One of the most significant scenes in the book is my young heroine, Priscilla Wingate, running for her life. Finding a compatable picture for the cover was a difficult task, until I had an AHA moment. I just happen to know a young, blond, pony tailed girl why not ask her to be my runner. She agreed and the, not so little, little girl you see running down the streeet is my Grand Daughter. It makes the cover doubly special for me.
The book is not available yet, but will be soon.
I think Serenity is something you recieve while searching for it.
Thanksgiving is a day I look forward to each and every year. I don’t have a lot of them left, so they mean more to me than ever. Until recently there wasn’t a single Thanksgiving that went by without there being an 18 plus pound, plump, juicy, stuffed turkey in my oven. It didn’t matter whether there were 15 people of just my wife and me. It didn’t matter if we were home, or in Turkey, or Israel, or Chabahar, Iran, or Spain, or Kuwait, we had a bird creating the essential aromas of the day in our oven.
This year we are having ten of our nearest and dearest family celebrate with us. We will eat too much, we will drink too much and we will laugh and smile too much. My feet will ache from standing in the kitchen for too many hours, my stomach will hurt because my belt is too tight, my face will hurt from laughing too much, and my heart will ache with the love I have for all my family, present or away.
During the three and a half day event I often catch myself looking at one of my guests and smiling as I think back over the years I have spent with them, how much they mean to me, and how far they have/we have come. Sometimes, most times, I get caught staring and I smile back because I think that my thoughts have mass and that mass has penetrated the bond between us.
In this world of insanity, terrorism, corruption, power mongering, cheating, lieing, stealing and you name it, there has to be a day when you can recharge your heart and soul, revitalize your beliefs; rejuvenate you faith in God, yourself and your loved ones, and refresh your outlook on the world. I choose Thanksgiving as that day, and it works for me, every single time.
It will be twelve long and arduous months before the next Thanksgiving, so I for one, am going to get the most that I can out of this one.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
As you prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, coming up, try to set aside all of the malevolent aspects of life and concentrate only on the good you have done, the people you love and the richousness within. We do the opposite too many days of the year. Anon
Terror is defined as “the cause of great fear“. Terrorism has been a tool for fear-mongering since Eden. I traveled all over the Middle East and Asia between 1978 and 1998 and was fortunate enough to never experience a Terrorists strike.
One day in Tel Aviv, Israel, my wife and I were strolling on Diesengoff Street, on Shabat, looking in store windows and trying to find a place to have lunch. There were hundreds of Israelis doing the same, it was a beautiful day. Suddenly there was a loud bang. My wife and I stood looking around and everyone else was on the ground. Slowly everyone got up and it was determined that the noise came from a backfiring truck. That is terror. The Israeli lives with it daily and reacts to it almost instinctively. My wife and I were not inured and therefore had no reaction.
We live in a free country. Freedom, means freedom for all, and it has a price. Terrorists use freedom to their benefit, and the only way to combat it is to declare war on it. That means that anyone suspected of being a terrorist does not get to share in that freedom if he or she insists on practicing terrorism in the free world.
Hollande, bless him, understands that, and he immediately issued orders to search out the Terrorists, their families and friends and bring swift justice for the mad acts preformed in Paris on November 13, 2015. The French have since rooted out holed up members of the group, finally killing Abdelhamid Abaaoud and detaining seven more suspects in Saint-Denis. The French have shown the free world how to deal with terrorist acts and terrorists themselves, lets see how we handle it if, God forbid, the dirty work continues here at home.
Viva la France, the world is with you.
11/13/15
If there is something about this great country you don’t like you have three choices, do something consructive to change it, let it be, leave. Fighting, bitching and and polarizing does no one any good. – Anon
Up at the unheard of hour of 6 AM this morning to be at the Court House at 7:30, for Jury Duty. I’m too old for this stuff, but it is my duty as a citizen of this great country. I do it with honor.
“It was impossible to get a conversation going, everyone was talking too much.” Thanks Yogi, I know what you mean.
The spin stops here.
Last night I wasted a considerable portion of my prime time TV viewing watching the shenanigans on CNN (6PM to 8PM PST). With the exception of possibly Bernie and the Marine, I haven’t heard so much spin and scorn in one sitting, in my life. My head was twisting so fast it nearly fell off my head.
One of the candidates was asked, “You are a very wealthy individual, how can you convince voters that you understand the plight of the Middle Class?” The answer immediately spewed forth. “We haven’t always been rich, and I am proud of the hard work that we have done to create our wealth.” Really? With all the righteous indignation the candidate could muster, we were treated to a sermon on the rewards of honesty and a hard work ethic. I think even Sidney was squirming. I got up and made a drink, this was crazier than I thought it would be.
One of the candidates, under two or three current investigations for questionable conduct while in office found a scapegoat fall guy to blame for every single one of the allegations. Those !@#$#@! Republicans. With a smile and linguistic precision the candidate blamed the last seven years and everything that has gone wrong on the !@#$#@! Republicans. It was so convincing I hung my head in shame. How could I possibly align myself with such a callous, mean and despicable political party. I snapped out of my funk quickly when I remembered what I was watching, and got up for another drink.
It’s only the beginning folks, we have another year of this to swallow. A good thing to remember comes from a chapter in Charles Krauthammer’s book “Things That Matter” (a super read BTW). He proposes that we should listen closely to all of the candidates and their bantering back and forth, smearing eachother with the worst of the worst, and remember that the day after the election, one of those creeps has managed to become your President. Spine chilling isn’t it.