Rose Anderson's Blog, page 26

Those Newfangled Tunes

Did you know that on this day in 1963 the Beatles released  their iconic She Loves You to the USA? Five months later, they’d gain a coveted spot on the popular Ed Sullivan show.

I have no recollection of hearing that newfangled British music on the radio prior to Ed Sullivan’s show in 1964, but I do remember that event clearly. I recall my teenage sisters being excited about the upcoming show. They knew all about this four-man band, and of course they would. They were young adults and the entire world was in transition in 1964… one couldn’t help but know the news. The previous year saw a paradigm shift taking root. The month before the Beatles’ She Loves You came to the states, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech to the 200,000 people marching on Washington DC for civil rights. Two months after Beatles’ music hit our shores, President Kennedy would be assassinated. Things would never be the same.

So my siblings anticipated the Ed Sullivan Show that night. To further set this scene, know ours was a Lawrence Welk and Sing Along With Mitch household. At this time, my sisters’ bedroom was being remodeled and three mattresses and three box springs were piled high in the living room. We all climbed up on top to watch these four singers from England. How strange these young men looked with their moppish hair, Spanish-heeled boots, and odd tailored suits without lapels. The screaming, swooning audience was a little startling too. My dad said mater-of-factly, “That’s not music.” and gave the TV a dismissive hand before leaving the room. I didn’t agree. It was music. It was new and unusual and had rhythm so lively it made you just want to get up and move to it.

The Beatles played in the background of our lives from that moment on. Across the country, Hi-Fi’s, and box turntables played 45’s or full 78’s of the Fab Four’s music.

More than once the Beatles’ songs hit the charts in Chicago and held the Top Ten slots for weeks at a time. And just about every house on the block had transistor radios with deejays running song marathons.

According to the Beatles’ biography SHOUT by Philip Norman, America owes that first 1963 listen to a disk jockey in Washington, D.C and his girlfriend who worked as a stewardess. She had access to records from England and he played them. There is some discrepancy as to which song played the states first and where it was played. Was it I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please Please Me, From Me to You, or She Loves you? Beats me. But I do remember them all word for word even today.  These were bed jumping songs.

I had my teenaged siblings, my neighborhood friends had theirs. Teens gobbled up the records like chocolate. When our older siblings were off doing teenage things, we’d play their records loud and jump on the bed to those happy rhythms like we were jumping on a trampoline. Now that was great fun. Someone below stairs would invariably thump the ceiling with the broom handle or yell up the stairway, Turn that noise down!
:)

I still enjoy the early Beatles, but not so much those later albums with clear Yoko influence. My male cockatiel  really rocks out whenever this music plays. You’d have to hear him to believe it. An eclectic bird, he also gets into Lynyrd Skynyrd and Etta James, but nothing gets him harmonizing like Please Please Me.  :D

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 41 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

An oldie, but a goodie

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Today’s Guest ~ Author Jane Leopold Quinn

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is winding down. Come play, there are more than 20 prizes!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/



۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve had for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

A turning point

Just an introspective post today. This morning, before my feet left the bed, a very clear story popped into my head for the Exquisite Quills Halloween anthology. It’ll be a short story, just 2000 words when it’s done. The happy thing is, it came to me fully formed as all the other stories I’ve written have. It appears my muse has finally returned.  It’s about time, lady.  :)

Where had she gone? My dear old dog’s health took a marked slide in April and was on a steady decline through to August when we eventually lost her. I haven’t written about her yet, but I will one day.  I’m only now starting to call to mind the sweet and funny moments of our life with her without bursting into tears.  Watching the life of someone you love fade day by day takes a toll even if we all intrinsically understand death is part of life. I experienced such helplessness in the slow decline of my sisters who valiantly fought breast cancer and ALS and lost. I’ve witnessed battles no less sad and finite with friends and colleagues. We don’t ever get over it, but our hearts eventually become accustomed to the absence. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss them all.

