Thursday, October 16, 2025
up before the sun...
Friday, October 10, 2025
this week...
...has been busy. But not as busy as the next few will be.
💔💔💔💔
Tuesday morning, I learned that my nephew Justin's remains had been found in Utah. Identification was confirmed with dental records, so he likely died in December 2023 not long after he went missing. It was not the outcome we had hoped for, but it at least gives closure to his family. His 38th birthday would have been Sunday, and his son just turned 14 in January this year.
💔💔💔💔
If you know someone living on the edge right now, please don't wait until they disappear to try and touch base with them. Reach out now. Ask how they are. Listen. Just listen.
Should'a, could'a, would'as are the worst part of hindsight.
With hugs and love... Ci💚
Thursday, October 9, 2025
not dead yet ....
Alexander was about to order room service at the latest luxury hotel he managed to find in his journey to find Kael and the other wood elves when he decided it was high time that he actually visited the three-star Michelin ranked restaurant in this particular hotel for a change. Room service was all well and good, but that night he was in high spirits and felt deserving of being served rather than serving himself.
As much as he put on airs to be some sort of well-educated aristocrat, Alexander's table manners were more similar to his gnoll heritage. Chewing with his mouth open, with food falling out, he was ignorant to the other guests of the restaurant nudging each other or requesting to be moved to another table away from him. The maître d'hôtel saw what was happening as guests would point to him or laugh on the side and watched like a hawk to be sure that none of his waiters were mocking Alexander.
It would be just like the inspectors who "dish out" the Michelin stars to put a honey bait of a repulsive diner to test the restaurant's staff into making a mistake that could cost them their ranking. Distracted by the sight of Alexander eating, he didn't see one of their wealthiest and most prestigious guests arrive with a companion on each arm, and six other notably famous friends. They stood silent, waiting for the maître d' to acknowledge them, before they saw what he was glowering at. Their eyes widened at the spectacle Alexander was making of his meal before their host for the evening loudly exclaimed that perhaps it was time they find a new place to eat if the restaurant had lowered its standards to allow pigs to dine.
The maître d' spun his head so quickly, they heard his neck crack, and he blushed a deep red, apologizing profusely for Alexander and offering to seat them in a private room. But the damage was done, and the nine were already out the door, with several of the women posting to social media their disgust and disappointment as his words fell in the air. This would be worse than an anonymous Michelin inspector, the maître d' thought as he tried to remember the last time he had to look for a job and whether or not his resume had been updated in the past two decades.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Sunday, October 5, 2025
sounds before morning coffee
background noise at the beginning of the clip is the hot water warming for my coffee.
Calliope has the tiniest little girl meow, while her brother Oliver has the deeper meow.
Lucy appears at the beginning of the clip in the background and is the angry hiss and spit in the middle of the clip.
last week...


Friday, October 3, 2025
morning...
Thursday, October 2, 2025
if I were a betting man...
Several days after their near encounter with the spotted black caped elves, Lyri noticed that Thalion had been especially quiet since leaving that part of the forest. Finding him at the edge of a creek while she was gathering wood for their evening fire, she sat beside him.
"Do you still hear Vondran's voice in your head or in your dreams?"
Thal continued looking at the water, watching tadpoles in the shallows. "No, and it is starting to worry me. What if all of it was just my imagination, and I've put our lives in danger?"
She put a hand on his arm to comfort him. "It hasn't been your imagination. Elder Elowin confirmed some of the things that he had told you before we left. You mustn't let doubt enter your thoughts, Thal. I know we've put a lot of pressure on you to lead us. Perhaps we should rest another day or two here."
Thal nodded, and Lyri left him to his thoughts and returned to where Eldrin and Kael were setting up makeshift lean-tos as they did every evening.
~*~*~
While the elves were sleeping on the ground for their part of the journey, Alexander was choosing more modern amenities for his portion. Five-star hotels were far and few between, but he would rather not settle for less so long as he was still able to meet with the gnoll's Chieftan each evening before he slept.
Now, Alexander and the elves traveled by day and the gnoll's by night. In the beginning, he had kept the same schedule as the gnolls and traveled at night. But sleep evaded him during the day, and after a particularly bad case of influenza which took all of his physical strength and left him bedridden for a week, he realized that he could no longer drive at night. He may have had gnoll DNA, but his body and organs were weakly human.
His original anger and desire to destroy Kael and all the wood elves had manifested into a small, pea-sized bilirubin pigment stone, the color of pumpkin orange, in his gallbladder. For now, its presence was only an occasional twinge in his right side that went away after three or six shots of bourbon. But as the days passed without any sign of the elves, and Alexander's evening "nightcap" increasing in frequency during the day, there came another, as the original stone became larger.
There was now a race within Alexander's body that his mind was thus far unaware of. Would he die of an infection caused by the stones? Would he die of a heart attack from the stress of the journey? Or would the gnoll Chieftan finally have enough and make a meal of him?
