, if you missed Saticoy last year, you have another chance to watch another chick this year.

On March 26th, Shatash and Sisquoc had their 2013 chick hatch. I'll confess, I missed it and that frustrates me because it was born when I was home from work, so I could have seen it. I just didn't check in that day.

It was the most awesome experience last year to watch Saticoy grow up from this itty bitty little bird into a young adult condor. It was a sad day when he fledged and I couldn't follow him any longer.

The parents take turns taking care of their chick. When it's first born and can't regulate its body temperature yet, there's a parent there constantly. When the chick can do this, the parents come in and out of the nest box to feed their offspring.

As the chick continues to grow, he (or she) will begin to flap its wings more, strengthening the muscles, and hop up and down on the box ledge to work on leg muscles. It was so much fun to watch Saticoy reach these milestones in 2012 and I can't wait to watch the new chick this year.

My Second Favorite Superbowl Commercial

Little Nudges

I believe that there are people who come into our lives to help us find our path in life, and when it comes to writing, I can clearly see all the nudges I received. I'm also grateful to all these people, even the ones whose names I don't remember any longer.
 As a child, I always had very elaborate stories for my dolls. I also entertained myself constantly during boring stuff by telling myself stories. It never occurred to me to write any of these things down. When I did try to start up a publication, it was a neighborhood newsletter, not a story. It wasn't until 8th grade that I started writing and that was because of one of my friends. She started writing a story and used everyone in our class as her characters. When she did something I didn't like with me and wouldn't change it, I decided to write my own story. I went for fictional characters right from the start, though. It always struck me as way too weird to have real people in a book. Heck, I don't even like to use the names of people I know in real life, although there have been times my characters didn't give me a choice. I can point to instance after instance when I wandered away from writing and got back to it because of someone in my life at that point, but there were other moments that stand out to me, too. The first editor who rejected me. It was my first finished book and she sent a letter with details about what I needed to work on. I quit writing for six months, sure I sucked, but I couldn't stop permanently and I worked on ways to fix what she cited as my weaknesses. They ended up becoming some of my biggest strengths. Thank you! The woman who asked me when was the last time I wrote something and when I told her, she said, "You're not a writer. Writers write." That kind of pissed me off at the time, but after I had time to stop being defensive and think about what she'd said, I knew she was right. Writers write or they're dreamers. This was what I needed to hear. Thank you! Then there was the editor who rejected and put Post-it Notes throughout my second manuscript, highlighting exactly where I had problems and what they were. That was absolutely the most incredibly helpful information I could have gotten because she was spot on and I learned a lot about story from her comments. Thank you! The person who recommended the craft book that made a light bulb turn on inside my brain. (GOAL, MOTIVATION, and CONFLICT by Debra Dixon) Thank you! After I got published, there was my agent and the editors I worked with who helped me become a stronger storyteller. I learned so much from these experiences. Thank you! The list could go on longer, but you get the gist of it. We all have these people in our lives, and if we pay attention to the message we're being given, we find the path we're supposed to follow. It's truly amazing, especially when I look back and see all the course corrections I received. 

Lost Time

One of the things I'm struggling with the most in Atlanta is the two hours I've lost on workdays. When I lived in MN, I used to be home by 3pm, which gave me time to take a walk, get some stuff done around the house, and write. I miss those hours and need them.

The problem is that even though I'm starting work an hour later, I still have to get up at the same time because my commute has doubled. Another half hour gets tacked on because of van pool, but I'm not giving that up. Van pool has made my quality of life increase greatly because I don't have to drive with the lunatics and maniacs. I've never seen drivers like this.

But I digress. Anyway, those two hours meant a lot to me and I'm trying to come up with some way to still squeeze walks and writing and life. My alarm already goes off at 4am, so I don't plan to wake up any earlier. I'm just not sure where else to find time.

Somehow, I need to work this out. If only there was some way to make days 26 hours long.