To people who love pets as things, my thoughts here may not make sense. They may miss their dog or cat after they’re gone, but the void is easily filled with another from the pet store. That has never been my life with animals. Others like me who connect with these creatures beyond possession would understand the loss of which I speak. I essentially lost a 14 1/2 year old child, a member of my immediate family. My child.

So lately, I’ve been too down to be creative. With this latest grief I found it very hard to write. Oh sure I have words. I’m a wordy writer no matter what I’m typing out. It was just that the thoughts behind the words weren’t connecting. If you can’t connect thoughts you can’t write books. All the writing projects I was working on when my dog’s health turned just fizzled out. My train of thought had derailed.

I’ve written short stories for anthologies and even contributed to a cookbook in an attempt to get back on the track. Understanding that I work best when I have a deadline, I went so far as to plan a very large multi-author project for next spring to force my mind to find that muse again.  Nothing was working. I didn’t want to walk away from writing but it was looking more and more like I had no say in the matter. I was seriously assessing the possibility that my time as an author was over — No more romances. No more children’s books. No magnum opus (a very large work in progress that I’ve been working on for years).

So it appears I’ve reached a turning point. I’m going to grind out that 2000-word story today and hopefully the muse will stick around long enough to let me do another. Or at the least let me finish a few nearly completed novels. If nothing else I’ll experience muscle memory of fingers flying over my keyboard again.

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This next bit has nothing whatsoever to do with my writing but it’s a turning point worth mentioning. Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Britain in WWII. The war turned in British favor on September 15th 1940 when RAF (Royal Air Force) Spitfires engaged German aircraft in two dogfights. Fifty-six German planes went down in an air battle that lasted less than one hour. From this moment in history, Americans realized that their isolationism wasn’t going to hold. A world war was inevitable. This 2-part documentary is long but worthwhile from a historical perspective.

http://youtu.be/W1B3JGEjzFo

http://youtu.be/vZifDDF8AzE

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

~George Santayana

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 42 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

To bounce back

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Today is Author Fran Lee’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/



۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve had for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Fun Day Sunday

If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

There’s so much strife in the world right now. Of all the clips one could find online to shine a light on our similarities rather than our differences, the fun videos by world-traveler Matt Harding do it best.  They always make me smile…and occasionally a little weepy.  :)

The song comes from the poem Stream of Life from Gitanjali — the Nobel-prize-winning collection by Rabindranath Tagore. Here’s the translation:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

I’d say that sums up the point of this video nicely.

See the rest of the fun dances and discover how this began on Matt’s youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC__TABIHzr7fUz5pQL2GU4w

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 43 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Kick your feet up.

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Today is Author Marianne Stephens’ blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/



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Saturday & Sunday Happenings on my other blogs



Sexy Snippets & My Sexy Saturday

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Seductive Studs and Sirens & Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet  **promo op for you too!**  

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve had for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Standing the test of time

I ended yesterday’s post by saying I’d share a few opinions on memorable literary characters today. You don’t have to go far to find lasting characters on bookshelves. There are imaginary creations that were given flesh and form and id and ego in such perfect measure that even mentioning their names often brings to mind a particular personality trait. Test for yourself. This list contains characters most people know at a glance. All come from literature. I’m guessing even if you have yet to read the books, you’ll know the stories they’re tied to. First thing in the morning, this lot is all I could come up with. (Need more coffee for larger lists…)

Sherlock Holmes

Harry Potter

Professor Moriarty

Mr. Darcy

Henry “Indiana” Jones

Hester Prynne

Jane Eyre

James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser

Severus Snape

James Bond

Vito Corleone

Captain Ahab

Forrest Gump

Scarlett O’Hara

George Bailey

Hamlet

Phileas Fogg

Philip Marlowe

Robin Hood

Gandalf

Atticus Finch

Jean Valjean

Holden Caulfield

What makes a literary character memorable? It’s all in the recipe!

