Bunny Monday

/ Tracy Abell

It’s always a good day when a bunny hops into my line of vision. May you also be blessed with a similar sighting.

Wishing everyone a happy Bunny Monday!

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Sunday Confessional: Today I’m wishing I could have a do-over

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

This afternoon I randomly thought about a man I once knew and then looked him up online. Well, I discovered that he’d died about 18 months ago. He used to be married to a friend of mine, but they divorced. The man had done some stuff that ended up being unforgivable. Zippy and I had spent quite a bit of time with both of them as a couple, and we liked the man. He was smart, funny, and always made us feel welcome when we visited. But after the bad stuff came to light, my loyalty was to my friend. The man reached out once, but I didn’t return the call.

I still believe I was right to stand by my friend, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m now wishing I’d tried to communicate with him at some point. The thing is, my friend and I aren’t really in touch anymore so this news makes it feel as if I’ve lost two friends.

But, as Billy Wilder said, “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”

Because he loved these flowers.

 

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Documenting my bracketology wizardology UPDATED

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

As of this moment (6:32 p.m. MT), my bracket ranking looks like this:

It’s hard to read, so allow me to highlight a pertinent detail:

This means that my bracket is better than 99.7 percent of the tournament brackets. Woot!

I’m posting this here and now because I’m pretty sure I’m about to fall in the standings. I have Oregon beating Kansas, and that’s just crazy. After watching Kansas play their last two games, I’m thinking they’re gonna keep on winning. As in, the whole shebang.

But at this moment in time, I look pretty damned smart.

UPDATE:
Well, the Oregon Ducks did, indeed, beat the Kansas Jayhawks. My bracket ranking is now this:

I’m in the 99.9 percentile which, according to Zippy, means my bracket is on a par with roughly 14,000 other elite brackets. WOOT!

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Don Draper would’ve done it better

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

I don’t watch much network television so usually avoid commercials. But because I’m all about March Madness, I am now, unfortunately, also all about commercials.

Which is how I know that there’s a pharmaceutical targeted at those with opioid-induced constipation.

Granted, it’s a tough sell. Still, I have to believe Don would’ve found a way to inject some magic into the ad campaign.

 

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Life is just one gigantic marble maze

/ Tracy Abell

Exhibit A:

Look at all the bright and shiny colors!
The rocket ship! The stars!
There’s even a dotted line to map out the route.
There’s so much potential in the marble maze of life.

And at the end of some days, I go to bed feeling like a WINNER.

Other days it seems as if I keep falling into the same damned hole.

But the secret  to the marble maze of life is finesse,
a little bit of TILT,
and a willingness to fall down,
get back up,
and show Hole 15 that this aggression will not stand.

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On the 14th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, G.W. Bush is still a war criminal

/ Tracy Abell

In March of 2003, my family took the train from Denver to San Francisco during our sons’ spring break. Wildebeest was 9-years-old and Zebu was 7. As had millions of people around the world, we’d marched and demonstrated and written letters and called our representatives to say NO TO WAR ON IRAQ.

Didn’t matter. Bush said he wouldn’t shape his policy according to public opinion, even when it was the whole freaking planet screaming NO.

We were in a hotel when it was announced that the U.S. had begun dropping bombs. We were outraged and heartbroken. So were many, many people in San Francisco. The police were out in full riot gear, looking very nervous.

Over the next days, people chained themselves to manhole covers and blocked streets.

Protesters were everywhere. So were the cops.

That Bush-Cheney invasion, powered by lies and fear-mongering, made the oil companies and mercenaries much richer, while destroying the lives of millions of Iraqis.

Now it’s March of 2017, and people are saying they miss George W. Bush. Unbelievable. George W. Bush is a war criminal, plain and simple, and the repercussions of his crimes continue fourteen years after he wrongly invaded another country.

 

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Sunday Confessional: The today-I-parched-my-dog edition

/ Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

I went out on the trails with Emma today. It was sunny and warm (probably about 80 degrees), there was substantial elevation gain, and we ran when we could.

Another pertinent fact? I didn’t bring water.

When we got off the trail and back on the street, we’d gone about 2.75 miles and Emma’s tongue was hanging out. We walked about 150 yards and then hit a patch of shade. She flopped onto her belly, legs splayed behind her, and panted. I let her stay down there while I stretched, and then got her going again. Several patches of shade later, she did the same thing. Belly flopped.

So I picked her up and carried her.

We passed some guy who asked, “Isn’t she supposed to be walking?” Nope. It was totally my bad. I overexerted my short-legged dog in the heat AND neglected to bring water. Two belly flops from her meant the rest of the way home was on me.

So I carried the 25-pound dog the last half-mile. For the record, she completely enjoyed the ride, looking around from her new vantage point.

She’s still a bit tuckered, though. While she rested, I dug my water pack out of the closet to use on our next outing.

 

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How to multi-task during March Madness

/ Tracy Abell

Today is the first day of March Madness which means basketball ALL DAY LONG. And I confess that I’ll watch these games ALL DAY LONG. However, I got up and got some stuff done before the tournament started. I did maintenance on my two worm bins (mite infestation YUCK) and worked on my writing project. But since then I’ve been parked in front of the television, switching between games (where there have already been two nail-biters, yo). In my defense, I am multi-tasking.

Here I am shredding newspaper for the worm bins. Not only does it relieve some guilt regarding the time I devote to watching men’s college basketball, it turns out that ripping paper into strips is a good way to let off steam when the team I’m rooting for is behind.

Shred on.

 

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Twofer Tuesday: The Signage Edition

/ Tracy Abell

A while back I blogged about discovering the perfect sign for the times. I went ahead and ordered two (in case one got stolen OR someone was keen to add a sign to their own yard).

The bright and welcoming little sign has been out front for a while.

Yesterday, as Zippy and I walked across the yard while heading out for Emma’s daily jaunt, he spotted something:

A scribble of thanks from another human being sharing the planet.

Every time I read those words, my heart swells with gratitude and a renewed sense of connection. Thank you, Helga M., for taking the time to reach out.

 

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Slowly, slowly and bit by bit

/ Tracy Abell

I’m working on my new-old middle-grade project, one I partially drafted and then set aside for six years. It’s been a slow process as I reenter this manuscript, but not painfully so. It’s more of a satisfying slowness as I put down words that, at times, feel very close to being just right.

Image from pexels.com

Who knows? Those words may end up being absolutely wrong.

But right now it doesn’t matter. Right now I’m allowing myself to enjoy the slow, deliberate movement of this particular story’s metamorphosis.

That right there is progress.

 

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Why I write books: Reason #87

/ Tracy Abell

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book.
They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book.
You can find your place in microseconds.
Books are really good at being books,
and no matter what happens,
books will survive.
~  Douglas Adams

 

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Is that you?

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday and today searching for character images. I’m writing about a girl and her little sister, and want to have touchstone photos I can refer to when I feel myself veering off track.

I love this photo, but it’s not quite right. There seems to be something off about each image I find. The expression is wrong or the hair is too long, too blonde, too short, too punk. Or the hair is perfect, but the eyes don’t speak to me and the body language is wrong.

I guess what I really need is a photo-based Mr. Potato Head.

 

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Like this Northern Flicker, my feathers are ruffled

/ Tracy Abell

And it’s starting to feel as if those feathers will be in a permanent state of ruffle. It’d be awesome if we could drag all the cave people back to their caves, slide boulders in front of the entrances, and starve their mean-spirited carcasses to enlightenment.

A bird woman can dream, can’t she?

 

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Magpie Monday

/ Tracy Abell

There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones that the magpies know themselves.
~  Terry Pratchett

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