India and Argentina Mingle Update + A Good Book + Podcast/Audio

March 3, 2023March 30, 2023 da-AL40 Comments

Graphic for today's headline, "India & Argentina Mingle + A Good Book!

India and Argentina Mingle Update, Plus a Good Book – Happiness Between Tails

#Travel #India #Authors #Writing Do your family and friends read what you write? Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee. http://buymeacoffee.com/SupportHBT Time Stamps (where segments begin): HBT introduction Intro to today’s topic Title of today’s show Today's show My question for you HBT outro — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/support

Check out the Happiness Between Tails Podcast at AnchorFM! There you’ll find links to subscribe, hear, and share episodes of Happiness Between Tails by da-AL via most any platform, from Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts, along with RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher and more, plus an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is at LinkTree.

Hurrah! Today’s the first day in weeks that I’ve been spared the thud, thud, thud of a headache.

To celebrate, I’ve added a podcast version to this, a graphic, and amplified a little of what I originally posted.

For more of this journey, click here and here and here and here and here.

Wouldn’t it be great if coughing hard enough to get a side stitch at least flattened stomach muscles? In preparation for my annual bloodwork, I curbed my intake of meds, only to be informed after I fasted and woke early this morning for them, that I ought to have waited another ten days anyway.

Never mind being upset. The mirror no longer reflects sunken eyes, sallow skin, and bedhead. A good thing about illness is that health tastes, feels, and smells all the better!

Moreover, my audiobook doldrums that compelled me to tolerate one boring book after another for lack of anything better, has broken. Thank you Carol (and do check out her great blog), for your comment to my last post and turning me on to, “The Secrets Between Us,” a great novel that covers class, gender, sexuality, and more amid modern Mumbai.

Please, nobody tell me how it ends, because I’m only halfway through audiobook reader Sneha Mathan’s always stunning performance. The cover describes it as a sequel, but nothing is lost by not reading the prequel beforehand. At her blog, a background study on her latest book called, “Honor,” offers a discussion of the broken-hearted sort of love anyone can have for their homeland.

Now for the original, albeit updated, post…

Goodness, I hope my incredible ennui isn’t infectious. I’m still getting over a bad cold. While I’m technically well and I’ve been able to make significant inroads on the eventual podcast of my novel-in-progress, Flamenco & the Sitting Cat, my brain hurts, probably due to an ongoing hacking cough that just now caused a stranger to jump.

And maybe it also has to do with an earlier yet still recent bittersweet trip to my mothers homeland of Argentina?

And maybe it has to do with all the vaccines my husband and I had to take before our recent visit to India?

Okay, okay — I’ll address each of those one-by-one: 1. Enough said about the cold. 2. I haven’t processed the Argentina trip thoroughly enough to blog coherently about it.

And 3…

Getting ready for the India journey involved preliminary steps.

Wait — before I go on, hand on heart, I’ve never ever met so many many genuinely kind people as in India, strangers included… Also, if it (and the Argentina visit) hadn’t involved as much expense and quite a few hours of flying, perhaps this post would be different…

First off, visas are required of visitors from the United States. It’s a confusing, worrisome process due to having no one around to explain it in more detail than can be found on 99.9% of websites. As far as I can tell, if you don’t apply online, you have to go in for a face-to-face interview, and who wants to expend time and energy on that? Online, for several days I tried every which-way, always thwarted when it came to clicking the dates we’d stay. It took phoning each of the six U.S. Indian embassies, mostly leaving un-replied-to voicemails — to get the gist that one can’t apply online sooner than 30 days before departure.

Who travels like that? My style is to know I’ll be allowed into a country before I purchase tickets that I’ve bought months earlier to secure good rates and time off work for. Fortunately, my husband purchased our airfares directly through an airline that happened to allow cancellations up to 24-hours in advance.

Given how no vaccines are required by law, it seemed like overkill when my honey requested I email our doctor about medical precautions. I thought I was being quite responsible when I emailed four weeks in advance. Doctor pointed me in the direction of Kaiser Insurance’s international travel desk. That number instructed me to leave my phone number and then to wait a couple of weeks for them to reply. And it wasn’t the mechanized type that allows one to play back one’s message to ensure that the phone company didn’t garble it. The clock ticked loudly as I worried that my phone might confuse a callback for a robocall. Fortunately, the travel desk nurse connected with us several days later.