For me the reader, the memorable characters as the ones written with facets of complex human  personality. You and I have particular personalities and they are literally the sum of our life interactions and experiences had in the environments at hand at the time. Think about the people you know. Aren’t the ones with the fullest lives the ones you could sit and listen to for hours?

Imaginary people rely on their writers to put the skin on their bones and the thoughts in their heads.  To do that, the writer must draw from the world within and without. To this I’ll add that every single literary character I’ve written has slivers of my own id and ego in them. Even my bad guys.  ;) 



Characters, even if they’re the villains in the story, all need to show relatable aspects to readers. Aspects such as opinion, empathy, fear, bravery, compassion, greed, outrage, love, lust, and a host of other elements, must combine and strike a believable chord for the reader, even if the character exists in a fantastical tale. This is how Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jane Austen all created timeless characters despite hundreds of years separating the writing and the stories’ time periods. These three authors in particular have had their works made into hundreds of variations on a theme. Take their characters out of their time periods, change their clothes and modernize their environment,  then plop them down into yours and voila! They fit. Centuries may pass, but the human condition stays the same. A marvelous example of this is the modernization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in the contemporary BBC series Sherlock.

Relatable. That’s the key.

To make a character that stands the test of time is no small feat.  Only time will tell if I manage it.

Tomorrow ~ Fun Day Sunday.

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 44 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

A pinch of this, a pinch of that.

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Today is Author Cindy Spencer Pape’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/



۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Saturday & Sunday Happenings on my other blogs



Sexy Snippets & My Sexy Saturday

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Seductive Studs and Sirens & Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Sunday Snippet  **promo op for you too!**  

http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve have for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think. If Comcast and Verizon win, this lagging icon is what we’ll see every time we try to use the internet.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Impressive bards

My friend and fellow author Gemma Juliana is having her blog day at Romance Books ‘4’ Us today and she’s talking about two well-known authors who wrote just one story and were made famous by them.  *See link below. 

You don’t have to go far to see the broad success of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander story. It’s a sweeping and hefty tale that recently made a successful transformation from page to film. I have to say this longtime fan of the series is enjoying the heck out of it.

J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter saga is a chimera of literature that begins as a children’s book and two books in morphs into a darker and heavier reading experience any adult would appreciate.  I regularly feast on both works. 

Being a fast reader, absorbing J.K. Rowling’s books takes me about a day and a half per book. As it’s a series, I generally plow through them all in about eight days.  Conversely, Diana’s densely-worded saga takes a larger block of time to go through. In the midst of life’s necessities (family, dinner, grocery shopping, pets, laundry etc), I can knock out one of her 1000-page masterpieces in a little under a week. I’m a binge fiction reader and when I binge, I do so in the truest sense — non-stop. 

Binging on fiction?

In a book store such as Barnes & Noble, the information section is where I go. Non-fiction always pulls me in because I love to learn and I never mix fiction and nonfiction. It’s always either or for me. On rare occasion, a work of fiction will grab my attention and sets off a cascade of fiction binging.  In a binge I could end up reading 20-30  novels depending on size. Fiction binging usually lasts a month or so and when it’s done, I may not pick up another work of fiction for a year. 

When I first stumbled upon the Outlander story, I experienced a shift unlike any other in my life as a reader.  Let’s just say the earth stood still until I’d finished all 4000 or so pages, giver or take, in four novels written up to that point. Why was I held in such a grip? Excellent storytelling.

Both of these authors wrote deeply complex stories. Both built worlds packed with detail and rich in interrelationships. I love stories like that. But by far what put them head and shoulders above others, in my opinion, was the depth these authors gave their characters. Both Harry and Jamie are the quintessential hero on par with heroes taken from classic literature, and both take on their own version of the hero’s quest. Their female counterparts have brains and bravery in abundance.  In Outlander we have the juicy benefit of experiencing the story through the heroine Claire’s emotion as she tells the reader her adventure first hand. Compelling characters all.