The gnolls were already placing bids for his appendages, and bets for how much longer Alexander would live....
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Monday, September 29, 2025
bits and bobs ...
Friday, September 26, 2025
broken trust ...
Several generations before that of Thal, Kael, Lyri, and Eldrin, and even before that of Vondran, there had been peace in the forests for most of each year. There were trade and commerce between the wood elves, gnomes, and fairies.
But at some point, a more competitive wood elf suggested that they hold an annual competition of Olympian style games to see who was really "the best" in the forest. Naturally, each of the competitors had the full support of their villages, and it was all fun and games. For a while, anyway.
No one remembers the whole story of what happened, but what was passed down from generation to generation was that it was suggested one year to have feral tabby cat races down the mountain. As one could imagine, the race didn't go as planned. Cats, feral or domesticated, are not known for their willingness to follow commands, especially when there is something small and possibly tasty riding on their backs.
Later, the story that was shared by the men folk around fireplaces with warm whiskey making the tales longer, was that the village of the spotted black caped clan had deliberately sabotaged the games in order to gain a trade monopoly in the forest.
The women whispered across clotheslines that it had been the oak clans, while others insisted it was the river clans, or the mountain clans who had been responsible for the massacre.
Regardless of who or why, the damage was done. Darkness and distrust began to spread in the forests, and friendships between the elves, gnomes, and fairies were sharply severed. Soon the wars would begin, kingdoms toppled, gnolls rose up from the black earth and shadows, and The Grimma was born.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Sunday, September 21, 2025
the catio... and a bookend...
I've been remiss in my continuity of photos ...
a little of this and that ...
I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted any pictures ...
Stay strong out there... Ci💚
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Spotted ...
Thal and Kael quietly crept through the trees until they could see the village and its inhabitants. They weren't wood elves like themselves, but they also weren't gnolls much to Kael's relief.
He whispered to Thal, "What are you feeling? Friendly or not? Has Vondran told you anything more?"
Thal slowly shook his head no, and motioned to the group before he whispered, "Look. They are wearing spotted black cloaks."
Kael's eyes grew wide, and he began to back away into the shadow of the forest when the unthinkable happened. Stepping on a large stick that cracked loudly, the two of them froze in place as the singing and dancing group stopped and turned to stare in their direction.
Unexpectedly the wind picked up, blowing hot embers from the bonfire onto the thatched roof of a cottage opposite of where Thal and Kael were standing in the shadows. Suddenly, all attention was on the fire that was quickly growing in size and threatening to spread.
As the dancers ran to get water to douse the fire, the two young wood elves took the opportunity to further disappear into the trees and made their way back to where Lyri and Eldrin were waiting for them.
"No time to fish, Eldrin, or do any shopping for dinner in the village, Lyri They are the spotted blacks that Vondran said to avoid, so we must hit the road quickly and get this trip moving. As quietly as you can, we must circle around the village in the shadows." Thal spoke with a harsh urgency that revealed his fear.
He didn't know why he felt so afraid of them and wasn't sure he wanted to ask Vondran for more details. But he sensed that the further away from the village they could get before dark, the better.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Saturday, September 13, 2025
familiarity breeds ....
As they drew closer to the music, they began to hear actual lyrics, although they didn't necessarily understand what the song was about.
"Something about a ship wreck," mused Lyri, "but I'm not sure why any kind of a wreck would be something to sing about, and I don't know what a ship is."
"I think a ship is like a boat," Eldrin offered. "Bigger than a raft or a canoe, and much bigger than a boat. Something to go on the water, maybe a lake bigger than anything we've ever seen? Speaking of which, I was just looking at this creek and there seems to be some large trout in it. Lyri, do you have something I can use to make a hook, and I'll catch us some for dinner in case they aren't friendly?"
"Do you ever stop thinking of food, Eldrin?"
"No need to get testy. I was thinking for all of us."
"Which is quite unexpected, to be honest. I may have something you can use, just one moment. Thal, do you think we should stop here and wait while you and Kael go forward to see if they are friendly?"
"That's not a bad idea. You and El wait here, while Kael and I scout it out. Don't light a fire in any case until we know if we have to leave quickly."
"Oh, what I would give for some of your mother's buttermilk biscuits, Lyri, to have with some fresh trout!"
Thal rolled his eyes, "And keep El quiet if you can. We don't need to announce ourselves just yet, and all his talk about food is making my stomach growl."
"I'd love to shove a biscuit in his mouth if it would shut him up," Kael remarked under his breath. He clenched his fists until they were white-knuckled. The last few days together had made all of them just a little buggy with familiarity, and what he wouldn't give for some peace and quiet.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Thursday, September 4, 2025
the joy of it all ...
Now that the four of them were free to travel during the daylight hours, they were making better time than they previously had. On the second day, they could see a village in the distance, and the smell of food being prepared was reaching them occasionally on the breeze.