Now here you have to close your ears if you’re from India — and please know that in no way do I mean to insult any country: the nurse sternly warned that India’s water, food, and environment is among the world’s toughest on the likes of soft North American constitutions.

The international travel advice nurse ordered for us:

Vaccines for hepatitis A and B. One involved a booster as soon as we returned home and both require boosters in six months.
Anti-typhoid pills we began taking daily before the trip and ended a week afterwards.
Antibiotics to have on hand “just in case.”

She also highly recommended:

Not drinking, brushing our teeth, or opening our mouths in the shower unless boiled or bottled water was involved.
Not eating anything raw.
No eating street food.
Liberally dousing ourselves and our clothing with high-DEET bug spray.
And a bunch of lesser stuff that added up to feeling like perhaps we might as well pack hazmat suits.
Oh, and taking two Pepto Bismo tablets four times a day to help avoid “traveler’s tummy” even though it could give us harmless ugly black tongues and poop, which is confirmed by the manufacturer’s video about it. Side note: is it totally accidental that their actress wears a lucky horseshoe on her necklace? Anyhoo, don’t quote me and I’m no physician, but somewhere I read you don’t want to do this for longer than a couple of weeks.

Ordinarily, I’m the sort to slough off this type of talk as over-reacting. However, in Argentina we’d gotten really and truly ill from eating in a tourist-stop restaurant. At the risk of too much information, never before had I experienced such a horrible thing. Thank the goddesses we’d rented an apartment with a clothes washer and dryer. An unrelated anecdote is that this was in a small town whose scenic vistas were obscured by the smoke of record-breaking brush fires. Wouldn’t you know it, locals went about their business like nothing. Here in fire-prone Los Angeles County, we barricade ourselves for far less (which I’m all for).

In addition, just before our journey to India, at our annual eye exams, the doctor mentioned that his sister was still weeks into a hospital stay from some severe mystery awfulness she’d contracted while visiting family in India…

How many of your real life family and friends read what you write?

Kolkata: Noisy Hope + HerStory by Pat Wahler + HBT on Spotify

March 2, 2023March 31, 2023 da-AL43 Comments

Kolkata’s Noisy Hope + HerStory by Pat Wahler – Happiness Between Tails

#Authors #Travel #Writing #Novels #Books What cities inspire your reading and writing? Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee. http://buymeacoffee.com/SupportHBT — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/support

Check out the Happiness Between Tails Podcast at AnchorFM! There you’ll find links to subscribe, hear, and share episodes of Happiness Between Tails by da-AL via most any platform, from Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts, along with RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher and more, plus an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is at LinkTree.

“Kolkata (Calcutta) … this is a city you ‘feel’ more than simply visit.” lonely planet India, 19th edition.

With jello for equilibriums, my husband and I landed there a few weeks ago (most if not all international flights arrive at a cruel 3am) after 23 sleepless hours thanks to the ceaseless shrieks of one small boy.

Kolkata slumbered. Despite few cars on the night road — why all the honking?

Lonely and disquieted is how I imagine any Kolkatan must feel if they visit my neck of the woods. In Los Angeles, honks can elicit bullets. Kolkata drivers beep-beep-beep minimum once a minute. Be the vehicle a taxi, motorcycle, electric rickshaw, or bicycle, honks there are “honk-tra honk-la honk-las” of “hello,” “I’m here,” “coming through,” “watch out,” and probably, “I love making sound.”

Whatever the intention, the cacophony is constant. Don’t get me started on what the actual driving is like. Suffice to say, I was informed that their driving tests are conducted in parking lots, not amid actual traffic.

From my 6th floor hotel double-paned window, the din rang loud and clear. We were in a Kolkata suburb called New Town that’s thriving with local investor money in housing and air-conditioned malls…

A huge qualm I had before visiting was that Indian poverty would gut me. Sadly, Kolkata poverty is alive and well, part of and inexcusable tragedy that needs to be remedied worldwide. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I’d return to California thinking what’s going on in the U.S. might be more brutish.

In Kolkata (and I wrote and podcasted a little about the city before), they’ve got actual communities. In my part of the world, the tanking healthcare system and economy force more and more people into tent villages. Ones that, amid dueling compassion and loathing for our unfortunate, are continually raided and uprooted without warning by our police.

