On The Horns Of A Dilemma.

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Here it is, Labor Day – almost. And the usual group of scoundrels known as the Fondue Writers Club have banded together to post flash fiction for the holiday. We just do holidays now, after our long-running COVID series that resulted in THE COVID QUARANTINE CANTINA. (Yes, you should buy a copy.) There will be yet another story tomorrow on one of their blogs! Yesterday it was Jamie Greening with his story YOU MUST WORK FOR YOUR FONDUE. Hop over and read it!

We hope you’ll visit the other authors who comprise this collection: Paul Bennett, Robert Cely,  Derek Elkins, Jamie D. Greening, Kathy Kexel, and Joe Shaw. As always, there’s no fee, we’re doing this to help you pass the time. We do ask that you buy our books/audio books to help pay the freight here. But that’s up to you! Mine are all on the right margin of the blog.

On The Horns Of A Dilemma.

It seemed that every time Judith Shawirma planned to go some place with her family on a holiday,  her miserable company with their miserable planning and miserable leadership found some miserable last-minute order that would make them all miserable unless they worked the miserable holiday to get it shipped out.

That’s a lot of misery. Today’s misery was Labor Day, and 74 pallets of waffle-irons that a big-box retailer needed to finish their back-to-school crap. The waffle-irons had been advertised as the coming thing for college students, and gullible parents wanted to grace their dorm rooms with them, because they all wished they’d had waffles for breakfast in college. Mind you, most of them were too hung-over to eat waffles for at least three of the four years they’d wandered their way through a university, but that was irrelevant to the shopping brain programmed in by the media.

The day started out more lovely than anticipated, the local Mickey D’s was closed due to a post Chinese Plague labor shortage, so no breakfast on the way to the warehouse. The annual 10K that the city held added to the joy, as part of her drive was blocked off for morons in lacy shorts and tank tops – pushing strollers. She hated runners, and really hated runner mommies.

Arriving 12 minutes late, her charming boss immediately started abusing her about her “team player spirit lacking” and directed her to get to the far side of the line of trailers waiting to be loaded with her forklift. Work to be done. 

After checking the gas bottle on her forklift, she did a basic maintenance check on it. Slow to respond would be a kind description, but the spare forklift was down and it was good enough. Popping the brake, she actually left a bit of rubber on the floor when the thing ramped up after a hiccup.

Rounding the corner of the stacks, she headed down a side aisle toward the pile of product roped off for the big-box distribution center. Pissed about being late and her boss jumping her about it on a freaking holiday, she leadfooted it down the aisle, the fork screaming at full rpm as she neared the halfway point to her destination.

She had a fork tine on the right that was wobbling toward the floor and the last thing she wanted was a somersault on some crack in the floor, so she nudged the lever to raise the tilt of the forks while she blipped the adjacent lever to raise them a couple of inches. 

The speed was continuing to rise and the forks were not moving. But that changed suddenly as they whipped up to a full 15 degrees from the horizontal and slammed up three feet in the blink of an eye.

“Whoah, that’s nuts!” She slapped at the lever to lower the forks just as her boss rounded a corner and shouted at her to slow down. She honked the horn, but the idiot moved in front of her like Officer Friendly and raised his hand for her to stop. That train had left the station, and her choice was to hope the brakes worked better than the rest of the controls. The other option was to turn hard into the racking next to her to stop, and given the volume of appliances stacked three stories high, she’d probably die in the mess. 

The left fork punched through her boss’ abdomen and he came to rest, scream frozen in his throat two feet from her face. The spray of blood blinded her, and her last thought was she’d never have a breakfast sandwich again as the forklift caught a piece of the racking and pinwheeled down the alley, followed closely by a shower of toasters, waffle irons, mixers and other assorted small electrics. Her seatbelt had never been buckled that morning and she was ejected from the safety cage as the deadly rain of 10 pound boxes dropped three stories to crush her just before the steel racking put the “icing” on the mangled mess.

Labor Day. Not a good day to go to work at Orae electric. 

I Know A Very Courageous Person You Should Know About As Well.

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Just to save you running to the dictionary, my interpretation of courageous is someone who knows all the risks and still sets out upon a course of action knowing the cost. Bravery, which is more my style, is grabbing a gun and running toward the sound of gunfire. Mind you, most brave people are somewhat courageous in that they’ve likely evaluated possible scenarios ahead of time, so the act of bravery is predicated on their courageous intent formed over time.

Was that too wordy?

