A surprise in my back yard

 I live in a condo area. It does have a fence around it, but no gate (with secret code). The road behind me comes straight toward my house, then curves sharply to parallel the fence before reaching the condo entrance.

Last night I stayed up late watching TV, so it was only when I went to bed and noticed that the background noise I had thought was coming from the TV - just kept on going. and going. and going.

Finally I noticed flashing lights behind my house. Looked out the patio door and -- there was a SUV in my back yard being towed away. It had misjudged the curve and crashed through the iron fence. (so that's what that crash sound had been, not on the TV after all.) Two fence sections lay on the grass. No, it didn't get close to my house, but what a surprise.

This morning they're working to clean up the mess. They just now carted away the fence sections, but I don't know when they'll replace the fencing. I hope it's soon.

On the other hand, I've always wanted to leap over the fence as a shortcut to my house when coming back from my walk around the neighborhood, instead of having to walk all the way to the entrance of my condo area, and then back to my house.

Now I have that shortcut.

At least - until they mend the fence.

Carrying a weapon

I was the assistant Fencing Coach in grad school. One day while walking from class to the gym for practice with my fencing gear in its special carry bag,, I was stopped by police in a car. "Are you carrying a weapon?" they asked. "Yes," I replied. "Would you please show it to us?" (This was in Kentucky and they were very polite, but I could see they were on edge because of all the protests around the country in the 1960s) So I pulled out my fencing foils. One of them wanted a fencing lesson right there and then.  
Oh, and walking after fencing practice I had to go through a park to get to my bus stop. Other college women had warned me about danger in that park, but for some reason, I was never accosted. Might be because I was carrying a 'weapon?"

Jack London

A quote from an article about this writer:
"In 1898, Jack London was trapped in an Alaskan cabin while, outside, winter froze everything to icy stillness. “Nothing stirred,” he wrote later. “The Yukon slept under a coat of ice three feet thick.” London, then 22, had come to Alaska to make his fortune in the gold rush, but all he’d found was a small amount of dust worth $4.50. A diet of bacon, beans, and bread had given him scurvy. His gums bled, his joints ached, and his teeth were loose. London decided that, if he lived, he would no longer try to rise above poverty through physical labor. Instead, he would become a writer. So he carved into the cabin wall the words “Jack London Miner Author Jan 27, 1898 . . .

When London returned from the Klondike, he dove into writing, churning out thousands of words. For months, he got nothing for his efforts but rejection letters—over 600 of them. “Everything I possessed was in pawn, and I did not have enough to eat,” he wrote of that time. “I was at the end of my tether, beaten out, starved, ready to go back to coal-shoveling or ahead to suicide.” Then he sold two short stories, one for $5 and another for $40. Slowly, he began publishing, and in 1903 he wrote three books, including The Call of the Wild. He followed up with more hits—White Fang, The Sea-Wolf, and Martin Eden, among others. By his late 20s, he was the highest-paid writer in the United States. . . "

The rest of the article is here: The first and last lives of Jack London

Thoughts about writers and writing

Why are writers so insecure?
It's because we KNOW we can writer better. That vision in our head, those voices we hear in our mind dictating the story just can't be matched by the paltry words we manage to get down on the page. (or typed into the computer file) We feel we can't measure up to those who've gone on before - even though we're pretty sure they also went through revision hell and fought the muddy, muddy middle.

Do you have a 'mind's eye?'

Do you have a 'mind's eye?' Can you see objects clearly when you imagine them? Artists can. What about writers?
I'm very face blind (can't remember what people look like and therefore don't recognize them again), but when I write, I 'see' the action played out in my mind and I write what I'm seeing. (no, I don't see faces) Also I hear it. Otherwise how could I, a soft-spoken, slow speaker be able to write a character who chatters all the time, who is occasionally funny, too , whereas I'm very seldom 'funny.' (not like clever David L.)  

I also dream clearly, but again, the people in my dreams (except for family faces) have very vague faces.  

I can draw, but not as well as some in my talented family.  

On the other hand, I've created floor plans for the children's area in two separate libraries and saw them set up exactly as I had planned them. There was some conflict about the second plan. The person in administration threw out my floor plan and tried to create her own. She finally told me that she couldn't set up the children's room with the book (etc.) collection that we had. That's when I learned she had thrown mine out. So I sent mine again, pointing out how this and that fit the space available. After a few questions (and revisions), the room was set up using my floor plan, which I enjoyed working in for over 10 years before I retired.

So, I guess I have a partial 'mind's eye,' but not for faces.

The Dark Ages really were DARK

You've heard of the Dark Ages when you studied history in school.

Now you know why -- the whole Northern hemisphere was dark, crops couldn't grow causing starvation and plague.

The Worst Year in History?
This will surprise you

2020 has already been immortalized. It is a year that nobody will forget.
However, when speaking of the worst year recorded in human history there are many to choose from:

The year 1349 saw the Black Death kill half the population of Europe.

In 1520 smallpox ravaged the Americas and killed between 60 and 90 per cent of the continents’ original inhabitants.

In 1918 the Spanish Flu led to the deaths of over 50 million people.

The rise of Hitler in 1933 is often claimed to be the turning point in modern history.

However, many scholars, are unanimous in their choice. The title of the worst year in history is easily held by the year 536 AD.

Medieval historian, Michael McCormick has stated that “it was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.” (Interview with Science Magazine). The year began with an inexplicable, dense fog that stretched across the world which plunged Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia into darkness 24 hours a day, for nearly 2 years.

Consequently, global temperatures plummeted which resulted in the coldest decade in over 2,000 years. Famine was rampant and crops failed all across Europe, Africa and Asia. 
Unfortunately, 536 AD seemed to only be a prelude to further misery. This period of cold and starvation caused economic stagnation in Europe and in 541 A.D. an outbreak of "bubonic plague" led to the death of nearly 100 million people and almost half of the Byzantine Empire.

Historians have often referred this part of the sixth century as the Dark Ages, but the true source of this darkness had previously been unknown. Recently, researchers led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski, have discovered that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in early 536 led to the to huge amounts of ash being spread across the Northern Hemisphere. Creating the fog that cast the world into darkness. 
This eruption was so immense that it altered global climate patterns and adversely effected weather patterns and crop cultivation for years to come (Antiquity).

Labeling each new year as ‘the worst year in history’ has become something of a fad these days. We should look back to the year 536 A.D. and cherish how fortunate we are not to have lived in a time when the world was truly in darkness.

536
1349
1520
1918
1933
2008
2020

Quarantine computer activity

I sit down at computer to enter the title of the latest book I've read into this year's list.

-Activate computer.

-Open Safari to check weather, then get involved in FaceBook conversations.

-Check the online calendar. (nothing happening. I'm in quarantine)

-Close computer and begin to get up.

-oops, there's the book that I need to record.

-Sit back down at computer to enter the title into this year's list of books read.