Anyway, we both came home with terrible colds. What an odd post-pandemic phenom it is to say, “At least it wasn’t Covid (and whatever happened to the ’19’ part?).” Still, our nightly hacking coughs make healing sleep more than a little elusive.

Ok — my head’s a bit floaty — thank goodness for pharmaceuticals — so the rest of my trip will have to wait.

For more of this journey, click here and here and here and here and here.

Oh, and did I mention we were there for a wedding?…

In the meantime, here’s a more coherent post about how blogger/author Pat Wahler journeys through her books. She writes from Missouri and has garnered many awards for her many novels.

Writing Herstory by Pat Wahler

If you enjoy reading biographical historical fiction as much as I do, you may recognize some of my favorites of the genre. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain gives us the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley. The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin tells the story of Anne Lindbergh. The First Actress by C.W. Gortner is the journey of Sarah Bernhardt. I enjoy learning about women from history, or herstory, as I like to call it. True, a reader could find a nonfiction biography and get the facts. But what I love about historical fiction is the way it puts a reader right in the story to experience what the protagonist does in an immersive and entertaining way.

Based on my love of this genre, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that biographical historical fiction isn’t only my favorite story to read. It’s also my favorite story to write. However, choosing a subject can be a difficult proposition. In my 2018 debut novel, I am Mrs. Jesse James, I was fortunate to find a character who people knew next to nothing about. Writing Zee James also gave me a built-in audience. To this day, people are mesmerized by any topic related to the James family. As a bonus, the family had major ties to Missouri, my home state, which made research much more convenient. So when the time came to work on my second historical novel, I decided to search for a subject within the same type of parameters, hoping to find another woman from Missouri whose experiences were unknown, forgotten, or erased. But I needed a subject who left behind a skeleton of facts rather than a detailed account of every moment of her life, giving me room to flesh out her story in the narrative.

With this in mind, I compiled a list of half a dozen possibilities. Then I did a general search on each woman and considered whether available information on the candidates lent themselves to building a story arc. Several of them did, but one name jumped right to the top of the list—Rose Cecil O’Neill. I didn’t know much about her, although I’d certainly heard of her most famous creation, the Kewpie doll. As I did a deeper dive into her story, I found there was much more to her accomplishments than the iconic Kewpies. During her lifetime, Rose produced a prodigious body of literary and artistic work, something I knew I’d never be able to incorporate into a novel. Besides, other people had spent a fair amount of effort in analyzing her artistic creations, particularly the Kewpies, who at one time consumed the world’s imagination. However, the areas that interested me most about Rose were her personal relationships. How did they guide her journey from nineteen-year-old girl to a determined woman of world fame? This was an approach no one else had used, and it seemed the perfect springboard from which to craft a story.

After finding my focus, it was back to learning everything I could about Rose O’Neill. I spent more than a year in initial research dipping into family correspondence, books, articles, and newspaper accounts.

Photo of Rose’s beloved home in Walnut Shade. — Pat Wahler spent a day at Rose’s beloved home in Walnut Shade, Missouri asking countless questions.

And then, after I had absorbed every bit of information I could find, I let Rose take over the job of guiding me forward. Odd as it sounds, after immersing myself in the life of a figure from history, it’s as if I take on a new persona, and channel the subject I’ve studied. That’s when I know I’m ready to write the story. (Lest you wonder about my sanity, I’ve heard other authors make similar claims.)

In truth, I consider writing herstory—tales from the lives of women who came before me—to be an honor and a privilege. Yes, historical fiction, especially biographical historical fiction, is definitely a challenge to research and write. It takes a great deal of time and patience (not to mention a good pair of glasses) while poring over old documents. But it’s true we learn from the past; and what could be more gratifying than introducing to the world the untold story of a deserving woman.

Better yet is discovering her story is one that resonates with readers.

What cities inspire your reading and writing?

Spotify Podcast + Sleep Disorders in Dogs and Remedies by J. Aki

February 17, 2023February 17, 2023 da-AL34 Comments

Extreme closeup of face of black and white pitbull mix dog — K-D doggie takes her beauty sleep seriously.

Want to listen to an audio version of today’s post? Click the Spotify podcast player link above. And please give it a follow.

