January 27, 2021

As much as I strive each day to get some solid writing done, as much as I try to find just the right themes, to convey just the right story lines that will, when completed, uplift my readers, I still end up falling down internet rabbit holes.

It often starts out innocently enough. I need to find the answer to a question with regard to something technical—either related to a career that one of my characters has, or some obscure something that has somehow found its way into my plot. I try hard not to have any “mistakes” in my novels. When I give a character a job, or when I introduce some element that I don’t really know much about, I need that information to be right. So I go earnestly seeking, but while I’m looking, my mind does wander.

And then my eye wanders as well, to the side bar.

The reality of the constant temptation hiding in the sidebar begged a question. Do they sell modified horse blinders for humans? You know, I thought to myself, I could put on a pair of those that would restrict my ability to see those side bars, and maybe that would prevent my mental meanderings.

Some time after thinking that question I found the answer to it, which, strangely, is yes. Yes, they do sell blinders for humans. I actually saw them when I searched for the answer to that question, because I used Google “images”. The pair I looked at included noise canceling headphones and claim to be just the ticket for those less disciplined souls working in “open space” offices. Do you see how behind the times I am? I didn’t even know there’d been a move afoot to get rid of the “office cubicle” and create brand new “open spaces”.

A small digression. I do hope you perceived a trace of sarcasm in that last sentence. When I began working in an office it was “open space”. No one was distracted because music, and conversation were more or less—no, more not less—discouraged.

“The perfect way to create your own personal space while in a crowd” might not be the actual tag line the company that made these horse blinders for humans uses, but it certainly appears to be the raison d’être for the blinders themselves. I looked at them, and I thought there might just be some young parents, especially in these times of home schooling and twenty-four-hour togetherness, who might consider ordering these. If it’s a two-parent household, then perhaps the parents could share the device, on a drawn up schedule so that they both get equal breaks.

I, however, doubt that horse blinders for humans would prevent me from looking at the sidebar while I’m on YouTube, or any of the “news” sites that have those handy bars. No, what I need is more self-discipline. My inner imp just fell over laughing, saying “good luck with that”.

I understand, intellectually at least, that the more times I go to specific sites, the more “they” (the programmers of the internet) take note of what I look at, so they can offer me more of the same in, you guessed it, those sidebars. What really gets me, though, is that because my husband and I are on the same Wi-Fi, I get suggestions from his browsing habits, too.

When I am not in my “work time”, I sometimes go to YouTube, just to be entertained. I’m always on the look out for something that will make me smile, or laugh, or even tear up. My latest “discovery” is in fact a “rediscovery” because I saw these several months ago but had forgotten about them: videos taken of life-long colorblind people receiving a pair of EnChroma glasses. For those who don’t know, these glasses help color blind people to finally see colors.

These videos are heart-warming. They’re also irritating.

I find them heart-warming because, really, how can you not feel good watching someone who’s never really seen color before, put on glasses and see a “whole new world?” Those of us who are not color blind take the colors in nature, and in life, for granted. It’s humbling and gives your heart a hug when you watch someone putting on those glasses for the first time. But…

Sorry, with me there is often a but. But, I wish those people who are giving the glasses and filming what I am certain they hope will become a viral videos, would take a chill pill.

Here is your loved one, living a moment, the like of which they’d probably never imagined would really happen for them. Stop bombarding them with questions, please, and let them be in their moment. Let them have the time to process. Their brains will have to adjust to what their eyes are seeing.  I truly, watching those scenes, want to reach into the video and tell those family members or friends, “Shh! Stop! Wait!”

Sometimes, we rush moments that should be held close and cherished. And we do that, with color blind glasses or without.

Life is a series of moments, one lived on top of the next, that combined make up the book of your life. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I sometimes try to make adjustments to how I do what I do, and sometimes, when I do it.

Having this week watched several of those videos showing people putting on the glasses for the first time, I’ve decided to try another adjustment. I’m going to try and slow things down by taking the time to live in the moments that I am blessed with.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

 

 January 20, 2021

On June 6, 2020, my husband and my daughter went to a local big box furniture/appliance store and purchased a new freezer. The one we had at the time was only about 5 cubic foot, and we’d had it more than ten years. It was beginning to rust badly, and we were concerned that it might quit on us.

At the time of the purchase, the salesperson warned that delivery would likely be end of August, early September. With the onset of the virus, manufacturing, which happened in the U.S., had been slowed.

That wasn’t a surprise, of course. Pretty much anything you want to order, when it comes to furniture and some appliances has to be made. No one keeps a large stockpile of anything anymore.

This new freezer is a larger one, a thirteen cubic foot freezer. I was glad they’d chosen a larger model because I was hoping to stock up on frozen veggies and meats and other things. We’d already faced a few shortages of grocery items at our local store. My plan to ensure our own food supply by meant either purchasing frozen veggies or to go to the local markets in the fall and buy the veggies to freeze, myself.

