I wonder . . .

I’ve been watching Dancing With The Stars these past few weeks. The season just ended and for the finale they brought back some of the original stars from the beginning. One of them was Gladys Knight (Pipless of course) and I got to wondering . . . whatever happened to her Pips anyway? I know Gladys struck off on her own years back and if I google it, I learn that it happened back in 1989. But what of her background singers, the Pips? And what the heck is a Pip anyway?

As far as backup singers go, the three Pips were the best. In fact, I saw a comedy sketch once where the Pips performed Gladys-less. They sounded pretty good too. Harmonized perfectly with their doo waas and ooh diddies. The only thing missing were the lyrics of the actual song which made it somewhat of a different kind of experience, regardless of how well it was Pipped. 

But so . . . where are the three of them now? Did they take advantage of that Pip Pension Plan after Gladys gave them the heave ho? Have they all retired comfortably to some remote island in the Caribbean? Or did they have to go on working even after Gladys decided to go Pipless? Maybe they landed another job singing back up. With obviously less notoriety, a less memorable name for their twilight years. Or maybe they had to get a job doing something they were untrained for: someone’s accountant, a bank teller, grocery store clerk. I don’t know about you, but I sure wouldn’t have recognized a Pip if one waited on me at a restaurant. Or sold me a pair of shoes. Or called to offer me a deal on solar panels.

So just where are those Pips anyway? And come to think of it, where the heck did Tony Orlando put Dawn?  

Excuse: n. a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation

I haven’t blogged in a while. You’d think I’d have time. I mean . . .  I don't work outside the home. I’m kind of a lousy housekeeper so there’s not a lot of time spent in that useless, never-ending endeavor, I don’t lounge in front of the soaps in the afternoon—in fact the T.V. is never on during the day. The meals I cook are healthy yet simple so there’s not a lot of planning or prep time.  So yeah . . . you’d think I’d have tons of time to post a blog or two from time to time.  

Oh, but wait . . . I have one of these: a Senior Varsity Football Playing Boy Scout. Yep . . . I've got an SVFPBS. And because I have an SVFPBS, I’ve spent my potential blogging hours in different ways. Like running kolache /doughnut interference for a bunch of sweaty Boy Scouts as they sawed, hammered and screwed boards into frames. See, Ronnie’s Eagle Project was to build three cages for the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition. 

Which was a pretty cool project! And while the boys worked, I made sure they were fed and hydrated, found myself schlepping filtered water in and out of the house because basically, I refuse to buy a bunch of plastic bottles . . . they’re the bane of  our current existence. I was also responsible for spraying the boys with the concoction of their choosing,

“Bug spray anyone?”

“How about sunblock?”

Next it was a whole day of installation. I was designated historian, out there in the 100 degree temps taking pictures while the boys delivered and installed the cages they’d built. Each cage took a little over an hour to assemble in the yards of the selected rehabbers.  The pictures will be installed too… into the Scout Scrapbook I’ve been working on . . . as soon as I find time for that!  

I turned my attention away from scouts on Monday and attended a Project Prom meeting, signing up for a couple of fund-raising teams. If you’ve never heard of Project Prom here’s a little bit about it: it was invented by some brilliant parent a long time ago who realized that kids have a tendency to go out after prom and work on perfecting their partying techniques. Teenagers being what they are, this sometimes means drinking. And sometimes driving. And sometimes this night of celebration can turn tragic instead. So Project Prom provides a safe place for them to hang out after prom. The kids get bussed to a large lock-in where they have all night to play all sorts of games, win stuff and have a bunch of fun before being bussed home, tired, happy and best of all, safe. Project Prom is a ton of work and cost a lot of money but . . . hey, we’re saving teenagers! Definitely a worthy cause!

Later in the week, I donned my creative thinking cap and created a JPG file from a picture of Ronnie when he was just a baby, all diapered up and reaching for a football. I added some verbiage to it, cut it to the right size and then grayscaled it for an ad that will display in the program for local varsity games.  