My dog definitely has no trouble sleeping, especially when it’s cloudy, rainy, or cold. If your dog ever does, read on for Jimmy Aki’s remedies…

Jimmy Aki is a professional writer who lives with his partner and Oscar, his cat. You can find his articles at Medium.com as well as answers on pet-related issues on Quora.com. He also crafts content strategies for websites he manages.

Sleep Disorders in Dogs and What to Do About Them by Jimmy Aki

There might be times when your dog finds it hard to sleep and it is quite noticeable when this happens. An adult dog sleeps about 8 to 14 hours daily – this combines naptime during the day and sleeps at night. Sleep is very key to your dog’s overall health as it keeps them refreshed and energetic to get on with the next day.

No one wants a canine that whines, becomes disoriented during the day, or disturbs you through the night. Sleep deprivation is a big problem in dogs and due to how easy it is for their stress hormones to build up when they are deprived of sleep, you might start noticing a change in behavior from your dog as time goes on.

Here are some common types of sleep disorders in dogs and ways you can nip it in the bud when it occurs.

1. Canine Insomnia

This is more common in older dogs and while dogs don’t suffer from it too often, it is normal to find your dog getting sleepless nights from time to time but when this trend continues for several days, then you need to check your dog as he could be suffering from insomnia. Visiting a veterinarian will help you identify the underlying problem for insomnia as it often underlines a bigger problem that you’re probably not aware of. Problems such as pent-up energy, itchy skin caused by fleas or even arthritis. Some proven methods of relieving insomnia include changing diet, acupuncture, and aromatherapy. The first stage, however, is to find out what the underlying problem is before deciding on the best solution for your dog.

2. Sleep Apnea

If your dog is constantly being overfed, there is a possibility that it could suffer from sleep apnea. This sleep disorder is common in obese dogs such as pugs and bulldogs. With sleep apnea, the excessive fat that has been stored up in the body narrows the airway, temporarily which ends up keeping the dog wide awake during the night. These constant interruptions could be mild and sometimes, it could be really severe. When it becomes severe, you will notice tiredness and chronic snoring from your dog. Treating this is important as if left untreated, it could lead to loss of life. One easy way of treating sleep apnea in dogs is through a weight loss program. These include creating a weight loss diet for your dog, limit in access to current food or in the quantity being feed, reduction in treats and table scraps. The first step here, however, is a veterinary examination. Medical examination ensures your dog is checked for any underlying cause or if there are other medical conditions that might hinder weight reduction.

3. Narcolepsy

This sleep disorder affects younger dogs and it is a nervous sleep disorder. Just as it is in humans, narcolepsy occurs when a dog suffers from excessive lack of energy and daytime sleepiness. If your dog suddenly collapses on its side and falls asleep during the day, you might have a dog that is suffering from narcolepsy. Check the muscles; are they slacking? If your dog also appears to fall into a deep sleep with rapid eye movement during this period, it’s time for you to visit the vet. As with most sleep disorders, narcolepsy has an underlying problem which is muscle paralysis otherwise known as cataplexy. Currently, this sleep disorder is not curable but it can be managed to reduce the severity and the number of narcoleptic episodes your dog suffers from.

Do your pets have problems sleeping?

Delish n Healthy Carrot Delight Cake by Khashayar + Audio/Pod Ver

January 19, 2023March 18, 2023 da-AL18 Comments

Photo of a slice of Khashayar's Carrot Delight Cake. — Khashayar’s Carrot Delight Cake is as Delicious as it is healthy!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KZgXfnefy7DCBjKSDIP7U?si=c5fd50930a104936

Want to listen to an audio version of today’s post? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

Ever crave a treat that tastes decadent but is a bit healthier? Get your veggies and good fats with this brownie-like moist loveliness. Khashayar infuses love into all of his vegetarian cooking…

Ingredients

2 pounds grated carrots
2 cups regular white sugar
2 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon nutmeg
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup olive oil

Topping

2 cups greek yogurt
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup slivered almonds

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 farenheit degrees.

2. Mix together all the dry ingredients: carrots, sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

3. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and milk.