Naturally, Eldrin was the first to remark on the scent in the air. "Oh, my goodness, I can't believe how much I've missed real cooking. I hope they invite us to stay a night. No offense, Lyri, but purple beauty berries and weeds just don't fill me up like a good rabbit roast does."
Lyri side-eyed him, "Umph. See if I try to cook for you again." When she had been born, the fairies had given her the gift of conviviality which had served her well as she got older. Others in their forest community, not just Kael and Thalion, had developed an adoration for her, and whether she knew it or not, she'd often been protected from harm by the forest animals. It was taking Kael a great deal of willpower on this journey to not speak of his feelings for her because he could clearly see that Lyri and Thal cared deeply for each other although neither of them showed it in front of him or Eldrin. It was as it should be, and the change in Kael kept him from speaking out and risking his newfound friendship with both of them.
The closer they got to the village, the more they could hear the mellow, gentle sounds of a guitar. "Perhaps it is a celebration?" Lyri remarked. "It would be nice for one night to relax and dance, don't you think, Thal?"
"Hmmm. Perhaps. We will have to see what kind of a reception we get from them when we arrive. These are unfamiliar woods, and we don't know if they are wood elves who would welcome us or something else. I think it would be wise to observe from a distance before we just waltz into their village." Vondran's warning to him that not everything in the forest was friendly to wood elves was still on the back of his mind.
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Thursday, August 28, 2025
the mentor
As their journey continued, Thalion woke every day with a new story that Vondran had given him which he then shared with Lyri, Eldrin, and Kael. Mile after mile, as they walked toward the horizon he told them of the heir's life and all the things that he had experienced or learned. At some point, Thal realized that Vondran was mentoring him to become the king he hadn't been able to be when he was alive. It was as if Vondran's consciousness was joining with Thalion's, but that wasn't something he shared with the others.
One day he woke to tell them that they no longer needed to travel by night, that they had left the danger far enough behind them that they could continue walking in the daylight. What he didn't tell them was that they were getting closer to their journey's end and they would need to be able to see distant landmarks and enemies.
They spent that day foraging for food and supplies in the forest, which were much easier to see since they did not need to rush to be on their way as the moon rose.
"You know, Thal," Eldrin began as the four sat relaxing on the edge of a small pond, "if I were a theorist who specialized in dreams, I would say that there is a great chance that some of yours have been more like nightmares lately. Not only might you be having dreams that Vondran is giving you, but you might also be having just normal dreams of your own. How can you tell them apart? Do you ever feel like his thoughts and memories enhance your own? Or is it more like an out-of-body experience where you enter his?"
Thal looked at him and blinked several times. "To be honest, I've never even thought of that. It has happened so gradually that I think now many of my dreams before I first heard his voice in my head were actually things he was showing me. Sometimes it's almost as if we are one in the same."
Kael looked over at Thal, "Before I encountered the man and the gnolls, I would sometimes see myself through your eyes when I'd been rude or dishonest about something. A part of me would want to take back whatever I'd said or done because I could see the hurt that I was causing. But then I would just continue to do it. It took me a while to realize that everything I decided not to change, I was actually choosing, and I began to dislike myself more and more every day. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be more like the three of you."
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Sunday, August 24, 2025
time flies ...
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
choosing between wants and needs...
[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts, beginning with the most recent. To start from the beginning, continue to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page until you get to 1 January 2025, then click "Newer Posts" to read the next date. You can thank Blogger for the inability to list them by chronological order under the labels.]
Vondran continued speaking to Thalion in his dreams, showing him bits and pieces of his life.
"It was difficult for me at times having an absent father. I envied my friends who had both parents and several siblings. But I never gave any of them the satisfaction of seeing me grieve for what I didn't have. I learned early on that it wasn't the combination of mothers and fathers, or siblings that made a happy or fun childhood. It was what I chose to make it, what I chose to focus on. When I wasted my day or night bemoaning what I lacked and wanted, it made it hard for what I needed to find me.
"It is like shouting "Hello" on a mountain top and waiting for the echo to come back to you. When you shout things that you regret, things you hate ... those are the things that come back to you tenfold. But when you shout with joy and celebration all the good things that you do have, then those are the things will come back to you like that "Hello" echo and surround you one hundred times more than you can imagine.
"Choosing to be happy doesn't make you exempt from things that can go wrong in life. But when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place it can help you to knuckle down and overcome any sadness or regret.
"As an only child of a single mother, I spent a lot of time with her and watched how she made choices between what she wanted and what we needed. I was not long in the tooth before I realized that she had sacrificed a great deal to ensure that I would be safe and have a happy childhood.
"She was a beautiful woman, with straw yellow hair, and I'm sure she could have married again so that she would not have had to struggle so hard. But she knew in her heart that one day I could be the true heir, and she did everything she could to ensure that when that time came, I would know what the people needed."