For My Valentine

Holding true to tradition, I give my love two cards each Valentine's Day. Although she can't accept chocolates or Teddy Bears, she'll still get her cards.

Looks just like our Sally Sue did.

Card #1 - inside

And then there's the more serious, sappy side of love

Card #2 - inside

Happy Valentine's Day, Myra.

You are deeply loved and missed.

Life Inside the Crystal Ball

Months (and months and months) ago, I promised to do a proper post on Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance, the short story collection edited by Rayne Hall. This is the one that contains my second published story, The Watcher.

Rayne Hall collected ten short stories penned by ten writers, including yours truly. Each story deals with some aspect of clairvoyance.

We've all heard about (or maybe even visited) those who peer into crystal balls. My story, The Watcher, takes the reader inside the crystal ball itself and shows one day in Sadie's life. Sadie knows nothing of our world. Hers changes each time Seer Shinta Makmur reads a female's fortune. And sometimes those fortunes turn bad.

Other stories include:

• Beware of Tuesdays by Frederick Langridge
• A Good Trade by Tracie McBride
• The Vision by April Grey
• The Tale of the Aggrieved Astrologer by Jack Nicholls
• Dance With the Devil by Carole Ann Moleti
• Senstory by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
• Ezra's Prophecy by Deborah Walker
• I Could Have Heard You From Across the Street by Douglas Kolacki
• Prophetess by Rayne Hall

While I enjoyed the entire collection, there are a few in there that beg to be read. Nearly eight months later, some of these tales are still vivid in my mind. At my age, that's saying something.

On an unrelated note... While I'll not make a full post about it, I will mention that on Wednesday, February 12th, this little blog of mine turns two years old. Cake and ice cream will be served during the Sponge Bob Squarepants show.  My, my, our babies grow up so fast, don't they?

Finding My Way Back

After The Bonding comes The Awakening, the second installment in the Strands of Pattern series. Electronic dust has accumulated on this work in progress like Canadian snow. Months passed with not a single word added.

I'm now clearing away that electronic dust. I'm working on my manuscript and again developing the Magic Muse software in which I write my story. (Sorry, Scrivener, I love you, but I require more than two windows open at once. Besides, I'm still a software developer at heart.)

Magic Muse and manuscript #2

The screenshot shows the start of one of the new chapters. You can enlarge the image and discover just how crappy my initial drafts really are.

I also intend to resume blogging, though I can commit to no set schedule. Adjusting to life alone after thirty years takes more than a few months. I'm a creature of habit and am still trying to establish a new routine.

Time is even more precious now than it was. I've had no choice but to reevaluate priorities. Sadly, my weekly Sunday Surfing posts will likely be a permanent casualty.

This journey has taken many months and it's nowhere near over. In truth, it probably never will be. But I can now say that, as slow as it may be, I am finally finding my way back. And I'm deeply grateful for all of you who have held my hand and encouraged me along the way.

I Married a Martian

While browsing my blog, I realized I've not posted a short story in over a year. I figured it was time to correct that.

The following ~450 word short was hastily written in response to a writing group challenge. The challenge's prompt was "I married a Martian." It's the first light-hearted thing I've written in a good while. I hope you enjoy!

I Married a Martian

by Jeff Hargett

Yes, I broke the interspecies marriage law, but how was I to know Cosp wanted to destroy Earth? I mean, he's a Martian. Why should he care?

Zelda told me I was asking for trouble. "All Martians want to destroy Earth," she said. Orson Wells tried to tell us, but nobody listened. Well, Chuck Jones listened and created Marvin, so maybe it had to do with Bugs getting the better of him on Saturday mornings.

It was a vortex relationship. I spotted him while on vacation. He was taking the same lunar orbit holiday cruise I was. I had to settle for the $999,999.99 cheap seats, but there he was three rows ahead of me on the left. I'm a sucker for silver hair and Cosp's hung past his shoulders. It highlighted that ever-so-sexy blue-tinted skin of his. That Martian smote me before he saw me. Three days and 250,000 miles later we were hunting for preachers.

Marrying a Martian ain't easy. The first thing you got to do is get to Iceland. It's the only place on Earth so far that's repealed that blasted law. And if that wasn't enough, finding somebody willing to join baby-face blue and auburn-topped ivory in holy matrimony is about as easy as eating triple-scoop butter pecan in the Mojave before it melts. And then they charge you extra.

We honeymooned there. Seven days and six nights with excursions to Greenland wasn't my idea. Cosp said it reminded him of home. Too much heat and his complexion turns all aqua, he said. I bought it. How was I to know the central complex for the planetary defense shield rested square in the middle of Greenland?

Our marriage was about as brief as our courtship was. There I was basking in Greenland's balmy twelve degree sunshine and every alarm on the planet goes crazy. Cosp said he was going to the lavatory. Didn't dawn on me until later that Martians void by sweating. It ain't as bad as it sounds though. It's odorless.

I never realized how fast those F-63s fly nowadays. Those older model jets never stood a chance at taking out ICBMs, but they apparently train those pilots well. They intercepted every nuke Cosp managed to launch.

I never saw my husband again. I guess they got him. It ain't like Martians can turn invisible or beam back to Mars. They never came after me though. Cosp must have kept us a secret. Say what you will, but that hunk of sexy alien had a soft spot for me in both of those blue hearts of his, ulterior motive or not.

Yes, I married a Martian, but blast my asteroids, I'd do it again.