But for any of that to happen, of course, I needed the new, larger freezer. My smaller one was in a perpetual state of “fullness”.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who had that plan. I guess there were a lot of people ordering freezers in response to the supply-chain threatening virus. Well, good. I was and remain delighted that people were thinking logically, and planning to ensure their family’s ability to keep themselves fed.

I thought that was remarkable as we’re not used to even considering that there might be a shortage of food. Oh, from time to time, there have been items here or there at the grocery store that have been temporarily unavailable. The most usual reason, in my experience, was when a company would be changing their packaging. That, of course, usually signaled an impending smaller size.

Does anyone remember when a pound of bacon was a pound of bacon? Here in Canada, it used to be 500 grams (a bit more than a pound); then, it went to 375 grams(.82 of a pound), but for the same price as the 500.

I hope those manufacturers didn’t think we weren’t wise to their shenanigans. I regularly purchase a powdered, non-dairy whitener for our coffee. It was a practice we began years ago, so that all the milk in the house would be for the children. We’re both at the point that we prefer the powdered whitener to anything else in our coffee, as does our daughter.

You can purchase the large size which is 1 kilogram; or you could buy the product in the smaller size, that used to be 500 grams each but lately is about 450 grams. How anal am I? I use my cell phone’s calculator to determine which is the least expensive per gram to purchase, two small containers or 1 large one. Unless the whitener is on sale, I usually get the big one.

But I digress.

I wasn’t surprised, particularly, when September arrived, but our new freezer did not. I called, and they informed me that it would be here by October.

In November, David and Jennifer returned to the store. David was not happy one bit that they’d had our money all this time, and we had no freezer. He was going to tell them to give us the freezer or cancel the order.

I was grateful indeed for my daughter. She suggested they have a look around at the handful of other suppliers of appliances in our area and see if there were any deals to be had before going to the store that had received our business in June and canceling the order.

Wise move. They learned that no one had any freezers at all. Period. It made no sense to cancel the order.

Later that day, November 30^th, after David had let the store staff know how unhappy he was not to have our new freezer, the store called me and said that they’d received word from the manufacturer, and the store would receive delivery of their shipment of freezers on January 16, 2021.

Today, as you know, is January 20^th. Now, the 16^th was a Saturday, and I gave them two full days that weren’t a weekend to contact me. Finally, this morning, I called them.

I am awaiting a return phone call. I’ll be certain to let you know how it goes. The only thing I know for certain is this.

The new freezer will get here when it gets here, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do to influence the date of shipment.

In the meantime, I remain very grateful that the freezer we’ve had all this time has kept working, small though it may be.

And yes, I also “knocked on wood” as I wrote that.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 January 13, 2020

I was held in shock as I watched the events of last Wednesday. I had worried, after posting my essay, that I might have been overstating things, that my words and the emotion they expressed might be seen as being overly dramatic. The part of that essay I’m thinking of is this:

     “What we’re witnessing isn’t something as on-the-surface laudable as an attempt to stand up     for justice. At best, it’s a political stunt.

   At worst, and really, in truth, it is an attempt to subvert democracy, pure and simple. What’s planned to happen today in the United States Congress is not the peaceful protest of men and women standing firmly in the light of righteous principle.

   It’s an attempt by people with no morals, and certainly no love of the U.S. Constitution, to highjack a nation to feed their own greedy political ambitions.”

Those words, written the day before they were posted, for the most part, proved truer than I wanted to see.

In the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, there’s been an earthquake registering 2.2 on the Richter scale caused by all the people scrambling to try and cover their asses.

I’ve been hearing a lot of caveats to the violence from the promoters of lies. For the record, there were no “antifa” or “BLM” protestors who were causing the damage while the saintly MAGA people fought to defend the place. That was a lie that is actually gaining traction and I dare anyone to show me a clip of that happening. Silly me, wanting bald-faced liars to provide proof!

In fact, a statement was released several days before by the leaders of BLM which is an actual group (as opposed to ANTIFA which is not), saying they were not going to be anywhere in the vicinity of the U. S. Capitol. And for those silly MAGA people who claim otherwise….well, never mind.

Truth needs to be spoken. Senator Romney said that in his remarks Wednesday night, and he is absolutely right. All those in the congress who voted to overturn a legitimate election need to assert that there was no wide-spread fraud in the November election. Period. Before there can be reconciliation, there must be confession and accountability.

It was several years ago when David and I stayed in Arlington for a few days and took a cab into D.C. each morning, to tour the White House, the Capitol, The National Cemetery, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. In the Capitol building, we were even shown into the gallery – congress was in session—and we also got to see the “old Senate Chamber”. We were filled with a sense of reverence and being under the capitol dome was an experience neither of us will ever forget, no matter how old we get. This was in the 1990s.