4. Combine all the above with the melted butter and olive oil.

5. Pour the batter into a 13″ x 9″ x 2″ baking dish.

6. Bake for an hour or until a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean.

7. Let the cake cool.

8. Stir topping ingredients together: yogurt, honey, and almonds.

9. Slice the cake and serve with a dollop of the topping. Garnish with fresh or frozen berries (frozen ones look tantalizing as they thaw, as if they’ve been powdered with sugar). It also gets a nice chewy crust when heated. If you prefer it warm, don’t add the topping until it’s out of the oven.

Hungry for more? Khashayar has lots of other veggie/healthy recipes such as a great hot soup, a crunchy salad, a fruity dessert, an entree, and this appetizer and this one.

Do you have a favorite healthier dessert?

Vote + amazon music + Podcast: Hope for the Future by David Hunt

October 20, 2022February 17, 2023 da-AL22 Comments

Heading over a picture of a VOTE button.

Want to listen to an audio version of today’s post? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

Voting day is right around the corner. Readers and writers, please don’t throw away your voice. Fortunately, there’s still time to make it easy on yourself. Vote by mail! I just did.

Rev up your keyboards and pens and lips — tell every single politically like-minded connection you have to vote and to do it immediately before they find themselves too busy or too absent-minded!

Most of my decisions were easy. 1) Naturally, I’m pro-choice, and 2), whenever possible, I support candidates least likely to give an inch to our ex-ogre, errm I mean former president.

Besides voting, this week I’ve been progressing with learning about podcasting. Since my show’s start a little over a year ago, it’s been on amazon music (and a bunch of other places, as listed at the top of this post). Have you ever reached out to someone or somewhere and, when they took 10+ months to reply, you could’nt remember why you did? In this case, amazon music has a free bonus for podcasters, though I’m murky about particulars…

No matter. Since this show is for me to practice and learn, I did as they asked. Here’s the advert they requested, highlighting that Happiness Between Tails podcast streams on amazon music…

Upon receipt, they quickly (wow!) emailed back that it looked good (double wow!), and asked which of their music genres to aire the commercial on. Umm… I asked them if they have analytics on which attract dear blog-sphere folks like you. But, now hoping they won’t take another ten months to get back to me.

What genre of music do you listen to? Do you ever listen on amazon music?

Dunno how many free times this ad will air, when, and so forth. Will keep you posted if I learn more.

Now that we’ve all voted (yes?), today’s guest blog post is by David Hunt. He also contributed here too. Basically, we met as infants, working at a car rental at LAX. Since then, together we’ve traversed many winding roads.

Voting in mind (and again, tell your friends to be like you and me and get out their black pens to vote now), wouldn’t it be great if our votes resulted in supporting great workers like those at the fore of HIV/AIDS?

Hope for the Future by David Hunt

Thirty-five years ago this month the CDC warned about a troubling outbreak of Pneumocystis pneumonia in five otherwise healthy young, gay men in California. Later that summer, when I reported on the outbreak for radio station KPFK, the number of cases had grown to 41, including 6 in California and 20 in New York. And, in addition to the rare form of pneumonia, gay men were starting to come down with a rare form of cancer and other opportunistic infections. By the end of the year, this new disease, later called AIDS, would claim 121 lives.

Clinical immunologist Joseph Church at Children’s Hospital L.A. with a young HIV-positive patient in 1992. From “Hope for the Future,” produced by David Hunt and Daal Praderas.

I don’t suppose anyone who covered the early years of the AIDS epidemic came away untouched. I’ll never forget Robert Bland’s soft brown eyes and calm determination to serve as “an AIDS guinea pig,” even as he acknowledged that a cure would surely come long after his own death. Or the button imprinted with the defiant message “I Will Survive” that San Francisco AIDS activist Bobbi Campbell proudly wore right up until his death in 1984. Or the scathing criticism gay journalist Randy Shilts leveled at bathhouse owners who refused to provide their customers with condoms or educational materials. Courage, defiance and anger; like the stages of grief, these came to symbolize for me the stages of AIDS activism. To be honest, fear was there, too, just below the surface.

Expanding Epidemic

By the time I began working as a video producer in 1985 the AIDS epidemic had expanded beyond the gay community, and now affected people of color, teens, women and even infants and children. An educational video I co-produced for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 1992-93 told the stories of three families struggling to deal with AIDS. it featured a 12-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl (pictured above) and a baby boy. The message of the video, targeted to the parents and caregivers of children with HIV/AIDS, was not to give up hope, that new drug therapies were being tested and would soon be available. We titled the video “Hope for the Future.”