So what makes a literary character memorable and who still stands the test of time? I have some thoughts on that and I’ll write more tomorrow. :)

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 45 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Read between the lines

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Today is Author Gemma Juliana’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve have for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think. If Comcast and Verizon win, this lagging icon is what we’ll see every time we try to use the internet.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

A moment of observance & a Devilish post

Half staffed remembrance for the day our modern world was forever changed. I don’t understand hatred of this magnitude. While it’s easy to imagine outrage over poor treatment and poor policy, I find hatred over ideology hard to wrap my mind around.  If anything would be anathema to a Creator, it would be this sorry state of humanity.

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 Moving on…

I’ve mentioned before the variable electricity I get here on the hill. End of the line, frequent power slams. Earlier this month, after a fire elsewhere on the line blew out a nearby transformer, my house was hit with a potent power surge. The result: my very expensive (for us anyway) European water-saver washing machine bit the dust, and as I write this, the ticking time bomb that is my refrigerator is literally ticking its death throes.  We thought long and hard about replacing the washer but these new no-agitator machines may save water, but by reviews they do a poor job cleaning clothes. We’ve opted to buy a replacement control panel for our dead water-saver instead. I’ve a feeling madness lurks in that decision.

In the meantime, my husband and I discovered a new out of the way laundromat in a nearby small town. I remember those mobile laundry days from carting two people’s laundry several blocks in a bungee corded shopping cart, to dragging my little kids along on the weekend for a family-sized job that seemed to take hours. It’s just the two of us now and all in all not so bad with an hour and a half of crossword puzzles and conversation to share. Those jumbo machines make quick work of the job. For now this is fine. At least until winter snows make it otherwise.

The other evening we were returning home just as the sun was setting. In the sky all around us were tiny glinting needles of silver darting here and there. A full sky of them. And darting just above, the nighthawks. I must back up here to explain. The recent heavy rains inspired a last hurrah of mosquitoes to hatch — small, persistent, and painful little biters too. Nature isn’t about to let that bounty slide. Remember the drama of the spiderwebs I wrote about this week? This was expanded drama.

The sky was full of mosquitoes emerging for the night, the main goal to hunt down a blood meal. Hunting those hunters were the dragonflies, and hunting them were the large-mouthed goat-suckers or nighthawks. Millions of mosquitoes, thousands of green darner dragonflies, and about thirty birds all doing what they do best. As happens so many times, given where my husband and I live, we were in awe. There was nothing to do but pull over and take it all in for a while.

There are 98 species of dragonflies in my area, and 12 known species of darners. Some of these have wingspans up to four inches across. The oldest fossil records of them go back  250 million years, their ancestors had wingspans of feet instead of inches. They’re ferocious hunters in both larval and adult stages. The aquatic larva, or naiads, stay in this form for more than a year and are much larger than the adults. In that stage, in my opinion, they’re the stuff of nightmares — large enough to catch fish and frogs. I can only imagine the naiads 250 million years ago.

Clocked at more than 60 mph, and flying with all the control of a helicopter, the adults can zoom front, back, and sideways in all directions. I’ve always thought the way they fly to be the most curious thing about them. Being airborne hunters, their front legs fold inward (like us lacing our fingers together). This basketing allows them to scoop up small flying insects and shove them right into their mouths…eating on the fly, so to speak. They also have some of the largest eyes in the insect world and see prey up to 40 yards away.

To cultures around the world, the dragonfly comes with stories and myths:

In Japanese artwork they represent lightness and joy. Its name Akitsushmi means Dragonfly Island and is another name for Japan.
In some Native American cultures, dragonflies are the souls of the dead.
To the Hopi they’re the harbingers of renewal after hardship.
In the faerie stories of Europe, they used to be real dragons.
In Norse folklore, dragonflies liked to pick out human eyes, sew eyelids shut, or attack ears and had names like Eye-poker and Ear-cutter. The softer side had the dragonfly as a symbol of the goddess Freya.