So, the courageous person I want to talk about is my mom. I don’t know if courage is a genetic trait, but I lucked out in that both of my parents were either brave or courageous. I got the bravery part from my father. He didn’t take crap and stood his ground regardless of the consequences. Instead of a gun to gunfire, he was the type of guy who grabbed a golf club and joined the neighbor searching for a prowler at ten at night. But you get my point.

So, why is my mom courageous? She is in her mid-eighties, and she has made more major life changes in the last four months than some of you have in your entire lives. I am extraordinarily proud of her, and have tried to support her (versus cajole and sucker her into doing what I think is right) along the way.

She sold her home of over 20 years and moved into a senior community. It was a tough call, because for the first time since she got married in the 1950s she moved into a new residence without my father at her side. That’s landmark stuff there, folks. She also left behind the last traces of a life she came to Florida to form with my dad. Oh, sure, she has mementos, but she will never again glance across the room and picture him where he used to sit. The building she lives in is brand new, and relatively free of ghosts; including the friendly ones.

But perhaps the biggest change in some ways was her excellent judgement in surrendering her driver’s license. We talked about it for months, and she essentially parked her car when she moved and only drove it twice in a few months. About 1 mile roundtrip. 

You see, my mother, who has encouraged me in my pursuits all my life (except the cop thing, that scared her) has vision problems. And she realized that she was a bit of menace on the road with her eyesight fading. Some day she will probably be blind in at least one eye, but she’s in luck: she has a kid who will narrate the tough parts for her mind to envision. As a result of her realization, she agreed to surrender her driver’s license. 

Mind you, she did try to pass the eye test one last time, but she was doing that for assurance that she really couldn’t drive, not just shouldn’t. 

The loss of your license is to many a loss of freedom. Perhaps. But in the age of UBER it’s not as big a deal as it was 20 years ago. Still, what a tough thing to surrender.

Finally, she sold her beloved car so that she could avoid the temptation for any felonious automotive excursions. She loved that car, and had exactly what she wanted. Her previous ride was destroyed by a reckless driver a year ago, and so she got a clean slate. But after the accident the joy of driving was diminished even with a hot set of Honda wheels under her. 

And, to conclude the story,  CARVANA came to pick up the car last week. (I cannot say enough about them and how nice they were.)

 

So, I think my mom’s pretty courageous. 

And, because I would be wrong in putting it any other way, my sister Jean is pretty courageous as well. She was right there alongside me as I worked with my mom to get this done. She helped my mom way more than I did when it came to getting her moved, and she supported the surrender of her license. More importantly, she did all the heavy lifting finding the best price for the car, and making all the arrangements with CARVANA.  I just kind of stood to the side and watched. That’s not easy to do when it’s your mom, as you have a lot to lose if mom doesn’t like what you’re doing. 

 

So, THANK YOU, JEAN for all your hard work.

Lost Bits Has Been Released

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For the last month I’ve been teasing a new audio book that has been in production. Well, it’s LOST BITS by Kerry Nietz. And it released last night, available for immediate download. For less than $20.00 you will get an amazing book, and my most challenging performance to date.

I’m going to spare you my entire history of audio books, starting with recording books for the blind to date, and instead tell you that this is not just a very good book, but a very good audio book. Kerry and I worked very hard to make this an excellent listening experience. We pushed technology boundaries and came up with an exceptional 9.45 hours of escape from reality.

The last thing K-404 remembers is a happy home with the human child Ele, whose care is his primary purpose. So, when he wakes up in a landfill of tossed-away technology, his only thought is to reunite with his family.

This world is not his own, though. It’s a wasteland of desolate buildings, flying metal disks, and monstrosities that keep themselves active by stealing another bot’s power.

How did the world get this way?

And why was he discarded?

Hampered by imperfect memory, an obsolete body, and limited battery life, 404 sets out to find his home. Joined by other castaways, he faces off against scavengers and monsters, only to encounter greater threats.

Pursued, outsmarted, and manipulated on every side, 404 teeters on the brink of annihilation. His only chance of survival? Those bits of himself—the connections—he hasn’t lost.

If you love science fiction, have a friend that does, or just want a break from the ugly reality of the news, hop over to Amazon and get a copy right now. You can gift audio books as well, so get a download for that friend who would love it as well. I promise you, I am sorry that you were late for dinner and forgot to pick up the kids at school, but you will enjoy the book enough to salve those wounds. Hey, it’s easy to get lost in the world of K-404.