I don’t know if any of the children on the video survived long enough to benefit from the new drug cocktails that eventually made AIDS a largely manageable disease. I heard that the baby died shortly after we finished production. One thing you learn in an epidemic is to ration the amount of grief you have to handle at a given time. While I’d love to see those kids grown up and healthy, I’m not ready to face the other possibility.

If anybody’s still counting, AIDS has claimed more than 35 million lives worldwide since 1981.

David Hunt’s blog

More about the initial outbreak... and more.

Pediatric AIDS then and now.

Have you voted? And what genre of music do you listen to? Is it on amazon music?

Lust! + Podcast: More Eats 4 Less by Angela Bell

June 16, 2022February 17, 2023 da-AL34 Comments

Today's title and cover of nove, "Vladimir," by Julia May Jonas.

Want to listen to a podcast/audio version of Happiness Between Tails? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

Sensuality! Passion! Fun! As writers (here’s about the novel I’m writing) and readers, only good can come of finding what sets us afire. Figuring out how to unlock the shackles of cultural conditioning can be tricky, though. Learning about groundbreaking artists and their work can helps.

For instance, take how Emma Thompson has done it again — she’s the English actress who forever reaches further and further. By this, I’m not merely referring to the storyline of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” In it, a 50ish recently widowed woman decides that, once and for all, she’s going to have good sex. She hires a twenty-something male prostitute.

What’s beyond incredible is the fact that we’ve never before seen this story on-screen — and why not? Why are post-menopausal woman who desire sex seen as aberrant, laughable, and even despicable?

Check out the film’s equally ground-breaking humanizing of a male sex worker who, moreover, isn’t repulsed by older women.

“Vladimir,” by Julia May Jonas, (which I recently finished in audiobook format and to which Rebecca Lowman lent a superb narration) offers a reckoning of sexuality. That of everyone, including love and relationships, both public and private. Aren’t the title and cover great, especially as it’s a literary novel, not the saucy romance genre implied?

The protagonist is a college prof in her 50s who has an open marriage with her college prof husband. We enter the story when he’s accused of overstepping his authority because he used to have trysts with students. Even though the rendezvous were with consenting women in their twenties and older, and they occurred before the college had instituted regulations against it, he’s about to lose his job. So there’s that.

And then there’s how the wife is judged because she neither sides against him nor divorces him. Not that anyone knows it, she’s had extra-marital relationships with men of all ages. Then there’s how their adult lesbian daughter judges the parents. There are also the students, the faculty… And in walks beefy Vladimir, who throws the protag into lust overdrive.

My review for Amazon and Goodreads (by the way, do you use Goodreads or anything like it?):

Julia May Jonas takes risk after risk with this novel and beckons us to — ooh lala — dare I say it? — think!

What do you think about how older women are portrayed?

Long Covid + Intentions n Grace + Podcast: Hair Color 4 Men n All

May 26, 2022February 17, 2023 da-AL31 Comments

Heading over photo of K-D doggie with da-AL.

Want to listen to a podcast/audio version of Happiness Between Tails? Click the Spotify podcast link above. And please give it a follow.

Writing this, I’d only just gotten my 4th Covid shot and was feeling woozy. Rather than working on my novels, for several days I slept, hence this post is short. Fortunately, as of this morning, I’m back to a very grateful normal. Besides the added immunity, I’m especially appreciative that for the first time since I got Covid a year and a half ago, earl grey tea doesn’t smell like moldy onions, and lemons don’t give off a chemical non-citrus fragrance. These things can come and go, so I’m almost superstitious about telling you that perhaps my long Covid is finished…

Wouldn’t life be so much easier if all good people wore white cowboy hats and bad ones wore black ones? Something, anything, to give us a one-size-fits-all way to sniff out flower-scented nice folk from stinking pee-yew creeps?

This is a plea for all of us to remember that intentions are everything.

Micro and macro aggressions definitely exist. To expect them before we’ve hardly laid eyes on someone, however, is to water seedlings of distrust and to give them free rein to take over.