The Swedes also said trolls used dragonflies to sew their clothes
There was also a European belief if dragonflies swarmed over your head it meant the devil was weighing your soul. Not good.
A Romanian folk tale says the dragonfly was once a horse possessed by the devil.
The Dutch call them horse-biters.
In South America they are called horse-killers. A reference to size?
To the Vietnamese they forecast the weather.
Germans have more than 150 different names for dragonflies. Evocative names like  Teufelsnadel, Wasserhexe, and Hollenross (Devil’s needle, Water witch, and the Goddess’ horse)

My favorite is the Devil’s Darning Needle. I’d tell that one to my students on nature field trips. I’d explain the dragonfly myths of several cultures where these insects  sewed shut the mouths of children who talked back and people who swore. I loved how my students all covered their mouths with their hands and looked around wide-eyed. Boy, sometimes I miss those school days.  I was a fun science teacher.  :D

The nighthawks are a story for another day…

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 46 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

A stitch in time saves nine.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Today is Author Marianne Stephens’ blog day with a post about the tragedy of September 11, 2001

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve have for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting, well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think. If Comcast and Verizon win, this lagging icon is what we’ll see every time we try to use the internet.

Learn what’s at stake and how you can give your opinion to the FCC.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Net Neutrality #internetslowdown

Today, September 10th, I’m joining other concerned citizens across the country and around the world and highlighting Net Neutrality. Just by the fact you’re here reading my post shows having the freedom to go where you will online is important to you.

The Federal Communications Commission or FCC is taking public comments before they decide whether or not to go with a proposal that puts the internet in the hands of corporate telecommunications companies such as Comcast and Verizon.

Why is that a bad thing?

There are several reasons but the largest is the internet is free now as it was conceived and designed to be. And it won’t be if the telecommunications corporations win.

My family has used the internet since the old America Online (AOL) hey days. When my kids come home for a visit, at some point they’ll surf the web, watch an online movie, or check email. If more than one of us is online at the same time, the internet crawls for everyone. We’re sharing the bandwidth. Bandwidth is a measurement — a term used to describe how much information can be transmitted over a connection. You’re using bandwidth right now just reading this post.

Now imagine all the available bandwidth is being used by subscribers paying whatever top dollar these telecommunications corporations deem is enough. You want to go to Facebook? Well, you must buy the plan that includes Facebook. Have email? Be sure to buy the package that includes email. Want to look something up on Google? You’ll need that package that allows general surfing. Insidious.

People not on the pay-for plan will get the slower connection rife with time-outs, dropped signals, half-loaded pages, and limited access. Deal with that long enough and of course your resolve would crack. That’s the plan. You’ll opt in just to save your sanity.  Once their foot is in the door, we’ll be forced to buy and the internet will no longer be free. The way these telecommunications corporations lobby Washington, that day is probably closer than we realize.

I urge you to send your comment to the FCC. **Find links below They are taking opinions right now, but this opportunity is narrow. The following video, though couched in occasional irreverent humor, is a very real explanation of the issue on the table right now. However you get your information, I urge you to become informed. The internet was created for the world to have free access to information and a level opportunity for all. Add your voice that this marvelous achievement of cooperation not be stolen out from under our feet.

Click here to protect women’s and girls’ voices online

More~

Contact your government. They represent you.

Tell them you support net neutrality

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

Contact the FCC directly (FCC Dockets 14-28 & 10-127)

http://www.fcc.gov/comments

Or…this is the easiest way to say something:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/sti-home

And more~

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

https://www.internetdefenseleague.org/

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 47 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Business as usual

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Today is Author R. Ann Siracusa’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie

Did you see the full moon? Last night’s moon qualified as a Supermoon. What’s that exactly? A full moon closely coinciding with perigee. (In geek speak: the perigee of the moon is the closest point from the earth in its orbit. Apogee is the furthest). The angle of the moon rise during this time creates a view distorted by the earth’s atmosphere and treats us to that bright and bold orange moon that makes you say wow and dash for your camera. We’ve had three Supermoons this summer and last night was the last one for a while. Last night’s moon wasn’t just a Supermoon, it was the Harvest Supermoon.