Miscellaneous News

Nutschell from over at The Writing Nut is featuring my Writing Workspace today so stop by and say hi. Every Wednesday, a writer permits the blogosphere a peek into his or her creative sanctuary. Nutschell makes that peek possible. (Of note: this interview was the last post I drafted before I lost Myra.)

My latest short story (The Orchid) will make its appearance later this week in April Grey's Hell's Garden collection of short stories.

Stories include:

• Round and Round the Garden by Jonathan Broughton
• Ten Minutes Till Deadtime by Mark Cassell
• When the Devil Came to Hell's Kitchen by Heather Holland Wheaton
• The Orchid by yours truly (Amazon)
• Compost by Eric Dimbleby
• Gunda's Gnomes by Rayne Hall

If you're into darker tales, you'll be pleased with this collection. Some fine writers have contributed to this effort. It's always an ego boost to have a story appear alongside those of top-notch writers.

About the editor: April Grey

April Grey's urban fantasy novel, Chasing The Trickster, is published by Eternal Press. Her short stories have been published in such print anthologies as Demonmind's Halloween 2010, The Best of Everyday Fiction 2, Northern Haunts, Ephemera and Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry. Many of these stories can be found in her collection, The Fairy Cake Bake Shoppe available through Amazon and Smashwords.

She and her family live in Hell's Kitchen, NYC in a building next to a bedeviled garden. Gremlins, sprites or pixies, something mischievous, lurks therein. Someday she'll find out.

www.aprilgrey.blogspot.com and www.aprilgreywrites.com.

In other news, my oldest grandson will be turning eight next month and my middle grandson just turned six last month. Despite my best efforts to stop them they keep growing up and making me older.

Over the past six or so weeks, my job has kept me busier than the Affordable Health Care website developers. The sad part is that statement really isn't much of an exaggeration. The good part is that being so busy lately has helped a bit in my bereavement struggle, but the steps forward are still agonizingly small. Today makes twenty-five weeks.

I think I've finally come to a decision about The Bonding. I believe I'll take the self-publishing route for the Strands of Pattern series. I've been researching cover designers and have actually started contacting some. My compulsion to continually edit the thing prevents me from deciding on a release date, but I'm looking at maybe late 2014. We'll see. :-)

What Turning 50 Means to Me

Today, I'm turning fifty. The Big Five Oh! I always imagined it would be a momentous day, a milestone of sorts.

Turning twenty was such a milestone. It was then that I finally accepted that I was an adult. It wasn't all joyous. I joked that it was my mid-life crisis. I loved being a teenager in the prime of my life. Twenty didn't mean I had grown old, but it did mean I had grown older. My twenty-year-old brain figured old would come later, say, when I turned fifty.

Turning 50. Fire hazard?

In some respects, the fifty milestone is exactly what I expected. I'm grateful to be alive and acutely aware that a half-century of life lay behind, rather than in front, of me.

The fifty mile-marker comes with some costs. Things don't work as well now as they did years ago. Joints creak and pop. Muscles complain. The brain learns more slowly and forgets more frequently. Hair goes gray or goes away. And eyes refuse to focus on anything within two feet of them.

But the milestone also comes with some perks. My two children and three grandchildren are perks most priceless. I've accumulated fifty years worth of wisdom. I have a home and a good job with great coworkers.

I'm not old enough to have gone mountain climbing with Moses or talk about the weather with Noah, but I did see the end of the Vietnam War, the Berlin Wall come down, Challenger explode, Watergate unfold, President Reagan shot and all 444 days of the Iran hostage crisis. I saw the rise and fall of disco, CB radios, and Netscape Navigator. I witnessed the birth of Nasdaq, MTV, Microsoft, the first test-tube baby and a cloned sheep named Dolly. I saw pocket calculators, personal computers, cell phones and the internet itself invented--not all by Al Gore. :-)

I experienced the bliss of finding the perfect wife and the inconsolable anguish of losing her. Maybe that's what it took for me to finally accept that flesh and blood are not immortal.

Please be safe!

I've seen a lot, done a lot, survived a lot. I've achieved successes and learned from failures. Thanks to modern medicine, I've even defied death.

So, as expected, turning fifty is still a milestone. Yes, in some ways I really do feel old, but in other ways, not so much. I've learned to cherish not only each birthday, but every day. They're all gifts we're not guaranteed to receive.

Turning fifty means I'm alive. And come bliss or heartache, I'll accept that gift and keep living it as best I can.

Happy Birthday, Angel Baby

Myra,

As with the card celebrating what would have been our 29th anniversary, I give to you this one celebrating your birthday. And being the well-trained husband that I am, I'll not broadcast your age.

Whether it be by cosmic accident or divine grace, we found each other. From the moment we met, a beautiful friendship evolved. And from that friendship came even more.

2013-12-13 Birthday Card Cover

Within months, I had no dream, no goal that didn't include you. We committed ourselves to each other completely, till death do us part. We became one, two halves of a whole, a partnership in every sense of the word.

2013-12-13 Birthday Card Inside

I then experienced for almost twenty-nine years the bliss of loving the perfect-for-me wife. We gave each other all we had and did so without reservation. We loved. We cherished. We thrived.

(Envelope)

Our reward came in the form of a wondrous marriage. We were as inseparable as wet and water. Only death had the power to sever our bond.

It's your birthday, Myra, but every birthday you had was a gift to me.