Merry Christmas, Everyone...especially the dingbats of the world! A.K.A. "Stranger Danger"

I'm in Paducah, KY, visiting my sister and her family for Christmas. I love her house, a 80 year-old four-square with a fan-light window over the front door, a 20-step staircase leading up to the second floor, a big, teen-friendly basement, and a finished attic. I also love the family gathering...her kids come in from their respective colleges, my Uncle Albert drives in from Lubbock, TX. She and her husband are always so hospitable.

But, I don't always like to sit around and do nothing... Sister likes to do nothing, since she's been working so hard getting prepared for everyone. Yesterday, I talked her into driving back down I-24 to "Patti's 1880's Settlement." I always see the sign on the freeway for Patti's 1880's Settlement--a brown highway sign. Brown signs always mark some sort of scenic or historical attraction. I love to stop at these types of places, but it's so close to Paducah that I never have stopped--I usually reach Paducah after dark.

Yesterday, we drove over to see what we could see.

Patti's is actually a sort of tourist trap in Grand Rivers, KY. I understand that Patti's has a good restaurant, but it was closed--December 22-25. There were some antique and specialty shops open in Grand Rivers, however, so we had a good time looking around. Then we drove around looking at the sights--Green Turtle Bay Resort, Lighthouse Landing.

As we were leaving, about to turn off the road we were on in order to drive across Kentucky Dam, we saw this woman walking down the road, wearing a thin knit poncho and carrying her purse. I realized that I had seen her earlier in one of the shops we had visited and assumed her car had broken down--why else would she be walking so far outside of town in regular shoes, carrying her purse? I convinced my sister to turn around, go back, and check on her.

This woman, who must of been in her forties or fifties, said that she'd just gone out for a walk while her friends went to Walmart. We offered to give her a ride back to her friends' house. Only she didn't know where it was...

We spent the next forty minutes looking for this house, following her cries of "oh, it must be down this road!" (Nope, dead-end.) "Oh, it's next to a campground." (Oh, not this campground, one that doesn't have trailers, more like a reserve.) "It's just up the road from the boats that are decorated." (Hello? Are we not in the "Land Between the Lakes? WHICH marina do you mean?)

It's nice to be a good Samaritan, but this mission of mercy became much more complicated than I ever imagined. And my poor neice, Emily, who got stuck sitting next to her on the back seat of the SUV, said she smelled "weird." (I think she'd been dabbling in the "Kama Sutra" oils in the shop where I had first noticed her).

I hope that, if I am ever in a similar situtation, lost in a town that I am visiting, some nice person will take mercy on me and help me find my way home. But jeez-louise! I'm not dumb enough to wander TWO MILES outside of town without a map, carrying my purse, NOT in walking shoes.

So, I hope the dingbat is okay. And I really appreciate my sister and family indulging my good Samaritan instincts.

And people wonder where writers get their ideas...All we really have to do is pay attention.

Still Trying to Get Back to Work!

So, since my last post, I spent five more days in bed sick and am STILL wrestling with gunk in my sinuses and ears.

As I splept last night, I must not have turned over. I woke in the same position as I deliberately situated myself to fall asleep--tilted to my left side. I've been trying to sleep this way because sleeping on my right side (or turning over to that side at night, or even sitting up straight) will cause the sinus congestion to flow to my right, damaged, ear and put pressure on it.

The good news is that when I woke this morning, still tilted to the left, I could hear out of my right ear!! But now that I'm sitting up, I can feel the mucus flowing and clogging up the right ear...it's like the pressure you get as a plane gains altitude, only it won't clear when I swallow or yawn. If you think I'm going to try anything more forceful than that, you are sadly mistaken...I now know what a ruptured eardrum feels like (it was actually more painful before it ruptured--but I couldn't hear afterward!!!).

I'm now in catch-up mode as an instructor at the community college, so I'm not managing to write much. I feel guilty even squeezing in this blog post. But I need to get my fingers on a keyboard with paragraphs, instead of test questions. It feels good to be doing so.

I have a newly discovered blog on my "to be followed" list: Genreality. Check out the December 7, 2009 post by Carrie Vaughn regarding "filtering words." It's an excellent suggestion for cutting too-long manuscripts.

I'm back...I think

I've finished my capstone!!! I am still wrestling with the page numbering, but my fellow author, Elaine, tells me that putting in section breaks IS difficult, and that I'm not a nutter for not being able to figure out how to do this. I'm going to my friend Cindy's tonight to get her to help me...and tomorrow I have to teach fellow capstone writer Jessica how to page number with both Roman and Arabic numerals.

Now it is time to get back to work on my "Sherry" novel. Hey, if I've ever met you, there's a chance I will borrow your name for a character...but I won't borrow you. The character in the young adult novel-in-progress that I call "My Sherry Novel" and my college friend Sherry could not be more different. But I find it fun to pay homage to old friends this way. (I think Sherry works for Google now. I worked with her at the UCLA bowling alley. She kept trying to teach me how to bowl, but I was hopeless. Shout out to ya!)

But it is so hard to write if I'm sick. And I've been really sick lately. Eight days ago, I thought I had a cold. It got bad fast. Cough & chest congestion. Then head and sinus congestion. Pardon the gross details--I couldn't sleep on my stomach because my sinuses would pour snot out. I could feel the congestion build up in my ears. I touched my ear and nearly cried in pain. I knew that this wasn't gonna be good--but I was taking the maximum dosage of the over the counter cough syrup and decongestant that I had on hand (and pain reliever too). I should have risked my liver! The congestion in my sinuses and ears built up so much that my eardrum ruptured when I coughed--sometime between midnight and two in the morning. The pain in the ear, believe it or not, actually lessened. But my hearing is gone in my right ear. And it's ringing continually. I had not wanted to go to the doctor--I don't believe in going for every last cold, and flu is viral, which means that antibiotics don't work on flu...but sinus infections....I should have gone sooner. I finally went to the doctor and now am on a kick-butt antibiotic pill and also have antibiotic drops for my ears. I'm praying that as the hole in my head heals, I'll get my hearing back.

And now I can sit up again and write. And I'm getting really good about getting up early in the morning to have time to do it!