For all of history and beyond, people have named the monthly moons by what was happening around them at the time. Mostly these names have to do with agriculture and  hunting. Others are noted by appearance and coincidence. Some of the names we are familiar with originate with the Native Americans. Of course different cultures have different associations and names, but surprisingly the differences are few. When you encounter something global like this, it just goes to show how old the associations are to be so similar around the world. Here are a few evocative names to spark your imagination:

January � = Wolf Moon

February � = Snow Moon, Storm Moon, Hunger Moon

March � = Worm Moon, Chaste Moon, Sap Moon

April �= Pink Moon, Seed Moon, Fish Moon, Egg Moon

May � = Flower Moon, Hare Moon, Milk Moon

June � = Strawberry Moon, Dyad Moon, Rose Moon

July � = Buck or Sturgeon Moon, Mead Moon, Thunder Moon, Hay Moon

August �= Fruit or Barley Moon, Corn Moon, Green Corn Moon, Red Moon

September � = Harvest Moon

October � = Hunters Moon, Blood Moon 

November � = Beaver Moon, Frost Moon, Snow Moon 

December � = Long Nights Moon, Oak Moon, Cold Moon

And we also have the Blue Moon — that rare double full moon in a month. I call that a Drummer’s Moon.  ;)

With the autumnal equinox around the corner, the days will be getting shorter as seasons march toward winter. Hmm..didn’t winter just end? In the months leading up to the autumnal equinox, the moon  rises about 50 minutes later than the night before. After the autumnal equinox, the days will continue to shorten toward the winter solstice. The moon will rise about 30 minutes later each night.

More~

http://space-facts.com/the-moon/

http://www.livescience.com/1617-strange-happen-full-moon.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunacy-and-the-full-moon/

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Join me and other internet users as we support Net Neutrality in a day of action on Wednesday September 10th. The internet was created to be a free system with access to knowledge and level opportunity for all. Right now several large telecommunications corporations want to make you pay them for the privilege you’ve have for free since the internet began. Learn how you can help stop the pending internet takeover by these heavy-hitting well-funded Washington lobbyists. The FCC is taking comments now and wants to know what YOU think. If Comcast and Verizon win, this lagging icon is what we’ll see every time we try to use the internet.

Learn what’s at stake.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 48 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

Asking for the moon

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Today is Author Melissa Keir’s blog day.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners! Authors, come see what RB4U can do you for you. http://www.romancebooks4us.com

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And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Drama on a September morn

Time to get back in the groove. As you know I took some time off to grieve. As I briefly mentioned the other day, thank you one and all for all your kind words. 

I thought I’d jump back into blogging today by talking about drama.  Where I live surrounded by wild, millions of life and death moments occur every single day. Nature is absolutely filled with drama. The drama comes in layers. We mostly understand it as the “food chain”. Little fish eat small bits of detritus > larger fish eat little fish > giant fish eat large fish > we go to fish boils and fish fries. 

One of the most amazing things to see happens on September mornings after a cool night settles a blanket of fog over the landscape. An early morning drive or walk will allow you to see dewdrops sparkling like several billion diamonds in the first rays of sunlight. That sparkle is on everything and it’ll take your breath sometimes. I feel the same way about hoarfrost– the frozen version of this wonder. Simply breathtaking.

The drama I refer  to today comes dressed in silk –spider silk. In the fields of prairie around me, spiders of all kinds build webs particular to their species. These webs cover the grass high and low, in some places less than a foot apart from one another. What must it be like to be a moth or fly just trying to get from here to there? Life and death drama. There are low webs built like funnels, fine strings without any discernible form, flat trampolines that hover over the grass, and orbs…many many orbs. I just love the orb weavers. Their stunning artworks sparkle until the sun burns away the dew. 

