A Melange

Thoughts, Updates, and Scattered Stuff

So, it’s been a week since I first felt the scratchy throat starting. I’m still not right, but I am past the worst of it. It’s stopped me cold the last few days from writing or doing much in the way of being productive. I’m torn between knowing I should rest, to recover, and knowing I need to keep working because bills come every month without fail, even if I’m failing.

My son in formation at his graduation from Basic Training

I have no photos of my Dad in his Air Force Uniform, here is he re-enacting the French and Indian War

My husband and co-author Sanford, many years before I met him, during his service in the Army

To Our Honored Veterans

That being said, this is Veteran’s Day. I am very fond of the veterans in my life. The men and women who were prepared to serve their country with their very lives, if that was required of them, and I honor that. My husband, my father, and now my son, all served or are serving in the military. I work with veterans who I value highly for their attitude, honed and refined in the unique way the military has. Thank you, all of you and those reading who may have served, for that service.

The Things I Do

For love of my family and friends. Over at Bending Spoons, a friend tells the story of how a certain song came into being. I’d done the first version to set lyrics my mother wrote to a catchy tune. The second version… well, he asked for it! And it did make me laugh out loud when he asked, so of course I did it.

A Driplet of Fiction

From the prompt challenge over at More Odds Than Ends. I’m going to really try to keep up with MOTE, even if all I can manage is short bits and pieces.

Tristan leaned over Sara’s shoulder. She’d let out a sharp squeak of excitement, which had pulled him away from his project to snoop at hers.

“Look!” She moved the big magnifier to give him a better look. “They didn’t quite scrape deep enough.”

They hadn’t been looking for a palimpsest when she’d selected this book for her study. She’d chosen it simply because it was made of vellum, and she could assure the library her methods were strictly non-destructive as she tried to learn more about the animals used in the making of this pre-paper material used for medieval books.

However, as vellum was difficult to make, and thus expensive, many books made of it were turned into palimpsests, where the ink was scraped off and written over by later scribes.

“When I put the light on it like so,” She angled the batter-powered light and Tristan could see the old, very pale, stains of where the first ink had soaked into the skin of the page.

“I see it!” He blurted, amazed. “That’s remarkably readable!”

“Right?” Her cotton-gloved finger traced under the ghost line as she read, “Þe forme dai of Iun, in þan ȝere of ure Drihten twelf hundred and ten, we setten uppon a scip mid gonne-vur.”

“In English, please?” Tristan’s specialty wasn’t nearly so ancient as hers.

Sara giggled. “That was English, silly!” Then she translated, “on the first of June in our year of the Lord 1210, we set upon a ship with gun, or maybe cannon, fire.”

“You mean, this is a pirate ship’s log?”

“It’s so ironic!” She was bouncing in her seat, with muffled claps of her gloved hands. “The clear text is written more than a hundred years later, laying out legal ethics for lawyers. And under it? Something far more sinister!”

The prompt I was given this week was from AC Young, “The textbook on ethics was a palimpsest. Hidden underneath the handwritten words was the journal of a pirate.” I prompted Padre with “Back in the game, Baby!”

You can find all of the prompts, and play along yourself if you choose, at MOTE.