Concurrently, I was rushing to the dollar and craft stores for stuff to use to decorate the Varsity locker room before the first game. I bought a bunch of crepe paper and football themed party stuff. And I spent a bit of time making about 90 cute little magnets for the boy’s lockers.  

Then, on Wednesday night, some of us moms and dads sneaked into the locker room and gussied it up a bit.  First thing we did was to hang about a gazillion of those little scented trees because, well . . . ewwww! I learned that we actually are supposed to do this for every game! Great.

Thursday night we were at the first game of the season which didn’t end until after 10:00. (Our guys kicked butt by the way). It was out for a quick dinner till 11:00 or so, then home, exhausted and having to get up at 5:30.

So that’s my excuse for not blogging . . . it’s all because of my SVFPBS. Even though I’m actually blogging about the fact that he’s the reason I’m not blogging. Hmm . . . sort of nullifies the whole excuse thing, doesn't it? Guess I'll have to come up with something else.  

Life is like a box of widgets . . .

I attended a website development workshop last Saturday. Turns out it’s a “tad” harder than creating a blog; certainly more technical. But a web site offers greater functionality . . . once you learn your way around that is!

But authors need a presence online. Right? And, once I start selling a gazillion books (subsequent to the publishing thereof), I’ll need a place to talk about them. Right?

   

So there I sat in the back row wondering why I remembered virtually nothing from my career in information technology. In fairness to me though, that was eons ago and I did support global technology and not web design. But still, you think I’d remember something!

It was an interesting class though with some fairly metaphorical conversations going on. Like:

“Oh, no . . . I lost my home! Did I delete it by mistake?”

“No . . . home is still there. You just can’t see it from here.”

I thought it was cute until later in the afternoon when I couldn’t find my home either! And then even later when I couldn’t fix my parent/child relationship!

So I got to thinking how building a website can be a lot like life. There you are, trying to figure it all out, trying to visualize what persona you want to portray. You bumble about, testing out new themes, trying on new appearances. Sort of like a teenager standing in front of the mirror making faces at herself just to see how each will look. Finally, you find an image you want to portray and you start enhancing it. You add one widget after another, discarding those that don’t quite fit. You rename your tags and change your priorities. You drag. And you drop.

Sure you make a few (did I say few?) mistakes along the way. But, of course, you can’t see them. It’s only when you click on a different perspective—one that lets you view things as an outsider. That’s when your missteps glare back at you in full RGB color.

And if you get really, really stuck . . . if you really can’t find your way home, if your parent/child relationship seems hopeless, you can always call in the professionals, those schooled in solving this sort of thing.

   

So it was that I raised my hand in class over and over again, picking up tidbits of wisdom every time I did. And I’ve been trying to hone the site ever since I got home. Even so, I think I’m closer at this point to having a good parent/child relationship with my son than I am at having my web site up. 

Nevertheless, I'm determined to make it happen. So stay tuned! It's gonna be great! 

It's Sunday night - do you know where your characters are?

Mine are still in my laptop. Tapping their fingers and waiting. Poor Theo probably thinks I've abandoned him altogether, left him stranded in that alternate reality he mistakenly stepped into the night before last. I guess if I think about it, it was the night before last for Theo but for me it was over a month ago. At any rate, he's still in there, ignored, forgotten, left to find his own way in that strange land.

But hey, at least I didn't leave him alone. Last I saw of him, he'd met up with a boy about his own age named Jayes and the two of them had put their heads together to come up with a plan to get Theo back home.

However, (and isn't there always a however?), unbeknownst to either of them, there are questionable characters lurking in the hard drive of my laptop. And they have no desire whatsoever to get Theo back home. And they certainly don't want Jayes to learn the secret to how Theo came to be there in the first place!

I suppose, if I were any sort of a writer, I'd get back in there and warn the boys before it's too late. Instead, I'm here, cowering in this blog, writing about them instead of for them. Shame on me! Shame, shame, shame.

Okay, that's enough self flagellation. I'm going in after them. Wish me luck!