Musings and Meanderings

A memoir of a funeral yes this is long A beige car raced along the highway, driver lost in thought. The road seemed to go on forever, and overcast reflect the mood in the car, the reason they were on the road. Suddenly the sun showed its face through the clouds illuminating the man’s sleeping face. The phone rang. They had not made it in time, Jimmy was passing. Nearly breaking up, her voice asked him to say a prayer, and then the sun hid itself behind the clouds again, as if it knew. -=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The voice on the phone was deep and sad, “Michael, Jimmy passed before we were able to make it out there.” I stood there under the florescent lights and sighed, cellphone to my ear. “It would mean a lot to everyone if you could come out.” The voicemail continued. This had been a long time coming, though hope shines through the darkest days, there had been little question in my mind that this day was go...

Back safe and sound It was indeed a bittersweet Sunday and Monday but I'm glad I went. I'm toying with an idea of combining my writing knowledge from the books I've been reading (see below) to put together a memoir of the weekend. Either way it was wonderful seeing cousins I had not seen in tens of years, but very sad to have someone pass who was just a few months older than I.

Busy weekend In an addendum to the sad passing of my cousin Jim, I have accepted the help of one of my Uncles and booked tickets to the funeral in the Midwest. I leave bright and early Sunday am with a lay over in Chicago, where in amazing serendipity, I hook up with my step sister and cousin for the second leg of the journey. I return on Monday night late via DC. It was a hard decision, but I feel the right one. Difficult because I had to take time from my jobs and definitely the right one as I did actually want to be there. Although it is a solemn occasion, I will be taking the time to reacquaint myself with some cousins I have not seen in years and years including Jims' brothers and sister, and a few other cousins. My generation will be well represented in that there will be at least one child of each of my Dad's generation's brothers and sisters (did that make sense?) Dad's generation are all originally immigrants and this is an important old world distinction.

Sad Passing I wanted to share the very sad news that my cousin Jimmy has passed due to complications from the cancer he has been fighting for some time. Jim was the son of my Uncle Elias, who is my father’s older brother. Although as adults we were not close, during college he and I hung out together a bit in my early years at Pitzer. I have very fond memories of him, and our prayers go out to his family. Sadly this is the second of Elias' children who have been afflicted in some way, as his younger brother Jeff is a survivor of a heart valve prolapse that caused a very debilitating stroke. Jeff and I were very close all through college, as he was with my brother Greg.

What cha been reading Mike? Thank you for asking. First of all I've been reading this amazing series by Writers Digest Books called Write Great Fiction. There are four books in this series written by either successful authors, writing teachers, or both. They cover Dialog, Plot, Characters,Emotion and Viewpoint, and Description & Setting. All are extremely well well written and engaging. In addition I have a few other books from that printing house that I have ready to read, and I joined the Writers Digest Book Club and got four new books for 21 bucks, and promptly quit the club. So why am I reading them? The reasons are two.. ok no Monty Python I promise. One reason is fairly simple. I want to write fiction. So I'm boning up on the subject. Also which leads nicely to the next paragraph: I'm an "interested reader" for a friend's unpublished works. So I can't tell you much about what he is writing except that it is genre bending and very well writ...

Lets hear it for Saint Anford!!!! Ok so first on Saturday Stanford dumped USC at the last min. That is UNRANKED St. Anford dumping NUMBER 2 in the nation USC. THEN The Beefalo Boils.. almost became the Buffalo Bills again on Monday night. Either way, even though they lost at the last possible minuite by .. ugh.. Dallas... their rookie quarterback and ST. ANFORD graduate Edwards did magnificently!!! Not bad for a kid that went "0-for" one of his years at Stanford. All hail!

My Enneagram I learned of this system while reading one of the Writers Digest Books series from "Write Great Fiction: Dialogue" by Gloria Kempton. Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 42% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||| 46% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||| 30% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||| 42% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||| 54% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||| 46% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||||||| 62% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||||| 78% Your main type is 9 Your variant is social Take Free Enneagram Personality Test And here is another one Enneagram Test Result Enneagram Type Indicator Results Your highest score will indicate you basic type, or it will be among the top 2-3 scores. Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6 Type 7 Type 8 Type 9 2 7 5 3 3 4 6 1 5 The Nine Personality Types of the Enneagram Type 1: The ...