Marhaban Min Janub Florida

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That’s a terrible transliteration of “Hello from south Florida” from Arabic, but since most of you have never used military standard transliteration systems, I figured only a few rocks would be thrown this way.

Memory is a strange, and powerful, thing. Supposedly the sense of smell is the strongest link for most people. I don’t doubt that in the least. Today I was watching a video of a Sheriff on patrol in Ramsey County, Minnesota. His name is Bob Fletcher, and the broadcast is called Live on Patrol. (Not to be confused with On Patrol Live on the REELZ network.)

At any rate, my wife and I enjoy the show because he cruises all the places I grew up in, and where we lived for the previous 28 years. It’s like being home for a visit. I lived there most of my life, and the instant the live feed comes on I can usually tell you where he is within a block or two. I love that and it is fun to watch for us. But we’re old and boring, so there.

This day I could smell the grass as he drove around. I could tell what it smelled like by the color. Minnesota summer generates a certain odor and it’s distinct from Florida where I live now. That smell also hits me when he drives past certain restaurants I’ve walked past for decades: they each have a unique odor. It tugs at my heart more than a bit. I felt like I was run out of my birthplace early by the violence that followed the riots. It was time to leave, and watching Sheriff Fletcher on patrol tells me we made the right decision: things are not good in the Twin Cities. Ramsey county doesn’t yet circle the drain, but it will be pulled down with Minneapolis and Hennepin country before long.

So, now that I’ve covered the most common sensory/memory link, let’s talk about my top linkage: sound and memories. I think this one applies to a lot of former military linguists. Our lives, and those of others, depended on our hearing and discernment. We were very well trained listeners, and most of us got really good. We got so good, in some cases, we could tell what kind of radio they were transmitting on, what kind of vehicle it was (helicopter, tank, fighter) by background noises. All of which mattered, since most likely a tank was no threat to your submarine, but an Anti Submarine Warfare helicopter was a big deal.

Last night we didn’t feel like watching television or doing anything else but read. I pulled up a Youtube.com channel that played R&B from my youth, and we listened for hours. I know all of the words. Some are wrong, but I know them. And they all evoke memories. 

The number one on my list of memory shakers was STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE by the Supremes. I sat there and sang along, in Arabic, with my eyes closed.

Why Arabic? Because in 1985 I was in a basic Arabic class with a dozen of the smartest people in the military. We were unique, as our section had collected the cream of the class. And, because we were smart and strange, we used our dictionaries extensively. As a result, when we learned one of the words in that song (and I don’t remember which word) we realized we knew a bunch of the others as well. We looked up the rest. 

Within a couple of days we were ready. The instructor, who we called “Elvis from Baghdad” because of his hairstyle (he was a really good guy), walked in and we stood up and four or five of us sang the song, in Arabic, with all the hand gestures and swaying. In uniform. Camouflage, working Navy uniforms, and Marine Corps greens. 

And we killed it. He was surprised and gave us a slow clap before telling us to shut up and get to work. High praise from him. 

Well, last night after I sang along to the song, I realized I’d forgotten a few of the words. After I went to bed, my brain engaged and talked to me all night in Arabic. For starters we did the whole song in that classroom just like we did 37 years ago. All the words. And then the rest of the night I had a ton of dreams in Arabic. Vocabulary, and situations from decades ago, cascaded through the night. 

I woke up this morning smiling. All that hard work and study were not lost. It was all there waiting for me to reach out to it. 

I can still smell that room when I pause a moment: starch, cigarettes, coffee, and the warm sunshine of Monterey heating the dust on the windows. 

I like that feeling. I can only hope tonight I dream of bakeries.  

 

Is This A Good Time To Babble?

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Just letting you all know that a major milestone kind of audio book is due out in the next two weeks. 

The name? The author? Eh, well, there’s this Non Disclosure Agreement thing I agreed to… But you’re going to love it.

What I can say is that almost 20 years ago my first major project was for a software package called Times Tables The Fun Way. Over the years it has been revised, and my voice no longer does 20+ characters in the software. That’s okay, the technology is much better. But it was an incredible experience and a great way to stretch my talent as a new voice over person.

Now, almost two decades later, I’ve done a science fiction novel that required voices. Lots of voices. Lots of different voices. And it was a great story to work with. The author had a few different ideas than I did about what people should sound like, so some revision was needed. 

But, man did it turn out to be a monster hit. With me. And the author. 

So, save your pennies and I’ll put up a post once it is available.