It’s bad enough we had the Trump reign dividing us. Then came covid, with all the finger-pointing of who washed, masked, and vaccinated. Gender labels and pronouns (explained here by Suzanne Craig-Whytock) can be tricky for some (a video about it here) more than others. Lately I’ve read that inquiring into someone’s cultural background ought to be off limits.

Like I said, intentions are everything. Bearing that in mind, the world becomes a wonderful place.

Using differences as opportunities to learn more about each other, we build bridges. If someone asks us something, it’s okay to ask them why they want to know and not answer. Personally, I love learning about others and they’re often flattered that I’m interested. Allowing missteps to become gentle teaching moments, we learn what someone’s intentions are.

A couple of yoga class examples, from pre-pandemic days when I didn’t take zoom classes, that I know aren’t exactly the same thing but somehow relate:

One day a classmate arrived a little late and was clearly frazzled. When she put down her mat, it blocked the view of a student behind her. The rear student fumed, yet didn’t say anything to the distracted yogini in front. “Yogic serenity” for everyone nearby, though, was decimated. Thank you, rear classmate, for teaching me that when someone later blocked my view, the answer was to tap their shoulder and gently ask them to move a few inches.

Inside that yoga studio’s dressing room, the beleaguered rear classmate encountered a tote bag on the changing bench. She fumed that she couldn’t sit down. It wasn’t mine, but I placed it on the floor. Problem was solved.

When I shared these types of stories with a friend, she argued that one shouldn’t have to “shoulder the burden” of educating cretins. Bravo to anyone who’s never an ignoramus. Alas, I can and will be one all too often. Thank you, thank you, thank you nice people who’ve been gracious to me.

Please don’t let us all become so afraid of each other that we make ourselves miserable and we never mix with people unlike ourselves. Let’s try to assume the best, speak from our hearts, and think of each other as individuals we might have more in common with than not, rather than generalities.

(For sure this is off-topic — but just wonderin’ and to see whether you’re still with me — I recently was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. If you’re vegetarian and count carbs and/or glycemic load, yet avoid getting overloaded with fats and becoming a walking skeleton, what are your best tips?)

Being gracious costs nothing. Better yet, it doesn’t make anyone lose sleep, doesn’t raise blood pressure, and maybe even prevents someone from kicking their dog — or worse…

What do you do when a stranger gets on your nerves?

Scams: 8 Steps to Protect Yourself and Others with Videos

April 15, 2021April 15, 2021 da-AL47 Comments

“This is Alex, calling you from the refunds department…”

“This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You must call us back…”

“This is the Internal Revenue Service. You must call us back…”

“Your computer is dead. You must telephone us to fix it and recover your info…”

Ever receive such a message or one pop up on your screen? Have you been scammed or know someone who has?

A computer engineer based out of Ireland who goes by an alias, Jim Browning is a true hero. When he learned someone close to him was swindled out of money, he got curious. The next time scammers called him, warned him that his money and his computer were in danger, he turned the tables on the thugs!

First he got into their computers. Then he took control of their office cameras. He continues to record of their actions, online and physically. When he can, he warns their prey before they lose their life savings.

This post is a departure from my usual bookish, artsy, cooking, travel, pet-loving type. When I read of this information in AARP Bulletin, I wanted you to know about it — and to pass it along to everyone you know who might be vulnerable to scammers or who knows others who could fall victim. Those over 60-years-old are five times more likely to be hit. Here the New York Times also covered these types of crimes in depth.

DIY: Protect Yourself & Others

If anyone calls to say you — or anyone else is — in grave danger unless you mail cash or gift cards (and most likely even instructs you to not discuss it with anyone):

Hang up on them. If they left a message, erase it.
Definitely don’t call them back.
Never, under any circumstance, mail cash or gift cards.
If there’s some remote chance you believe they might be legit, ask them to first mail something to you.
Never deal with people who want your money and prohibit you from telling your bank, your store, or anyone you know.

If your computer flashes alarm lights, locks up, or beeps at you while a message urges you to telephone a number:

Don’t touch your phone!
Instead, turn off your computer, wait a few minutes, then turn it back on.
If it isn’t as good as new, take it to a reputable repair place such as a computer store.

Below, in four video segments, Jim shares what he learned. For more on him and his findings, check out his YouTube channel.

What do you know about scammers? Have you been scammed or know someone who has?