We went to the archives and saw the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence under green glass!

We’d had to get tickets for the White House and the Capitol and I think the Archives, ahead of time, and being Canadian, that was very understandable. The security was tight, as it should have been.

Last Wednesday, we were heart-sick watching the lack of respect, the lack of morals, the careless disregard for all that those so-called patriots claim to hold dear. I began writing this essay several days later, and I still feel sick over what I saw.

I stayed up late to watch the proceedings when the joint session resumed—which in my opinion was the very best middle finger the congress could have given all those insurrectionists—seditionists—who’d tried to tear down what they could not even understand.

I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. I have admired politicians from both those parties, and I have condemned politicians from both those parties as well.

I am a human being. I believe in democracy, and democratic republics. I believe in people. I believe that love is stronger than hate, and that we’re all here on this earth to help each other. I believe that truth is, and that’s something I never imagined I would ever have to say.

I have a long-time friend who lives in Pennsylvania who has believed for some time now that a second civil war in the U. S, is inevitable.

As I have since I first heard him say those words, I pray every day that what he believes will happen, will never come to fruition.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

 January 6, 2021

Happy New Year!

That’s something we say every year at this time, but this year, more than any other year in my recollection, it really sounds as if everyone truly means it.

I’ve been doing some web surfing, looking for some funny memes heralding the arrival of 2021, but most especially the demise of 2020, looking for something to give me a good laugh. Some are funny, but most? Well, I felt as if that awful half-bored, half-desperate sense we’ve all been cozied up with since this pandemic began has finally leeched into our senses of humor.

Thank goodness we still have laughing baby clips on YouTube. Folks, I don’t know what I’d do without those.

That platform has been a marvelous go-to place for me. It’s full of rabbit holes, but the last time I went there, just to see what’s new, I noticed that the first 7 clips that weren’t “ads” were not new, either. They were old, and sourced from: 6 months, 10 months, 2 years, 4 years, 4 months, 1 year, and 8 years ago. Understanding that YouTube will offer me videos based on my “clicking” habits, I have come to the conclusion that I may be perilously falling behind the times.

I also realize, as I post this essay, that we’ve arrived at a day that a lot of people just want to be over, much the same way as we wanted the year 2020 to be to be over, or a root canal to be over, or that frontal lobotomy...

There was a comedian who was very popular several years ago. His name is Bill Engvall, and his one routine that was ensured to get the loudest applause was “here’s your sign”.

The premise of the routine had merit then and is just as relevant now: people who are stupid should be required to wear a sign that says, “I am stupid”. Life, he maintained, would be easier if everyone who was, did. Then you wouldn’t ask them for directions, or opinions, or really, anything at all. And when they opened their mouths, you’d discount every word that emerged because, hey, that sign would be impossible to ignore.

Talk about timeless comedy. Watching the television news the other night, listening to the plans that are being fomented for today, I felt something was missing. After remembering Bill Engvall and his funny, if sadly true routine, I know what it is: everyone who should have a sign, sadly, does not. I’m seriously considering a go-fund-me page to raise money to correct that little thing.

I heard one politician explain, this past Sunday, that what was going to happen was not a challenge to the integrity of the election process, or the rule of democracy or the sanctity of the vote, but the exact opposite! It was an action in support of those great ideals.

Friends, these political-type people can convince themselves that poop was healthy to eat if they found a reason to do so.

Really? I wanted to ask this person if he’d fallen and been concussed, lately. And I had an image in my head, partly inspired by one of the “talking heads” who interviewed him, of someone standing in front of a house with a flame thrower. “No no, you don’t understand,” the would-be arsonist claims. “I don’t intend to burn down the house. I just want to kill the germs!”

Am I the only one who feels their reasoning is about what you’d expect to hear out of the mouth of an eight- or nine-year old child caught red-handed doing something they knew in their tiny, childish hearts was wrong?

Actions have consequences, and few things in life are simple. And those who should know better, do know better but what they don’t, is care. What we’re witnessing isn’t something as on-the-surface laudable as an attempt to stand up for justice. At best, it’s a political stunt.

At worst, and really, in truth, it is an attempt to subvert democracy, pure and simple. What’s planned to happen today in the United States Congress is not the peaceful protest of men and women standing firmly in the light of righteous principle.

It’s an attempt by people with no morals, and certainly no love of the U.S. Constitution, to highjack a nation to feed their own greedy political ambitions. I believe with all my heart that all those who participate in this pointless protest—because these people are at the base of it all, liars—should carry a newly minted titled before their names from this day forward. My version of wearing “a sign”, if you will. And hey, if we raise those dollars, we can have signs made for them.

They should be called, neither senator, nor representative. They should be referred to by what they truly are—what they have already revealed themselves to be.

Seditionists.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury