Today’s forecast shows an 85% chance of swearing, and as usual, a 100% chance of sarcasm. Be sure to dress accordingly folks, it's going to be a scorcher!
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
So apparently I’ve decided that September is Sci-fi month. This week is Starset’s “Bringing It Down.”
One of my favorite things about Starset (besides the music, itself), are the stories they weave in their videos. They have an over-all story arc and then they have these side stories that have nothing to do with the original, but are still great all on their own. I won’t spoil the story for this one. Just make sure to watch all the way through.
This week, we’re hoping across a couple ponds, over to Japan. J-rock singer, Gackt, has done a couple songs/videos with sci-fi themes. This one, “月の歌 / Tsuki no Uta” (Moon Song/Song of the Moon), is a personal favorite. I just wish I was able to find a better quality version of the video…
We’re jumping back into the music with a story, feet first! This was recommended by a friend. I didn’t understand at first, because I am not a car person (except for Mustangs. 😍), but then I read the lyrics. It’s actually not a bad sci-fi story. I was not expecting that. The only group from that time frame that I ever thought of having any kind of storyline was Pink Floyd, and that wasn’t sci-fi. I guess this is what you get when you’re left to your 70s/80s child sister to raise? I grew up with Bowie and Michael (George and Jackson) and missed out on a lot, apparently. Kinda disappointed, though. My dad was a huge sci-fi fan, but he never introduced me to Rush or told me about Brian Mays being an astrophysicist! To be fair, he might not’ve known, but still. I have so much geeky catching up to do…
For any of you behind like me, here’s Rush with “Red Barchetta.” (Those of you who already knew, got any suggestions of where to start?)
Sorry, I know some of you are like, “This is the longest January ever!” but I am more than happy to finally have most of summer behind me. I’ve spent the past two months (at least) grumbling about the heat (it’s almost 9pm when I’m writing this, and it’s still “Feels like 101°F” outside), so the fact that this week, we might be seeing temps in the 80°s is major cause for celebration. I told Nikki the other day that it feels like this year has flown by, what with it being one thing after another. I just can’t wait ‘til everything is over. I’m past done with customers being pissy about wearing a mask and Uber drivers trying to tell me that everything is a hoax.
Of course, the downside is that with it being September already, the kids are back in school. I mentioned before that we were sticking with remote learning, and let me tell you. It’s been a doozy. The eldest kiddo is doing fine. She gets up and gets to work, no problem. The youngest though, is fighting tooth and nail. He’s taken to waking up at 1am and staying up half the night, which means he’s cranky AF when 6:30am rolls around. He’s getting in trouble with his teachers and his classmates. It’s just a mess. A whole mess. (Before anyone starts on me: it’s not the teacher’s fault for this being a mess. The other students seem to be doing just fine. This is solely on the kiddo.) I don’t have to take over with him until about 9:15am, but from them until he’s done with his assignments for the day, it’s all out war. I’m quite eager to be moving out ASAP. (Too bad ASAP is still a good 6+months away.)
No real updates this month, besides the release of “Say ‘No!’ to Zombies.” I do have some time off from kids and work, so I’ll be writing as much as I can then. Sept. 7th will see the return of the #MusicMondays, so that’s something to look for, and I’ll try getting a new chapter of “Don’t Feed the Trolls” out later this month.
In the meantime, everyone stay safe and take care of yourself. It’s been a rough year, but we’ll make it through. If you’re taking part in any of the protests, double up on the staying safe and don’t forget your mask.
Last month…was an oops month. You probably noticed the first couple posts of the month stopped suddenly. This is what happens when you slap together a plan without actually stopping to prepare for it, first. I’ll be stepping that plan back and revising the whole idea. I want to do something, but I want to do it right.
In other news, this month is back to writing. I was thinking I’d have something for you by August 16th, but then I remembered I have another (minor) surgery coming up on the 15th, so I don’t want to make any promises. I’m going to try to have something, but life is starting to get busy again, so wish me luck?
Either the 17th or the 20th, school starts up again for the kids. Here, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, schools are giving the parents a choice on whether to send their kids to in person classes or online. We have two kiddos in this house. Both of them did very well with the remote learning, so we would prefer they continue with the remote lessons. The only problem is that I’m working outside of the house now, and I might be getting a lot more hours soon, because I’ve been approved to start cross training for a position in the pharmacy. When the remote learning first started, I had no outside job, so I just took care of everything on my own. Now though, all three of us “adults” are going to be working on (at times) conflicting schedules, so there’s no one of us who will be able to do all of the schooling for the kids.
Right now, we’re trying planners. We’ve got two of them, one for each kid. Their lessons and such will be filled out in them each week, and whichever one of us is “on duty” will mark off what they’ve completed so far. Whenever the person “on duty” has to go, they’ll pass off the planner to whoever comes home next. We’re hoping, between the three of us, we’ll be able to stay on track. It also helps that the mom now gets a day off during the week, so she’ll be taking the load on that day instead of me. It also helps that the school day will be starting early in the morning, so their mom will get them started, and I’ll get them finished.
Nothing more to add for the monthly round up, but I’m sure I’ll end up posting about masks and COVID throughout the month, especially since my sister and mother are both waiting for their test results to come back.
Still hoping to have you all a buy link by the end of the month.
Hope you all are staying safe and sane, and your governors are being smarter than ours. If any of you are taking part in the protests, remember to keep your eyes open and look out for each other.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone else feel like we’re living in SimCity and the player walked away from the computer? Does anyone even remember SimCity? Oof. Showing my age.
Anyway. I have a special request of anyone/everyone reading this: if you ever see/hear me say “I love moving!”, “Packing is fun!”, or anything else along those lines – smack me. Really hard.
I’m not actually moving (yet), my relocating plans have been put on hold until this stupid death plague is under control, but, I have so much stuff to go through, I figured I should start early. I’ve already condensed four totes into one box, and reorganized about 10 random boxes of crap I had around my room into…okay, 4 boxes, but they’re small! I should actually put them together into one bigger box, but I’m trying to keep them organized, so. We’ll see. I still have a bookcase to go through and a couple things to toss into storage so they’re out of the way. Some massive rearranging is about to happen with my space, so that’s something fun to look forward to.
In other news, I have a big chapter for “Don’t Feed the Trolls” to write, and I haven’t even touched it. On that same note, I did get around to looking into self-publishing for “Say ‘No!’ to Zombies.” It would be easy enough to do, through KDP. The e-book price would have to be set to at least $2.99 USD, but I’m not sure what the print price would be, because apparently it depends on quite a few things. I will be working all that out, and I might actually have a sales link for you near the end of August. In the meantime, I’m hoping to have some fun little pieces to drop on you here in the next couple weeks. Nothing big, but something I hope you’ll enjoy.
This month is going to be a busy one for me. I finally have dental and vision insurance again, so I have a bunch of appointments set up. My glasses are scratched to hell and back, so I need new ones, and the dentist has scheduled me for a follow up surgery to finish the process we started last year. Today is my first day of yoga (haven’t done it yet, but I’m already feeling the oof), and…just…so much. So much planned.
That’s it for the big news though. I live in Texas, so – for those of you who don’t already know – the virus thing is a definite concern right now. Early May, our idiot governor decided it would be a good idea to reopen the state, and our mayors followed suit. The number of people I had come in to my work, buying things like kids’ snorkels, sunscreen, and beach towels, talking about how they’re going to spend the weekend at the lake…oof. The bars across the state opened at far more capacity than they were supposed to, and absolutely no one was staying home (from what I saw, anyway).
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
Now, the hospitals are running out of beds, our numbers are rising at a ridiculous rate, and the idiot is only pausing the reopening of the state. June 25th, we finally got a mask mandate put in place, but there’s still no stay at home order. The governor told people they should stay home, but he’s not enforcing it. Our schools sent out a notice the other day saying that students will be given the option of how to attend school – in person or online (but that might change). It’s like the people in charge here are doing nothing to really help stop the spread. It’s a mess.
Even the weather seems to realize things are bad enough as it is. It hasn’t even hit 100 yet, and only a handful of tornadoes so far. Please note: this is not a complaint.
Hope you all are staying safe and sane, and your governors are being smarter than ours. If any of you are taking part in the protests, remember to keep your eyes open and look out for each other.
This is going to be my soapbox song, because so many people don’t seem to realize that LGBT+ people have the same relationship issues as non-LGBT+. They argue over who will cook, who will clean, whose job it is to walk the dog this time. They live, they laugh, they love, and sometimes…sometimes they cheat.
I finally sat down and listened to this song and watched the video. At one point, she writes “I think you’re super cute” in a note for the person bussing the tables, but really? The entire video is super cute. It captures that feeling of peeking around corners at the person you think is good looking, the shy smiles and ducked head, and just…everything about it. Oh, and the end? With the hands? MY HEART.
Just when she thought everything was finally settling down, Shelly is once again thrown into the fray. Her friends are stuck on the other side of the Mississippi River, with no weapons, no food, and no chance of survival without her help. Throw in the complete collapse of civilization, extremely limited technology, and hordes of zombies that are becoming more and more sentient every day…
Hey, no one said it was going to be easy, but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Shelly made sure to update hers just before she left.
Please note: this work contains language and themes that may not be appropriate for young readers.
