It’s been a crazy post-Thanksgiving week (details below) and writing time has been sparse. We had a great turkey day and I did something different with the bird: I butchered it before cooking it, and it turned out to be perhaps the best turkey I’ve ever prepared. I basically did what is explained in the video below. I don’t think I’ll be doing the turkey whole again for a very long time. This was just fantastic.
My mother-in-law, Guddy, is still hanging in there. After my post about her health on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, things continued to look grim. We met with a funeral director on Friday, and then last Saturday we purchased a burial plot for her. On Sunday, our priest came to give her Last Rites and we were there with her for that (which was just incredible). Surprisingly, she was a lot more alert that day, and again on Tuesday when Jennifer went to visit her. When we saw her yesterday, though, she was mostly non-responsive. Her eyes were opened, and she made eye contact with me for just a moment, but her constant movement and nonsensical babbling has all but stopped. So we’re still waiting and praying. But those Last Rites. Man, that was awesome. I hope I die with those in place. I’m sure I’ll share more on this in the future either here in writing or on our podcast.
I’m still working on a fairly lengthy (and I hope quite interesting) Wednesday essay that I hope to share soon, possibly in multiple parts. We shall see. It’s hard to condense a critical 5-year period and the impact it had on an entire lifetime into just a handful of paragraphs.
We launched our annual giving campaign for Rosary Army this week, which is the main thing that took up my creative energies. You can listen to us talk about it on this week’s podcast. I like making stuff, but asking for funds is tough, though necessary. If you’re so inclined, good stuff is happening and help is still needed. You can donate here.
When our son, Ben, flew home for Thanksgiving, he caught something fierce (not COVID) that knocked him out. Within a couple of days, I had a lung thing going on, and now our 18-year-old is down for the count with his 1 millionth case of strep throat. Another excuse.
Regarding point 4, above, one of the major things we're planning for the next few years is an (initially) online learning platform and community called School of Mary. This requires a ramp-up of production stuff. Yesterday was devoted to experimenting with some new equipment and trying to figure out shots that would work. In the middle of this, I looked over and saw one of our cats zonkered out in the middle of the hubbub. Had to take a picture as it looks like we’re trying to film the most complicated cat video ever.
As I’ve been working on the essay mentioned in point 3, above, I’ve found myself doing a bunch of research about things long forgotten. I was amazed that somehow I was able to track down these: TOMY Pocket Games. Does anyone else remember them? Again, this will be in that upcoming essay.
And…if you’re still here, I’m skipping Eighty-Sixed this week. I hate to break my 12-week streak of getting a polished chapter to you each week, but I think twelve weeks in a row is pretty dang good. I’ll do my best to get something out to you next weekend. We’re getting close to the end of Part I, by the way. And something major is about to happen very, very soon. To show my appreciation for your patience, here’s where we’re at in the story (this is part of the outline in Scrivener, the writing program I use). The documents in white below were originally several shorter chapters that I plan to condense down into 2-3 chapters to finish up Part I. I think the next chapter will combine the remainder of Bar Talk, SMS, and Enter. Then Crush, Road Trip, and Giant Speaker can be combined (maybe). Alley and Bedtime are two separate chapters, but I may release them together. Maybe. But we’re CLOSE to everything going nutty. Very exciting.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for your patience. The creative juices are still flowing, but I’m pulling an Orson Welles and not serving those juices until they’re ready for consumption.
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