I may have mentioned the orb weaver that came into my kitchen one night and made an enormous orb web that went from my kitchen table to the chair, to the ceiling fan overhead. The spider was a yellow and black beauty about the size of a quarter. My husband wasn’t happy..you might even say he was horrified. The kids and I found it amazing.  After three days of watching this marvelous creature capture mosquitoes, Asian beetles, a yellow jacket wasp, and the occasional fly, he said enough was enough. If I didn’t get the spider out of the house he would. lol

I haven’t had another orb weaver since, but I do let a few spiders stay in the house until those nasty stinking Asian beetles are done trying to get inside. True lady bugs come in the spring and just see to their own business. Those late season ladybug mimics bite. To me, spiders provide a necessary service indoors. To my husband they belong outside doing it. I say the day the Asian beetles stop getting in the house to bite me is the day I stop being a spider landlord. He loves me because of and despite my eccentricities.   :D

Arachne

There once was a  woman of Lydia, a weaver of no small skill, whose artistic talent for making tapestries became known far and wide. As the story goes, mortals often fall victim when given copious praise –the pleasure found in compliments often turns their heads toward arrogance.  Before long, Arachne became boastful. The more she bragged, the larger the boasts became. Then one day she made the largest of all by saying her skills surpassed even those of the goddess of weaving herself — Athena.

Catching word of this self-aggrandizing mortal, Athena disguised herself as an old woman and went to meet Arachne. She warned the weaver of making such boastful claims, for no mortal could possibly surpass the craft of the goddess. She also warned of provoking the wrath of the gods. Bolstered by years of praise and deeply arrogant, Arachne was unconcerned and went so far as to openly challenge the goddess to a weaving competition.

More than a little irritated, Athena revealed her true self. You might think at this point that Arachne would beg forgiveness, but no. The roots of arrogance were too deep. So goddess and mortal sat side by side at their looms and each plied their skill. Athena’s tapestry of golden threads lavishly depicted scenes from the history of the gods and the glowing adoration of the mortals below. Arachne’s tapestry, no less stunning, depicted the baser nature of the gods, highlighting their worst interactions with the people of earth. Of course this slight would not go unpunished.

While Arachne’s chosen subject matter was sheer mockery of the gods on Mount Olympus, Athena conceded the woman’s skill was apparent. In the blink of an eye, the goddess transformed Arachne into a spider to allow her to continue weaving.

Spiders are known as arachnids.

 

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 49 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

What a tangled web we weave

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Today our guest is Author Paloma Beck

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ The September contest is on, this time two winners!

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Fun Day Sunday!

If you’ve been here before then you know Sundays on my blog are all about wonder and smiles. In honor of mentally kicking back once in a while, Sundays are Fun Days! Each Sunday, visitors will find a fun, interesting, or unusual something here. I’m a nerd with a complex sense of humor and absurd wit. It could literally be anything.

I’m a lifelong dog lover and happy dog videos always cheer me up. This one belongs to Lucky Puppy — a doggie daycare facility in Maybee Michigan. http://myluckypuppy.com/ If I lived near there, I’d certainly send my dog for the fun. Such joy. I dare you not to smile. :D

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For 100 days, I’ll post something from my chosen topic: Clichés.

There are 50 entries to come.

Here’s a cliché for today:

making a splash

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I had my monthly blog day at Romance Books ‘4’ Us the other day. I’m talking about big stories that come in small packages. The post is still up. Come see.

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2014/09/writing-large-small-by-rose-anderson.html

Today our guest is Author Sue Swift

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/

Romance Books ‘4’ Us ~ the September contest is on!

Two winners will split all prizes, including two $50 gift cards and much more.

http://www.romancebooks4us.com

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞


And speaking of prizes…

I’m participating in Fall Into Romance — a month-long event hosted by The Romance Reviews. Hundreds of authors and industry people are participating and that means hundreds of prizes. Find my bit and the instructions to play on my satellite blog: http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories

Find my novels wherever books are sold.

Sample my love stories for free!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