Thursday Notes: #26
A Missive from the Edge of the Map
Greetings loyal readers! When I changed this newsletter from “weekly” to “periodically”, I didn’t mean to drop it altogether…yet weeks and weeks have gone by. My apologies.
(I know you missed me. Of course you did. No need to tell me otherwise.) 🙂
I’ve been very busy, as you might expect. There were more Medium articles–I’m kind of excited about my latest one–and lots of freelance work, and some long form writing as well.
Sadly, though, the biggest reason keeping me from updating you has been the death of my uncle Hank. He had a health crisis that my brother (in northern California) and I were trying to help manage from a distance. That kept both of us worried, occupied and distracted for several weeks…and then we lost Hank on February 22.
I’m actually writing this note a few days in advance and scheduling it to send on Thursday, when I’ll be on a plane to southern California for Hank’s funeral.
Hank was, among many other things, a lifelong Dodger fan. Even going so far as to bring his obnoxious giant inflatable Dodger bat (and blue LA cap) to Pacific Bell Park–home of the Dodgers’ great rivals, the San Francisco Giants. You can see he had zero remorse about doing such a thing. I love the amused side-eye the fan at the very right of the frame is giving him.
Hank was cheerful, irreverent, smart, funny…also wounded and crazy and always a little bit broken. If the phone rang and you saw his number on the screen, you only answered if you had an hour or two to spare. (So I didn’t talk to him as often as I should have.)
He was my mom’s younger brother, and I think he never really got over her death, last summer. He did get a chance to visit her in her last few weeks. I’m glad about that; and I’m sad that I’m heading to LA to say goodbye to him, all too soon.
The other big news around here would be the weather! We had a week or so of snow in the first part of February, including being snowed in entirely for most of that time. It was about two feet deep on our very steep driveway, and almost that deep on our road. We’d parked our car at the top of the driveway, but that didn’t help; we could walk out to the main road, but going any further was just not happening.
It was very pretty. And we got very sick of it. Fortunately, we are always well stocked with plenty of food–and wine!–so we weren’t in any danger of starving. And we heat our house with wood, so we stayed warm and cozy even during the brief power outage. Even so, we were very glad when we could leave the premises again. I love this house…and it’s nice to be able to leave it.
So that’s the latest from our world up here at the edge of the map. I hope to be back soon, maybe even with some actual fiction-related news. Thank you all for reading!